Re: All things technical, not

[Larry Bullis <lbullis@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Russ wrote: 

>So I.R. Photography is about much more than just "photography".
>In my few years of teaching, I've found that the reasons students become
>photography majors are about everything BUT technical aspects of the
>medium. They recognize and we teach them that learning to be technically
>proficient is important, but only the beginning.

You're absolutely right.  In my experience, students are bored stiff by 
technical lectures and really just want to work.  Everybody seems always 
to have wished for permission to go into the darkroom and just have at 
it.  I have reduced my lectures to a couple of (necessary and very 
intense) weeks at the beginning, then I send them out to work with a lot 
of film.  We deal with technical issues and a lot more on a one on one 
basis, for the most part, from then on.  We have to do a lot of review, 
but at least they are working and that is the most important thing. 

I tried to give a mid-term lecture/demo the other day.  After about an 
hour I let them go, and several students actually jumped up RAN into the 
darkroom.  It is incredible, the power this medium has for mobilizing the 
interest of a student for her/his own life.  

>At that point imagination
>and even mysticism take over to explain what might be happening.
>Infrared photography (and it's cousin U.V.) seem to sit on that point in
>the Photography World. After all, I.R. and U.V. Imaging were first intended
>as technical scientific imaging tools. At some point they crossed out of
>that into the realm or creative imagination.

I can remember my own early experience, from many years ago.  Photography 
was only a doorway into something really big and vital.  At one point, I 
ran up and down a huge sand dune on the Oregon Coast, for hours -- I was 
so excited about it.  Ran until I dropped -- you know how hard it is to 
run in loose sand.  I was 22 at the time.  Photography was just the 
reason I was there.  The real experience, though, while made accessable 
through photography, was vast and comprehensive.  The horizon was about 
twenty miles away out on the ocean, but beyond it was the Unknown, and 
the Unknown was where all that incredible energy came from.  Within my 
own being, there was a powerful resonance.

IR presents a doorway into that Unknown, because it shows us a world that 
we cannot see with our eyes.  I have used it for purposes which are more 
scientific, but regardless, the unseen/unknowable appears as an artifact 
and looks me in the eye.  Wow!

Odd, that two of my IR images found their way into print as covers for US 
Government publications for scientific agencies.  One was for NOAA 
(Oceanographic/Atmospheric here in the US) and the other, a cover for a 
volume of archaeological reports funded through the US Army Engineers.  
Why did they choose these particular images?  Not for the informational 
content, at all.  Couldn't have been.  For the mystery.  No doubt about 
it.  No doubt at all.



Larry Bullis
Skagit Valley College


*
****
*******
******************************************************
*  To remove yourself from this list, send:          *
*         UNSUBSCRIBE INFRARED                       *
*       to                                           *
*         MAJORDOMO@xxxxx                            *
*----------------------------------------------------*
*   For the IR-FAQ, IR-Gallery and heaps of links:   *
*  http://www.a1.nl/phomepag/markerink/mainpage.htm  *
******************************************************

------------------------------