Postcards from the Creative Journey

A Point of View

Mestrovic's Pieta, Basilica of the Sacred Heart

One of my photographic mantras is about where you stand (See Where To Stand) and when to press the shutter button. I am beginning to think this might be a universal truth in all of art and I would like to add another data point. I was photographing a large religious sculpture from a standing position. It looked like a snapshot from that vantage point. The problem with the composition was a “kneeler” (or Prie-dieu for the cultured) directly in front of the sculpture. I really didn’t want to move it, so I thought I would crouch down a bit to take it out of the composition. While on my knees looking up at the sculpture I understood the correct vantage point for this sculpture was kneeling in front of it. The photograph made from that vantage point was more than a snapshot.

Shared Visual Literacy

 

Biltmore House, Asheville, NC

“You know the photograph of a guy on a bed with a gun?”

This sentence came up in an email exchange with a fellow photographer. I knew immediately which photograph he was talking about and the photographer who made it. This happens when there is a shared visual literacy resulting from knowing photographs, photographers and how they fit into the history of photography.

In the world of formal photographic education, I fear art photography educators seem to have forgotten the people that made it possible to earn a degree in art photography. Informal photographic education in the aesthetics of photography is being left to images on flickr, snapchat, instagram and miscellaneous internet fora.

I don’t know which is worse for the future of photographic aesthetics.

To share the common history of photographs with you, the “guy on the bed with the gun” is the cover image on the book, “Tulsa,” by Larry Clark.

Stolen not Sold

Legs

Almost twenty five years ago I vigorously pursued gallery shows. (Had to build that resume, you know.) I was able to secure a gallery shows at two different Universities. I prepared the platinum/palladium prints and sent them off to the institutions for exhibition. During the exhibitions two photographs were stolen from each exhibition. Curiously enough, the same photographs were stolen at each exhibition. Not surprisingly, I had more photographs stolen than sold that year. 

This photograph, an original 4x5 platinum print, was one of the two purloined photographs.

Improved Disappointment

Mono Lake

(This one met expectations)

I am convinced that film images degrade with time; that’s aesthetic degradation, not a breakdown of silver halides. Here’s the process I observed for decades.

Looking through the view finder the image is absolute perfection and is truly the best photograph ever made by anyone, anywhere in the history of photography. After the film was developed, the same image was the best photograph you ever made. Looking at the proof sheet that same image has to be one of the best photographs you made in the past five years. Once you made that first print and gave it a thorough inspection, there is no doubt the photograph is the best photograph made on that day. After you spent all afternoon perfecting the print in the darkroom, you wonder who the hell stole your camera and made such an absolute mess of a photograph and why in the name of all things photographic are you wasting your time with such a complete failure of an image.

A digital camera will immediately display your effort. If you are not happy, you can press the delete button if the image doesn’t meet your expectation. Instant disappointment or instant gratification. I think that is an improvement in photography, don’t you?