Photographic Style

This from an article written by Michael Gregory. There is much more of the article but I would like to share this small but important bit:

“The word seeing is itself ambiguous in the very sense that the photographic style is ambiguous. That is, it means two distinct things at the same time. First, it means the recognition of an imageable scene, and the recording of that scene by photographic means. But seeing means, at the same time, something quite different. It means having insight; that is, intuitively understanding. And here we come to the real point, a valid basis for defining photographic style. It means having insight.

First we must ask “insight into what?” And “intuitively understand what” To answer these questions, we must consider what a photograph ultimately means. What a photograph communicates. The answer, I think, is that the photograph communicates the imcommunicable, that it means exactly itself—no less and no more, and that is enough. This is another way of saying that the photograph is a symbol of the experience, which unites photographer and object in a given recordable instant of meaning. It is important to understand that the photograph is not merely the recording of that experience, but rather its symbolic equivalent.

What do we mean by “symbolic equivalent?” The nearest definition I think is that which T.S. Eliot provided for poetry; that poetry is the ”objective correlative” of an experience which is in itself unverbaizable; beyond rational, logical language. The poem, Eliot says, is a kind of formula for the experience which, through it uses language, surpasses it, and enables the poet to communicate the incommunicable.

The same holds true, I would assert, for photography. How do we know when we are in the presence of a photograph which is a symbolic equivalent for an experience—a photograph possessing “style”? We know it by the quality of our response; the depth and intensity and unspeakableness of the emotional reaction we feel within us as we view the photograph. We can tell, too, by the uniqueness of that response. If we feel what we have never, in just the same way, before, we know we are confronting style. For style can never be cliché; these are the old, irreconcilable enemies. If we are viewing, les us say, the photograph of a forlorn child holding a torn and grimy doll and we say, “the poor thing!” we are in the presence of cliché, not style. If on the other hand, we say nothing and feel a strange and unique admixture of emotions to which the cliché exclamation would be blasphemy, we know that we are in the power of photographic style—the exact equivalent of an indescribable, memorable emotion response…

…I nevertheless conclude that a better definition of photographic style might be something like this: the recorded insight. This is probably no worse, and perhaps a little better, than most of the definitions we have. It nevertheless returns the emphasis where it belongs; out of the camera, away from the object, back into the very eye of the photographer.

Maybe It's a Rant, Maybe It's an Explanation,,, Everwhat

I was recently honored to be asked to present a discussion on how to judge the Out of the Box category at the monthly club print competitions. I declined.

I realize that I am a worse than lousy camera club member because I refuse to judge prints. I am unable, or possibly unwilling, to assign numerical values to aesthetics, originality, impact, technique, appropriateness, whatever criteria is determined for judging. That is the reason that I have attempted, not terribly successfully, to start a group to discuss photographs.


I have very seriously considered no longer attending on competition nights. There are several reasons for that. One, unwilling to participate in the judging does make me somewhat uncomfortable in entering prints. Two, I very sincerely believe that the practice is far more detrimental to the participants than it is beneficial.

As I have frequently mentioned camera club competitions and Internet photography forums homogenize photography by their insistence on rules and conventions. It creates a ‘follow me’ or ‘do as I do’ attitude rather than strengthening the insight into photography and enhancing the abilities of the individual photographers to move beyond clichés. It is nothing that will be changed. It is nothing that can be changed. I have made efforts on an individual basis but emphasis on rules, technique for technique sake and the tendency for people to want to comply or fit in is simply too strong. Any opposing voice is quickly drowned out. I hope along the way I have imparted some insight but I have no hope of combating the infectiousness of the illness.

I might as well attempt to persuade an East Coast liberal Democrat to become a conservative Southern Republican. That would actually be easier and as I have found even that is unachievable. Or to make a Catholic into a Baptist of vice versa, or a gay into a straight. All, along with opposing the conventional impediments of amateur photography, are equally unattainable goals.

I also do not agree with what the Out of the Box category has become. Michael Young initially instituted it when he was competition chairman as a category where the photographer who wanted to move his work or his photographic experimentation well beyond the confines of straight photography could have an opportunity to compete. Michael understood that manipulated, highly manipulated prints, could not be judged with the same criteria as an unmanipulated print. A highly manipulated print is nonobjective, allegorical, mystical. It can have a variety of themes or purposes but its primary purpose is to separate the image from the presumed reality of the straight photograph. It throws all the rules out the window to rely on shape, form, lines, color or purely subjective content and imagination. It can’t be judged on the rule of thirds or impact beyond emotional impact and therefore stands no chance of being acknowledged when mixed with the other categories when you attempt to apply the rules created by the club and promoted by the club for competitions. It rapidly degenerated into basically another open category or in the case of the past two years where there is a ‘theme’ another assigned category.  It is no longer an “Out of the Box” if it actually ever was.

Criticism

The following are excerpts from an article on Criticism written by Minor White. He served as a camera club judge monthly for two years prior to writing this article so he has some personal experience with the subject.

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“Without great criticism there can be no great Photographs” Bruce Downs

It [the quote from Downs] is a magnificent idea, a mature one….

He [the critic] has to be the most sympathetic spectator, the most understanding, and the most persistent goad…a source of affirmation for reaching new ideas, the first to discern the creative individual and the creative work. That is one of his [the critics] duties. The other is to explain both photographer and medium to the spectator; for the critic is the first to realize that an unenlightened audience limits the expressiveness of any medium and curtails the photographer’s capacity to communicate.

“Judging” of course goes on, quantities of it; and all of it kindergarten criticism, if that. The judge may ask himself “What else can I do when I must award from the prints present instead of evaluating against all that I know is in photography?” He is standing, however, in the position to educate, to teach, to lead towards creative work, to encourage expressions of individuality. But somehow, mainly through lack of really knowing what judging means, he follows rules that he did not invent for himself, allows competition to be substituted for photography in his camera clubs, and thus does photography as a whole more harm than good. Perhaps he is merely unaware of his responsibility—which does not repair the harm he does.

The subject of analysis and criticism is rather complex, and a competent critic has to have a whale of a lot more than personal preference or his own technical achievement to go on. I realize that to present complexity to the modern reader is to invite yawns; but I think we have pursued the myth that photography is easy long enough—the status of pictorialism today is ample proof that always taking the easy path is as sterile as Lysol.

The critic has a thankless task...[but] driven by a passionate love of the medium, persists. The struggles of the beginners excite him, the bad makes him angry, the banal makes him sarcastic, the good warms his heart, the great--as it comes by on rare occasions--makes all the rest worthwhile.

Consequently this paper is aimed directly at the bottom rung of criticism, at the man who takes judging at camera clubs as a high responsibility.

White goes on to talk about Objective Criticism and the duties of the objective critic: the requirement for an objective attitude as opposed to personal preference and secondly, says that the critic can reach objectivity quickly by assuming that what he sees in a print is neither good or bad, but facts.

Rather than “I would have photographed it this way”, “What would happen if it had been photographed this way?” His suggestions arise from the implications deeply imbedded in the photographer’s work, and his “advice” will tend to strengthen and perhaps clarify hat the photographer is trying to do.

Únder A Tool of Objective Analysis, White says, a means of analysis is needed if the critic is to be able to keep a high impersonal attitude towards a print and still actively study it. Without some such tool the objective approach may leave the critic dangling between objectivity and having no feeling at all. Such a tool would include six major points—or more or less: purpose, craftsmanship and technique, composition, style and subject. They will be discussed separately.


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White, correctly in my opinion, puts the emphasis on purpose. Actually, he says that nothing, absolutely nothing can proceed; no critique can be attempted until purpose has been established. I am always at a loss then I try to talk to photographers about purpose only to be met with the comment that the photographer has no idea what if any purpose he had in mind at the time the photograph was taken or even when the photograph was processed and printed for presentation.

This is as far as I have gotten into the article so I am not sure what follows but I will inject a strongly felt personal opinion: that purpose to be worthwhile must come from within the photographer and the deeper the better. It must be something that speaks to him and of him. If not, it is of no value to attempt continuing the critique. The conventional photographic wisdoms are simple enough to achieve and are all that is required to win a camera club ribbon.

I am not sure how to even think about helping someone improve their photography if they themselves have given their photography so little thought. Maybe they are simply embarrassed to confess the purpose. Maybe they are simply telling the truth and have no purpose. Either way I am totally at a loss. I very much know what White is saying when he says that the critic dangles between objectivity and no feeling at all.

Imitation

What is a good photograph? I cannot say. A photograph is tied to the time, what is good today may be a cliché tomorrow. The problem of the photographer is to discover his own language, a visual ABC. The picture represents the feelings and point of view of the intelligence behind the camera. This disease of our age is boredom and a good photographer must combat it. The way to do this is by invention – by surprise. When I say a good picture has surprise value I mean that it stimulates my thinking and intrigues me. The best way to achieve surprise quality is by avoiding clichés. Imitation is the greatest danger of the young photographer.- Alexey Brodovich - Photography, February 1964 [cited in: Creative Camera February 1972, p. 472]

Originality

Amateur photographers that want to be seen as artists are obsessed with the word originality. Even some pros are a little confused about it. In Vision is Better 2, duChemin addresses it in Origanility is Overrated and Originality Part 2. He offers many quotes from Ansel to Emerson but I am going to only share one and not necessarily the most important one but it is new to me and I thought extremely apropos to the discussion group.

“It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation.” –Herman Melville

Some of the quotes suggest that originality is possible, some that it is not. As I have often said, art builds on art. Imitation is a way of learning art, always has been always will be. However, at this point I have to suggest that you reread my previous post on the book Creative Authenticity by Ian Roberts.  

DuChemin says of the quotes, “Not all of them [the authors of the quotes] appear to agree. But I think all of them are right in one sense or another. There are three apparently different things being said by these voices. The first is that originality does exist, and is desirable. The second is that no true originality exists. The third implies originality is in fact possible but is not relative to what already exists, but to the artist himself. I think we’re using the same word to mean slightly different things.”

Therein lays the crux of the problem. “…using the same word to mean different things.” Robert’s has correctly addressed this confusion in defining the difference between [overrated] originality and [much desired] authenticity.

DuChemin says, “You are already unique. If you do the work you do with honesty, integrity, curiosity, boldness, and courage, you will find your work as unique—and original—as you are.” This is in agreement with Roberts concept of authenticity. Of course, rather than saying “original,” Roberts would have said “as authentic—as you are." However I would add a few additional qualification such as from the heart, soul, gut, the inner most recesses of your being—I suppose that could be covered under integrity and boldness but just thought it should get a stronger emphasis.

Maybe for you being original is not that important and I suppose that is okay. But even at that, being yourself should be. That being among the dozens of reasons that I personally believe that what I refer to as the “conventional wisdoms” of amateur photography should really be called the “conventional impediments.”  

Projects, Sketches, Drafts

In his Vision is Better 2 ebook, duChemin writes about projects and creativity. In the article Begin Again he says something that I personally need to take to (my procrastinating) heart. He is writing about all the “creative” projects that we think up—the ones we put into over stuffed Moleskine notebooks or just fill the recesses of our wandering minds, the ones that we lay awake at night to mull over and over, the ones that constantly nag at our heart as well as our inner eye.    

“Pick a personal project. Perhaps it’s one of many – too many – that you’ve got on little pieces of paper and stored in the “One day I’d like to…” part of your brain. Pick one. Don’t deliberate. Pick one. Now do it. Don’t start tomorrow or next week. Begin now. If it’s a project about coffee shops in your end of town, grab you camera, a 50mm lens and go scout it. Don’t come back until you’ve got some images and a list of shots you want. And a timeline. Stop talk­ing about your great ideas. Make them happen.” 

In Go to the Writers he suggests that photographers are visual people, maybe not all that good with words. He mentions a number of very good books on the creative process written by writers and makes his own recommendations. 

“Creation is almost always messy. Because we are messy. If your plan is to from Point A (no photograph) to Point B (iconic photograph which will define my career and on which I will retire fabulously wealthy) then you’re in for a shock. If there is such a transition at all, it’s from Point A to Point Z. And in between are the shitty first drafts, the sketch images.” 

“I can’t bypass the sketches or crappy first drafts. Those lesser images aren’t in the way of me creating the better work; they are the way of me creating better work. Don’t sabotage your process, wait it out, and in the meantime; give the sketch images their room to be crappy images, let them out, look at them, play with them. Don’t let them discourage you, let them bring you to your better images.”

Vision is Better 2 is available from Craft and Vision

What Is Meant By Reading Photographs

In 1951, Aperture Magazine was conceived. Publication began in 1952. The 1930's had been dominated by photography as social documentation, the 40's and even into the 50's by the photojournalist. Since the demise of the Pictorialists photography had been recognized and relied on for its verisimilitude, it's ability to convey a sense of reality. There were still art photographers but they were much less recognized, much less addressed. Aperture was the first art photography magazine since Stieglitz’s Photo Works ceased publication in 1917.

There were a number of noteworthy photographers involved in the birth of Aperture but one man was the driving force, Minor White. For a very long time Minor was a one-man-band and the magazine was his mouthpiece for the first several years. In 1957, Minor devoted the entire issue to a single subject, Reading Photographs. The introduction, What Is Meant By Reading Photographs, is not long but too long to share here but I would like to share a few of his thoughts. 

“In a very limited way, any time a person looks at a photograph long enough to identify the subject he is reading that picture. Or, to put it another way, any photograph that communicates does so because a person is reading it. This kind of reading can be an intellectual effort, an intuitive one or any mixture of both. In any case the effort is not likely to be a verbal one.”

[Addendum: I am putting words here into White's mouth. My understanding may or may not be accurate so read with caution. When White says "to identify the subject" I believe he is talking about the meaning, story, moral, statement of the photograph, not the subject matter. Our tendency is to stop with identifying the subject matter and I don’t believe that qualifies as “reading” a photograph and find it difficult to believe that is what White meant. I have been on a crusade for some time to distinguish the two meanings of the word "subject" when applied to photographs. One being, as stated above, the meaning the other actually meaning the subject matter, the objects depicted in the photograph. To often using words with dual or multiple meanings can confuse the clarity of a statement and I personally believe that may be the case here.]

 

“Such a broad use of ‘reading’ is too wide for the purposes to which the word is to be put at this time. So a narrower definition is required. First to make a ‘reading’ verbalization will be considered necessary. To make a ‘reading’ one will be expected to make talk or written words about one’s experience of a photograph.” 

“This means that one must translate a visual experience from the realm of visual thinking into that of verbal expression. And as might be expected slips are bound to occur during the translation… But predictable failure has never stopped anyone who wanted to translate a poem or read a photograph.” 

“Beyond personal preference there are two good reasons why the reading of photographs is undertaken. First, as a object lesson to thousands that more goes on in photographs than most of us guess. That, in addition to the information given, how a photographer handles both his subject and his materials are clues to his personality on one hand and to his inner message on the other. Second, to explore, sound out, measure however inefficiently, not good or bad, but what a picture says.” 

“If we leave the term ‘reading’ defined no more sharply than above, too much room is left for floundering around in the unessentials of a photograph. “So then, to ‘read’ means further to experience a photograph without evaluating it. Or state in another way, verbalization is based on a personal understanding and a private love of the picture that does not include its evaluation. The point here is a suppression of evaluation. Just as one does not stop to determine the degree of goodness or badness of a picnic one is enjoying, ‘reading’ is to be done without criticism. Obviously criticism and evaluation cannot be ultimately avoided, but is is to be prosponed with every effort at our command.” 

Minor goes on to discuss the critic’s place in reading photographs and ends with: 

“A shortened definition of the term ‘reading’ may be useful. Hence, to ‘read’ a photograph is to communicate, to the best of one’s ability to another person verbally or with written words what one has experienced visually in a photograph or group of them.” 

“A word that will serve to label one’s own discourse with pictures in his own private, non-verbal level is ‘experience.”  

Yes, I am aware that photography is much changed since 1957. Maybe I have lived well out of my time and Minor’s but I cannot see how photography can be approached any other way. It is still a method of communicating. To communicate requires knowledge of the method of communication, the language. The way to learn a language is to use it.

Aaron Siskind

In Gloucester, Massachusetts, in the summer of 1944, Aaron Siskind experienced what can only be described as a change of vision. He had been producing still lifes—“a discarded glove, two fish heads and other commonplace objects which I found kicking around on the wharves.” He recalls. But now he looked at these items in a completely new way. “For the first time in my life,” he said, “subject matter as such had ceased to be of primary importance.”

 It was a total about-face for Siskind. Since the 1930s he had been photographing such documentary themes as Harlem tenements and Bowery bums. Subject matter had been the whole point. Now the subject was all but unrecognizable. His close-ups of stone walls and peeling posters, like canvases by a nonrepresentational painter. The picture itself not the scene it shows has become Siskind’s vehicle for conveying impact and emotion.

Indeed, Siskind’s new-found vision is the inevitable step after the “equivalents” of Alfred Stieglitz and the “sequences” of Minor White, in which forms found in nature rendered precisely and directly with the camera, are offered as expressions of the photographer’s own state of mind. “I’m not interested in nature,” Siskind contends, “I’m interested in my own nature.”  --Life Library of Photography, The Great Photographers, p.222

Upon discovery, I immediately liked Siskind’s abstract images. I consider my abstracts to be similar that they come from the same source however they are quite different. However, where Siskind has had the most influence on my thinking is in his series The Terrors of Levitation which I first saw at the Dallas Museum of Art back in the 1960s. I did not understand them. Didn’t particularly like them but I bought the show catalogue. It took me years to warm to Siskind’s photographs of young men suspended in midair. Now I see them as an extension of his interest in abstract, but I also see them as a ballet of the human form divorced from gravity. I don’t know that I enjoy them from the same perspective as Siskind but I have found where they fit into my photography and enhance my vision. This is a long story and maybe someday I will tell it. The primary reason for including this brief bio here is the last sentence of the last paragraph, “I’m not interested in nature; I’m interested in my own nature.” In my opinion, that is a very important statement on photography.

Avedon, Callahan

"I hate cameras. They interfere, they’re always in the way. I wish: if I could just work with my eyes alone. To get a satisfactory print, one that contains all that you intended, is very often more difficult and dangerous than the sitting itself. When I’m photographing, I immediately know when I’ve got the image I really want. But to get the image out of the camera and into the open, is another matter." -- Richard Avedon

"My portraits are more about me than they are about the people I photograph." -- Richard Avedon

 

"Sometimes I think all my pictures are just pictures of me. My concern is . . . the human predicament; only what I consider the human predicament may simply be my own." -- Richard Avedon

"Photography is an adventure just as life is an adventure. If man wishes to express himself photographically, he must understand, surely to a certain extent, his relationship to life. I am interested in relating the problems that affect me to some set of values that I am trying to discover and establish as being my life. I want to discover and establish them through photography. This is strictly my affair and does not explain these pictures by any means. Anyone else not having the desire to take them would realize that I must have felt this was purely personal. This reason, whether it be good or bad, is the only reason I can give for these photographs. The photographs that excite me are photographs that say something in a new manner; not for the sake of being different, but ones that are different because the individual is different and the individual expresses himself. I realize that we all do express ourselves, but those who express that which is always being done are those whose thinking is almost in every way in accord with everyone else. Expression on this basis has become dull to those who wish to think for themselves. I wish more people felt that photography was an adventure the same as life itself and felt that their individual feelings were worth expressing. To me, that makes photography more exciting." -- Harry Callhan - 1946. Creative Camera, August, 1968, page 270-271

Why?

You might ask why I spend so much effort reiterating that the photograph is not the subject matter.
 

In my opinion, the answer is very simple; it is the first step from being a picture taker to being a photographer. It is an extremely difficult step to take because for most it requires a complete change of thinking about what a photograph is or what a photograph can be. I think that if you want to enjoy more of photography than the verisimilitude it is the first step that you have to take. It’s like going from reading We Three and Scottie to reading War and Peace.
 

As always, my disclaimer: there is nothing wrong with enjoying the verisimilitude. Capturing a sharp, well composed, properly exposed photograph can be quite satisfying. I am still pleased when I do. However, I am not thrilled; that requires finding myself in my photograph.

Subject/Subject Matter

I have repeated this story often but I would like to tell it one more time. It comes from Photographically Speaking by duChemin. It is as clear an explanation as I have ever found of my philosophy that the photograph is not the subject (matter).

I have often mentioned that the word subject has two meanings in a photograph. It is most often used to refer to the subject matter, the flower, the child, the horse, the mountains, but it also applies to the story of the photograph.  The fable of  the tortoise and the hare is used by duChemin to differentiate between the two usages.

As duChemin explains, in the fable the tortoise and the hare are subject matter, the characters, the actors. The moral of the fable the is the subject, the meaning of the story or what is being conveyed by the story. The same thing applies to photographs; the object photographed is the subject matter, the story/message/moral of the photograph is the subject.

DuChemin calls the elements, the tortoise and the hare, the words—I prefer to refer to them as the nouns with the actions of the tortoise and the hare as the verbs of the visual language of the photograph. The way the photograph is put together, the composition is the sentence structure. Generally I group it all under 'technique', which includes not only the composition but all the techniques used in the production of the photograph; from point of view, to tone, to color and composition as the sentence structure. Only a slight difference.

As duChemin states, whether or not we have intent at the time of taking a photograph, it is going to be read as intent by the viewer. The viewer, or as duChemin prefers, reader of the photograph is working under the assumption that the photographer has included all the essential elements and excluded all non-essential elements. Whether or not in fact that is true, it is assumed. Generally, the success or failure of the photograph is contingent upon that being true.

Lines, Tones and Sometimes Color

“The moment you can look at your photographs first as a collection of lines and tones and sometimes color, the sooner you’ll begin to see photographs as they are and not as you hoped they would be.”  --David duChemin, Photographically Speaking

Creative Authenticity

The following are notes I made for a book review that I did not do. This is a very small book but in many ways a very important piece of writing on art. It is directed toward painting but is every bit as applicable to photography.
 

There is much that I would like to share of this book, but I am going to limit it what I consider quotes with strong implications toward photography. The essence of the book is explaining in great detail the difference between two words—originality and authenticity. It is not originality that makes our work worthwhile, it is authenticity.

 

Creative Authenticity
16 Principle to Clarify and Deepen Your Artistic Vision
 by Ian Roberts

“Subject matter functions as an armature through which you as an artist engage your intensity of feeling. It is the quality of your attention that influences how you see and how deeply you feel.”

“It’s one thing to give expression to something you feel strongly about. It is another thing to find a simple way to express what you have discovered so another person can appreciate it.”

 “Within the initial artistic response to something is a core idea or feeling, and most of our work comes from stripping way everything that is extraneous for it.”

“All great actions have been simple, and all great pictures are.”

”One thing is clear. The artist does not look at art the way others do. They don’t look at the finished product the same way as everyone else. They have different concerns. Any experienced gallery owner can tell when an artist enters their gallery and looks at representational paintings... because the artist is concerned with the whole and how the work was created.”

“Your creative expression is like your handwriting or personal calligraphy. Unique.”

“With patience we gain fluency in both the creative process and artistic technique. When people say they can feel within what they want to say but can’t seem to express it, they are saying they lack technique. The Greek word for art is techne, which implies that the feeling or inspiration is not art. ONLY the realization of the inspiration in some manifest form is art. In other words, you must have the technique to give your inspiration life.”

“If we’re serious about giving expression to our voice, we need to master whatever skills are necessary, whether it is the ability to draw or a better sense of composition. Until we deal with this, these problems will continue to stare us in the face graphically, boldly, in every painting we make.”

“Internally we build a foundation by going to the headwaters of our inspiration. We need to be clear about where our inspiration originates. I don’t mean trying to figure out why we’re attracted to this or that or what it means. That isn’t necessarily relevant. Rather, we have to feel the truth, and trust in the current, the flow and go with it. If we don’t find and follow that current from our own source, then we will feel enamored of and distracted by every mark, effect and subject we happen upon in other artists’ work. We will want to add that and try this. Obviously, we will be attached to and influenced by different kinds of art and rightly so. But that attraction needs a foundation.”

“Our painting will only be as deep as the depth we uncover in ourselves. We’re communicating. We’re translating our vision.”

“If we’re going to create art for the rest of our lives, we need to come to terms with what is uniquely our own. If we sidestep ourselves and derive vocabulary from someone else, we may feel we’re making great strides at the moment. But ultimately, we can’t continue. We have to come back to address the matter of authenticity. Unless we do, it’s like trying to use someone else’s handwriting or personality. It can’t remain satisfying.”

“We need to look at other art. We need to study it and react to it. We’re not trying to reinvent artistic expression. Artists, as artists, are moved by art as much or more than they are moved by nature. Artists see subjects to paint based on how they have assimilated the art that has moved them in the past. There is of course a melting pot of influences. But have the influences been fired in the crucible of your own vision?

“Making art that is authentic means eliminating those influences that have been picked up superficially and incorporating new ones that are more authentic.”

“The source of truly authentic work is within. Each time we ignore it, we diminish it. Each time we reject it, it goes silent. We need time alone, and openness, to re-entertain our inner inspiration.”

“Work that truly expresses something personal and true can sometimes get away with technical inadequacies. It rides on its power to move us, to communicate something to us. Art demands technique—but it amounts to little if we fail to bring it to spirit and vision. Spirit can illuminate a work with life even if there are technical flaws. But technique cannot breathe life into work that lacks vision. We’ve all seen paintings that are technically perfect and perfectly dead. On the other hand, we can think of the cave paintings at Lascaux. They have as much feeling as any high-tech film today. We’ve had advancements in technique, but few in depth of feeling”

“The question is, what are your themes or ideas? And can they be given expression? You can’t rush this. Those ideas may be buried and surface slowly in pieces. Or they may burst out fully formed—and scare the daylights out of you. You can’t rush and you’ve got to listen carefully.”

“Getting started is essential. We feel engaged when the brush hits the canvas. And in consciously learning our craft we open the channel for our voice to flow. But ‘it does not matter how well something is done if it is not worth doing.’ Expressing our voice, what we want to say, is what’s worth doing. Technique allows that to occur. In every case the development of our work will be an intermeshing of mastering craft as we unfold clearer expression of voice. They advance together like two side of a coin.”

Metaphors

"It is not words only that are emblematic; it is things which are emblematic. Every natural fact is a symbol of some spiritual fact. Every appearance in nature corresponds to some state of the mind, and that state of the mind can only be described by presenting that natural appearance as its picture. An enraged man is a lion, a cunning man is a fox, a firm man is a rock, a learned man is a torch. A lamb is innocence; a snake is subtle spite; flowers express to us the delicate affections. Light and darkness are our familiar expression for knowledge and ignorance; and heat for love. Visible distance behind and before us, is respectively our image of memory and hope. . . .

The world is emblematic. Parts of speech are metaphors, because the whole of nature is a metaphor of the human mind." (Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nature, 1836)

Do you ever look for metaphores in your photographs? Do you ever find metaphores in your photographs?

Three Quotes from Within the Frame

“The subject of a photograph is not the subject matter. The subject itself is the emotion, thought or intangible that you are trying to express through the image. The subject of the photograph can be simple: family, beauty, color, or wonder—that intangible thing that you responded to when your inner photographer said, “Oh! Oh! Shoot that!”or whatever it is your inner photographer says.”--David duChemin, Within the Frame, p. 23

“Subject matter alone—separated from the craft of photography—rarely carries a photograph, and when it does it remains merely a mediocre photograph of a fascinating subject, hardly the goal of most photographers… But if you want to communicate something more, if you want to bring something new to the table, and put your own thoughts, feelings, and personality into the image, then you need to photograph your subject matter as though you’ve seen it a thousand times and then suddenly see it in a new way.”  --David duChemin, Within the Frame, p. 25

 

"Three images go into making your final photograph. The first is the image you visualize--the story you are compelled to tell. The second is the scene you capture with the camera. The third is the image you refine in post production. The better we are at all of these, the closer our final photograph will come to reflect our initial vision."David duChemin, Within the Frame, p. 41

 

At our first meeting I mentioned a number of books that I recommend. I quoted from several of them and would be hard pressed to recommend any over the others. If you will go to the Book Reviews that are posted to the Northwest Houston Photo Club Meet Up site, there is a review of each of them. The September 2011 review was on Within the Frame. Even though I am also partial to duChemin's Photographically Speaking I believe that the best of the lot to start with is Within the Frame.

Vision Is the Beginning and End of Photography

“Vision is the beginning and end of photography. It’s the thing that moves you to pick up the camera, and it determines what you look at and what you see when you do. It determines how you shoot and why. Without vision, the photographer perishes.”

That last sentence is a powerfully strong statement—without vision, the photographer perishes.

“Vision is everything, and the photographic journey is about discovering your vision, allowing it to evolve, change, and find expression through your camera and the print. It is not something you find and come to terms with once and for all, it is something that changes and grows with you. The things that impassion you, that anger you, that stir you—they are part of your unique vision. It is about what you—unique among billions—find beautiful, ugly, right, wrong, or harmonious in the world. And as you experience life, your vision changes. The stories you want to tell, the things that resonate with you—they change and so does your vision. Finding and expressing your vision is a journey, not a destination.”

“When vision is spoken of in photographic terms, it is not spoken of merely as the things you see but how you see them. Photography is a deeply subjective craft, and the camera, wielded well, tells the stories you want it to tell. It will tell the truths you want it to, and certainly the lies. You are central to your photography and the camera is merely the tool of interpretation—not the other way around. The most compelling photographs you take begin with the things about which you are most interested, most passionate, and most curious. When those photographs are taken in a way that communicates your unique perspective, they translate into images that say something. They are more than a record of “I was here and saw this.” Instead, they become “I feel this way about this. I was in this place and saw it like this.” They are not acts of representation as much as they are acts of interpretation.”--David duChemin, Within the Frame, The Journey of Photographic Vision, pp 2-4.

Critic Is a Four Letter Word

I was going to make my first post, of importance, a quote from David duChemin but I accidentally came across the following and decided to use it instead. This is from the movie critic, Robert Ebert’s Journal published in the Sun Times in September 2008. The title of the article is Critic is a Four Letter Word.

He first discusses critics and how people think of critics—both the critics and the thinking is that to critique is to criticize. Critics are thought of as very self centered egos that believe they know more than the creators. It is an interesting concept of critic that I cannot disagree with. It is well worth the read.

Then Ebert talks about Todd McCarthy’s documentary, “Pierre Rissient, Man of Cinema.” Todd feels that Rissent, even though most do not even know his name, has had more influence on the world of good films in the last 60 years than anybody else. He says that Rissient felt that his position was to “defend,” by which he meant “support,” the films and directors he approves. He offers the following quote from Rissient, “It is not enough to like a film. One must like it for the right reasons.” [I suggest that you could substitute the word photograph for the word film and the statement would be equally valid.] Ebert goes on to state the following regarding Rissient’s statement:

 

“That sounds like critical snobbery, but is profoundly true. I don't think Pierre is referring only to his reasons, although knowing him well, I suppose he could be. I think he's saying you must know why you like a film, and he able to explain why, so that others can learn from an opinion not their own. It is not important to be "right" or "wrong." It is important to know why you hold an opinion, understand how it emerged from the universe of all your opinions, and help others to form their own opinions. There is no correct answer. There is simply the correct process. "An unexamined life is not worth living." [The last quote being one of my favorites and one that I take great comfort in. It is by Socrates. I only hope that you can extrapolate that a greatly examined life IS worth living, although it doesn’t exactly say that I am depending on it.]

 

A Possible Purpose

I have had this blog for quite a long time but I have never been able to determine a purpose. I post almost everything to my personal blog GW Images.

On February 12th, I held a class in reading photographs at the Northwest Houston Photo Club. This was not an official meeting but it was an additional meeting. I knew that most of the club would not be interested. The intent of this first meeting was to determine whether or not I would start a meet up to pursue learning to read photographs. It is difficult to say how successful this first meeting was. There was a lot put on the line and hopefully a few will respond.

Anyway, should it come to be I will use this blog to correspond with the members of the group, to share things that I feel are important about photography. I was pretty clear at the meeting where I will be coming from in the discussions. I am very opinionated, very dogmatic. I am also flexible and I understand that not everyone is going to agree with me but I do want to give the members an opportunity to see that there is more to photography than complying with some conventional wisdoms and rules of technique. Everyone deserves to at least be introduced to something much more personal in photography. That is all that I hope to do.

Basic Photographic Philosophies

• The photograph is not the subject. It is an entirely separate entity from the object photographed and should be seen as such.
• Every photograph makes a statement about both the object photographed and the photographer.
• Technique is simply the sentence structure of the visual language of photography.
• There is no such thing as good photographic technique or bad photographic technique. There is only technique that is applied appropriately or inappropriately.
• Painting and photography are equal but mathematical opposites. The painter adds, the photographer subtracts.