I don't like photographing people. That's a strange statement coming from someone who is known to be gregarious in nature. Of course, some may take that to mean loud, obnoxious, unreserved, uninhibited... did I mention loud? To put it another way, I feel more comfortable if I know what is going on around me and know who I'm dealing with, and the best way to do that is to jump right in and introduce myself. The funny thing is, I'm reserved and like being alone, preferring that over socializing at a party. This may be why, as you look at my photographs, you'll see mountains and rivers and trees and buildings and... no people. I'm just not a people person, at least photographically. I don't feel comfortable pointing a camera at people, wondering if I need a legal form to take a photograph, and I worry how they feel about me pointing a camera at them. People on a city street have things to deal with and I don't want to interrupt those concerns. And unlike mountains and rivers and trees and buildings, people keep moving around when I'm trying to compose. STOP IT! I like my subjects to sit there and wait until the light is just right so I can capture the magic of the moment. It's hard enough finding the right composition, the right light, the perfect mood, without having to deal with motion and gestures and... why do they insist on moving so much?!? Lately, I've been considering this relationship between me and people. I enjoy watching the crowds go by in the mall as I drink my overpriced chai tea latte, wondering what they're shopping for, where they've been in their lives, what makes them tick. My non-photography job is helping students succeed in their education, and I'm overjoyed when they grow and learn. And even when I go out and photograph, it's wonderful to see that others are enjoying nature and history and leisure and... please just stay out of my way. And that's the crux of the matter... I like people around as long as I don't have to interact with them. Interaction for me is an investment, not something to pass the time. This investment means I am genuinely interested in how people tick. I'm concerned if someone is having a bad day and want to take the time to listen and try to help. But for most day to day interaction, all that small talk... it's just not for me. Informal chit chat with no meaningful direction is irritating to me. I'm not one that can play the middle ground... I'm either invested in the conversation, or I'm not. What does this have to do with the photographic process? I'm glad you asked. Photography, by its very nature, does not allow disengagement from the world. Cameras like the Fuji X-T1 that I use, are intrusive devices, unnatural in their form and use. They are big enough to be noticed, therefore an obvious attachment to oneself, have to be lifted to the face or require you to change your position to view a screen, and they don't have the casual "I'm taking a selfie" vibe a smartphone has. The camera becomes the physical embodiment of deep and meaningful interaction. Because of this imposed intrusiveness, I tend to shy away from human involvement in my photography. When I'm invested in the process of image creation, it's difficult to be invested in the human subject at the same time. But how do I get to a place where I can connect to the human condition and yet be detached enough to capture the photographic moment? It seems these two views are on the opposite sides of the spectrum, and yet I see photographers successfully engage with humanity and their photography all the time. I'm missing some key element that allows me to connect the seemingly unconnectable. In order to find this elusive idea, I've decided to take a workshop on street photography, forcing myself to interact with the people I photograph. The idea has been jelling in my mind for a while now, and came to a head when I recommended experiencing life through a workshop in a previous post. The workshop I chose, facilitated by Valérie Jardin, promises to discuss the different ways to approach street photography, review ethical aspects, and give advice on how to get over the fear of photographing strangers in the streets. This sounds exactly like the very thing I loathe... but the very thing I need. The workshop won't be held until December, but once I've experienced it, I'll let you know how it goes.
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I've seen discussions lately about the importance (or irrelevancy) of photographic equipment... mostly concerning cameras and lenses. Historically, photographers have been a fickle lot, and more often than not, equipment junkies. I fondly remember the days I was working in camera sales and two photographer customers (one Nikon, one Canon) were having a heated debate with each other concerning the length of their respective zoom lenses. Yes... you read that right... the length. Please feel free to insert any joke you may find relevant. Far be it from me to make any judgments regarding this discussion, but it does go to show how our obsession with equipment can cloud our vision of the bigger picture. (There are so many zingers I could be adding right now... but I digress). For most of my early career, I was not only an equipment junkie, but a brand snob. My first camera was a Nikon FM, and I would never accept Canon as a worthwhile contender (while Minolta wasn't even on the radar). Why? For no other reason than it seems to be in the nature of photographers to attach themselves to a brand and be fiercely loyal to it. As time progressed, my camera of choice became Hasselblad, and anything less was a toy camera meant for those just starting in the business. Arrogance, thy name is photographer. Many photographers argue that equipment is a vital component to photographic success and the best made equipment will result in the best made images. You can easily see how many times cheap materials give us terrible products. How often have we bemoaned accepting the "lowest bid" or regretted buying the off brand? It is logical to think this holds true for any endeavor, but is this necessarily so? I often sold expensive but also well crafted equipment to my customers (that was my job!). And yet, many of the resulting images were, shall we say, less than optimum. So what was wrong? How could superior equipment result in inferior quality? If you take some time to think about it, you have to wonder how much quality you get for your investment in dollars. I mean... does a $40,000 Hasselblad H6D really give 20 times the quality of a $2,000 Fuji X-T1? This kind of thinking led me to the conclusion equipment was at best marginally important, and if anything, could very well be detrimental to the whole process. Photographers are obsessed with finding the magic equipment that will make them the greatest success, either monetarily wealthy or immensely popular. They forget the essence of photography... its ability to communicate through the photographic image, and the resulting images demonstrate that lack of vision. If you browse some of my photographs, you will note I have an entire section devoted solely to smartphone images. Most of these images are created at the spur of the moment. I see something that catches my eye and I photograph it. I later go into my phone settings and tweak the image with the limited tools available. No exporting to Photoshop, no careful planning, no stressing out at the exact edits needed. This process is so casual, that some of the images were taken as I was driving down the highway! So does this mean equipment is nothing but a con, a deception by corporations that have run out of ideas to make the next best thing in camera tech? I have to admit, I was thinking this for the longest time. I came to believe the only thing that matters is your experience as a photographer, your personal vision and the techniques you have learned along the way. This is also a logical argument. Doesn't everyone want the plumber with the best experience to fix your bursting pipes? Would you want to fly with a pilot that got a "C" in landing planes? As I said, I've been using my smartphone as a camera, and have been seeing rather dramatic clouds in the sky of late. Most have been taken just outside my office at work, sometimes going to the top floor of the garage and pointing up. Not a lot of time needed and very little thinking required. After showing these to my coworkers, they would say how much they liked them, and I would invariably say something like "well... it's just a smartphone shot". I was belittling my work because I was still of a mind that equipment matters, no matter what I said I believed. So these comments got me thinking... was the image not important because it was taken with a phone? Why was I equating importance with equipment and not technique? Did I believe the steps used to arrive at the image were too simple and too automated, therefore inferior? At first, I thought I was just using the phone as a ready way to capture an image, mostly for my own amusement. I would then edit the image, somewhat haphazardly, with whatever was readily available in the phone software. But I showed these images to others and also posted them online. I must have thought more of them than just as amusing pastimes. The more I thought about it and the feedback I was given, I realized I was missing the point altogether. The phone was the tool I chose because of my photographic experiences. The way I used the phone... the angles, the lighting, the time of day, the subject matter... all of these things came about because of these experiences. One person actually told me (once I had said it was only a phone image) that they would not have thought of taking that photo at all, much less of taking it in just the way I did and editing it in just the way it had been edited. I realized this was the mark of experience, of a vision that they did not possess. The equipment in this case was the vehicle that created just the right image for what I was trying to capture and for what I wanted to say. If I had wanted to say something else, I might have used a different camera. So... is equipment important? Well, the right equipment for the job is important, but more so is the right experience. Without the right equipment, an inexperienced photographer may not know how to compensate, but with enough experience, great images can be the result (although they may be different that what was expected). Without experience to fall back on, even the greatest cameras and lenses will usually result in average shots (at best!). Success isn't based on the equipment you have nor is it based on the techniques you use. It is about the experiences, in other words, the right balance between your equipment choices and the techniques you have learned that results in something greater than either one could achieve on its own. The trick is to have the experience needed to choose the right equipment and use the proper techniques for successfully produce your personal vision. With that powerful combination, you will most certainly succeed. What would I suggest? Go out with whatever you have, be it smartphone, SLR or mirrorless camera, and put everything on automatic. Go out and practice vision. Capture communication. Come back and think about your experiences. Was there something lacking? Do you need different equipment to capture the image? Do you need a photo workshop or two or maybe just experience life so you have something to say? Then go out and get those things! Find the answers to these questions. Once you do, then, and only then, will you succeed. By now you may have noticed I am more interested in why we do what we do rather than in the technical aspects of how we do what we do. There are a lot of places you can go on the Internet that have explanations of software and technique, but far fewer discussions on the meanings behind our images. This might be because writing a step-by-step process, although sometimes tedious, is not necessarily difficult. You have a starting point, a direction, a goal to complete. I know... I've written them before.
Once we need to discuss how we feel about something, things get murky and more personal. Think about the last time someone asked you why you shot in black and white, or why you shot that dead bird or crack in the wall (after 30 years, my wife still asks me that). Not so easy to come up with an answer, is it? How do you explain how you feel, how you experience? Our images hint towards our innermost sentiments and how we think the world works. They are not to be taken lightly, and as such, can be difficult to explain. Our assumptions about the world move us towards making certain kinds of images, and our feelings change how that world appears. To communicate photographically, we need to see how these assumptions change our images in the process. If I am uncomfortable (let's say its really cold outside while I'm trying to take a landscape shot), I tend to rush so I can get somewhere warm, and end up with less than stellar results. That in turn gets me upset, and things just go from bad to worse. But if I'm wearing a warmer coat and the cold isn't affecting me as much, I tend to enjoy what I'm doing and the exact same scene ends up as a magical moment. My perception of cold altered my view and in turn altered my photography. How do we control our perceptions in such a way as to not color our world? In short, we don't. We will always perceive the world is some fashion... that's what makes our images different from all the other images out there. If we didn't view the world differently, we would see nothing but the exact same portrait angles, the same snowscapes, the same product shots. Sure, sometimes it does feel we are seeing the same images again and again (especially in the age of "look what I'm eating today"), but for the most part we really do see some amazing images out there. And if we look at their backstory, the reasoning behind making the images, we realize they are a view into the mind of the photographer that created them. The problem, as I see it, is the number of images taking up our precious time. Social media -- advertising on multiple cable channels -- the ease of which images may be produced -- all have contributed to our need to walk away from studying what we are looking at. We look at an image for a split second, decide if it is worth our time, then walk away. This isn't really new, of course. I read somewhere that the average time someone looks at a painting in a museum is something under 30 seconds. For some viewers, that might be a generous estimate. Because we are all rushing about, we miss a great deal of the communication going on around us. By slowing down our viewing time, we can connect with the photographer and see how their mind works, how their perceptions color the world. A photograph is not to be viewed in a moment just because it was captured in a moment. Thought and emotion was put into its creation, and those qualities can be transmitted to the viewer if they take the time to let it happen. So what do we do when we take the time to look? We could, for instance, consider the compositional features of a photograph, but I find I tend to stop at that if I don't like what I see. The way I compose an image may not be the way another photographer does, and that jars with my sense of reality, so I ignore everything else. Instead, I would suggest thinking about what emotional responses we have to an image, and by an image, I mean ANY image. We often do not realize we are having a response to an image unless it is something like "oh that's a beautiful landscape / portrait / wedding shot (insert whatever image you happen to really like here)". If the image is something other than that, something we don't get an immediate response to, we fail to realize there is an emotion there, just not as strong or obvious. By taking some time to focus on our emotional response, we can lead ourselves down a path towards appreciating the art we see. That crack in the wall might be a statement of the decay of society; the dead bird becomes a view into the fragility of life; clouds become wild horses, the play of light and shadow the mysteries of things yet to come. Take time to perceive the world through another's eyes. You may be surprised at what you find. I was browsing the Internet, as one seems to do when bored, and found a site for Michael Kenna. He is known for his very long photographic exposures when creating his amazing silver gelatin images — no digital for him! Visiting his site reminded me of a young man, just starting to explore photography, who took a leap of faith and enrolled in a workshop with both Michael Kenna and the much missed Ray McSavaney. Damn, that was a long time ago!
I looked at his work (like "Ten Balloons, Albuquerque, New Mexico"), which got me thinking of my old work, why I first fell in love with the photographic process and why I am still passionate about black and white photography in the era of digital imaging. The memories were so strong, I actually took the time to send an email to him, letting him know how much that workshop inspired me and helped make me the man I am today. And you know what? He responded! I was floored. He spoke of his love of photography and that he was at that moment on the top of a mountain in China waiting for the late afternoon light. Now that's impressive. It seems to me this is what photography is about... the passion of vision, the meaning behind the act. In my mind I see the play of light and shadow, white birch trees standing out from a darkened wood, the texture of a stone filled landscape, the diffused light streaming down the mountainside. And I sing. May the late afternoon light of China sing to you. What’s Interesting? That is a good question, especially when we go out with our camera and start creating images. What is interesting depends on so many factors. We are passionate about certain things — travel, family, landscapes, composition, color, emotion — the list is endless. So how do we decide what we should shoot?
We could consider traveling to exotic locales to see the rare or the unusual… always seeking something to capture the imagination, to see the other. Or we might find ourselves at home, fascinated by the falling leaves and the pattern they make on the snow covered ground, seeing the other right in our backyard. In the studio, we could arrange the model or the product just so, creating a path for the eye to follow, making the subject stand out, be different, be the other. I keep using that term, “the other”, but what is it? Oftentimes, we walk around in a kind of haze — everything around us is common, the same, not the other. We are stuck in a rut of looking at the expected, and the expected becomes boring. We’ve been there, done that, so what’s the point of photographing it? *Sigh* I’m getting bored just writing this. I quite often find myself in a state of ennui, a feeling of listlessness, of dissatisfaction, what Buddhists might call Dukkha. I have a sense of unsatisfactoriness, where things are not quite right, and unfortunately, this leads to being disconnected with the moment I find myself in. Somehow I expect to go out and find that magic image, that thing that I can capture that makes the day worthwhile. When I don’t find it, I think my time is wasted, and that is one horrible feeling. We all do this at some point… we can’t find a challenge or a spark or a moment of insight, and we just stop, close down, become disappointed that nothing is going on. The reality is, everything is going on, 24 hours a day, all week, all year. We just don’t notice most of it. Our expectations get in the way of our seeing. There is a cloud in front of us, a fog of doubt or fear that makes us demand something interest us. When we go out to create an image, whether that is in the studio, on the street, or in the middle of the desert, something — anything — must pop up and amaze us with its photographic possibilities. The world doesn’t work that way. It isn’t there to pop up and astound us with its beauty, its rarity, its uniqueness. It’s up to us to see the world as it is — to see the beauty in a fallen leaf, to find the rarity in the eyes of a smiling child, to realize the world itself is one freakin’ unique place. I have been playing around with my iPhone recently… you might have noticed I now have a “Smartphone” folder with a few images in it. I was sitting in my back yard, night had fallen, and I could see the clouds moving swiftly in the sky. I thought, what the hell, and popped out the camera phone and started shooting. Needless to say, images were dark and difficult to see, but there was something there. At the time, I couldn’t tell what, but I was intrigued. The next day, I looked at those images, but was still unsure of what I was looking at. What the hell WAS I looking at? Dark images of clouds. Really? Was I just pretending that I shot something interesting? Was I just fooling myself, thinking that if I shot it, there must be something meaningful there? I couldn't tell what was going on or why I was playing with my damn phone. I had to get to a point where I was letting go of what I expected to see, let go of how I was supposed to create images... and that was one hard step. I remembered that you could modify images in the iPhone — lighten them, change colors to prearranged settings, crop and change angles. Well, I said to myself, these are ‘just’ iPhone images… they have no importance, so might as well alter them to my hearts content. Notice what happened there… I decided that if an image had no importance I could experiment and rip it to shreds and nothing would be lost. How wrong I was — not that something could be lost — but that the images had no importance. ALL images have importance… we just don’t see it and so disregard this importance, ignore the images, throw them away. But what I found was those simple editing settings enhanced what I knew was there instinctively… images that made a statement, communicated, were important. It didn’t matter that I was letting software make these edits… what techniques you end up using aren't the important bit. It’s the journey itself, the journey of discovery that makes life interesting. So “the other” isn’t a specific place or an important event, it isn't a masterful studio setup, a hard learned technique or purchased software driven automation… it’s the magic of realizing that each moment in time is different from another, and this difference is meaningful. Instead of trying to seek out and capture somewhere else, some other way, something totally different from what we are used to, instead of getting bogged down or depressed or stuck in the common events of our lives, we need to realize these events are unique to our perception, and the simplest things, a rose recently planted, the aisles in a grocery store, the dog just sitting there, are all important in their own way. If we start seeing the world as unique, each moment becomes unique, and that opens up the possibility of communicating that moment in our images in our own unique way. I was just reading an interesting post by Valérie Jardin (What's the Deal With Mindfulness) and wrote a response, which I have copied below...
I think one of the mistakes people often make about mindfulness or "being mindful" is they think it is being aloof or set apart from the world, which is really the exact opposite of what it is all about. Mindfulness is about accepting the moment for what it is instead of trying to apply what you want the moment to be. It isn't "living" in the moment, it is "accepting" the moment, allowing it to be whatever it is. We all tend to try to make things our way, and that is the part that is unrealistic. We either try to avoid moments we don't like, sometimes trying to forcibly change it, or try to grasp at moments we really love, demanding we never have to let them go. Both ways just lead to unsatisfactory results. In photography, we should always be looking (or better yet SEEING), but allow for the possibility that we won't necessarily find what we are looking for. In that way, maybe we will find that which we were not looking for... and who knows... it might be that much more magical. Yes, there is always meditation and focusing your mind and not being a monkey mind and blah blah blah, but I find wandering to be a lot of fun... and if that is what is in the moment, why not run with it? :-D If we were constantly wandering, we may very well get lost. I mean, I sure don't want my mind wandering when I'm concentrating on driving... that could be dangerous, but wandering in and of itself isn't an issue or a problem. It just has its place as does concentrating. So how does mindfulness relate to photography? I did mention we should always be seeing rather than looking, but I always say that. So what? How does photography have anything to do with mindfulness? Is it a part of it, an integral connection, or just something we should think about? When we speak of mindfulness, we are purposefully tuning ourselves to our environment in such a way as to realize we are a part of that environment, not a separate entity disassociated and disconnected like we usually think of things being. We are "in the moment" when we accept the way things are and are not trying to force our perceptions on it. When we do this, we allow ourselves to see the world as it is and create a connection. Once this connection is made, we are able to, as photographers, create images that reflect that connection. A connection is what makes the photographic image successful, and by successful I don't mean more "likes" or more money or more fame. I mean the image is more than just a record of an event or scene or studio setup. It holds within itself the connection we have made and communicates something that is more meaningful than what is contained on the surface of the image, something that is greater than the image itself. How we reach such a state of mindfulness is not really the point. I happen to sit and stare at something for a while and think about it abstractly, then think about composition, and only then think about the light and how I am going to interpret this something I see photographically. This tends to drive my spouse batty... there he goes again, she says... I'm off to get coffee. Let me know when your free again! Other photographers might be bouncing ideas up and down and all around their heads while shooting images of quickly changing scenes, and still other photographers may be working for hours just to get the right angle, set up the right shot, choose the studio lights that best reflect the subject and concept. I have no idea how their spouses feel. All of these methods are perfectly fine. What path you choose may be very different from the one I would choose, but it doesn't make it any less mindful. As long as our wanderings aren't leading us astray (either emotionally or physically down a deep pit!) we should be fine and be successful in our image making. Social media has made it possible for us to view hundreds of casual images (see my previous post What We Photograph). These posts try to communicate with images, images, and more images... yet many have little in them that has any real and lasting communication. This is not to say the casual image is meaningless... far from it. They can capture a world from the individual point of view, a view that only a limited few would see until the advent of social media. I firmly believe that a hundred years from now, people will see our society based primarily on the social media images we choose to post today. Yet, for the most part, these images do not capture the moment as intended, or at best, present it in such a way that the meaning is lost in translation. The emotion that was felt at the time doesn’t translate well, the images lose their meaning when posted for the world to see on a tiny screen, and in essence, they were made for the person taking them at the time.
Many posit this loss in translation is due to bad technique, so we get blogs and websites posting articles like "Two camera settings that will make your images pop!" or "The one piece of equipment landscape photographers can't do without". These aren't exact quotes, but you get the idea. I read these posts and, at least for me, they seem gimmicky, more interested in equipment that will save your images from... well... bad technique. Don't get me wrong, there are always things to learn to make you a better photographer, and these posts have some great information. And although technique does matter, by boiling our thinking down to the search for the perfect setting on a camera or having that special piece of equipment we just "can't do without", we forget the entire point of why we are creating images in the first place. You don't hear a painter passionately describe the exact brush they used or the brand of paint they bought; it would astound me to hear of someone who obsessed over the kind of chisel Michelangelo used to create the Statue of David, and then ignore the masterpiece itself. Although technique makes me wonder in amazement at the expertise of the artist, it isn't the equipment or technique that really matters — it's about the journey the artist took that created such a miracle of vision; the search for those little details that make a subject something more than what it first appears to be. It's about taking the time to look carefully at the world, thinking about what we see, and then finding a way to capture that in a way a viewer can experience it too. Let's change gears for a second and think about driving a car. If I want to drive to the store to buy groceries, I need to be able to actually drive! But, if I can't, I can get a ride, use the bus, or even walk — not always the best solutions, but doable. In the end, the purpose is to get the groceries, not to do the driving. Getting back to photography, it's best to understand your camera settings, see how filters change the look of a scene, use a tripod when necessary. But, if I can't, I can use program settings on the camera, try to steady myself when I take a shot, or fix images on the computer — not always the best solutions, but doable. The techniques may create an advantage, but are not the purpose of photography. Creating images is. When I am out with my camera, I try my best to keep seeing instead of just looking. Looking is accepting something as there -- it exists and so you move on. But to see, that is so much greater. To see is to realize something caught your eye, something stood out and it mattered, even if that was only for an instant. As photographers, we try to understand why this something is meaningful, and once we do, we find a way to create an image that communicates this meaning. So ultimately, communication is the transference of meaning, and that is exactly the purpose of creating photographic images. Now, you may love my work or you may hate it. All I have to say is... GREAT! Something in the images drove you crazy or made you weep (possibly both!). It communicated in some way, and that's a good thing. I do not fear loathing, I fear indifference. When I communicate through my photography, I want to be heard. It is perfectly fine if you don’t like what you hear... it provides an opportunity for discussion and maybe even enlightenment for both of us. Case in point — I have been reading a lot about new improvements in camera phone technology and discussed this with various friends of mine. This got me interested in what the camera in my phone could do, so I started exploring. There is a sense of letting go of the camera and just looking at the world when you use this little technological marvel. You let go of all that ego about having to make things perfect the first time, then start actually seeing the world in a different way. I think this adventure will bring more clarity to my other camera work as well, and maybe I might even really start seeing the world instead of just looking at it! What a great world it would be if we didn’t shy away from the things we don’t like and instead made a point of discussing them in a human and engaging way. A lot of the worlds problems would be solved if we did. So keep on communicating, creating images, and being heard. I've been reading photography blogs lately... a lot of them. Some are purely technical, mostly concerning equipment reviews or photography techniques. Others are from professional photographers (those making money in the medium), and still others are about travel and what to photograph while you are there. All of these hold an interest for me for various reasons. I like travel. I like equipment. I like technique. But what has really interested me lately is why we photograph the things we do.
I tend to categorize photographers in one of four ways, and one can very well be any of these at a given time:
After writing this and reviewing my categories, I realized the differences are all about control, not about who is better or more qualified or makes money or, quite frankly, any other irrelevant hierarchy that attempts to "rate" the value of the photographer. There is no right or wrong path. As photographers, we capture that one moment that makes a difference, that makes a statement visually and emotionally. There may be issues with controlling the environment and the amount of preparation changes from one type of photographer to another, but in the end, it’s all about communication. While the casual photographer may not realize it, they are creating the images that people will see most often, now and in the future. With the advent of social media, we are inundated with these kinds of images and the story of our lives will most probably be seen through these lenses. Only time will tell. And there’s nothing wrong with this, taking a snapshot, grabbing the camera phone and quickly recording what is there... some amazing shots can result. This kind of photography gives a hint of an emotion, a record of a place once experienced. It isn't created to be judged on the basis of composition or lighting style, but to show you've done something and it has been recorded. I suppose people want to get “likes” on social media posts, and there is a judgement of a sort there, but for the most part we just want to record our experiences in some way, to somehow experience the moment again, and we can do that very easily now that digital cameras are everywhere. I do it all the time whenever I travel with my family. I want to remember a place and a quick shot is all I really need. Sometimes amazing shots result, but for the most part, these images are just for me to remember my experience. I'm not trying to communicate anything else to anyone else. It just makes a difference to me. I guess you could call it a “communication to self” for future reference. In a studio, the photographer is concerned with posing a model or placing objects for best effect, of lighting to reflect the mood and environment they wish to communicate. They must understand their equipment and control the environment. This takes time and patience as well as planning for just the right mood, just the right effect. The studio environment only has what the photographer brings to it, and their knowledge and attention to detail create a statement, manipulate emotions, produce a vision, seemingly from nothing. What they photograph is dependent on what subject they bring into the studio, whether a model or product or snowflake. They construct what amounts to a communication of hyper-reality, difficult to distinguish from what is apparently real, through make-up, posing, and lighting. That is their art and craft, their reason to create. In environmental photography, you often have to scout an area and see where the light falls, wait for the right time or the right season to get the shadows and the color just right. It is difficult to modify light out in the field and if you do, it has to look like you didn’t. You don’t have the luxury of studio controls... you can’t tell the sun to move a few inches to the right please! Your days may start early and end late, and you can never predict the weather or the circumstances. This takes patience and understanding, and sometimes, a little luck. The photographers vision is highly dependent on the environment they find themselves in, but also on their knowledge of that environment and how it can be photographed. Like a studio photographer, they must bring with them anything used to make the image as well as their technical expertise to control the seemingly uncontrollable. It is this sense of wonder, this non-predictability that drives their creation. Event photographers have a whole allotment of issues to deal with. They are usually outdoors like their landscape counterparts, so all those issues arise. They also have to be personable in order to communicate with their subjects who may or may not be in the mood to be photographed. They may have to deal with specific image requirements expected of them, especially if this is a paying job. They have to be constantly on the lookout for place and position, lighting and shadow, angles and activity. One wrong choice and you have a missed opportunity. If everything falls into place, in that one fleeting moment, magic happens. Their driving force is the rush of movement, the engagement of being there, capturing the mood of a time and place. Whatever personal circumstances brought us to the photographic medium, the reason we remain seems straightforward... a need to communicate our vision, to ourselves and to others. We may be in it for the money, but let’s face it... there are easier ways to make money. We may photograph to capture a moment in our lives, but the image is only a memory, the moment has past. We may want to communicate the wonders of the world, but the photograph is at best a copy, an interpretation of that wonder. With these seeming limitations, why do we photograph the things we do? I would propose that every artist, regardless of medium, has an inner drive to communicate, and the process we choose, the style we develop, and even the limits we place on ourselves, mold that communication for the world to see and experience through our art. Our medium explains the world and helps us to understand it through our photographic process. Maybe every artist is just seeking for an answer, even if unsure of the question. And maybe that is the magic of it all... I certainly hope that it is. I've had a couple of posts that deal with what art might be and why I create black and white images. This got me thinking about why I chose photography as my medium, as opposed to architecture or painting or underwater basketweaving or any number of other ways to express oneself. To begin with, I was going to be an architect. This was back in the days of mechanical pencils and vellum, rulers, triangles and drafting compasses. There was no software to plan with and certainly no personal computers to work on. Talk about old school. I loved the mechanics, but there was always something missing, or better put, there was something missing in me. I just could not grasp how to communicate what was in me with the tools at hand. There are many who can and have, but unfortunately, it wasn't for me. So I moved on and dabbled in paint, in graphic arts, in charcoal, in fibers, in metal work, but each had its drawbacks. Although I didn't realize it then, my way of communication was more immediate, more connected to what was in front of me at the moment than what was in my head. I had someone tell me recently that there are two kinds of people... those that are goal driven and those that are resource driven. I am most definitely the latter. Those that are goal driven know where they want to go and plan accordingly. Resource driven individuals don't really worry so much about where they are going... they are very comfortable whenever they get there. If they aren't, they find the resources at that time to move on. That is me in a nutshell, and that is my photography. I don't know what I am going to photograph, the inspiration happens wherever I am. Do I always succeed? Most certainly not, but I've never known a photographer who succeeds 100 percent of the time either. I make images the way I make images. It is what it is. Photography to me is a way to capture a moment, not literally, but interpreted through my thoughts and vision. This is the way I communicate. It is my interpretation of the world that creates the art through the photographic medium. I could not do this with architectural drawings, with painting, or other types of artwork. They slowed me down in a studio or the medium was a slow process in and of itself. I kept losing my way, and they didn't fit me or the way I worked. Photography was different. Shooting with a camera made me go out and find what was there, and once there, I had to interpret what I saw in the moment. I had to wait for the right moment, and once it arrived had to make the image or it would be gone. It was engaging like no other medium was and it fit my restless personality. Once I discovered photography, I began making images to capture the moment, but soon realized there was no such thing as photographing reality. Everything is an interpretation, even images that look like records of events are interpreted. My favorite photographers were the ones that made me realize what they shot was their vision even though everything was supposed to be captured in the moment. Take a look at Ansel Adams' "Mount Williamson - Clearing Storm". Amazing rock formations and heavenly light... it must have been a sight. But turn 180 degrees and you would have seen the Japanese 'War Relocation Center', full of dust and wooden structures that the Japanese Americans who were sent there had to live in. The clearing storm was real, but its photographic interpretation was no more reality that any two dimensional could be real. So what does this mean? Photography, regardless of what one may think, is never "real". It is always an interpretation of what the photographer sees, and this interpretation doesn't capture the moment so much as it captures the experience of the moment. When I photograph, I am trying to capture my experiences through the images that I take. When I transform the image with software, I am putting my vision into the work to evoke what I saw and felt at the time. When I go out and photograph, the process of taking a photo allows me to slow down a bit and appreciate the view, something hard for me to do. I am easily distracted, always jumping from thought to thought, like a bee hopping from flower to flower and never resting. I am able to be in the moment when I am creating a photograph, something I could never master with other media. I enjoy all art, but photography holds a special place, especially black and white images. Now that I have embraced the digital world, I can take my time working with my images in the comfort of my home, no longer chained to a specialized darkroom with little time to do what I love. With digital, there is the added advantage of easily exploring color image making to see where it takes me without breaking the bank. I can explore feeling and expression, playing with light in ways before unreachable due to monetary matters. This freedom of exploration is why I must photograph, why this specific way of communication fits the way I work and who I am. No other medium will do. I was talking to a friend of mine who sells cameras at a local camera store (yes, they still exist!). He was commenting on how film was making a comeback and they had been selling quite a few film cameras of late. I'm not sure why, but if true, it's nice to think a new generation of film and chemistry photographers is finding the joys of film, even if I have taken the digital road.
I began thinking about articles and posts I've been reading describing a new interest in old processes. Although they love film for many reasons, many also feel this type of photography is somehow more important than digital photography. They praise the traditional because it is "art", somehow more significant than anything digital could possibly create. For many years, I shot film and printed black & white in a darkroom - and I loved it. It was satisfying and it was an important way to communicate how I saw the world. But for many, photography was not art. It was either too 'technical' or too easily 'reproduced', which made it anything but art. Now of course, digital has become king of the photography world, while film and chemistry have taken a back seat... except for one place. The art world has elevated traditional photography to the high arts. It is argued that digital photography can't be art as it is too 'technical' and too easily 'reproduced'... wait... What? This attitude has been around for as long as I can remember, and doesn't limit itself to photography. Metalwork, sculpture and fiber arts have all been questioned as to their validity as art. The arguments were always the same and had no more validity then as those same arguments do now. All art has some kind of technical expertise needed. For instance, painters need to understand the mixing of colors and determine what brush to use for a specific effect while working in clay, stone or wood will change the look and texture of a sculpture. Choosing the materials one uses, using a style to evoke a specific emotion, and understanding the medium one works in are all important steps in communication through art. But these steps are not the art itself. Art has nothing to do with the medium you choose. Photography is no different as a medium. Using film and chemicals instead of sensors and software does not make you an artist. These choices are not what makes art. Art has to do with your vision, not your equipment. We, as photographers, have to look at light, interpret what we see, and then make decisions, either with chemistry or with computers, so we will go beyond just recording what we looked at. We must create something that evokes emotion, something that makes a viewer pause and think, that captures a moment in time that will never be quite the same again. If I can press a button and make the same print again and again, how is this different from the mass production of any image? The art is in the capture of light, the choices one makes in the creation of the image and in the emotional impact our work instills in the viewer. So let's stop mistaking the medium with the art and start talking about expression, about emotion, about experiences. That is art. |
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December 2018
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