picture window # 9 ~ keep on pushing the button
Friday, May 23, 2008 at 12:49PM 
Chaise lounge and leg lamp • click to embiggenJoe Reifer has been kicking around some thoughts that have also been on my mind recently.
On his blog entry, Going deeper may require more abstract excursions, Joe states that "Outside the morass of online photography talk there must somewhere lie something more pure and true .... I’ve hinted before with some abstraction at my dissatisfaction with the state of photography on the internet .... So how do we go deeper than normal? Delve into the depths of what inspires so many of us to carry around these little boxes that leave an imprint on film or sensors or glass plates or whatever? .... "
Leaving aside the modern-era internet stuff and, for that matter, the photography stuff, his question is nothing new for an Artist of any era or persuasion. I think any Artist is perpetually consumed by the idea of delving deeper and arriving at something more pure and true. I am reasonably certain that Joe knows this to be true.
By sheer coincidence (or is it?), I came across this comment by John Camp on an entry at The Online Photographer:
There is this terrific worldwide urge by people to make art, as a way of demonstrating their value, and most of what almost all of them make is junk. I'm sorry, but if you make a beautiful picture of a clearing winter storm in the Sierras, it's almost certainly junk (in the artistic sense), because the thoughts behind it are essentially technical and retrospective .....
Ansel Adams photos are now a technique, readily replicable by anyone with a good camera, a couple weeks of experience at the Santa Fe Workshops, and some time to linger in the mountains. Taking the photos isn't hard; thinking of taking them was the hard part .....
A serious artist making serious art shows a new way, demonstrates thoughts not thought before, makes what is essentially a philosophical argument .....
Art photographers, or any serious photographers, for that matter, IMHO, have to decide who they are and what they're doing, and make it plain ....
Photos are just the easiest thing, for the moment, and attract the people who want to apply a technique to something and then call that something art. It's not; it's just more internet junk.
This is basically the same thought as Joe's with an answer - decide who they are and what they're doing - thrown in. Joe has suggested something similar as potion for what ails him - Your normal sources are not going to cut it. The internet is not going to cut it. This may take wandering around the middle of the desert for a few days to figure out. Maybe a few weeks. Probably longer.
IMO, he's answered his own question. But, I'm not entirely certain that it's the whole answer.
Because "photos are just the easiest thing" to make, I believe that an essential ingredient for getting out of the what's - it - all - about - Alfie conundrum is to simply picture your way out of it. Make lots of pictures in a short period of time without thinking about it all that much - just picture what you "see" and feel. Make a bunch of work prints and then go into the desert, take the time to really look at them and think about it. And, oh yeah, bring some Chimay,
Think of it as tinkering and just fooling around. Trying to "force it" with purely "abstract" thinking alone just doesn't cut it. Even though I really dislike NIKE and just about everything they stand for, I have to say that "Just do it" is a really valuable piece of advice.
Reader Comments (2)
I agree with portions of what I read here, but I think other parts simply betray an unfamiliarity with certain types of photography or simply a lack of appreciation for it. When we (you, I, or your contributor) state that we are unmoved by a certain type of art it does not necessarily follow that the art itself has no value. I've been wrong enough time about this in my own life to see the red flag most of the time when someone says "this isn't art because..."
More in a moment, but first was I do agree with. The "tinkering and fooling around" - e.g. doing a lot of photography - is a critical thing on many levels. In addition to photography I have a long background in music. There the idea of practice is central - things need to me "known" so well (in every sense of knowing) that when it comes time to do you can do without expending too much conscious thought on the mundane details - not because they don't matter, but because they are so ingrained that you can get past them.
Another worthwhile feature of "doing a lot" is that you often learn to know your subject in ways that are just not possible without expending a great deal of time. Sure, the first time you see a new subject its newness may inspire you to create. But when you return to the subject again and again - it becomes an old friend, or perhaps an old adversary - you finally begin to see past its superficial characteristics and get closer to seeing - and perhaps showing - its deeper character.
Back to Ansel Adams. Adams was not the first to photographic the landscape subjects he is so known for. (And keep in mind that these well-known images are not at all the sum of his work.) But there is far more to his images than "being there first" or "technical mastery." And I believe that it is quite possible for other photographers to approach these or similar subjects in a way that may show us something new and significant about them.
Dan
"I'm sorry, but if you make a beautiful picture of a clearing winter storm in the Sierras, it's almost certainly junk (in the artistic sense), because the thoughts behind it are essentially technical and retrospective ....."
This is insulting to those of us for whom finding themselves in a winter storm is akin to a spiritual experience. Someone once chided me for not going to church. My response was that I've never found God in a church. If I need time with "The Man", I pick up my camera and go for a walk across the prairie.
And if we're looking at going deeper, please tell me how a series of pictures of nasty looking vegetables next to one's kitchen sink is "deep". Unlike many of your "ku" shots, there is no connection for me. A connection for you, possibly, but not for me. This is not to say that you haven't created Art, but it's not Art that I'm capable of appreciating or forming a connection with.