civilized ku # 134 ~ most girls just want to have fun

A late August morning swim ~ Rome, NY • click to embiggenA little while back I mentioned that I would write about developing a unique personal vision - something that many find difficult to do. IMO, I think that many have trouble with this simply because so much has been written about the subject and much of it is not on the same page, so to speak. Add to that the fact that much of what has been written has a slightly "fuzzy" - shoot, shoot, shoot, and it will come - aspect to it and you have a pretty good recipe for confusion / misdirection.

Of all of the opinions on the subject that I have read, it seems to me that one vital element has been missing - that of understanding the meaning in your pictures. Most advice really seems to aim at developing a style, something that may be part of the vision thing but something that should never be confused with vision.

Many are quite content to develop a recognizable and consistent style of their own and doing that is no small feat in and of itself. I mean, with the veritable flood of pictures that are being made these days, making pictures that visually stand apart from the crowd is a good thing and it is safe to say that many a shooter has built a reputation around just this idea alone.

But here's the rub with that - I can think of more than a few landscape photographers whose pictures I can instantly identify on a visual level but whose pictures are virtually indistinguishable from so many others on the level of meaning. This comes as no surprise to me because all of those picture makers say the same thing (or a variation thereof) when asked about why they make pictures. The nearly rote response is almost always,"Ain't the grandeur of nature just grand".

IMO, if that's as deep as your vision goes you're not exactly traveling in a rarefied circle of thought. You'll be sharing a bus with a lot of seats and that bus will be part of convoy of buses with a lot of fellow travelers. That said, it should be noted that the convoy will pass through a sea of picture-making humanity, all of whom wish they could be in one of those buses.

In any event, back to the vision thing.

IMO, most of the "standard" advise that has been proffered regarding developing a unique vision is sound advice - don't imitate, forget every picture you've ever seen when making your pictures, keep your equipment simple, know that equipment like the back of hand so you can make pictures without thinking about the gear, and make lots of pictures of something that interests you or of something that you are at least curious about.

However, one the things rarely mentioned with the preceding is the critical idea of making lots of pictures of something that interests you or of something that you are at least curious about without trying to make pictures with meaning. IMO, the #1 hurdle in the way of developing the vision thing is trying too hard to develop the vision thing.

Just make pile of prints of something that interests you or of something that you are at least curious about and start looking at them.

But, then what? Is the vision thing then just suppose to pop up fully formed in front of your face? Does a bell ring? A buzzer, buzz? Does a flashing neon arrow point to those of your pictures that have vision?

Ahh, in a word, no.

IMO, that's where the hard part begins, although, if you know what you're looking for, maybe it's not so difficult after all. Then again, it does require both intuition and thought, things that many shooters aren't too comfortable with. I mean, how many times have you heard the idea that "photography is a visual medium - no words needed", or, the ever popular, "if a pictures needs words, then it's a failure".

To which my response is always along the lines of "poppycock, balderdash, bunk, hogwash, rubbish" or words to that effect.

IMO, the premise is very simple - 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.

But, I digress - back to developing the vision thing.

So, you've got a big pile of prints that you're looking at. What is it you're looking for? IMO, at this point, you have to select those pictures from the pile that seem to be "connected" in some fashion. At this point, you might not recognize exactly what the connection is (this where intuition - direct perception of truth, fact, etc., independent of any reasoning process - enters the picture) but unless you have been truly shooting at random, there are most likely pictures with a connection hiding in that pile.

Without putting too fine a point on it, what you're doing is editing. However, what you should be doing is editing by intuition and feeling. You're not looking at technique or for style or for pictures that look like pictures that you have been told are good pictures - you're looking for pictures that speak to you with a intuited common theme, language, or meaning.

Once you have that pile, it's time to start thinking about just what that meaning might be.

The most difficult aspect of this thinking process, the one that really trips up most shooters, is simply this - the more you know about the history of the medium specifically and the Art world generally, the more informed your thinking will be. The more you know about the grand / classic themes of Art and literature regarding what it means to be human, the more informed your thinking will be.

In short, the more you know, the more you can know but it seems, from my experience, that very few picture makers want to or are able to delve into this arena. They just want to make pretty pictures - something very much akin to photographic version of "girls just want to have fun".

If the vision thing truly springs from deep within the self (and I believe that it does), it is very much an act of emerging self-awareness. Consequently, it is vitally important that the conscious self be as fully aware of and dedicated to exploring the notion of what it means to be human.

IMO, the real "trick" to developing a unique vision is found in the act of connecting your intuition to your thinking so that you can, through the medium of photography, turn the unthought known into a conscious reality.

Once you consciously know what your specific version of the unthought known is the more you can understand your pictures and recognize (edit) those that fit with your unique vision thing. I still don't think that you can "force it" into your acts of picture making but at least you can know it when you see it.

a last wink? (cue the spooky organ music)

Marlene's casket and burial plot

Years ago I lost a good friend to cancer. She was far too young, vigorous, and engaged to die. She was a professor in the School for American Craftsmen at R.I.T. and an Artist in her own right with a one-person show of her work at MOMA to her credit.

Literally, on her deathbed or, to be more accurate, the bed she would die in a few days later, she revealed to me - as part of an intense and emotional day long conversation about so many things - that, almost from the moment we met, she had considered me to be her platonic lover.

A few days later at her burial - in a plot given to her from the family plot of her attending physician at Sloan-Kettering (because she had no family to speak of) - I made this Polaroid picture.

Now, you and I know that the burned-out highlight on her casket is the product of the lens flare property of my SX-70 camera. BUT ... I would be remiss in not noting that my friend had always considered herself to be endowed with a healthy dose Extra Sensory Perception. And, I must admit that, on occasion, she demonstrated some remarkable "insights" (that she attributed to this "gift") that were difficult to explain using conventional wisdom.

So, who knows. Maybe she was sending me a good bye wink.

Update on Tuesday, December 2, 2008 at 11:38AM by gravitas et nugalis

FYI, I am very happy and pleased to say that, per my friend's request, I was entrusted with disposing of one her primary assets with the purpose of funding an endowed scholarship program at R.I.T. - The Marlene M. Scott Memorial Scholarship - which, 25 years later, still exists to this day.

light at the top of the stairs

Light at the top of the stairs

There is an entire genré of picturing making that as far as I know has no overarching name. In various quarters it goes under a variety of names - toy camera, krappy kamera, etc. or even by the name of the camera involved - Holga/Loma/Diana (and various derivatives) photography. Then, of course, there is the Lensbaby sub-genré, wherein krappy optics reach a heretofore unheard of heights of technical capability.

The defining characteristic of all these variously-named pictures is the lack of definition that comes from using truly awful optics, in most cases, plastic lenses of dubious manufacture. For those who make and/or appreciate these types of pictures, that quality is precisely what they like. Most often there is a smallish central zone of relative sharpness surrounded by a print area of very soft focus out to the edges.

I have always been attracted to whatever the hell this type of picture making is called but I have never really delved into it with any real vigor. The closest I have come to pursuing it would be my love affair with the Polaroid SX-70 camera and the now-vanquished Time Zero film. While that camera could hardly be described as krappy - it is a slr with good optics, auto focusing (or manual if you prefer), and auto exposure (with limited manual override) - but the pictures that the machine spit out had a distinct "other-ness" to them that resulted from the particular, some might say peculiar, characteristics of Time Zero film.

One of the things I like/liked about SX-70 Polaroid pictures was the fact that there was still a semblance of "the real" to them that most krappy-kamera pictures lack. Yet they also had a certain lack of definition that moved them ever so slightly into the realm of pictures that don't quite look like pictures (as most know them) - a slightly more lyrical and/or dream-like quality that I like.

As mentioned many times here, the medium of photography is a cohort with the real. That is the defining characteristic of the medium which distinguishes it from the other 2-dimensional visual arts. That said, everyone should know that a picture of a thing is not the thing itself. It is a trace or a representation of the pictured thing.

However, as we all know, some traces are more accurate in representing the real than others. Pick a photographic potion - Velvia film, the Hue & Saturation slider, (bad) HDR, extreme wide angle lenses, etc. - and mis-representing reality is just an "interpretation" away. And yes, a krappy kamera or some such derivative must be included in that list. After all, unless you are afflicted with some sort of sight defect, you don't see the world like a krappy kamera does.

All of that said, I am much more inclined to accept the results of krappy kamera picture making than I am to accept, as an example, the Velvia mis-representations. That's simply because no one I know of is representing their krappy kamera pictures as "real". For the most part, they acknowledge that what they are making are pure flights of emotional fantasy. Acts of the imagination. Representations of vague and ethereal feelings, memories, and/or dreams.

Not that the emotions and feelings they are trying to represent / express aren't real. It just that they use what could be labeled as a form of photographic hyperbole to express or connect to those emotions and feelings. And, IMO, it is feelings / emotions / dreams states - much more so than the literal referent of their pictures - that their pictures are all about.

At least that's how it appears to me.

In any event, I have never been able to give myself wholly over to the emotional side of picture making. I have always thought that it would be way too easy to slip into the manufacture of trite maudlin pictures. That, eventually, if one were not careful, the technique would become the thing rather than the meaning behind it and the purpose for it would become secondary.

Maybe. Maybe not. I can't say for certain. But, in a nutshell, that's one of the reasons I've stayed with SX-70 picture making - it's real camera that makes real pictures albeit with a tip of the hat to the krappy kamera genré.

the joy of photography

no caption needed

Blowup it ain't

A glamorous life in advertising photography

It's a safe bet that they won't be making a movie about my life in photography.

FYI - In 1966, the movie Blowup was made, directed by Michelangelo Antonioni. The film concerned itself with the work (and sexual perks) of a London fashion photographer in the "Swinging 60s" played by David Hemmings and was largely based on Bailey. IMO, the film is a great look at the very nature of the photographic image and musings on the very nature of human perception. It has been opined that the film delves into Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle - the notion that any observed happening is altered by the mere presence of an observer. I would agree with that idea and because of that, and IMO, Blowup should definitely be on the list of must-sees for any thinking picture maker.

Even though my life in photography did have its David Bailey-like moments, most of it was filled with moments (some of which seemed to drag on endlessly) that were basically variations on the above posted picture. Sure, sure, there's lots of skin in evidence and my camera does appear to be pointed at my lovely assistant's lovely butt, but, believe me when I say that advertising photography is primarily involved with organization and tending to details.

Many was the time that I sat at the top of veritable pyramid of people tending to their specific details - several photo assistants, props stylists, makeup stylists, wardrobe stylists, food stylists ... it was not uncommon to have 8-10 people involved in the making of a single picture. And, of course, sitting at the top of the pyramid, I was responsible for not only making the picture but also for all of the details involved.

Now, it must be said that sometimes this was a very rewarding experience (especially so when the client was willing to pay seemingly outrageous amounts of $$$$ for a picture). The resulting picture(s) was great (by advertising standards), the client was delighted, and I and my many minions were pleased with a job well done. Everybody went away happy.

However, after 20 years or so of that stuff I was getting very burned out on the whole thing. That mental and emotional state was sorely exacerbated by the fact that, by the early 90s, the entire advertising photography profession was being negatively impacted by economic forces that were shrinking ad budgets, driving day rates way down, and forcing many commercial shooters out of the business.

At that time, I was able to survive by diversifying - adding art direction and design to my marketable skill set. Eventually, my income was pretty evenly split between picture making and design/art direction.

However, that said, I might have dropped the picture making altogether if it were not for my migration to editorial picture making - for periodicals, corporate publications, and books. It's difficult to express how sick I was at the time of making pictures with the sole intent of selling something. My interest in that was approaching nil and it was during that period that I started to question my involvement with photography. I can honestly say that I was ready to cash in and move on to something else ... but ...

Enter editorial photography. It was editorial work that reinvigorated my love of picture making - making pictures that had a meaning and intent that had no "commercial" motivation. Pictures that were intended to tell a story and to make an impression which said something beyond inciting the desire to buy. I really loved making these kind of pictures and, not surprisingly, the resultant images showed it.

I created some of my most memorable and recognizable "professional" pictures during that period. When I was hanging out in bars and trying to pick up chicks, it was very satisfying to mention some of my work and have the object of my affection say something along the lines of, "Hey, I remember that. You took those pictures? Cool."

Prior to that period I had certainly accumulated my share of advertising industry awards but I barely remember or have any evidence of those. What still hangs on my wall are the Golden Quill Awards I received for excellence in communication. These awards, which mean more to me than any other, were garnered primarily for my editorial pictures (with a few corporate annual reports).

And so it goes. Pictures with meaning. To paraphrase a line from Ricky Nelson's Garden Party -

if all I did with the medium of photography was to make pretty pictures, I'd rather drive a truck ... but it's all right now, I learned my lesson well. You see, ya can't please everyone, so you got to please yourself.

Update on Monday, December 1, 2008 at 05:05PM by gravitas et nugalis

Featured Comment: Gordon McGregor wrote: "I was at a few parties/ meals with friends over the last week. I took a lot of pictures and for a change actually got some of them printed out, at a local CVS, via one of them magical Kodak print station thingumy automatic printing machines .... I'd forgotten how much fun it is passing around a stack of 4×6 prints between people who laugh at how silly each other looked the night before and remembered how much fun they had.

my response: One of the joys of Polaroid was exactly what you describe, except of course that passing pictures around and laughing (or whatever) was "instant" - very much the first example of the digital age act of chimping.

Polaroid has attempted to reinvent the "instant" picture with their new Polaroid PoGo, a device that I have been tempted to acquire in order to recapture that "instant" moment magic.

face book

My ex reading a book

It happens every so often, of late most usually at the insistence of the Cinemascapist, that I haul out a medium-size shipping box full of old Polaroid pictures. Sad to say, that box is what passes for a family album, circa 1975 - 1995.

On the other hand, one of the qualities of Polaroid pictures that I appreciate very much is their physical ability to resist all kinds of abuse and/or mishandling - you could, as an example, use them as drink coasters with complete impunity. Consequently, just throwing them in a box as a form is "safe-keeping" is actually a legitimate form of preservation.

The added advantage of a box album is the serendipitous fun that results from sticking your hand into the pile and seeing what you find - none of that chronological organization for me. I much prefer a herky-jerky trip down memory lane. I find that bouncing around through past time with pictures is very much like past time presents itself to my memory in my head.

I don't think that that is very unusual. I mean, how many of you have your memories "filed" in chronological order (or any other kind of order) in your head?

I must say that, if I am granted (at my life's end) the opportunity to peacefully reflect upon my life, I hope that box of Polaroids is close at hand.

oh, say, can you see

Missles and bomber ~ National Museum of the USAF - Dayton, Ohio

Bockscar ~ Salt Lake > Nagasaki > Dayton

Bockscar ~ National Museum of the USAF , Dayton Ohio

One of the most impressive museums of any type that I have ever visited is the National Museum of the United States Air Force at Wright-Patterson AFB in Dayton, Ohio. I've visited it on 3 different occasions.

What I find absolutely mind-boggling about the place is 2-fold.

1.) the sheer number of things that fly - first the earliest to the latest, from very small to incredibly large, from history-making to ordinary, from planes to missiles to spacecraft - that are displayed indoors is incredible. It is quite simply rather staggering.

2.) the indelible and spine-tingling emotional impact of the place and some of the craft displayed therein.

Consider the photo displayed here of Bockscar - that is the very plane - a B-29 Superfortress - that dropped the atomic bomb - Fat Man - on Nagasaki on August 9, 1945. Just standing next to and under its open bomb bay doors was both awe-inspiring and horrifying. I was literally overcome by both emotions. Actually touching it with my hand was, and I mean this quite literally, hair-raising on the back of my neck.

FYI, Bockscar was named after Capt. Frederick C. Bock, the aircraft commander who was the plane's regular crew commander. He did not fly the plane on its bombing mission. During that mission, he flew another B-29, The Great Artiste, which observed and recorded scientific measurements of the effects caused by the nuclear weapon. The 2 plane's flight crews were swapped just before the mission and it was Major Charles Sweeney who commanded Bockscar over Nagasaki.

Or, how about standing next to and peering inside of the Apollo 15 Command Module. If that doesn't float your boat, how about stepping inside of the Boeing VC-137C SAM 26000 - better known as Air Force One. Not just any AFO, the AFO which transported JFK to his death in Dallas and on-board of which LBJ took the Oath of Office that same day.

Objects such as these create vivid, emotional, gut/mind-wrenching experiences for me. It is not inaccurate to state that I react to them in manner quite similar to the way I do to good pictures.

At first impression, I am tremendously impressed with the physical object. In the case of those things to be found at the NMUSAF, the sheer weight and complexity of the technology involved is overwhelming to me. Especially so considering the historical context. In most cases these things were at the bleeding edge of humankind's creative and innovative endeavors.

The fact that all of this creative and innovative human energy was/is devoted to the act of killing is what reaches me on a much deeper level than the objects themselves. In the case of Bockscar I find it absolutely impossible to look at it without having a picture in my mind's eye of Fat Boy falling to earth and of the 40,000 or so human beings who would simply cease to exist in one single moment of instantaneous and unimaginable destruction.

I also see in my mind's eye the flight crew as they went about their mission - again, human beings being required by the force of war to act in ways that are nearly unimaginable to me. And then, my mind falls victim to a cascade of thoughts about lives saved by this event.

All of that said, I no longer have to visit the NMUSAF in order to experience these thoughts - this Polaroid picture incites the experience quite well.