Lecture 3

Seeing

Never has it been more urgent to speak of SEEING. Ever more gadgets, from cameras to computers, from art books to videotapes, conspire to take over our thinking, our feeling, our experiencing, our seeing. Onlookers we are, spectators…”Subjects” we are,… (2)

;…I asked the rhetorical question WHO IS MAN THE ARTIST? And answered it by saying: HE IS THE UNSPOILED CORE OF EVERYMAN, BEFORE HE IS CHOKED BY SCHOOLING, TRAINING, CONDITIONING UNTIL THE ARTIST - WITHIN SHRIVELS UP AND IS FORGOTTEN (x).

SEEING/DRAWING is not a self-indulgence, a “pleasant hobby,” but a discipline of awareness, of UNWAVERING ATTENTION to a world which is fully alive (8)

-- Frederick Franck, The Zen of Seeing

The Contemplative Photographer

Thus mindfulness is also about being aware of and appreciating the ordinary, of being open to beauty and insights in the commonplace (24).

Our gender, culture, ethnicity, and personal and collective histories all profoundly shape how we know and what we know, and in ways that are often difficult to bring to consciousness. Humility calls us, then, to a deep appreciation for and openness to others’ realities and to new revelations (72).

…all photographs are a kind of exchange or collaboration. And when we collaborate, we have obligations - to treat all respectfully, to be accountable to our subjects (72).

-- Howard Zehr, The Little Book of Contemplative Photography

Contemplation - Perspectives

CCMIS

Thomas Merton (1915 - 1968)

Howard Thurman (1899 – 1981)

• Are these perspectives in any way applicable to the lives of first-year students at Notre Dame?

Contemplative Photographs

Examples

by Hugh R. Page, Jr.

Photo copyright Hugh R. Page, Jr. Some rights reserved. CC-BY-NC-SA

Natural / Local Symbols of the Labyrinthine Journey

Photographs by Hugh R. Page, Jr.

Questions

1. Is learning a way of seeing, framing, and sketching?
2. Are the responsibilities of the student-scholar akin to those of the artist and photographer?
3. Do our life circumstances shape the paths we take on our educational journeys?