Why Photographic Prints (and Books) Are Important

“We have in fact only two certainties in this world - that we are not everything and that we will die.”

— Georges Bataille

You hear advice for digital photographers to “print their images.” It’s good advice. Storage cards and drives crash all the time. I suspect very few actually follow that advice. However, this essay is not about that type of printing, and the ideas that I’m going to address live in a completely different space. This is about the photographic fine art print as an object of value: something tangible and handmade. As well as the importance of books and the meaning of value,

In this essay, I want to address the idea of value as it relates to prints and books in the photographic fine art world. What is value, and how do you define it?

Have you ever thought about the importance of the photographic print? What I mean is that when we talk about photography today, it’s usually about posting digital snaps on social media. I read a scary statistic the other day about “Generation Z” (Zoomer students): very few have ever been to an art gallery (to see work in person), even fewer own any photography books, or books in general, and almost none of them have ever been in a photographic darkroom. Their photographic and art world lives online in zeros and ones. That really shocked me. The last few wet collodion demonstrations I did (pre-COVID) at the local university, I felt that something was “off.” I couldn’t put my finger on it; it just felt like the students were distant and not really interested in my presentation. I’d been doing these for years and never had a response, or lack thereof, like this before. It made me start to wonder about the changing perception of art, literature, and education in general. I taught higher education for a few years; in fact, the initial reason for getting an M.F.A. was to continue to teach in higher education. I had a change of heart when I finished graduate school. I feel that I can contribute more to the world doing what I’m doing now. I’m very grateful that I didn’t continue teaching. I think I would have been disappointed and discouraged by it.

WORK, SKILL, & MATERIALS

The Value of Work
When we talk about value, we have to address some key elements that separate the different approaches to making art using photography. One of the big ones for me is work. The 19th-century French novelist George Sand said, "Work is not man's punishment. It is his reward, his strength, and his pleasure." I agree. I define work as a system of mostly failing and continuing to pursue your goal until you’ve achieved it—be willing to not only accept failure but embrace it. I work the hardest on the ideas behind my work. The other component of my photography is the work in the darkroom and printing. I can spend an hour developing and processing one negative. And I can spend an entire day trying to make a print from the negative that I like. While today’s technology allows a person to fire off thousands of images onto a digital card, my work is in the single digits (maybe three on a good day). I have to physically work for those, and some days are complete failures. Whatever the reason(s), nothing works.

The Value of Skill
This is a topic that can be controversial in the sense of how you determine or define skill. For me, skill includes all of the technical knowledge of any given process plus the wisdom of how to apply the process to achieve a certain aesthetic—not an easy thing to do. Knowledge, gained through the study of new information, consists of a rich storage of information. Wisdom, on the other hand, has to do more with insight, understanding, and accepting the fundamental “nature” of things. Let me back up a little and say that the wisdom of applying an aesthetic to an image comes from the knowledge of what you’re trying to say with the image. In other words, there needs to be a story or narrative in place in order to even do this. Without this, you can’t really do anything.

The Value of Material
One of the most important ideas to me is materials. One of the many reasons I enjoy working with historic processes is the variety of materials available for use in any given process. Everything from the papers to the silver can be used as a metaphor in the work. I used to talk about the glass used in collodion when making photographs of synagogues destroyed in Germany on Kristallnacht (the Night of Broken Glass). Or the cyanide I use to remove the unexposed silver from the plate; the same substance was used in Europe's gas chambers during WWII. With my current project, I’m using a variety of materials that address, directly or indirectly, the thesis of the work. The tangible quality of the materials lies beyond the metaphors. It's an experience to hold a handmade photograph physically in your hands. I believe we've lost touch with the material (physical) aspect of photography. That has changed the medium a lot in my mind. This is where books can be vital. In this digital age, we rely on internet connections, computers (phones), and power to be able to see or read anything. If any one of those isn’t available, the work is no longer available to you. With a book, you only need light.

Photogenic Drawing of Rocky Mountain Barley.

THE HANDMADE PRINT
In the context of a handmade print, value can be defined in several ways, including:

1. Unique craftsmanship: One of the primary sources of value in a handmade print is the uniqueness and individuality of each print produced. Handmade processes often involve a high level of skill, attention to detail, and creativity, which can result in prints that are distinct from one another-each one an original. Viewers may place a premium on handmade items because of their uniqueness and the sense of artistry and personality that they convey.

2. High-quality materials: Handmade processes often involve the use of high-quality materials that are carefully selected and sourced. This can add to the value of the final product, as the materials used may be of a higher quality than those used in mass-produced items.

3. Personal connection: Handmade processes often involve a personal connection between the creator and the product. The maker may have a strong emotional connection to the item they are creating, and this can be conveyed to the viewer in the finished print. Viewers may value this personal connection and feel more attached to handmade items than they would to mass-produced items.

Overall, the value of something made by hand can come from a number of things, such as its uniqueness, quality, and personal connection.

Meaning in a Meaningless World

Peter Zapffe said, "Man is a tragic animal. Not because of his smallness, but because he is too well endowed. Man has longings and spiritual demands that reality cannot fulfill. We have expectations of a just and moral world. Man requires meaning in a meaningless world."

Like others, Zapffe was convinced that our consciousness was an evolutionary misstep. A mistake. To have a "surplus" of consciousness is too much for us to bear. We shrink from living and are afraid to die because of it. We don't necessarily fear death or dying, but rather the prospect of being forgotten—the consequences of dying. We fear impermanence and insignificance. That’s what’s unbearable to us; that’s what drives us to distractions, illusions, and denial.

Moreover, we find ourselves in a world that has no meaning. The only meaning is what we create for ourselves, and in the cosmic picture, it’s all meaningless. This idea is central to my work. This conflict creates anxiety that we need to buffer, and if we can’t buffer it, a lot of times it will manifest as anger or violence, and we will take it out on the person or people who are challenging our buffering mechanism (othering). In other words, if you challenge my worldview (my coping mechanism for death anxiety), I may lash out and want to convert you to my worldview or destroy you.

I’ve come to understand why I gravitate toward making art and having a creative life. Reading the works of the great thinkers and philosophers, it's clear to me what my attraction is to pursuing creativity versus other ways I could buffer my existential anxiety. Nietzsche said, "The truly serious task of art is to save the eye from gazing into the horrors of night and to deliver the subject by the healing balm of illusion from the spasms of the agitations of the will." That resonates deeply with me. My life has consisted of trying to unravel the problem of "othering" through art. Over the years, I’ve pulled on the threads of artists, thinkers, and philosophers before me (and those who are contemporary to me) and have used art to explore human behavior as well as buffer my own existential terror. I’m very aware of how I’ve intellectualized my impending death. Socrates claimed that the practice of philosophy in life is really a dress rehearsal for what comes in death: “… those who practice philosophy in the right way are in training for dying, and they fear death least of all men.”

When Nietzsche talks about the "truly serious task of art" being to save the eye from gazing into the horrors of night and deliver the subject from the spasms of the agitations of the will, he is speaking about the power of art to provide a form of psychological relief from existential terror.

Nietzsche believed that human existence was marked by suffering and that our awareness of this suffering could be overwhelming. In his view, the role of art was to provide a kind of escape from existential terror by creating a "healing balm of illusion" that would allow us to momentarily forget about our problems and experience a sense of peace and tranquility. I would add to that; I would argue that it allows the artist to transfer the anxiety to the work—to exercise it out of the mind, if you will. Peter Zapffe called this “sublimation”; he said it was rare but the best way to buffer anxiety. It’s rare because the majority of people choose not to have a creative life.

At the same time, Nietzsche recognized that the experience of art was not just about escaping from reality. He believed that great art had the power to transform our understanding of the world and to challenge our assumptions about what is real and what is possible.

In short, Nietzsche's comment about art's "serious task" shows how art has the power to both temporarily calm our existential terror and give our lives meaning—or at least an illusion of meaning and value.

We're Animals, With One Caveat

I’ve never considered or really pondered the fact that I’m an animal. You’re an animal, too. What does this mean, or why does it matter?

It plays a significant role in the theory that I’ve been working on and studying for this project. It demonstrates the need for humans to isolate themselves (psychologically) from other animals. It’s a critical part of believing in our illusions—illusions to alleviate our death anxiety.

It doesn’t surprise me, though. As I peel this onion of human behavior, each layer reveals something new. I see where all of this fits and why it is the way it is—we need it this way to get out of bed in the morning,

These are cultural constructs to convince ourselves that we're "more" or "above" the animals. But we’re not. The evidence is in the way we hide our bodily functions and how we eat; hiding our animality is very apparent in things like "bathrooms," "plates, cups, forks, spoons, and tables," as well as "making toasts with drinks." Think about it. Observe other animals; how do they handle these functions and tasks?

These are all cultural constructs to help us disguise or hide our animal nature—you’ll never see other animals doing these things. We even disguise our food with names like "steak" or "hot dog." Those words have no real meaning as they apply to food. They are simply used to disguise what we’re doing.

We even disguise sex, the most animalistic behavior of all. We wrap it in "love" and make it something special, rather than simply acknowledging that it's an act of reproduction—an evolutionary drive just like survival. And we do it just like the rest of the animals. This is one of the reasons there are so many taboos, rituals, and rules around sex in different cultures. Ernest Becker said, “The distinctive human problem from time immemorial has been the need to spiritualize human life, to lift it onto a special immortal plane, beyond the cycles of life and death that characterize all other organisms. This is one of the reasons that sexuality has from the beginning been under taboos; it had to be lifted from the plane of physical fertilization to a spiritual one.”

Because of its animalistic nature, it’s an act that most reminds us of our mortality. That’s why we create all of the celebrations around it: flowers, chocolate hearts, “love letters,” fancy dinners, lingerie, holidays, etc. We want to elevate it as an act of “love” way beyond what the “animals” do; we make it “special” because we’re “special.”

It’s a difficult topic to unpack in the context of death anxiety. However, at its core, it reveals our animal nature and what we’ll devise in order to never face it or even admit what it really is.

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“Yet, at the same time, as the Eastern sages also knew, man is a worm and food for worms. This is the paradox: he is out of nature and hopelessly in it; he is dual, up in the stars and yet housed in a heart-pumping, breath-gasping body that once belonged to a fish and still carries the gill-marks to prove it. His body is a material fleshy casing that is alien to him in many ways—the strangest and most repugnant way being that it aches and bleeds and will decay and die. Man is literally split in two: he has an awareness of his own splendid uniqueness in that he sticks out of nature with a towering majesty, and yet he goes back into the ground a few feet in order to blindly and dumbly rot and disappear forever. It is a terrifying dilemma to be in and to have to live with. The lower animals are, of course, spared this painful contradiction, as they lack a symbolic identity and the self-consciousness that goes with it. They merely act and move reflexively as they are driven by their instincts. If they pause at all, it is only a physical pause; inside they are anonymous, and even their faces have no name. They live in a world without time, pulsating, as it were, in a state of dumb being. This is what has made it so simple to shoot down whole herds of buffalo or elephants. The animals don't know that death is happening and continue grazing placidly while others drop alongside them. The knowledge of death is reflective and conceptual, and animals are spared it. They live and they disappear with the same thoughtlessness: a few minutes of fear, a few seconds of anguish, and it is over. But to live a whole lifetime with the fate of death haunting one's dreams and even the most sun-filled days—that's something else.” Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death

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If we accept that we are animals, we are reminded that we will die and become “food for worms,” as Becker said—just like all of the other animals.

If you’ve seen the movie "Elephant Man," the line spoken by John Merrick really solidifies this idea. He said, "I am not an animal! I am a human being. I am a man." I know he was saying this in reference to his birth defect and appearance (the way he was being treated), but the argument still stands about how we feel about denying our animality and how insistent we are to separate ourselves from all other living things.

There can be a religious component to this belief. I understand why that is as well. In order to have the illusion of (literal) immortality, which we desire, there has to be something that sets us apart. Some religions even go as far as telling man to "take dominion over all living things and all of earth" (paraphrased). It’s easy to see how humans can believe that they are above other life. There’s another component to this: "Man was created in the image of God." This escalates into an even bigger problem. If you ask most religious people if they believe they’re an animal, they will say, "No, I’m special, created in the image of God; how could I be an animal?" This is what I was referring to in my post about Becker’s hero system. This is the religious component of that theory. It’s an effective illusion if one can maintain it. Both Friedrich Nietzsche and Ernest Becker believed that religion was no longer a valid hero system because of advances in science and technology, and because of these advances, most people have “moved on.” That’s where Nietzsche’s infamous quote came from: "God is dead." This was the idea behind it. Religion acted as a buffer against death anxiety for most people for thousands of years, all over the world, in all kinds of religions. In the last 200 years, we’ve become much more secular and tend to look to culture for our defense against death anxiety. Here again, you can see where we have denied our animality with these religious tenets—placing ourselves above every living thing and the earth itself.

What’s the caveat? What makes us different from animals? We have consciousness, or awareness, of our mortality. Your dog or cat doesn’t know that they’re going to die. They’re completely in the moment of “now.” There are no rabbits talking about being the best rabbit alive! Animals exist with instincts to survive and reproduce. At times, they may have the fight-or-flight instinct and be very afraid, but once out of danger, they never think about it again. In our unconscious mind, we are constantly in fight-or-flight mode. William James said, “There is always a panic rumbling beneath the surface of consciousness.” That panic comes from the knowledge of our impending death. Other animals don’t have this; that’s really the only thing that makes us different. It fascinates me to look at how we live and act, denying the inevitable (our death) and trying to hide the fact that we are animals. We would show our animality if we didn't have this knowledge. We would be exactly the same as all of the other animals.

I’m slowly, but surely, putting these pieces together. These are the pieces of these theories that show us who we are and why we are the way we are: human behavior. I’m specifically interested in the reasons we commit evil acts and how our death anxiety is revealed through acts of genocide, racism, bigotry, xenophobia, and “othering.” We have so much to learn about these topics. In the end, I hope to share a tiny piece about the role that art can play in disclosing ways to deal with these big topics.

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“Denial of death, or, in psychodynamic terms, repression of death anxiety, generally results in banal and/or malignant outcomes—for example, preoccupation with shopping or the need to eradicate people who do not share our beliefs in a self-righteous quest to rid the world of evil. Repressed death anxiety is often projected onto other groups who are declared to be the all-encompassing repositories of evil and who must be destroyed so that life on earth will become what it is purported to be in heaven.”

Sheldon Solomon author of “The Worm at the Core: The Role of Death in Life

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What Kind of Hero are You?

Henry David Thoreau said, “If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.“

I suppose it’s my quiet life that allows me to reflect, observe, and, most importantly, think about human behavior, including my own. It seems to be constantly on my mind. To say I’m preoccupied with it would be an understatement. I’m very cognizant that this is a privilege most people don’t have.

Every day, as I write my book, I find myself wondering why so few people ever stop and reflect on their lives or try to understand their nature. Everyone seems to be so wrapped up in schedules, shopping, money, status, appearance, and all other kinds of distractions or busy, frantic material lives that keep them ensconced in their illusion that they have no time for thinking about these things. I understand why they need this. I get it. However, that wouldn’t prevent self-examination or reflection.

The theme of my book is to make the unconscious conscious so that it doesn’t direct your life. I feel like this is missing in so many people’s lives. It reminds me of the diet/food question. If people were aware of what they ate, they wouldn’t wonder why they felt so bad and were always sick, tired or depressed. They’re in the same psychological area. We have such a strong drive to “enjoy the moment" that we rarely look past that or the consequences we pay for doing it.

Ernest Becker asked, "…the question of human life is this: On what level of illusion does one live? This question poses an absolutely new question for the science of mental health, namely, what is the “best” illusion under which to live? Or, what is the most legitimate foolishness? ... I think the whole question would be answered in terms of how much freedom, dignity, and hope a given illusion provides.” (The Denial of Death)

The question is: what illusion or illusions are you using to quell death anxiety? Have you ever thought about this? Are your illusions hurting or damaging other people or yourself? Becker was concerned about adopting harmful illusions to buffer death anxiety. History is littered with people who have used illusions to cause millions to suffer and die (most extreme cases).

Becker talks about four types of heroism—ways we can use culture to bolster our self-esteem, which keeps existential terror at bay. These are the illusions we use to function day-to-day.

RELIGIOUS HEROISM
The first is religious heroism. This is still used today, but not like it was in the past. Before the enlightenment and the industrial revolution, among other advances, this was the way most people buffered their anxiety. A promise of an afterlife (immortality) and meaning and purpose from a higher authority is what worked. Most religions have convinced believers “that one's very creatureliness has some meaning to a Creator; that despite one's true insignificance, weakness, death, one's existence has meaning in some ultimate sense because it exists within an eternal and infinite scheme of things brought about and maintained to some kind of design by some creative force." (The Denial of Death) This type of heroism is no longer viable for most people.

CULTURAL HEROISM
The second is cultural heroism. This is what eclipsed religious heroism. Most people today lean toward this type of heroism. The average person can’t become a famous musician, movie star, or sports legend. It’s not realistic. So they become "cogs" in a heroic machine. It could be their society, their country, or a corporation. Something "bigger" than themselves that will live on beyond their physical death. "Man earns his feeling of worth by following the lines of authority and power internalized in his particular family, social group, and nation," Becker explained. "Each human slave nods to the next, and each earns his feeling of worth by doing the unquestionable good." (The Ernest Becker Reader) Becker really makes a profound observation when he says, “Take the average man who has to stage in his own way the life drama of his own worth and significance. As a youth he, like everyone else, feels that deep down he has a special talent, an indefinable but real something to contribute to the richness and success of life in the universe. But, like almost everyone else, he doesn’t seem to hit on the unfolding of this special something; his life takes on the character of a series of accidents and encounters that carry him along, willy-nilly, into new experiences and responsibilities. Career, marriage, family, approaching old age—all these happen to him, he doesn’t command them. Instead of his staging the drama of his own significance, he himself is staged, programmed by the standard scenario laid down by his society.” (Ernest Becker, Angel in Armor: A Post-Freudian Perspective on the Nature of Man) This is so easy to see; it may have even happened to you. Having life “happen” to you rather than you actually controlling it, I can relate to this statement, and it applies to my early life for sure. Cultural heroism transforms individuals into blind conformists.

PERSONAL HEROISM
The third is personal heroism. Becker described this type of individual as "one who tries to be a god unto himself, the master of his fate, a self-created man. He will not be merely the pawn of others, of society; he will not be a passive sufferer and secret dreamer, nursing his own inner flame in oblivion." (The Denial of Death) This type of person tries to find their authentic talent and uses it as a way to measure their worth. “If I were asked for the single most striking insight into human nature and human condition, it would be this: that no person is strong enough to support the meaning of his life unaided by something outside him,” (Angel in Armor) According to Becker, this is doomed to fail.

THE GENUINE HERO
And finally, Becker talks about the genuine hero. This is a rare individual who does not require illusions to live, a person who can face the reality of their existence head-on, no holds barred. "I think that taking life seriously means something such as this: that whatever man does on this planet has to be done in the lived truth of the terror of creation, of the grotesque, of the rumble of panic underneath everything. Otherwise, it is false." (The Denial of Death) The genuine hero lives with an attitude of resignation that is not a pessimistic denial of life. They recognize the awesome powers of the universe and that those powers dwarf their petty concerns. He concluded his train of thought with this, ''The most that any of us can seem to do is to fashion something - an object, or ourselves - and drop it into the confusion, make an offering of it, so to speak, to the life force.” (The Denial of Death)

Visions In Mortality - 1993

I just finished writing about my first photographic exhibition in the biography portion of my book (Chapter 2, The Introduction). After careful consideration, I felt it was important to give my background on these theories and ideas in the context of what I'm doing now. It makes so much sense to me now. There is some kind of closure that I feel after all of these years making art about the fear of death and the human behaviors that result from it. I wouldn’t say that I was working blindly or aimlessly all those years; it was more like I was trying to express ideas that I had no concept of explaining with words. It was the intellectual part that was missing. That’s all changed now. I understand what I was doing, and it all fits together beautifully. I am beyond grateful for that.

Over 30 years ago, I was making work about the same things I’m making work about today. The difference is that I’m so much more mature (artistically speaking) and feel like I have a good grasp on these concepts and how to articulate what concerns me. I wrote about my exhibition called "Visions in Mortality." This body of work was exhibited for a few weeks in 1993 as my senior thesis project for undergraduate school.

The images were all manipulated Polaroid work (direct color positives) and poetry. Each image was accompanied by a short poem or passage. I was very influenced by Lucas Samaras and Charles Bukowski at the time. The overall theme was what I’ve always made work about: death anxiety and the knowledge of our mortality. However, as you can see from the statement below, I was venturing into the defense mechanisms that I'm writing about today concerning the denial of death.

In my book, I wrote about four of the 25 or so images from the show. “Clotheshorse,” “Coitus on a Sea of Blue,” “Ketchum, Idaho,” and this one, "Ode to Vincent van Gogh.” This is a self-portrait. I was 29 years old. The image came about by accident while moving the chemistry around during development—the lower portion of my ear was gone. After seeing it emerge, I immediately thought about the painting of Vincent van Gogh—the self-portrait with his bandage and cap—and the self-mutilation and suicide. And the Yellow House.

On the 23rd of December 1888, in a small house in Arles, in the south of France, one of the most famous artists of all time—Vincent van Gogh—feverishly cut off his own ear in a mysterious act of self-mutilation. The circumstances in which van Gogh cut off his ear are not exactly known, but many experts believe that it was following a furious argument with Paul Gauguin at the Yellow House. Afterwards, van Gogh allegedly packaged up the ear and gave it to a prostitute in a nearby brothel—that wasn’t true; he gave it to a cleaning lady. He was then admitted to a hospital in Arles, France. He died by suicide about 18 months later, on July 29, 1890.

Mental illness has been a long preoccupation of mine—all human behavior, really. I’ve always wondered, just like any marginalized community, why these afflictions happen. I feel like I have some answers now, and while they are not definitive or absolute, they do point me in the right direction for why these kinds of things happen to people. I address suicide in my "Ketchum, Idaho” image as well. It’s a self-portrait sitting on the grave of Ernest Hemingway. These questions have always been present in my work.

Here’s my artist’s statement from the show in 1993—this is verbatim:

“Visions in Mortality”
This project deals with the reality of life, which is death, both visually and textually. This project is meant to communicate the intense and complicated process of life and our struggle with mortality as we approach death.

Whether life is short or long, it inevitably consists of much pain, suffering, depression, hurt, confusion, boredom, and misery, with only a “sprinkle” now and then of happiness, joy, love, peace, honor, and understanding. So many people are on the futile quest to attain happiness and understanding through physical, materialistic, and intellectual means that they neglect to realize their failure and ultimately find themselves in a “mortality crisis.”

This project deals with both the long term “reality” of life and few and far between “sprinkles” of the good stuff. It represents what I and many others see, feel, and experience as the human race.

Overall, this imagery communicates that both life and death are frightening, beautiful, and mysterious conditions.

Becker's Transference and Transcendence Theories

“The human animal is a beast that dies and if he's got money, he buys and buys and buys and I think the reason he buys everything he can buy is that in the back of his mind he has the crazy hope that one of his purchases will be life everlasting!”
― Tennessee Williams, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

Trained in cultural anthropology, Dr. Ernest Becker was motivated in his work by an overriding personal pursuit of the question, "What makes people act the way they do?" Refusing to dismiss answers to this question coming from any field of study based on empirical observation of human behavior, Becker almost inadvertently created a broadly interdisciplinary theory of human behavior that is neither simply speculative nor overly reductionist. Becker's synthesis, which is found in the title of his most famous book, "The Denial of Death," describes human behavioral psychology as the existential struggle of a self-aware species trying to deal with the knowledge of death.

Every day we are confronted with the reality of death and our own mortality. Simultaneously, we are strongly motivated by a survival instinct. Ernest Becker's existential psychological perspective came from this realization. His basic ideas have been largely substantiated in clinical testing conditions by a theory in social psychology called Terror Management Theory, created by American psychologists Sheldon Solomon, Jeff Greenberg, and Tom Pyszczynski. Their book, "The Worm at the Core: On the Role of Death in Life," provides the empirical evidence for Becker's theories.

Death is a complex struggle for human beings. The repressed (unconscious) knowledge of death keeps anxiety at bay and out of consciousness. We are born into culture, and the socialization process is largely one of learning how our culture symbolizes death. These cultural worldviews, as Becker calls them, are what we use to create the illusions we live in. The "urge to heroism," as he puts it, is what allows us to boost our self-esteem and manage our existential terror. In other words, our culture gives us opportunities, or not, to bolster our self-esteem, and in response, these illusions that our culture provides act as a buffer to our repressed knowledge of mortality.

How we symbolize death strongly impacts our sense of what the good life is and how we conceptualize the enemies (both personal and political) of ourselves and our society. Our culture's ways of heroically denying death and our habits of buffering ourselves too much or too little against the rush of death anxiety shape who we are as a society and as individuals.

As a symbolic defense against death, it's natural for people to try to ground themselves in powers bigger than themselves. It's also natural to feel attacked when our higher powers are taken away.

Freud coined the term "transference." He used it to describe a person, usually a client, transferring their feelings for another person to the therapist. In other words, the client may love their spouse, and during therapy, these feelings are "transferred" to the therapist.

Becker took this theory and applied it beyond the "client/therapist" model to almost anything. Human beings are constantly trying to mitigate their death anxiety. Using the terror management theory, they will "transfer" their love and admiration to an object in order to quell existential terror. This can be anything from a pair of tennis shoes to a religious deity.

After I read about this, I see it everywhere now. Sports teams, holidays, celebrities, cars, clothes, photography equipment—all of it seems to be used as transference objects. Because the majority of you who read these essays are photographers, I'd like to share one example from the world of photography.

Have you ever seen someone who gets a new (large format) camera and posts photographs of it? And, every now and then, a self-portrait with the camera? We’ve all done it. The bigger the camera or lens, the better. Most would apply Freud’s theory of compensation (sexual repression) to these images. In reality, Becker’s theory of transference applies here. It’s not sexual; it’s a transference object to stave off death anxiety. This can be applied, as I said before, to anything: clothes, boats, trucks, record players, computers, even spouses or significant others. Becker’s got an explanation for transference in humans; he concludes the segment with the fact that the partner worships the other person as a deity (think about the first dates) and then realizes that they have "clay feet." In other words, the transference eventually ends, and the spouse is seen as a mortal human that will eventually die.

Becker makes it very clear. We are temporarily relieved from the drag of "the animality that haunts our victory over decay and death." When we fall in love, we become immortal gods. But no relationship can bear the burden of godhood. Eventually, our gods and lovers will reveal their clay feet. It is, as someone once said, the "mortal collision between heaven and halitosis." For Becker, the reason is clear: "It is right at the heart of the paradox of man. Sex is of the body, and the body is of death. Let us linger on this for a moment because it is so central to the failure of romantic love as the solution to human problems and is so much a part of modern man’s frustrations."

Let me see if I can explain this as it relates to my work. This is another example of the way humans deal with the knowledge of their impending death and attempt to stave off the dread and fear of it. To me, it’s the most basic example of witnessing human behavior "in action" and quelling their existential dread. They don’t even know they’re doing it. It’s all unconscious behavior in service of repressing the knowledge of their mortality. These transference objects provide transcendence too. The person indulging feels "immortal" and is transcending death.

Human nature tends to lean toward the malignant manifestations of these theories. That’s what my work addresses: genocide, crimes against humanity, and "othering." Rather than using transference to tranquilize with the trivial, i.e., clothes, cars, lovers, drugs, shopping, TV, Facebook, and Twitter, some use human beings through violence and subjugation as transference objects.

Throughout history, we’ve seen human beings use "the other" to bolster their self-esteem and stave off death anxiety through torture, subjugation, and murder. That’s why, for me, it’s very important to understand these theories as they apply to the history of my work. The transference and transcendence theories are just more examples of the human condition. They answer, in part, the reasons for evil in the world.

Roland Barthes: Studium & Punctum

A year or two ago, I had a YouTube show where I talked about Roland Barthes’ book, "Camera Lucida: Thoughts on Photography." It was published in 1980. In the book, Barthes questions the nature of photography and comes to some interesting conclusions and thoughts about it. I want to talk a little bit about what he calls "studium" and "punctum" in photography.

He thinks a lot about the relationship between photography and death. That interests me a great deal. As I work on my project (In the Shadow of Sun Mountain), I find myself connecting the photographs and death quite often. I have a lot of medicinal and ceremonial plants that I’ve photographed for my work. A lot of them made very nice images; they are beautiful and interesting to look at and think about. However, they’re all dead now; only the photograph remains. If you read Susan Sontag’s book “On Photography,” you'll find that she had some of the same (or at least similar) positions as Roland Barthes on this topic. It’s not a stretch to make these connections. Death and photography are twins. As Sontag said, “Photography is momento mori.”

The photograph captures a moment when the person photographed is neither subject nor object. He perceives himself as an object; he has "a micro-experience of death." The person in the photo no longer belongs to himself; he becomes a photo object that society is free to read, interpret, and place according to its will. This is a great way to explain what photography does: it objectifies. This makes it both interesting and dangerous, and I don’t think many “photographers” think about this, especially when photographing certain groups of people.

The target of the photograph is necessarily real. The subject existed in front of the camera, but only for a brief moment, which was recorded by the lens. The object was therefore present, but it immediately becomes different, dissimilar from itself. Barthes concludes from this that the noema (the essence) of photography is "it-has-been." The photograph captures the moment, immobilizes its subject, testifies that he "was" alive, and therefore suggests (but does not necessarily say) that he is already dead. The direct correlation to memento mori can be found here; if he isn’t dead now, he will be.

Photography brings a certainty of the existence of an object. This certainty prevents any interpretation or transformation of the object. The death given by photography is therefore "flat," because nothing can be added to it. In photography, the concrete object is transformed into an abstract object, the real object into an unreal object. The subject of a photograph is no longer alive, but it is immortalized by the physical medium of photography. However, this support is also sensitive to degradation. Something to think about as we pursue our illusions and “immortality projects.” Nothing, and I mean nothing, lasts forever. What’s the difference between 500 years and 10,000 years? Not much. It will all go away eventually. We will all die and everyone will be forgotten,

Studium
What is studium? Studium is a Latin word meaning "study," "zeal," "dedication," etc. Studium indicates the factor that initially draws the viewer to a photograph. It refers to the intention of the photographer; the viewer can determine the studium of a photograph with their logical, intellectual mind. Studium describes elements of an image rather than the sum of the image's information and meaning. The studium indicates historical, social, or cultural meanings extracted via semiotic analysis. In other words, you can see references to culture and time in the image. Sometimes they are juxtaposed ideas that conflict with one another or make a cultural or political statement, and sometimes not. This can be an abstract reference or an implied reference as well. Whatever the context, it draws the viewer in.

Punctum
What is punctum? It’s defined as “a small, distinct point.” Barthes uses it to refer to an incidental but personally poignant detail in a photograph that “pierces” or “pricks” a particular viewer, constituting a private meaning unrelated to any cultural code. The punctum points to those features of a photograph that seem to produce or convey a meaning without invoking any recognizable symbolic system. This kind of meaning is unique to the response of the individual viewer of the image.

These are really important ideas to me. As I study my photographs for this work, I find myself employing them as much as I can. Especially punctum. This unspeakable “something personal” that can’t be defined with words is really the essence of any good photograph. If you try to describe it with words, it goes away. I know it may seem antithetical to my position on the importance of narrative, but it’s really not. In fact, it supports the narrative idea fully and wholeheartedly. If the image is well-made and reinforces the story, the punctum will fully support it, even taking it to a new level. Bathes said. “However lightning-like it may be, the punctum has, more or less potentially, a power of expansion.” This is exactly what I’m after. The expansion. This idea transcends photography in a way,

The ultimate effect of punctum is the intimation of death. This is something Barthes realizes in the personal context of his bereavement over the still recent death of his mother. Looking at a portrait of her as a young girl (a picture called “The Winter Garden" that he declined to reproduce in “Camera Lucida”), he sees that her death implies his own. This is death awareness, or consciousness of death. Photography has the power to remind human beings that they will not be alive forever. In fact, you never know when your time is up. It could be today or in 50 years. We never know, but we should bring it from the unconscious to the conscious. If we did that, our world would be a much better place for everyone.

Chapter By Chapter-Chapter 3 Death Anxiety

Chapter 3: Death Anxiety—This chapter is based on Ernest Becker’s book, "The Denial of Death." The book is quite dense and academically written, but it’s one of the best books I’ve ever read. It literally changed my life.

It’s my burden to unpack the ideas that Becker puts forth and present them to the reader in a way that makes sense and is applicable to their lives. I’ll also show the direct connection between the photographic work and the psychology behind these theories.

I’m writing and organizing, and then rewriting and reorganizing. There are two chapters detailing how these theories work and the underlying psychology. They are: death anxiety and terror management theory.

What is death anxiety? In a few words, it's the desire to stay alive that is in direct conflict, psychologically speaking, with the reality and knowledge that we will die. This causes a sort of cognitive dissonance; it creates unbearable anxiety, terror, and dread. We do everything we can to deny and avoid thinking about our death.

The human animal isn’t terrified of dying—not of the actual moment of death—but of being impermanent (mortal) and dying without significance. Impermanence and insignificance are what create existential terror. That’s what’s unbearable. And this comes from consciousness—the knowledge that we're here. Soren Kierkegaard (1833–1855), a 19th-century Danish philosopher, said that humans can "render themselves the object of their own subjective inquiry." Think about that! That's our big forebrain in action. And psychoanalyst Otto Rank said humans have the capacity "to make the unreal real." This intelligence is a big part of the problem we face. Some think that consciousness is an evolutionary mistake and that we, like all other animals, shouldn’t be aware of our impending deaths.

However, we’ve evolved to cope with this burden by suppressing that death awareness knowledge through self-esteem and using culture. We create “immortality projects.” According to Becker, fear—or denial—of death is a fundamental motivator behind why we do what we do.

Becker said that the real world is simply too terrible to admit. If we didn't have ways of buffering the fear, anxiety, and helplessness over our death and meaninglessness, it would paralyze us and keep us from getting out of bed in the morning. So there is a need to repress it. We use what Becker and all anthropologists call "culture" or "cultural worldview." This "cultural worldview" is a shared reality that we all believe in or subscribe to—a value and belief system that comes from our culture. We find self-esteem through this cultural worldview.

For example, our culture tells us that having a job and getting promotions is a good thing, as is earning more money, driving a certain type of car, or dressing a certain way. If we do these things, our self-esteem is strengthened, and we have a defense or coping mechanism to repress the anxiety that comes from knowing we are going to die. These buffers can be good or bad. That’s why it’s important to be conscious of these ideas and the psychology behind them. Like Freud said, "Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life, and you will call it fate." We can get ourselves out of it by being explicitly aware that we’re in it. Albert Camus said, “…come to terms with death; thereafter, anything is possible." This is the crux of why I'm writing this book and doing this work.

Culture, or cultural worldviews, are defense mechanisms against the knowledge that we will die. Becker argues that humans live in both a physical world of objects and a symbolic world of meaning. The symbolic part of human life engages in what Becker calls an "immortality project." People try to create or become part of something they believe will last forever—art, music, literature, religion, nation-states, social and political movements, etc. Such connections, they believe, give their lives meaning.

Kierkegaard talked about this dread-evoking mystery. He believed that anxiety comes from our knowledge of finitude and meaninglessness. Becker concurs with this point and expounds on it. Kierkegaard said that humans focus their attention on small tasks and diversions that have the illusion of significance—activities that keep people going. If they dwell on the situation too long, they'll bog down and be at risk of releasing their neurotic fear that they are impotent in the world.

That’s a small portion that I’m working on now. You’ll see, in the end, how this all connects to every war, every act of genocide, and every act of evil in the world. Why it happened and why it continues to happen—again, this is the energy of the book, to help people become conscious of this predicament.

Winter Activities: Reading, Writing, and Research

It’s really exciting for me to be able to find connections between psychology, anthropology, philosophy, and my work. I dig deep for them, but when I find them, it’s like a big, bright light illuminating my way. To blend the social sciences and art seems like a stretch, but you’d be surprised how related and relevant it is. It fits well together in the right context.

Reading, writing, and research are what I’m mostly doing over the winter. I will make a few images, but I live in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado, and at almost 9,000 feet above sea level, it gets cold and snowy here. However, we do have some really nice sunny days in between the storms. I’ll try to take advantage of those when I can.

Most of my day is spent writing the text for my book and laying out the chapters for it. I can see it’s going to be a big job organizing the writing. Right now, I have a rough draft of what the direction will be, and I have most of the introduction written. I continue to edit and rewrite my artist’s statement, too. As the project evolves and becomes clearer, I can articulate the main points better. I have a lot of the psychology and philosophical anthropology written. The organization of that will be the big challenge. I don’t want the book to be a non-pharmacological intervention for insomnia. I want it to be easily consumed and understood. A big challenge for sure, but I’m up to it and very excited to do it.

The book, right now, looks like this:
Foreword
Chapter 1: Artist’s Statement
Chapter 2: Introduction
Chapter 3: Death Anxiety
Chapter 4: Terror Management Theory
Chapter 5: The Photographs
Chapter 6: Essays
Afterword

I’m reading and re-reading these books over the winter. These books have taught me so much about psychology, anthropology, and philosophy. They make up the vast majority of references for my book. I highly recommend reading them if you haven’t.

Psychology, Philosophy, History, Art, and Death Anxiety

Pretty Pictures, The Technical Versus The Conceptual, and the Masses: Try Something New
We lean so heavily on "pretty" (aka "chocolate box") pictures or "process photography" pictures that we forget about narrative, meaning, and intent—all of the things that really make photographs and storytelling interesting and meaningful. This is not a new topic. I've been preaching this message for years on my YouTube channel, in my books and workshops, and anywhere else I can engage in conversation about making art and photography.

Let’s be honest; most photography is easy to forget. We see so much of it that it becomes less interesting or engaging. And it’s not anchored to anything meaningful that people can connect to. I define meaningful as something weighty in life—work that contains life lessons that we can use to become better people in some way—to be an asset to the world, not a liability.

I’m not talking about technical prowess either. A lot of times, this is conflated with meaning or importance. People love to see big photographs or rare processes. The content of the photograph seems irrelevant, and most of the time, the process and size have little or nothing to do with the subject matter.

The technical work is easy to talk about. It’s safe and universally appealing. This demographic always wants to know about the equipment you're using—what camera, what lens, etc. I always offer the Ernest Hemingway analogy. I've never heard anyone ask what kind of typewriter he used to write "The Old Man and the Sea." Why is that? It's very similar to this obsession with gear and equipment, processes, and size.

They connect technically, but in no other meaningful way. The emphasis appears to be solely on the technical, with no regard for the conceptual or narrative content. I believe they connect to these images because they want to replicate what they see and appeal to the masses to get "likes" and "views" on social media. They want the attention and adulation simply for carrying out a technical process or for owning expensive or rare equipment, period. This seems trivial and mechanical. Do you see why this type of photography is everywhere and why you see it so often? It's a feedback loop, and it’s derivative.

There’s a logical fallacy called Argumentum ad Populum (an appeal to popularity, public opinion, or the majority). It’s an argument, often emotionally laden, for the acceptance of an unproven conclusion by adducing irrelevant evidence based on the feelings, prejudices, or beliefs of a large group of people—the masses. Based on social media, this is how I see most photography today. It’s rare that we get a body of work that’s connected to a narrative or has substance, meaning, or any of the other attributes that I’ve mentioned. The pull of social media is too strong—the desire or need to be accepted and “liked” is powerful (see Becker and self-esteem). The one-off, cliched images are what the masses want. I believe we can do better. We can raise the bar. I know we can. I’m going to try my best to model this behavior with this project.

"The immediate man - the modern inauthentic or insincere man - is someone who blindly follows the trends of society to the dot. Someone who unthinkingly implements what society says is ‘right.’ He recognizes himself only by his dress,...he recognizes that he has a self only by externals. He converts frivolous patterns to make them his identity. He often distorts his own personality in order to 'fit into the group.' His opinion means nothing even to himself, hence he imitates others to superficially look "normal." - Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death

Having said that, I will tell you that I’m going all in on this work (In the Shadow of Sun Mountain: The Psychology of “Othering”). I’m going to push the boundaries as much as possible. I even want to try to transcend photography in some ways. I want the viewer to remember the message in the story—the "meat," if you will. I want them to connect in a real way to the narrative and ideas and to put that proverbial pebble in their shoe.

Trying To Do Something Different
Most of you who read my posts regularly know that this is a unique project. I might even assert that it hasn’t been done before. I’m combing art, psychology, philosophy, theology, history, and existential anxiety to talk about human behavior. This is a distinctive combination of the humanities and art. I haven’t seen anything like it in my research.

I say that with the caveat of Otto Rank’s book, “Art and Artist.” This book is a difficult and dense read. Rank’s ideas would relate most closely to what I’m trying to do, at least the ideas and execution, or simply dealing with the creative life as a psychological defense against the knowledge of death. But even this is in a different context. In his book, he contemplated the creative type of man, who is the one whose "experience makes him take in the world as a problem... but when you no longer accept the collective solution to the problem of existence, then you must fashion your own... The work of art is... the ideal answer...”

All of this motivates me, and it makes it exciting to do the work.

The impetus behind this work is psychology. The theories of Ernest Becker are at the core of it. There are a lot of other people who have influenced the work, but as far as the main component goes, it’s Becker. The terror management theory is just as important. TMT gives evidence for Becker’s theories, so I’m leaning heavily on TMT too. I will include all of the references and resources in the book. You’ll see how vast and rich they are.

I believe these are very important ideas, maybe the most important I've ever heard. They explain so much and answer so many questions, questions that I’ve carried for 50 years. My hope is that the reader or viewer will take away positive ideas for making the world a better place. This is not about being negative or pessimistic. These ideas should nudge you toward celebrating every day we are above ground and being humble and grateful to be alive. The most valuable things are finite and have a relatively short lifespan. That describes humanity very well.

“In the Shadow of Sun Mountain: The Psychology of ‘Othering’”
My intention is to create a psychological connection between my photographs of the land, plants, and symbols of the Tabeguache-Ute and the historical event of colonization. I'm providing psychological evidence as to why atrocities like these and so many others happen. It’s based on human awareness of death, or death anxiety.

While I’m using a specific historical event, the ethnocide and genocide of Native Americans, specifically the Tabeguache-Ute, this could be any number of similar events in history. I’m using psychology, philosophy, theology, history, and art (19th-century photography) to tell the story of "othering" or the psychology of "othering."

It’s not just telling a story of historical atrocities. It’s describing in detail the psychological underpinnings of "othering." I'm answering the questions about why these kinds of things happen, and I’m backing my claims and assertions with empirical evidence. I’m asking and answering the “big questions:” Why do we marginalize certain groups of people? Why are we threatened by people who are different from us? Why do we start wars? Why do we commit genocide? Why are we ignoring climate change? Etcetera, etcetera. I'm attempting to answer those questions with this body of work and book.

I’m addressing this subject somewhat academically. In other words, I’m drawing on the writing and research of social psychologists, scientists, philosophers, theologians, and anthropologists. I’m also referencing a lot of writers who would be considered artists—playwrights, novelists, and poets. My approach to this work is interdisciplinary because this topic requires a wide range of information to be understood.

I live on this land now. In a lot of ways, I struggle with it. I understand what happened here and why. I can't change the past. I wish I could. What I can do is offer or extend the notion of self-examination. These events, and many others like them, should not be viewed as "in the past," but as something that can happen to anyone at any time. Consider your own psychological pathology of existential terror. Consider what psychological defenses, or buffers, you are using to repress the anxiety. Are they positive? Are they an asset or a liability to the world? It's a lot more difficult to create a great work of art than to post insults and argue on social media. They're both defenses, or buffers; one is an asset, and the other is a liability.

Consciousness is the Parent of All Horror: It’s the Worm at the Core
A more detailed definition would be that my work is about human consciousness. The knowledge that we exist and the consequences of that knowledge—knowing that we’re going to die—are too much for us to psychologically handle. It truly is the worm at the core. Sheldon Solomon said, “The thing that renders us unique as human beings is that we’re smart enough to know that like all living things, we too will die. The fear or anxiety that is engendered by that unwelcome realization, when we try to distance ourselves from it or deny it, that’s when we bury it under the psychological bushes as it were, it comes back to bear bitter and malignant fruit, on the other hand folks who have the good fortune by virtue of circumstance or their character or disposition to really be able to explicitly ponder what it means to be alive in light of the fact that we are transient creatures here for a relatively inconsequential amount of time; I buy the argument theologically, philosophically, as well as psychologically and empirically, that can bring out the best in us, and that our most noble and heroic aspirations are the result of the rare individual, who’s able to live life to the fullest, by understanding as Heidegger put it, that we can be summarily obliterated not in some vaguely unspecified future moment but at any second in our lives.”

When he says, "It comes back to bear bitter and malignant fruit," that sums up my central point about this work: answering the questions about the decimation of the Tabeguache-Ute and millions of other human beings. Why do these kinds of things happen? What are the solutions to preventing these kinds of things? These and other questions about human behavior are addressed by this psychology.

Thomas Ligotti’s book, “The Conspiracy Against the Human Race,” says, "consciousness is the parent of all horror." He quotes quite a lot from Peter Zapffe's 1933 essay, "The Last Messiah," referring to anti-natalism and pollyannaism, or the Pollyanna Principle. His position, because of this knowledge, states that it would have been better to have never existed in the first place. He encourages humans to stop procreating. The end of Zapffe’s book also draws this conclusion. He posits that human consciousness was an evolutionary mistake. This sentiment is echoed throughout pessimistic philosophy; it’s not new. On one hand, it is difficult to argue against—the pain and suffering in the world can’t be fathomed. If you read Zapffe’s book, you’ll know what I mean.

"The life of the worlds is a roaring river, but Earth's is a pond and backwater.
The sign of doom is written on your brows—how long will ye kick against the pin-pricks?
But there is one conquest and one crown, one redemption and one solution.
Know yourselves—be infertile and let the earth be silent after ye."
Peter Zapffe, The Last Messiah

A Different Perspective
Richard Dawkins, in his book Unweaving the Rainbow: Science, Delusion, and the Appetite for Wonder, said, “We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born. The potential people who could have been here in my place but who will in fact never see the light of day outnumber the sand grains of Arabia. Certainly those unborn ghosts include greater poets than Keats, scientists greater than Newton. We know this because the set of possible people allowed by our DNA so massively exceeds the set of actual people. In the teeth of these stupefying odds it is you and I, in our ordinariness, that are here. We privileged few, who won the lottery of birth against all odds, how dare we whine at our inevitable return to that prior state from which the vast majority have never stirred?“

You can have a different perspective on these ideas, but the bottom line returns to the knowledge of our impending deaths and the effects that has on our behavior. There is enough evidence to show that, while there are a lot of things to take into consideration, mortality salience drives most human behavior. Exploring that idea is what I’m most interested in for this body of work.