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01/24/2011 04:43:14 AM · #1 |
Another photography discussion thread, destined to quickly choke among the weeds of religious rants and gun-nut ravings.
Quote from Emmet Gowin:
"Photography is a tool for dealing with things everybody knows about but isn't attending to. My photographs are intended to represent something you don't see."
and from Jerry Uelsmann:
"The camera is a fluid way of encountering that other reality." |
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01/24/2011 05:12:30 AM · #2 |
This should be a nice distration from those aforementioned threads. I'll dive in...
Quote from Emmet Gowin:
"Photography is a tool for dealing with things everybody knows about but isn't attending to. My photographs are intended to represent something you don't see."
Just like my concealed 9mm.
and from Jerry Uelsmann:
"The camera is a fluid way of encountering that other reality."
Just as prayer is a means of communicating with God. |
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01/24/2011 06:25:38 AM · #3 |
in addition to perusing some of the imagery, i ran across an insanely engaging interview with emmet gowin from 1997. it was fascinating to find that the lead image in the article was not of sex, but of two kids fighting...
Originally posted by art:
just as sneezing is a way of encountering a kleenex |
;-) |
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01/24/2011 07:36:03 AM · #4 |
Originally posted by Art Roflmao:
Just like my concealed 9mm. |
Well if it's only 9mm it's no wonder you keep it concealed KP. |
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01/24/2011 07:45:24 AM · #5 |
Thanks for the link Skip. It's a wonderful interview. All about the genesis and magic of photographs, and nothing about tedious bloody photography. |
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01/24/2011 10:24:09 AM · #6 |
Originally posted by ubique:
Thanks for the link Skip. It's a wonderful interview. All about the genesis and magic of photographs, and nothing about tedious bloody photography. |
I've always loved Emmet Gowin's work, since way back in the 70's when I first encountered him. I used to stare at the "family photographs" for hours. It's eerie reading that interview, where he discusses the first image linked, of the boy and girl fighting, because the things he mentions, the details, that capture his attention, also are the ones that kept me staring at it: the white hand, the bit of heel, etc. And I was obsessed with the picture of the girl holding eggs with arms entwined.
Anyway, regarding the bolded above, that's got me thinking. Always a dangerous thing :-)
I can't remember when is the last time I actually went through a thought process while making a picture. I can't remember thinking, "Okay, I've got to set this aperture and this shutter speed because I need this DOF and this amount of motion-freezing" or whatever. But when I TALK about the pictures, that's pretty much what I talk about, I'm hopeless that way. And don't get me wrong, all that stuff IS a part of the process, the only thing is I don't have to THINK about it anymore, I just DO it. All the thinking comes after the fact.
I encounter a scene, I see it in my mind's eye as a finished image, I deploy the camera and capture it, all this is thoughtless-but-aware. Even in post, it's mostly thoughtless: I see what i want, I get from here to there more-or-less seamlessly most of the time, and that's an end of it. Sometimes I CAN'T get from here to there and have to puzzle out a new path, but that's about all the thinking I do. About photographs, I mean...
But there's this huge, emotive undercurrent that I never discuss, that's a part of nearly every image I make, basically. And I never talk about this, do I? I natter on about f/stops and ISOs and Topaz and Nik as if THESE are the interesting bits. And I guess I appreciate me for this, as there's a value to passing-on of craft, but that's all it is. It's nothing about vision or wisdom or sorrow or LIFE, at that level. And I don't know why I can't simply express that stuff, like Gowin does in the interview, because I do know I feel it, when I work.
R. |
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01/25/2011 10:41:13 AM · #7 |
Originally posted by Bear_Music:
But when I TALK about the pictures, that's pretty much what I talk about, I'm hopeless that way. And don't get me wrong, all that stuff IS a part of the process, the only thing is I don't have to THINK about it anymore, I just DO it. All the thinking comes after the fact.
But there's this huge, emotive undercurrent that I never discuss, that's a part of nearly every image I make, basically. And I never talk about this, do I? I natter on about f/stops and ISOs and Topaz and Nik as if THESE are the interesting bits. And I guess I appreciate me for this, as there's a value to passing-on of craft, but that's all it is. It's nothing about vision or wisdom or sorrow or LIFE, at that level. And I don't know why I can't simply express that stuff, like Gowin does in the interview, because I do know I feel it, when I work.
R. |
This is how I am, for the most part, and my participation in the forums here is a very strong testament to as much. I'd say lately I've been wavering a bit, and delving into the other side of things when I discuss photos, but it ultimately seems as though I'm saying nothing. As in the article when Gowin notes that it was sudden but slow, his progression from one genre to the next. Is he saying something? Is the inadequacy his language or language itself? See, there I go again.
But the article  Skip put up was very interesting- it goes into the inner process of photography very well. It somewhat reminds me of a Robert Adams quote-
"At our best and most fortunate we make pictures because of what stands in front of the camera, to honor what is greater and more interesting than what we are. We never accomplish this perfectly, though in return we are given something perfect- a sense of inclusion. Our subject thus redefines us, and is part of the biography by which we want to be known."
-Robert Adams
But, to return to the original post, I thoroughly agree with the Gowin quote. To me photography is about taking a scene and making it more than just a scene. Even if we have seen the scene before, perhaps 1,000 times, the photograph aims to add something, that something provided by the photographer, to the photo. It can be anything, and it doesn't even have to be (and often isn't, IMO) what the creator intended. So, scenes are seen, but photographs represent. Regarding the Adams' quote, and reconnecting things, I don't think it just goes the way he describes. The flaw, the alteration, is in fact the impression of the photographer back upon the scene, and in doing so, there is a creation of something wholly different and new, neither the scene nor the photographer.
Or, at least, this is where my mind has been drifting lately. Maybe I just need more sleep ;) |
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