Samuel Barber

If you’re familiar with photography you are most likely familiar with depth of field. But I want to explore absence of field and I think all of my photography does that in some way. I’ve written a little bit about a related viewpoint previously when I discussed my fascination with what goes on outside the frame of the photo. But absence of field is yet a variation of sorts of that notion. What is absent in my photographs? It really is quite obvious. I recently came across a poem by the great poet Mark Strand that describes this absence of field perfectly.

Keeping Things Whole

BY MARK STRAND

In a field

I am the absence

of field.

This is

always the case.

Wherever I am

I am what is missing.

When I walk

I part the air

and always

the air moves in

to fill the spaces

where my body’s been.

We all have reasons

for moving.

I move

to keep things whole.

So therefore; when I take a photo it is complete or whole because I am not there. I, the photographer, am always moving . To keep things whole for my photos. You may see me in someone else’s photos but not my own. I am the absence where air rushes in. Another way to look at it. When you stick your hand in a river, lake or any body of water – as you withdraw, does the water hold the shape of your hand? No. It rushes back to fill the void. The water cannot tolerate the void. It must be complete. Such is a photo. It captures the completeness(i.e. wholeness) of all things – even if those things (like today’s photo) may seem to be missing something. It is still complete as it captures a singular moment of the subjects evolutionary life cycle. When I am dead even though I may appear to not move; I will continue to move as the decay process takes over until I return to the earth as dust. And when I am no longer remembered, when that dust is then used to bring nutrition or life to something else after I am gone I will still be moving. Absence is just as important as presence. This also helps explain why a photo will never be of the future – it will always be the past because the once the photograph has been taken the photographer moves on even though the subject in the photo continues to change. You may say, “what about time-lapse” photography. That still only projects the past. By time you see it the subject has completely moved on. It is all part of maintaining a wholeness in the universe. Absence is the grace that presence cannot afford. We do not need presence to be happy. We can find happiness in absence. To loop back to the poem we can find happiness in the rush of air to fill the void as I move away until something else comes and fills that space. Probably the closest thing in photography that captures the sense of moving to keep things whole is Polaroid or instamatic photography. While you are watching the photo develop the blank space slowly becomes filled with the image. From absence to wholeness. But unfortunately that’s where it ends (or does it?).

Musically Samuel Barber’s Adagio For Strings captures these notion especially at the climax where there is a great silence/pause which punctuates the sound.

or you may like the Choral version by one of my favorite vocal groups.

For the second review in this (hopefully) ongoing series. I’d like to draw your attention to a relatively new recording by Icelandic composer, Jóhann Jóhannsson, titled Orphée. Jóhannsson has composed for numerous films including the recent ARRIVAL and upcoming BLADE RUNNER 2024 as well as many solo studio recordings….. But of all his work so far the one that really stands out as a pinnacle in his oeuvre is this “solo” recording exploring the myth of Orphée/Orpheus.

The second track on the album:

This recording for Deutsche Grammophon records can, at first listen, be compared to Samuel Barber’s ADAGIO – but that is only in mood and temperament. When listening to this masterwork by Jóhannsson I find so many rich and wonderful feelings and ideas. I can feel like I’m wandering through a darkened hallway, arms outstretched, moving slow and gently feeling my way around the space. With continued listening I also feel a sense of gravity a tension that a very large bird may feel as it starts out in flight and slowly lifts itself from the earth. And in its flight feels the constant pull of the earth again even in it’s supposed freedom of soaring on the winds. Maybe it’s the speed at which the musical themes evolve throughout this 47 minute composition.

When thinking about this music, and the ideas, of Orpheus in the underworld wanting to bring back his love. I also begin to muse on the “warning” he is given to not look back and trust that his love Eurydice is behind him. And when he does look back – she is lost to him forever. This notion of not looking back is also found in the Bible story (Genesis 19) of Lot and his family as they flee Sodom and Gomorrah who were also warned to not look back. When Lot’s wife looks back she is turned into a pillar of salt. I further begin to wonder, what is this problem with looking back? It seems to be something we as humans do all the time. It is the cornerstone of memory. We don’t have memories of the future, do we? Or maybe we just haven’t learned to access those future memories. And looking back isn’t really all that bad. In the case of Orpheus the underworld can be compared to underground that where things are rooted – for plants literally. Underground is the foundation upon which we build our buildings and other man-made structures. It is not only a place for the dead. It seems that one could make the argument that Orpheus was looking back to his roots and very foundation for his wife – the gods had tricked him. In the case of lot with his wife turning to a pillar of salt. Salt is beneficial and necessary in all our diets it is also a preservative. So maybe her looking back actually made it possible for the rest of her family to be saved/preserved. These two examples may relate to the sense of gravity that I hear and feel in this music under the earth there is no escape from gravity and a pillar of rock/salt is so completely connected to the rest of the rock it cannot escape.

We all look back at some point in our lives. It is not a weakness. It is only human nature and inevitable. Orpheus, like Lot’s wife HAD to look back. And that may be the tension I hear and feel in the music – the desire to only look forward while feeling the pull to look back that is ultimately irresistible. So maybe the problem isn’t the looking back; as the warnings imply (and many bible scholars will try to teach), maybe these myths simply teach us of the cost. There is a cost and consequence to everything. It’s not a matter of good or bad but simply an understanding of exchange. And that thought is freeing and non-condemning like a bird in flight.

The final and only genuinely vocal track on the album:

These are the many things that drifted through my listening of this excellent album. All that being said, this music simply stops me in my tracks and forces me to listen, think, dream. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

TRACK LIST
1. Flight From The City
2. A Song For Europa
3. The Drowned World
4. A Deal With Chaos
5. A Pile Of Dust
6. A Sparrow Alighted Upon Our Shoulder
7. Fragment I
8. By The Roes, And By The Hinds Of The Field
9. The Radiant City
10. Fragment II
11. The Burning Mountain
12. De Luce Et Umbra
13. Good Morning, Midnight
14. Good Night, Day
15. Orphic Hymn