Menachem's Writings

Why I Like to Photograph Reflections
or Why Do I Always Do Things in Reverse?

My late father used to wonder why I always (more likely often) did things in reverse. As he passed on when I was but thirteen years old, I suppose this characteristic already differentiated me as a small child. I thought I had perhaps at last found the answer to this mystery when my mother finally revealed what I had always suspected -- that I am really left handed, or more to the point right-brained. I was forced to use my right hand in preference to my reality. My parents would say, "It's the normal way of the world, you know. People are not meant to be left-hand dominant. It's not quite normal and looks weird [to me]."

Though they forced my hand, my brain essentially remained right-sided, with perhaps some inevitable rewiring as the result of their coercion.

However I believe my condition is a lot more than just left-handedness. It embodies a divergent worldview, a different perception of one's, namely my, surroundings. For instance, most people, when they sketch a face, first draw an outline. I prefer to commence with the eyes, followed by the mouth. Eyes are the key to the face. A person's inner light shines out from his eyes. This is the entrance to the soul. The ingress to one's essence is in one's eyes. From here this essence, a person's soul, is emitted to the outside world. Eyes are the first thing you (subconsciously) look at when you meet someone.

Below is a photograph of a man, where you really sense the subject's personality via his eyes. It is a photograph of renowned photographer, my teacher, Joe DiMaggio.

Joe DiMaggio in Central Park name=

Photography, though an abstraction and merely a representation of reality, used to be valued for its truthfulness. "Photographs do not lie." We now know that is far from true and an entire genre of art has appeared in recent years, based on the manipulations of images. Already the Soviets would airbrush out original politburo members who had fallen into disrepute.

Of late I am finding classical, postcard photography is, well, boring. Etymologically (though not by common usage) the word photography means "writing with light". The word, coined by Sir John Herschel, won out over other suggestions, including photogene and heliograph.

Straight photography in the hands of a master is a beautiful, elegant form. However in my art form, I am not interested in recreating reality. I do not necessarily desire the subject of my work to be immediately, or if ever, perfectly apparent.

Often I feel a been there, done that situation when viewing straight photographs (including my own) -- and it wearies me.

A photograph capturing beautiful light, is more interesting, adds extra dimension. Most people do not perceive differing qualities of light, at different times of the day, during the various seasons and via diverse diffusions. Capturing this light with a camera brings a scene to life where the reality was unnoticed. Additionally it freezes a split second moment, something never to reoccur.

Look at the two examples below, both taken in Central Park, New York, during two different years.

Early Morning Run Central Park


Autumn Bicycle Riders in Central Park

I find interest in what Joe DiMaggio calls, time-motion studies. He helped me develop the skills required to achieve this style. These studies also unveil a world which is unobservable in reality.

Hansom Cab in Central Park

However it is reflections that I find to be most refreshing, always new and exciting ... and, dare I say it, artistic.

Jean Renoir said, "Reality may be interesting, but a work of art must be a creation ... Reality is merely the springboard for artist." And so it is with reflections. A blurring of reality.

I recently discovered a new term to describe my work. I was on a gallery crawl around New York's Chelsea art centres. [Contemporary] abstract reality. With my reflections, I find abstraction, but an abstract strongly rooted within reality.

Once you start to notice reflections in your surroundings, they quickly becomes a fascination. It is remarkable how ubiquitous they become. And they are there for all to partake. I use no special equipment.

For most viewers, reflections are a hindrance. Thus most of us learn to ignore them, block them out of our visual field, like those pesky ads on your browser pages. Just another nuisance to clutter your panorama.

As they impede what we wish to observe, our brains learn to block them out for us. However even our clever brains cannot always penetrate a reflection. Without polarised sunglasses, it can be difficult to look into a window situated opposite strong reflected light.

This strong reflected light however can be captured with the camera, with often pulchritudinous results.

Noting reflections in your wanderings is a form of the observation of a different dimension of the world. With the right perception, reflections can be converted into artistic work, into an art form of its own.

Various factors make a reflection interesting.

Centennial Park Pond

First there is the seeing of things twice, in double, though not as identical twins. The reality and the reflection. The corporal and the ethereal. The tangible and the conceptual.

Which way is up? I have often inverted photographs for an interesting effect. (Did I do it in the pond above?)

Kowloon Hotel, Hong Kong

Some direct reflections can be too easy and thus uninteresting. An obtuse angle, the right light -- all contribute to make the difference. A straight, direct reflection in a mirror or window generally produces a flat, mundane image.

Then there are textured backgrounds. A reflective surface combines with a reflected image, producing something fresh and new, often with an impressionistic tone and an enigmatic quality.

Central Park Trees

A feel like some of the famous impressionist painters comes to mind. Claude Monet perhaps? An added mood, unrevealed, unapparent in comparison to a straight shot.

Shopping Break

The variety of surfaces on which reflections can be found is sometimes surprising. Like at these umbrellas on the side of dark brown UPS truck on a stormy day.

UPS Truck and Umbrellas

I wish to avoid herein any discussion concerning whether photography is art. It certainly is! Alfred Stieglitz devoted enough time to put this issue to bed already in the early twentieth century. Photography however is certainly a different form to painting or sketching. Any artist, no matter in which form, must conceive his final image in his mind's eye before going on capture it. Photography has the advantage of post processing. Sometimes my sub-conscience is stronger than my cognisance and I only perceive my ultimate image on the computer screen.

All artists learn for each other. My textured surface reflections are not a copy nor an imitation of the impressionists' style. Though similarity, a feeling, certainly exists. I enjoy their work, I understand their rationale. And I also like the look I am able to produce in my work.

However I believe the real attraction of reflections is when an image presents, even blurs and confuses, more than one subject. One can be dealing with two, and sometimes three and more visual layers. This evokes an ambiguity, an oscillation between the reflected and the reality, the internal and the external.

String Bridge

In both photography and in painting, the observer is generally the person looking at the image, the party for whom the artist created his work. The artist places his viewer into his creation by making her the observer, hopefully enveloping her into his image. In this way the viewer's perspective becomes an indistinguishable part of the work.

In a multi-level reflection, the artist can furnish, both the observer and that which is being observed, in a single representation. The external observer now becomes a voyeur, peeking into another's world. Does observing an observer make you a part of his world too?

In the above picture, the lady behind the bearded gentleman is looking at the bridge. Is this a photograph of a bus and its passengers or of an ugly, mislocated string bridge at the entrance to Yerushalayim? Are you the observer of the bridge, or is she? Are you intruding into her sleepy world or you are a partner in her observation? And the bearded gentleman, or the driver -- in which and whose world do they exist?

Obviously all are oblivious to the camera, and to the viewer.

A photograph often contains more than two layers.

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Azrieli Buildings in Tel Aviv

The Azrieli Complex in Tel Aviv comprises three identically finished buildings, one round, one square and one triangular. In this image all three buildings are seen in the one image. The triangular building appears both in the background and again reflected in the round tower.

Chuang Tzu is universally regarded as the greatest Taoist after Lao Tzu. Once he dreamt that he was a butterfly, fluttering about, enjoying himself. It did not know that it was in reality Chuang Chou. Suddenly he awoke and veritably was Chuang Chou once more. However he could not be certain whether it was Chuang Chou dreaming that he was a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming that it was Chuang Chou.

Most philosophers want you to believe that there must be some distinction between Chuang Chou and his butterfly. But why? In our reflected world is there a distinction between reality and abstraction? Perhaps multilevel levels of reflection are multi-levels of reality, or all are layers of abstraction.

There are many possible combinations and each observation reveals a new aspect.

I find this ambiguity interesting, revealing and exciting. I hope you enjoy them too.

Menachem Kuchar 30th December, 2009    
13th Teveth, 5770    

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Please feel free to and don't forget to stop by my site to look at my latest (and classic) photographs.

Enjoy!

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