Life is Beautiful...and Terrifying

Today was a day for photojournalism. First, I read through a book so I could return it to the library. Next, I went on-line so I could get caught up with email and the various newsfeeds and blogs I follow. I really wish now that I had done that in the opposite order.

The book I read--well, looked through is perhaps more accurate because it is actually a collection of photos with a few brief essays and quotations--is National Geographic Simply Beautiful Photographs by Annie Griffiths.

As I said, this is a collection of photos culled from the huge archive of the National Geographic Society and organized around six aesthetic concepts that the book's editors felt contributed to beautiful photographs: Light, Composition, Moment, Time, Palette, and Wonder. Photographer Annie Griffiths, in charge of the project, determined that the book would limit the concept of beauty in important ways. As it says in the book's foreword:

In creating a book that said "simply beautiful," we all wanted a set of images that would transport the reader to a beautiful place, be that space physical, emotional, or spiritual. First we had to ask ourselves, "What is the definition of beauty?" Can there be resilience and grace in tragedy? Yes. Is there an awe in a perfect mushroom cloud overpowering the horizon? Yes. But is that the beauty we wanted to portray? No.

Encouraged by the words of Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Beauty is its own excuse for being," we decided that this book should take us to a world of beautiful dreams, memories, and meditation.

The book is a visual meditation on beauty, as captured on film.  It stays away from overt politics, violence or tragedy, featuring the most attractive aspects of our world. The accompanying quotes and essays celebrate the excellence of human artistry and the ability of art to elevate human nature. It is indeed a beautiful dream.

Then I went on-line. And got another kind of human nature thrown at me in the reports and photos from Egypt. People lying beaten and bleeding, bound and clearly terrified--even from thousands of miles away, I find some of these photos terrifying, and yet I know that these have been vetted for publication and probably represent far from the worst of what there is to be seen and experienced there. As described by Anderson Cooper of CNN, this is classic mob violence:

...the crowd kept growing, kept throwing punches, kicks...suddenly a young man would look at you and punch you in the face.

One of our jobs as artists and as humans is to stand witness. We need to see clearly both the good and the bad in ourselves and our fellow humans. Life is both beautiful and terrifying, sometimes at the same time. It is not that I think artists are all sweetness and light and can do no wrong. I just wish that I felt as much faith in my fellow humans en masse as I do in my fellow artists. That is how I feel right now.

This is the often schizophrenic impetus of art, the struggle between creation and destruction in our lives. So I will witness. And later I will choose to create beauty, even from this.