Passion, Ecstasy, and the Heart-o-meter: The Way of Dionysus.

You bet your ass I do Luis. I don't show people here on PN but for the years I have done portraits and weddings and head shots trying to breathe life in every picture I do. My most abject failure was a wedding I did years ago when the whole wedding party showed up so hung over they could barely stand for the ceremony. It was a dour group when I previously met them, anyway. I got no joy because there was none only mild hostility that I tried not to capture among the principles until they later got to the reception to get a liquid recharge. Then I got a bunch of recharged fuzzy feeling, drifty people. It was out of doors by the sea on a beautiful day but I got only a bunch of somber, pained faces in all of that sunshine. I failed. I thought I could make anyone react but on that day I could not. But outside of that I think I do pretty well with people. I do a little street stuff that I don't show and I have a forlorn but colorful woman outside a coffee shop on a ten degree day freezing while trying to drink her coffee and smoke while through the window there was a non-smoking couple regaling themselves in that very close warmth but oh so far away. I like that picture and someday I might post it. I used to take great delight in photographing local politicians at their very worst when I could capture. That was my passion.

I think we have to be careful here. It's a great subject but also a specific one. Not everything human is passionate or ecstatic. Not everything intimate shows passion. And most importantly, just because a photographer may approach his work passionately doesn't mean he will show, convey, or his photos will embody passion in any way, nor should they. I think passion is incredible when found in a photograph or painting, sculpture, etc. I also think it's extremely rare. I think many photographers are quite passionate about their work but not really trying to and certainly not succeeding in showing passion. Not to dump on Ansel Adams again but I'd guess he was extremely passionate about his photographing and darkroom work and yet his photos come across as passionless, though because of the level of craft he achieved we can imagine the kind of passion with which he must have done his work.

I strive toward it but haven't yet achieved it, I think. I associate passion and ecstasy with something religious/spiritual/transcendent. In a sense, it's where the spiritual and sexual (maybe sensual) meet. For me to achieve what I'm after in the way of passion will require more abandonment. That will require more comfort with my tools, for one. But more importantly, it will require getting out of my head, and a kind of letting go. It's more about orgasm than foreplay. It's less considered and less of all the things Luis mentioned. The only thing I'll say there is that I've wondered, being somewhat philosophical and logically bent myself, if one can be passionate about those things and, not just feel it or be it, but SHOW IT photographically.

Sorry Fred. I am obviously in over my head. I don't think I am on your level. What I have felt is a passionate commitment to many of my brides and a strong emotional bond that allowed me to fall in love for one day to get expressions of real emotion from them that truly showed in their pictures. I don't post those.. I will leave this discussion to those more qualified to discuss it.

I recall nodding my head while first watching the 1984 film "Amadeus." The villain (not counting Mozart's own self-destructive rock star ways) is Antonio Salieri. A workmanly classical composer, he's enthralled by music and can identify passion and greatness in others' works. But he finds he's not been equipped with the spark, the skills, or whatever inner vision and ability it is that allows his ridiculous, punk-like peer, Mozart, to - with a breezy lightness of spirit - whip out masterpieces like a casual burp after a gratifying dinner. Salieri notes this irony (Mozart does not appear to appreciate his own DNA and circumstances) with a sarcastic thank you to capricious divine providence. Grazie, Signore. He's cursed with knowing passion and easy ectasy and great expression when he sees it, and with being observant enough to know he doesn't himself have it, nor will.

This is why I never have nor ever will personally dance. But I sure like to watch when it's done right.

But I think I can see some light at the end of a very long tunnel. It's the germinating, inkling beginning of an awareness of what it will feel very good (perhaps even ecstatic) to express, via photography. But like Salieri, I know my artsy limits (even if I think they will expand, yet). And so I for now still deliberately avoid what I expect would be a sourly disappointing stumble in the direction of publicly seen, passion-driven, ectasy-minded expression that would surely fail my own standards. So I stick with the more workmanly stuff, and it sticks with me.

But unlike the film's fictional-liberties-taken Salieri, I make no attempts to bump off those young punks who come by it all so naturally. :-)

As Fred was saying, there is a difference between being passionate about your work and showing passion in the work. I can say that I have always been very passionate about my photography. When I am working at it I try to achieve a balance between the “craft,” which takes conscious thought and deliberate decision-making, with letting the creative, inspirational part of me control what I’m doing as well. I find that when I work this way I get the most satisfying results, at least for me. This means I also have to “trust my unconscious” because I’m letting that part of myself into the equation, so when I press the shutter it is often during moments that precede any conscious recognition of what I’m doing. Its just part of the "flow." This whole process feels very spiritual to me and for that reason, passionate as well. I don’t know if people see this in my work but that’s the way it works for me.

Passion is important in the creative person, I think, because it acts to disrupt the rational cognitive process and effectively drives the person, often against a pre-defined will, in directions that he might not otherwise take. It may be a component of making a work that embodies passion or ecstasy, but I believe that that result can likely also be created by someone who is not particularly passionate yet may have a particular talent and insight for creating passion in a work.

I don't fully know how a work embodying passion is created. It is probably not just the result of showing persons in passionate disposition or displaying the emotion of passion in some common way. I think the passion or ecstasy has to arrive by a much more subtle and powerful route. I see some passion in Boubat's photo of the little girl draped with fallen leaves in the Jardin du Luxembourg of Paris, or in his photo of his girlfriend (Léla?), or in Capa's falling soldier in the Spanish revolution, or in the photo of HCB near the end of his life with his favorite little granddaughter by his side (I forget the photographer). These are just quickly remembered examples that may be superseded by others more powerful, given more time to think about it.

I think we may be more apt to produce the quality of passion or ecstasy in images that are of people or places that are closest to our experience, if only because that familiarity can lead us more decidedly to explore in greater depth and curiosity our chosen subjects. Yes, exploration and the desire behind it is probably key in the quest of some images exhibiting passion, but I don't also ignore the wild and non-Cartesian approach of a highly passionate person as leading to a similar result. In one of Moravia's books, a spy acting counter to his supposed allegiance, in betraying a girl from his side, is overcome with uncontrolled desire for the girl and cannot take his eyes off her, prompting the girl to think "he never took his eyes from my bosom...I think that those two dark spots at their end were enough to make him forget Tsarism, revolution, ideology, political thoughts and betrayal. Such sexual passion is but one of many types of passion, physical or intellectual, that can also be integral to passages in a book, poem, musical score or picture. Probably very few images or their creators can achieve that, or may do so occasionally by improvisation or accident.

I've been searching my mind for photos that are passionate/ecstatic. Not coming up with anything right away. My storehouse of photographic references isn't nearly as clear to me as with music and painting. So, I'll offer THIS, by Goya.

I wanted to add, and I'm sure this isn't universal, but I would tend to look at color work for passion.

I think we lean towards the Apollonian when discussing here - I'm not sure whether that extends by definition to our actual photos or intents in making photos. Or, for that matter, describing how one experiences a photo (or any piece of art) - it's still considerably different from the actual experience.
Though, in my case - I think the Apollonian applies. Passion and ecstasy ring bells which for me do not find their way to my photos. As Fred, I think colour, but also a richness, dynamics, lightness, abundance, joy; something that radiates a lot of energy. While I tend to end up with solitude, austere, mathematical and structured, frequently dark and not overtly happy, I think.

Would I value it, if it was there? I think I would - if one manages to transmit that passion, the exstatic feel, it would be incredibly powerful communication. I do not see myself arriving there any time soon, though, and not a lot of photos come to mind. But I think I see it in this photo (exstacy, that is). And a non-photographic example.