Category: Musings

personal thoughts and explorations; sometimes evolving as I write ’em.

Photography, HUUH!!, What is it Good For?

Politics, Religion, Art, Photography, etc.

A discussion thread on the Flickr site, in a group established around a particular camera, includes several personal statements as well as some open explorations on that the member who posted it calls a photographic “Paradigm Shift”. In his last two paragraphs, working professional photographer, and Nikon reviewer, Gerard Prins, makes a couple of personal statements:

Purpose lies not in choosing Nikon over Canon (or v.v.), but it does in purposely & knowingly choosing…(my edit).. purposely breaking the rules and purposely pursuing a personal style or point of view.
Purpose combined with talent creates Art, and creating Art is reserved – thank heavens – to those who purposely dedicate their lives to doing so.

Let’s all thank digital for largely eliminating the technical barriers that once separated amateur from pro, allowing amateurs to raise the bar a notch or two and forcing all of us to – once again – concentrate on what photography is all about: talent, beauty & art.

That’s a point of view, alright –one that’s echoed a Lot in so many places. The last segment of that last sentence is one that finally moved me to respond, though, as it seeks to assert “what photography is all about”.
That merely raises the question mark, in me, but it’s the question that I believe each of us answers in some way or other, unique to “who” each of us is, at any one point in time, and to what our personal vision inspires us to attempt or to stand for.
Like politics and religion, “What is photography about?”, is at Best, the question that we each can use to true ourselves up to a vision.. or at Worst it is the question that can be used to “justify” or argue (same difference) a point of view ( to be “right” about it, in a limiting way).
At it’s most neutral, and most profound, though, photography is about
1) whatever the person who practices it is about
2) whatever the viewer perceives it to be about
3) whatever any of us can invent it to be about from here forward.
4) ___________________________________________________

Dating my daughters

When I was a young man, I remember a slight shudder running up my spine at the idea of any future daughters, upon their beginning to date young men. As it turned out, my only “daughters” are my creative productions.. photographs, drawings, radio programs, stage performances, etc.

FireDance2

Recently, I came across a blog post by Andrew Ilachinski, at his Tao of Photography , on viewers viewing gallery art. Go give it a read, if you find that interesting; I’ll wait… . ..    .                   .

For the rest of you:

Reminded of my experience, years ago, at a gallery showing of two themes of my black and white photographs, I joined into the comments on his post:

“I once noticed an interchange between two viewers (of my own work,including some almost abstract closeup studies of line texture, in a friend’s gallery) which suggested a conclusion about art and perception. One of them, from the opposite side of the long narrow gallery space, came and got her friend who was looking at another image just below where I was standing, taking her to the one she had been looking at. Neither realized I was present, maybe not even knowing I Was the photographer. The first woman said (something like), “Look. I can see (whatever it was she saw) in this. See it?” The second said (approximately),”No.. I don’t see that.. but what I DO see is (whatever She said she saw), as plain as day”
And they were definite, but quite different impressions, at least with respect to their respective “images”, but interestingly, it seemed to me both impressions were similar in character or “feel”.
Rather than feel as if my work had failed, I began to wonder if it had succeeded on a whole other level, since they seemed to have gotten similar emotional experiences on viewing the same image. They just explained or interpreted their emotional response with different “specifics”?
In the end, I began to think that it doesn’t matter what the “abstract” image actually “portrays” to those who bother to look; maybe what matters is that we make an image that has the organization and technical skill that clears the way, distills the experience, so that a viewer can bring his/her inner experience to the image. Sloppy images may provide a “confused path” to/through the image, while an image made by someone who composes somewhat cleanly, with organized elements and dynamics if you will, lets the image be a mirror for the viewer.
I take that as a high calling, actually… maybe Just as great as showing them what I saw.”