The Art of Non-Forceful Photography – Tao te Ching – Lao Tzu – Bruce Lee – Carlos Castaneda
Tao and photography
I have been reading Tao Te Ching (The Way and Its Power) by Lao Tzu to apply teachings of Taoism to become a better photographer
"A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step. "Lao Tzu
How will Tao affect my photography? No way can I have the answer now. The non-forceful way to photography is an interesting approach which I have been naturally practicing to some extent.
Another book that could be interesting especially for photographers is "The Tao of photography" Seeing Beyond Seeing by Philippe L. Gross and S.I. Shapiro. The following is my thoughts and highlights of this book.
Constricted and unconstricted awareness
"Great understanding is broad and unhurried; little understanding is cramped and busy."
Chuang Tzu
The unliberated photographer’s mind and awareness is constricted by expectations about how things should look. The discriminating mind constantly judging and building up a separateness between photographer and subject. Disharmony is created. The photographer is unable to appreciate the unlimited possibilities in front of his eyes.
Great understanding means receptivity without limits, little understanding means they way we think things should be including photographic techniques and goals. The key is to use little understanding but not to become enslaved by it. Ways to achieve this goal:
1. freedom from the sense of self – uniting the photographer and the subject will lead to that the picture is being taken by itself not by the photographer.
"If we do our job right, we in a sense become what we photograph."
"I find that you have to blend in like a fish in water, you have to forget yourself."
"You can’t go looking for it; you can’t want it, or you won’t get it."
Henri Cartier-Bresson
2. receptivity - When one is free of the frame of mind of little understanding one becomes receptive without limits and constraints. Openness to the environment and emotions produces unique and spontaneous photos.
3. wu-wei - non-forceful action, inaction, doing nothing but not inactivity, it is a very effective, fluent way to get things done. One is receptive, alert, not passive, relaxed acting naturally and spontaneously.
"To spend little effort and achieve big results – that is the way of the sage."
Chuang Tzu
"a course of action that is not founded upon any purposeful motives of gain or striving."
Burton Watson
4. spontaneity – forgetting the self and giving up the urge to control the environment, just responding to it like echo to a sound or shadow to a shape.
"for me the camera is a sketch book, an instrument of spontaneity …"
Henri Cartier-Bresson
5. nonattachment - the photographer’s ability to release expectations, to be aware of the constant change and flow of life and being responsive to those changes. Attachment can produce frustration; it can interfere with the creative process and result in boring images. For example things should be a certain way because that is how they have been.
"The Perfect Man uses his mind like a mirror – going after nothing, welcoming nothing, responding but no storing."
Chuang Tzu
6. acceptance - it is not a form of surrender but a natural response when one is in tune with the course of nature and is a true characteristics of an unconstricted Taoist photographer.
7. resourcefulness – new ways of seeing and the ability to see beyond our conditioned ways. It ties into nonattachment and acceptance keeping the photographer attuned to the flow of life.
8. te [virtue/ power] – ability, skill, strength, energy without rigidity or domination.
9. free and easy wondering – embodying the fullest what has no end and wander where there is no trail. Relaxed awareness and purposeless wondering in a ever changing environment
How can I become a better photographer and take better photos
This blog is not a guide for everybody reading on "how to become a better photographer", just my way of making sense of the world and learning to create photos that please me. I spend just as much time looking at "bad" photos from other models and photographers as great ones. There is something to be learned from both.
The first thought that comes to my mind is how can someone post publicly such bad photos? Are they not ashamed? Don’t they know better? Ironically someone might be thinking the same about my pictures. How can I take photos that everyone or most people like? How important is it for others to like my photos as long as I like them? How can I take photos that I will like? Is it true that the more I like my photos the more others will like them too?
I have been striving to improve my photography since I started but I always anticipated it would not happen by leaps and bounds but step by step. Photography is like anything else learned, you cannot walk before you crawl plus you will fall on your face numerous times in the process.
Just a few days ago I was watching a toddler on the beach who was learning how to walk. He had as much joy in falling as in getting up. The experience was not separated into failure and success but a continuous progression towards a goal. This "acceptance of falling" seems to disappear in most people soon after the infant years.
What I have noticed when examining my photos after every photo shoot is that the good ones did not just come out by accident. I will always remember Louis Pasteur’s famous quote: "Chance favors the prepared mind." I decided to find a way, a formula to prepare my mind. I wrote down photo shoot ideas in advance in a notebook but completely forgetting to even to open the book during the shoot. Some photos still "came" out to my liking. I still write down ideas and will continue to do so but with less emphasis on using them like a movie script or trying to follow them to the letter.
"I spend a lot of time preparing. I think a lot about what I want to do. I have prep books, little notebooks in which I write everything down before a sitting. Otherwise I would forget my ideas."
Helmut Newton
"Chance is always there. We all use it. The difference is a poor photographer meets chance one out of a hundred times and a good photographer meets chance all the time"
Brassaï
Seemed like the harder I tried and forced myself to prepare the less "fun" the shoots would be. The more I wanted the less I got. Without exception during every shoot endless chance events and random situations presented themselves which nobody could have foreseen therefore prepare for. Adapting to these challenges and unique moments was the most fun and most productive part of the shoot for both me and the model. There was excitement, electricity and we both felt those were going to be great photos.
"A true photograph need not be explained, nor can it be contained in words"
Ansel Adams
Follow your heart
Cliché or words of wisdom? The following is an excerpt from The Teachings of Don Juan by Carlos Castaneda
"Anything is one of a million paths. Therefore you must always keep in mind that a path is only a path; if you feel you should not follow it, you must not stay with it under any conditions. To have such clarity you must lead a disciplined life. Only then will you know that any path is only a path and there is no affront, to oneself or to others, in dropping it if that is what your heart tells you to do. But your decision to keep on the path or to leave it must be free of fear or ambition. I warn you. Look at every path closely and deliberately. Try it as many times as you think necessary.
This question is one that only a very old man asks. Does this path have a heart? All paths are the same: they lead nowhere. They are paths going through the bush, or into the bush. In my own life I could say I have traversed long long paths, but I am not anywhere. Does this path have a heart? If it does, the path is good; if it doesn’t, it is of no use. Both paths lead nowhere; but one has a heart, the other doesn’t. One makes for a joyful journey; as long as you follow it, you are one with it. The other will make you curse your life. One makes you strong; the other weakens you."
Before you embark on any path ask the question: Does this path have a heart? If the answer is no, you will know it, and then you must choose another path. The trouble is nobody asks the question; and when a man finally realizes that he has taken a path without a heart, the path is ready to kill him. At that point very few men can stop to deliberate, and leave the path. A path without a heart is never enjoyable. You have to work hard even to take it. On the other hand, a path with heart is easy; it does not make you work at liking it.
I have told you that to choose a path you must be free from fear and ambition. The desire to learn is not ambition. It is our lot as men to want to know.
The path without a heart will turn against men and destroy them. It does not take much to die, and to seek death is to seek nothing."
Be water my friend
This quote from Bruce Lee beautifully sums up the non-forceful approach, as he is talking about the power of the fluid:
"Be like water making its way through cracks. Do not be assertive, but adjust to the object, and you shall find a way round or through it. If nothing within you stays rigid, outward things will disclose themselves.
Empty your mind, be formless. Shapeless, like water. If you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle and it becomes the bottle. You put it in a teapot it becomes the teapot. Now, water can flow or it can crash.
