On Content
from his latest book Deja Vu, just published by Lustrum Press appear on page 406. Creative Camera, December, 1972, page 400-401
Photographic technique is no secret and -provided the interest is there- easily assimilated. But inspiration comes from the soul and when the Muse isn’t around even the best exposure meter is very little help. In their biographies, artists like Michelangelo, da Vinci and Bach said that their most valuable technique was their ability to inspire themselves. This is true of all artists; the moment there is something to say, there becomes a way to say it.
To communicate requires that those who view the work also understand. Fortunately, people respond to visual stimulus on more than one level. Abstraction, for instance, has always played a big role in artistic expression, and it is becoming more accepted in photographs. There’s nothing new about abstraction in painting, but for some reason people respect painting more than photography. This might be because photographs are so widely used by the media in this culture that they are regarded as mere ephemera...you look at a photograph once and then turn the page.
A good photograph, like a good painting, speaks with a loud voice and demands time and attention if it is to be fully perceived. An art lover is perfectly willing to hang a painting on a wall for years on end, but ask him to study a single photograph for ten unbroken minutes and he’ll think it’s a waste of time. Staying power is difficult to build into a photograph. Mostly, it lakes content. A good photograph can penetrate the subconscious - but only if it is allowed to speak for however much time it needs to get there.
Traditionally, photography has dealt with recording the world as it is found. Before photography appeared the fine artists of the time, the painters and sculptors, concerned themselves with rendering reality with as much likeness as their skill enabled. Photography, however, made artistic reality much more available, more quickly and on a much broader scale.
To deny photography’s close affinity with reality as content would be foolish, but there are so many ways to define reality. Almost every person sees the world in a different way from the next. Documentary photographers concern themselves with exterior reality; the content for their photographs comes from the outside world. Their approach is to co-ordinate with an event and let the event provide the subject matter. The photographer participates in a peripheral way, observing the activity and shooting. Many purists consider this way to be the only valid approach and it has led to many great photographs. It has a strong dependence on the quality of the event, its place and meaning. The photographer has to be where the picture is happening.
However, if the picture is happening inside the photographer, the image emerges in a totally different way and a much different approach is called for. The photographer’s need to create becomes ‘the event’ itself and the photographer finds himself responding to feelings that can only be defined after he has made the photograph. It is not so much a question of where any longer but more a question of when the inspiration is there. The content doesn’t matter - whatever defines the feeling he’s responding to becomes the subject.
Photographs now speak in an eloquent way about the nature of vision itself. The philosophical implications of sight, of being able to see the world in three-dimensional terms, becomes very important within the context of the artistic photograph. The riddle of space and time is somehow stated with a little bit more clarity by virtue of seeing in-between the heartbeats.
In a photograph the three-dimensional world of reality translates into two dimensions, length and width. Quite often the skill with which a photographer suggests the third dimension -depth- determines whether or not the picture works. This is characteristic of all the graphic arts, and a look at the master-pieces of any century will immediately reveal the importance of creating a strong three-dimensional feeling. Any ‘good’ photograph or painting has well-handled ‘negative space’.
To be able to see in concrete terms what was created in a fraction of a second is a rare luxury. Even though fixed in time, a photograph evokes as much feeling as that which comes from music or dance. Whatever the mode -from the snapshot to the decisive moment to multi-media montage- the intent and purpose of photography is to render in visual terms peelings and experiences that often elude the ability of words to describe. In any case, the eyes have it, and the imagination will always soar farther than was expected.
To communicate requires that those who view the work also understand. Fortunately, people respond to visual stimulus on more than one level. Abstraction, for instance, has always played a big role in artistic expression, and it is becoming more accepted in photographs. There’s nothing new about abstraction in painting, but for some reason people respect painting more than photography. This might be because photographs are so widely used by the media in this culture that they are regarded as mere ephemera...you look at a photograph once and then turn the page.
A good photograph, like a good painting, speaks with a loud voice and demands time and attention if it is to be fully perceived. An art lover is perfectly willing to hang a painting on a wall for years on end, but ask him to study a single photograph for ten unbroken minutes and he’ll think it’s a waste of time. Staying power is difficult to build into a photograph. Mostly, it lakes content. A good photograph can penetrate the subconscious - but only if it is allowed to speak for however much time it needs to get there.
Traditionally, photography has dealt with recording the world as it is found. Before photography appeared the fine artists of the time, the painters and sculptors, concerned themselves with rendering reality with as much likeness as their skill enabled. Photography, however, made artistic reality much more available, more quickly and on a much broader scale.
To deny photography’s close affinity with reality as content would be foolish, but there are so many ways to define reality. Almost every person sees the world in a different way from the next. Documentary photographers concern themselves with exterior reality; the content for their photographs comes from the outside world. Their approach is to co-ordinate with an event and let the event provide the subject matter. The photographer participates in a peripheral way, observing the activity and shooting. Many purists consider this way to be the only valid approach and it has led to many great photographs. It has a strong dependence on the quality of the event, its place and meaning. The photographer has to be where the picture is happening.
However, if the picture is happening inside the photographer, the image emerges in a totally different way and a much different approach is called for. The photographer’s need to create becomes ‘the event’ itself and the photographer finds himself responding to feelings that can only be defined after he has made the photograph. It is not so much a question of where any longer but more a question of when the inspiration is there. The content doesn’t matter - whatever defines the feeling he’s responding to becomes the subject.
Photographs now speak in an eloquent way about the nature of vision itself. The philosophical implications of sight, of being able to see the world in three-dimensional terms, becomes very important within the context of the artistic photograph. The riddle of space and time is somehow stated with a little bit more clarity by virtue of seeing in-between the heartbeats.
In a photograph the three-dimensional world of reality translates into two dimensions, length and width. Quite often the skill with which a photographer suggests the third dimension -depth- determines whether or not the picture works. This is characteristic of all the graphic arts, and a look at the master-pieces of any century will immediately reveal the importance of creating a strong three-dimensional feeling. Any ‘good’ photograph or painting has well-handled ‘negative space’.
To be able to see in concrete terms what was created in a fraction of a second is a rare luxury. Even though fixed in time, a photograph evokes as much feeling as that which comes from music or dance. Whatever the mode -from the snapshot to the decisive moment to multi-media montage- the intent and purpose of photography is to render in visual terms peelings and experiences that often elude the ability of words to describe. In any case, the eyes have it, and the imagination will always soar farther than was expected.
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2008-01-01 21:47:26
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