Photographs for Purchase, Exhibition and Enjoyment
| Ten Thousand Photographs | Expertise and Experience | |
| Finding the Best | Photo Lotto | Previous Random Thoughts |
The technical side of that art has been so simplified through technological advances that what used to be a high barrier has been almost completely eliminated. Just about anyone today can make a technically competent photograph.
Then comes the hard part. What to say with that photograph. You can learn to effectively communicate with your art, but that process is a long and difficult one to master. That high barrier continues to be high, because it takes a very long time to scale it. Few are willing to sign up for the decades long struggle it takes to make art.
St. Ansel dictated the necessity of creating 10,000 negatives before one could consider oneself a photographer. He based his notion on the thought that after repeating an act 10,000 times one should have acquired enough knowledge, skill and experience to be considered an expert practitioner of the art. I suggest that this guideline needs to be revisited in the twenty first century. A friend recently (and proudly) reported to me that in an afternoon of photography he created 1500 images. Four hours, 1500 images. For those who thought there would be no math discussed here, I will save you the effort. According to St. Ansel, my friend would be considered a photographer in about 26 hours and 40 minutes of photography. I am confident in my friend’s photographic skills, honed by four decades of film based photography. But what about others?
Can one become a photographer in about a half a week’s work? I am not sure. But from what I have seen in some art galleries, is sure looks like we have a whole lot of self professed art photographers out there.
Expertise is now acquired quickly rather than through years of repetition. Expertise is now based on the speed of learning and adaptation rather than behaviors honed through years of practice. The definition of photographic experience has changed. Being a master of version 1.0 doesn’t hold much credibility when the rest of the world is operating at version 8.4. This is the world we now live in. Experts come and go much quicker than they have in the past. Andy Warhol was prophetic in that we (including our experts) all have fifteen minutes of fame. Experts are often superseded when the next version of software is released.
I shall not discount the value of the experts. We all need teachers and more learned to guide us through the next version of whatever it is we need to learn. But lest we not forget, instructions in tools is the basest part of the task. To me, the technical part of the photograph is about ten per cent of the process. The mechanics of creating a picture pale in comparison to the true task at hand, the subject matter of the photograph. Being able to create an idea to communicate to your audience in a new way is the heart of the photographic act. What story are you telling with your photograph? How are you going to make your audience feel what you felt when you made your photograph? How are you going to do this and be singular in this experience? These are the questions that you need to answer to be a better photographer. These questions have haunted artists for a long time. No experts can answer these questions for you. These are questions you must answer yourself.
This part of photography will never be overrun with experts. Content is still something we have to figure out for ourselves. It does not come as easily as software training.
Let’s go back to the experience of 1500 photographs in an afternoon. For a guy that practiced large format photography for decades, I thought a great week might bring forty or fifty sheets of film. The concept of 1500 pictures in one day is mind boggling. There is one thing for certain. There will still be only one best photograph from the entire lot. The problem then moves from the field to the post process and editing the work created.
I have found the change to be interesting in that it has changed what I want out of my photographic experiences. When I was lugging the view camera around the universe, I was in search of the “one, great photograph” and that was all I was doing because I was only capable of making a few images at any one time. The concept of creating a cohesive body of work was not practical because of the constraints of large format photography. Now, that I have evolved into a digital workflow, I am now working toward creating a whole portfolio or project around a specific topic where before I would only be able to capture a few photographs. There are those that would say one can capture the essence of a photographic subject in just one, perfect photograph. It is certainly possible. But, to me, now, one perfect photograph is like an author wanting to write one great sentence. How much better is it for one’s audience to create for them a great short story, or maybe even a great novel? There is so much more available to the photographer that wishes to move from the single photograph to a group of photographs to make your creative statement. Great photographs are still out there. I have found that the great photographs don’t come by themselves. They usually bring their friends along.
“Only work completed within the last two years is eligible…” If you submit art to juried shows (also known as “photo lotto” – but with smaller payouts) you see this phrase, or something like it, in every prospectus. So what is your current work? Your latest stuff or what you’ve working on? The dilemma for me is how Photoshop has redefined just what can be “current work”.
Virtually all of my photographs fall into either a project or follow a theme. It takes quite a while for me to develop and complete a project. Sometimes the “raw material” for a project can span several years, or in the case of my advanced years, several decades of art making. I am finishing the work now so it is my latest work – even if it contains images from sometime in the last century. That’s the twentieth century.
As long as I am riffing on photo lotteries (I mean juried exhibitions with cash prizes) let me throw out a personal rule of thumb on selecting images. A photo doesn’t get more than two changes to enter a juried exhibit. If it makes it past the juror and gets hung on the wall, it’s judged a success and won’t be entered in any other crap shoots (I’m sorry, juried exhibitions with cash prizes) in the general vicinity. If it doesn’t get on the wall the first time, I might enter the photograph again in another exhibit anywhere. If the photo fails to garner critical acclaim a second time, that sucker heads straight for the storage box. My sensitive artistic soul could not possibly handle a third straight rejection (yeah, right).
Why do I choose this personal rule? I am a forward looking person. I can’t wait to see what I do next. Past successes are just that. They do not interest me. I want to get on to the next project, the next portfolio and do it better than the last. I want to look at the past successes and say, “That was good then, but wait until you see my current art – it’s so much better”.
It’s the quest for doing better, for extending your creative self, pushing away from the last good photograph and heading out to the make the next photograph better.
| I try to refresh my random thoughts. When I do that, I create little pdf files with my condensed wisdom and a few photographs for your amusement, dear reader. Please download and enjoy. |
Send me an email: Comments on joelipkaphoto.com
All photographs © Joe Lipka
All photographs on this web site are copyright protected with all rights reserved.
Permission for any use including prepress and electronic must be granted by Joe Lipka, joelipka@joelipkaphoto.com
Last updated: October 27, 2009