Beauty, inspiration, attention

Ansel Adams teaches how to see, feel and produce creative work

With some books I read, the first few paragraphs grab my attention with such strength that I am compelled to read the whole book. And then having finished such a book, I return to the introductory paragraphs and reread them, recognizing the powerful seeds of the key ideas that undergird the book.

This happened again not so long ago.

Ansel Adams: An Autobiography is a wonderful work for any creative looking to understand one man’s journey of developing craftsmanship, artistic vision, a sustaining career, and achieving a measure of impact and success that is both impressive and revelatory.

The first paragraph contains a critical series of insights that blend together forming a seed of a theme that becomes the autobiography:

“It was wonderful to set up the camera among the rocks at nearby point Lobos and to work in the fresh sea air experiencing again the empathies with scene and visualization and camera that every serious photographer comes to know. Just as a musician gets out of practice, I was slow with the mechanics involved and managing the equipment and even the exposure calculations. It took a little time to regain the facility I had when I was making new pictures every day. But all smoothed out and the miracle of image on the ground glass revived me.”

- Ansel Adams

An analogy, the process of becoming reacquainted with craft, the wonderfulness of it all, the miracle of artistic creation reviving, all this resonated, but one word forms the crux of the story and the most significant part of his story and his photographic work: empathies.

All creative work involves showing up again and again to seek connection with the work, the craft, the process. The connection?

Our emotions.

For Adams, aligning self, scene, vision and camera was a process of internal discovery alongside external exploration.

Perhaps I am wrongly assuming that we all know of Ansel Adams and his work. For American nature photographers, Adams’ work is a beacon of inspiration, casting many shadows.

So for those who are just now learning about Ansel Adams, here is a brief intro:

“At one with the power of the American landscape, and renowned for the patient skill and timeless beauty of his work, photographer Ansel Adams has been a visionary in his efforts to preserve this country’s wild and scenic areas, both on film and on Earth. Drawn to the beauty of nature’s monuments, he is regarded by environmentalists as a monument himself, and by photographers as a national institution. It is through his foresight and fortitude that so much of America has been saved for future Americans.”

- President James E. Carter Presenting Ansel Adams with the Presidential Medal of Freedom

Beyond the significance of the Adams’ photographic work, his writings and teachings on photography continue to provide significant insight on how and why to pursue photography.

A famous Adams quote encapsulates his approach and perspective:

“A great photograph is one that fully expresses what one feels, in the deepest sense, about what is being photographed.”

Empathies, scene, visualization, camera.

Standing in the natural world, noticing the elements, waiting for a sense of beauty to arise within as we look, hoping for an experience of delight to emerge, the “serious photographer” seeks an internal childlike knowing of wonder as catalyst for a creative photograph.

This makes sense to me.

Experiencing beauty is a great privilege, an experience we all share, and while language connects us to being and reality and beauty, the fullness of reality and beauty lies within and without and beyond our being.

To catch glimpses of beauty is to connect with a primal moment of wonder and awe that universally points our attention outside of ourselves, evoking spiritual and philosophical questions and musings.

“Wonder is the only beginning of philosophy”

- Plato

Witnessing beauty is humbling too. Beauty directs us to look outward and inward. Beauty delights and judges.

To witness beauty is to be inspired by beauty to become beautiful ourselves.

The elements of Adams’ description of his returning to photography are themselves instructive:

• The wonder of being outside

• Internal awareness of empathies

• External awareness of scene

• Personal vision

• Craftsmanship

• Relearning the process of craft as creative act

• Witnessing the miracle of creativity

Put another way:

• Gratitude

• Presence

• Awareness

• Story

• Craft

• Humility

• Wonder

This seems to me a rather straightforward path that connects us to our creative work and the world.

Beauty inspires action. Beauty is inspiration.

The word inspire comes from the Latin word inspirare, which means to breathe or blow into. This conception of inspiration as something we breathe in stretches far into the ancient past with the Biblical creation story where God breathes life into the first ones.

We are His creation, inspired creations filled with the breath of Life. We are spiritual beings, having the spirit, the breath of God within. We are inspired beings capable of recognizing and representing beauty. We can breathe in beauty because beauty was breathed into us.

Beauty is the divine breathing, enlivening us to the wonders of creation, if we are willing to receive.

Witnessing beauty connects us with that Divine wellspring of life, the divine breathe, revealing, calming, delighting, encouraging, reminding.

If we attend to beauty, beauty becomes inspiration and then becomes us.

The matter of our attention is the question.

Inspired, we act. Inspired, we create, or rather co-create together with the Divine.

Adams believed that:

“The clear realities of Nature seen with the inner eye of the spirit reveal the ultimate echo of God.”

Certain moments seem to contain pockets of inspiration that drive us forward. Others seem to be without any such sense of higher meaning. 

Surprisingly, delightfully, inspiration strikes at a time of its choosing.

Whether we are at Point Lobos (a good place to go!) sitting at home, cleaning out storage, or walking with a friend, inspiration is waiting for us.

The mundane and the spectacular both contain the potential for inspired creative action. The whole world contains occasions of inspiration.

But we do need to be prepared.

We prepare by developing skills with our craft. We prepare by practicing awareness of our internal life and the external world. We prepare by practicing all of the above. We prepare by anticipating the struggle to relearn craft in the moments of our creative work, to work out and work towards how we can represent beauty to others. We prepare by remaining available for the emergence of beauty. We prepare by going out and seeking beauty actively. We prepare by learning from those who came before us, those who believed in beauty, and those who organized their lives around seeking out beauty.

Adams, in the concluding paragraph of the introduction of his autobiography, frames his world of peace and beauty with his early childhood experience of the great suffering caused by the 1906 earthquake in San Francisco.

Having recalled the smoke, the fear, the refugees without homes, the explosions, the uncertainty he writes:

My closest experience with profound human suffering was that earthquake and fire. But we were not burned out, ruined, or bereft of family and friends…

I believe in beauty. I believe in stones and water, air and soil, people, and their future, and their fate.

- Ansel Adams

There is much in the world that is not beautiful, not lovely, not inspiring. But there is beauty, and we may recognize beauty and we may allow ourselves to be transformed by beauty. Beauty is present within us and the world and is able to be inhaled into our lives, not just our artistic endeavors.

I also believe in beauty and the creative act as an act of faith.

If we believe in beauty, we believe we can experience beauty, and that experiences of beauty can be communicated with others and this is all worthwhile and sustains and guides our lives.

This photo I share below is one of mine that reminds me of Ansel Adams work, partially because he shot very similar compositions from the same place I stood. I didn’t intend to re-present anyone else’s work. But often, upon reflection, my own work bears striking similarities with other artist’s work. It makes me smile to think that Ansel Adams inspires my creative work, even if this one photo is similar to his work.