On science, art and the noble savage
Ever since I read One River by Wade Davis, many years ago, the figure of Richard Evans Schultes has held great fascination for me. Ethnobotanist, adventurer, activist and supporter of indigenous causes, Schultes led a life that those of us with a taste for travel and remote places can only be jealous of.
He also happened to be a decent photographer. Schultes liked to keep things simple and ventured in the field with no more than a Rolleiflex fitted with a standard, non-removable 80mm f2.8 lens – a standard lens. We are talking about the 1950s. His ‘ethnobotanicophotographic’ journey, complete with abundant hallucinogenic experiences – just read One River – took no less than 12 years of full immersion in mostly unmapped areas of South America. That’s a long time in the field even for someone who wouldn’t have felt out of place on a Victorian expedition.
The Lost Amazon: the photographic journey of Richard Evans Schultes, published by Thames & Hudson a few years ago, tells of Schulte’s remarkable adventure and includes a collection of his most iconic images. Page after page, the trademark square format of the Rolleiflex acts like a B&W window to a world of extraordinary people living in the wild South American interior. A shaman harvesting psychotropic yagé, a leathery old woman in ritual regalia, a healer gathering medicinal leaves, they all come alive again in Schultes’ images.
However, it could be argued that the photographs that Schultes took resonate, not too comfortably, with the myth of the Noble Savage. The Amazon that he captured with his Rolleiflex was already lost by the time he arrived there. People in his photographs, to all intent and purposes, were captured in an eternal state of grace. As an evocative, visual human taxonomy of place they work beautifully. As documents for social change they don’t. Perhaps it is good enough and legitimate enough a purpose to record that which is on the verge of disappearing if only to make future generations aware of what we are about to lose. Photography excels at that.
Taping the myth of the Noble Savage is a proven and successful formula. Think of Edward S. Curtis images of disappearing Native Americans, taken 50 years before Schulte’s was getting trench foot in the Amazon. Or David Bruce’s photographs of San hunter-gatherers of the Kalahari, captured half-a-century after Schulte’s returned to the USA and sold by Finch & Co as collector’s items even though they’re only 10 years old.
The Noble Savage is a powerful symbol. It elicits strong emotions which ethically managed can be of great help to good causes, as it is the case in the audiovisual presentation by Survival Mine: story of a sacred mountain. Incidentally, this short multimedia presentation, as well as the other ones on Survival’s website are good examples of mixed-media environments. The moving image on many of Survival’s videos has the visual quality of stills.
Anyway, I’m allowing myself to get side-tracked. The topic of this post is not the idea of the Noble Savage or the exploits of an Indiana Jones-like character such as Richard Evans Schultes. I’m writing this post because Schultes strikes me as the objective, rational scientist who, perhaps tired of remaining detached in his research, embraced photography, art, as a vehicle for self-expression. And we know this is the case because Schultes did not remain the observing, non-participatory body in his scientific endeavours. Photography was the natural medium to express his admiration, his love really, for the people he met.
And that’s what the topic of this post really is about: scientists embracing art. Because my own experience at the OCA over the last four years has given me the opportunity to be the tutor of many scientists, engineers, people with technical backgrounds who, perhaps feeling a little suffocated by stifling positivist science, are looking for a subjective medium to express themselves: photography.
Are you one of them? If so, tell us about your experience of a environment, photography, where self-expression and subjectivity are always encouraged.
17 thoughts on “On science, art and the noble savage”
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An engineer? Oh yes. But one caught between the right side and the left side – I studied art before turning to engineering to make some money. And having worked for 20+ years in engineering, I’m now looking back to the creative side to free myself from rigid rules of right and wrong. Or maybe that should be true and false, pass and fail…
Anyway, despite my search for the creative side of things, I do find that my images are perhaps more objective than subjective. Not always by any means, but there’s a certain prosaic-ness about many of my photographs – and I’m writing this post now as a displacement activity away from the “an impartial view” write-up for YoP. I do still feel creative though….
I think photography is particularly interesting in this regard as it balances precariously on the fault line between the two cultural tectonic plates of art and science, benefiting in its practice from an aptitude for both modes of thinking.
As Jose points out many of our students appear to come from scientific, or quasi scientific backgrounds and I seem to spend quite a lot of my time introducing them to what one could characterise as non-Newtonian thinking, full of doubts, uncertainties, unpredictable outcomes and variables where constants are expected.
Having had a foot in both domains since my early teens I appreciate their initial discombobulation; which sometimes manifests itself as irked repudiation.
Both modes of thinking are powerful when applied appropriately, preferably in concert, to the endeavour.
Clive
Does not R.Barthes having something to say in regard to all this?
At the end of Camera Lucida, he briefly discusses the relationship between art and photography.
Story of a Sacred Mountain is a powerful film and I felt sad watching it to think of the polarity between the Company and the tribal people – both worshipping the same things – rocks – for different reasons. It made me think about the film Avatar and how many people I know were affected by it. I hope I’ not going off the point here – it’s that gap between extreme objectivity and empathy. I don’t have a scientific background as such but I think that my better images have been made when I have felt right in the moment and my camera just happened to be there, like a third eye.
Strangely enough, I studied Gestalt Psychotherapy for five years and struggled with ‘being in the moment’ because I was too used to analysing people’s behaviour and attitudes. However, since starting AOP I’ve been aware of drifting more often into that slightly altered state of consciousness where time seems to stand still. I’m wondering now if any other photography students have the same experience.
Hi Catherine
I have run workshops about meditation where the emphasis was on discovering the moment. In fact, one workshop was called Enter the Moment (if that sounds like Kung Fu Bruce Lee style so much the better!).
While one may come to understand this moment, one’s initial experience is likely to be transitory. Is there a way to sustain it?
It seems to me meditation can make that possible yet meditation is a term with a multitude of associations most of them having nothing to do with meditation. The place where I studied meditation used to run gestalt based therapies as an introduction to meditation but at sometime one has to wave good bye to conceptual frameworks and say hello to the champagne fizz of one’s own cells.
Religion and philosophy to say nothing of other disciplines such as theology have done much to obscure the inherent simplicity of meditation which can be considered an art as well as a science; this brings me back to the gist of Jose’s article in which photography is being seen as a combination of both art and science.
What about meditation as an OCA module? I feel it could be fitting yet not sure in what way it might correspond to distance learning. Perhaps more of a study aid than a course in its’ own right … !!
I agree with you about meditation Amano and I like the idea of the ‘champagne fizz’. I was talking with one of the other OCA students the other day about how you can get into that meditative state in photography. It’s a timeless feel where nothing matters but the focus/figure. I mused about the idea of photographic retreats in a place with wonderful scenery. Strangely enough I’ve now organised a few days away on my own in the Peak District for later in the year.
I have meditated with others in a group setting which gives a different experience from solo meditation and used to set aside time on my own but I seem to have lost the impetus for it. You’ve reminded me of its benefits.
Meditation as an OCA module? An interesting suggestion. I might have to think about that for a while to get my head around the idea.
Once you have got your head around it, it has gone!!?
Can photography lead one into a meditative moment? Thats’ an interesting question and if you read someone like Henri C-B then it does seem possible.
My understanding is that photography expresses this elusive moment and that it part of it’s value as a medium.
… a philosophical question, really, but one which is relevant to photography. But I would say that it is the other way around; it is the meditative moment that can lead one to taking a particular photograph.
Meditative moment–>introspection–>intention–>photograph. I think that we are trying to articulate a process that is not meant to be explained but felt. Amano, you know exactly what I mean.
This is also linked with intuition. That hard-to-define concept which, in my opinion, has nothing to do with innate skills. On the contrary, it is the result of extremely fined-tuned sensitivity which can only be developed with practice.
Within the context of photography they call it ‘having a good eye for photographs’… again, I don’t think it’s anything innate in anyone.
Going off-topic a bit but that’s the beauty of these forums: they foster discussions not anticipated by the post writer.
‘my better images have been made when I have felt right in the moment and my camera just happened to be there’ (Catherine)
‘Is there a way to sustain it?’ (Amano)
I don’t know about sustaining it but perhaps holding and viewing that physical image, the result of the ‘moment’, allows us to revisit and re-enter that contemplative state.
Great article,but why cannot it be written in a less technical
way with words that are plain english,words that we can understand and even perhaps pronounce.Just keep what you are trying to say in plain english terms,even the replys were baffleing to say the least.Great article,keep the words simple.
The use of long (and sometimes wrong words) is to get the reader to believe that the writer knows what he/she is talking about and that they are more important. In reality too often it is a sign that the writer has serious self confidence issues or doubts about what has been written.
Long words also have the benefit of hiding the fact the the content of the piece is generally poor and fails to directly address the issue.
Having worked in the Civil Service for 35 years the above is based on a great deal of first hand experience.
I find Jose’s article easy to understand but then as a photography student that is perhaps understandable. Yes, at the beginning, he mentions the details of the camera used since that is relevant (bit like mentioning the kind of material an artist used) but beyond that I can not see a stress on the technical!
What Jose is saying though is challenging of our preconceptions of photography as an art based media! Photography is also a scientific tool albeit a slightly more limited one than we might assume it to be.
Thanks for your erudition Jose!
Yet another expensive post from Jose – just ordered the book from abebooks – any chance of recommending crap books in future please 😉
I worked in IT for 16 years, yearning to be a photographer and escape from computers. So here I am 17 years later, at a computer… I spend loads more time here than I do shooting 🙁
I agree with the art/science balance of photography, but I’d throw a third element into the mix – communication. Emotional, psychological, personal, conceptual, surreal – whatever is within your intent and your final images. I see the art and science as facilitators for communication…
I think you’re right Derek. Is this moving as well into photography in its narrative sense?
Expensive book? Have just bought a new copy for just under £10 incl P+P from Amazon!
One can read some of this book on Amazon …
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Lost-Amazon-Photographic-Journey-Schultes/dp/0500285241
As someone who photographs birds (presently in the process of completing my third photographic book on the subject) Jose’s article strikes a chord. Too often I find myself caught between those who say I should be an ornithologist (the “photography is just a means of representation” argument) and others who say I should be an artist (the “photography does not have to relate directly to the real” argument).
For me the OCA is a place where I can attempt to understand this dichotomy.