Finding My Third Eye: A Mini-Memoir

It is 1977 and I am new to San Francisco, freshly graduated from the University of Utah with a degree in creative writing (major: poetry with an emphasis in unemployment). I become a clerk in a record store. I fall for a man who shows me a book by local photographer Imogene Cunningham — portraits of the elderly taken when she herself was an elderly gnome. I know nothing about photography, but I save up to buy a "fancy" camera anyway, one step above a brownie.

While living in a seedy boarding house, I play around with shutter speeds and lamplight, snapping arty pictures of record album covers. One day I take to the streets and capture a picture of a distinguished gentleman in a fedora, sitting on a bench. His resolute, chiseled face matches the strength of the brick wall and the lines of the bench.

The next few years — my tempestuous twenties — rip by in a blur. They include unexpected single motherhood, welfare, and my camera being stolen. Having no money to buy a new camera, I go back to a focus on writing. But sometimes I flip through "art" books in bookstores. One day I buy one of "freak" shots by Diane Arbus. Another time, I splurge on the works of Georgia O'Keefe. I like the colors of Matisse, the whimsy of Chagall. I have no interest in abstract art.

***

Thirty years have passed. My grown son now travels the world as a circus performer. Impossible but true! Life's surprises — miniscule and gargantuan — never cease to amaze me. I run a school of creative writing. One day a friend says, "That was a nice photo you posted on your blog. You should check out Flickr." I have a few minutes to kill, so I google it, poke around, and something in me gets sparked. I open an account, give myself the screen name of My.Third.Eye because I like the mystical chakra connotation, and pull my funky old point-and-shoot Olympus out of a drawer and dust if off.

Before I know it, I've become a photo-snapping maniac, taking my camera with me whenever I go out; soon it is always either in my pocket or perched within arm's length. I have no idea what I'm doing other than following an unexpected urge to take as many photos as I can. I have entered into a whole new world. I use the verbal part of my brain for writing, the nonverbal part for photography. After a day spent hacking away at black and white words on a gray computer, it's a relief to revert to the wordless realm of photography.

 I join not just one but dozens of Flickr groups with names like The Magic of Color, Abstract Reality, Elegantly Minimal, Walls only Walls, Vacated Meaning, Haphazart. I pore over thousands of photos — rapt, swept up, obsessed. I use every spare moment to take photos. What is happening to me? I have no idea.

But I don't think of myself as "a photographer." I'm just a person who takes a whole lot of photos, immersed in the joy of creative play and the pleasure of getting away from my computer. I take most of my photos while out walking my dog Olivia (also new to my life). As a former "indoors-only" recluse who never really understood what all the fuss was about re: sunlight, I'm discovering that I love feeling the weather on my face, watching the motion of trees, smelling the scents of eucalyptus and jasmine. Olivia whines or pulls on the leash whenever I stop to attempt a shot, but that's okay because I like the challenge of having a time limit. Best of all is the fun of discovering what I want to see while in the act of seeing it.

***

I've been doing this photography thing for two years now. My favorite photographers can be found on my Flickr Faves page. I have no formal training in photography or the visual arts, no names of The Great Photographers who were my mentors. I revel in the shock and fun of being a beginner. I don't want to fill my head with a bunch of shoulds and how-to's. Not yet. I just want to look around and see everything with my new third eye. People sometimes leave a comment on Flickr comparing a photo of mine to the work of some other photographer or painter. Usually I have no idea who they're talking about. Thank god for the Internet. I can hop onto Google, do a search for the artist in question, and learn something.

It seems I have a natural inclination to do abstracts. Not always but often. I see shape and form — geometrics — lines, angles, curves. I have the eye (or so I have been told) of a graphic designer. I'm not sure if I have a style. If I do, I don't fully recognize it. My writer friends tell me that my photo style mimics my writing style. I guess by that they mean it's more poetic than narrative, more condensed than expansive, more about my interior self than about you, our society or the world.

I love the idea of someday "graduating" to doing portraiture, but human beings are moving targets even if only by virtue of a facial expression or body stance, and that's much more difficult to capture. Also (unlike human subjects) a wall, dumpster or leaf can't see me fumbling with the camera knobs and dials! Maybe when I become more adept at camera operation, I'll try shooting more people, but for now I'm happy with the trusty Canon Powershot that replaced my old Olympus.

In the meantime, there's always post-processing! As a writer, editing is second nature to me, so I have no problem with altering photos. I crop (with many thanks to my first Flickr mentor, Bruce Baycroft, for inspiring me to try more squares), I adjust color, contrast, sharpness, exposure, highlights, shadows — all that stuff — and although I initially thought that any digital manipulation beyond the simplest tweaks was cheating, I now know how to do a technique called texturing (well, kinda), and can see how this enables me to create a different kind of image dance, one with even more room for alchemy.

There's no such thing as "pure" photography, as far as I can tell — just a wide spectrum of possible gradations, variations and interpretations. It makes just as much sense for digital photographers to manipulate software as it does for film photographers to manipulate film.

***

Pursuing a creative life is the closest I've come to spirituality, whether I'm busy making a poem, a business plan, a casserole or a photograph. When it comes to photography, I'm still in the starry-eyed throes of new love. I try to create "soulfulness" in my photos. On the best days, I feel the interconnectedness between me and everything around me, and that's when I get glimpses of soul from within a sheet of shining metal, or the way a tiny upended leaf stem arches toward a shadow. I stalk stairways and walls, gravitate toward splinters and rust, finding beauty in the breakdown. I get ecstatic and would break into a whirling frenzy if I were a dervish!

Three or four times a week I walk Olivia around my quirky and colorful San Francisco neighborhood known as Bernal Heights, and in an hour or so I have usually amassed 25, 50 or a hundred photos. It's an inefficient strategy — outrageous quantity equals occasional quality, but one that works for the time being. I meander this way and that, walking through the conflicted sounds and scents the city— car exhaust, dog shit, jackhammer. . . ocean air, church bells, laughter — knowing that I don’t know what lies ahead even as I so carefully frame the next composition.

I try to stay open to chance, because chance leads to the unexpected the thrill of surprise. Today another urban street hieroglyphic — a deliciously hot pink chalky arrow pointing to a manhole. Tomorrow an ugly decaying stairway transformed by rain and the right slant of light. Chance is the wooly wild card. I adjust this tiny knob or that and wonder, with an excitement that defies all reason, how the next batch of pictures will turn out.
 

Comments

[harlan lewps]

Great looking site PJ. I think you're right to keep the photos somewhat in their own space from now on.

[Joyce Roschinger]

Dear Jane- your comments about your photography speak to the creative process in writing. I never know how my next my batch of words will turn out. But it is all about showing up every day with your camera or in my case my pencil and paper. Joyce R.

[harlan lewps]

OK, I'm giving up. Sort of. I'll bet you have a NEW blog now in an obscure place in a newer technological medium in a different language, kind of like Twitter on the Planet Pluto. I'll keep looking. -- lewpie

[John Underwood]

Actually I do remember Jane! That's so cool! I had a feeling you would be accepted, your work is top-notch. I really like what you see and the way you present your work! Always has a "balance" to it that is exceptional. Congratulations!

[John Underwood]

Regarding Getty stock photo acceptance.......

[harlan lewps]

Haven't heard from you in a while -- I just want to tell you again that your photos stop me in my place sometimes -- I can't take my eyes off them. This last batch is just amazing. - Lewpie's a fan.