Friday, 14th
September, 2012
Left Right Here
Aughris/Dunmoran, Sligo
Copyright Mark King 2012
Wednesday 31 October 2012
Tuesday 30 October 2012
40 IRELAND - The Quiet, The Green, The Clean Empty Waves
Friday, 14th
September, 2012
Easkey, Sligo
Dreams of riding 3’-4’ clean,
smooth left handers at Easkey Left are disappearing. Since we have been here it
seems the wind has been blowing, blowing strong and blowing in the wrong
direction. Today seems no exception.
We drove across late
yesterday afternoon from Lackan
Bay after checking a
couple other spots. The wind, whilst coming from the southwest was strong but
hadn’t completely ripped apart the waves. Last night it switched, broad siding
us with north westerlies. Rain lashed down in droves and a restless night was
had. It’s beginning to depress me.
The sun is shining this morning
but I feel rain is inevitable. We need to find a computer and check the wind
for the next few days.
In 11 days I have had 1 day
of near perfect waves. Oh the wind!
Having had a brief look at a
swell chart it looks like we should be getting plenty of swell but with it the
wind which ranges from west to southwest through to northwest and strong
whichever direction.The only thing to do, I guess, is sit it out.
I wonder if Shaun’s around.
Aughris/Dunmoran
The corner of the beach offers us some shelter
but again no-one is in. A couple of guys have checked it but both have left.
One guy was Irish; the other I think was Ozzie, although he may have been a
Kiwi because he seemed to be of Maori or Aborigine in descent.
Talking to the Ozzie (?) guy
he mentioned Kilcummin
Harbour. I should have
checked it out because it works on a westerly. It doesn’t matter how many times
I read this guide book I always seem to miss the obvious.
Lackan Bay is the
other side of Kilcummin
Harbour and I missed it.
On listening to them talk I
heard the Irish guy say that this beach is best surfed high or low and not
in-between, so for now I will wait. Although the guide book states it can be
surfed on all tides local knowledge is key and the book can misinform.
On The Spiritual
Vernon posits that to be hesitant in regards to religion
runs the risk of staying your spiritual life. It is possible to be spiritual
without being religious but you might not get very far. How can I align myself
with a religion such as Christianity when I hear of Koran burning bigots like
the American pastor I heard yesterday on the radio speaking in regards to the
recent anti-Islam film?
It is easy to love thy
neighbour when your neighbour belongs to the same group as yourself. However,
as Vernon goes
on to say this connection to your own is also likely to lead you to reject
those who are from a different group, as they are deemed a threat.
Sympathetic love was for
Plato thought to be morally admirable. To love your friends is easy; the true
moral hero would be the person who can love those with whom they have little
natural sympathy.
In the words of humanist
philosopher Marsilio Ficino (1433-99), calm your spirit. Then you will see the
power of the divine – of life – all around and flowing through you.
Bibliography
Cotton C, 2007 The Photograph As Contemporary Art Thames
& Hudson: London
De Botton A, 2003 The Art of Travel Penguin: London
Grunenberg C and Pih D, 2011 Magritte A to Z Tate/London
Newby E, 1995 A Book of Travellers’ Tales Pan Books
Ltd: London
Perlmutter D and Koppman D,
1999 Reclaiming the Spiritual in Art:
Contemporary Cross-cultural Perspectives State University
of New York Press: New York
Smyth D Editor, 2012 British Journal of Photography Oct Issue
7805
Sontag S, 2002 On Photography Penguin Group: London
Tolstoy L, 1969 What Is
Art? And Essays on Art London: University Press Oxford
Turner V, 1967 The Forest of Symbols Ithaca, NY: Cornell
University Press
Turner V, 1969 The Ritual Process Penguin 1969
Various, 1987 The Age of God-Kings 3000-1500 BC Time
Life Books: USA
Vernon M, 2012 God The
Big Questions Quercus: London
Mark King 2012
Monday 29 October 2012
39 IRELAND - The Quiet, The Green, The Clean Empty Waves
Thursday, 13th
September, 2012
Lackan Bay, Mayo
Woke up to a clean 1’-2’. Joy
With the day came the wind. Howling
westerlies blew off-shore making conditions very unfavourable. The wind I could
cope with but the waves mostly closed-out. Maybe later?
Progress – Vernon states is a relatively recent notion
that developed out of the Renaissance relating to “the organizing principle of
social life and human learning within the West”. (Vernon. 2012. P.61)
Francis Bacon (1561-1626) believed
that “we can no longer be “lookers on”, passive contemplators of Nature and her
mysteries, but must connect to this mission, to progress”. (Vernon. 2012. P63)
Yet for the most, it seems to me that we still seem to be passive observers as
photography and painting often highlight.
Bibliography
Cotton C, 2007 The Photograph As Contemporary Art Thames
& Hudson: London
De Botton A, 2003 The Art of Travel Penguin: London
Grunenberg C and Pih D, 2011 Magritte A to Z Tate/London
Newby E, 1995 A Book of Travellers’ Tales Pan Books
Ltd: London
Perlmutter D and Koppman D,
1999 Reclaiming the Spiritual in Art:
Contemporary Cross-cultural Perspectives State University
of New York Press: New York
Smyth D Editor, 2012 British Journal of Photography Oct Issue
7805
Sontag S, 2002 On Photography Penguin Group: London
Tolstoy L, 1969 What Is
Art? And Essays on Art London: University Press Oxford
Turner V, 1967 The Forest of Symbols Ithaca, NY: Cornell
University Press
Turner V, 1969 The Ritual Process Penguin 1969
Various, 1987 The Age of God-Kings 3000-1500 BC Time
Life Books: USA
Vernon M, 2012 God The
Big Questions Quercus: London
Copyright Mark King 2012
Sunday 28 October 2012
38 IRELAND - The Quiet, The Green, The Clean Empty Waves
Wednesday, 12th
September, 2012
Left Right Here
Lackan Bay, Mayo, Ireland
Copyright Mark King
Saturday 27 October 2012
37 IRELAND - The Quiet, The Green, The Clean Empty Waves
Wednesday, 12th
September, 2012
Crab – Not Reading a
Newspaper
Lackan Bay, Mayo
Copyright Mark King 2012
Friday 26 October 2012
36 IRELAND - The Quiet, The Green, The Clean Empty Waves
Wednesday, 12th
September, 2012
Lackan Bay, Mayo
Yesterday evening brought a
super clean wave in the corner of the bay. As the bay swept around the waves
grew in size with the wind having an effect. On the headland huge waves crashed
against the solid, immovable headland. It bode well for the morning but we were
greeted by north westerlies which as I look out of the van are having a
detrimental effect on the surface of the ocean. Whilst the swell has calmed
down chop is forming across the small waves. Maybe later?
Since finishing at university
I have adopted a system of rational thought when it comes to picture making.
This I feel maybe counter intuitive because rather than producing images that
are felt they are more thought. I think this is often the case with art rather
than producing feeling the work in front of you tends towards thought. Thought
tends to be rational. We take a step back and objectify. Whilst we may initially
adopt a Kantian perspective of first exercising judgements of beauty based on
taste we then begin to make judgements based on categorization, classification,
conceptualizing or intellectualizing. The latter set of criteria appears to me
to be related to modern science.
The camera is able to make, as William James
highlights, the ordinary become extraordinary but as Sontag sets out this
approach is part of photography’s historical perspective. Ultimately, for
Sontag the photograph, unlike painting can never truly transcend its subject or
the visual itself. Whilst the photograph discloses, the painter constructs. For
photography the “identification of the subject…always dominates our perception
of it” whereas this is not necessarily the case for painting, what is of
primary importance for photography is what the photograph is of and until the
viewer knows this Sontag believes that they are unable to react. (Sontag 2002 H Edgerton “Milkdrop Coronet” 1957 P92) In highlighting a image by Harold Edgerton (1903-90) Sontag states that what
looks like a bare coronet becomes more interesting when it is perceived as a
splash of milk. However, for me the image then becomes less interesting because
I know it is a splash of milk.
This notion brings to mind
the work of the Belgian surrealist artist Magritte (1898-1967) who questioned
the relationship between the image and the written word
Is changing the ordinary into
the extraordinary enough? What more can a photograph achieve? Maybe I need to
follow the manifesto Provoke by
Japanese photographers Takuma Nakahira (b. 1938), Daido Moriyama (b. 1938),
Yutaka Takanashi (b. 1935) and the writer Koji Taki (1928-2011) and implement
the transformation, “First, throw out
verisimilitude”.
On Objects
I have collected objects from
each site. These objects marked my taking a souvenir from each site of
pilgrimage.
If we look at Magritte and
his influence during the mid 1920s from the work of Giorgio de Chirico
(1888-1978) we see that he found the idea of “creating an image abstracted or
separated from a real object abhorrent”. (Grunenberg and Pih. 2011. P6) Whilst
Magritte’s ideas related to abstract, non-figurative or formless art, for me,
they can also relate to the photographic image hence the representation of the
found object with the photographic image.
In reference to Provoke does the work of Moriyama,
Nakahira, Takanashi, and Taki not reinforce Sontag’s view that “photographic
seeing has to be constantly renewed with new shocks, whether of subject matter
or technique, so as to produce the impression of violating ordinary vision”?
(Sontag. 2002. P99) As the work of the then Japanese avant-garde, Paul Strand
(1890-1976) and Edward Weston (1886-1958) become more assimilated their ways of
seeing simply become, as Sontag posits, a cliché.
What were Provoke attempting to battle? Was it the
photographic tendency towards beauty and order?
What Provoke seem to fit into is the then contemporary taste of the late
1970), as does the work of American photographer and filmmaker William Klein
(b. 1928) and as Sontag highlights the work of French photographer Atget
(1857-1927). This style of not being technically perfect goes against the
modernist view of Weston whom devoted himself to the perfect print.
Imperfect technique, as
Sontag sets out broke what she deemed the “sedate equation of Nature and
beauty”. (Sontag. 2002. P102) Rather than Nature fitting into what I would call
a Wordsworthian object of contemplation it has, for Sontag become more a
subject for indignation and a sentimental yearning for the past, a notion that
seems to point towards my project, “Left
Right Here”.
Whether it be the work of the
Bauhaus, Weston, Klein or Moriyama photography, to Sontag still beautifies and
even when the camera is cruel a different kind of beauty manifests itself. It
is to my mind the canon of beauty by which everyday people judge both
photographs and art.
From a socially conscious
point of view “Left Right Here” aims
to do what moralists demand from a photograph, that it speak. However, I do
feel that the written word should reinforce rather than take over, as the
example of Edgerton’s coronet shows. The two should compliment each other for
when the text explains, it can, I feel then diminish the power of the picture.
The text also limits, as Sontag states because it is only one interpretation.
Ultimately to photograph is
to produce what Sontag calls an “item for aesthetic appreciation”. (Sontag.
2002. P. 110)
Bibliography
Cotton C, 2007 The Photograph As Contemporary Art Thames
& Hudson: London
De Botton A, 2003 The Art of Travel Penguin: London
Grunenberg C and Pih D, 2011 Magritte A to Z Tate/London
Newby E, 1995 A Book of Travellers’ Tales Pan Books
Ltd: London
Perlmutter D and Koppman D,
1999 Reclaiming the Spiritual in Art:
Contemporary Cross-cultural Perspectives State University
of New York Press: New York
Smyth D Editor, 2012 British Journal of Photography Oct Issue
7805
Sontag S, 2002 On Photography Penguin Group: London
Tolstoy L, 1969 What Is
Art? And Essays on Art London: University Press Oxford
Turner V, 1967 The Forest of Symbols Ithaca, NY: Cornell
University Press
Turner V, 1969 The Ritual Process Penguin 1969
Various, 1987 The Age of God-Kings 3000-1500 BC Time
Life Books: USA
Vernon M, 2012 God The
Big Questions Quercus: London
Copyright Mark King 2012
Thursday 25 October 2012
35 IRELAND - The Quiet, The Green, The Clean Empty Waves
Tuesday, 11th
September, 2012
Easkey, Sligo
Last night brought the wind;
huge gusts rocked the van throughout. With it came the rain in swathes of
torrential downpours, falling like salvos of arrows, thousands of heavy arrows.
As soon as it would start, it would seem to stop.
So today we move along the
coast to Lackan Bay where I hope we get some shelter
from the on-shore winds.
I have been feeling a bit
perturbed, chasing waves hoping to find a clean ride-able wave but as Vernon states “the fruits
of the chase do not just feed the body. They also clothe the soul.” (Vernon.
2012. P. 40)
Lackan Bay, Mayo
Shelter, we have shelter. The
corner of the bay near the harbour has a clean ride-able wave, off-shore even.
Rain is falling now but in-between the showers the sun is shining and it was
sun that shone over the bay as we dropped down over the hill, filling our
vision with bright greens and blues. Large sea birds, maybe guillemots or
cormorants are diving for sand-eel or maybe baby mackerel just in front. Within
the stretch of these clean peeling waves no-one is to be found. The line-up is
empty.
Entering the water off the rocks
was again a bit nervy. Anticipation is always the biggest fear but in knowing
the bottom was sand and the nearest peak wasn’t to far away and feeling the cool
soft ocean helped relieve the nerves. It was good to get wet.
Bibliography
Cotton C, 2007 The Photograph As Contemporary Art Thames
& Hudson: London
De Botton A, 2003 The Art of Travel Penguin: London
Newby E, 1995 A Book of Travellers’ Tales Pan Books
Ltd: London
Perlmutter D and Koppman D,
1999 Reclaiming the Spiritual in Art:
Contemporary Cross-cultural Perspectives State University
of New York Press: New York
Sontag S, 2002 On Photography Penguin Group: London
Tolstoy L, 1969 What Is
Art? And Essays on Art London: University Press Oxford
Turner V, 1967 The Forest of Symbols Ithaca, NY: Cornell
University Press
Turner V, 1969 The Ritual Process Penguin 1969
Various, 1987 The Age of God-Kings 3000-1500 BC Time
Life Books: USA
Vernon M, 2012 God The
Big Questions Quercus: London
Copyright Mark King 2012
Wednesday 24 October 2012
34 IRELAND - The Quiet, The Green, The Clean Empty Waves
Monday, 10th
September, 2012
Left Right Here
Easkey Right, Sligo, Ireland
Copyright Mark King 2012
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