Vision is the art of seeing the invisible. Jonathan Swift

Sometimes if you look, you can see something. Yogi Berra
 
 

The camera is a mechanical passport that facilitates access to previously unknown or understood worlds. It is an agent of introduction into cultural spheres new or unfamiliar to its operator, a vehicle for discovering, identifying, recognizing, and learning systematic behaviors. However, the utility of the camera is contingent on the photographer's eye, or manner of seeing, and this vision is continually informed by one's social and ethnic background, personal experiences, and sensibilities. Furthermore, these factors act as cultural filters, sorting, categorizing, and sifting out visual information that contributes to the creation of a new reality within the frames of the celluloid.

The practice of photographing human activity, whether to evoke, elucidate, or communicate symbols, gestures, feelings, or actions, requires self-awareness and acute attentiveness of one's surroundings. My experience has been that photographing a person or group of persons in such a way as to depict their lives-feelings, actions, events--with dignity and respect, requires that I feel compassion and interest for the subject at hand. Furthermore, I must be able to persuade the subject of the veracity of this concern. My view is that the successful photograph is that image that conveys the notion that the photographer became sufficiently visually conversant with the subject and was able to depict the subject without exoticizing or denigrating it.

There is the notion that successful photographs are those images that net the photographer celebrity, accolades, and/or remuneration, and usually these do so at the expense of the subject, who frequently does not receive compensation. A newspaper editor once suggested that the photographer could ask two questions regarding the moral efficacy of taking or publishing a potentially controversial picture: Is the event it portrays of such social or historical significance that the shock is justified? Is the objectionable detail necessary for a proper understanding of the event?12 These questions, however, provoke other questions of ethics: Who will be the arbiter of propriety? Who decides what is socially useful for the public? How does one define what a proper level of understanding is, and to whom does this apply?

A Pulitzer Prize winning photograph of a small Sudanese girl shadowed by a vulture attracted much political and social attention. Viewers were horrified at the infant's plight, prompting social forces to mobilize and assertively address war and famine in Africa. On the other hand, it was later revealed that the photographer watched the girl struggle for twenty minutes, in hopes of capturing on film the vulture spreading his wings over the baby.13How did the photographer define moral responsibility and how did he determine the justification of waiting to make his picture? The issues of ethical photographic depiction and moral responsibility are important ones, but their examination extends beyond the scope of this research. Nevertheless, I argue that if a scrupulous ethnographer conducts research for socially useful applications, his or her photographic actions will reflect a concern for the dignity of the subject.

Although I understood the importance of representing the subject in such a manner, I found photographing human beings in a devotional moment such as a trance, meditation or a state of ecstasy to be a challenge. The mechanical aspect of

photographing-manipulating a noisy machine, negotiating awkward spaces, getting physically close to the subject, deciding whether to supplement the existing light with flash-demanded that I be unobtrusive, yet assertive about the number and kinds of pictures I felt were necessary to construct a visual representation of the religious culture witnessed.

This project yielded more than one thousand photographs over the course of the two-year investigation, with the most activity occurring during the last eight months. I logged over one thousand hours for travel, photographing, film processing, proof printing, print enlarging, editing, and exhibition building. By organizing the images of each photo session into 8" x 10" contact sheets consisting of approximately twenty-five frames apiece, I could review every contact sheet as an organic whole (for sample of a contact sheet, see appendix). On inspection of individual frames, I was able to study an assortment of details provided by shifting angles, varying distance to the subject, and change of light. The contact sheets acted as visual fieldnotes-they provided feedback which helped renew memory through which I could "re-enact" the event, refine the focus of the study, and later select images I would print at a larger size.

The task of selecting images for enlargement is an editorial exercise. I would initially print those pictures whose form had interesting lines, colors, and textures, like the Buddha medicine lamp at Jade Buddha Temple (see transparency #3) and the Mezuzah at Young Israel of Houston (see transparency #12). Other images contained intriguing cultural information, such as the henna-dyed hands of a Muslim woman from the Southeast Zone-Masjid I.S.G.H. (see transparency #32) and the wedding amulet of a Pagan woman from the Kindred of Asatrú (see transparency #11). Still other items, such as the exit sign in a meditation room at the Jade Buddha Temple (transparency #2) and the beverage cooler in the prayer hall at Southeast Zone-Masjid I.S.G.H. (see transparency #24)

sharpened my awareness for details that might have been viewed as inconsequential or uninteresting, as these are artifacts that illustrate how acculturation, in an advanced form, continually influences and transforms non-Western spiritual spaces. The presence of such items in these spiritual areas renders those spaces contemporary and homogenous to American culture. These gadgets symbolize the Americanization of non-Western cultures.

The process of selecting images for enlargement is ongoing, requiring many reviews of contact sheets. At times, those evaluations called for additional visits to the religious spaces originally photographed and on a few occasions even suggested a trip to a new space previously not considered, as occurred in the case of my impromptu call on a Byzantine Catholic Church. I had photographed portions of a liturgy at St. Vladimir's Russian Orthodox Church, where I focused on human interaction and vast iconography, and I showed several proof prints to Basilios Poulos, professor of art at Rice University. He suggested a visit to St. John Chrysostom Byzantine Catholic Church, whose interior was similar to St. Vladimir's in relation to relic layout and iconography. However, the physical space at St. John's was much larger and the icons reflected the peculiar and contradictory amalgamation of Catholic and Orthodox elements. Priests in the Catholic church must swear an oath of celibacy, but Orthodox priests may marry. The Catholics believe that the Pope is God's representative on earth, but followers of the Orthodox church do not recognize the Pope as such. Because I felt I had adequately recorded the iconography of Orthodox churches for the purposes of this research, I photographed the space at St. John's with an emphasis on perspective, angle, color, and light.
 
 

The resulting pictures created a distinction between two otherwise visually similar religious spaces (compare St. John's, transparency #14 with St. Vladimir's, transparency #33).

This action later proved to be significant in the design of the exhibition because it minimized visual redundancy and provoked viewers to ask questions about art, history, religion, and cultural assimilation.

Photography as praxis develops and refines the ethnographic content of a visual project as well as it awakens the anthropologist's sensibilities and polishes his or her visual expression. The process of recording human activity with the camera is analogous to the relationship that the anthropologist cultivates and nurtures with cultural agents. Ideally it is ongoing and progressive, and actuated with appreciation and concern for the subject, yields interesting and valuable information.