Cloud Talk

When I started writing the previous post, “The Rabbit Hole?” my intention was to write about wanting to spend more time with a camera in my hand. That is to say, the front end of photography. Printing, the back end, takes up so much time and effort (as well as tons of enjoyment) that I don’t spend as much quality time photographing the world around me.

I started writing about it the other day because it’s been bothering me lately. I wanted to try fleshing it out on the page but before I knew it, I was in the middle of a very different, more familiar kind of post about printing digital negatives. I couldn’t help but smile at the irony.

So, let me try again to write about taking pictures with a camera.

I think a lot of photographers work in series. You know, they photograph smashed beverage cans, or graffiti, or barns, or street people. Seems like a good motivational tool but whenever I’ve tried it, it has come off as contrived and a bit too restrictive.

But feeling the pinch from not shooting, I’ve been thinking about a project that has intrigued me for years. And has gone no further than intrigue. The project would be to illuminate the Chinese book of wisdom, the I Ching.

I first began to study the work when I was in college in the 1970s. At the time, it provided me with practical as well as spiritual insights that I soaked up like a sponge. Those fundamental principles continue to inform my life today.

The book is divided into 64 hexagrams. Each represents a facet of Taoist philosophy. Each is a meditation unto itself. Borrowing the language of the English poet William Blake, my project would be to “illuminate” each of the hexagrams.

Waiting. A humble fence gathers life to itself.

This was the scene that got me onto the idea for the project. The hexagram that came to mind was number 5, “Waiting.” The commentary is about nurturing strength and awaiting the proper time. Strength through patience. There’s more to it than that, of course, but you can read it for yourself**. I thought of that hexagram when I was walking along our beautiful shoreline in North Carolina.

**I use two different English translations. The first is by the famed sinologist of the early 20th century, Richard Wilhelm. The other is by a contemporary translator of Taoist texts, Thomas Cleary.