Wabi Sabi Photo Collective

I have a soft spot for the concept of Wabi Sabi most likely because of the regard I have for Japanese culture and history. But of course it is not limited to Japanese style either - a pair of stone washed denim jeans with holes in the knees for example is very wabi sabi in concept. But another Japanese idea that embodies wabi sabi is the ancient and beautiful concept of kintsugi - repairing ceramics using gold lacquer to highlight not hide the damage.

Kintsugi-bowl-honurushi-number-32.jpg


https://restoringofus.com/finding-gold-in-cracked-pots/
 
Mike, if the focus were on the woman's eyes rather than (what I would call) front focused on the close edge of her hat...would that ruin it in terms of wabi sabi?
 
Canyongazer said:
Mike, if the focus were on the woman's eyes rather than (what I would call) front focused on the close edge of her hat...would that ruin it in terms of wabi sabi?
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Good question.

It's not a hat, it's an umbrella, or a parasol. Nothing ruins anything, in my opinion because I didn't expect the results that I got.

Mike

Edit* On second thought, you might be right. Well, there you have it, wabi-sabi in action! Or, whatever.

All the best,
Mike
 
tunalegs said:
This is a question which is far more general than asking "what is wabi sabi?" but asks what you aim for in your photographs, generally.

Are your photographs, documentary, illustrative? Or conceptual? Or put another way, there are photographs of interesting things, and then there are photographs which are interesting for their own qualities and the subject matter is of secondary importance.

The photographs I posted for example, are just documents of wabi sabi subject matter. The photo itself adds nothing to the concept.


Tin by Berang Berang, on Flickr
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Thanks Tunalegs, That’s helpful, personally i feel my own ideas are leaning more to the conceptional, but if the photo itself adds nothing to the concept, can it truly be Wabi Sabi? Can we ever get past a photograph being anything more than a document of a Wabi Sabi subject matter?
I found this passage in Wabi - Sabi and Understanding Japan

“As a worldview, attention is paid to transience, harmony with nature and attention to the tiniest of details.”
Is it possible to depict these traits in a photograph so that the image itself is Wabi Sabi rather than the subject matter?
By the way I had a quick look at your flickr page and that little yellow Daihatsu Midget is amazing; if ever there was a subject matter crying out to be included in our debate it is this.

Yokosuka Mike.. your photograph is beautitful, I love it, but your argument “A picture of something that has the attributes of wabi-sabi is not a picture that is a wabi-sabi photograph.” brings me back to what I said above; Can we ever get past a photograph being anything more than a document etc.
Oh and Mike, your opinion does matter, I’m interested to hear more.

I was going to post a few of my own photographs, but my doubts as to what Wabi Sabi photography actually is has discounted most of them from inclusion here. I’m going to go with this one though, if only to give everyone a chance to throw my arguments back at me. in the end maybe i'm overthinking things and none of this really matters, but i am finding it interesting.
The photograph was taken late on a winter's night and depicts a waterfall, with spray and ice. It involved a short hike into the woods with the sole purpose to take the shot and although it may not be the best photograph ever i feel it does include some Wabi Sabi traits; "an aesthetic sensibilty that finds melancholic beauty in the impermanence of all things" - Andrew Juniper

Olympus Trip 35 + Olympus T18 flash @f11. Focus at 3m Kodak ultra 400asa... Waterfall with ice

Water and Ice by john millar, on Flickr
 
Water and Stone

Water and Stone

med_U48596I1560525508.SEQ.0.jpg



To me, this picture embodies a sense of current strength in the granite of the lock. The running water will in time erode the stone. In the meantime, the waters under the dam make patterns that change constantly; they are impermanent.
 
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Jumillar said:
Thanks Tunalegs, That’s helpful, personally i feel my own ideas are leaning more to the conceptional, but if the photo itself adds nothing to the concept, can it truly be Wabi Sabi? Can we ever get past a photograph being anything more than a document of a Wabi Sabi subject matter?
I found this passage in Wabi - Sabi and Understanding Japan

“As a worldview, attention is paid to transience, harmony with nature and attention to the tiniest of details.”
Is it possible to depict these traits in a photograph so that the image itself is Wabi Sabi rather than the subject matter?
By the way I had a quick look at your flickr page and that little yellow Daihatsu Midget is amazing; if ever there was a subject matter crying out to be included in our debate it is this.

Yokosuka Mike.. your photograph is beautitful, I love it, but your argument “A picture of something that has the attributes of wabi-sabi is not a picture that is a wabi-sabi photograph.” brings me back to what I said above; Can we ever get past a photograph being anything more than a document etc.
Oh and Mike, your opinion does matter, I’m interested to hear more.
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I think it's important to point out that wabi sabi as an aesthetic in Japan is highly curated. Not created. I read quite a bit about history and architecture, and recently read a bit of an interview of Ohno Hidetoshi where he comments on a misunderstanding of the Japanese love of nature. The Japanese have a long history of seeking out interesting bits and pieces to build into their homes - a strangely knotted piece of wood, or a part of an old shipwreck, etc. and in modern architecture there are plenty of examples of buildings which interact with/frame their surroundings. From an outside perspective this is often seen as showing a reverence for nature and the natural environment - but as he points out, the forests, mountains, and beaches where these items are retrieved from were viewed as just as inhospitable and dangerous by the Japanese going into them to find beautiful pieces as they would have been to Europeans living amongst similar environments. And with the Japanese habit of walling up rivers etc. he points out the Japanese love of and respect for nature doesn't run as deep as is popularly conceived. What the Japanese love is to curate nature. To find and display the best.

Like the Meiji era crafstman who transformed an old ship rudder into a rustic gate for a garden, a photographer is not creating wabi sabi, but curating it.


Ukishima Corner by Berang Berang, on Flickr

We could take this Daihatsu midget that you mention. It was built in factory, as were hundreds of thousands of others. Then it had who knows what kind of history, but the effects of age are readily apparent. Then somebody decided it'd be fun to incorporate it into their noodle stand. So is the noodle stand wabi sabi? Or has its builder simply chosen to incorporate and display a particularly interesting bit of the aesthetic?


Midget by Berang Berang, on Flickr

It's hard for a person to make wabi sabi I think. It's a bit like manufacturing "antiques" - you can't really, because age is what makes an antique an antique and we don't control time. Could a photograph itself be wabi sabi? I think so, but I don't think it could be done on purpose.

I was going to post a few of my own photographs, but my doubts as to what Wabi Sabi photography actually is has discounted most of them from inclusion here. I’m going to go with this one though, if only to give everyone a chance to throw my arguments back at me. in the end maybe i'm overthinking things and none of this really matters, but i am finding it interesting.
The photograph was taken late on a winters night and depicts a waterfall, with spray and ice. It involved a short hike into the woods with the sole purpose to take the shot and although it may not be the best photograph ever i feel it does include some Wabi Sabi traits; "an aesthetic sensibilty that finds melancholic beauty in the impermanence of all things" - Andrew Juniper

Olympus Trip 35 + Olympus T18 flash @f11. Focus at 3m Kodak ultra 400asa... Waterfall with ice

Water and Ice by john millar, on Flickr
Click to expand...
I would also like to point out that Japanese exceptionalism is a very peculiar thing, with all sorts of ideas coming out of Japan purporting to show that Japanese are different from everybody else, their brains are different, their rectums are different (I can't even make this up) and so on. So I take it with a grain of salt whenever I see somebody write about how "only" the Japanese are capable of this or that. The truth is, just about any photograph is going to have some sort of fleck of wabi sabi about it, as photographs are locked to a tiny fleeting moment that only becomes further removed from the present every time one views the image. You have curated a bit of natural beauty here, but I think like my own photos it's a document of rather than a thing in and of itself.
 
Interesting info Tunalegs, thanks for taking the time to give such an informative and entertaining reply. I obviously need to go away and give more time to this subject (but don't worry, I'll be back).
You said;
"You have curated a bit of natural beauty here, but I think like my own photos it's a document of rather than a thing in and of itself".
I take your point here, but I fear with Wabi Sabi, it may always be thus.
 
Looking for photos that may have integral wabi sabi...

Untitled by Berang Berang, on Flickr


Dream by Berang Berang, on Flickr


june bug rally by Berang Berang, on Flickr


Untitled by Berang Berang, on Flickr


Untitled by Berang Berang, on Flickr


Hero Alarm Clock by Berang Berang, on Flickr


f
oot scratch by Berang Berang, on Flickr

My opinion, for whatever it is worth, is the photograph would exhibit some sort of defect that is beyond the control of the photographer, something which cannot be prevented, and happens unknown to the picture taker. Light leaks, flares, and scratches are obvious effects of that sort.
 
I was amused that while the first information paragraph said that "you won’t see discussion of the gear that was used because this is about fine art photography and discussions on gear are pointless to the viewer", two of its four tags were gear related!
 
JohnBeeching said:
I was amused that while the first information paragraph said that "you won’t see discussion of the gear that was used because this is about fine art photography and discussions on gear are pointless to the viewer", two of its four tags were gear related!
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<sarcasm>Gear only matters if it's the WRONG gear!</sarcasm>
 
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