Darwin, Fox Talbot, The View Camera

JUVAT IRE JUGIS QUA NULLA PRIORUM CASTALIAM MOLLI DEVERTITUR ORBITA CLIVO

There are times when some piece of historical information fits exactly in place and locks in an argument already made. This occurred last week when I visited for a second time the exhibit Endless Forms: Charles Darwin and the Visual Arts at the Yale Center for British Art (the show runs until May 3.)

The pictures that caught my attention on the first trip were the watercolors by Joseph Dalton Hooker from his botanical and geological trip to Sikkim and Nepal in 1848-9. You will find a photograph of a rock formation that Hooker described in his Himalayan Journals on page 122 of my book Himalayan Portfolios; Journeys of the Imagination. I called it “Hooker’s Obelisk.”

But on my second trip to Endless Forms I noticed a rather small photograph labeled The Geologist by William Henry Fox Talbot (dated ca.1843, salt print from a paper 'calotype' negative.) In the inset I have cropped off a woman with a bonnet to the left (his mother?) The shadow of the walking stick implies that the exposure was relatively short. This picture was made at the point when Talbot’s ten years of research had created photography as we know it. The astronomer Sir John Frederick William Herschel had just recently suggested to Talbot that hypo would be a better fixing agent for dissolving unchanged silver chloride in nergatives and prints than alkaline potassium nitrate. The reducing agent Gallic acid had been introduced in order to convert silver chloride to silver (i.e. develop the latent image) in exposed paper negatives or prints. The camera obscura had become the view camera. All this progress was drawn together in the first photographic book The Pencil of Nature published in sections in 1844-46. Direct contact prints of leaves and other objects on silver nitrate imprgnated paper were probably made some decades earler by the circle that included the Wedgewoods and Sir Humphry Davy, but examples are lacking (see recent dispute.)

Those of you have read the essay in my book will realize that I have been intrigued by the linkage between Himalayan photographers and geology. In the essay I discussed the influence of John Ruskin (you will find a painting by Ruskin of a rock formation in the Endless Forms exhibit.) Ruskin’s Modern Painters appeared between 1843 and 1864, so Fox Talbot was not following Ruskin. Almost certainly he was responding to the publication of Charles Lyall’s Principles of Geology (1830-32) that appeared just in time for Darwin to take with him in the Beagle a copy of the first volume. It is also the point at which Fox Talbot began to explore the photographic idea. Lyall’s bombshell was that he made the case in popular form for James Hutton’s Theory of the Earth (1785). Hutton argued that the landscape we see had been formed by great forces of erosion, eruption and movement over vast periods of time. Fox Talbot’s photograph not only points to the existence of “deep time” but it has a second connection with “deep space”. Sir William Herschel had been interested on hypo because he wanted to use a telescope to obtain silver images of stars that could be assayed to measure relative star magnitudes. Ruskin's painting is about experience -- the quidity of rocks. Talbot's phtograph is about the process of interpreting the rocks.

What about the above Latin quotation? it appears on the title page of The Pencil of Nature. A little poking around on the Internet established that it is from Book III of Virgil’s Georgics. Fox Talbot studied Classics and Mathematics at Harrow and Trinity College Cambridge (alongside exercising his scientific curiosity). He published in both areas. Virgil was part of the basic training in the classics, so the quote implies a context that a reader would be expected to fill in. The poem is concerned about Nature, including horses, oxen and goats, hence it fits well with the title of the book. But the specific reference is to Mount Parnassus, a mountain of barren limestone in central Greece that towers above Delphi. Parnassus is dedicated to Apollo and is the home of the muses. The expanded quotation and a poetic translation are as follows:

sed me Parnasi deserta per ardua dulcis
raptat amor; iuvat ire iugis, qua nulla priorum
Castaliam molli devertitur orbita clivo.

But I am caught by ardent sweet ravishing desire
Above the bleak Parnassian steep; I love
To walk the heights, from whence no earlier track
Slopes gently downward to Castalia's spring.

Fox Talbot was the first to walk the heights.
He made his own track.

COLLECTIVE ACTIVITIES

Valley Photo Center
Second floor of Tower Square
1500 Main St Springfield, MA 01115

Meeting sponsored by the
New England Large Format Photography Collective (NELFPC)
Sunday March 29th
1:00 pm:
Kenneth Hanson (this blogger) will be giving a talk on the making of his book Himalayan Portfolios; Journeys of the Imagination. He will discuss both the development of the project and the mechanics of the process (as outlined in his January 5 blog).

3:00 pm:
Paul Turnbull, Executive Director of the Hallmark Museum of Contemporary Photography in Turners Falls, MA will present a talk on how to successfully prepare and present work to galleries and museums.

Downtown Springfield, MA, is very quiet on a Sunday afternoon and there should be no problem parking in the street near the Tower Square building.

Kehler Liddell Gallery
873 Whalley Avenue - New Haven, CT 203-389-9555

Meeting of the Photo Arts Collective of New Haven
Thursday April 2
7:00 pm:
This blogger will jump right back up again and, having learned by experience, will give an improved version of the Springfield talk listed above. Those who attended the first talk will have had time to think up really difficult questions. They will be able to expose the confusion in his thinking. It should be an interesting evening. All welcome. No camera necessary, just curiosity.

There is a parking lot behind the gallery. Entry just beyond the gallery.

ORDERING: GOING GLOBAL

Book marketing involves a complicated relay process. At one end is the author who engages in friendly exchanges with the publisher. At the other end is the reader. The friendly reader could, perhaps, buy the book from the friendly author or friendly publisher, but no, there are market forces that demand otherwise. Big Big book stores, or on-line chains such as Amazon, are set up to buy books from a distributor who fronts for the publisher (who, in turn, holds friendly exchanges with the author.) Small book sellers do not like to deal with small publishers as they have to spend money setting up separate accounts.

Up to now the distributor has been missing in this relay, but no more! Fields Publishing has now linked up with IPG, the Independent Publishers Group, one of the largest book distributors nationally and world wide. They will sell directly, or through booksellers. The book should be available through chains such as Barns and Noble, later this year . IPG issues its catalog in May and the catalog will contain a full page promotion. At present the simplest method to obtain the book is to order from IPG by phone.

Order by Telephone: IPG Orders: 800-888-4741.

IPG Himalayan Portfolios Click

Web IPG general: http://www.ipgbook.com/

Enter Kenneth Hanson for information.

E-mail IPG Enquiries: frontdesk@ipgbook.com.

The Large Format Conspiracy

In these digital days of point-and-shoot and cell-phone cameras it may come as a surprise that Large Format photographers are alive and active. They exist as custodians of a wonderful past. More importantly, they exist because the discipline of using the large format camera offers a distinct way of seeing. The process is necessarily deliberate: the image is composed on the ground glass screen inverted and reversed — an arrangement that helps to brings out the graphic composition.Darkroom printing creates a performance memory that bonds the photographer to the image. The New England Large Format Photographic Collective, NELFPC, was created a few years ago to bring together like minded practitioners and promote the art of the view camera.

Toyo 4x5 View Camera and Goat near the Masherbrum base camp, Karakoram 2001. Photograph by Rob White.

Thanks to the determination of its founder Steve Sherman, NELFPC has arranged a special

Large Format Weekend, March 27-29.

Friday March 27: Trip to the AIPAD exhibit in New York City. Gene LaFord will hang work by NELFPC members in the Valley Photo Center in Springfield MA.

Saturday March 28: Workshop-demonstration by Bob Carnie, master printer and photographer (Elevator Photographic, Toronto, Canada). The workshop will be conducted in Steve Sherman’s large darkroom in Rocky Hill, Connecticut.

Sunday March 29: Lectures and discussion at the Valley Photo Center, Springfield, MA.

I (Kenneth Hanson) will speak about the creation of Himalayan Portfolios; Journeys of the Imagination.

Paul Turnbull, Director of the Hallmark Museum of Contemporary Photography in Turner Falls MA, will describe his work as a curator (his most recent exhibit was of work by Paul Caponigro). He will also talk about the process of creating a book of his own photographs.

My Talk:

The Process and the Dream: Himalayan Portfolios

The book was created in a period when enormous technical advances were being made in scanning and digital printing. I will discuss my stumbling technical progress and the expert involvement of Charles Fields, Gail Fields and Glen Bassett. . The timeline was as follows: The initial conversation with Charles Fields took place in 1999. A tentative structure emerged after I mounted a large solo exhibit at UConn in early 2002. Two further Himalayan trips were made and the text was written and rewritten. In 2006 came the editorial choice of images and the contract commitment. The book was almost press ready, barring final corrections and the duotone separations, in late 2007. The press run was completed March 1, 2008 and the shipment arrived from Korea on Cape Cod May 19.

A book is more that a grab bag of well rendered photographs. My fundamental task has been to explore photographically the concept of the Himalayan journey, both as reality and as symbol, by documenting actual journeys.

Precise documentation is an essential part of the view camera aesthetic. In Part 1 I have emphasized the specificity of the process by including maps, by noting the trek day on which each photograph was taken, by reporting the elevation of camera and peaks, and by outlining the geology, but I have omitted the usual travel anecdotes about lost duffle bags, altitude, apple bandy and what not. In many cases the landscape images include Buddhist emblems of the Absolute: prayer stones, isolated monasteries, prayer flags, cairns. A few portraits have been included.

The images were selected on the basis of on my own subjective judgments, but viewers will bring to the book their own prior experience and will make from the photographs their own imaginative journeys. The Himalayas are emblems of the ultimate challenge and the final passage between life and death. As such they demand our serious attention.

The second part of the book is a record of my own iconic explorations; the essay is an Enquiry in the eighteenth century sense rather than a statement of beliefs. I am concerned about the childhood sense of curiosity and astonishment without which the journey would not take place. I am concerned about Western and Buddhist narrative frames and modes of perception: there are Western traditions of exploration and mountaineering, and there is the understanding of the mountains by the people of the mountains. I am concerned about the poetic concepts of the quest and of the Mountain Sublime — call it joy, beauty, terror. I am concerned about the journey that abandons security and moves beyond the certainty of accepted boundaries.

In presenting my photographs I am faced with a dilemma. Given the constraints of time and attention, it makes sense to reverse this presentation — to begin with some theme examined in the essay, such as the elements of the heroic journey or the concept of the Sublime, and then use the photographs to illustrate the theme. But the book allows the viewer to follow the photographer who first had to learn to trust the landscape. I had to feel the space encountered in order that the two-dimensional print could be an entrance to an imagined space. The discovered emblems, the whole notion of a Himalayan journey arose from that experience. Much the same could be said about the art of listening: trust the music, trust the poem. From such trust much else can follow.

These reflections were, in part, prompted by an Amazon review written by a friend, Kate Latimer. In order to appreciate the power of the book, she found she needed to view and read its "chapters” over several days. “Each chapter invites you to feel as well as see the stark reality of being in the midst of such dangerous and overwhelming landscapes.” (You can find her words via my Web site under Reviews.)

Another factor was the viewing af extraordinary 1973 Spanish movie The Spirit of the Beehive directed by Victor Erice and photographed by Luís Cuadrado (Criterion, 2006). The setting is 1940 soon after the end of the Spanish Civil War. The superb images of the bleak Castilian landscape and sparsely furnished house interiors are haunting, as is the acting of the small six year old girl Ana. In some ways the making of a movie is like making a photographic book: images have to be chosen and ordered in a meaningful sequence. With the movie came a documentary “Footprint of the Spirit” in which the director, writer and producer discussed the generation of the film. It has sections entitled: Primordial Images, Traces of Light, Journey of a Child’s Gaze, Interior Exiles, Return to the Source. They were organizing the film in terms of echoing symbols and yet the subject was the, ultimately mysterious, unbounded imaginative world of the little girl as she encounters gentleness and danger and the death of a fugitive. As they proceeded they found they could throw away the framing material about the devastation left by the Civil War and leave the biographies of the adult parents undefined. Symbols dissolved into events. The movie forces the viewer to identify with Ana and thus to construct the unexplained mysteries and dangers as seen through her eyes. I am still trying to find words for this experience: astonishment is linked to fear and trust. Is this what my book is about?

Three Cups of Tea

I heard about Greg Mortenson’s work in building Korphe school near the Braldu river in the Karakoram shortly before my 2001 Pakistan trip. When I unexpectedly encountered a brand new school in the village of Hushe I at once knew that this was a further achievement by Greg. Here girls as well as boys are being educated. The story of its construction, completed in 1998, is included in chapter 16 of Three Cups of Tea; One Man's Mission to Promote Peace One School at a Time. This book, written by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin, has been a New York Times best seller for an incredible 94 weeks.

I made contact with his organization, The Central Asia Institute (CAI), when I got back. In 2006, although I knew Greg would be incredibly busy, I wrote to ask if he would write a foreword to my book. To my astonishment he said yes—with enthusiasm. That was just before the paperback edition of Three Cups of Tea hit the world. I finally shook Greg by the hand this fall, but I had to stand in line for two hours to meet him and thank him for his support. Such is fame.

The Institute’s publication Journey of Hope arrived last week. It records the growth of the CAI and its success in working with communities to achieve their educational goals in the mountains of the Karakoram, Pamir and Hindu Kush. In Pakistan and Afghanistan, where so much is going wrong and the struggle for military control seems endless, this is one story that is going right. What a difference a small amount of money can make when the community is determined to succeed.

Today I received a Christmas card from Jim Koenigsfeld of Durango, CO. We shared a tent on the way to Everest in 2005. Greg visited Durango and Father Jim had the presence of mind to ask Greg to add his signature to mine in his copy of Himalayan Portfolios. Thanks Jim for the idea. If you, the reader, can track Greg down I am sure he will be delighted to sign your copy.

PS. The new CAI calander features schools being built in the Pamir mountains of Afghanistan.

Interview of the Month

My October exhibit at the The Picture Framer gallery in Cheshire prompted Tracey O'Shaughnessy to arrange for us to meet. Our exciting and rewarding conversation about Himalayan Portfolios lasted for almost two hours. Later there were numerous e-mail exchanges to clarify philosophical points. The result is the essay Portfolio / This Month in the December issue of the Connecticut Magazine (p 42). An equally professional and rewarding interview by Hank Hoffman in September led to an article in the series Artists Next Door in the October issue of The Arts Paper (Arts Council of Greater New Haven.) I am amazed how these skilled writers were able to turn a stack of notes into valuable presentations. The text of these articles, together with Lee Jacobus’ enthusiastic comments on my book on the Faith Middleton Book Show (Connecticut Public Radio, aired Oct 13), will be found on my web site.

Hello. Welcome to my Blog World

My advisory committee tells me that a blog should be spontaneous and open to unexpected comments from those who log on. I am sure they are right, but I have one slight difficulty, I am only really spontaneous above 10,000 ft. Below that elevation I am weighed down with a sense of responsibility and given to serious analytical statements; above I am given to wry comments and liable to break into dance. In this I resemble the yak. Just looking at a yak below 10,000 ft you may not know it is weighed down with responsibility, but other yaks can tell. Above 10,000 ft the spontaneity is obvious to all, provided you take into account the limited gestures that nature has given to the yak. But here goes. Even a philosophical yak can hope to fly.

Bound by Tradition and Religion:

Tibetan Tangkas
Exhibit: THE BENTON MUSEUM OF ART

UConn Storrs (Until Dec 19)

Some months ago when Himalyan Portfolios first emerged Karen Sommer and Tom Bruhn, at the Benton, invited me to contribute to their planned exhibit. They needed a landscape context for the Tibetan art to be displayed and for the sand mandala to be constructed by the monks of the Namgyal Monastery. The mandala has been a great attraction at the museum in the past. The completed design will be swept away in a closing ceremony on December 7.

We selected two pairs of photographs. Each pair joined a Nepalese monastery to its mountain setting. The first joined Braga Monastery with the Roc Noir, a massive glaciated promontory of the Annapurna Himmal. The second pair, taken in Inner Dolpo, joined Shey Monastery with a view of the arid landscape seen from the Se La looking towards Tibet (Himalayan Portfolios, pages 85, 89 and 58, 59.) Shey monastery was the 1973 destination of Peter Matthiessen, as recoded in his book The Snow Leopard. My visit was in 1993; the first year that access to Inner Dolpo had been granted for many years.

With my usual excess zeal for imparting information, I prepared a wall statement compressing the evolution of Himalayan Buddhism into just three pages. “No way can we display that,” said Tom. But then he came up with the idea of printing a fold-out flier. With a touch of great showmanship he used as the cover a spectacular image taken from one of the Tangkas: Palden Lahamo, “Glorious Goddess,” protector of the Geluk order (to which the Dalai Lama belongs), guardian of Lhasa. The image was a great hit with the school parties trailing through the museum to see the sand mandala.

Lecture: Once the pictures were chosen I had to fulfill my commitment to give a Sunday lecture on Landscape and Belief; A View Camera in the Himalayas. This was a chance to revisit some of the ideas I had developed in the essay in the second part of Himalayan Portfolios. I contrasted two narratives: that of the Western visitor who travels by choice and that of the people of the mountains who must survive isolation, aridity, earthquakes, landslides and the collapse of moraine lakes.

For the first I showed pictures taken in the Pakistan controlled Karakoram, the region of K2. I argued that the primary Western narrative is the Heroic Quest whose focus is a search for a core identity. There is an encounter with the Mountain Sublime that combines beauty, joy, terror, awe.

For the second I showed pictures of Dolpo in Nepal. Here the narrative centers on Buddhism. My photographs show tokens of the Absolute: carved mani stones, prayer flags, cairns decorated with tattered scarves, isolated monasteries and sacred mountains. The Buddhist and Bon monasteries focus on Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. But the dangers of the environment are entwined with idea of mountain gods and sprits, demons and fierce defenders. Many of the Tangkas on display that represent fierce defenders derive from the yogin-based tradition exemplified by Padma-sambahva (Lotus Born) a Tantric teacher and miracle worker who came to Tibet around 760 CE and founded the Old Sect (Nyng-ma-pa). In the mountains Buddhist devotion embraces the isolation as it concentrates on the Absolute.

Such a condensed presentation raised many issues. Do the concepts of the Mountain Sublime and the Absolute share enough to form a bridge between East and West? Can a non-Buddhist use the View Camera as a neutral instrument to understand the Buddhist culture in a more that superficial way? Can the View Camera help to reveal the concept of core identity to a Buddhist culture that believes in transcending identity? Are such journeys of the imagination possible?

History: My participation in the Benton exhibit is the completion of a challenge posed in 2001. As a result of Karen’s suggestion, I was invited to exhibit my Himalayan Photograph in the Jorgensen Gallery at UConn. I spent the year preparing the exhibit of some 70 black-and –white photographs, plus some in color— making larger or better prints and creating introductions and maps. The exhibit in 2002 coincided with an exhibit at the Benton: The Mystical Arts of Tibet. Later, my photographs, thanks to Toni Hulse and Tom Vendola, were whisked away to the Pfizer Headquarters in New London.

The Jorgensen show convinced Charles Fields, and eventually me, that a book was possible. I did not realize how far I might have to journey and how many books I would have to read and reread to reach that final goal. But without that initial invitation the book would never have happened. What have I learned along the way? Well for one thing, Yaks are very hard to photograph.