Winds of Remembrance

The drums and percussion beat feverishly - djembes and bongos, frame drums of different sizes, rattles, shakers - and then settle down to a quieter pulse when someone stands and sings with their flute.  Then applause and a few whoops burst out, and the drumming becomes wild and hypnotic again.  Eventually people get up and move around in a circle to the beat, pounding out the rhythm and allowing the synchronicity to express itself in their bodies.  It's nearly primal; we could be under the stars around a blazing fire surrounded by the red rocks of southern Utah or in some clearing in the Amazonian jungle instead of in a small Best Western ballroom in metropolitan Washington, D.C., on a cloudy day of an endless winter.

From a tag line of a previous meeting, it's music that "transports you to another place." 

Cedar flute, key of G, David O'Neal; bag by Shelly Stenzel, Feather Ridge Flutes

It was the closing to the 10th Anniversary Potomac Native American Flute Festival - three days of flute shopping with some of the very best flute makers in the country, three concerts featuring some of the best NAF artists in the country, and workshops given by those artists.  It was also a time to reunite with old friends, deepen relationships with acquaintances, and meet new friends-to-be.  And as with so many events and activities, that's the true essence of the festival; it's the people that make it such an incredible weekend each year and make it so hard to see it end so quickly.

Gilbert Levy, husband and co-performer of world flutist Suzanne Teng, summed it up best when six of us were sitting in this same small ballroom after almost everyone had left and he said, "Where's the after-party?  This can't be over!"

Will playing the penny whistle at Open Mic

In Mark 9 of the Bible, Jesus is transfigured so that his clothes become "dazzling white," and Moses and Elijah suddenly show up.  Peter is so awed (and a little freaked out) that he tells Jesus "it's good to be here" and they should just stay there, even suggesting that they build shelters.  Everyone wants to stay on the mountaintop.  Who wants to leave, when it's such an incredible experience, when the people are amazing - when it's so fun?!  Who wants to go back down to level ground, where you have to worry about dealing with people fighting and finding food for your next meal and battling the weather?

It's natural to feel sad when such a wonderful gathering comes to a close, knowing it's likely you won't see people for another year.  But maybe we aren't supposed to compartmentalize our lives into A) this wonderful NAF community where people love each other and seek peace and harmony and healing, and B) the real world.  Maybe we're not supposed to bifurcate our lives into 1) this great annual fluting weekend when everything seems wonderful, and 2) the rest of our lives.  Maybe it's all the same thing, hard as that may be to effect.

Transverse bamboo flute, Egyptian tuning, Craig Noss, FireFlutes; bag by Shelly Stenzel, Feather Ridge Flutes

I often restrain myself from referring to "spreading the gospel of the Native American Flute."  But it strikes me that the values of Christianity and the NAF community are quite similar: love, peace, healing, forgiveness, acceptance.  Finding common ground.  Loving your neighbor as yourself.  Agreeing to disagree (a phrase coined by John Wesley, founder of Methodism).  

Whether and to what extent people actually live out these values - in either community - is a completely different subject.  The point is: if fluting is more than just a shared interest in a musical instrument, if it really is about these values, then all the warm fuzzies we experience during a special weekend like this are not meant to be put aside, once we return to our workaday world.  It has to apply as much in real life as it does at a flute festival; otherwise, it's just malarkey (in honor of St. Patrick's Day).  We can't just love other fluties.  We can't only love people we have an affinity for; even the demons do that*.

If I drive home after the festival cursing out those who cut me off on the Beltway, it feels like it negates all the positive vibes from the weekend.  Then it goes back to being just a bunch of people who like flutes.  It can't be only about the music.

Gilbert Levy (playing my djembe!) and Dan jamming after the evening concert

So when I go back to work, back to living my everyday life, maybe I can carry some of this goodwill and love back to the people who were not on the mountaintop with me.  And maybe I can begin to understand that, even while it's about getting the job done, it's also about my relationships with the people with whom I spend the majority of my waking hours.  No one says that's an easy thing, but it's something to consider.

And anyway, my "real life" is what makes these weekends possible, not only financially but emotionally; the highs aren't high without the ordinary.  And every day of being on level ground brings me closer to next year's mountaintop.

* (If you can find the Scriptural reference for that, please comment or email me.  Thanks!)

Is Photography Over?

Yesterday I read a post with the title above on the "Still Searching" blog, moderated by Fotomuseum Winterthur in Zurich, Switzerland, as an "Online Discourse on Photography."  The main question raised was: given the inexorably changing world of photography, with everyone becoming a photographer through the rapidly advancing technology of cell phone cameras and post-production editing, is photography as we know it "over"?

Go to any event, and all you see is a crowd of people holding up their phones, capturing the event.  Posting pictures to Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram is now a way of life and has probably surpassed text as the substance most often sent into the world.  Indeed, the essay asks whether photography and seeing can now be considered the same.

And anyone can now access software to make perfect less-than-perfect pictures.  Every digital camera now offers a proprietary package of tools, and then there is Windows Photo Editor, iPhoto, Aperture, Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop.  One can get as technical as one wants and achieve eye-popping results.

Double Jack in the Pulpit, Robert Mapplethorpe

That isn't to say that everyone understands how to use these tools, though - or that technical software knowledge translates into artistry.  Just because you have the cropping tool on your computer doesn't mean you'll know where or how much to crop - that is to say, why you crop - to make it a better photograph.  (This is not to ignore the issue of having to crop in the first place; it is simply meant as a quick example of the difference between technique and art.)

The same can be said of writing.  Anyone can use alliteration to augment an image ("The snake slithered along the sand and seemed to sneer.") or shorten the length of sentences in an action scene to speed up the pace.  But writing well is so much more than well-chosen techniques to achieve effects.  You still have to stitch together scenes in the right order, formulate believable motivation, rachet up tension, pull the reader on board with the protagonist, tweak the pacing, and manipulate language to elicit emotion (and the right one, at the right time), as well as spin many other plates.  You need both craft and art to make a good story.  Craft can be taught.  Art has to come from within.  (One can develop a sense of vision, but that's a subject for another day.)

Napoli - 1960, Henri Cartier-Bresson

I learned in my first photography workshop that it's not the "seeing machine" you choose that determines the quality of your pictures.  I was shocked to find that my instructor, Joanne Dugan, didn't care what kind of camera we used for class.  She said we could even use a phone camera.  I had naîvely assumed that the "nicer" your camera, the better your pictures would be.  But it didn't take long to understand the main point of the class: that it's not the technology that is fundamental to your photographs; it's your vision, the way you see life around you.  Indeed, some of my favorite images are ones I've taken with my phone.  They're not the best technically, but I like what I captured in the scene - the mood, setting, and composition.

That's why I'm not worried that photography might be "over."  No matter how many people are using their iPhones to take pictures, most are still just taking snapshots and aren't interested in anything else.  No matter how much the price of Photoshop may drop (if it ever does), many are just going to play with it, albeit to varying degrees of sophistication.  Only certain people are going to struggle with capturing their vision of the world in a way that satisfies them.  Only the artist is going to spend the time and energy to bring an image in line with that vision, battling disappointment and frustration. 

Seven A.M., West Seventies, Cinda Berry

Everyone wants to get their pictures out for others to see, but only the artist wants something universal and not particular, to leave behind not documentation but testimony.  And what they create enriches us.

And there's certainly room for everyone here; this is not a race or a competition to see whose photographs should or will exist or be seen.  I like to say that I have been pursuing photography seriously for a little over a year - and relative to my own history, it's true.  But all it takes is one look at any photography website or the Flickr site of a photography Meetup group to be reminded that I am just another hack.  (A well-intentioned, serious hobbyist, but at this point, a hack nonetheless.)  I might fancy myself a neophyte artist - I don't even consider myself an evolving artist quite yet - but I am barely at Square One, and it doesn't take much for me to feel intimidated and overwhelmed.

But it does no harm to photography for people like me to try their best with their limited knowledge and skill to try and create memorable, unique images, whether we fancy ourselves as artists or not, because there will always be plenty of true artists who see the world differently from the rest of us and have different ways of interpreting it through

Provincetown Dusk, Mark Abe

their photographs.  They wrestle with technique and nuance and meaning in ways we have never considered.

They probably worried over this question at other times, too, like when the Polaroid camera first arrived or when the digital camera was born.  But the democratization of tools does not mean death of the art.  Can't it instead mean a potential increase in popular discussion, and isn't that good?  Photography that is passed off as art but which lacks heart will distill out.  And images that are generated by amateurs in a thoughtful, sincere effort to create art can hardly be a threat to it.  Even when produced by hacks like me.

So, is photography over?  

Not on your life.



Photo Credits: mapplethorpe.com, imgarcade.com, intaglioso.com, Mark Abe