Wabi-sabi

To take a good photograph the photographer has to be present. This means more than just being on the scene with a camera. It means that the mind has to be clear of other crap. If you are thinking about what you are going to have for lunch or whether the mortgage is likely to be paid this month it is odds on that any resulting images will not be that great. This is not a new or controversial thought and just about all photographers will agree to the importance of being in the moment. Wabi-sabi is a Japanese world view/philosophy that extends this thinking.

Wabi-sabi is incredibly hard to define. Very roughly speaking, it is the Japanese equivalent of the Greek ideals of beauty in the West. The reason that it is hard to define is because it is not really subject to post enlightenment thought processes. It is about being in the moment and is the antithesis of rational thought. That said, there are some ideas that are consistently associated with the world view. Some of these are:

Imperfection (especially quirks and anomalies in a manufacturing process)
Nature (rustic simplicity)
Melancholy
Impermanence (The transitory nature of things and of us)
Our individual insignificance in the grand scheme of things.
Attentiveness to others (the mind shouldn’t wander when communicating with someone)

In many ways these contradict Western ideals where the perfection, permanence and invincibility are celebrated. A person who lives a life with wabi-sabi as a guiding principle would probably not be interested in legacy, immortality or cosmetic surgery.

From a photography perspective the idea of wabi-sabi can have a couple of applications. It is a very workable way of going about the whole process of photography and it is also an aesthetic in its own right.

A photographer who follows this philosophy would likely work in a different way to most. Flaws in equipment would be worked with. One example that springs to mind: If a lens was very prone to distortion the photographer would learn the lens well enough to know how to work with the distortion eventually getting to the point where it improved his images. (Working with imperfection). A traditional western photographer would see putting the offending lens up on eBay and putting the money towards a new one that is technically better.

It is the aesthetic differences between wabi-sabi and the Greeks that interest me most though. I like the idea of actively seeking out imperfection and of impermanence in my subject matter and have little inclination to produce the photographic equivalent of a sculpted Greek God. Nature, evidence of time passing and fragility provide plenty of ideas for subject matter. Melancholy is an interesting theme to work with. The western aesthetic also places a great emphasis on symmetry while wabi sabi is very much about asymmetry - about balance that does not rely on mirroring.

If you do an image search for wabi-sabi you will be confronted with lots of cracked, chipped and misshapen hand made clay pots. While these items may be considered to be wabi-sabi it does not mean that the photograph is, or embodies, wabi-sabi. This may seem like a trivial point but I think that it is an important one. To my mind the photograph is no different in meaning to one of a mass produced vessel purchased at target - it is simply a record. There is a point where a composition does take on the characteristics of the wabi-sabi aesthetic though, regardless of the subject matter used. The problem, again, is defining when this occurs. I think that I know it when I see it but cannot put a strict definition on it. It is ephemeral and transitory - impossible to pin down.

Also worth mentioning is the fact that just because something is old or broken does not mean that it is automatically wabi-sabi. The aging process itself is the important thing - what brought the object to this point in time so to speak. Illustration of the passing of time to point up the impermanence is key here.

Of course there is an element of subjectivity at play too. What one person would deem a good example of the genre another would pass over as contrived or just plain boring. I think that it is a subjective thing but many would disagree and would say that something or an image can objectively be said to possess wabi-sabi.

Assignment

Photographs that shows the passage of time or impermanence
Some ideas - this really is just scratching the surafece though:
Peeling paint
Lichen
Weeds
Weathered stone
Yellowed paper
Symbols of human aging

As usual I'll put up a thread tomorrow but feel free to post photos (or anything else) here.