Postcards from the Creative Journey

Looking at Photographs

Sunrise, Haleakala Crater, Maui

I saw a show of contemporary photography at a local gallery. The quality of the images, well, let's just say it was contemporary photography. But I won’t disparage the entire effort because there were actually little islands of photographic beauty surrounded by a vast sea of over manipulated photographic self-indulgence and political correctness. There are still photographers out there who can compose an image and create artwork that does not rely on manipulation or pandering to a specific world view to gain acceptance. I was happy to see photographers gaining recognition through the excellence of their vision. I rejoice in their success.

But while I was enjoying some of the photographs, the “glass half empty” guy in me asked the question, “Do these photographs look good because of their proximity to really bad photographs, or are they intrinsically beautiful?” Suppose we hung the contemporary photographs on the wall next to "contemporary photography" of the 1970's era. (I chose the 70’s because that’s when I first began to appreciate photography)  Would they be considered barely competent? Or would they actually be “better” photographs because we have more advanced equipment, materials and a more sophisticated vision than we had forty years ago?

That’s something to think about.

Before You Call Me A Grumpy Old Man…

Structural Steel

You need to know that when I was a young pup, I, too was totally fascinated by the technical aspects of the photographic process. I was enamored by the wonders of technology (such as it was back in the 1970’s) and was pushing the boundaries of avant garde photographic technology. Photographic technology was Tri-X 400, D-76 and the latest and the big technology brouhaha was a debate whether Kodak Polycontrast (with that delightful green tint) was actually going to replace graded paper. The old guys were certain that these changes were going to be the absolute death of “photography as we know it” because photographers could “fudge” their exposure and cover it by using multiple graded filters on a single print! With the recklessness of youth, I pushed beyond the boundaries of straight photography using (and abusing) Kodalith to create a photographic world of my own making.

I was out there on the edge when I was young. I abused the materials to get that “look at me” effect for my photographs. But when I learned more about how to compose and create images that didn’t need the massive overdose of manipulation, I began making photographs addressed to the audience rather than myself. Learning photography was not about me, but about the audience was a transformative step in developing an artistic vision.

Yup, that thing at the top of the blog is a photograph. I photographed a skyscraper’s structural steel, overexposed and overdeveloped 35 millimeter film and then made contact film positives on Kodalith film. I then used high contrast lith film developer to get the black/white contrast effect. I think there are parts of three film frames in the image.

Getting What It Takes Part II of II

Cottage Porch, Academy Street, Cary, North Carolina

Creating photographic images is not a twenty first century task. Creating photographic compositions does not have a quick start guide and requires much more than pointing and clicking. It is not a skill that anyone can be mastered in a weekend. Some may not even master this skill in their lifetime.

There are also mechanical and physical skills to master that just take time. Camera handling and learning what the buttons do can be learned quickly, but do require some repetition to become ingrained behaviors. Beyond the physical skills, there are the aesthetic “rules” that must be practiced, learned, internalized (and quite possibly broken in a grand fashion) in order to develop a personal vision. This type of experiential learning happens in a different manner. This is where the ten thousand repetitions rule enters the play. Photography is learning by doing, making and correcting mistakes. It is an iterative process that takes time and requires input from others and time to understand why things work or don’t work. It is a social type of learning that requires input and feedback from others. It is very different than sitting in a chair, pointing and clicking and interpreting error messages. There is no doubt in my mind new photographers find it easier and quicker to learn software than photography precisely because software is easier to learn than photography.

What it all comes down to is this: You can teach software. You can’t teach experience. Software can be picked up quickly and proficiency is achieved in short order. It takes a much longer time to learn how to make an artistic composition that means something to more than just the photographer. It is because we have these diametrically opposed styles of learning we have amateur images with professional manipulation.

 

Getting What It Takes Part I of II

Sand and Snow, Xiang Sha Wan, Mongolia, PRC

Being a photographer these days consists of being a lot more than a photographer. In the past, a photographer exposed a negative, developed film and made prints. A straight forward proposition; a single skill set focused on the production of an artifact. Today, I create a digital file, use a computer and eight different software programs to catalog, view, perfect, remove noise, desktop publish and create content in three distinct formats. Along the way I design graphic, layout page, select fonts, write and edit stories. I have been known to write poetry, too. Not only is there knowledge required to manipulate all these software packages, the operating system and the coordination of all the programs requires yet another set of skills. Photography is a lot more complex than it used to be. The complexity expands the spectrum of results, from good to bad.

I think one of the reasons for my disappointment in contemporary photographs is contemporary photographers have to acquire all these disparate skills simultaneously. Trying to learn so many different skills at once is incredibly difficult because each of these very different skills are learned in a very different way at very different rates.

New photographers are used to learning software because learning new software is a skill set that is a requirement for citizens of the twenty first century. Software authors have developed educational methods to get users competent with their software in very short order.

We’ll continue next week with why you can be taught software but you have to learn photography.