In an earlier post of mine I used the following Chuck Close quote:
I think one of the problems with learning to be a photographer is that you have instant wholeness.
I was reminded of that when reading an article, The Mason’s Apprentice by PZ Meyers from Seed Magazine (Oct 24, 2008):
No one wants to be an architect because they’re interested in the physics of nails and screws and glue and mortar. But as stirring as it can be to contemplate a great piece of architecture — it’s easy to imagine Brunelleschi’s excitement as he first contemplated the stunning dome he was to build on Florence’s Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore — and as much fun as it can be to design a dream house, no architect will ever realize a vision without an understanding of how to join a structure’s materials.
Biology has a similar problem. Much of modern developmental biology has a bias for grand visions of form and structure. Our major model organisms are creatures like fruit flies and mice and zebrafish, but these are the elaborate edifices of evolution, far out on the extreme edge of multicellular complexity. While it is both interesting and productive to study the grand patterns of development in producing such wonderful phenomena as the outline of the body plan in the expression of Hox genes, or the growth of limbs, or the functional anatomy and physiology of intricate sensory organs like the eye, these processes all hinge on the most fundamental pieces of ontogeny: the mechanisms by which cells can adhere, interact, and cooperate. These are the nails and glue of the development and evolution of multicellular organisms. And, just as Brunelleschi’s greatest achievement began not with a grand plan, but with expert knowledge of the simple brick, we can better understand those processes if we look away from the mice and turn our eyes to simpler, humbler creatures, ones that have mastered the crucial skills of cellular masonry.
As a compositor, I am a “mason” — as are artists in all(?) other forms of art. But (straight) photography … ? Is photography the only creative process that is “instantly whole”?
-Julie
