urban ku # 120 ~ let me say this about that (vision)

Au Sable Point on Lake Champlain • click to embiggenIMO, the worst thing you can do to develop and foster 'vision' is to strive too much for it - to think and fret about it until it turns into a bee in permanent residence your bonnet.

'Vision' can not be coerced, cajoled, bludgeoned or forced into emergence. It tends to flow out of 'natural' acts of doing and being. As an example, I am naturally inquisitive and I like to read - not for just for the sake of gaining knowledge but because I enjoy reading. And, since I am interested in photography, I read a lot about the medium of photography, it's history, it's movements, it's practitioner, it's theory, etc. (virtually nothing about technique). In addition, I do a lot of 'general' reading - theology, philosophy, social and economic theory, environmental topics as well as a heaping dose of fiction.

As an adjunct to reading, I have a sizeable collection of books and periodicals of photography. The collection is not limited to any one genre. In fact, it pretty much runs the gamut of fine-art photographic realms - portraiture, documentary, landscape, nature, experimental and so on.

Add to that, my love of film (movies), especially small (and usually quirky) indie productions, and I guess that you can say that if you are what you eat, my diet is varied and I must be tipping the scales in the upper registers.

Now, all of that makes Jack an 'educated and informed' boy, but, vision-wise, it don't mean jack without a thing called 'desire'. However, I think 'desire' is too polite a word for that trait that one needs to create anything of better than average value. A much more accurate word is, 'obsession'.

If one is not literally obsessed with the act of picturing then forget developing a 'vision' that will be of any real consequence (to anyone other than oneself) in the broader world of art. And, if that obsession is not accompanied by the ability to take a punch - to take direct and often harsh criticism (some of it self-generated), then, as the saying goes, if you can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen (A caveat regarding 'criticism'. I don't mean criticism of the how I would have done it variety, because that is utterly useless and ultimately destructive in the cause of finding one's vision).

All of that said, good Art is the result (not the act) of expressing one's self and, most often, the greatest obstacle to that act of expressing is the fear of rejection - letting something that is uniquely you all hang out in a rapaciously competitive environment and waiting for the blade to fall.

Comments

[Gordon McGregor]

I'd agree. The few moments when I've taken interesting pictures is when I've forgotten myself and lost my ego in the moment of just seeing and shooting. Not worrying about creating a great picture as an end result though. They may or may not appear in the future, but being in the present, shooting and paying attention connects me best to my photography.

When I worry too much about having a good result, I take the best picture I know how to do. When I stop worrying about that end result, I give myself the opportunity to take pictures that are better than I currently know how to do.

Off to Yosemite and Death Valley now for a week. I'll see how many of Ansel Adam's tripod marks I can find and then look the other way.

[Paul Maxim]

Someone who is such "an educated and informed boy", it seems to me, ought to be able to do a little better with the language. Obsession? Are you kidding? Merriam - Webster defines "obsession" as a "persistent , disturbing preoccupation with an often unreasonable idea or feeling". That, I think, about sums it up. Some of the standard synonyms are compulsion, fixation, and preoccupation. It connotes an irrational performance of repetitive actions.

As a photographer, I don't think I'd want to be labeled "obsessive" or "compulsive". Such a photographer would likely just keep taking the same images over and over again. If you've seen one, you've seen them all.

"Passion" might be a better descriptor, but what's in a word? The point here is that neither passion nor desire nor obsession is a prerequisite for doing "above average" photography. Not to steal someone else's idea, but that's a myth.

Didn't we all know someone in school who never had to work very hard to get straight A's? Everything just sort of fell in their lap? While the rest of us were struggling mightily, they just cruised through everything. Not just above average - well above average. They weren't obsessed and one would have been hard-pressed to detect any serious level of "desire". They just had an incredible amount of raw, academic talent. Maybe they couldn't dribble a basketball or even tie their own shoes, but that's another story, isn't it.

Well those folks exist in every type of activity, photography included. There aren't many of them, I'm sure (I sure as hell don't know any), but I know that statistically they exist. They aren't pushed by any emotion and they aren't "driven". They can just flat-ass do it.

Could they be better if they really were driven or more passionate? Perhaps. But they're already in that rarified atmosphere of excellence that most of us can only wonder about.

Even for all of us who live in the middle of the spectrum and struggle to find some indication of personal success or progress, I would strongly suggest that being "obsessed" might be tremendously counterproductive. How the devil can "natural acts of doing and being" flow from obsession?

[Sean McCormick]

"Such a photographer would likely just keep taking the same images over and over again. If you've seen one, you've seen them all."

A pastry chef may create a particular dessert day after day, but it's not exactly the same dessert with each iteration. Each time it should be better, more nuanced and refined.

"How the devil can "natural acts of doing and being" flow from obsession?"

Perhaps if you were a diagnosed (albeit high-functioning) schizophrenic you'd understand how an obsession can be turned around so that it becomes the bellows that drives the flames of creativity. The problem is, we don't have a common frame of reference here so you'll just have to take my word on this one.

[Steve Durbin]

Merriam - Webster defines "obsession" as a "persistent , disturbing preoccupation with an often unreasonable idea or feeling".

Can't help but think of George Bernard Shaw:

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.