A New, Spiritual Approach to Contemplative Photography
A Book Review
In their new book Letting Photos Speak: Visio Divina and Other Approaches to Contemplative Photography, three Christian ministers with varying backgrounds in photography describe a new approach to contemplative photography borrowing from mindfulness teachings and their own Christian tradition to introduce photography as a way to “help us reflect on the world, our place within the world, and what it means to be alive.”
“When we define ourselves through what we do, we become human-doings, not human-beings,” write authors Stephen J. Radley, Philip J. Richter, and Andy J. Lindley early on in the book. If you’re familiar with mindfulness practices, you may discern that their approach to mindful photography uses photography as a tool to anchor us and increase awareness in the present moment. “Our ‘being’ encompasses our environment, our bodies, the things we do and enjoy, the people who share our lives in different ways, and our communities, as well as our beliefs and spirituality.”
While the authors are all Christian ministers and speak in the language of their shared tradition, they recommend readers replace, adapt, and change the exercises to reflect their own traditions and values. In doing so, they make space for inclusivity. Christian practices like visio divina and sources like the Book of Hours help them to frame this new approach to contemplative photography, but it is only one way, the way that comes most natural to them. A Muslim, Jewish, or Buddhist reader would not be hard-pressed to adapt the methods described in Letting Photos Speak to language and resources more natural to their own worldviews and traditions. One doesn’t even need to be religious to find meaning in mindfulness.
Practically, the authors provide multiple, largely original, tools to begin the journey toward more intentional mindfulness. Most of these tools and activities involve using photography to slow down in one way or another. Visio divina, for example, is a multi-step process of reading, meditating, praying, and contemplating with or through a photo. It requires patience and sitting with an image. One way it can be done follows the method of Tim Mooney, a Presbyterian pastor and fine artist. Mooney’s approach takes about half an hour and progresses through six steps:
Preparation: an opening intention of some sort, perhaps a prayer from your tradition.
Initial Response: record your immediate reactions to the photo.
Pondering the Image: become more aware of the reasons underlying your initial reactions and continue to be aware of new thoughts, meanings, and feelings that arise.
Revelation and Response: Become aware of anything important to you evoked through the image and how they are connected to your life. How would you like to respond?
Impact: Make explicit any outcomes from your visio divina experience.
Rest: End where you began, in prayer or in an intention.
I sat with the photograph “A boat” by the Latvian-Soviet photographer Wilhelm Mikhailovsky (1942-2018) for a half-hour. The black and white photo of a wooden boat on a curving sea is, to my astonishment, largely unknown in the West, but it’s one of the great photos by one of the USSR’s most acknowledged and awarded photographers. I used Mooney’s six-step process described above to slow down and appreciate the photo while also taking note of my own reactions.
I will admit I was initially skeptical of the process. What would I learn about myself or how I see the world from 30 minutes with a Soviet photograph of a boat? The answer, it turns out, is quite a bit!
“A boat” by the Latvian-Soviet photographer Wilhelm Mikhailovsky.
I couldn’t shake thoughts about loneliness, a feeling many people became more familiar with during the recent COVID-19 pandemic. A tremendous expression of effort and thought was required to capture this moment. Mikhailovsky needed to closely trail the empty boat at night while at sea and strategically chose a lens and lighting that emphasized the vastness of the frontier before the boat. The water appears to continue forever. The more I gazed, I became skeptical of the boat’s sturdiness, a small wooden vessel in front of the wide ocean. Did Mikhailovsky see himself in the empty boat? I tethered back and forth on how the seepage of light made me feel. Do I feel hope as if the boat is emerging from the darkness of night? Or do I feel despair as there is just enough light to make the shadows powerful and the water daunting? I couldn’t help but think of the feeling of isolation I experienced during the worst stage of pandemic lockdown, a feeling I wasn’t even aware lingered in my memory until this exercise.
I finished by reading the Gospel story of Jesus calming the stormy waters (Mark 4:35-41) while holding Mikhailovsky’s photo in my mind. I’m sure Jesus’ boat was larger but I pictured this dinky one. The more one looks at the boat, the more drawn it becomes—almost like a religious illustration. In this context, Jesus’ words “Be silent! Be still!” extend not just the meaning I find in “A boat” but also in Radley, Richter, and Lindley’s methodology of slowing down and being present before photographs, an art form that we have diminished into two-second scrolls on social media apps.
Sometimes stillness and silence go a long way toward understanding.
To learn more about Visio divina and other approaches to contemplative photography that encourage and build upon such stillness and silence, read more and purchase Letting Photos Speak here.
