Feelings of terror, awe, infinity, and minuteness swirl and course through an experience of the sublime in nature, and for centuries, artists from Donatello to Bill Viola have attempted to recreate that experience in their paintings, sculptures, and video projections. Theorized as early as the 1st century, the sublime has captivated writers, philosophers, and artists alike. Through its various definitions and interpretations, at its base, the sublime is a feeling rooted in humans’ relationships to the world, to nature, and what lies beyond that help us to formulate an understanding of ourselves.
The sublime has long been understood to mean a quality of greatness or grandeur that inspires awe and wonder. From the seventeenth century onwards the concept and the emotions it inspires have been a source of inspiration for artists and writers, particularly in relation to the natural landscape.
The theory of sublime art was put forward by Edmund Burke in A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful published in 1757. He defined the sublime as an artistic effect productive of the strongest emotion the mind is capable of feeling. He wrote ‘whatever is in any sort terrible or is conversant about terrible objects or operates in a manner analogous to terror, is a source of the sublime’.
Zen Buddhism is a mixture of Indian Mahayana Buddhism and Taoism. It began in China, spread to Korea and Japan, and became very popular in the West from the mid 20th century. The essence of Zen is attempting to understand the meaning of life directly, without being misled by logical thought or language. Zen techniques are compatible with other faiths and are often used, for example, by Christians seeking a mystical understanding of their faith. Zen requires an intense discipline which, when practiced properly, results in total spontaneity and ultimate freedom.
‘Zen’ is the way the Chinese word Ch’an is pronounced in Japan. ‘Ch’an’ is the Chinese pronunciation of the Sanskrit word Dhyana, which means meditation.
Christmas Humphreys, one of the leading pioneers in the history of Buddhism in Britain, stated that “Zen is a subject extremely easy to misunderstand.” Zen Buddhism is a practice that needs to be experienced, not a concept that you can intellectualize or understand with your brain. Zen does not depend on words – it has to be experienced in order to ‘understand’.
Zen sends us looking inside us for enlightenment. There’s no need to search outside ourselves for the answers; we can find the answers in the same place that we found the questions. The first step is to control our minds through meditation and other techniques that involve mind and body; to give up logical thinking.
Clues to the meaning of Zen (From BBC Website)
Because Zen is so hard to explain here are some quotations that may help you get an idea of it:
The essence of Zen Buddhism is achieving enlightenment by seeing one’s original mind (or original nature) directly; without the intervention of the intellect.
Zen is big on intuitive understanding, on just ‘getting it’, and not so hot on philosophising.
Zen is concerned with what actually is rather than what we think or feel about what is.
Zen is concerned with things as they are, without trying to interpret them.
Zen points to something before thinking, before all your ideas.
The key to Buddhahood in Zen is simply self-knowledge.
To be a human being is to be a Buddha. Buddha nature is just another name for human nature – true human nature.
Zen is simply to be completely alive.
Zen is short for Zen Buddhism. It is sometimes called a religion and sometimes called a philosophy. Choose whichever term you prefer; it simply doesn’t matter.
Zen is not a philosophy or a religion.
Zen tries to free the mind from the slavery of words and the constriction of logic.
Zen in its essence is the art of seeing into the nature of one’s own being, and it points the way from bondage to freedom.
Zen is meditation.
My photographic Ideas from this
My initial ideas for the exploration of Zen Buddhism was as a result of a previous artist study i have completed on Hiroshi Sugimoto. He is a japanese artist where zen buddhism plays a significant role in his culture. Through his work there is this sense of spirituality, by seeing beauty in everything and the ideas of Zen Buddhism is also portrayed through his work. After having explored it more, i want to try and free the mind from the logical way of thinking about a landscape through my images. I want to try and convey a sense of beauty and importance in every aspect of what I am photographing. This links to the study of Monets Hay Stacks which show the importance of Hay Stacks in agriculture despite usually people being unconcerned with some Hay Stacks. Despite the absence of any real definition of Zen Buddhism i feel as if i can contribute to the explanation of it through my photographic responses that will have a focus on freedom, beauty and importance in everything that will help to relax and disconnect the mind from any logical thinking.
This is my third photo shoot I conducted to experiment working with mirrors. To complete this shoot I used a tripod to mount my camera on, I then used a model to hold mirror up in the landscape. I took a photo of the landscape before the model stepped into frame and then took a photo with them in the frame. I used the cutting tool to cut and the middle of the mirror so the layer was clear there. I then put the image of the plain landscape behind this image to create the affect that the frame was clear but it also hid whatever was behind it (Like an invisibility cloak.)
To get the landscape (behind the mirror) in the image to look exactly the same and unaltered I made sure it was the right size and positioned in the right place.
These are my best final outcomes from shooting and experimenting in this style. The images are in a surrealist style which is something I could further explore. (This also links to the idea of the sublime which I could also explore.) The weather on this day also helped to add to the idea of the sublime as it was very foggy with golden light from the sun creating a mysterious atmosphere.
Kanghee Kim is currently 27. She was born in Korea but moved to New York with her family when she was 14. At that time, there was a need for more nurses in the USA, and her mother was helping to fill that gap – but their lawyer missed a deadline. Kim was never able to secure a citizenship. Eventually, she was protected under the DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) policy, but her status has made leaving the country too much of a risk. She states: “I really miss Korea, especially over the last few years. Korea is the motherland. Whenever I see photos or hear about it I feel a bit torn.” Kim only got into photography in her final year of studying painting. It was this time that smartphones and cameras (technology) were improving; she was frustrated by how much space and materials were needed to paint. “I love walking around and being outside. Approaching photography as a painting was solving that problem” – Kim states.
Image of her book “Golden Hour”
“Golden Hour“is Kim’s second book to be published by Same Paper, (who are based in China). Its carefully-assembled pictures are taken during the magic of the “golden hour” – the moment immediately before sunrise or sunset. This is part of her ongoing body of work, “Street Errands”. Most of Kim’s images are taken in New York, California, Colorado, and Hawaii, the furthest place she could go within the states. “When I first went to California, I was pretty shocked. The sky felt so close to me. I saw palm trees for the first time, I’d only ever seen them on the internet.” says Kim. She was inspired to work with images of the sky, after visiting the West Coast. By using photoshop to manipulate and edit her images, Kim feels that she can escape, creating a “new space that feels almost like travelling to an unknown place. When I’m working on these images, it feels very therapeutic. I’m so focused I don’t think about my problems”. Making these surreal images has also been a way for Kim to appreciate what she can do within her current situation. “I used to get bored of doing the same things in the same surroundings, so finding the moments that I really like and layering them helped me to not be so pessimistic or self-pitying.”
Mood-board of Kangehee Kim’s images from her photo-book “Golden Hour”
Image Analysis
Golden Hour by KangHee Kim
This image taken by Kim is a very surrealist type of image. The way that she is focusing in on the effects of the sun during the ‘golden hour’ in the US creates this dream-like series of images. This image in particular, is portraying how sunlight creates this huge effect of beauty onto a normal scene. I like how Kim has used an editing technique process; she has manipulated the side of a bus stop (along with its shadow it creates) and placed a beautiful image of the blue sea, contrasted with the bright orange blossomed sky. She has also used a technique to make sea waves appear as if they are on the pavement. She has done this because she wanted to show that although she misses her place of birth, (Korea,) she has interpreted her current home place (the United States) to be as beautiful as her original home-town, Korea. She is implying that she loves to see a beauty in everything, and using the sun as a main focus point helps create this aspect of dream-like subject matters – this street she has photographed to incorporate images of the sea and sun would have been a plain, standard image but her surrealism artist traits has made her work much more outstanding and unique. I also like how she has made the orange sun that is being reflected on the windows of the top of the building a lot more vivid and bold; although the sun may have been reflected on these windows, it would’ve been no where near as pretty as she has edited it out to be. She really wanted to make sure each and every image in her “Golden Hour” photo-book is showing bold features of the sun and the sunlights beauty. This makes her work have an attractive aesthetic, with an orange, welcoming cover and a warming golden typography. The colours in this image are really standing out – I also like how in the top right corner of this photo, you can see a bold colour of sky blue. Her touch of surrealism has really made me intrigued into her work, and has made me realise that the sun is such an amazing factor to base a photographic piece of work on.
Kim’s work of the ‘golden hour’ links to the exam title ‘variation and similarity’ because she has made every image take an approach that pinpoints the sun as its reason of beauty and boldness – they are all similar due to the fact that they are brightly coloured and consider eat sun within some part of its photo. Yet, each image is varied from the other, as she uses different settings, as well as people, to create her creative series of photos. I have chosen this artist as one of my artist references because I am keen to follow the route of light and shadows as my exam project. I want to contrast these 2 aspects of everyday life to show how different and the different effects they create; as Kim has shown in her project, light creates a very warming, happy aesthetic, which I could want to incorporate into my work that explores light. Kanghee Kim has been a great influence into my inspiration to photograph light, as I am intrigued to do a few shoots on the effects of sunlight on different scenery. However, (as I stated in my specification,) I want to explore light as a whole – not just sunlight. This may mean I will have to capture some shoots in a studio or a dark room in my house, and use artificial sources of light, such as lamps, lighters, torches etc.
The images in the CCA Gallery were and exhibition by Mike McCartney, Rupert Truman, and Carinthia West. In the images in the exhibition was very diverse some of the images gave an insight to the lives of the stars of the 60’s such as Mick Jagger and David Bowie, as the photographer Carinthia West was involved in this world she was able to photograph the stars as regular people, which normalised them in a sense which is something that I really liked.
CCA Gallery
The images in the private gallery greatly contrasted what was being exhibited in the CCA Gallery. The style of the images in the Private Gallery focused on the art and culture of the pop art movement. In the gallery the works were more paintesing than they were photographs. The work consisted of bright colours, abstract shapes and abstract painting. The gallery was titled ‘Pop icons on the 20th century, Britain and American pop art’. The pop art movement was around in the 1950’s and peaked in the 60’s but is still widely recognised and practiced today
Mark Leonard sun photography in Jersey Channel Islands
Amateur landscape photographers in Jersey
Steve Wellum was an amateur photographer in Jersey, He has now retired, but was known for his beautiful photo-shoots he created for families, weddings and other events.
In the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, tourism was a huge part of Jersey, with its many hours of sunlight persuading people to come and visit Jersey. There were many aspects of Jersey that adapted itself to a tourist island; there were historic landmarks that have become tourist sites, meaning Jersey soon became a place of museums and historic viewings, gaining money from its castles, (Mont Orgueil and Elizabeth castle) and the War Tunnels. This pleased the community of Jersey, as the island was becoming more popular and well-known, and it also pleased the tourists – they were more intrigued to visit Jersey with these interesting places to visit. Additionally, Jersey’s Sun meant that Jersey’s beautiful beaches and scenery became more and more visited on a daily basis.
Archival images as a postcard of Jersey landscapes
Laura El-Tantawy is an Egyptian photojournalist and artist based in London, England. She was born in Worcestershire, England, in 1980 and grew up between Saudi Arabia and Cairo, Egypt. Given her multicultural background, she has found solace in photography not just as an artistic form of expression, but also as an inner voice to reflect upon her own identity and how it relates to the world around her.
Laura El-Tantawy recently did a project called Beyond here is nothing at all. She described the project as ‘Beyond Here Is Nothing’ is a photographic meditation on the notion of home. ‘To be home is to feel a strong connection to a land and a grounding to its roots’. The image below is taken from this project, many of the images in this project have a sense of dream like and fantasy to them.
This image is taken from the project ‘Beyond here there is nothing’ in this project Laira is exploring the meaning of home and the connection to home. As Laura is living in a different country to where she is originally from this image might be a reelection of how she is dreaming of what her home is like. The tree in the bottom right is a palm tree which are typically found in warm countries, not in England. To create this image Laura has used the technique of double exposure and layering to the sense of all the images being together as one. So this is something that I want to experiment with in this project.
El-Tantawy studied journalism and political science at the University of Georgia in Athens, Georgia. In 2009, she received a research fellowship from the University of Oxford, where she researched the impact that Internet blogging and independent newspapers were having on pushing the boundaries of free speech in Egyptian media.
“My photographic interest in a project typically stems from having some personal connection with the subject matter,” she said. “Having lived between East and West much of my life, I have often felt lost between the traditional ideologies instilled in my upbringing and the extremely liberal practices of the West. I had to find a defining balance for myself as an individual, and my work as a documentary photographer has helped me do that. Dealing with who I am as a person and my position on the critical social issues facing the world today—particularly those pertaining to my background—is at the heart of all the themes I take on in my work.”
In 2002, El-Tantawy started her career as a newspaper photographer with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and Sarasota Herald-Tribune. In 2006, she became a freelancer so she could focus on pursuing personal projects. Her work has been published and exhibited in the United States, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. She lives between the U.K, her country of birth, and Egypt, with which she associates most of her childhood memories.
Laura recently produced a project entitled ‘ The Veil’. The images in this project has been made to be ‘bad’ on purpose, she was trying to capture the movement and the hustle and bustle of the city that she lives in, the project was focusing on how most women wear veils to cover up as part of their religion and how this might clashing in the 21th century.
For the project I want to do more research into the spiritual aspects of photography, and how to photograph a world that isn’t really there. And small details of everyday life can be seen as a thing of beauty. Rather than photographing whole frames of landscape images, I plan to capture my images with a more abstract view. Many of the images in the mood board have been taken on film cameras, as this is something I have always had an interest in this aspect of photography but never really experiment that far into it so this will be a challenge for me. I also love the colours tint that film camera give to the images. But the main aim of the project is for me to take a different approach on the way that I see the island.
Geology (coming from the greek gē, meaning ‘earth’, and -logia meaning ‘study of’) is an earth science which is concerned with the solid aspects of the Earth, the rocks which make up the Earth, and the processes of how they change over time. Geology is not specific to the Earth – it can be applied to any planet or moon. The evidence for processes such as plate tectonics, past climates and evolutionary history come through geology. There are three main types of rock – igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic.
The word ‘vernacular’ in terms of architecture means the structures and buildings that are built in a functional way that is unique to that geographic area and which suits the area by using the main abundant natural resources available. Vernacular architecture can reveal the culture of the society slightly through showing the patterns, materials and elements that are unique to the area. The origins of vernacular architecture came from the design skills and tradition of local builders, who were to use the particular materials indigenous to the region and would use the local traditions and cultural practices that they are used to.
Granite is a key part of Jersey’s vernacular architecture. It is completely abundant in the island and is a common type of feslic intrusive igneous rock that is granular and phaneritic in texture. The fact that it is igneous means that it is formed through the cooling and solidification of magma or lava, also because the granite is rich in elements that form feldspar and quartz it is described as ‘felsic’. The word ‘granite’ comes from the Latin granum. Granite is used as a base structure for the majority of houses in Jersey but is covered by plaster and paint in most cases. The exposure of granite in houses comes and goes as fashion changes – an example of this is my own house. Below is a set of photographs of my house over a period of time. The first photograph shows my house in 1862, the second one in the 1950’s and the third one taken this year. As you can see in the first photograph the house is plastered and painted as doing this was seen as a sign of wealth, but in the second photograph the granite has been exposed due to it being a trend at the time. In the third photograph the plaster and paint has been reinstated leading to the house looking more like the original photograph than the second photograph because the trend of using plaster and paint has come round again but the whole time the granite had been present.
I want to explore granite in Jersey by photographing the large formations of it in our beaches all around the island as it is such an abundant and important resource to the island. I will be planning on photographing the rock to fill the lens to create a slightly abstract composition that focuses on the shapes and formations within the granite rock. I will then explore exposing the variance and similarity within this rock by comparing them side by side or along with the building faces that I have been photographing.
For this photo shoot i decided to explore shooting videos to portray nature as i wanted to show the movement which isn’t shown in a still image. I particularly wanted to show the flow of water in a stream or lake and thought that a reservoir would be a good place to shoot as it has different aspects of nature surrounding the water i.e. plants, trees, and animals that i could capture in video. I was also interested in recording the sounds in the landscape. As I walked around the area I took videos and pictures of aspects of the landscape that I found interesting and beautiful. I also took inspiration from abstract art in this shoot, trying to focus on lines and shapes in the landscape.
Videos
One aspect I like about creating videos of what I was originally photographing is that the different shots change after each other, comparing each angle to the one before. I also like how in each video there are different sounds of the surrounding wildlife because I am in different areas. I wanted to emphasise the fragility, beauty and existence of the plants and water and think I did that effectively. I like how in some of the shots you can tell that I am holding the camera up because of the movement giving the video a more personal effect, emphasising how I have just noticed these aspects of nature on a walk.
Images
I took photos as well as videos on this shoot so I could compare to see which was most effective. I also wanted to experiment with these images by manipulating the colours and tones within them to see if they make a more interesting image. I first started experimenting with shutter speed as I wanted to see how the images would look when I photographed moving water and the reflection of a tree. I thought that this would create an interesting series of images of the same subject of nature.
I like these images displayed together as it shows the different effects created by the faster and slower shutter speeds. The first image I chose to display was the third shutter speed I experimented with. I like this image as it still shows the details of the branches and the shapes of the leaves, but has a blurred effect from the movement of water. I don’t think that it’s bios that this image is a reflection in water and makes the reader questions what the image is of. The second image I chose to display shows less of the details in the branches and has a more exposed appearance, making the image brighter. The shares of the branches are still noticeable against the white water, but it still contrasts to the first image which is darker. If i wanted to edit these images further i could manipulate the tone and underlying colours in these images so that they could contrast even more i.e. i could edit one to be a cool tone and emphasise the warm tones in another. The third image I displayed is the slowest shutter speed I used and is the mot exposed. I also like this image as it creates a emphasised blurred effect that contrasts to the other two images, making it even harder for the audience to see what the image is of. I think that this series of images really reflects the fragility of nature through the soft blurred lines of the slow shutter speed that making the plants seem more transparent and other worldly.
In future shoot where i want to experiment with shutter speed i could use a tripod to see the effect o the water of the camera being even more still. I could also experiment with different aspects of the landscape that aren’t moving, and physically move my camera to created blurred effect.
I like these two images of elections of plants o the water as they contrast with my images from my experiment with shutter speed as they are much more detailed as they were taken with a faster shutter speed. This allow for the different directions of the ones and shapes of the branches to be noticeable. In the first image I wanted to include the tree with flowers as I thought this reflected ideologies of beauty and thought that the shape it created in the reflection was interesting. One aspect I don’t like about this image is the composition as I think that they is too many details that are over powering. I think that the combination of the flowers on the tree and the reflection is effective, but I think that the reflection in the top left of the image makes it too chaotic. If i wanted to use this image as a final outcome, I could edit out the reflection in theta left to make a more atheistically pleasing image.
The second image is he more abstract image and is harder to identify as a reflection than the first image.This is my favourite image out of the two as its composition isn’t too overpowering with the negative space at the top of the image which is then continue in the pattern of the reflection. I also like how the plant is distorted through the ripples in the water as creates stretched blurred shapes which makes a more interesting image.
I also focused flowers and plant in this shoot by themselves and in water. I chose the first image above of the whit flowers as I liked how the background was out of focus with the flower in the foreground being in focus. This makes the colours the background blend together, making the areas where the sky is more brighter. One reason I took this image is the spider web which is hanging from one flower to another on the branch. I also like the round shapes on the flowers that emphasise stereotypically feminine shapes.
I displayed the second image looking through plants to show moving water. This was one of the angles I used in my video. I wanted to display it as an image as well as i thought i could compare the two. I think that the video is more effective as it showing the fast moving water in the background which isn’t shown in the still image. Also the movement of the plants in the wind shows them more naturally. I liked the composition of this angle as the surrounding plants and leaves frame the image and make it seem as though you’re looking down through the plants. I think that the plants in the foreground being blurred is effective, with the water being in focus, as it turns the audiences attention to the bright water. I also like how the plants go across the frame in different direction as it creates a more detailed, intricate composition and how the pattern made by the ripples of the water contrasts to the pattern made by the plants.
I included the third image as it reminded me of an image I took in my first photoshoot with the same type of plants in water. This image is completely different to the first as it shows the reflection of the trees above the water. I like how the shapes and branches of the trees are still noticeable even in the reflection and make the composition of the image much more interesting than the first. I also like how there are a few brown plants in the right side of my image, adding to a range of different colours in the image.
This is another image where i experimented with shutter speed. I found that this image reminds me of the photographer Andrew S. Gray’s work who explores abstract landscape photography by moving his camera when taking pictures. He says that ‘The looseness and ability to play without being tied by the light or weather affecting the scene you’d normally be shooting is the style’s appeal to me, also the chance of creating a scene that was not necessarily there’. I think that this concept is seen in my image as the detail of the branches in the right side of the image are still noticeable, but are blurred enough with the trees in the top on the image to create an image of ‘something thats not necessarily there’. I also like the composition in this image as it’s split into three sections of different colours, reflecting ideologies of abstract art. I want to experiment with this camera technique more i future photoshoots as I think it’s effective. I will look more into the work of Andrew S. Gray.
Examples of his work:
Evaluation
Overall I think this shoot went well in exploring the movement of nature and the sounds in the surrounding area. I think that shooting videos was good way to show plants ad water naturally. For this project I still feel as though I don’t have a developed concept so I will continue to research different artists and art movements to inspire me and give me ideas. I also want to explore more with shutter speed and the movement in nature linking to fragility in nature and draw more inspirations from abstract art.
