“Inner process” for taking photographs

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<p>We all know that some "artists" like to talk about their souls, muses, inner processes...naming them in "statements". Others are more concerned with their work.</p>

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<p>False dichotomy.</p>

<p>This is the way many people look at, mold, and help their own work evolve. Instead of obsessing over books they've read about other photographers and THEIR processes, they consider their own as an individual. Those who refuse to look at how their OWN process affects their work are pretty much destined to keep doing the same tired stuff and completely lack objectivity in relating to their own work. I often see it resulting in missed opportunities and stagnating potential. Photographing is not all magic. One doesn't just produce work in a vacuum. When one hopes for the best or simply "trusts" their so-called Muse, in a feigned manner of no self consciousness (feigned because it's impossible, a mythology or the way some THINK artists SHOULD work) one easily gets lousy, repetitive, unmoving photos, but may "feel" very gratified.</p>

<p>John is right that concern for <strong>one's work</strong> can be significant. It is by <strong>working</strong> (and nuancing one's working) that one achieves that work.</p>

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<p>Assertion of inner processes is often intended to pretend depth.</p>

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<p>After saying it's dodging responsibility, this too? Really?<br>

John, all you seem to do is hide behind the ideas of others. It's never ever about you, your photography, your ideas, your thoughts. In all your postings, you do not really exist except as a vehicle for words of others.<br>

So, make me understand in your own words (no references, no youtube, no quotes): why are we dodging responsibility and pretending to have depth when we consider and think about the moment that happens while making a photo?<br>

And, for your consideration: what we share, at least they're our own thought and ideas. That's taking responsibility for what we think, what we try and what we do. There is no pretending in it, but trying to describe what we are doing. Trying to learn from the experiences of others. What is so wrong about that? Why do you feel this need to judge it and talk it down? Does it make you feel better? (there, the pop psychology you talked about).</p>

<p>Back to the regular show now.</p>

<p>Steve,</p>

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<p>Now, my thesis is that we are different perhaps because we “see” differently from the start.</p>

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<p>Yes and no. It's a bit too static, to my taste. People are not as they are because they are like that. People evolve, learn to see differently, gain skills. What is making you you and me me, is not the same today as it will be tomorrow.<br>

One can learn to see strong compositions, learn to see the graphical, learn to see a scene in black and white. It's a train-able skill, not a fixed given part of our "character". Otherwise, I think we already agreed...</p>

<p>Diminishing people who do not verbalize their work is not an argument, it's an authoritarian expression of fear (IMO). </p>

<p>I can verbalize with anybody but it's not always a good idea. Verbalizing a creative process may be be an attempt to freeze it. Risk is like oregano: I need it, but if I settle on it everything I cook will taste the same. </p>

<p>Judging ideas as "false" or "not false," and insistance that people relate to their own work in narrowly defined verbal ways are mere pronouncements. That game is Authority.</p>

<p>Minor White, who influenced me one-step-removed via a group of his students at a formative time, struggled with a religious upbringing and authoritarian personality. Some students worshipped him, others (notably wives of students who had their own art careers) grew to hate him. He eventually ascribed to an authoritarian philosophy (Gurdjieff-Ouspensky...akin to Taliban). I find the struggles, failures and successes of photography closer to various unspoken truths than the conclusions upon which Fred insists or those White began to embrace.</p>

<p>I think highly of the online hints of Fred's work (though I'm not satisfied by online images). They do not qualify him to disparage other approaches to photography: When he posts on a thread there are always others who are similarly strong. Like them (and hopefully like all of us) he has not "achieved," he is "achieving." That's a good thing.</p>

<p>"objectivity" is a non-phenomenon. Evoking "objectivity" tells a story.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>John, stop pretending. You have diminished most others in this forum, from your use of the word "prissy" to describe others' reactions to Zoe Strauss's work to referring to others as obsessive and neurotic by quoting Alan Watts, thereby trying to extricate yourself from taking responsibility for using those words against people in this forum. Your games are transparent. And a couple of us have had enough. We are not just diminishing you. We are responding to you in kind in hopes that you'll stop doing it to all of us.</p>

<p>No one has demanded that you use words. But this is a forum where words are used. If you want to feel and experience at a gut level, no one is stopping you. But why would you come into a philosophy forum consistently to insist that words are b.s.? There's something more telling in a person who does not want to talk about photographs who can't stay away from a place where people come to talk about photographs. What is it you need or want here?</p>

<p>John, I was going to quote all the authoritarian statements you've made in the last week alone but I won't spend the time and waste everyone else's. What I will say is that you are right that I made authoritarian pronouncements at you. It was to give you a taste of your own medicine in hopes that you would recognize how ridiculous it is. I hope you know I don't want to dictate what you do or how you work or how you view pictures. But I don't want you dictating to me. I don't want you belittling or psychoanalyzing me for seeing my own work as a performance. And I don't appreciate the way you put down others who self reflect and talk about their work and process. Now, at this point, you come back and feign outrage that someone (me) has been authoritarian. It's laughable. You're using a transparent rhetorical method as old as the books, projecting what you yourself do onto somebody else as a defensive maneuver. Plato exposed this kind of rhetoric over two millennia ago when he saw through the sophists for what they were. It's especially funny coming from a guy who claims not to want to rely on words.</p>

<p>Pfffffff.............</p>

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<p>Verbalizing a creative process may be be an attempt to freeze it.</p>

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<p>Maybe for you, others may be more flexible; you do not have to decide what applies to others, please.<br>

Mental note to self: why did I know up front Minor White would come up in the response? No references to others: scored minus one. As expected.</p>

<p>"Diminishing people who do not verbalize their work is not an argument"</p>

<p>A good photo does not need to be verbalized it stands on its own. Perhaps a not so good photo needs some words spoken over it to help lift it to a higher place.</p>

<p><br /> Of course we like to verbalise it is part of being us. Nothing wrong with that either.</p>

<p>Allen, many of us don't intend what we say in this forum to be an accompaniment to our work, as an artist statement of sorts. That's a common misunderstanding about the things we say here. Some of us think of this as sort of a round table discussion of peers, a conversation ABOUT our work or our working. It's incorrect and seems purposely misleading to claim that what we do here is "verbalizing their work." (I know you only quoted someone else on that and it may not be the way you would have put it.) I am verbalizing <em>about</em> my work, not to a purported audience or set of viewers, but to colleagues. Those who think we are trying to substitute words for work are wrong. Many of us can do both. We photograph when we photograph. We process our photos when we process them. And we talk about stuff in this forum, which is why it's provided. I see it as a kind of behind-the-scenes sharing. What I say here is not meant to substitute for my work or augment or accompany it. It is meant to discuss things, share thoughts and ideas about it and about my process and gain insights from fellow photographers about their own visions and processes. I realize this forum is not suitable for everyone. Many choose not to participate because they don't like to discuss these things. I respect that. </p>

<p>Insistence upon one particular kind of expression (interminable, convoluted and circular) seems like a way to hamstring discussion of photographs and the act of photography. </p>

<p>We saw a comparable insistence in the obsession about Strauss's obscenity by people who hadn't even thought about her work, and in previous attacks on Bruce Davidson for his "attitude."</p>

<p>It's poignant that some insist this is a typewriter kind of phenomenon, even though it's designed specifically to deliver audio and video and images from all sorts of other sources. </p>

<p>Most here are secure enough in their photography to talk about the work of other photographers. A few continually refer instead to their own images, evidently not interested in the work of others. Other forums are intended to solicit responses to our individual work. </p>

<p>\</p>

<p> </p>

<p>You mistake insistence upon John Kelly not belittling the words and ideas of others for insistence upon one particular kind of expression. Again, one's reading comprehension can be as poor as the writing one often critiques. It could be that that writing is fine, and the reading comprehension is SO poor. It could also be that the ideas expressed are so threatening to one's comfort zone and to what one has heard from their heroes, that they simply can't accept another's more individual approach.</p>

<p>You said as much in the other thread. Listen to yourself:</p>

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<p>When I'm photographing someone the subject is their performance, I can't see into their skulls and I don't think about myself. I think that was Avedon's approach...and I don't think it's an uncommon approach, just uncommonly direct.</p>

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<p>You are buying into favoring the common at the same time as you have already rejected out of hand the uncommon (photographer as performer). Your doing that so openly surprises even me.</p>

<p>And the point here is that you absolutely should reject thinking about yourself if you want to. And you should reject seeing yourself as a performer if you want to. But some of us won't tolerate your belittling of others for doing and thinking the way they do without occasionally responding to you, and doing so in kind.</p>

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<p>Most here are secure enough in their photography to talk about the work of other photographers. A few continually refer instead to their own images,...</p>

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<p>Yes, I rather refer to my own images when discussing things. Yes, I am not expressing an established self-secured attitude as photographer. Probably that makes me super-annoying for you. Or not? Since, in more threads than I care to remember, John, you insist people back up their statements with actual images. Which I do and can do (your portofolio here is miniscule, but we probably have to see prints, since in your world that's the only real photo format).<br>

So when we're talking about our own images, then it's suddenly wrong and a sign of insecurity, and when we don't, we're talking empty air? Damned if we do, damned if we don't?</p>

<p>Apparently you are so secure about your photography that you only talk about others. And by the same token, you must be equally secure about your thoughts and ideas since you only talk about others there too.... which begs again the question what you are expecting here. Philosophy is about asking questions. Questions require doubts. Getting to answers require listening and reading, and being open to ideas other than your own. The attitude I perceive of you here comes short in all 3. You just blurb out statements.</p>

<p>I'm done with it. This thread was very nice, a genuine open question to share experiences and gain insight in how people do the actual work of photography. If you don't want to share, then by all means, don't react. Instead, you choose to derail something others were in fact enjoying. For no apparent reason at all. It's a shame, and the way you avoid taking responsibility for it is making matters only worse. </sign off></p>

<p>Homogeneity can be a vice (it is here). Insistance that one line of thought is proper and others are out of place is an anti-intellectual problem in some small communities, as underlined here in direct personal attacks. </p>

<p>For perspective, if anybody wants it: I regularly comment very positively on one participant's work. I agree with most of the values he's expressed over the years, find many of his theories over-the-top. Many of us could use an editor. Few share anything comparable to his work in P.N portfolios, but some do write at length. Those that actually do share photos in P.N portfolios often share promiscuously. Again, an editor would help.</p>

<p>Obviously, I don't post many images. I don't find it rewarding (personally) to "capture" or share images that are for me inconsequential. Beauty surrounds me, I'm often overwhelmed by it, don't want to simulate it photographically. </p>

<p> I edit my work for specific reasons. I'm not showing excellence, I'm showing things that interest me enough to print. </p>

<p>Maybe this makes my point: I came back from Paris to make only the handful of prints I cared about (they involved two suburbs, have been posted here). I was afraid to explore the banlieues that seemed more compelling because I have little French and no Arabic...too many excuses). And I've yet to photograph la tour Eiffel :-)</p>

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<p>one participant's work</p>

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<p>We know who you mean. Not saying the name doesn't mean we don't know who one is talking about. </p>

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<p>Many of us could use an editor.</p>

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<p>Using the royal plural doesn't mean we don't understand the personal nature of what one is saying.</p>

<p>Fred, your laborious and anxious interpretations of what you take to be my perspectives clearly tells some kind of story for you, but I don't understand. </p>

<p>You're right that I have photo heros and I mention them. As well, I was influenced fairly directly by two very strong photo philosophies (Weston's and White's). That seems to be a problem for you. Maybe it is for me, too but instead I feel that it has provided me with frames of reference that I can use or refuse according to my pleasure. I don't think a Minor White student would fail to see influences, but I think s/he would as likely puzzle about what the hell I was doing. </p>

<p>I don't ape my influences but there's evidence of them in my work. I mention them because I feel that responsibility. I've been led to influences by others, think it's proper to continue that sort of thing. </p>

<p>Your work looks a lot like the decades-ago Vogue work of of Sarah Moon, which I admired tremendously (a more recent version of her work reminds me even more of this thread's frequent and gifted female contributor). Are you aware of personal influences? You don't seem to admit any. I doubt you know Moon, but you're old enough to have absorbed the influence. </p>

<p>Is it a mistake to recognize influences if a photographer is aware of them? I've specified a half dozen of mine. Oddly, I don't own dozens of photo books and I've mostly avoided photo magazines, despite having been fairly active photographically for a long time. But I have, after the fact, acquired a few books by some of my influences. I see lineage.</p>

<p>Shine out, fair sun, till I have bought a glass,<br>

That I may see my shadow as I pass.</p>