The Philosophy of Photography

Clayton was born at a point in history when it was not unusual to give one's child a camera. A few pointers might be given on HOW to use the camera - don't shoot into the light, for example - but very little was said about WHAT to photograph. In that regard there was quite a lot of freedom. As long as one stayed within the bounds of moral and aesthetic common sense, there was complete artistic freedom. This was a privilege that Clayton did not take lightly.

From an early age he was not particularly interested in photographing people. It seemed to him that the whole rest of the world was already doing that, so why not try something different?

The world was a visually fascinating place. There were trees and buildings and mountains and clouds and ships and bridges. These things were screaming to be photographed.

Then there were vast vistas of grasslands, forests, oceans and deserts to reckon with. How could you not be uplifted by these creations of Mother Nature? If not, what is wrong with you?

At bottom Clayton was a landscape guy. Deeper than that he was a form, color and composition guy.

It's true that people have form, color and composition, but they also have an unpredictable brew of egos, emotions, and wildly different psyches. The results aren't always harmonious.

A simple case in point was the family portrait. Clayton remembered his Dad corralling the family, and his Mom dragging the comb forcefully through his hair. It was as close an experience to being cattle as he could remember. There were ongoing prods... "Smile dammit! Look happier!"

How much more spiritually uplifting to photograph a landscape! A spirit could really soar in a landscape, and not worry about knocking into people and their potential disapproval.

An early trip to Arizona provided much visual fodder. Craggy ochre mountain ranges, covered with cacti, were a delight to behold and capture on film. Such exotic scenery nourished his eyes and filled his spirit.

In college Clayton took an entire roll of film, mostly of trees, while hiking along the Hudson River. Pleased with the results, he showed the pictures to an acquaintance.

"There's not a single person in these pictures", the acquaintance said, with a note of incredulity.

The acquaintance's reaction caused a twinge of discomfort in Clayton. He had never thought about it that way. "These humans" he thought, "they really do think differently from me".

He considered the problem further. "These humans must really think a lot of themselves if they want to be photographed again and again. How arrogant! Where is the humility in the face of God and nature? What a bunch of narcissists."

To Clayton's way of thinking, photographing humans verged on the perverse. To be clear, there was nothing wrong with the occasional photo of a loved one. Sometimes the stars lined up and, quite accidentally, there would be a good photo of a loved one. That was a very nice thing indeed. One or two good photos like that would suffice for a  lifetime.

It was the "need" to be photographed constantly that was suspect in Clayton's eyes. Life simply wasn't like that 150 years ago, when one's attention was on ploughing the field, or perhaps milking the cow, or building the barn.

Even in the absence of farm work, it was important just to "be", just to exist in the Universe and not in a photograph.

Articulating his beliefs even further, Clayton declared at a podium in a public park that it was OK to photograph people going about their day-to-day business, provided that they did not POSE for the camera.

Posing, in Clayton's mind, was the unpardonable sin. Would Jesus pose for the camera? More likely he would toss it aside, and make some cryptic remark about how God is already photographing everything, what is the need of a human camera?

Jesus might further explain that it is not the outward appearances that photographs capture that matter, but  rather the internal spirit of things that animate the Universe in the first place. Without that spiritual foundation, you can throw your whole photographic empire into the garbage bin thank you. Or so Jesus might point out.

And of course that is true, but not a lot of people will readily admit that.

Jesus liked Clayton's philosophy of photography and contacted him. Exactly how is not known.

Together, they collaborated on a book called "The Philosophy of Photography". In that book, they elaborated in great detail on the non-anthropocentric school of photography described here. They knew that the camera, although a wonderful invention, was creating a lot of unnecessary problems for the human race, and they wanted to set down a few sensible guidelines for future users.

They will be signing copies of their book tonight at Barnes and Noble at eight o'clock pm.

- Copyright 2017 by P.T. Gachot

A View with a Room

And then one day it actually happened. He had mused over the thought from time to time since childhood. He had seen it dramatized in the film "The Omega Man" and later the series "Last Man on Earth". But this was real. The day came when Vincent found himself to be the only human being inhabiting the earth. Everything else was much the same, the physical infrastructure was mostly intact, but there was a seemingly total absence of other people. The reason was unknown to him - was it a plague, as in the "Omega Man", or was it like the mysterious disappearance of the Anasazi people, who he always fancied were picked up by alien spacecraft and taken to another planet?

No matter - the situation on earth had changed radically and there was some adjusting to do.

It just so happened that he was visiting his parents in suburban New York when this happened. His residence was in California. The phones seemed to work, both locally and long-distance, but no one picked up on the other end.

It took hours of feverishly searching the house and every nook and cranny of the area to establish that his parents were gone, along with the neighbors and everyone else in the neighborhood.

He was convinced his predicament was real when he entered the local police station only to find lights on, doors ajar, and computers humming, but not a soul to report the incident to. In lieu of that he left a detailed note with his name, phone number and parents' address.

He knew he would have to venture out in an effort to find people or explanations for what had happened. Trees looked the same, air smelled the same, and birds still sang their same songs. It was just people that were missing.

So the next morning he set out in his parents' station wagon. Luckily, when he stopped at a local gas station, the pump took his credit card and dispensed a full tank of gas without a hitch. The power grid was functioning on some sort of auto-pilot, but for how long Vincent could only wonder.

After several hours of driving in different directions and finding neither people nor answers, he realized he was hungry. Stopping at a supermarket in a densely developed area, he told himself that under such extenuating circumstances it was ok to take food, and he proceeded to stock the wagon with a few staples - nuts, bananas, water, coffee.

The situation also started to take a toll on him emotionally. He knew he needed to drive somewhere pleasant, so as to ground himself spiritually in such strange circumstances.

He wasn't completely in love with the county he grew up in, but there were pockets and corners that were near and dear to his heart, such as his grandparents' old house near the coast. Although they had long ago passed away and the house had long since changed hands, he had a cache of fond memories that he had ever since carried around with him.

Those grandparents seemed to have lived a charmed life. They were affluent and travelled regularly. They had impeccable taste in real estate. They had a swimming pool.

When you are a child, and your parents drive you to your grandparents' house, the ride leaves a deep impression on your young mind. Because you aren't driving, but instead directing your attention out the windows, all the features and details of the ride - the roads, the houses, the trees, the fences, the ponds, the shrubbery etc. - are indelibly inscribed on your psyche.

It just so happened that in this case it was a very pleasant ride, going down curvy tree-lined country roads, interesting, beautiful homes, and - near the end - ponds and waterways that any but the most depraved human being would find spiritually uplifting.

It was one thing to experience such a ride as a child, and another to go back as an adult and see it through more mature eyes. There was no question that his grandparents had chosen a superb piece of real estate in an area that was protected - through both natural and cultural features - from the ravages of sprawl that had rendered other formerly decent areas unrecognizable. It was too bad that when his grandfather died, his grandmother needed to sell the property, so as to purchase a smaller house. It was too bad that the property was no longer in the family. Among other things, the value of the home had appreciated ten times since they purchased it in the 1950s.

But now that every human being on earth had apparently disappeared, there was an opportunity to reclaim it.

So Vincent retraced that ride from his youth, gliding down the same country lanes that astonishingly had lost none of their beauty. It was spring and the roads were green and leafy. Near the end of the drive he crossed a small isthmus that separated a pond from an inlet that accessed the open sea, and noticed a black crowned night heron perched along the edge.

The natural topography of the area was ideal. The road his grandparents lived on paralleled the shore of the inlet. The land east of the road sloped gently down to the shore. The homes on that side had views of the water framed by grass, trees, and marshland. One of these was his grandparents'. It was perched on higher ground that afforded a perfect view of the water, but interestingly was lower than the road. There was another tier between the house and the marshland where the pool was situated.

From the road the house looked almost humble and ordinary. It was essentially a long ranch-style house built in the 1940s. But to Vincent, it was not only ideally situated on the perfect piece of land, but steeped in all the mystery, promise and hope of his childhood - a palpable piece of his past that was connected to other pieces of his family's past. From this property he could access deep wells of energy, identity and purpose.

After establishing that there was no one home, he then toured the property for the first time in decades. The family that purchased the home from his grandmother had made a few small changes, but for the most part it was the same house emanating the same spirit.

For years he had a recurring dream about the house in which the long hallway that ran the length of it got longer, so that he would discover new rooms that he hadn't even known existed. Sometimes it would shift from a single story house to a multi-story house and even more rooms would materialize - more than he could comprehend or keep track of.

In real life, much of the interior had limited natural light, giving it a generally dark effect. The exception was the glassed-in sitting room where his grandparents seemed to spend 99% of their time. It was a wonderful room that had everything -  natural light, a view of the water, comfortable seating, a strategically placed television, and a wet bar.

As a child he was not familiar with the term "wet bar", but upon reflection this one was a fine example. His grandparents were drinkers who socialized with other drinkers and no doubt put it to good use.

Vincent did not share their taste for liquor, but he did like a good glass of wine now and then, usually red but sometimes white. He noticed that the wet bar was well stocked with the whole gamut of spirits as well as beer and wine.

He found a familiar bottle of California Cabernet that had been opened and corked; there was about half a bottle left. He poured some into a cocktail glass and wandered around the room, absorbing its specific energy. There was a comfortable chair that faced the view; he plunked himself there gazed out at it.

He remembered that his grandfather would sit in a chair facing away from the view. Maybe the light was better for reading that way, and maybe it was a better position for socializing. Now that Vincent was the only person on earth it made more sense to face the view. The sight of the water beyond the marshland had a calming effect. The familiar old vista made him feel grounded and happy.

Gone was the very distinct smell of the house as he remembered it - a smell that was allegedly a blend of gin and cigarettes, but he wasn't quite sure. Since he had spent his life avoiding gin and cigarettes, he could not confirm or deny that allegation. Besides, the smell seemed more complex than that, with notes of perfume and tropical mildew. It wasn't a bad smell at all, just extremely distinct.

Vincent decided that sitting in the glass sitting room and staring at the view was as good as it got, and so he set up camp there. There, in the same room where the cook had served him Chicken in a Basket while the Wonderful World of Disney came on the television half a century earlier, he passed several pleasant weeks.

There, staring at the view, he recollected how boats occasionally passed by. He also remembered how his grandfather would have a golf tournament on the television with the sound turned down, and that too was peaceful, in an unusual way.

Vincent turned on the new owner's television and every station was gone except for one. The exception was a Spanish station showing reruns of telenovelas. This was very curious, Vincent thought. But to liven things up, he let the telenovelas run with the sound down.

                                                     

*          *          *

He knew had to get back to California, to see what the situation was like there. First he wanted to see if the trains were still running. Astonishingly, they were, despite being unmanned. Even more shocking, all the Amtrak trains that he was accustomed to taking were running perfectly on time. It must have been that the absence of freight trains allowed some sort of autopilot to kick in.

So he packed a bunch of food and books and hit the rails. He especially liked camping out in the observation car of the Southwest Chief, gazing at the scenery until it reached Los Angeles.

Once there, he confirmed that there was nobody around on the West Coast either.

So he did what any sane person would do in that situation. He found a car and drove up to Santa Barbara.

There, he spent every night in a different house. There were so many fine homes to choose from, with so many fine views. He started a list, to help keep track of them all. He liked looking at the family photos so as to form an idea of the former owners. Sometimes, for fun, he would read their mail, rifle through drawers, or explore closets. It never got boring.

And because he was raised to be a gentleman, he would always leave a thank you note, apologizing for entering and explaining his situation. He included his name and phone number and implored them not to hesitate to contact him for any reason whatsoever.

- Copyright 2017 by P.T. Gachot

Dedicated Spoon

 

There was a man named Jim Cawquest who lived in a tiny Cape Cod style house that overlooked Delaware Bay along southern coastal Delaware. At just a few hundred square feet, you could call it a "tiny house". A natural born control freak, Jim loved the tiny house in part because he had one hundred percent control of everything in it and could run his household with the precision and efficiency of a Swiss watch. A solar-powered Swiss watch I should add, since one hundred percent of the house's power was generated on site with a small array of American-made solar panels.

He wasn't from Delaware but he liked the vibrations and the people he met there seemed sensible and grounded. The place was refreshingly different from where he grew up in New York State, and an interesting contrast to the West Coast, where he had spent much of his adult life.

Among other things, Jim loved to micromanage his kitchen and put what he dubbed a "zero-waste policy" into full effect.

He detested what he called "mainstream American food behaviors" and swore to himself as a child that when he got older he would exact revenge on those behaviors.

There were memories of going to the supermarket with his mother, who like the other suburban housewives filled their shopping cart to the brim with groceries enough for a large family. Then there was the eternal waiting in line at the checkout counter as one overflowing shopping cart after another was slowly checked out - so slowly that for a child in the prime of their youth it was torture.

There were also memories of the stress placed on his mother to buy enough food and plan the meals for a large family - enough stress at times that it undermined the whole pleasure of nourishing oneself. And what was the point of that?

"Not on my watch" he thought. 

His motto both in general and in the kitchen  was "Have only what you need and use all of what you have".

It wasn't only the "mainstream" kitchen behaviors that he clashed with. When he was in his twenties he lived for a year in a house share in Oregon with people who were very health conscious and into organic food and preparing healthy meals. At the time Jim thought this might be exactly what he needed.

But the kitchen behaviors there also drove him crazy. His housemate Newton loved to cook and would not shy from grandiose undertakings. That part was fine, but Jim - who helped with the shopping - noticed that large amounts of food waste were generated on two ends. First, the raw materials that weren't used in the cooking projects tended to sit in the fridge until they went bad, and secondly, Newton always prepared too much food, so that the abundant leftovers also sat around until they went bad as well.

This did not sit well with Jim, who at the time was living on a very tight budget. He wasn't sure which bothered him more: expired foods taking up valuable space in the refrigerator, or the sight of all of it being heaved in the trash.

One day he confronted Newton with what he thought was a very well thought-out syllogism : "If you buy food, and you don't actually eat it, and it winds up in the trash instead, you are by extension putting your hard-earned money in the trash".

For some crazy reason Newton saw things differently, but Jim could never fully figure it out. It seemed that even for these enlightened folks who valued organic meals prepared at home, certain "mainstream American food behaviors" were at work. These behaviors included buying too many ingredients and generating too many leftovers.

By contrast, in Jim's compact kitchen in the Delaware house, every square inch of counter, cupboard and refrigerator space was accounted for. Containers of food never expired, because Jim consumed their contents well ahead of their expiration dates and placed the well cleaned containers in his recycling bin.

He appreciated that his neighbors, Dr. and Mrs. Silverfish, were as fastidious as he was when it came to recycling. They all shared, even bonded on, a distaste for dirty recycling bins and did what they had to do to keep them clean. This included wiping them out with wet wipes, hosing them down, and letting them air dry in the sun. All three agreed that if they ever caught someone putting any sort of "real" garbage in any of the bins they would chase them down and give them a long-winded lecture on America's overflowing landfills and poor history of reducing and properly dealing with waste.

Good people they were, the Silverfish's.

Anyway, the recyclable containers of banana yogurt in Jim's fridge were carefully monitored. Like a supermarket, he had it down to a science: how many containers would fit, his general rate of consumption, and in theory how often he should head to the store to restock. But some weeks he didn't crave banana yogurt as much, so rather than mindlessly restocking the shelf, he mindfully explored how it felt not to have banana yogurt. There was no point in buying more until the craving returned, he reasoned.

This was the principle that he also applied to food generally. There were days, and weeks even, when he didn't crave food as much. His body was telling him to slow down and apply some "intermittent fasting". Doing so had multiple benefits.

Not only was he saving money by slowing down consumption, and helping reduce Delaware's solid waste burden, but he took great pleasure in watching his shelves empty out. With every bowl of organic white popcorn he ate, and every can of tomato bisque he prepared, the amount of free space in his kitchen increased. This he saw as a positive metaphor for what was going on in his body: an emptying out, a cleansing. It was healthy to periodically drain the pipes.

After the pipes were drained and flushed out with copious amounts of lemon water, and a period of rest had been achieved, that thing called "hunger" would eventually rear its head... and with uncanny specificity would announce what it needed. "Get me some banana yogurt!" Or, "Warm me up some of that tomato bisque!" And Jim would dutifully get to work.

His subsequent trip to market would be strategically planned and enjoyable. The coupons that had been patiently waiting on his refrigerator would all get used.

Back home he would say "Stomach knows best" out loud while slicing blue cheese stuffed olives. "Stomach knows best".

- Copyright 2017 by P.T. Gachot

Salt is the new Sugar

Salt is the new sugar.

Behind every other sugar craving is a salt craving. It took me a long time to figure this out. It also took me a long time to recognize the virtues of salt.

Sugar is obvious. Sugar was one of the pillars of colonialism: how many tropical lands, and islands grew rich growing sugar cane? And how many more prospered turning that sugar into rum, candy, pastries, cakes, creams, syrups and chewing gum?

Sugar is a plastic sign baking in the hot sun. Salt is a rusty metal sign in the desert, creaking in the wind. Sugar, as stated, is colonialism. Salt on the other hand is survival - although no one tells you that.

A nice early salt memory: when we would visit my grandmother, because she had a swimming pool, she would offer snacks. Snacks by the pool. 

I inevitably found myself having root beer and Fritos. I can still taste those Fritos after all these years - the crunch, the corn, the salt. And even though my skin was dry from the pool chemicals, and that didn't go well with the poolside furniture - too dry - that didn't detract from the enjoyment of the chips. It's possible that the oil in the Fritos helped alleviate the dryness of my fingertips.

But this anecdote is silly and doesn't do the gravitas of salt justice.

I remember reading a long time ago that there is, if anything, an overabundance of salt in the world. As the amount of fresh water recedes, and desertification increases in many areas, the presence of salt increases, at least in dry form. This is not to even to mention the endless supply of sea salt.

I remember thinking that it was just too much salt, that people only want a light sprinkle of the stuff now and then, and not the mountains and oceans and underground caves and mines of it that the world so graciously supplies.

My epiphany about the value of salt came much later. I came to realize, as I got older, that the reason I craved the stuff was that it gave me energy.

After all, salt is a mineral and our body needs a full range of minerals to function well. The sodium in salt is an electrolyte that is essential for the smooth operation of nerves, muscles and fluid retention. I think it was issues I was having in these areas that led me to make the connection with salt.

In Roman times salt was a luxury and salt mining was a laborious ordeal performed by slaves. According to Pliny the Elder soldiers were paid with salt, and hence is the origin of the word "salary".

In modern times salt mining is much easier since machinery has replaced most of the grueling human labor. Today major salt mines are found all over the world, the largest being the Goderich in Ontario, Canada and the second largest the Khewra in Pakistan. The largest US salt mine is American Rock Salt in upstate New York, and others are found in such interesting locations as beneath the city of Detroit and beneath Avery Island, Louisiana - better known for the production of Mcillhenny tabasco sauce.

To put the salt business in perspective, the world's oldest known salt mine is the Duzdagi in Azerbaijan, where it is believed salt was produced around 3500 BC.

My own personal obsession with salt came to a head when I decided to visit the Afar salt mine in Ethiopia's Danakil Desert. This is already a very arid environment, and in addition prolonged exposure to salt mines is known to dehydrate a person in dangerous ways. But I welcomed the opportunity.

After exploring the salt mine for several hours I walked out into the surrounding desert. I could feel every  last bit of fluid leaving me, and it felt glorious. At some point I must have hit the ground but I have no memory of that. What I do know is that I have become a bone-dry slab of stone, baking in the desert sun. I have become salt and mineral. My destiny has been fulfilled.

- Copyright 2017 by P.T. Gachot