interior light

There are times when I am able to look at what’s around me with what I think of as my “poet’s eye”—a kind of alert, charged vision that holds the world in deep appreciation. Everything I see seems transformed; everything I look at comes into sharp focus, and seems to have highly saturated colors. It holds dramatic value contrast, and clear and shimmery light.  I love that state, that way of seeing, and I am interested in cultivating it—it’s the place I would most like to live, all the time. One of the ways I do the cultivation is by purposefully taking photographs. I can even be feeling out of sorts or grumpy and decide to go out with the camera (and nothing fancy here—this is a simple iphone device) to start looking. I may be walking down a street I have walked down hundreds of times, but what can I see in a new way this time, what can I zero in on? These are not usually narrative shots; I like to get up close and focus on details, to reframe, to highlight particular textures or forms. The process both calls on and trains the poet’s eye.

All of the photos I consider successful embody this quality, but recently I have been playing with something that takes the poet’s eye exercise in a new direction. I have been using the free photo editing app, Prisma, and am experimenting with light and color.  (I would not necessarily share the name, except that the app is free, and thus available to all.)  Prisma provides unusual photo filters that are ostensibly about applying “styles of famous artists.” The developers claim they use “a unique combination of neural networks and artificial intelligence.” I have no idea what that really means in this case, but what happens is that each filter uses some kind of rubric to re-digitize the photo, applying the colors and line quality of selected paintings. While a few of the images might indeed evoke known artists, I find these are rare. Rather, what is exciting is that  surprising effects come with these new combinations. What happens to many of the photos is that they seem to fill with light—it is as if they are lit up from within. (To throw in a little color theory: I think this has to do with the fact that the color mixing is in fact happening with light rather than pigment; it is an additive, rather than subtractive color system.) Photos transformed in Prisma can of course be further changed with other editing tools. This means that there are whole new possibilities and new ways to play that can help me move into the poetic/poem space.  Having become familiar with what can happen with this program, I have even begun to expressly take photographs with Prisma transformations in mind.
 
Here is a gallery of images that hold the interior light I value so much. Included are photos of things I see in the world around me, and photos of my own work, transformed again and again.