cliffbriggie's photostream  

CONTEMPLATIVE PHOTOGRAPHY and TRANSIENT ART

THANK YOU for visiting my photography site! And, i am very appreciative of your taking the time to read about my work.

THE WORK.......I make photographic images by opening heart and mind to their naturally wakeful state—a vivid, raw, intimate experience—like licking honey from a razor blade and not backing away. Choice of subject is guided by what flickr colleague Brad Wise calls the hidden energies within ordinary objects. This has helped me to take myself less seriously, accept that everything changes--and eventually ends--and realize that extraordinary and ordinary both manifest from the same essential energy.

The viewer brings his own openness and life to his collision with art and artist, and finds resonance, annoyance, recognition, excitement, or boredom. Or, as my young friends say, It is what it is and It's all good.

I have been inspired by a line from Rilke's poem THE WAY IN: Whoever you are, some evening take a step out of your house, which you know so well, enormous space is near........ Rilke wants us to see that infinite space is right in the midst of our ordinary, day-to-day life. Step out, he says. See the extraordinary in the ordinary! Then, familiarity gives way to shock and awe as we come eye to eye with life's inconceivable spaciousness and vastness--existing alongside the world we know so well--reveals itself. We may become confused in that moment, as well, and ask: is this nonsense, clear seeing, fantasy, or the true nature of reality?

Often asked about my water and ice images Is it real or is it Photoshop? the answer, almost always, is This is how it really is. A photograph captures a MOMENT--too brief to see. Within the moment is a FLASH--color, form, or movement--always different, always extraordinary. A photograph FREEZES the moment. Ice, light, and water move, morph, flash, and change. Little pieces of paint take on a life of their own, suddenly exploding, colors streaming everywhere--CLICK--and then, they are gone forever. It is at once so breathtaking, heartbreaking, and compelling that I have missed more than a shot or two.

THE PHOTOGRAPHER ....... From 1972-74, I studied with David Kelly at the University of Connecticut School of Fine Arts and learned what makes a picture deserve to be called photographic art. Next I studied with Siegfried Halus and learned about developing personal vision. I was in a group show at the Matrix Gallery in Hartford (1973) and in a juried show at the Wadsworth Atheneum (1974). The latter competition was judged by Paul Caponigro, one of my photographic heroes. Other influences were Minor White, Wynn Bullock, Duane Michaels, and Jerry Uelsmann. I worked exclusively with black and white film.

In 1974 I began a career in clinical psychology, which continues today. I also began to explore other artistic media--paint, chalk pastel, pencil, and collage--starting in 1979. My photographic work was mostly limited to snapshots--kids growing up and life passing by.

Around 2006, I got a wild hair across my mind and decided to resume photography. Older, and surely no wiser, I stopped using b/w film and went over to the dark side of color digital. Since then I have created new photographs every day, experiencing a palpable and treasured insistence to do so.


cbriggie@comcast.net