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there are pieces of the beach on my desk. two rocks. some sea glass. drift wood. shell bits. it occurred to me just now as i stared towards them how past-focused we are as people. do you- as i do- cling desperately to both the sweet and the bitter of yesterday? of your childhood? photos are a little bit like that i think.
i look around my room. there are so many pleasant moments and feelings conjured by the visuals that i have surrounded myself with. memories of bustling, romantic, and peace filled moments in europe. friends' hands. lumber-laden trains.
what does this mean about looking at other people's photos? does it have to be a moment that you were part of in order for you to fully appreciate it? or is it enough to simply have been there? how many of us appreciate a good picture of the eiffel tower? perhaps we should create a new category of photography to incorporate these 'memory photographs' and set them aside from photography that is created as fine art or, as another category, commercial photography.
until it becomes oppressive i believe that this past-focus can be a good thing. my memories spur me on with hope for a better tomorrow. they fill me like a dried sponge with forgotten emotion. memories, i think, are extremely life-giving.
i chose this photo for two reasons. first, there are some things about it that really work for me. the lines in particular. i love the patterns that the water makes, and i think that it is composed pretty well too, if i don't say so myself. second, i chose to show it for conversation's sake. i think that it is missing something. the point here is, this is an example of a photo that is missing that one, elusive little something that distinguishes a good photograph from a great one. what is it? i'm not sure. i'm thinking maybe some foreground interest. a shell? a rock? a person? or maybe it needs something else all together, perhaps the problem is in the background? what do you think?
grand manan island ice storm.
is there anything real about a photograph? does it make a difference whether that photograph is digital? there are unlimited options available for changing digital photogrpahs, or film photos that are scanned, and one could easily change anything from color, scenery, people involved, what color of hair a model has, eye color, breast size, you get it. the implications are obvious, even if you have never thought about them. one of our main values for photography is its ability to document reality. this is exactly the embodiment of media. so. what if we cannot trust photography?
probably, we need to find new values, or new ways of reading digital photography. it isn't enough to read a photo as a portrayal of an event. it is a 'representation' or 'stylization' (these are the sorts of terms that editors often accompany highly edited photos with). what sort of person are you? do you look at the photos here on my blog and assume that i edit them? did i change any of these colours? for the purpose of the discussion, i'm not going to tell. but isn't that exactly the point? we don't know, we can't. it is impossible to tell whether a photo has been edited or not (although computer programmers are working on software to accomplish just that). do you look at the news and understand that the people on the screen may or may not look like that? i'm sure you do, when the news is a tabloid.
i would submit first of all that there are different levels of acceptability when it comes to photo editing. if a photographer takes a photo of someone who is having a bad day, and consequently has bags under her eyes, it would not necessarily be dishonest to do a bit of quick photoshopping and clean up the eyes. changing breast size, eye and hair colour, and location, on the other hand, crosses several lines. the photo ceases to be a person and becomes a creation. perhaps, if creating is the understood intent, this is ok.
here is an even bigger question: what does all of this say about our culture? what does it mean that our highest standard for a woman is 'better than natural'? if we take the most beautiful women we can find, photograph them, and then fix them, what are we saying about beauty? we are saying that it is not real. we are saying that fake is more beautiful than real. take food for example. do you think the picture mcdonalds uses for its advertisment was ever a real hambergur? i doubt it. what on god's green earth has driven us to the place where we reject the real in favour of the 'representation'?
the next question is, should it be this way? do we need to push for a 'purist' art form where the only true art is to portray truth? to capture reality and exhibit it in its purist form? this is something that i am toying with. but then, i also really like what boosting exposure, contrast, and saturation can do for the look of a sunrise.
for more on the implications of digital photography, check out the afterphotography blog listed to the right. i read ritchin's book. its really interesting, and it sparked most of the ideas from this post.
i've been thinking about this for a while. i bring it before you now, so that you can add your questions to my own, or if i'm lucky, so you can lend me some hard earned wisdom. put generally, i'm wondering what exact role the subject plays in a photograph.
specifically: if art can be used to make a statement, if portraiture is a window into the soul and if fine art is said to have meaning, then how are these meanings changed depending on what the lens captures. for example: two people take two different pictures. ansel adams sees beauty in the shape and form of sand dunes. warhol uses a picture of marilyn monroe for his art prints. these are drastically different forms of photography. next, take the guy who takes pictures of birds with a ten billion times zoom lens. take war photography. is there any merit in calling any of these 'better' or 'worse'? or are they all just different categories of art, which happen to also all use cameras? what do you think?
'but wait!' you say. what about when it's not two different forms of art? what about two people who go about trying to say the same thing with a photograph, but they use different subjects to accomplish the task? i want to know what social critique a photo of a flower could possibly provide. or a bird.
i suppose part of what i'm asking (and i might also be asserting it) is whether there is a point where beauty becomes secondary to the purpose of the artist, a mere tool in the box alongside shock, fear, line, texture, color, you get the idea. a picture of a flower or a bird is nice, and if it's pretty, great! but what role do these types of subjects play in art, a term which should be preserved for something higher than mere beauty.
too often i bring my camera into the forrest in order to take a picture of the forrest, because i want to see something beautiful. so when it comes down to it, i suppose my question is this: how can we begin to see the variety of unused images available for visual artists to use to make informed statements about life with, and in what situations are those images more valid than others?
so i wrote that postmodernism was going to bring the end of the professional. perhaps i was wrong. let me tell you why
i believe that 'pure' postmodernism is next to impossible. also, when it comes to art, i think that there is always a category or division into which a piece of art will fit. there will never be a photograph that is purely postmodern, since even if all of the characteristics of a photo are postmodern by definition, those characteristics will still fall into categories like 'found' 'cubist' 'dada' and so on.
so. if that made absolutely no sense to you, suffice it to say that art will never be purely subjective. the categories that we fit every piece into will accord us with the criteria by which to judge it. this is where the professional comes in. even though everyone and avril lavigne has a canon, (an advertising campaign that truly sickens me) there is still a criteria by which to value the professional quality photo, so long as it continues to be better than the photo made by the amateur.
after that little foray into artistic philosophy; something nice to look at:
