civilized ku # 2183-85 ~ looking at pictures
Wednesday, April 25, 2012 at 09:39AM 
Sleeping bag ~ Plattsburgh, NY • click to embiggen
Peabodys ~ Plattsburgh, NY • click to embiggen
Koffee Kat ~ Plattsburgh, NY • click to embiggenIn the wide wide world of picture making, everybody wants to know how to make a picture. On forums, blogs, and websites how-to Q&As abound. How-to-"master" x, y, and z books surround us like weeds in a deserted urban lot. Everybody wants to know the "secret" to making good pictures because, as everyone knows, making good pictures is a very complex affair, akin to Rocket Science.
Unfortunately for the terminally confused, everyone should know (if only the how-to industry would let them know) that there really are only 3 simple things, technique wise, one needs to grasp in order to make a good picture: 1) using aperture in conjunction with, 2) shutter-speed, and, 3) focusing. And, yes, those 3 things really are really simple, especially so with today's do-everything-for-you digital domain cameras.
Set the camera to "Auto", turn on the Auto Focus, point the camera at whatever and depress the shutter release. I mean, even my 7 year old grandson can "master" that stupendously difficult feat. In fact, he "mastered" it about 3 years ago. And, FYI, so has the wife.
Of course, "serious" amateurs like to get beyond the "auto" stage of things picturing making and that makes things a little more involved. I hesitate to use the word "complex" because, quite frankly, if it takes one more than a week or two to figure out how to go "manual", maybe one should consider sitting around and watching the telly as a hobby.
All of that said, there is another element to the making of good pictures which gets beyond the mechanics of making technically good pictures - the ability to see. In some cases, that ability comes rather easy / naturally. In others, it needs to be discovered and developed (inasmuch as that is possible).
IMO, the ability to see is the single most critical ability, re: the making of good pictures, to "master". Without it, one is reduced to making pictures with generic and stereotypical / formulaic what-to-picture and "how-to"-picture-it recipes. At which point, one might wish to join a camera club in the furtherance of such "skills".
However, that said, the ability to see which everyone desires to get a grip on is that which one employs with a camera in one's hand. To be certain, that is the desired end point of the picture making endeavor, but in order to get there (if seeing does not come easily or naturally) there is another kind of seeing one must also "master" - the ability to look at pictures and see beyond their referent, aka: content.
As an example, read what Sarah Malakoff - in an interview with Aline Smithson on her blog, LENSCRATCH - had to say about her Living Arrangement pictures (which are not unlike - but different from - my picture window series):
My photographs are examinations of the home as both a refuge from and at times a re-creation of the outside world. In my images, architecture and furnishings appear as uncanny symbols of culture, family, and nature. With the intentional exclusion of human occupants, my subjects spark curious speculation of their own. The private and personal are expressed in part by objects and signifiers which are displayed versus those which are hidden; what is allowed inside, and what is kept out. For example, doors and windows both frame exterior views and keep the elements at bay. Land, weather, and wildlife are ever present on the other side of the wall even as they are brought safely inside in the form of pattern, simulation, and domesticated animals. Ironically, both indoors and out equally project artifice.
These pictures speak to notions of comfort, class, and style as well as universal attempts to control and transcend our environment. Tensions, and often humor, appear between absence and presence, old and new, real and surreal, permanent and transient, genuine and artificial, the domestic and the natural worlds. The desire to resolve these tensions drives the viewer to create their own narrative and imagine possible inhabitants.
Now I am quite certain that there are those who consider Malakoff's statement to be pure unadulterated art-speak crapolla / flap-doodle. Much-to-do about nothing, so to speak. If that's your take on it, maybe Aline Smithson words, re; the same pictures, might better suit your fancy:
Sarah Malakoff's photographs explore the idea of home, but I am drawn to the formal study of spaces that are more than just rooms, they are rooms with elements of quirky expression, each with a surprise twist. I have to admit it, I'd like to hang out in these homes and meet the people who created these spaces. The lack of human evidence makes the work feel like a movie set, ready for the drama to unfold.
In either case (Malakoff and Smithson), both statements are addressing matters which go beyond the mere content /referent to be viewed in the pictures. They speak to ideas, concepts and the feelings instigated via the viewing of those pictures. Those pictures are more than just pictures. They not only illustrate the content / referents to be found therein but also attempt to illuminate ideas and concepts and instigate feeling about the pictured content / referent as well.
IMO, illustrating and illuminating ideas and concepts and instigating feelings (beyond "wow") are the sine qua non of good picture making. Recognizing, or learning to do so, such ideas, concepts, and instigated feelings in one's self - that is to state, getting beyond mere appearances and becoming engaged with what else a picture - is about is the bedrock of understanding what the possibilities of the medium and its apparatus are all about.
That said, what anyone recognizes in picture beyond its content is open to interpretation. In the example cited above, one need not see each and every idea and concept or experience the same feelings as those seen and experienced by the artist and/or her critic. Each individual will see and experience things/feelings which spring from the well of their own personal knowledge and experience and, IMO, that is the genius of good art.
All of the preceding said, I have little doubt about the benefit of seeking out and viewing, with one's mind and feelings fully engaged, good pictures as means to discovering and developing one's ability to see, picture making wise. Think of picture making and viewing as a verbal vernacular (which, in the visual sense, it actually is) - once you grasp the language you can use it to get involved in the conversation.
A QUESTION: How do you look at pictures? And, does that, in any manner, influence the way you make pictures?
Reader Comments (4)
"..pure unadulterated art-speak crapolla". It looks like a catalog from Rejuvenation Hardware without the prices.
How do I look at pictures? May I quote Ernst Haas, "A photograph should be less descriptive,- more imagination, less information,- more suggestion, less prose and more poetry."
"Think of picture making and viewing as a verbal vernacular (which, in the visual sense, it actually is) - once you grasp the language you can use it to get involved in the conversation."
Well written!
How do I look at pictures? First answer has to be: Often. Having given up TV for good, photography books offer their private evening school teaching and tutoring. And visually reading through the works of older and contemporary photographers will, so I hope, set up some cerebral connections and create sensitivity and insight, which sometimes slowly bubbles up during my own photography activities.
It is pretty much an eclecticist way of developing myself, and other than art school teaching it probably won't lead to a comprehensive knowledge about photography, but following this pattern for several years now has been satisfying and successful.
It depends on what kind of pictures I'm looking at and who and where they were made. Ideas in pictures are very much dependant on who made them, where they're published and who looks at them.Often I've found that bad artists try to hide behind ideas when making bad pictures. "Yes the picture is crap, but it's all about the concept"... yeah right!