Beacon

Las Palmas, Gran Canaria (2025)

One day while I was walking the streets of Las Palmas in Gran Canaria with a group of other artists, I happened to notice one who would stop periodically, point her camera up, into the sun, at the edge of a non-descript building. I asked her what she could possibly be photographing. She just smiled and carried on. While we were taking a break at a local café, she pulled out her camera and scrolled through the pictures she had taken to show exactly what she had seen that I had missed.

The simplicity of her angles and objects, the way the sun backlit it up, the geometric lines. I had been so focused on composition, on balance, on the law of three that I had blocked my ability to see all of these in the barest of views.

An interesting or pretty picture is nice in and of itself, but those kinds of images always seem to me to be lacking. Leo Tolstoy would say that if the artist does not express feeling as he has experienced it with his art, the "result will not be a work of art but a work of counterfeit art". For me, these are the pieces that I see in a museum as I stroll by, overcome by the sense of limited time that I want to spend only on those pieces that speak to me. I never stop to take in the whole piece; I never think about what the artist might have been trying to say. They are the kinds of pieces I've seen staged in a house for sale. I don't expect anything too deep, and I don't get too involved.

I want more from my art, from myself. John Constable, a late 18c/early 19c landscape painter in the Romantic style, famous for his cloud studies, once said "We see nothing truly until we understand it."

I wish I were the person who could look at something and instantly find meaning in it. I am not. I must think on things, contemplate them, research them, and analyze them before I am led to understand them. Too often I'm forced to move through a space quickly, and thus rush to point at something which draws my attention and click the shutter of my camera as often as I can, hoping that something will reveal itself to me later. I have created more and better works by this happy accident approach than I have by trying to contrive still life or direct a scene. So, is it me choosing the subject, or the subject choosing me, at this moment?

I have to believe that there is some force at play that first pulls me to an object--a color, a shape, a play between two things, the way the light falls--then assures the settings of the camera are right (or wrong if you're the professional looking for the perfect shot), then finally presents itself to me on the computer and literally speaks to me. This isn't the end of it, though. Then I deconstruct the image, look at its variable parts. Try to see into and beyond the instant image, and understand why it is that I took that particular photo. What is it trying to communicate to me. Frida Kahlo's unique style had a foundation in symbolism, metaphor and story, not to mention pain. And, while I don't for a minute mean to presume that I can compare my art with that of Kahlo or Constable, I think there must be something to it.

This photo is such an image. The red sky shocks me. I didn't arrange for this, I can't explain it, and I didn't change it through processing. Red is intense. It is the color of fire and attention, destruction and judgement. It symbolizes conflict, transition and foreboding. It draws me in. There is texture, emphasized (not added) through processing, but not like any normal sky, appearing wavy, unbalanced, crumpled even, like collage paper. Pasted on. A secondary thought with the intent to draw the eye, allow it focus, prepare it, before it moves to take the whole image in. Look at me, it says. It hangs--suspended, disconnected, looming--over a structure that is geometric in shape, giving a hint at the ancient and Moorish influence. But here, the angles and color variations appear as an unsophisticated and amateurish attempt at creating depth and dimensionality. It is flat, uncomplicated; simple and underdeveloped. This was intentional, but I didn't anticipate the full effect. The object itself is clear. A very old structure with thick stone walls and piers covered in stucco, colonial; faintly Romanesque, faintly Andalusian. I know that it is a church or a chapel because the cross reaching up from the peak of the roof is what caught my attention in the first place. It is primitive, hand carved, plain and rustic--unadorned. It doesn't require decoration or embellishment to serve its purpose. It doesn't ask that you treasure it, only revere it for the symbol that it is. And this is where its power lies. To many it is the embodiment of religion, to others it is a mere beacon, a guiding, and a warning, signal. Hope and salvation light the way--each to his own. What I wouldn't have seen through the viewfinder, though, was how the red sky would bath, wash, the cross in its light. But the red doesn't completely obliterate the rays of the sun, coming from the left, clipping the very tip and corner of the peak and reaching, as it were, to the cross to hold it steadfast in its grip. The sun is high, consuming the inner side of the next peak, giving way to the thought of time arrested, time passing.

Why did I see the cross, above me? Why did I point my camera at it. From the photos taken around this one I see that I was wandering up and down the streets of Las Palmas. I remember that day. I was alone, without the group, looking for my own inspiration. I would have stopped, looking up at the cross, perhaps taking a moment to meditate on the day, on opportunity to be where I was, on the solitary moments, deciding if this was something I wanted to capture. Then I would have lifted my camera, pushed the shutter release button, perhaps I would have looked at the monitor to decide if another photo was needed. It wasn't. Then I walked on. In all the months since I took this photo, I never once gave it a second thought. Until today. Why was today different? What did I see in the image today that I hadn't seen before.

I can't answer that, except to wonder whether it was the same force that drew my attention to the image in the first place. This is not my typical style of photograph. Perhaps I wasn't ready for what this image had to say to me before. My work is changing, and I have been hesitant with it of late. I'm looking for something different, something unique, but I want to hold on to what came before, what remains constant as I step in and out of pace with the world around me. This is the story of this photograph.

For more insight, you might enjoy What is Art? by Leo Tolstoy and See What You're Missing by Will Gompertz.