I’m becoming a curmudgeon and I’m not happy about it. I vacillate between the extremes, one day a sentimental fool, the next day, a hard-wired cynic. It’s not that illogical (or chemically imbalanced) when you consider that cynicism tends to be the flip side of idealism. You’d think I’d embrace this by now — that life is an exercise in contrasts — the gorgeous with the mundane, the compassionate with the cruel, the tequila with the salt. (Actually, I take mine no-salt.)
Itten’s Contrasts – An Old Bauhaus Trick
I was in another metamorphosis this morning, my giant insect self turning human again when I came upon the concept of Itten’s Contrasts in a photography book by Michael Freeman, The Photographer’s Eye (great book, by the way). Johannes Itten was a Bauhaus instructor who identified contrasts as the main element of composition.
If you’ve studied arts or graphics you’re no doubt familiar with this idea. Itten taught students to identify contrasting elements: long/short, high/low, black/white, much/little (and so on). Freeman suggests photographers start the exercise by pairing two photographs, each containing an element that contrasts with the other. The exercise progresses to including both contrasting elements in one photograph. For example:
Horizontal:
Train at Alviso - ©ingridtaylar
Vertical:
At Morro Bay - ©ingridtaylar
Horizontal and Vertical:
Powerlines at Palo Alto Baylands - ©ingridtaylar
Itten and Creative Absolutes
So, Itten got me thinking . . . about the absolutes, the boxes, the frames that keep people constrained to an identity or a style. It’s something I think about frequently. One of the earliest mandates for a writer is to find “your voice” and stick to it. Or as one blogging advice column suggested, “decide who you are and stay there. Readers want to know who they’re going to find when they land on your blog.” Which is to say, Sybil should forget about her page views.
But what if your voice is a representation of Itten’s contrasts? What if, as in my case, you are overwhelmed almost daily with the brilliance that is the world around us . . . but simultaneously confronted with the abject chaos or cruelty as it pertains to that brilliance . . . then delighted by the cosmic humor that never fails to flatten you in your worst moments?
It’s a tough equation to resolve, even if more enlightened selves than my-self have managed this conundrum throughout time. Of course, your voice, who you are is a constant, even if that constancy is a duality. In terms of life’s contrasts, there’s a centeredness born of genuine acceptance that I confess, I haven’t achieved. I don’t know if I will. In spite of my best intentions, I keep coming back to a quote I once found from Krishnamurti. He apparently said: “It is not a sign of good mental health to be well-adjusted to a profoundly sick world.”
Well, that’s a lovely sentiment. It’s either the precise justification I need for my vacillating existence or a reason to string myself up from the chandelier. The thing is, I don’t have a chandelier. And even Kafka’s Gregor could pretend he wasn’t an insect when he was flailing upside down with his giant beetle legs in the air. So what I’m getting at, if I could just get to the point, is that dichotomies are the composition of life . . . and they’ll make for nice pictures, too. And if you come to this blog and the voice sounds more like a wood rot fungus than a human, consider yourself a guest in the realm of Itten.
On that note, I’ve never actually explored Itten’s Contrasts photographically. So, over the next few weeks, I’ll be making my way through the list. And if you’re also so inspired, send me your pics and I’ll post them.
- First item: Point/Line. Separate photos, then the elements together in one photo.
