The Genesis of "Mountains In The Mist"
Handmade Book Project Part 2
by Les Picker
When I finally arrived in China to co-lead a photo tour with my colleague Sean Lo, I had no idea how the trip might effect me. I have been to all continents and 120+ countries and I've seen some wonderful - and horrible - things. So while I am always open to new experiences, my expectations were tempered by a heavy dose of reality.
Putting food aside for the moment (it was indescribably sumptuous) and the culture and mores (very different than the West), I was unprepared for the Chinese landscapes. Yes, the crowds at every beautiful spot were heavy and difficult, but I was still able to find quiet moments to photograph. Only then, as I stood back from my camera setup, I realized the ethereal quality of the places I stood.
Running a teaching studio often means that I cannot post-process my travel photography as soon as I return. In the case of the China trip, it was a couple months before I was able to start. I'm glad that happened, because as soon as they came up on my monitor I was surprised. I didn't realize when I was here how much the mountains that I visited affected me. As I rated the "keepers" I saw a pattern. Not only did I love the mountain scenes, but the ones cloaked in mist were my favorites.
It was then that I started thinking of doing a handmade book. Initially I thought of mountains, so I searched my image libraries and picked from mountains I had photographed all over the world. But the very diversity of them put me off; some in sunlight, others in snow, tropics and polar, tall peaks, color, black and white. I wanted the book to be more tightly focused.
Creativity and Serendipity
I often wonder how creativity works. How much is actually a creative process and how much is serendipity? For me it's sometimes one or the other, but more often both.
As it turns out, the Chinese mountains alone drew me in. As I researched one mountain area in particular, I came across the work of a Chinese poet named Hsieh Ling-Yün (385-433 C.E.). He was something of a hermit, choosing to live in his beloved mountains. I ordered an English translation of his mountain poetry and suddenly something clicked. Hsieh's poetry is strikingly evocative. His life among the mountains, often bathed in heavy mist, came to life in his poetry. I knew I was on the right track.
I selected pieces of his poetry and as I did so, I realized that this could not be a typical photography book. I wanted to immerse the viewer in a meditative space, combining Hsieh's poetry with my imagery. And since this would be a handmade book, I needed the right paper to carry that quiet contemplative experience forward. I wanted a paper that would be uniquely suited for the book I visioned and I chose Awagami Unryu, a paper with embedded mulberry fibers. The project was coming together.
Every day for two months I toyed with my images, matching and rematching them with Hsieh's poetry. When I was satisfied with the flow, I began laying them out in a book of cotton rag papers. The idea was to adhere the Unryu prints to the book's cotton rag pages and counterpose the lines of Hsieh's mountain poetry. My Associate, Bob, and I felt like we were getting somewhere. But I felt as if the book was incomplete. I couldn't pin down what it was. I came every morning to my studio, stared at the layout and stomped into my office completely frustrated... until one day an accident happened and - serendipity! - I knew what was missing. Calligraphy! And in the next installment of this series, I'll explain how that happened.