Seeing Structure

The WordPress Photography challenge for this week is “Structure.”

I practice both tai chi and yoga and both art forms speak to “structure.” It is a principle of tai chi to maintain and move “in structure.” And I very often cue my yoga students “to carve their way into alignment or structure” in a yoga pose. Structure is everywhere but mostly we only see the superficial outer trappings of our world. We see what we have been taught to see. And when it comes to our own bodies we often cannot find a good structure or we may think we are doing the forms or poses correctly but if we could view ourselves from the outside we would most probably see a form of ourselves that we did not anticipate.

In the Ayurvedic Indian tradition which is closely related to yoga, the structure of the universe is interpreted as an interplay of the energies of the 5 elements: earth, water, fire, air, ether. In the tai chi tradition or Daoist way, the five elements are wood, fire, earth, metal and water. These five elements produce each other; wood creates fire, fire creates earth, earth creates metal, metal creates water, and water creates wood. Here in the western or occidental world, most of us don’t view life or see the material world from either of these two models. We can however, use our mind and begin to imagine how things would look through the filter of the Ayurvedic or Daoist perspective. Then we will begin to view with a different eye, perhaps change our perspective or even modify our value system.

But how can we begin looking at the world with a more expansive view? How does one capture the energy of the fire, water, earth or the space within a scene, or an object, or a person? I use photography in combination with a practice of yoga and tai chi to see and capture my world in different ways. The camera’s eye does not pass judgment. It sees what it sees and no more. The viewer’s eye adds the intent, the perspective, perhaps even a value judgment. The viewer’s eye must tell the camera what to see and then to capture what the viewer is intending to capture. I am a beginner at seeing in this way. For me it is a trinity: yoga, tai chi and photography.

Here are some photos of how I see some objects in my world.