Photography: Presentation or Creation

Don--

 

I think there are ways you might have approached this photo that would have been more

creative (not better, by any means, just different). A less straightforward perspective and

shooting angle, catching something ironic in the background, more dramatic lighting at a

different time of day would have evoked a different set of emotions and might have felt

like you were putting either a personal stamp on it or attempting to get something you

wanted out of your viewer.

 

It's probably a matter of seeing things differently. I gave you two examples in my own

work, one which I think "creates" more than the other. You may not perceive the same kind

of difference I do. Is that the case?

Fred, I think the first photo is dramatic -- lighting, pose, expression, focus, composition. I can create a narrative...an intrusion into privacy that is not welcome. Others come to mind. The second, the colors would have caught my eye (including the man who is himself 'colorful' (from his expression). I'll assume it is his house. My eye wants to see the things around him and in the next room. My eye roams through the photo wanting a to see more clearly those things that reflect the subject and his life. Eggleston said in a recent interview that he was not so much interested in people, but in what people do (question about portraits). I'm more like that than not.

 

So, the first is the better photo, but after a bit there is not much reason for me to go back to it except to admire it.

 

As for my example, there was no other approach possible, it's a grab shot. I got off two exposures before the moment passed. Even though the face is in shadow, I think the stance reveals something essential about the person. I'm pleased to have been there with a camera.

I really like both of the images linked by Fred, above, and the one linked by Don E. It's sort of irritating to have to try to categorize them - I just like them. They, do, however, help in clarifying what is being said reference this thread.

 

I have a quote from another photographer that I think may be relevant to Don E's point of view:

"I take emotional response as a given in the creative process and I just try to make the best picture I can. When I work, I'm not looking for anything. I am just looking. The world has more to teach me than I have to teach the world, so I try to let whatever it is I am photographing work on me." [Michael A. Smith]

 

Maybe the difference between presentation and creation is 'me working on the world' vs 'the world working on me'?

 

-Julie

Julie--

 

I think you are right that winding up categorizing photos can be irritating. When I asked

the original question, I had in mind more the approach different photographers took to

their images as opposed to where particular photographs might fall on what's obviously a

sort of continuum.

 

I think the Smith quote is valuable in getting us back to the photographer's mindset

instead of any particular photograph's accomplishments. Thank you. As is usually the case

with pithy quotes, it's poignant on the one hand and limited on the other. "The world has

more to teach me . . ." has a nice ring to it but, in my mind, still only covers half the story.

 

I think the creative process is as much active as passive. If Picasso and those who

influenced him hadn't imposed their vision on the world, taught the world so to speak, we

wouldn't have had a Cubist period. Cubism, Dadaism, Expressionism, etc. didn't simply

occur by artists looking at the world. Knowledge of art history was involved as was a

desire to express in a new and vital way with a new and fresh vocabulary. Something very

individual and human is found in what people/artists are willing to bring to and give to the

universe.

Fred,

 

I agree with you competely. I neglected to put in my post that I don't agree with the quote that I posted; rather I was trying to get a handle on Don E's point of view (which is not my own). I'm confusing myself as I write this...

 

 

One difference that I noticed in the images posted is that in yours, you have eye contact and response from the people in your pictures where Don's does not. This may be coincidental and even trivial but I think it's a small part of the difference in the approach that the two of you have to subjects.

 

-Julie

"Maybe the difference between presentation and creation is 'me working on the world' vs 'the world working on me'?"

 

I think the comparison is useful as a starting point for discussion; eventually the two converge. But significant differences concern the kind of photography a person chooses as their metier. It seems obvious that a landscape and a street photographer, for example, do not take the same approach to their photography. They have different criteria.

So do commercial photographers and amateurs, studio/location photographers and "plein air" photographers. Yet we all get together and attempt to hammer out an overarching philosophy of photography despite our 'from venus, from mars' differences.

 

 

"Maybe the difference between presentation and creation is 'me working on the world' vs 'the world working on me'?" Julie

 

My photography depends on luck or fate, of being 'there' and not anywhere else at some 'time', and to have the vision to see the photograph in potentia and the energy to make the exposure.

 

Imagine two photographers driving in their cars along a country road. The first photographer notes a location, stops and paces off the road viewing the scene. The photographer returns later with a lf camera, tripod, spotmeter, a chair and a thermos of coffee, to wait for the good light. The second photographer stops at the spot, grabs the 'car p&s' dashes up a hill, plops down on his belly, and fires away.

 

The first photographer probably (in fact *should*) have a better photograph, but from photographer two's perspective, it is of a entirely different subject, not what caught the eye in the first place. Panta rhei...all things flow [change].

 

Julie: actually I prefer eye-contact (or at least visible) however, it was not possible for that photo (and not necessary).

Don,

 

I think I'm finally getting what you mean. I definitely had it wrong before your last post.

 

You want pictures to be of the flow of your life with no disruption. As soon as one is actively "taking pictures" or looking for pictures, that flow is not what it was. You want the flower in nature, not in the garden (speaking metaphorically).

 

What comes to mind is what they have found to be true in physics experiments -- that the act of observation changes the outcome (it's a wave or a particle depending on what you look for).

 

I think you are conceding this, but nevertheless wish to at least minimize the effect of the observer. Am I getting closer?

 

Would this be presentation or creation - surely more the former, but even that seems too strong. More like a peep-hole into your life (the bright or notable moments of your life).

 

-Julie

Don--

 

I see what you mean and think the story of the two photographers says a lot. I do

consider, though, that spontaneity is an important consideration even in the most "set-up"

photos. I may set up a portrait, conscious of clothing, background, lighting, etc. yet still

hope for a moment of expressive spontaneity to come along within that setup.

 

I don't agree that the first photographer in your example *should* or *would* get the

better photograph. It is not the specific type of approach that will determine that. It is the

photographer's comfort with his or her chosen approach, whichever approach, and the

photographer's intuitiveness with handling a camera and approaching the world with it

that will determine the success or competence or quality of the resultant image. I have

seen some very *dead* photos where the photographer has obviously set up his tripod

"correctly" and waited for the sun to be in the right position. And I've seen some extremely

*alive* photos taken in the spur of the moment.

I'd like to add that I think a lot of creativity can take place after the shot is taken. It doesn't

have to be in the forethought.

Julie, yes, that is accurate. Thanks.

 

Fred, the "better" photograph in terms of the usual standards. Pixel perfection can often squeeze the life out of a photo.

 

Fred: "I think a lot of creativity can take place after the shot is taken. It doesn't have to be in the forethought."

 

I'll agree with that. It is often the most difficult part of making a photograph. I'm not a proponent of "straight" photography -- there's is too much that gets in the way of 'capturing reality' such as the lens, the emulsion, the sensor, the way the camera "sees", and the, no doubt evolutionary useful, capacity of the human eye to normalize its vision.

 

There's also the post-impressionist aesthetic in which the capture is the starting point for expressing significance.

Are you familiar with the boyhood photographs of Jacques Lartigue? Would you describe those as presentation or creation?

 

(not talking about his adult/commercial work)

 

-Julie

No I'm not, Julie. Is there a site or a book you'd recommend? I'm fond of the French photographers -- Doisneau, Atget, HCB...

Don,

 

Hmmm... let me see. Lartiques is probably the polar opposite of Atget. A Google search [ http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&q=jacques+lartigue&gbv=1 ] will get you a reasonable cross-section of his boyhood images. He's also given a page in Szarkowski's "Looking at Photographs" and gets a fair amount of coverage in Mr. Swinehart's perennial favorite "On the Art of Fixing a Shadow."

 

The book that I have, "Jacques Henri Lartigue: Diary of a Century" was published in 1970 so I doubt it's still available. It's a great book not only because it shows all his stuff, but because the images are accompanied by his diary entries (which are just as interesting and entertaining as the pictures). He was six years old when he bagan making the pictures and the diary (think glass plates, and exposure by "taking the cork off the lens").

 

I bring him up because when I consider his work according to Fred's "...if you are more interested in conveying something you believe you've found or creating something you believe is new." I have to say his work is not a creation. His are found, not new.

 

And again, when thinking of Fred's later "whether it be a new way of seeing, a unique style of their own, a photo that is actually an artistic statement" I'd say a clear no to Lartique as creator.

 

But then (again from Fred) "The type of photo where the photographer tries, to the extent possible, to leave himself out of it versus the type of photo where the photographer has obviously invested himself and imparted some of himself into the photo." --- here I think the distinction gets blurred. Lartique often 'encouraged' the events that he presents as spontaneous. I don't think he invented them (I think they show things that he had seen done before, spontaneously).

 

Look at this picture; he put his camera on a piece of wood and floated it so he could take his own picture in the bathtub. Yet, he places himself off-center, includes the reflection and other compositional components (I would say by accident, but too many of his 'accidental' pictures show this kind of control). Is this a (re)presentation or a creation?

 

-Julie

This quote on Lartique, I think adds another perspective to why/how he's interesting and confusing reference this topic (the ellipses are in the quote, not added by me):

 

"... imply things that happened before and after the photographs were taken. They remind us of what we were never there to know ... The uncles fighting - probably my favorite photograph in the entire book. There are two uncles. They're sitting on a pole that's extended over the pool ... and they're having a pillow fight. In the distance is a woman. We don't know who she is. And somehow... from the angle of the photograph... it seems to have beeen taken by a little boy who's been told to taike his nap ... and he's looked out of the window because he's heard laughter ... that grownup laughter.

 

If there can be a sort of physical quality of memory ... a physicalization of memory. It's like a photograph in a dream.... And what did that fight mean? Was it really all in fun? And which uncle did the woman love?" [Richard Avedon 1970]

 

The attached is a really, really terrible scan from a two page spread of the image described. Inset is Lartiques with his camera.

 

-Julie<div></div>

The book is available used, and the 1978 paperback used is reasonably priced. A little stocking-stuffer for me, I think.

 

I can't comment on whether it is creation or presentation, as the two concepts intertwine and become one imo. Lartigue's early work would be impressionism in my analogy.

Great! I hope you like the book. Thanks for considering his work.

 

-Julie