Postcards from the Creative Journey

766 The Power of Example

We learn from examples and quite a few examples of photographs are posted on the web. Images are posted quickly and garner a number of likes, thumbs up, stars and whatever indicators of approvals are currently used. We assume a photograph with group approval is a great example to emulate.

We learn from what we see and most new photographers don’t know what they are seeing. We do not know if the images we see are created by established photographers with a good eye for composition, or someone with a smart phone and a brand new log on ID. We just see a lot of images on the web and these examples begin to influence our photographic aesthetics.

We all know there are more examples of bad images than good. (Yes, even experienced photographers have lots of bad images. We have learned to recognize them and keep them away from the viewing public as a matter of courtesy.) The risk to new photographers is they will learn from and imitate those bad images without knowing it. In doing this unconsciously begin a slide toward mediocrity.

More next week…

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Today's photograph came from the folio "Waiting for the Bishop."

765 - I Hate It When That Happens. First Published 11/29/2015

More than a few years ago I created an entire body of work by combining multiple images to create a fantasy world. The project was called “The Labyrinth.” What made this project so successful is I was able to make the photographs “believably unbelievable.” It took me a long time to be able to come up with that phrase to describe what I learned to do in photoshop. What peeves me now is that I found a perfectly good word that describes what I worked to achieve. The word is verisimilitude. Verisimilitude is the illusion of reality: a thing that is not real, but which seems realistic. That is exactly what the Labyrinth photographs were.

I think it is an important word, because so much of photography, digital imaging and especially motion pictures employ verisimilitude. As photographers, we are more aware of this than civilians, so much so, that I routinely think that any image I see is probably not a single unretouched photograph.

Maybe I didn’t get too photographic today, but at least I have one more wonderful word to use in our daily conversation.

764 Depth of Feeling and Depth of Focus

I think it was Edward Weston who spoke of a preference for depth of feeling rather than depth of focus. The admonition is for photographers focusing on the technical aspects of the craft rather than the emotional side of the task. While we must agree that conveying the thought behind the photograph, having a technical failure really defeats the intent of the photographer. Happily, the advance of technology has made the question, “Will this photograph turn out OK?” superfluous. It is almost impossible for a modern camera to make a technical mistake.

If we can eliminate (or at least dramatically reduce) the physical sources of a poor photograph, then what hurdles must we overcome? The answer is simultaneously easy and tremendously difficult. The answer is we have to come up with original content that will delight, amuse, educate and fulfill the audience for our images. This is a task that is not for the faint of heart. It requires us to be able to communicate out thoughts and feelings in a visual manner.

All we have to do is look at the many photographs we see every day to understand the difficulty of this task.

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Edward Weston is one of my photographic heroes, so it makes sense (to me) that I have a nice sand dune photograph to accompany today's text. I would have photographed a pepper or thirty, but that would be really obvious.

763 - Editing from the Artist’s Statement First Published 9/8/2013

In my version of the Artist’s Statement my goal is to lead the audience right up to the edge of the photographs and then let the photographs complete the story. I want to provide the set up for the story the photographs will complete. I try to create a mood reflective of the photographs, a question the photographs answer or create a premise that is supported by the images.

This is my key in selecting the images for my folios. The artist statement is the heart of the folio. It states the reason for the project to exist and the images are supposed to be the visual equivalent of the verbal description. The Artist’s Statement becomes the criteria for image selection.

Evaluating each image honestly against the criteria is the key to any editing process. There is no room for “kinda” or “mostly.” Editing is a ruthless business. It requires personal honesty and integrity to make sure that each image

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My version of a Jerry Uelsmann photograph with absolutely no photoshop involved. The grounds crew at The Biltmore House replaced some sod and the darker grass makes the fountain look suspended in the air.

762 Photographer or Artist?

If your chosen photographic medium were to disappear, what would you do? Consider some of the more obscure photographic processes of the past that are no longer commercially viable. Platinotype paper is not longer commercially available. People who want to make platinotypes have learned how to mix their own sensitizers and coat their own paper. If you define yourself in terms of a specific medium what do you do when your medium, or the components that allow you to create your medium are no longer available?

Would you try to move on to another form of photographic technology, or would you give up all together and use your artistic skills in another area, say watercolors?

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For a brief period in the 1990's commercially coated platinum paper was available. I thought it was wonderful. Alas, there were not enough of us to make that venture profitable. My preferred medium disappeared. I learned how to coat my own paper and did so for about ten years.

761 - Which Came First? First Published 12/28/2014

The book or the exhibit? (I’ll bet you thought I was going with the old “chicken or egg” riddle, didn’t you?) Are the photographs on the wall the work of art, or are they pages from a book hanging on the wall? Does the book exist as a souvenir of the exhibit, or is the exhibit a grand marketing event to promote sales of the book? Or do both exhibit and book exist because the internet version of the art was so compelling people wanted to be able to hold in their hands the images they viewed on their mobile device or their computer? We produce work in interesting times, don’t we? (Woo hoo - an entire paragraph without a single declarative sentence!)

The ability to produce work and distribute the same images in many different formats seems to be a fairly modern thing. Paintings have always been paintings. With the advent of printing, we could see reproductions of paintings. They were books, but it was clear the original work of art was the painting. With photography, printing, the internet and other forms of electronic publishing, we have a choice of what is our primary means of distributing our art. Deciding on the primary means of distribution is a major decision for today’s photographer.

760 Actually Starting the Fifty Years of Photography Project

One of the interesting things to see (I have yet to do so, so I can speak theoretically) as I assemble the More Memories Than Dreams Project is how many of the photographs in the Fifty Project will make it into the More Memories Than Dreams Project. I am pretty sure not all will make it and it will be interesting to understand why they have fallen from favor or why their replacements are demonstrably better.

It’s been about a month since I wrote the above paragraph as a draft to capture my thoughts at the time. In the intervening days I have gone through the first ten years of contact sheets of 35 millimeter roll film as well as the start of my large format negative archives (I purchased my first large format camera in 1978.).

The Fifty Project only had one photograph from the first ten years. I have identified well over fifty images that I find intriguing enough to include in the More Memories Than Dreams Project. I have yet to begin digitizing these negatives for a closer analysis. Once that process begins I wager the number of images will be reduced for various technical and/or aesthetic reasons.

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This image is one I'm considering for More Memories Than Dreams. It's a 4x5 negative made during a very chaotic period in my life. I hope it makes it in.

759 - Ya Gotta Have Some Good Friends, First Published 7/7/2013

Conventional wisdom says “Friends will help you move. Good Friends will help you move the body.” Really Good Friends (RGF) will tell you the truth about your photographs. When we ask, “Are these photographs any good?” the RGF will tell you if they are good, or if they are not good. If they are sensitive, they will also tell you why they are good or not so good. When you get the truth plus the reason, then you have a RGF worth keeping forever.

It’s really important to have those type of people in your life because any comments you get from family and casual acquaintances is usually of the effusive variety and may not be true. The same goes for critiques on social media sites. Very rarely will you see anything that provides input of any value on your work. There’s always self-critique, but not everyone has integrity and honesty to look at something and say, “No, that’s not good enough” about one of their own photographs. You need someone else to do that for you.

758 Are Criteria for Acceptance Fixed or Variable?

While looking at old images as part of the More Memories than Dreams Project one of the first questions is, “Do we judge by the standards of the time, by today’s standards or do we need to place them in context of the artistic journey?” It’s a good question that I will be facing as I “return to the days of yesteryear” assembling a collection of photographs for the Project. I think the selection of images will be based on exactly what I want the project to be about. It could be historical, it could be “greatest hits,” or it could show a progressive artistic growth.

I think this question will be answered when I begin looking at proof sheets. It’s one of those essential project questions that will be answered along the way. I am not going to think too hard about it right now because of a discussion I had early in my career with my General Project Manager. He told me it was more important to start doing something rather than to try and think the whole thing through before beginning work. His experience was that plans rarely (if ever) remain unchanged. Doing was more important than thinking because you’re going to change along the way no matter what.

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This image is one of the first I am considering for MMTD. It was good then (1974). Is it good today (2021)? 

757 - My Photography Is All About “The Process.” First Published 4/30/2017

I hear that from a lot of photographers. In short, the only person that really cares about The Process is the photographer. Okay, maybe some other photographers that do similar work might be interested in The Process out of curiosity.

The only thing the audience sees (and cares about) is the result. They look at the photograph and they see the result of The Process. So, while you might be enamored with The Process, remember The Process is used to create The Art, which is shared with the audience. Your audience cares about The Art, not how you made it.

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If you’re sharp eyed you will remember this image from the Daily Photograph Blog on January 31, 2021.

756 More Memories Than Dreams

I started the next big project, “More Memories than Dreams (MMTD): Fifty Years of Photography (I first wrote about it on 12/10/2020). I was talked out of creating a printed book for this project in favor of a series of pdf publications on my website. That makes more sense because; (1) It breaks down a big project into smaller tasks and (2) I’m pretty sure my web site would draw more viewers than purchasers of a Blurb Book. Each of the smaller publications will cover approximately one decade. I expect this side project to take a year or two.

Indiana Joe is now preparing to enter the terror filled film archives (See January 14, 2021) and make a death defying rescue of some (hopefully) worthwhile images.

Thoughts, observations, experiences and maybe even some technical discussions about how the project is progressing will be posted as additional Sunday blog entries as the project goes along.

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This intimate sylvan landscape  didn't make it into the "Fifty" Project. It just might be included in More Memories than Dreams. It will be interesting to see how the "Fifty" photographs fare in the MMTD project. 

755 - The Flame of Recognition. First Published 6/7/2015

Photographically, Edward Weston is one of my artistic heroes. Reading “The Flame of Recognition” when I was in college was the key event that made me understand photography could be much, much more than the snapshots I had been making. Weston’s “Flame of Recognition” lit my fire for creative photography (sorry about the word play) and his clean compositions (“the strongest way of seeing”) have been a guide for my photographic compositions ever since. I have fallen short of achieving his brilliance many times, but I continue to ask myself, “What is the strongest way of seeing the scene in front of me?”

What made Weston such a good photographer? The question was answered in the film, “The Photographer” by Willard VanDyke (a film maker and member of the f/64 group). In the film, the narrator ascribes Weston’s success to:

• An intense love for the world around him
• A sharp eye attuned to the values of the mind behind them
• Constant search for significant form, the need to find order in what first appears to be chaos
• The discipline of technique the painstaking skill of the master craftsman

In the handy list provided by the narrator there is not a single reference to anything specifically photographic. The characteristics are strictly mental and can apply to any art form. In fact, I would suggest that these four points are essential to living the creative life.

Here’s a link to the film on YouTube. Spend about twenty minutes and learn about a great photographer.     https://youtu.be/5sF8K1NfHnM