Danny Luong: Zen and the Process of Photography

I met fellow Exposure Studio member Danny Luong building my first Perspectives Art Show. I don’t remember how. Maybe Alvin. I could fact check that, but obviously too late for that now. Danny’s main focus is documentary or journalistic - he uses different formats and subjects but always seems to focus on his family lineage, stories of immigrants in this country, and the generational experience of, at least right now, asian canadians.

Through our chat I kept hearing this asian perspective in his thinking and my head got stuck between concepts from Taoism and Zen Buddhism. For me, Zen Buddhism is a powerful spiritual influence that helps to moderate my own tendency to overcomplicate things; and by things I mean everything. 

Zen focuses on a practice is knowledge process and there’s great power to the subsequent concept that instead of thinking about an action, one must be present and simply act. Even if by act we mean to sit and not do anything!

Danny brings up walking and meditation and he seems to embody a lot of the practical ideas that circle around Zen Buddhism. Even if he’s at odds with it often. It’s interesting that in acting Zen, there is always a sense of conflict and dialectic. Because in Zen, there’s no single truth. Life is a balancing act between every living and dying thing. Spiritualism is a process towards this sense of balance. Literal study a distraction from it!

“You cannot see the Path, you can only see from it”

- Nanyue Huairang (677–744)

So are we trying to look for the path, or are we looking out from it? I’m probably more the former… this podcast seems to be essentially that. But I think photographers like Danny tend to the latter. Whether he is aware of it or not, just participating in projects like his reflection on his family lineage seem to be actions towards balance, rather than thought experiments trying to label them!

Hope you’re all out there continuation to act the truth rather than think it. And by act… aptly… actuate those shutters people!