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Can Art be a Goal or is Art what we call Work that Sustains our Interest?


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<p>What made me doubt the most in academia was looking at my colleagues. Top level academia tends to have people who are much more alive as artists teaching. Lower level, the berets, the people who never expect much of their students, the folks whose work isn't all that interesting, the people who treat their students as a captive audience for their egos. If that's was where I fit in, I needed to get out and make an honest living.</p>

<p>What I'm wondering now is if the useful thing to do is forget the ambitions (in the worldly sense) when doing the work, lose self in work. To someone looking or reading, the work that's about the artist's ego tends to be off putting. Julian Schabel's work tends to put me off.</p>

<p>I remember a poetry reading in Charlotte, NC: Two utterly forgettable faculty poets, and Fred Chappell. The two faculty poets read as if we were being judged by our reception of their work, as if they were great poets (and neither were). Fred Chappell made himself vulnerable to the audience. His reading wasn't about him; it was about us.</p>

<p>I'm reading a book about art forgery that I read about earlier and which produced this question. We have historically had people who were reasonably good and who were able to sell themselves as artists -- the Dutchman who forged Vermeers for Goering wasn't an incompetent painter. And some people saw immediately that the forgeries were fakes, generally people who didn't have an investment in Dutch pride or their own need to find a Vermeer. The investment was in the artist, not the painting.</p>

<p>Given that this society does have an all or nothing view of being creative -- and a rather dismissive view of people who can't get the public recognition or critical acclaim, maybe declaring oneself outside that pressure is a good thing. "I'm an artist; it's not about the money, the academic recognition, the American Academy of Arts and Letters." Emily Dickinson didn't stop writing. </p>

<p>And to the viewer, the name or not of the artist (thinking about those Dutch forgeries of Vermeer) shouldn't be the primary thing. The work will have a context, will be a creature of its time. But a painting doesn't become better because someone famous painted it, even though it may become more valuable in financial terms. Work doesn't necessarily become better because it was done by an artist.</p>

 

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<blockquote>

<p>"Doubt delivers us from every kind of prejudice.</p>

<p>"How many are the false beliefs that I have from my earliest youth admitted as true?</p>

<p>"These commonly held opinions revert frequently to my mind, long and familiar custom having given them the right to occupy my mind against my inclination and rendered them almost masters of my belief.</p>

<p>"If I allow myself to doubt . . . my judgment will no longer be dominated by bad usage or turned away from the truth." <strong><em>--</em></strong><strong><em>Descartes,</em></strong><strong> Meditation I</strong></p>

</blockquote>

<p>Descartes used doubt to establish a foundational certainty (a kind of certainty I can't buy into), but he used doubt constructively, not skeptically. Clive, Luis, and Arthur have all touched on the creative aspects of doubt. I'd say that in order to "think outside the box" I will often use doubt productively, even self doubt.</p>

<p>Descartes is looking for too firm a foundation, in my opinion. However, his method (though not his ultimate goal) is one that I've learned a lot learn from. It suggests that my opinions and taste can change (and that I can create that change), that many of the things I <em>assume</em> are just that . . . <em>assumptions . . . </em>and that I can use doubt to build and evolve and not just to destroy or undermine myself.</p>

<p>In a reply about his method, Descartes says: <em>"When an architect wants to build a house which is stable on ground where there is a sandy topsoil over underlying rock, or clay, or some other firm base, he begins by digging out a set of trenches from which he removes the sand, and anything resting on or mixed in with the sand, so that he can lay his foundations on firm soil. In the same way, I began by taking everything that seemed previously certain to me and throwing it out, like sand."</em></p>

We didn't need dialogue. We had faces!
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<p><strong>Rebecca--</strong></p>

<p>Considering the artist in responding to a work of art and allowing the name of the artist to influence your judgment of the art are two different things. You began by talking about a viewer "caring about the artist" and that our relationship was "with the work" and not with the artist. That's different from the <em>name</em> of the artist mattering in assessing the work. I can have a richer musical experience from Beethoven's late and deeply personal string quartets if I know the influences on the early Beethoven and the progression that led him to this emotional apex of his composing. So, yes, the artist matters. I can also be a big old phony and claim to like a piece of music better or start reading crap into it once I know who the composer is. To me, these are not the same or even similar things. There's a difference between responding to the <em>name</em> of the artist on a rather superficial level (it's a Rembrandt, it must be great) and considering the <em>substance</em> of who an artist is in relating that substance to his or her work. To use your analogy, there surely are times when I am so moved that I'd love to get into bed with an artist whose work has moved me. At the same time, I've never once wanted to get into bed with the father of a lover.</p>

We didn't need dialogue. We had faces!
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<p>I'm still reading <em>The Forger's Spell</em>, which is informing some of my concerns. When I'm finished, perhaps I'll post a new question based on that.</p>

<p>I think my comment about works having a place in time is somewhat similar to your comments about Beethoven. </p>

<p>What I'm talking about is the phenomenon Virginia Woolfe noticed in her example problematic work by a man, though men aren't the only ones who create the works of ego display. Another person can't have a relationship with the work without being completely aware of the designs of the artist. That, I don't think, is useful, at least not for me as a viewer/reader/listener. It may be why some snapshots are more appealing, or amateur/semi-pro country fiddling over Nashville.</p>

<p>My problem, perhaps. I want to move out of myself and into what the work needs, whatever the work is. And this is not easy -- the old Zen paradox. When you're paying attention to yourself paying attention to the mountain, you're not paying attention to the mountain.</p>

 

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<p>I'm content just to be. I don't mind looking at or climbing or sleeping on the mountain while maintaining a distinction between me and the mountain. I'm content with an array of awarenesses: of mountains, of me, of me being aware of mountains, of others, of others being aware of mountains. Where my head is at at the time will go a long way towards determining what my awareness, if anything, will be <em>of</em>.</p>

<p>Descartes becomes relevant here again. In order to fulfill himself as a thinking being, he had to relegate his senses to being second class. For him, self awareness was the be all and end all (I think, therefore I am). I don't take to that conclusion (though I like his method of doubt) any more than I take to a conclusion that requires losing my self awareness or self reflection completely. I have no problem seeing the mind as a series of mental states, physically based. So I don't need a mind/body distinction and I don't have to see "myself" as something solid or foundational that I would seek to lose or escape. My self is constantly escaping itself by its nature. All I have to do is be, not be me or something else. Being, for persons, is becoming . . . a constant state of flux.</p>

We didn't need dialogue. We had faces!
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<p>Luis, I had an experience with a small mountain once that didn't trip me with roots when I was paying attention to it while doing a butt glissade down it. The second I thought about my mental state rather than being with the mountain, the mountain got me with a root I hadn't noticed. Perhaps the mindfulness is why mountain climbing is thrilling beyond the playing with danger and our brachiating roots. You're forced even more dramatically to pay attention to the mountain. I've watched climbers look at a rock face. Good climbers have an ethos of never claiming to be good climbers even surrounded by groupies who adore their climbing. Gary Snyder or Kenneth Rexroth described climbing as a form of Zen meditation. Some events force you not to pay attention to yourself paying attention. I think photographers can reach this -- everything being just so, now, and then it's after. To get there, I think I need all the techniques I can master well enough that they become intuitive.</p>

<p>Fred, I'm not quite content just to be because I figure I'd starve to death if I didn't do something. </p>

<p> And, yeah, the brain quite literally goes down to the fingertips. Senses are as much the brain as anything else.</p>

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<p>A very interesting read in the context of this thread is "The Hidden Mountain" by Gabrielle Roy (ISBN-10: 0771092091; ISBN-13: 978-0771092091), the great but sometimes overlooked early to mid 20th century writer (foreign winner of the prestigious French literary award the "Prix Femina" in 1947). The principal character is an artist who pays little attention to himself, but only to an unseen mountain in Ungava that becomes his quest (Labrador Inuit speak of the myth of a mountain in most northern Quebec that is sacred to the caribou).</p>

<p>All other subjects for his art are of no concern and he ends his Parisian art career to go off into the northern wilds in search of the mythical mountain. His obsession with the mountain, with his extremely arduous quest and life threatening voyage for the perfect painting (as much in his mnd as anything else) is so strong that his lengthy adventure takes a toll on him. Roy has gotten into the mind of an artist, into the concept of the north, and into her own aesthetic in art.</p>

<p>There is a quote by her on the back of a Canadian $20 bill that reads: "Could we ever know each other in the slightest without the arts?"</p>

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<blockquote>

<p>"Fred, I'm not quite content just to be because I figure I'd starve to death if I didn't do something."</p>

</blockquote>

<p>I didn't suggest that being wasn't doing. For me, doing is implied in becoming, which I said was what being, for persons, is. I said that I don't have to be <em>something</em>, which doesn't imply that I do <em>nothing</em>. I am quite practical. I actually think the ability to pay attention to myself paying attention to something is not as easy as it sounds and is quite evolved when done genuinely. I make no judgment that one form of paying attention is better than another. What happens happens. The minute I find myself needing to be a certain way is the minute I seem to get the most distracted from what I'm doing.</p>

We didn't need dialogue. We had faces!
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<p>initially we all begin to tread the same road, that is, achieveing certain pre focused ends. it is only somewhere in the middle of this ART Journey, that some of realize what the whole phenomenon is all about. so some of us take less travelled roads and probe into the unknown....they become genuine artists! so the aim, CLEAR or OBSCURED is always there! I do believe that ART is DEFINITELY NOT A MARATHON, IT IS NEVER EVER ABOUT WINNING! ITS ALL ABOUT KEEP GOING! yet again, we can never be qualified enough to comment of OTHERS' JOURNEY, because whe have no idea WHAT IT IS ALL ABOUT! REGARDS!</p>
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<p>I do think we can say that we're not the audience for certain work, sometimes at this point, sometimes never. I've seen things that meant a tremendous amount to me for a summer, that I revisited in the museum that had them on display, then a few years later, not the same impact. I suspect I did a correct reading on something about why a work was done 3,000 years before I saw it, and I was responding to a defiance in the work (it was a large bread-loaf sized crystal lion, Egyptian, bigger than anything else in Egypt made of quartz, like seeing the fist pump the air after making it).</p>

<p>But what I saw could have been my own projection. </p>

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<p><strong>Fred - </strong> I do not relegate my senses to 2nd class. I understand why Descartes did.</p>

<p> I certainly did not mean "be the mountain" literally, or to the exclusion of all other things/forever and ever. One doesn't have to lose (or remain) themselves. Different things work for different people -- at different times.</p>

<p> I do not think being and becoming are synonymous. Becoming is to <em>start being. </em> I think we're in agreement in spite of this, because for a living thing, it is a given that being is a temporal, dynamic state.</p>

<p> From several posts ago....some artists are known more for their theoretical influence than for their works, others for making their lives a kind of performance.</p>

<p><strong>Rebecca - </strong> Butt skiing down a mountain <em>is</em> a thrilling, marvel-and-terror kind of experience.</p>

<p> Anyone who's read Eugen Herrigel's little book on archery understands the nature of Rebecca's problem, and one possible approach to solving it.</p>

<p><strong>[RB] - "</strong> Some events force you not to pay attention to yourself paying attention."</p>

<p> Yes, and one can train themselves to do that so that external force or special circumstances are not required to achieve it. Some people cannot conceive of turning off the internal dialogue even for a moment. I've been told in this very forum that it is <em>impossible</em> . :-)</p>

<p><strong>[RB] "</strong> I think photographers can reach this -- everything being just so, now, and then it's after. To get there, I think I need all the techniques I can master well enough that they become intuitive."</p>

<p> Most people can reach it. Most do several times in the course of a lifetime, as Rebecca says, only by happenstance. There are well-developed paths and schools to get help one get there sans drama.</p>

<p>[ I believe Phylo was dancing around this very thing in the David Lynch/TM post.]</p>

<p> Technique gets in the way until one knows it well enough that it becomes like breathing. The example of learning to drive a stick shift, how clumsy it is until the sequence is integrated, and how it remains so until the unconscious and muscle memory takes & over thought is no longer necessary. One doesn't need to master all the techniques one can, <em>only those you need. </em> If you desire a huge technical tool kit, acquiring it is going to consume your creative energies, time and life itself.<em> </em> It's an easy trap to fall into. </p>

<p><strong>[RB] - "</strong> But what I saw could have been my own projection."</p>

<p> Part of what we see is our own projection. I just read that when one is seeing, 20% of neuronal input into the visual cortex comes from the optic nerves. The rest is thought to be coming from memory and possibly non-local processing.</p>

<p><strong>Arthur - </strong> Many cultures have myths involving mountains. Often they form the vertical nexus between heaven and earth. There are many myths that involve acknowledging and climbing an inner mountain, too.</p>

<p> </p>

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<p>"<strong>Fred - </strong>I do not relegate my senses to 2nd class. I understand why Descartes did." <strong>--Luis</strong></p>

<p>Yes. What you've described of yourself suggests that you don't relegate your senses to 2nd class. I brought up Descartes not because I thought anyone was (like Descartes) relegating their senses to 2nd class, but because I wondered if there's been a running theme through this and the TM thread of relegating self awareness to 2nd class (much the way Descartes relegated the senses to 2nd class). I haven't picked that up from you, though, Luis. You may have gotten caught in the crossfire because your "be the mountain" came at an opportune time in my back and forth with Rebecca. Actually, I presume that in order to be the mountain, one's senses might have to be heightened and very much in tune with the mountain. It seems to me that artists use their senses pretty fully and familiarly and wouldn't be at all inclined to Descartes's view of them as inferior to the mind.</p>

<p>"Different things work for different people -- at different times." <strong>--Luis</strong></p>

<p>Yes. That was really what I was going for as well. I meant it when I said just above to Rebecca: "I make no judgment that one form of paying attention is better than another. . . . The minute I find myself needing to be a certain way is the minute I seem to get the most distracted from what I'm doing." My "mountain" crack did come directly after what you said ("Be the mountain") and I'm sorry if that made it seem like more of a response to you. I really meant my riff on "being" more in response to things Rebecca had been saying:</p>

<p>"When you're paying attention to yourself paying attention to the mountain, you're not paying attention to the mountain." <strong>--Rebecca</strong></p>

<p>Luis, I don't find this to be true for me and I took the way it was said (and the way similar things are often said) to have more of a ring of (universal) "truth" than I prefer. So, I offer alternatives. If it works for some, I have no problem with it. But certainly in the TM thread, and to a certain extent in this thread, I sense hints of judgment that this is the better way. Again, not from you Luis. If I'm wrong in this assessment, so be it. I still want to offer alternative viewpoints and methods.</p>

<p>"Isn't the goal doing art that makes some people forget themselves in your vision?" <strong>--Rebecca</strong></p>

<p>It may be a goal for some. And I'd encourage Rebecca to see it through if it works for her. Again, Luis, I was responding more to what I took to be a universalizing of goals of art that I, myself, try to be cautious about.</p>

<p>"I do not think being and becoming are synonymous. Becoming is to <em>start being. </em>I think we're in agreement in spite of this, because for a living thing, it is a given that being is a temporal, dynamic state." <strong>--Luis</strong></p>

<p>We are in agreement. I don't use "becoming" to mean "start being." I use it to refer to what human existence vs. other kinds of being is. Phylo had brought up Sartre earlier and I was thinking along Sartre's lines. For Sartre, man's being (as opposed to the more complete and defined being of <em>things</em>) is a becoming, a constant choosing anew. That's all I meant, very similar to your "being is a temporal, dynamic state." Like I said, "a constant state of flux."</p>

<p>In a way, this is my own way of addressing the pitfalls of self awareness. If my "self" is a constantly-changing thing, if I am continually choosing anew and taking responsibility for those choices, and if I am not assuming those choices are being made for me then self awareness doesn't hold me back or tie me down. Self awareness would, indeed, be the ability to change and to be at one with the "becoming" (the flux) rather than stagnating in a fixed or too solid notion of who or what I am . . . for me.</p>

<p>"I've been told in this very forum that it is <em>impossible</em> . :-)" <strong>--Luis</strong></p>

<p>Uh oh! Now you've got me worried that I may have implied this in something I said. I hope not. Maybe it was someone else. I don't think it's impossible nor would I discourage anyone from doing it (turning off the internal dialogue).</p>

<p>By the way, I don't think self awareness or awareness of oneself being aware of the mountain has to be an internal dialogue. I'm more inclined to think it's a monologue and, though that may seem merely semantical, to me the difference is significant. I don't think being self aware requires one to be some sort of outsider (an other) to their self or even to that thought of themself. That's, in fact, the mistake Descartes seems to have made. "I think, therefore I am," he says, is self evident. But what he's really proven is only that a thought exists. He has not actually proven an "I" that thinks the thought. In separating "I" from the thought, he probably assumed a dualism even more devastating than the mind/body dualism he's more often accused of inflicting on Western philosophy.</p>

<p>In <em>Being and Nothingness</em>, Sartre goes a long way in answering Descartes, suggesting instead that the "I" of human beings is a nothingness, something constantly being created and recreated. It's not the kind of grounded or set piece Descartes thought it was.</p>

We didn't need dialogue. We had faces!
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<p>Luis, I grew up in a world where technique wasn't taught -- people had an ideology of being spontaneous, misunderstood Kerouac or something. I think the people who have several different camera systems, lenses for each of them, digital, film, glass plate, and all that are pursuing a different art.</p>

<p>Mine is three lens Hasselblad system and Nikon Digital (D300). The technical I'm thinking about now is more composition than camera handling, but with the Hassies, I'm looking at very sharp and realizing that isn't a virtue unless it's meaningful in a composition. Exposure is a range of choices, not a choice, also. Color or black and white. I think some people go with one camera and one lens (or a few lenses in reality while keeping the one lens myth going) and master that.</p>

<p>Visual psychology is something I've been curious about since rather early -- learning how to see through a microscope and recognize what you see without kidding yourself is interesting (see Percival Lowell for self-deception on an impressive scale). The book <em>The Forger's Spell</em> talks about this -- most art curators pride themselves on their eye, but if fooled, their investment in the deception locks them in. A number of people saw through the Vermeer forgeries (two art evaluators who worked for an American art dealer called the first major one a "stinking fraud"). We tend to see in culturally determined ways at least to some extent. When the culture changes, the frauds tend to become transparent. I remember spending a lot of time reading Arnheim's <em>Visual Perception</em> and looking at a Vermeer at the Frick. Got an A- for the paper in an art history class. Went to the Met and saw a Vermeer there and immediately felt it was a fake. The painting's attribution has been up for discussion. If I became too sure I could never be fooled, and based my identity on that, I'd be forger-bait.</p>

<p>Culture determinants of what appeals to us is a whole different thread, I think. If folks are interested, I'll set that one up for discussion, though we've touched on it a couple of times here -- Fred's comments about music that is good of its time cf. music that maintains interest over time, for instance -- and it was part of my original proposal for the discussion.</p>

<p>The trick is learning how to use that 20% well, I suppose.</p>

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<p>I am reading (rather re-reading) Roland Barthe's essay (book) "Camera Lucida" which sheds some valuable light on photography, especially as seen not just from the photographer's viewpoint (as our discussion here), but from that of the image spectator and occasional subject of the photographer's whims. He seems to dig new and deeper shafts into the nature and importance of photographic art than do most photographers, who may be too close to themselves and their subjects.</p>

<p>Recommended.</p>

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<p> </p>

 

<p><strong>Fred - </strong> "... I wondered if there's been a running theme through this and the TM thread of relegating self awareness to 2nd class (much the way Descartes relegated the senses to 2nd class). I haven't picked that up from you, though, Luis."</p>

<p> I think there has been an undercurrent or eddy about this point, as Fred suggests. Of course, there's a vast middle ground between these polarities, and their utility re: one's energies can be decimated by assuming either position to be fixed. While there is strength in maintaining an idea over time, there is also strength in knowing when to shift strategies. The process of art is a complex, multi-faceted one. It is rare that one monotonal mode will see a work from conception to completion. The mode that's good is the one that works for you, what you're working on, and your personal energies -- at the time.</p>

<p> I <em>did </em> assume that your mountain comment was linked to mine. Thanks for clearing that up.</p>

<p> I'm with you on the full range of ways of working. Almost nothing works for everyone, and no one thing works for anyone all the time. </p>

<p> Relax, Fred, it wasn't you who told me stilling the internal dialogue was impossible.</p>

<p><strong>[FG] "</strong> I'm more inclined to think it's a monologue and, though that may seem merely semantical, to me the difference is significant."</p>

<p> It is significant to me as well. For some, it is a monologue, for others, a dialogue. The former is more akin to one thinking out loud, the other implies dis-integration. A great example of monologue is in the magnificent last book by Raghubir Singh, <em>River of Color. </em> He describes photographing with Lee Friedlander, and suddenly, a storm began approaching. He overheard Friedlander muttering to himself: <em>"What would Atget do?".</em></p>

<p> Good points on Descartes, dualism and Sartre.</p>

<p><strong>Rebecca B - </strong> Whether taught academically, informally, or self-taught, technique still has to be learned. It's easier to learn 'spontaneously' if the mirror neurons get a peek from seeing performances in a community than as a solitaire.</p>

 

<p><strong>[RB] -</strong> "I think the people who have several different camera systems, lenses for each of them, digital, film, glass plate, and all that are pursuing a different art."</p>

<p> Wow, am I in trouble. I have accumulated an embarrassingly large number of cameras (dozens), though by PN standards, I'm still a piker. I understand the statement at the end above in terms of affect, but in practice, and in general, I disagree with it. It's all photography.</p>

<p><strong>[RB] "...</strong> with the Hassies, I'm looking at very sharp and realizing that isn't a virtue unless it's meaningful in a composition."</p>

<p> Yes. The big question is: "Does it aid and abet your vision?". Photographs grow stronger than the sum of their parts when there is a gestalt of sorts, generating a synergy (and secondary, tertiary, etc dis- and re- sonances between its elements and your ideas. This doesn't always mean loud, dramatic, or spectacular. It can be ever-so- subtle.</p>

<p><strong>[RB] - </strong> "I think some people go with one camera and one lens (or a few lenses in reality while keeping the one lens myth going) and master that."</p>

<p> For many, it's not a myth. Take Stephen Shore's <em>"American Surfaces". </em> It was done in its entirety with a fixed-lens 35mm Rollei, nothing more. Diane Arbus and her wide on that Mamiya TLR with the potato-masher flash accounted for the huge majority of the work she is famous for. Or Mitch Epstein's early work, also done with a 6x9cm fixed lens Texas Leica (big Fuji RF). Most of Weston's famous work was done on one lens. Almost the entire Portraits book by HCB was on one lens. I can go on and on, but you get the point. It's not a myth, some top photographers <em>really </em> used one lens for some of the most significant works in the medium. Now, I'm in no way <em>selling </em> or advocating that point of view for anyone, nor saying that the 1-lens paradigm makes for better work... only that it happens.</p>

<p> As any mediocre magician knows, anyone can be fooled most of the time. It means nothing. Paying too much attention to a CV, the ten thousand hrs, or provenance can blind one to a lot of important things. As you remark, a shift in parallax is often illuminating. We are all forger-bait. Anyone in the arts has probably been fooled more than once.</p>

<p>[More than a few artists are notorious pranksters and have fooled each other at times.]</p>

<p><strong>[RB] "</strong> The trick is learning how to use that 20% well, I suppose."</p>

<p> The real trick is that there are no tricks. We all get the Sysiphusian workout on the asymptotic threadmill in one way or another. The other 80% is hardly insignificant. In the end, the 100% is what matters.</p>

<p> </p>

 

 

 

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<p>Luis, and then there's Ansel Adams, who appeared to have used close to everything. HCB did use other lenses at times, but the myth was only the one (and I think that most of his photographs were from the 50mm Leica lenses.(just looked at his portraits book about two weeks ago). But I'm not sure Adams shot on wet plates ever, though with Adams, probably he tried it at least once.</p>

<p>I think also that cameras are fairly tempting as collection objects (I was looking at a sports finder for my F3 today, and I barely need the F3, just like the feel of it). I also don't have room in my little house (24 by 24 downstairs, 9 by 24 upstairs with storage under the eaves) to have that many cameras.</p>

<p>Learning from mirror neurons requires a good model. My brother painted along side a guy named Lewis Sloan for a number of weekends for a couple of years -- transmission there, yes. I think photography is not quite as mirror neuron driven as classical graphic arts -- Chinese brush painting is very much watch/do. Writing is trickier because the important thing going on are internal -- the final surface of a work can come to be in may ways, and not all of them are obvious. You really do need Henry James to explain POV sometimes, at least for some students. I also found I could teach myself a lot of things by books -- crocheting, knitting -- that were taught traditionally by one on one instruction involving modeling, but it required several books as no one book explained everything well enough.</p>

<p>I found that a lot of people expected that writers had a trick that made their writing salable. The trick was teaching writing students that trick doesn't exist as anything they can learn in a weekend workshop.</p>

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<p><strong>Rebecca - </strong> There's three pictures in the HCB portrait book not done with the 50mm. Ansel began, as so many have, with a humble Box Brownie#1 in 1915. He did use glass plate negs, but not wet plate (collodion).<br /> From a documentary on Adams made by Larry Dawson circa 1957, Beaumont Newhall lists AA's gear thusly:<br>

"...A fine craftsman employs different tools for different purposes. Item: one 8 x 10 view camera, 20 holders, 4 lenses -- 1 Cooke Convertible, 1 ten-inch Wide Field Ektar, 1 9-inch Dagor, one 6-3/4-inch Wollensak wide angle. Item: one 7 x 17 special panorama camera with a Protar 13-1/2-inch lens and five holders. Item: one 4 x 5 view camera, 6 lenses -- 12-inch Collinear, 8-1/2 Apo[chromatic] Lentar, 9-1/4 Apo[chromatic] Tessar, 4-inch Wide Field Ektar, Dallmeyer [...] telephoto.<br>

"Item: One Hasselblad camera outfit with 38, 60, 80, 135, & 200 millimeter lenses. Item: One Koniflex 35 millimeter camera. Item: 2 Polaroid cameras. Item: 3 exposure meters. One SEI, and two Westons -- in case he drops one.<br>

"Item: Filters for each camera. K1, K2, minus blue, G, X1, A, C5 &B, F, 85B, 85C, light balancing, series 81 and 82. Two tripods: one light, one heavy. Lens brush, stopwatch, level, thermometer, focusing magnifier, focusing cloth, hyperlight strobe portrait outfit, 200 feet of cable, special storage box for film.<br>

<br /> By the time he died, his estate listed only three hasselblads and four lenses.</p>

<p>FYI, I don't collect at all. I have used every camera I own over my years as a pro, and yes, I've kept up with tech developments. I am simply not moved to get rid of them, though I've given a few away to people that needed them. Some really dance in my hands, and tend to produce an inordinate number of keepers. Those I bought several samples of, and will probably never dump (superstitious behavior?). But enough of camera porn...</p>

<p><strong>[RB] "</strong> Learning from mirror neurons requires a good model."</p>

<p>Not really. One can learn mediocre or bad habits just as easily as good ones. One can learn a lot in photography by observing someone who already knows what they're doing, though it requires readiness and preparation. The key lies in being ready and then paying close attention. I think this is a large part of what happens during a workshop, or darkroom, or field trip in an academic setting.</p>

<p><strong>Clive - </strong> That was delightful. Be aware that PN rules forbid posting others' pictures, but Shhh...let's see how long it takes one to get this far down the thread.</p>

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I thought this may add something to our discussion, I've been chatting to a friend of mine who is an exhibiting photographer and university lecturer. I had asked her why her type of photographer always seemed to do projects instead of just taking pictures of things and situations that roughly approximated what she wished to express. This was her answer.

"I think photography is conceptually tricky because you have to negotiate reality. "Realism " can get in the way. When you paint you can have a dialogue with your craft and you can create a world of your own. In a sense photography is an attention directing process and the camera a device for pointing to something.

Its hard to have a brushstroke in your photographs though the best photographers have a style equivalent to a brushstroke or pencil mark.

Since anyone can take a handsome photograph, subject and context is everything, and so the project rears its ugly head."

In a sence, first deciding on what may be an appropriate project is accepting Art as Goal, isn't it?

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I thought this may add something to our discussion, I've been chatting to a friend of mine who is an exhibiting photographer and university lecturer. I had asked her why her type of photographer always seemed to do projects instead of just taking pictures of things and situations that roughly approximated what she wished to express. This was her answer.

 

"I think photography is conceptually tricky because you have to negotiate reality. "Realism " can get in the way. When you paint you can have a dialogue with your craft and you can create a world of your own. In a sense photography is an attention directing process and the camera a device for pointing to something.

 

Its hard to have a brushstroke in your photographs though the best photographers have a style equivalent to a brushstroke or pencil mark.

 

Since anyone can take a handsome photograph, subject and context is everything, and so the project rears its ugly head."

 

In a sence, first deciding on what may be an appropriate project is accepting Art as Goal, isn't it?

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