How Janelle Lynch Sees Beyond the Image

A great photograph does not always start with an idea. Sometimes the physical 'yes' forms within the body when the light hits the subject just right. ☀️

We talk with photographer Janelle Lynch about her creative process in landscape photography, her more recent portraits, and her cyanotypes, made with a nineteenth-century cameraless technique. Janelle shares how she developed her love for the camera from her early experiences of being seen by others, why she avoids the word 'capture,' and how her images often emerge through a conversation with her subjects. We also get into her craft and the work that she does with her 8x10 view camera. 📸

Janelle draws inspiration from various sources and incorporates practices into her routine, such as yoga, proprioception, and perceptual drawing and painting with others. One of the visuals Janelle shares with us is an eight-minute exposure taken in near darkness, which leads to a discussion of what exists even when we cannot see it. 🍃

____________________________________

“To have a meaningful connection with nature, you don’t have to go far.”

Photographer Janelle Lynch shares a perspective that finds nature where most people don’t think to look. 🍃📸

Transcript

Welcome To Four Worlds

Steven Ruffing 0:01

Welcome to the Four Worlds Podcast from Tomorrow's World Today. We're diving into the latest in tech, science, and sustainability, from nature's mysteries in the world of inspiration to the hands-on crafts of creation, the bold breakthroughs of innovation, and the scaled-up wonders of production. This is your ticket to the stories shaping tomorrow. Welcome in everyone to another episode of the Four Worlds podcast. On this episode, we have photographer Janelle Lynch to discuss her wide range of work and the creative eye that goes into it. Janelle, welcome to the show. We really appreciate you taking this time and joining us today. We're really looking forward to it.

How Janelle Became A Photographer

Janelle Lynch 0:41

Hi, Steven. Thank you so much for having me.

Steven Ruffing 0:43

Yeah, so we'll just kind of jump into kind of a brief background of your work, how you started and kind of where you're at today.

Janelle Lynch 0:52

Okay. It does, in a way, go back to my very early life in that I was born into a home with a photographer. My grandfather was a serious amateur photographer. And I do believe that I am a photographer today because of not necessarily my exposure to photography through him. I mean, yes, that was a factor, but more specifically, it was about how he looked at me and saw me with such hair and sense of connection and of being a subject that was worthy of being looked at photographically. And that those experiences were before I was conscious. And I do believe that they have informed why I use the camera and how I use the camera and the ideas that I explore photographically. I got my first camera, my own first camera when I was 10. And then I studied photography in college, but I actually left photography to study writing and then returned to it in graduate school when I was in my late 20s, so in 1997. And I have been working ever since then.

Landscapes Portraits And Cyanotypes

Steven Ruffing 2:54

Very good. So you have you are well traveled in the sense that you kind of have an eye for everything, especially getting into writing. I think that all kind of goes together. And just if you wanted to, for any listeners that may not be familiar with your work, and I encourage everyone to go to Janelle's website to really get the full aspect and get a good look at everything that she does. What are some of the things that you really like to focus on in your work before we really start getting into the questions?

Janelle Lynch 3:23

Yeah, well, for almost 20 years, I worked exclusively in the landscape. And so nature was my primary subject. Since 2016, so a decade now, I have also been making portraits. And so photographing people, specifically people I have a relationship with and care about is an essential part of my of my practice. And I'm also interested in in my current body of work, for example. So that's photographically work that I've made with my camera. And then I also have two bodies of work of cyanotypes, cameraless photographic process from the from the 19th century, and that I use again found elements in nature, usually wildlife remains, botanical remains, and sometimes my body to create an image.

The Body’s Signal That Says Yes

Steven Ruffing 4:57

Yeah, whatever kind of comes to you. And that's kind of what leads me into my first question. You know, you probably from what it sounds like, and and you can correct me if I'm wrong, you kind of go out with an open mind when you're working. So when you are out in that world, wherever that may be, what is that click that happens in your mind when you see an object, whether it's natural or not, that suddenly becomes a strong story or a sense of feeling? What is that moment kind of like?

Learning Trust Through Yoga And Drawing

Janelle Lynch 5:28

Yeah. Well, it's very embodied. It's not necessarily a click in my mind. It's a sensation in my body where I sense a visceral response to what I am seeing. Usually light is an important factor. And there is some resonance, often one that I can't or don't want to even identify in the moment. Rather, I want to stay with the experience in a kind of non-thinking way, a more sensorial way. And I find after being arrested in that way, I find the image through an often gradual experience of looking and perceiving.

Steven Ruffing 6:29

I was just curious, just you know, throughout your career, you know, having that feel and and you know, people close to you kind of understanding that as well. How did you learn to trust that that feeling of when you're out there and and when you find that moment of something that you want to capture, just that feeling that you know it's just right?

Janelle Lynch 6:49

Yeah, yeah. Well, that's such an interesting question. I what comes to mind is a very deep connection to myself and my body, and one that I have learned through a very long yoga practice. I've been studying yoga for almost 30 years, and that has attuned me to my body and to my sense perceptions, including the sense perception of proprioception, which is the awareness of the body in space. And so that attunement is something that I've cultivated that way. And I have also cultivated seeing and seeing with care and attention. I've done that, I would say, primarily through my studies at the New York Studio School of Drawing, Painting, and Sculpture, where I've been a student for more than 10 years now. And there we're taught what's called perceptual drawing and painting. So drawing from perception, from life, and really learning how to see what is in front of me with care and specificity and detail. So learning about form and shape and light and shadow, and also learning in perceptual drawing and painting, learning to see relationally. And what that means is seeing the subject in relation to its environment, what is behind it, what is in front of it, to its sides, and learning to create an interpretation of what is in front of me through that very careful, committed way of seeing.

Steven Ruffing 9:16

Right.

Portraits As Collaboration Not Capture

Janelle Lynch 9:16

So I I think that both experiences have are a part of how I have learned to respond in the way that I do.

Steven Ruffing 9:31

Absolutely. And with all of that considered, I do want to kind of shift to how that works with your more recent work, for example, Place of Good Water and Family, more so family, these projects that capture portraits of people. You know, what are you trying to capture outside of, let's say, just a photo of a person? What's going through your mind and what are you trying to explore outside of the portrait aspect of things?

Janelle Lynch 9:59

Yeah, again, and I should mention that by way of clarifying that right now I'm deeply immersed in language, in I'm a I'm in graduate school studying an MFA in creative nonfiction. And so I'm I'm reading a lot and writing a lot and very, very attuned to words. And so forgive me for the clarifications. I have this heightened awareness right now, and that's where it's coming from. That's okay. I I actually don't think about, and and a lot of photographers do. I teach photography, I hear it often, the word capture. I don't think about capturing. What I do think about is having an experience of and with my subject, and in whether it's nature in the place of good water or portraits in the place of good water and in the family series. I think about a collaboration with my subject and I think about I think about an experience. I actually don't think about an experience. I the picture arises or emerges through an experience of seeing, of talking, of looking carefully, and of being in relation, of seeing relationally and choosing light and the direction of light with care. And I actually try not to think. Of course, when when I have to make technical decisions, yes, my mind shifts to a more analytic thinking process, but in the making, it is this experience. Agnes Martin, the painter, describes feeling her way into a painting. And I relate to that very much in my photographic practice, and that I'm feeling my way into a picture through the experience. And what I hope the picture shows is at least two things. It's that and shows or that can be sensed because some of this is tangible and some of this is intangible. It's that this was created through an experience and rather than through a quick record-making act. And in the best cases, what I hope is that, and what does happen is that the picture shows something that was anticipated, sorry, was not anticipated, that that couldn't be anticipated, that it shows something, for example, a picture that's in my mind right now is a portrait I made in October of last year and of a friend, and I made three three, I'm working with an eight by ten view camera, and so I'm making using sheets of film, and I'm expo I exposed three three negatives when making this through this experience. And the defining picture, the one where I knew it was the picture, was where it showed my friend Katie in a way that I had never seen her before. And that's that's that mystery is something that I'm I'm deeply interested in, and I invite into the practice whatever whatever it is I'm I'm photographing.

Curiosity That Exalts The Ordinary

Steven Ruffing 14:34

Interesting. That's a that's a neat way to to kind of look at it in you know something that I'm sure that a lot of people might not feel, you know, in in certain lines of work. So it's interesting to kind of get that perspective talking to you know a creator like yourself, whatever kind of form of media or form of art that you're working on. And and you know, you kind of answered a lot of my questions just within one answer. So that's always helpful. But I just wanted to know just how you kind of stay open to finding different wonders in every part of your art, and whether it's writing, whether it's photography, you know, whether it's something else creative, how do you find stay open to finding different parts of the world, let's say that most people may consider empty?

Janelle Lynch 15:23

Yeah, I think through I think that openness is a result of a few things at least. It's I think it is an orientation, a very natural orientation to the world, one that is guided by curiosity and wonder. I think it's it's been through, you know, this is it's all related. It's what I look at in the world, meaning I look at art a lot. I have been fortunate to be able to travel to look at new landscapes and cityscapes. I think it a lot of it is through reading, actually. And the the poets and authors I read who themselves have an orientation to openness and curiosity and wonder. So for example, and and not just that, but to exalting the ordinary. So for example, the poet Mary Oliver comes to mind. I've learned so much about seeing the natural world with us in this way through her poems. Pablo Nerudo's Odes to Common Things taught me so much. His ode to the salt and pepper shaker, for example. And as I said that, actually, I just recently saw a show of William Eggleston's photographs. And he he photographed what might be considered very mundane things, but but with an understanding of color and the principles of art and the elements of design and how photography compresses the three-dimensional world to two dimensions and what happens when in that in that compression. And so, yeah, the other person who's who's coming to mind who also made a very important impact on my practice is uh Wendell Berry, the poet activist and farmer in Kentucky. He wrote an essay called The Unforeseen Wilderness, which I read with my students every semester. And when I first read it in 2010, I was living in Spain and making a body of work there. And he he implored the photographer to relinquish demands and expectations of a place, of a landscape, and instead to embrace curiosity and openness and discovery. And to me, that that really was a defining moment in my practice.

Steven Ruffing 19:07

Yeah, and it sounds like you have a lot of inspiration from all sorts of different backgrounds and people and and writing. And it it seems like it kind of all comes together and molds kind of your process when when you are working, again, whether whatever that may be, whether it's writing or or photography, and in a kind in a world that's kind of obsessed with everything has to be fast, everything has has to be instant. How does your process of being very thorough and deliberate, you know, what kind of what does that provide that something quick could never never could?

Janelle Lynch 19:47

Yeah, it's a process for sure. It's also a temperament, you know. I am by nature slow and deliberate. And that's why I use the eight by ten view camera, because it requires such a such a process. I'd say the 19th century processes that I'm interested in due to the cyanotype process. Surely perceptual drawing and painting require that, writing requires that. And that's something that I'm very interested in and that uh I I need. I need to I need to experience what I'm seeing. I need to revel in it, I need to I need to sense it. It brings me uh satisfaction. And I also I hope and I believe that the experience and the associations uh, whether I'm conscious of them or not, the uh the the joy of seeing, I believe that uh it's invested in the work itself. And again, uh sometimes that is uh manifested uh tangibly, and uh it can also be manifested in an intangible way where that experience can be sensed in the image rather than necessarily seen, but it is also seen because or at least an aspect of it is seen because I am thinking once I find my Subject and decide to make the picture and find the picture. That's also its own process through the ground glass viewfinder under my under my focusing cloth. I am making decisions, a series of decisions, based on viewpoint, based on my training in drawing and painting, thinking about negative spaces, forms, thinking about the rectangle, thinking about my technical choices and how depth of field, for example, will render space. So I think that it is it allows for pictures that hold a quality of being seen. And in fact, increasingly the subject, the theme, the idea of seeing is becoming a part of the work because I'm so very interested in the act of seeing itself.

Steven Ruffing 23:21

Interesting. Interesting.

Janelle Lynch 23:47

Yeah, I love this question. I think that the best pictures do reveal something about myself that I wasn't necessarily aware of. And in fact, in fact, that's part of why I work to make those discoveries of what I am not yet conscious of, whether it is about myself or the natural world or the person in front of me or our relationship. I am deeply curious about what I don't yet know and what the experience of collaborating and making pen yield. And so yeah, I think it's it often it often happens in retrospect, not in the moment, because it the moment is not the moment for that revelation. And so I make the picture, I process, have the film processed, and then I print the images. And usually that happens after some months. I don't, it's not an immediate process. And I think one picture that's coming to mind where it was quite surprising that it what it yielded, which was the discovery of something that I of ideas, something that I think was guiding the picture making process that I wasn't aware of in the moment. And that that happened in 2022 when I first started going to Amaganset, where I'm making the place of good water, which by the way is a temporary title. I I it's it's Amiganset is out on Long Island where I've been living part-time making this body of work during the off-season. And it is what the the word amiganset means in English, the place of good water. It's a translation of that. So anyway, I was there 2022 for the first time, and being very, very experimental and open with my view camera. And I set it up at dusk to make a picture of the ocean, which I had never made before. And it was, excuse me, really made on a whim, which I'm sure you've inferred by now is not how I typically work on a whim. Um so I couldn't really see because it was dusk, I couldn't meter the light because it was too dark. And and so I couldn't, I also couldn't focus carefully through the ground glass. And I made the picture nonetheless, it was an eight-minute exposure approximately, and that was an educated guess in terms of time. And I was very surprised by what it yielded when once a few months later I saw the negative and made the print. And and so I was again, as I said, there really photographing out of curiosity and wanting to experiment and and not aware that really what was subconscious was this curiosity of what remains or what exists that cannot be perceived? So literally, more on a more literal level, what was what was there in the dark? And and then on a more metaphysical level, what is there? What exists that cannot be seen? And how do we know that it is still there, even if we can't see it? These ideas are ideas that fascinate me and that I think are and have been part of my work. Increasingly in the last years, in fact, particularly after some very very profound losses in my personal life. But but more generally, it is the presence of mother nature, for example, that spiritual presence is something that I have felt and sensed probably my my whole career actually in the landscape. But yeah, so that that was a discovery in in that moment about ideas that I didn't know were were guiding that search in that moment.

Steven Ruffing 29:27

Right. And I I do, I love hearing about your process and and going back to my earlier question, just how deliberate you are in your work. It's something that really could be appreciated by you know other creators listening to this, other photographers listening to it. It's a it's a good outlook to have. And and I'm interested in you know, talking about your inspiration and creators that you have listened to, read about. You've mentioned some of the poets and the painters that helped inspire your work and who you are today. Now, this one's kind of more of like a uh not personal question, but a very subjective question. If you could really sit down with one of them, whether it's an artist or or writer who helped kind of shape your eye through through text or through images, what is one thing that you'd want to ask them about your own work and your own creation process?

Janelle Lynch 30:18

Ask them about my own work and my process.

Steven Ruffing 30:21

I guess ask what would you ask them that I guess could help help your way of creation?

Janelle Lynch 30:28

Oh, I think I would ask them about I'd be I'd be so curious to ask them about their sure their way process.

Steven Ruffing 30:40

Of course, of course.

Janelle Lynch 30:42

I mean, I love the idea of the mental image of inviting Giotto or Agnes Martin or Rilke into my studio and and having a dialogue with them about my work. I would ask them what they perceived and what they what their associations were. And I'd ask them how I might make better pictures.

Steven Ruffing 31:24

Yeah, I I I should have that's my mistake. I should have phrased it as way, you know, what would you ask them about their own, you know, ways and processes of creating. So yeah, if if if it's difficult to answer the previous one, you can answer, you know, with what you would ask them in in, you know, their struggle to create, I should say.

Janelle Lynch 31:44

Yeah, I again love the idea and maybe it's you've just given me this. Is what I love about one of the things I love about conversations, about good conversations, is that they can lead to discoveries, new ideas. And you just offered me one because I love the idea of writing a piece about a hypothetical exchange with some of these artists and writers who are so important to me. And but let's see, I you know, I wouldn't ask them about their struggles, I would ask them about their joys and about their own discoveries. So yeah, I'd I'd talk to Matisse about painting from sensation and the colors he used in the landscape, and what that was like to rather than paint the trees in the south of France gray or brown as we think of trees, rather what it was like and and as trees are in quotations. Rather, I would ask him what it was like to paint the tree violet. Because that is how he perceived it in the moment. I'd ask Giotto what it was like painting the frescoes in the Scrovini chapel.

How Her Definition Of Beauty Changed

Steven Ruffing 33:37

Yeah, a lot, so many things to add. So it's kind of such a loaded question. So I love the question. Yeah. I'm glad it could kind of uh open open something in and help or or or what have you, whatever it may be. I only have one more question before before we before we wrap things up. I just want to know kind of how your definition of let's say beauty has evolved over your career and your years throughout your work. And what are you looking for now that you may not have been looking for at the start of your career?

Janelle Lynch 34:14

Yeah, I think it's evolved again. I think that my training at the studio school in drawing and painting really helped expand my notion of beauty. I think uh reading and uh living and and hopefully becoming more open as a human being has broadened my conception of beauty. I I do think that I am able to find it almost uh anywhere now in that I am so acutely attuned to light. Light can make uh anything, and I really do mean anything beautiful, right? And attention to point of view, uh formal elements and a harmonious arrangement, that thrill, that challenge of uh structuring an image through the harmonious juxtaposition of shape and color, a a deeper understanding of color itself has also contributed to this. So uh it not being a what it is necessarily, rather through this through light and point of view in a series of decisions elevating it to uh something in addition to what it is. I think that again it's it's the training, it's the orientation, it's literature and poetry, that that it's a confluence of those things that that have now enabled me to see and appreciate what I'm seeing in a way that that I didn't and wasn't able to at the beginning of my career 26 or seven years ago.

Steven Ruffing 37:14

Yeah, spanning across decades, and I'm sure I'm sure after all of those years, more and more kind of goes into that. And I'm sure you'll add to the list by next year of the things that have changed, have have gone into your process. So, you know, it's been really interesting to hear your your perspective and and hear all of the things that you do and kind of what goes into it. I I just want to thank you and really appreciate your time joining us in in doing this.

Janelle Lynch 37:42

Stephen, thank you so much. It's really been a satisfying experience to think through and into these questions with you. I so appreciate them.

Where To See Her Work

Steven Ruffing 37:54

Yeah, no, again, it's it's definitely felt on our our side as well. And I do want to give you the chance. I like to do this just for the uh audience and and listeners, anywhere they could find your work, any platforms that you wanted to let the audience know about to kind of dive a little deeper.

Janelle Lynch 38:11

Yeah, thank you so much. Well, you did mention my website, it's janelynch.net. I also have two, sorry, three radius books monographs. Uh radius books can be found online. My work is represented by Flowers Gallery. They are based in London. Oh wow. Um and of course, I am on Instagram, uh Janelle two underscores lynch.

Steven Ruffing 38:50

Perfect. Yeah, definitely check it out. Go check out her work and and give her a follow so you can stay up to date with anything new that she she does. Again, once again, Janelle, can't thank you enough for doing this with us.

Janelle Lynch 39:02

Thank you, Steven. I really appreciate it.

Steven Ruffing 39:04

Yeah, thank you so much. And that's all the time we have today. Thank you so much for listening. Thank you so much, Janelle, for doing this with us. We will see you next time. Thanks for listening to this episode of the Four Worlds Podcast. Until next time, you can catch up on the latest innovations shaping our world at tomorrow'sworldtoday.com. Follow us on Facebook and Instagram, and be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel.