I continued to look at the flowers, and in their living light I seemed to detect the qualitative equivalent of breathing— but of a breathing without returns to a starting point, with no recurrent ebbs but only a repeated flow from beauty to heightened beauty, from deeper to ever deeper meaning.
--From The Doors of Perception Heaven and Hell by Aldous Huxley

I am often asked during the course of conducting a workshop, a forum or in one-on-one instruction, what it is I mean when I refer to a photograph, or a photographer for that matter, as having gone ‘beyond the subject.’

It is a question worthy of discussion as I deem it vital to the success of any photograph. At an early age, most of us assume that others see the world much the way we do. Gradually, we begin to under- stand that this is not the case. We grow to realize, accept and hopefully appreciate our individuality. Now the evolution of the artistic process begins. As a student of mine so gracefully expounded;

All is [becoming] so neutral—which is forcing me to make my own decisions...to intuit what is taking place. What you [Rob] were looking for is of no concern to me—what I take from the scene is of importance to only one [person]—to me—the beauty of the picture. My mind will make the picture—

Trusting in his own skill and intuition, he will make photographs for no one but himself; he will find his own way. He is now on hallowed ground. Our reaction to the understanding that our awareness comes from a distinctly personal place may manifest itself in many ways. Some of us feel profoundly alone. Some make a mission of convincing others that our outlook is the ‘right’ one. Some come to cherish our unique perspectives, perhaps seeking to share them in our communications, in our teachings and in our art. Ideally, we may come to explore our own depths of vision and value others for theirs. Let’s say, like my student, an individual seeks out experience to add richness to his growing vision—his vision of himself in the context of the world. At last, he is accepting of himself and others and reaches beyond, looking for the underlying truths. He becomes free of assumption and open to experience. Perhaps he has known for a long time that he is seeking something beyond himself and so, he has acquired certain skills, in this case, the skills of the photographer. Now he picks up the camera he has carried here and there on so many occasions. He finds a subject he has seen before, a subject that has been presented and represented so often that it could easily be considered cliché. But on that day, at that instant, that most common of subjects presents itself as an unspoiled sacred object of beauty. The subject itself is seen as a piece of the photographer’s life, and the making of the picture is so natural as to be guided by instinct alone. Today, I was drawn to one such object—a red rose.

And, I knew that I had never before seen a rose quite that way. Let me clarify—I did not know this in the deliberate sense of knowing—rather, I intuited it. But I assure you that no one, in the history or in the future humankind, shall ever see that rose at that moment through the light of my eyes. And I photographed that rose.

We can speak of related art forms. When they achieve the sublime heights of their form it becomes difficult to express the experience in terms other than spiritual.

From The Art of Haiku :

The art of haiku is to frame reality in a single instance that will lock the poet and the reader into sharing the same experience. It is this thunderbolt- like encounter that has made haiku the poetry of Zen—it is the voicing of those moments that cannot be described in prose or logic. This poetic form has breathing beauty and a moving elusive quality—reading it increases our sense of tranquility and joy... The play between gods and spirits, thus, occurred in one breath, in one instant, and it is the same time frame that haiku has perfected to the ultimate art—the haiku moment...The object has seized us, we are being held...To render such a moment is the intent of all haiku, and the discipline of the form.

Indeed, this, I believe, is the intent of all forms of art. I cannot imagine a better illustration, encompassing not only, ‘the single instance’ during which a photograph is taken, ‘the single instance’ during which the photograph might be viewed, but also the essential ‘framing of reality,’ that is inherent both in the minimalist poetry of Haiku and in the task of the photographer. At its most powerful, both the photograph and the Haiku encompass the essential beauty of reality filtered through the singularity of human perception to realize something greater than both. Like Haiku, the art of the photograph is the personal rendering of an experience, not merely a comment upon it. This is the photograph that goes ‘beyond the subject.’

Now, the person looking at the rose, my rose, experiences it, so long as he or she is capable of looking, really looking—not merely of recognizing that this is indeed a photograph of a flower we commonly call a rose. Provided the viewer does not shuttle the image through the chemistry of his brain into the broad based category of ‘roses seen in lifetime,’ he might realize on some level that he has never quite experienced a rose like this one before. In the moment he is absorbed in the distinctiveness of that rose, he learns something of the other, of humankind as a whole, of the force that might have created both human- kind and the rose. He knows something of the artist’s vision—something of the enchantment of that particular rose at that discriminating moment. And he becomes aware that he is at this moment, everything he has ever been and that he holds within him the potential for everything he will become. The artist and the beholder are locked in a moment, sharing if not the same experience, one that breaks through individual variance to something profoundly shared. We have the rose; the photograph that embraces the rose— and in perpetuating the paradisiacal experience of that rose—the photograph that goes beyond.