civilized ku # 95 ~ seeking or hiding?
Friday, August 22, 2008 at 11:14AM 
;)
Another Saturday night and I ain't got
nobody... • Click to embiggenLater today, it's off to the NY State Fair in Syracuse, NY. Along the way, the wife and I will pick up Hugo and then it's a 3.5-4 drive through the park to the hotel where we will spend the night.
Normally I do not hanker to attend events with lots of people and the fair will be packed with people - on Saturday I can expect to be mingling with about 100,000 of my fellow fair goers. It will also be around 85F. The combination of these 2 conditions would usually take me over the edge but not tomorrow because it's THE FAIR.
When I was a kid, we lived about 10 miles from the NYS Fairgrounds. I was probably about Hugo's age (just turned 4) when I started my fair-going days. The things I remember most - the Hall of the Future, the smell of grilled peppers, onions, and Italian sausage, candy apples, the roar / dust / smell of the stockcar races, 100s of exotic chickens, and, of course, the midway.
Most likely, I will make a million pictures at the fair. I have been thinking a lot about my picturing lately - mainly along the lines of what's it all about, Alfie - and, right on cue, I came across this from a.d. coleman
People who are (or who seek to be) fully alive seem to share an impulse toward adventure, an urge to encounter that which is different, unpredictable, unknown. This desire to test and stretch the self by expanding one's experience is frequently the motivation for those who go beyond photography's familial record-keeping function and begin to use the camera as a probe. The camera, however is often used as a shield as well as a probe. In the guise of confronting reality, it permits us to place a glass and metal machine in front of our eyes ... and allows us to reduce the fullness of an event to the two-dimensional interplay of forms within a frame on a tiny piece of glass. Consequently, the camera enables us to delude ourselves into believing that we are facing the world through it when in fact we are frequently hiding from the world behind it.
Now, I know for a fact that the time when I was picturing a 19 year old boy dieing in front of me in an emergency room while doctors were splitting his chest open in a attempt to save him (and his injured girlfriend was crying and calling for him from the adjoining ER), my camera did indeed shield me from some of the shock-and-awe aspects of the experience. No doubt about it.
And, I must confess that recently, as an example, while I was picturing my impressions of the Jersey Shore, the camera was a device that helped keep my anger and revulsion about what I was "seeing" from bubbling over into destructive acts of eco-terrorism. But, IMO, that was more an act of sublimation - to divert the energy of an impulse from its immediate goal to one of a more acceptable social, moral, or aesthetic nature or use - than an act of avoidance. In my case, that would be diversion to something of an aesthetic nature, of course.
All of that said, I can't help but wonder if, for me, photography / picturing is more of a probe or a shield. More on that later. However, one thing about myself that I do know for certain was expressed best by Richard Avedon:
If a day goes by without my doing something related to photography, it's as though I've neglected something essential to my existence, as though I had forgotten to wake up.
How about you - probe or shield? And, is a day without photography like a day without sunshine?
Reader Comments (7)
I live in Seattle. Many days without sunshine.
I am a prober. And when traveling to and from work, sometimes the lack of a camera and/or time, aggravates me to no end.
I agree definitely, I need a fix of photography everyday in my life no matter if it is imaging, editing, posting, or even just reading.
Sometimes I feel like the prober. If I go to the beach and have my little Coolpix P50 with me, no one pays attention but when my wife and I go out with our black body Nikons and big lenses people look like they are being probed.
In Vietnam I was surprised that that camera brought out the friendlyness in people, they loved having their pictures taken.
Probe or shield? Likely a probe into the world around me and scenes that exist in moments of time within natural borders. Sometimes a shield when family events get overwhelming!
I must do something photographic every day! I was just lamenting to my wife how I feel driven by something inside to be a photographer and live photography, but with a full-time job and two very young children I have almost no time for it. The desire and ambition are there, but without much of an outlet. Art seems like it pushes and pushes until it can get out, and if it can't it drives you mad.
However, I do what I can, and I've learned to carry a compact Ricoh GRD2 with me literally everywhere I go and I have a couple of projects based on ways I've found to use it creatively.
I'm also reading a book right now called Practicing, about a prodigy classical guitarist who eventually calls it quits only to take it back up later in life and start practicing again, but with the wisdom of time informing how and why he practices. Though I love classical guitar music, I'm reading it more from the perspective of someone who desires to practice photography in any small way possible each day. My time for photography is limited and I want to enjoy it when I can because it is such a release, but also to continue to improve.
Mark, I try to make the camera an extension of my heart.
Sincere regards, Jim Roelofs
Ah, pinning down photography... So hard. There are so many different kinds. There are couple of things that have gnawing on me for some time.
I'm a collector of found photographs. Amateur snapshots once were prized rarities, now we are drowning in a sea of them. Take vacation photographs for example: rushing through all the sights, taking photos of everything, to prove that we were there, had fun is actually replacing the experience of being there.
I'm also troubled by how the camera seems to give the user a pass from getting involved. There used to be stupid tv show made up of amateur videos submitted by viewers. One episode seared into my mind: It was a site of a small helicopter crash. The copter was upside down in a water-filled ditch and the pilot who survived the crash was in danger of drowning. Several men were making herculean effort to lift the aircraft and pull out the pilot. And there was one guy filming it all. At one point one of the would be rescuers turned toward the cameraman with a desperate pleading look for help. Then you could see in his eyes the recognition click: He is holding the camera, of course he can't help. There was no anger, no fighting it, just the matter of fact acceptance that the man with the camera was not really there.
I know this is all about amateur photography, but I feel the same existential, and possibly moral ambiguity can apply to professional photography when it's a choice of being there opposed to taking a picture of it.
I'm sorry if I'm not 100% on topic, and not attempting to criticize anyone either, but the question reminded me of one of my recurring topics to ponder.
"How about you - probe or shield?"
Pressure valve. Photography calms me and keeps me from throwing things at people.
A little late to this, as catch up on blog backlog...
I feel like a phalanx-man, spear in one hand, shield the other. Probing the world while trying to protect/distance myself. It's like fighting Heisenberg. I think the camera acts as a way to stop myself getting involved (when I wish to stay distant). Maybe that's weakness in me.
Perhaps picturing is a way for me to mentally probe whilst remaining physically shielded.
Whatever, I do seem to be gathering that need to picture what I see.