Hi, my name is Peter Freeman. I live in St. Paul, MN. I have a couple significant interests.
I am a Jungian psychotherapist, executive coach and organization consultant in private practice at Full Circle Dynamics (http://www.fullcirclepov.com)
Full Circle Dynamics is dedicated to the professional and personal development of individuals, leaders and organizations. The Full Circle POV (point of view) is a practical, common sense, daily living and development model of the whole person that seeks the coordinated development and integration of the four primary domains of human experience: body, mind, heart and spirit.
I am a photographer at The Elemental Eye. Blog: (http://www.theelementaleye.com).
The Elemental Eye is dedicated to capturing the inherent order and harmony found in situ in everyday life, in everyday worlds.
I strive to be a “noticer,” awake to the world around me. Elizabeth Barrett Browning captured the essence of an elemental eye perspective: “Earth’s crammed with heaven, and every common bush afire with God.”
The juxtapositions and interrelationships among elements in a visual field – light, shadow, line, shape, texture, pattern, directionality, color, tone, and context – continually capture my attention and excite me, whether I have a camera in hand or not.
I am fascinated by what I see, what we all can see, when I really notice the world around me with a sense of reverence and appreciation. I notice how the visual elements relate to each other and, in turn, how I relate to them. It is a way for me to be mindful, to feed soul.
I take portraits of the world. The frame of the photograph allows me to capture interactions among the elements; how they hang together and play off each other. Elements combine to become a complex subject at once very familiar and yet unfamiliar, something uniquely common. I can still look at any image and discover something new, something fresh.
I want viewers of my photographs to interact with the images and with themselves. Stand back and take in the image as a whole, or come forward, step into the image, and look around at the various elements in detail. Spend a bit of time. Be mindful.
We all are complex subjects with juxtapositions of elements; we’re uniquely common. In my professional life as a Jungian psychotherapist, coach and organization development consultant, I also strive to notice and affirm the unique and common elements in my clients, and help facilitate healthy adaptation, growth and change.
Magnificent photos –!
Read this page several times — and it’s interesting how photography and haiku can be similar. 🙂
I’m reading the work of Arthur Schopenhauer, 19th century Idealist philosopher, who placed only drama and music above poetry among the arts. Photography was still fairly new when he died in 1860. All is objective manifestation of the “will to live.”
https://philosophynow.org/issues/91/The_Denial_of_the_Will-To-Live_in_Literature_and_Music
Ah …. I’ll have to read that … it’s asking me to subscribe but I’ll have to find the article. It sounds really interesting and I’m glad you shared it — always eager to learn !!!
I wonder what he would have thought of photography though ….
(Forgive the length of this response)
Good question. The value of good poetry exceeds that of photography. Perhaps he would say whether photography has a value as an art form approaching that of poetry depends.
For him, the empirical world we experience is Representation in the subject (each of us) organized by the templates of time, space and causation – the implicit “software” (my word) of human consciousness. Not learned, but given a priori. Will is the eternal striving, the “thing-in-itself” that is objectified (his word) in materiality. Matter and will are eternal, the particular forms they manifest in time, space and causation come to be and pass away. Will is blind purposeless striving of the universe, or I guess Schopenhauer would say the universe is the objectification of the singular Will-to-Live. Will is objectified in greater complexity in humans, than in animals, than in plants, than in stone, than in molecules, than in atoms… Turtles on turtles on turtles… Strip away layers of complexity and what remains as bedrock are matter and will.
Most people experience representation as the “thing-in-itself”, as nothing but. This is what Schopenhauer equates to the Indian concept of Maya. Science is focused here and should be, focused on the material world of time, space, and causation (the object), as all that there is. Our culture is particularly focused here.
Others of us, particularly artists like you, sense something more, as well, and reflect on the knowing subject, one’s own experience, through and beyond our histories, the lived experience of our particular character- what I see as the true meaning of soul . The universal Will reflecting on its own willing activity as manifested in individual experience. Only humans have that ability wired into ourselves. Animal consciousness resides exclusively in the material world of time, space and causation; we share that. We possess that other something that makes us aware of our own subjectivity, our own experience and beyond.
The thing-in-itself can’t be measured or known, per se, only experienced in its manifestation in the material world. Jung described archetypes as templates for action of the will to live. Art ultimately expresses a particular experience of Will that speaks beyond the particular to the universal striving in which we all exist.
You know the old story: Two fish are swimming and are approached by another who says as she swims by, “How’s the water?.” They both simultaneously respond, “Great.” They swim on a bit and one turns to the other and asks, “What’s water?”
Artists, I think are engaged in trying to respond to the question, What’s water? The water is really twofold, representation in the mind and ever present will. Science answers, two atoms Hydrogen, one atom Oxygen. For the artist, water is so much more than its material properties
So back to the top. My photographic experience, my style, through which I’m trying to fully experience the water, is naturally focused, given my innate character, seasoned and tempered by my history, toward transcendental ideas. (“The juxtapositions and interrelationships among elements in a visual field – light, shadow, line, shape, texture, pattern, directionality, color, tone, and context – continually capture my attention and excite me, whether I have a camera in hand or not.”) I don’t shoot images to capture materiality. I’m not an empirical photographer capturing a barn, but an idealist photographer capturing the relationships among transcendental forms and qualities. The willing subject, me, is implicit.
Poetry surpasses photography as an art form because the Will as the willing subject (you, as poet) is explicit, even if through metaphor. I agree there is a kinship between haiku and the idealist photography I practice.
Finally, since I realize that I’m going on way too long. On my website, I quote Barrett Browning:
Earth’s crammed with heaven,
and every common bush afire with God
Poetically, that captures what I’m talking about, and yet it’s missing the following lines need to fully capture it
But only he who sees, takes off his shoes.
The rest sit round and pluck blackberries
and daub their natural faces unaware
more and more from the first similitude.
Aurora Leigh (http://www.bartleby.com/236/86.html)
Hello Peter — Sorry it took me so long to respond! Your message required a thoughtful response – and my week has been quite chaotic! Today the magazine arrived so I look forward to reading the article you recommended.
Your discussion of matter and will is very interesting. At first I couldn’t quite grasp that “will” might be eternal. Now it makes sense.
I’m wondering if some of the very experimental forms of photography might approach poetry in their expression of the Will as willing subject? Perhaps “captured” scenes / subjects filter matter through experience … but perhaps photography that plays with light and form (in both processing and a careful composition / gathering of objects and materials) might approach poetry and painting?
And — we rarely read the entire Browning poem. Your explanation – and the poem — give me much to think about.
Thank you so much, Peter 🙂