“in·flu·ence (noun) the capacity to have an effect on the character, development, or behavior of someone or something, or the effect itself.”
I love paintings. I always have. I’ve said many times that I’m a "frustrated painter." I’ve always said that one day I'd learn to paint. That may still happen. For now, I’m exploring the emotional influence that color prints bring to my photographic work (In the Shadow of Sun Mountain). The "vibration" of color, to use Marc Chagall's term, influences and moves me more as I produce more prints. I see it and, moreover, I feel it.
As I work through my ideas, I find what I’m attracted to is the "life vibrations," or the depth of life, that the colors bring to the subject matter. In other words, there is a poetry or feeling that they give where the monochrome fails. As an artist, you’re always searching for the right tool to use to make your work successful. The color prints are the correct tool for this work. I’m convinced.
“Cactus People With Water Vessel” May 14, 2023, 10” x 10” (25,4 x 25.4 cm) (Made in camera, no negative) RA-4 Reversal Color Direct Print I used my Derogy (1864) Petzval lens for this image. The beautiful fall-off, or depth of field, is like a half-remembered dream.
Working in the RA-4 reversal process has given me a lot of new ways to approach making photographs, too. The paper is quite “fast” (ISO)—I rate it at ISO 6 or 8 with the filter pack I’m using. That means I can work at times of the day and early evening that I was never able to with wet or dry collodion, let alone paper negatives. Also, I can “stop down” my lenses to gain depth of field and still manage to make exposures in seconds, not minutes. This opens an entirely new world for me. That’s very exciting, and I’m looking forward to the summer here and making this work come alive!
I see how this project has evolved over the two years I’ve been working on it. And I hope it will continue to evolve. I stay open and aware of that. For me, it has two layers: the personal exploration of our denial of death and terror management theory. This is the foundation for telling the story of the Tabeguache Ute, what happened to them here, and, more importantly, why it happened.
The second layer is more abstract, concerning poetry, beauty, and the life-affirming examination of mortality. For me, this is the perfect narrative. I have “skin in the game," given my preoccupation with marginal communities and the psychology that drives human behavior. And I have a love of the mystery of life and how beautiful it can be. My objectives have nothing to do with “self-help” or offering to analyze people’s lives through these psychological theories. It’s more about sharing my self-awareness and what that means for me. Also, there is a big part of it that is based on how these theories have driven human behavior and historical events. In the end, it’s both historical and personal, terrifying and beautiful. I feel like the color component helps me translate these kinds of concepts better than monochrome work. It elevates both the work and the concepts.
“Awe, humility and gratitude effectively mitigate death anxiety.”
Color is now a primary tool for me to communicate the nuances and beauty of the place where I live. Through the color, I can talk about the history and events that took place here with a subtlety that I didn’t possess before. I know now that I’ll start (and have already started) incorporating visual ideas that represent the concepts of consciousness, death anxiety, awe, humility, and gratitude. I want to show how facing the existential anxieties that we all have can be resolved (or at least managed) through deeply reflecting on yourself, having true self-awareness, and being authentic.
Life is both beautiful and terrifying—that’s the paradox we face. Choosing to be death-forward (in the words of Heidegger) and working toward that horizon of opportunity to have a “turning” in your life is the goal. We will never be free from death anxiety. It will always be there. We can, however, learn to be in awe, be humble (not self-deprecating but understanding your position in the universe), and most of all, be grateful and have gratitude for life. It will end, no doubt, but we can strive toward being thoughtful, self-aware, open, and honest every day. Like Socrates said, examine yourself, be honest, and move toward the good.
“The bottom line is this: Terror Management Theory may seem like a dark and depressing topic, but it can actually shed a lot of light on the ways that we as humans strive to find meaning and purpose in a world that can sometimes seem bleak and meaningless. By understanding the ways that we cope with our mortality, we can begin to develop more positive and life-affirming strategies for dealing with the existential terror that is an inevitable part of the human experience.”
“Cactus People With Water Vessel” May 14, 2023, 10” x 10” (25,4 x 25.4 cm) (Made in camera, no negative) RA-4 Reversal Color Direct Print I used my Derogy (1864) Petzval lens for this image. I’ve made hundreds of portraits with this lens. I can control color with exposure—the length of exposure will warm or cool the image color. Absolutely amazing!