W/NW, Abstract in a Supporting Role

<p>I'm just wanting to put things in my own words and find my own way, not Callahan's, not yours, and not the Photodynamists. That's why this is a good dialogue . . . which won't necessarily turn into a monologue of agreement or a dialogue where we're all just saying the same thing. We're not.</p>

<p>Phil, if it makes you feel better to keep re-characterizing what I say in order to get it to say what you want it to say or what you think it must say, be my guest. I will try to learn to accept that of you and not simply turn off to it.</p>

<p>I will say, however, that I was not trying to communicate and express that something had no particular essence. Not at all. Since I find the concept of essence to be flawed, I don't think in those terms when I'm creating or viewing photos. I don't think essentially and I don't think anti-essentially. It's more a-essential. It's just not a factor for me.</p>

<p>I only think of essence when I'm trying to understand someone else who's used the word, a word I've studied enough to understand what people mean by it . . . when I'm trying really to understand them on their terms . . . when I'm trying to let them speak for themselves and realizing that they may be coming from a very different place from me and that that's OK . . . and that they just may not be ultimately saying the same thing as me or thinking the same thing as me only just saying it differently. My goal is not to keep twisting around what they say so it becomes merely what I'm saying or what some writer I respect has said.</p>

<p>Oh, believe me, I've found ways around it. Just like I've found ways around preachy fundamentalist types who tell me my disbelief in God is just another religion and gay-haters who tell me that when I call them on their hatred I am just as guilty of hating on them. I have lots of ways around all that. But I do believe you when you tell me you there's no way around that kind of thing . . . for you. I do.</p>

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<p>That you equate the use of essence as it has been used in the context of photography and art with fundamentalism, religion, God, and gay haters is telling of how hung up you are when it comes to 'essence' and of how much the concept does in fact play a role for you and consequently in your photography.</p>

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<p>And there you go again. I see you can't help yourself. But I already knew that. </p>

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<p>And not everything revolves around you.</p>

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<p>You've made this about me and my views and trying to tell me what my views really are. It didn't have to be that way and I certainly didn't ask you to do that.</p>

<p>You were saying that my bringing those things up was evidence of how much of a role essentialism really does play for me. That's what you were doing all over again. Trying to prove that I am what I'm not and that I'm really living proof that the world works just as you believe it does.</p>

<p>And, just so we're clear, I wasn't equating fundamentalism with essentialism or a belief in "essence." I have always found essentialism fascinating, though I'm skeptical of it. I was equating your badgering me with a fundamentalist type of badgering. I was commenting on your insisting that essentialism plays a role in my photography and your twisting whatever I say into really saying something that proves essentialism.</p>

<p>I've been perfectly willing to let you air your views about "essence", to talk about its motivating aspects in your photography. And I actually appreciate seeing that at work and making those connections in your work, precisely because it's different from my own way of working and my own beliefs. And yet every time I've tried to say it's not a motivator for me, you insist on turning it around and saying it has to be but I just don't know it. Why the proselytizing fundamentalist has a need for me to believe as he does or the need to tell me my lack of belief is the same as his belief and why you do is beyond me. </p>

<p>Stop it, Phil.</p>

<p>When you talked about what motivated you on the first swan, I went back and looked and acknowledged that I could see in the swan what you were talking about, that search for the sweet spot of blur. I allowed you to describe it in your terms and found in your visual approach a connection to what you were thinking and saying.</p>

<p>When I described the artifice that was motivating me in my photo, you turned that around and said that my talking about artifice was really just another way of talking about essence. </p>

<p>That's pretty much what led to this more antagonistic part of the discussion.</p>

<p>Now you seem to have an investment in making it seem as if I'm obsessed with "essence" because I'm talking about it a lot. I'm talking about it because every time I've tried not to talk about it you've said it applies to what I'm saying or doing.</p>

<p>Clearly there's more words here attributed to Phil's Swan images than the pictures justify or deserve.</p>

<p>So was all that's been said about the viewpoint of Phil's Swan images present at the time of capture or is all this formulated after tripping the shutter, processing and choosing whether to toss or keep the Swan images and post in this thread?</p>

<p>Are the Swan images discussion going to motivate readers including the contributors into thinking of such things when out shooting? And how can one put all that in one's mind while out roaming about looking for subjects that inspire one to capture with a camera? And if Phil wasn't thinking about all this when shooting the Swan images, then what motivated Phil to point and shoot at some Swans?</p>

<p>Are the Swan images that inspirational enough to connect with all that's been said about them or are the images just being used to spin off a discussion on the mental and emotional mechanics of picture taking?</p>

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<p>Are the Swan images discussion going to motivate readers including the contributors into thinking of such things when out shooting?</p>

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<p>Personally, no, that's not the way it works for me.<br>

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The way it works for me is that motivations and inspirations which come from talking about others' processes and what their photos portray simply go into what I'll call my aesthetic fabric (almost like a big net). I might mull these things over in the shower in the morning or in bed as I'm falling asleep or while I'm quietly eating my lunch in a meadow. Just as I don't spend time when shooting thinking about moving my hand to pick up the camera and moving my fingers to position the camera and moving my legs to make myself walk, I don't have to think about these discussions when I'm out shooting. Because I've internalized them to the point where they work in me and influence me without my having to think about them specifically at all or at any one time.<br>

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I do think the hostile back and forth Phil and I got into was probably not terribly productive or (at least for me) enjoyable. We've already got over that. But the rest of the discussion was very rewarding. I do understand others may not have found even the more sober parts of the discussion rewarding. I'm not going to stop doing it because others don't see the point.<br>

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You've spoken more words about your photos in recent threads than Phil has. I presume you think your photos justify those words. Maybe you don't. Generally speaking, I'd say you could gain a lot (just as I do) from the combination of looking at Phil's work and listening to his thoughts. Not because I think you should adopt either his way of thinking or his way of photographing but because I think it might be helpful for you (as it is for me and could be for any photographer) to see some of the inner workings of how someone actually comes to express themselves coherently in their photos, how someone develops a personal visual vocabulary as a means of expression, how someone is able to connect what they feel and think to what they produce. </p>

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<p>how someone is able to connect what they feel and think to what they produce.</p>

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<p>I want to make sure I was clear here. I think Phil's feelings and thinking winds up getting connected to what he produces which is why I think his photos have a level of significance that is worth paying attention to. And I think it's helpful not just to look at and appreciate and absorb his photos. But, because he's generous enough to provide his thoughts and some of his feelings, then I'm able to see how the visual grammar he chooses (and creates) actually does relate personally to his thoughts and feelings and I become familiar with how such a personal visual grammar works and can be effectively used and that, in turn, helps me develop my own, which may be nothing at all like Phil's except that mine might also come to authentically express my feelings, aided by experiencing others doing it.</p>

<p>Just for fun, here's a kind of a trinket that I think fills the bill of this thread, where abstract is in a supporting role. Not my favorite portrait because I don't feel enough from the more human side of Scott here (my responsibility as well as his—we're both good at taking credit and faulting ourselves when warranted!). But I liked the expressionist flavor of the shadow, its distortedness, and its connection to Scott while it also seems to take on a life of its own. I love failures that teach me something. And they often teach me something when I bother to articulate and ponder what about them does not work for me.</p>

<p><img src="http://d6d2h4gfvy8t8.cloudfront.net/18046893-md.jpg" alt="" width="680" height="479" /></p>

<p>The most abstract thing in the OP photo is the man's tit. All the other "abstract" stuff is just normal shadows, to my eye. But that tit is another thing altogether. It reduces the face to a puzzled, befuddled appendage.</p>

<p>Put it another way, remove the tit and you have no picture. In my opinion.</p>

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<p>Phil said:<br /> They certainly are inspirational for me which is probably why I made them, <em>made</em> as in going well beyond the act of pushing the shutter button. It also means thinking and contemplating about how they can relate or not to all the other images I've made in the past.</p>

<p>Fred said:<br /> The way it works for me is that motivations and inspirations which come from talking about others' processes and what their photos portray simply go into what I'll call my aesthetic fabric (almost like a big net). I might mull these things over in the shower in the morning or in bed as I'm falling asleep or while I'm quietly eating my lunch in a meadow.</p>

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<p>I'm referring to connecting the Swan images to Phil's lengthy posted quote on "Photodynamism Manifesto" which are not his OWN "inspired" words but just a way for him to give weight and higher consideration and appreciation to his images after the shots were taken and processed.</p>

<p>I see no connection or importance or relation of that quote to the original motivation behind Phil tripping the shutter on the swans in the water. It's a simple camera trick of slowing the shutter speed to get an effect. There doesn't need to be a manifesto to support what amounts to being in the right place at the right time and slowing down the shutter.</p>

<p>And I don't talk about my images as much as Phil. You've got to be kidding!</p>

<p>I don't resort to long drawn out arguments over a manifesto to support the motivation behind capturing a simple scene. And I'm NEVER going to shoot photos that are similar to Phil's B&W gallery website because for one, I don't shoot B&W and secondly, I don't live or get out to areas that have subjects that renders a style created when Phil composes and points & shoots.</p>

<p>THE SUBJECT IS KING! You can attribute any inspired rationalization to the image AFTER it is captured even if you want to relate it to some Photodynamism manifesto on image language. There's no point in analyzing the image to attribute higher meaning and intent after it's already gone through a process and say it was made to look that way because of what was derived from that manifesto analysis.</p>

<p>I'm never going to shoot pictures that are similar to Phil's because I don't use the same process of thought, intent and motivation AND WHY WOULD I?! I'ld be copying Phil's work. So I'm not going to learn anything on how Phil makes photos look as they do because there are too many variables not mentioned and thus left out of the process namely among many is the fact I don't live where he lives to shoot those kind of scenes.</p>

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<p>The most abstract thing in the OP photo is the man's tit.</p>

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<p>Well for me I didn't see it as abstract but a design feature that just happen to line up with and somewhat mimic the man's bullet point eye staring back.</p>

<p>And now that the nipple has made its appearance I post another shot of a close up of my HDtv made to appear abstract...</p><div></div>

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<p>Bill, do you see your photo as in some way fitting into the topic of the thread, abstract in a supporting role?</p>

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<p>Fred, yes, in that while it is plainly an anchor, I first see it as abstract, because I don't see anchors a lot.</p>