Philosophy and Photography

<p><em>With a nod to Wouter for crystallizing this question:</em></p>

<p>In what ways, if any, does your philosophy* affect your photographs (and photographing) and in what ways, if any, do your photographs (and photographing) affect your philosophy?</p>

<p>I've talked some about this already in recent previous threads and will gladly contribute as ideas come to me, but I'm going to throw this one out without saying much myself at first.</p>

<p>Except this (you knew I would): I wonder if there is a difference relative to this question between the photographs themselves and the process of photographing. And, if you want to, feel free to be specific. I enjoy hearing specific examples, even if you don't post your work in the thread or on line, of elements in or aspects of photographs or approaches to making them that would illustrate any reciprocal relationship between philosophy and photography.</p>

<p>Thanks!</p>

<p>____________________________________________</p>

<p>* "Philosophy," for the purpose of this thread, can be anything from the most academic Platonic or Kantian stupor to just how you feel about life, your subjects, yourself, or something else you think qualifies.</p>

<p>For me, there definitely is a difference between process and results. My philosophy includes always learning, pushing myself, striving for something new... That's all about process. The photographs themselves are just an end to the means -- and they might appear trite to others, even if they're original to me.</p>

<p>In the more general case, I would expect a dichotomy between those who are observers and those who are creators. Observers will take pictures of found scenes, pictures of people without interacting with them, but would be reluctant to pose their subjects, move elements out of the frame, etc. Those who are creators might create still lifes in the studio, take posed portraits, etc.</p>

<p>My personal photography very quickly became an extension or a means to pursue what was important to me. My recent work has been very much about personal concerns and feelings about our world(country). My early work was much more internally focused, investigating and probing my own psyche. I don't think my own strong connections to my philosophical concerns and my photography is the case for everyone but it has to have some influence on some level with everyone.</p>

<p>It's two branches on the same tree. They are both about seeing and a vision; as already touched upon in the thread that spawned this one, for me to do either one right, I need a clarity, a focussed mind. Both are creative processes to me, so they go good together.<br>

Photography teaches me to see more, and in different ways; see more relation between seemingly unrelated things. See stories and interesting subjects in the small, big, in the ugly and in the random. It's to me a genuine different way of looking at things. One that can stimulate fantasy, a type of abstract thinking, an intenseness in 'absorbing' the world. The better photographic days typically co-incide with the days where my brain comes up with the more interesting thoughts.<br>

The question whether most of this makes into my photos, visibly, is still hard to answer. I think many times, not much or very subtly so.<br>

There is more to it, partially also covered in earlier threads (<a href="../philosophy-of-photography-forum/00WFIp">'what do we learn about ourselves'</a> thread, for example), partially personal observations that have no place here. Part is also continiously moving territory as ideas change, refine or fade away, and as my photography seeks new directions too. So, I must certainly add "as it stands now, no certainties for the future".</p>

<p>My "philosophy" is more a matter of my intentions, as guided by values I continue to accumulate, along with appreciation of "accidents." In other words, I'm at the helm and I've benefitted by a lot of failures that often-enough led to happy surprises. I believe in "free will" more than many do. The price of free will is payment of dues, remorse...and remorse is the price of joy.</p>

<p>Metaphors make more sense to me than analyses. I'm not an engineer-type.</p>

<p>A mid-sixties college friend said he was going to live life as if he was writing a novel...and he seems to have done that. That idea has been important to me as well.</p>

<p>A raku pot has an intentionally sought flaw...raku perfection includes accident.</p>

<p>Right now I'm between-photographic ideas. I'm writing and doing some audio recording (which will probably come together with photography, but are gratifying in themselves). I don't isolate those activities, one from another...they're part of the same whole.</p>

<p>What does this mean to my photographs? There's no "luck." Every image I care enough about to share was intentionally sought in some way, with the faith that something important to me would emerge if I paid my dues..often after a long, never-fully-aimless, drive or hike or study.</p>

<p>I don't "believe" in luck or deities, though I have to qualify that because I do entertain the idea that grey-eyed Athena may help me photographically if I remember to think of her while cooking lamb over coals.</p>

<p>[ I'll mention one nexus between these two things, one I've either alluded to, or mentioned in passing here previously.]</p>

<p> One of the many things I am concerned with in art are the means of production. Yes, I mean this from a Marxist perspective (and, please, I'm no commie, so don't go there), philosophically speaking. This also dovetails with another core concern: What are the signifiers of art? There are many dimensions to this, of course. Why are they there? How do they affect work? What purpose and whom do they serve? How do they affect the viewers? The galleries? The artists?</p>

<p>Lots of different vectors to be explored there. I began exploring them in the late 70's, and, yes, I am keenly aware that I was not the first to do so.</p>

<p> Through years of commercial work, I'd amassed a large quantity of top-tier hardware, and learned the skills and conventions of production. This helped imprint my personal work with technical signifiers that were recognizable (and cliche'd, in my opinion) as high-quality work.</p>

<p> Questioning these things changed the way I worked at the craft end, and led me to deliberately using amateur means of production, de-emphasizing auteurship, convention, and leading to questioning a lot of other things. It changed the way I did things, and the look of my prints. It was a more populist look (though this did not really change my choice of subjects much), though by no means <em>amateurish</em> (not meant in the "lover" sense here)</p>

<p>Some of my friends and students thought I was experiencing some sort of regression and/or mental disturbance, but all my painter colleagues and friends got it, which was very liberating. I also found out a few unanticipated strengths (that I do not want to go into here, since I believe one should find out for themselves, by <em>doing</em>) in going to more populist means of production and addressing the issue of the everpresent signifiers.</p>

<p> Questioning this led me in other directions, and I soon realized that there was a lot of rarely trodden ground, folded up like hidden dimensions, to be had for the asking. Painters had been all over this territory for at least a century earlier.</p>

<p>The horizon receded, opening up a lot of space for me. The spectrum of what a photograph or art object can or "should" be widened, and as a result, I changed, and automatically, so did my work. The most valuable thing, philosophically speaking, was that it changed my mental model of personal development from a linear, or waveform, one (like conventional time) to a more organic form, one of looping, knotty helices, with plentiful wormhole connections.</p>

<p>_______________________________________</p>

<p> </p>

<p>I'm not sure that this amounts to a philosophy (big, scary word!), but here are some of the values that shape my photography.</p>

<p>(1) Beauty is Where You Find It - I'd like to think that I can take make noteworthy photographs no matter where I am. The postcard shots are lovely, but so are the barely discovered side streets and back alleys that offer unlimited possibilities for creative interpretation.</p>

<p>(2) Convey the Actual Experience of Being There - Wherever you may be, whatever you may be doing, could you take a photo or a series of photos that conveys what it was like to be there? It's more challenging than it sounds and easy to fall short, but it's still worth trying.</p>

<p>(3) Good Art is Well Crafted - I can set the self-timer and spin around in circles, and maybe the shot that the camera captures when it goes off will actually be interesting. Maybe it will be my best shot of the day. Regardless, I feel a responsibility to put my best effort into a photo, to be thoughtful and methodical and to have a genuine interest in the subject. Otherwise, I'm cheating the viewer, just as I would cheat them by serving food that I didn't prepare to the best of my ability.</p>

<p>(4) There Are Shots That I Don't Need To Take - I never shoot people talking on cell phones. Never. First of all, who needs a gallery full of people talking on the phone, asking their wife if they need them to pick up milk on the way home? Really. If you need shots like this for stock, hire models and do a lifestyle shoot with controlled lighting and model releases.</p>

<p>Where's the challenge? Cell phone users are fish in a barrel. They stand in one place. They don't notice what's going on around them. I'd rather reel in the big fish.</p>

<p>Okay, if a guy is talking on his cell phone while standing next to the Porsche that he just totaled, shoot it! It's interesting. It tells a story. It's not just a guy with a phone by his ear.</p>

<p>For similar reasons I won't shoot the homeless or the handicapped UNLESS they're engaged in a particularly interesting activity.</p>

<p>(5) Be Original Or Go Home - If my shots look like everyone else's, why bother? I want to capture what appeals to ME, to MY eye. Never follow.</p>

<p>(6) The World Is Beautiful Enough - I don't need to over-process it. I don't need to distort it to wide-angle oblivion. I don't need to fry it with HDR until it looks like a comic book. It's just fine the way it is, and in my role as a photographic steward I'll present it as it is. Minus the freckles and pimples, of course. ;-)</p>

<p>(7) Get It Right The First Time - The best photos require the least post-processing. A dash of make-up makes a woman look pretty, but too much makes her look desperate. The same applies to photos.</p>

<p>(8) Communicate - Think of a frail or elderly person who can't follow in your footsteps. Use your skills to share what you've seen along the grand journey. Let that person enjoy life through photos of your adventures. One day, that person could be you.</p>

 

<p>Nine out of ten times, when I photograph a duck, I get a rabbit. WTF* ???!</p>

<p>The tenth time, I get a heffalump. WTF*???!</p>

<p>[*<em>WTF = baby's first deep philosophical question</em>]</p>

<p>Now, to go all serious for a minute (getting on my soapbox), for me, the act of photographing, without regard to what I do or don't achieve in/with my photographs, the act of <em>going and looking</em> FOR ITS OWN SAKE, has a profound effect on my sense of myself and, I like to think, on that of everybody who works at photography as an avocation. It is my belief that we not only become more -- what are good words? receptive, open, genuine, available, <em>more conscious</em> -- than we would otherwise be. And that's the granular, quotidian foundation for a democratic society. Before freedom of speech, you need the act of freedom of looking. Not only does this change my philosophy of the society that I live in, I think it serves as an example for those non-photograhers who see us out and about all the time, everywhere. Looking, seeing, knowing.</p>

<p>Fred: I read your original post as asking me to explore my "personal" philosophy. As odd as this may seem, I cannot lay claim to any. I've been reading philosopy for almost 50 years, during which I studied it academically for almost 10 and taught it for 5. Although I walked away from academia in the late 1970s, philosophy is my skin, my bones, my blood. Philosophy has been at the core of my evolution as a person, and my continuing growth involves sifting through arguments, ideas, positions, etc., gravitating toward those that work for me and discarding those that don't. </p>

<p>Now as to the distinction between the process of photographing and the photographs themselves . . . I think the phrase "process of photographing" is in need of unpacking. Does it refer to thinking about taking a photograph, lining up a photograph, making the appropriate camera settings, taking the photograph, developing a print or uploading an electronic file, postprocessing, etc? All of these? None of these? Some of these? I tend to view the process of photographing as an organic whole, including the photographs themselves. To do otherwise is to objectify it <em>ad absurdam</em>.</p>

<p>John: I really like how you expressed your ideas in your first paragraph. Well done!</p>

 

<p>Probably like some others, my photography is a part of my life and personal views. With the exception of those elements or manifestations of what I consider important social values to conserve, I am seldom fully satisfied with the status quo. I am absorbed by the flux of change and its effect on us. There is too little I know of our world and the experience and behaviour of man, which happily drives me to be curious about the unknown, the questionable and the unresolved.</p>

<p>When dining with friends, I am happiest when the conversation turns to our perceptions and thoughts about the issues that concern us (political, social, international, personal challenges, philosophical) and any new thoughts or questions they (and I) may have about our society (and that of others), our values, our future. They probably are tired of my putting forward controversial questions and statements, often on paper in a bowl in the middle of the table, to be picked out arbitrarily and successively by each, then read and defended, like a college debate interspersed often with humour or recess while tasting a new dish. It is informal and a bit like reading chinese platitudes from fortune cookies, but debating more demanding questions or statements, and entertaining other viewpoints of the guests around the table. Makes for some interesting exchanges, and selfishly contributes to satisfying my personal philosophy concerning the importance of the unknown and unresolved.</p>

<p>That philosophy or approach drives my activities and constitutes a large part of my personal philosophy. It is one that is very present in my photographic approach. I am curious about man, about his differences, about his created surroundings and about his interaction with the mysteries and beauty of nature, his initial teacher. I am attracted by the possibilities of intrigue and of intriguing revelation in the objects or subjects that attract my eye (mind). Yes, I also shoot a good percentage of predictable or easily seen things, sometimes to hone my compositional or technical approaches. Many of those more straightfoward and uncomplicated images I initially attached to my portfolio, as some sort of "right of passage" but not necessarily as statements of importance for me. I now more constantly aim at focussing my interests, curiosity and even doubts or questions on specific subjects and series of subjects of deeper interest, which I imagine are complementary with my personal philosophy - a waltz with the unknown - a conversation with the newly discovered. It remains but a partly travelled road with unknown or imagined horizons. A muse. </p>

<p> </p>

<p>For me, delivery has become important.</p>

<p>Much philosophy is delivered awkwardly. Ever read Kant? Elegant ideas, thrilling arguments, amazing ability to look backwards and forwards historically, and a writing style that could drown all of that if you let it! Philosophers are often forgiven this inability to articulate well.</p>

<p>Photographs for me are much about the delivery. I try to consciously unite (and that can be by conflict or harmony) my content/subject with my technique. It is about how the subject/scene, etc. . . . and how the photograph . . . looks.</p>

<p>In this regard, <em>commitment</em> is important to me. It usually yields a clarity of vision, even one that may be ambiguous. I find haphazard ambiguity, for example, much less of a challenge than intentional and directed ambiguity. I could also say poignant ambiguity, for times when it's not so intentional. When I'm considering my subjects, in advance if I can and at the time of shooting, I try to remain committed to them, in touch with them. When I edit through the shots I've made, I try to commit to having a voice and a body of work. When I post process I try to commit to my technical and expressive decisions so that I will have taken an actual visual stand.</p>

<p>Here are two self portraits. <em>[Caution: nudity]</em></p>

<p>I did <a href="../photo/5510480">the first one</a> at the beginning of 2007.</p>

<p>I did <a href="../photo/11142112">the second one</a> a couple of months ago.</p>

<p>I see a world of difference in terms of commitment. The first might have pleased my mom. Her son looks good . . . romantic setup, pleasant facial expression, nice, wide open eyes, attractive lighting, no distractions, it looks like me and happens to be one of the more flattering pictures I've ever seen of myself. I made a nice picture and made myself look good in the process.</p>

<p>In the second, I committed to being myself and showing myself in a way that reveals more. I committed to it as a photograph. I allowed harsh lighting to speak and to connect me to surroundings. I didn't shadow my nakedness in the demur way I did in the first one. It wasn't done to flatter but rather to discover. There was no hiding behind myself. I wanted to see what I looked like to myself and the camera as opposed, in the earlier one, to showing what I wanted to of myself. I took the second one with a slow exposure to exaggerate the lighting, to hold the camera's gaze on me, to outline my body, and to capture some motion blur. The rib got a bit out of hand, both because I'm thin and my ribs do protrude and because of my slight forward motion. I knew the rib was a bit over the top but committed to the photo anyway, because it is what it is. I wanted the blurred hair on my chest and the slight distortion the slow shutter speed brought and the rib came along for the ride. On the surface, I could question that. Beneath the surface, it makes sense. It's not a question of liking or not liking the way the rib looks. It's a question of living with myself and even my photographic decisions. It's also a lack of perfection. A thorn in my side.</p>

<p>I chose two self portraits as examples because they require of me an extra kind of commitment, especially since I consider so much of my work to have my own stamp on it. So there's no other's body, no other's expressive face, nothing between me and the subject here, as I look at it. If I have a philosophy of "self", it's not as a ghost in a machine, not as a subjectivity hiding out within a body. It's like a guy taking a picture of himself. Like Escher's hand drawing itself. Like someone who asserts himself in a forum using himself as an example. And there's a lot on the surface.</p>

<p>In this second portrait, the lighting seemed to dictate the technique and it seemed to tie together the architecture outside the window and my body. I chose a Japanese high contrast look because I wanted not to hold back, to give it my all. Next self portrait, I might choose a more dynamic pose. This pose feels a little passive to me, but I have no trouble standing by the result even with that reservation. No one else has to know about that. Oops!</p>

<p>I think I missed some vital words in my first posting, thanks to the later posts it popped up: both photography and philosophy for me are <em>exploration, </em>and<em> discovery.</em><br>

Together, they sum up pretty nicely what it means to me, and what I try to achieve with it.</p>

<p>i think philosophy involve quiet thinking while photographs requite creative thinking. i think they affact each other.</p>

<p>Fred: I particularly remember the reactions I had and the emotions I felt after reading Kant, Heidegger, and Sartre for the first time: amazement, befuddlement, confusion, frustration, and anger. I literally had to fight with myself to keep from throwing the books into the garbage can. On a couple of occasions, I recall forcefully throwing a book down, getting up, walking out of my house, and just wanting to scream. I hadn't yet connected with what I was reading, yet I was drawn back like the proverbial moth to the flame. And, as time went by, my previous feelings gave way to a sense of adventure, because I was venturing into unknown territory and, despite some twists and turns, found a way to navigate. In my opinion, it came down to having lots of internal dialogue, which later was supplanted with dialogue with others. </p>

<p>It seems to me that dialogue is also an essential element in photography. This helps me to understand the account you gave of your two self-portraits.</p>

<p>I am grateful for your helping to re-awaken me from my dogmatic slumbers.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>Fred,</p>

<p>When I mentioned that photography for me is in effect a sort of waltz with the unknown and a conversation with the newly discovered, I purposely use a romantic manner of portraying my interaction between the state of my current personal philosophy and that of my (current) photographic approach. It recognizes that neither is fully constant, but always changing, incrementally in small variations or sometimes significantly.</p>

<p>Part of the change is related to discovery and how the unknown or newly observed interacts with my own values or how the change in my values (if only incremental) can affect the way I photograph. I would like sometime to show evidence of this, but for the moment find that difficult (perhaps I don't think enough about why I photograph the way I do, at least that is my present shortcoming), perhaps because it is a bit of a moving target (the tough part is often fully developping an approach, or recognizing a meaningful (to oneself) approach that relates to one's philosoophy). Your two self-portraits indicate a similar evolution in yourself and/or your objectives or what is important for you to portray. In regard to the latter, we change our photography in response to how our philosophy or values of life change or evolve.</p>

<p>Arthur, yes. Also how I've changed and am changing because of the way I'm making photographs and the photographs I'm making. I do see values expressed all the time in photographs and have encountered much resistance from fellow photographers when I make those observations. Street shooters are dealing with values a lot, and generally seem a resistant bunch to acknowledging that. As has been discussed before, photographing has led me to realize how telling looks are and how significant what's on the surface can be.</p>

<p>Michael, are any of your photographs related to that essential element of dialogue? Does dialogue play into your approach to making photographs? Are its effects at all apparent, either literally or metaphorically?</p>

<p>John A, I checked out your web site and have also read many of your critiques on the Photo of the Week forum. Can you point to any of your photos to illustrate that change from the more internal to being more about world concerns and explain how that might be suggested visually?</p>

<p>Wouter, are there any concrete examples, visually or descriptive, of how your photography has changed directions? What does a change of (philosophical) direction look like?</p>

<p>John K, I like your metaphorical rather than analytical approach. Can you speak to the difference between accident and luck? I always thought of accidents as lucky or unlucky, but photographing has helped me prepare for accidents and even expect them. In that way, maybe the accidents transcend luck (???).</p>

<p>Luis, can you give examples of signifiers? I'm not completely following you there. The significance you give to means of production and your switch from high end to lower end gear is compelling. By signifiers, do you mean the recognizable differences in quality and texture from commercially-viable to more off-hand means of production? What are some of them?</p>

<p>Dan, what would make a postcard shot in your mind? I've seen as many postcard shots made in urban back alleys as I have out on landscapes? Postcard, to me, suggests a thinness of scope and vision rather than a particular subject matter. I really appreciate your sense of responsibility as suggested in Number (3). The trouble for me with cell phone users is not that they're too easy. It's that they're mostly making the same uninteresting gesture. I feel similarly and also differently to you on Number (6). Yes, beauty is overrated (especially as we commonly use it). And I try to show the world not as it is but how I see it.</p>

<p>Julie, great stuff. Does your product, the photograph, have a similar affect? If so, how so?</p>

<p>Mark, I didn't mean to pass you by. While I understand how important the process is, you seem to be really diminishing the role of the photograph. That's surprising. According to Michael -- and I wasn't so sure, Michael, I agreed with the extent to which you think the photograph and the process can't be separated -- the photograph and process are at least substantially related, with which I agree. So, I'd have to think that a trite photograph would mean that something trite occurred in the process of making it.</p>

<p>Fred, I use "luck" to imply something for which I have no responsibility...I have at least a little responsibility for everything in my life. </p>

<p>I use "accident" to indicate that I have a casual role. I know about accident, and my education in statistics and research methodology tells me there's no such thing as luck, despite the fantasies of professors. I'd want to believe in luck if I intentionally engaged in gambling, but I know my intentions affect outcomes in ways that transcend rolls-of-dice. If I rolled dice, I'd cheat. As I mentioned earlier, I believe in free will. I'd rather be wrong than passive.</p>

<p><strong>Fred - "</strong>Luis, can you give examples of signifiers? I'm not completely following you there. The significance you give to means of production and your switch from high end to lower end gear is compelling. By signifiers, do you mean the recognizable differences in quality and texture from commercially-viable to more off-hand means of production? What are some of them?"</p>

<p>I mean the signification of Art or high-end photography in all its aspects. This is not a fixed thing, but varies over time. Think of it as the current "checklist" that identifies anything as a work of art. Practically everything one strives for just because it is expected, not because it is part of their vision, but because it will <em>identify them as artists and their work as art.</em> It's the way things are done.</p>

<p> Painters went through this a long time ago. Compare early Dali to later Dali, or early Picasso to later Picasso. But the tie of photography to its handmaiden, technology, makes this different.</p>

<p>One I have already mentioned are XXXL prints. Ever since Gursky did it, and commanded attendance in museums and high prices, everyone wanted bigger prints -- so their photographs would look the part, though print size has been steadily escalating since the 70's, but it took a giant leap with Gursky (the Bechers, his mentors, did not make mammoth prints, btw). Adamsian print quality, even though AA himself sternly warned people not to mimic his style, but to develop their own, which fell on deaf ears. Then came Robert Frank and everybody cried foul until they got past the missing signifiers, and <em>saw the work.</em> Things like format, which has varied over the years, from the small daguerreotype to really huge (like William Henry Jackson's, or Curtis's cameras) back down to 8x10, then to MF, 35mm, Polaroid, and back up. At every step there is a hue and cry about whether it's really art any longer -- and it always is. Or color vs. B&W. Remember what Eggleston (who was definitely not the first, by any means) went through when he emerged? That was in 1976. Today no one blinks at the then-rvolutionary idea of color. The list is endless.</p>

<p> People who really ought to know better, willingly, gleefully, midlessly enslave themselves to the checklist as the price of admission to being recognized as artists, being admitted into an elite, small circle, gallery rep, peer recognition, high PN ratings, :-) big money, and chicks are free.</p>

<p> For me, the signs and well-defined edges are ripe, easy pickings for exploration, manipulation and play.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>Luis, at first blush, it seems to come through most loudly and clearly in the endless debates over film vs. digital. As if the old signifiers, since some of them can't be found in digital, are still having a death grip on the old-timer dinosaurs among us. Some of the excitement I sense in artists who use digital cameras and delivery systems is in the discovery of its unique characteristics, ones that can be exploited (in the good way) for expressive advantage. New technology is a liberation . . . or it can be if we're not enslaved in what we already know and the paths others have blazed for us.</p>

<p>It's interesting that you talk of checklists. Many of the critiques I read on PN seem to consist of just those kinds of checklists. In that thread yesterday that was originally posted to Philosophy and got moved to Casual Conversations, the OP was first talking about UNLEARNING, which seemed significant but then got sidetracked into talking about the ratings system, so it got moved. In any case, someone came along and told him exactly what to do to "make his photographs better." It read like a laundry-list of academic expectations . . . just what you're talking about . . . what would get him into a gallery. I've often asked the question, on the critique pages here: Are we critiquing toward a given standard, toward what WE want to see, or toward some kind of creation of another photographer who could perhaps surprise us in some way?</p>

<p>Philosophically, that could translate into: Do I live my life to fulfill the expectations of others or to keep them guessing?</p>

<p>I - "my philosophy" - would feel slightly amputated without my photography, more than my photography would without my philosophy, because I don't think photography with all of its descriptive power can intrinsically be about *a philosophy*, as much as it may be instigated by all matters philosophical, personal. We may need photography more than photography needs us.</p>

<p><strong>Fred - "</strong>Philosophically, that could translate into: Do I live my life to fulfill the expectations of others or to keep them guessing?"</p>

<p> Perhaps a little more than that, in the sense that we have to exist at multiple levels simultaneously. We can do other things than adhere to the status quo (or worse, aspire to it) or "keep them guessing". We can be ourselves, whatever that is, or whatever we choose it to be. So can our art. To bow to institutional demands, empty our pockets at the tollways on the road to success, or try to confound others or make ourselves look clever, seems like the same thing: To not be who we are, and in the future, who we might be.</p>

<p> I don't mean this in a me, me, me kind of way, but in an individuated form of development, in service to the medium & mankind, and utilizing our energies and gifts to their full expression.</p>

<p>[You picked up on <em>exactly </em>why I used the word checklist]</p>

<p> </p>

<p>I anticipated the interpretation that could come with "keep 'em guessing" but didn't want to lengthen my post with disclaimers. Now I will. When I make either/or statements, they are made in context. Any statement can be universally exclusive of everything else on Earth or it can be specific to a particular realm that's being addressed at the time. We are all more than the few catch phrases we may use to make a certain point or two here. Sometimes, I need to make a commitment without addendums in order to say or express something vital at the time. The peril is that it will be universalized. I know how to be and do things for myself.</p>

<p>

<p>[Donald O'Connor (and Brown&Freed who wrote it) knew that an actor also had to sometimes make 'em cry, though such a qualification didn't seem necessary in the song.]</p>

<p>;)))</p>

<p> </p>

Hi Fred,

 

Thanks for your comments. By postcard shots, I mean one of the ten or twenty most popular visual renderings of a place,

the ones that we see over and over. I have a few of then in my portfolio, but most of my shots are from what I believe to

be unique perspectives. I try to come up with fresh compositions even when I'm photographing a well-known location.