Dancing with a Camera: In the Presence of Light

by Gerald Grow

75 pages. 75 images. Some text. When I retired from college teaching in 2009, I wanted to recapture some of the freedom I felt as a boy playing with whatever came to hand. What came to hand was an inexpensive digital camera, so I set out to see what I could make it do -- because that made me happy. The resulting images came about through a secret process I will divulge only to you. (You won’t tell anyone, will you?) I go somewhere at night there are lights -- you know, holiday lights, street lights, traffic lights, house lights, lights from malls, pools, signs, stores, sidewalks, flashlights, reflections, security lights -- even the moon. Then I take a long picture of the lights. That's it! -- Well, While the shutter is open for a few seconds, I move the camera. -- Maybe “move” isn't quite the word. I, well, sort of, you see, dance with the camera. I dance with the camera in the presence of light. The technique is as simple as drawing -- where you just place a pen on paper and move your hand. In this case, you move the paper (the camera) while the pens (the lights) stay still. It’s a humbling process, marked by an almost unending succession of failures. But in that "almost" are a few images that shine. Or images I work with, pulling out their features, mirroring and multiplying them, or combining them with other images. There's a part of me that creates these images out of pure, unthinking childlike delight, and it takes a great deal of effort, practice, skill, intelligence, and technique just to stay out of its way. I may use the camera in an unusual way, but I do not invent these images. They are pictures of things that are really there. We are surrounded every day by images like these – many of them like the magic the eye sees before the mind makes it ordinary. You just have to persuade a camera to show them to you. I spend long periods wandering around inside these images, learning what they are, how they came about, what they might tell me – sometimes turning those thoughts into words. Art invites this kind of contemplative unknowing – unplugging from the mind’s endlessly helpful categorization, untheorizing, visiting a space prior to thought, at the cusp of something grand and beautiful that had till now seemed known. In a few pictures, I find a hint of what it feels like to be alive on this amazing earth in those moments when you sense the incredible energy of the universe pouring through all things, interpenetrating and interconnecting everything, sustaining the vibrant reality that makes existence possible. But I could never say that, because it would sound even more ridiculous than I must look waving that camera around in the dark. Except maybe to whisper it, just to you. You won't tell anyone, will you? These are photographs of -- what are all photographs of? -- light.

Kindle Edition

Published November 4, 2019