decay # 25 ~ think of it as a sawhorse kind of thing
Thursday, December 4, 2008 at 09:05AM 
Squash, apples, and leaves on fine china • click to embiggenYesterday's statement that if you can't "explain" in words what you're doing with your camera, chances are very high that you're not doing something worth talking about may have seemed a bit harsh to some. And, depending on how you read it, it may be just that.
But, as is usually my wont, I did leave a bit of wiggle room in the statement with the caveat of "chances are very high" which, of course, leaves hanging the very low possibility that one might be doing something with one's camera worth talking about even if one can't explain in words what it is you are doing.
Without a doubt, the human race has quite a few constituents who work by the seat of their pants without knowing precisely what's in those pants. Hell, if I had $5,000 for every time I heard the answer to the question, "why'd you do that?" with one variation or another of, "because it felt/seemed like the thing to do", I'd have more money than I do now.
That said, and IMO, many of those who are making pictures that are worth talking about even though they can't do so themselves are suffering not so much from a lack of the ability to do so but rather, a lack of intensive art school "education" (whatever the source of that education). Such an education crams a lot of art stuff into your cranial cavity where some of it is bound to stick, for better or worse, for subsequent retrieval.
An example of "better" retrieval would be when you call upon that stuff in order to better understand and appreciate a work of art (of your making or that of others). An example of "worse" retrieval would be calling upon that stuff just so you can have something intelligent sounding to say, even if it's not relevant, when someone asks you what it is you are doing with your camera.
But here's the thing - the fact that you can't articulate exactly what it is that you are doing with your camera does not preclude me from getting way more out of what you're doing than you ever intended or even hoped for. I can retrieve some of that art stuff from my head and use it to "read" your pictures. Doing so most often enriches my experience when viewing and/or discussing the work of others. I look at it as an added "bonus" to whatever the visual experience might be.
And, I want to make this perfectly clear, no matter what the added intellectual experience might be, most times it doesn't matter a bit if the visual experience doesn't strike a chord with me.
Case in point is today's picture from my decay series. I am certain that there are some out there who are simply not very interested in pictures of decaying food no matter how many references I might make to Flemish Still Life Masters, the concept of vanitas, or any other art stuff. I am equally certain that there are some who are (to include those from a big gallery in Montreal who have offered me a solo show of my decaypictures).
But I digress. If the picture, in and of the presentation and the depicted referent themselves, does not draw me in and demand that I keep on looking, the chances are very high that my desire to haul out the art stuff and become further engaged is pretty low. Despite what the lunatic academic fringe thinks - that pictures are mere courtiers to words - what Artists who use cameras do is make pictures.
Pictures that are meant to be viewed and appreciated for their visual appeal (tastes may vary).
Again, let me be perfectly clear - IMO, if all a picture has to offer is pleasing visual appeal, it is not very likely to have lasting appeal.
As I have stated many many times before, for me, it's all about a picture's ability to illustrate and illuminate. And, of the the pictures that exhibit those criteria, the ones that I like the best are most often those that strike a balance between the two extremes of all visual and all intellectual. Not a perfect 50/50 balance but one that compels me to travel back and forth between the two experiences.
decay
Reader Comments (4)
Unless you have a tree growing in your kitchen, what is the referent of the leaves in this still life? I thought you portray the real.
I think you are talking about 2 different things here. First is the artist's narrative: the explanation. Second is the viewer's narrative: the observation. What you bring to my pictures, or I to yours, is not necessarily what we carry with our own work. It is possible to have one without the other and they need not coincide.
I honestly believe that we all have much in common when it comes to our perception of the "meaning" of photographs - we all just come at it from a different angle.
I completely agree that a photograph must first grab you emotionally before there can be any real intellectualization. It's that initial visceral response that counts. There are no words - you either like it or you don't. The thought process (that is, what the image "means") comes afterward.
In my opinion, the visceral response is mostly hardwired. I, for example, have always been drawn to order and balance in images. I don't like chaos and disorder. But that was the case long before I ever held a camera. My mother was always amazed that I made my own bed and kept my room picked up. But that was my nature, apparently. My brothers were totally different. No one taught it to me - it's how my brain seems to work. And it's how I tend to view the world around me.
The point is simply this: even though I also like to make images of natural cycles ("decay"), I'm not likely to ever make one like Mark's. Our intent may be exactly the same with respect to what we're trying to express, but the visual message presented is quite different. Some will respond emotionally to one type of image, some to the other. It simply depends on how we happen to be wired.
So, to use Mark's words, we can neither illustrate nor illuminate unless we can first ring that all important emotional bell in the viewer, that nearly instantaneous reaction in our gut that says that we like or don't like a photograph (or painting or whatever).
The one thing I disagree with Mark on is the idea of "balance" that he expresses in his last paragraph. I think it's more like 90% visual, 10% intellectual. As he says, if it doesn't grab us visually, the intellectual part becomes moot.
Looking at a photograph is never a purely visual experience. The cultural meanings are always there. Part of the initial ah-ha moment of looking at a great picture is a response to that meaning. Think of an Ansil Adams mountainscape. Beautifully composed and printed, of course, but don't forget that a big part of our response is based on our cultural meaning of the mountains and this kind of picture of them. This meaning comes to us from the Hudson River School of painters from the 19th century and other art of the romantic landscape. The idea that that response is purely visual is just false. You don't have to consciously think of that connection to get that meaning, but to think about where it comes from sure is interesting.
My question is if you met someone at a party and you wanted to tell them about your pictures and why you take them what would you say?
My question is if you met someone at a party and you wanted to tell them about your pictures and why you take them what would you say?
My question is if you met someone at a party and you wanted to tell them about your pictures and why you take them what would you say?