The Wonder of the Everyday

When I began to photograph more than 25 years ago, I felt I found a way of expressing myself that met something so deep inside me that I wanted to do it for the rest of my life. Walking with my camera, the city streets seemed transformed--friendlier, more interesting, and I spent hours searching for dramatic situations, trying to capture the right moment. Looking through the viewfinder, what I saw had new value for me, boredom and loneliness seemed to vanish, and I wished I could feel that way all the time. And hoping to learn what made a photograph successful, I avidly studied the history and technique of photography.

When I first heard this magnificent principle of beauty stated by Eli Siegel, the founder of Aesthetic Realism, it was the turning point of my life because I met the explanation of 1) what makes a photograph good and 2) how our personal questions are the questions of art--dignified and cultural. "All beauty is a making one of opposites," he wrote, "and the making one of opposites is what we are going after in ourselves." This is what artists everywhere are longing to know!

I've had the thrill of testing this principle in thousands of instances--from the first known photograph taken by NicÈphore NiÈpce in 1826-7 to the most modern work of today. Studying the opposites has made for a new respect for how the world is made, and I am infinitely grateful to Eli Siegel and Aesthetic Realism for teaching me to be a kinder, more integrated person, and a deeper photographer.

Man Washing Window.jpg (72832 bytes) As a man who once felt cold to people and that things didn't mean enough to me, I learned that a large reason I cared for photography is because it shows that even a fraction of a second has permanent meaning. Boredom, I also learned, is really ego in disguise--the feeling that the world isn't good enough to hold our interest. And as I studied Aesthetic Realism, I felt I had new eyes as I began seeing beauty that my conceit had obscured, for instance, in a man washing a window, or a living room in Hoboken, New Jersey.

The greatest education in the arts and sciences are classes for Aesthetic Realism consultants and consultants-in-training taught by Ellen Reiss, the Class Chairman of Aesthetic Realism. I am very proud that in one of these classes, Miss Reiss looked at the catalogue of my recent exhibition and discussed some of the photographs reproduced in it, and I quote a brief excerpt here. About "Living Room, Hoboken, NJ," she said:

Ellen Reiss: Do you think in some way this is a photograph having to do with absence?

Len Bernstein: Yes, the woman who lived there for 40 years didn't want me to photograph her, but she said, "Please photograph my apartment." So I thought "How could I show her even though she's not in the photograph?"

Ellen Reiss: There is something about the glow on these inanimate things that have to do with a person. There is a way that the light is falling on the seats, on the two chairs, and you almost feel the impression of the person on them. I think it's a pretty intense study in nothing and something, of humanity honored and humanity not seen. The way we want to revere and the way we can want to make something nonexistent seem to be one in this photograph.

Living Room.jpg (58898 bytes)

Dog in Window.jpg (67763 bytes)

I was thrilled when I saw this dog who seemed to be the occupant of the apartment, self-confidently at its windowsill, gazing at us with a fine, appraising look. I saw in him a roughness and a solidity, like the worn brick and wood of the outside of the building.

People on Escalator.jpg (58186 bytes) People riding on an escalator is a common occurrence, but when I saw this scene I felt it was as if they were on their way to heaven. The photograph was taken at a march in Washington celebrating the 20th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.'s immortal speech, "I Have a Dream." It moved me to see many people, black and white, coming together in harmony through the light and dark of the photograph and the converging lines of the escalator. And then as they reach the top, they merge and become one with the light as the concrete walls expand and dissolve.