DARIN HAYTON

Tag: Eliot Porter

  • In Praise of Chaotic

    In Praise of Chaotic

    Minimalism. A dominate subject. High contrast. Rule of thirds. Composition. Complementary colors. Symmetry. Leading lines. Framing. There is a smörgåsbord of rules I can choose from to guide my shooting, to shoehorn my photos into a recognizable and recognized style. But what if I don’t want to. What if I want not just to “break” them but to reject them? Or replace them with a different set of rules/guidelines?

    #181110

    Rules and guidelines are useful for helping me see things. Francis Bacon realized this centuries ago when he worried about the challenges of inductive investigation. Scientific training depends on some modern version of the dictum about the well-prepared mind being able to see. Photography is no different. The well-prepared photographer is able to see, and to photograph. But photography is not science. There’s no sense of progress, and photographers need not always be beholden to a finite set of rules. We can reject them at will. I think we might benefit from rejecting the rules now and then. Prepare our minds to see chaotic. There can be something soothing and comforting about the mess.

    #181124
  • Originality

    Originality

    Often I want to be alone, to avoid the company of others. I am no misanthrope nor do I aspire to be a hermit, but the constant din of daily life does little for me. I much prefer solitude, the restorative companionship of quiet, both in an acoustic and in a psychological sense.

    But it’s hard to be alone. Robert Frost, I think, understood the desire to be alone. Yet he acknowledged the futility of that desire. I too seek, as often as possible, similar opportunities, moments where I can choose the less certain, the less worn option. My initial excitement, however, soon mixes with a sense of melancholy as I come to see that I have not succeeded in avoiding the company of others. There seems always to be traces of predecessors; I can’t help but see evidence that I’m little more than the latest follower. And I know that my passing can’t help but encourage others to follow.

    #210208.1

    That wet afternoon I had hoped to be alone. The cold rain and gloom discouraged others from intruding on my peace. But I wasn’t alone. I saw in the path I followed the evidence of those who had passed before me, some recently had left footprints in the soft dirt others more remotely had helped to beat down the grasses and to shape the path itself. I could almost hear the echoes of their footsteps, whether lightly landing on hard, dry soil, or tramping through the soft, wet mud. I stopped regularly to listen to the water falling onto the leaves and from there dripping onto the grasses. I lingered for a moment.

    Then I turned and set off into the thick. I struggled to make headway. Soon I was drenched from pushing through the undergrowth. Finally, after considerable effort I came to a small clearing at the top of a rise. The dense woods sloped away in front of me, seemingly impenetrable. I looked down and saw a shard of glass, the remnant of an old bottle. Even here I was not alone.

    #210208.2

    Originality is, I think, just another form of seeking to be alone. And it is equally difficult to find. Somebody has been there before me; somebody will come after.

  • For the thing itself …

    For the thing itself …

    I do not photograph for ulterior purposes. I photograph for the thing itself—for the photograph—without consideration of how it may be used.

    Eliot Porter, Intimate Landscapes (New York, 1979), 11
  • The details of nature …

    The details of nature …

    The details of nature become more interesting, and the become more beautiful too, as one becomes more aware of them.

    Eliot Porter, The Color of Wildness (New York, 2001), 132

  • Photography as creative art

    Photography for me is a creative art. It is not simply an illustrative or interpretive medium.… I try, not always with success, to photograph only what stimulates a recognition of beauty, either that which is intrinsic in the objects of nature or is a manifestation of the wonderful relationships of things in the natural world.

    Eliot Porter, The Color of Wildness (New York, 2001), 38.