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Answer Yourself
Foreward to the book by Matthew Donovan
Lennert
by Tim Baskerville
Every life has a measure of sorrow.
Sometimes it is this that awakens us. 1
- Jack Kornfield
While you probably didn’t find this book in the travel section
of your local bookstore, it is nonetheless a travelogue, a
discrete record of an artist’s journey of self-discovery.
You first see a catalog of images, place names, and dates,
but beneath that lays a roadmap of the psychological landscape
that the artist encountered in his travels. Here is what we
know of the steps leading to the path that called upon Matthew
Donovan Lennert. Born in 1965 in Los Angeles, he grew up in
nearby San Diego. He showed an early interest in photography
and art, guided by his grandparents, who were both photographers,
and to whom this book is dedicated. Lennert attended San Jose
State in the early 1980s, and later the Academy of Art College
in San Francisco, where he took classes taught by the legendary
Steve Harper, whom I was also fortunate to have studied with.
During the 1980s and into the 1990s, Harper, a pioneer in
the study of night photography, was the only person teaching
college-level courses on the subject, and his emphasis on
developing the total artist (not just the technician) made
him as good an “art father-figure” as one is likely to find—for
Lennert, myself and nearly all who came in contact with him.
As Lennert relates: “Meeting and working with Harper—that
is when the switch went on! And, it has never gone off.”
Another thing we know about Lennert: he believes that his
photographs (all photographs, for that matter) should say
something. He continually questions himself: “Is it really
worth a two hour-long exposure if you’re not trying to say
something about your life?” Night photography is hard work,
and he believes that we should use photography to convey some
sort of meaningful message: “It doesn’t have to be meaningful
to anybody else, as long as it means something to you. There’s
a thought process behind making images—that is being a photographer.”
This book is a time capsule of a significant period of Lennert’s
life, when, as he says: “I woke up to who I really was, and
used night photography to go through that process of self-discovery.”
It was a time also, when he found night photography to be
his predominant form of self-expression. That is, in part,
where the title to this book comes from—“Answer Yourself”
is not some “in your face” retort, but a call to listen to
that voice in your head—the one that calls you out onto a
different path. Answering our questions about the title, Lennert
reveals: “The piece, ‘Answer Yourself’ specifically, deals
with the time in your life when you stop ignoring the little
voice inside your head, and start listening to it. It calls
to you, and if you listen, it tells you who you are, what
you should be, what to do, which way to go, which choices
to make. The image on the cover is a metaphor for all that.”
With that in mind, the subtext of the book could well be:
“Listen up!”
There’s a question that Arthur Ollman (another night photography
pioneer, inspiration to a whole generation of young night
photographers, and the Founder/Director of the Museum of Photographic
Arts in San Diego) asked fellow Nocturne Tom Paiva: “Why night
photography?” It’s a question that I have asked myself many
times, the answer to which seems so obvious—but it’s also
a little hard to articulate. Matthew Donovan Lennert, when
asked this question is very definite about it though: “There’s
physicality to photographing at night that’s different than
with ‘normal’ photography. Shooting at night, there’s adrenalin
present, and a feeling that you’re really not supposed to
be there, but you ARE there. And you’re doing this offbeat,
somewhat dangerous, and almost primal thing. That is why,
night photography.” This is to say, it’s also spiritual. This
edginess, physicality, and sense of danger, mixed with a Zen-like
calm is evident in almost all of the work you see here—this
placing of one’s self in slightly dangerous situations, for
art’s sake. Be it a rooftop, at water’s edge, in a centuries-old
cemetery, or at “The Gates of Hell”—you can almost feel it.
Danger, beauty, and calm; the physical and the spiritual;
yin and yang—quite a mix.
Like Michael Kenna (a stated influence), for Lennert, the
real attraction of night photography is experiential. As Kenna
has noted: “The real strength, the core of photography, is
its tie to reality— the subject was there, I was there, and
I experienced it. Photography for me is not the end product,
it’s the experience and it’s being there, doing it.” 2
This book is Lennert’s offering, a sharing of his experiences
with people. As he says: “The vast majority of people will
never experience what it is like to be out at 3 o’clock in
the morning, out in the cold night air, exposing a single
piece of film for an hour and a half.” The book is also a
form of closure, a completion of a process of self-examination
and discovery that Lennert undertook six years ago, not always
sure where it would lead. Like most night photographers on
any given night, making an exposure—one is never quite sure
where it will lead. Night photography is not an exact science,
by any means, as a single exposure is accomplished over a
long period of time, where many things can happen (shots happen,
you know!), and it’s done in real time. I’ve often thought
that a night photograph is as much an act of faith, as it
is a matter of calculation, or science. And this book is a
continuation, or culmination of Lennert’s original act of
faith.
With the book’s publication, and the successful closure of
the project, Matthew Donovan Lennert finds himself “happy
. . . and a little terrified.” Asking himself, as he faces
a future rife with apprehension: “What if what I needed to
say with these photographs has been said? What if (and I hope
I’m wrong), what if this is it? What am I to say now?” We
can only ask ourselves a similar question, and wonder: Will
he be able to answer the calls from within, beckoning him
to do more work with this same gripping, extreme, enigmatic
presence? “There Is Always Hope . . . “ 3
Tim Baskerville, San Francisco, 2003
1 From “Buddha’s Little Instruction
Book,” Bantam Books, 1994
2 Review for “Photo Metro” magazine,
2001
3 Reference to plate #16
Answer Yourself
9x9"-36pp hardcover with dust jacket
ISBN 0-9742348-0-X
Published by Photocelt Press, Hayward, CA
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