man & nature # 67 ~ the end is nigh, accept your savior and salvation
Tuesday, October 28, 2008 at 09:32AM 
Mid-September garden sunset • click to embiggenA recent comment from Mark Meyer contained what may be the single most penetrating question I have ever been asked about my involvement with the medium of photography:
I think your attitude toward criticism of your work is very healthy, but I don't understand why you spend so much time and effort looking at and criticizing work you clearly don't like.
This statement / question is a 2-parter so let me deal with the easy part first.
Part One ~ I really don't spend "so much time and effort looking at ... work (I) clearly don't like". What I do is spend a lot of time looking at a lot of pictures - some of which I end up liking, some of which I don't. It may not seem that way, because it could be reasonably said that I do "spend much time and effort ... criticizing work (I) clearly don't like". Although ....
I would substitute the word "critiquing" for the word "criticizing" in Mark's statement because, while it is certainly clear that I don't like much in the way of cliched, camera-clubish, pretty pictures of the nature landscape, my critiques of them rarely delve into personal character assassination regarding the makers of such pictures. In fact, I present my critiques from perspectives and opinions gleaned from the realm of art and cultural criticism (to critique).
Part Two ~ subsection A.) I do this with apparent frequency - although, if one were to dig into The Landscapist archive, I believe that it would become obvious that I do this with far less frequency that some might suppose - because many, if not most, of the visitors and followers of The Landscapist seem to be those who are actively seeking to break out of the bonds and limitations of camera-club picturing.
So, it is primarily to them that much of my critiquing of "work I clearly don't like" is aimed. I suspect that for those who have managed to move beyond camera-clubiness, this all seems a bit repetitious and boring and it is for them that I address numerous other topics regarding the medium of photography.
Part Two ~ subsection B.)All of the aforementioned said, here's where it gets "penetrating" for me. To start, consider these 2 statements form John Rosenthal:
1.) Atget’s photographs were, at their deepest level, a response to the modern condition of impermanence. Why else spend so much time compiling a visual record of all those timeworn things that would soon disappear - signs of intimate life whose import wouldn't be deciphered until it was too late? I thought of those little Parisian vistas that didn't open up into any sort of grandeur; of the chipped and faded paint on the wooden facade of a tavern - a row of wine bottles in the window above three small curtains; the tilting city shacks with cracked masonry; the patchwork skylines of unremarkable neighborhoods; wooden wagons parked at the end of cobblestone alleys, hand-crafted stair railings. Atget must have known that if he didn't hurry, if he didn't hit the streets before dawn, Old Paris and its ancient neighborhood intimacies would be gone, along with the bricabrac dealers, the flower-sellers, the fried fish shops, and the small craftsmen. He must have heard the rushing of time; and it must have sounded like the beginning of a stampede.
2.) If photography is about anything it is the deep surprise of living in the ordinary world. By virtue of walking through the fields and streets of this planet, focusing on the small and the unexpected, conferring attention on the helter-skelter juxtapositions of time and space, the photographer reminds us that the actual world is full of surprise, which is precisely what most people, imprisoned in habit and devoted to the familiar, tend to forget.
From those 2 statements, I would isolate - relative to expanding on my and (and by extension of the fact that you are reading this entry) your understanding of why I photograph and my and your understanding of some of the intended meaning of my pictures - these 2 ideas:
... the photographer reminds us that the actual world is full of surprise, which is precisely what most people, imprisoned in habit and devoted to the familiar, tend to forget
He must have heard the rushing of time; and it must have sounded like the beginning of a stampede
It should come as no surprise to anyone has at least a passing familiarity with me and my pictures that I am indeed enamored of and find great interest and beauty in "the small and the unexpected" and "the helter-skelter juxtapositions of time and space". First and foremost, that is why I picture what I picture - I am drawn to and fascinated by such subjects. I do it for me as part and parcel of my never ending exploration of what it means to be human by investigating the world and my relationship to it.
That said and in no small measure, my additional intent with my pictures is to share my explorations and investigations with the rest of the world in order to "remind(s) us that the actual world is full of surprise." I want to do this because I have a very strong conviction that there is genuine delight to be found in the small and the unexpected that "most people, imprisoned in habit and devoted to the familiar, tend to forget.
IMO, they tend to "forget" it (or more probably ignore it) because they are imprisoned in the habit of the spectacle and devoted to the forces of false persuasion found in their slavish devotion to the romanticized, sentimentalized, and even fanciful views of the world - those found in both their pictures and their ideas of living.
CAVEAT - I surmise that that those who have "forgotten" have "romanticized, sentimentalized, and even fanciful views of ... living" because, if their pictures truly do come from the heart and are an accurate reflection of who and what they are, well .... their pictures speak for themselves, don't they?
Consequently, when I critique those pictures that I clearly don't like, I am also critiquing the cultural paradigm that greatly influences their making - if one takes the time to look around the cultural landscape into which we are literally sinking and, with eyes wide open, take notice of the political, economic, environmental, and social morass in which we find ourselves, it is quite obvious that we live in a koyaainsqatsi (the Hopi word that loosely translated into English means, "life out of balance") world.
In my effort to remind those who have forgotten the actual world (and not just what I call the Super Bowl Halftime Show excesses of the world) is full of surprises I picture what I consider to be canary-in-the-coalmine slices of life - those "timeworn things" that might soon soon disappear in the culture of consumption (false persuasions) "rush of time" that sounds to me like the "the beginning of a stampede" to societal, cultural, economic, and environmental oblivion.
That said, I guess it should come as no surprise that Craig Tanner's parable wherein he compared me to an obnoxious and ornery street preacher was also a bit on the mark/Mark.
gravitas et nugalis
Featured Comment: Martin Doonan thinks that yesterday's entry was"a post that gets to the heart of my feelings wandering the streets of Berlin" which contrasts rather starkly with Kent Wiley's notion of it - "I think you're going to lose many readers who are not willing to follow you through all your parenthetical asides ... you could stand to boil it down, and do some copy editing ... maybe a blog is the wrong place for this kind of thoughtful examination ..." And then there was Svein Frode who noted that it would worth your while to "read Avant-Garde and Kitsch by Clement Greenberg. If you haven't, it's worth a read. Looks like 1939 wasn't much different than today."
my response" Jeezzzz - try as hard as I might, I can't seem to please everyone. Maybe it's time to start doling out inane drivel, large doses of photographic pablum that slide down the intellectual esophagus like sugar and spice and everything nice -
NOT!
Oh well, I'll take some solace from the fact that I am, at the very least, annoying and/or pleasing readers from a wide variety of geographic locations around the planet.
Reader Comments (5)
Aha, a post that gets to the heart of my feelings wandering the streets of Berlin for the first time this week.
There is so much subject to capture, understand or present to the World in the way I see it. Too much. I decided to spend less time picturing and more time experiencing. I think there is months (maybe more) of dedicated photographic subject to present.
This all bourne of the observation of more than the camera-club view of life - I've not seen a single opportunity of this type in the city in several days here.
Well said Mark. I guess we're doomed, and have been for some time, but the human condition is that some of us want change and others want what was before, or if you're like me, a mix of both. I guess you've read Avant-Garde and Kitsch by Clement Greenberg. If you haven't, it's worth a read. Looks like 1939 wasn't much different than today.
http://www.sharecom.ca/greenberg/kitsch.html
Mark,
This is the essence of it for me:
"IMO, they tend to "forget" it (or more probably ignore it) because they are imprisoned in the habit of the spectacle and devoted to the forces of false persuasion found in their slavish devotion to the romanticized, sentimentalized, and even fanciful views of the world - those found in both their pictures and their ideas of living."
I get the feeling that you're rather hot under the collar. That's great. But I think you're going to lose many readers who are not willing to follow you through all your parenthetical asides.
I can't imagine that I'm the only one to feel lost amongst the one thousand two hundred three words that this entry trawls through. This is not a character assasination. It's a positive comment, that you could stand to boil it down, and do some copy editing.
I'm not looking for a Powerpoint presentation, so maybe a blog is the wrong place for this kind of thoughful examination. I expect somewhere more significant - a book or at least Atlantic Monthly - to see such serious verbage.
But WTF, keep up the tirade. Most of them will never get it. But if they did, I'd have to go somewhere else again.
Mark's LONG posts is what makes this blog so much better than most photography blogs out there. A place on the Internet with any substance at all is a rare thing!
You're right... Who needs short and terse? It must be that I was required to do some paying attention and think for a change. Please not that...