Photographs for Purchase, Exhibition and Enjoyment
| How I See Things | The Real Starting Point | Tone, Sight and Vision | |
| Three Important Things about Photography | Better Photographs and Better Art | Subject Matters |
The question posed was three photographers you identify with and three you don’t here’s how I responded.
Photographers I always like: Atget, Walker Evans (FSA version) and Eddie Weston. (It seems to me that Edward is just too formal for the lifestyle he led, so I call him Eddie Weston. I say "Eddie" just like Top Gigio,too.)
Photographers I don't understand: Sally Mann (bless her heart), Lee Friedlander and any contemporary photographer that believes that 8 x 10 is measured in feet, not inches.
Why did I say that?
It’s pretty easy to say why you like someone’s artwork. You just have to look at the images that you produce and the images of the folks you like and there is a similarity. For me, the key seems to be a tightly organized, well seen composition. The three folks I like made their mark with such work. Their vision transcends time.
The folks I don’t understand don’t do it for me. I guess it’s mostly because I have been told these folks are geniuses and I should positively adore their work, because it will be considered great photography some day. The key words here are “great” contemporary photographers. The others have passed the test of time. Their work has lasted and held up to repeated scrutiny.
That’s what I like about my favorite photographer’s work. They have already passed the test of time.
You and I will look at the same thing. I will see it much differently than you. And that’s a darn good thing. Otherwise, life would be pretty monotonous. I try to see not only what is there, but what isn’t there, what could be there, what that thing represents and how it relates to other things that surround it. I look at the way light strikes it, I look at the shadows it creates, I wonder if I come back some later how it looks. Will it look better at a different time of day, a different time of year, will it look better in direct sun, or would an overcast day be a more attractive light. Will that change in light change my interpretation of the object? How would someone else photograph this object? Would that work for me, or could I use that point as a starting point for something new and different?
With the new technology available to all artists, the method of sharing the work you create is a significant decision. If you start with the decision of how you want to display your imagery, sometimes your work methods are defined. As an aside, the method of sharing your work is a whole new set of questions that you have to answer as an artist. I guess this highlights one of the basic rules of planning a project. That is, start and the end. The first order of business in a project is to define what the end of the project will be. This makes sense when you really think about it. If you don’t know what your goal is, how do you know when you get there?
My Wife and I went to a local “under the stars” band concert sponsored by our city’s arts commission. The featured music was provided by a “big band.” This style of music was popular in the 1930’s and 1940’s. As one might expect, the practitictioners of this musical style are usually more “mature” than most bands. The audience is even older. During the show, I was struck by a certain discord among the tones. It seemed as if the entire orchestra was out of tune, but consistently out of tune. Then it struck me. Maybe the collective “hearing” of the band was declining due to age. They just couldn’t hear s well as they used to, or had to that evening. This hearing loss was affecting their art. I began to ponder on this topic.
When is the eventual loss of eyesight that comes with age going to affect my art? I remember hearing about Chris Burkett worrying about how aging would affect his vision and the high resolution printing he is famous for. This happens to us all. It’s a question of how far your vision must fail before you give up your photography?
It’s cruel. It takes decades to mature as an artist and develop a unique vision. Then, your eyesight fails.
There are just three important questions about photography. Here are the second two things.
2. Where do I stand?
3. When do I press the shutter?
Spend the time to really know the subject, knowing how it looks, what it means, what it can mean. Knowing that standing really means camera position, which could be standing, squatting, climbing a ladder or laying on the ground. Knowing when to press the shutter means you have figured out the way the light falls on the subject (The decisive moment applies to landscape photography, too). Your answer to these two questions separate the obvious photograph from the great one.
I suppose that you want to know what the first of the three questions is? Here it is:
1. What do I photograph?
When you answer this question you have answered the biggest question of them all. There is a relatively short list of options you have to answer the second and third questions, but answering the first question of photography is the most difficult of all. What is the subject of your picture? While answers to questions two and three are pretty close to multiple choice questions, the answer to the first question is an essay question.
How do you know what looks good? How do you make a decision on what to photograph? Can you tell the difference between something that looks good and something that will look good as a photograph? Your visual memory of places, images and things does affect what you will want to photograph. You will access these memories, consciously or not and they will affect where you point your camera.
Do your photographs look like other photographer’s photographs? I suppose this happens because your entire visual memory is based on photographs. If I look at nothing but photographs for inspiration, then my visual memory is cluttered with photographs. Suppose my visual memory also had a great deal of paintings, sculptures, drawings, lithographs and other various visual stimuli. Suppose I bolstered that imagery with critiques of great paintings, art history and commentary on the arts. I would also be influenced by artists and not just photographers. Maybe my approach to a photographic subject would be different.
You will learn how to make better photographs faster from other artists than you will from other photographers. There is a time when you will need to be enlightened by other photographers, there is a time to enlightened by other artists. Photographers will help you understand the medium, artists will help you understand the message.
I heard Joyce Tenneson lecture at the Southern Photography Triennial exhibit at the Gregg Museum at NC State University. Joyce Tenneson is an accomplished and successful photographer. Her thirteen published books allow us to do an extensive evaluation of her body of work. In publishing her books she noted that books of her photographs had total sales in the order of 1500 to 3500 copies. This seems like a small number (and it is) but it is relatively successful in terms of books of photographs. One of her books, “Women of Power” sold over a half million copies. Why did this book out sell her other efforts by a factor of 1,000?
Here’s my theory. Women of Power is a book that used photographs to tell a story. People want to be told stories. As parents we hear “Daddy, tell me a story.” all the time. Throughout the ages, storytellers are held in high esteem in all societies. Telling a story with photographs has a larger audience than a book of pictures. Summary: pictures of your photographs, 1500 copies sold, stories told with your photographs, 500,000 copies sold. Any questions?
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Last updated: March 31, 2008