The photo performs . . .

<p>A while back we talked about taking pictures as performance . . . the act. Now I'm thinking about photos themselves as performances.</p>

<p>As some of you know, I'm putting together a show, the first time I'm printing my photos and showing the prints publicly. So just the other day, I was struck by something.</p>

<p>[short digression] I was watching the Giants baseball playoffs which opened with Bob Weir and Phil Lesh (formerly of The Grateful Dead) singing the National Anthem (just a little off key but with heart)! Anyway, later that night I wanted to send an old Dead Head friend a link to the YouTube video. This performance hadn't been posted yet, but I found several others from over the years. Same song, different performances. I remembered how many Dead shows I'd been to back in the day, how many times I heard the very same song and how many different interpretations of each song there were, how each performance could have such a different feel. [back to the point]</p>

<p>I'm working with a couple of labs. Sometimes, I'm so amazed at the different results I get from each lab on the same photo and how that's expanded my vision of my own work. And I've been really excited about how, through my setting up the files for printing (and making changes specifically for the prints), I can so alter the look and feeling of so many of the photos. It's made me realize just how alive photos are, and how changeable. I can adapt them to convey different moods at different times or under different circumstances, for different events or purposes. I can change them to suit a particular grouping, to stand out or play more of a supporting role, etc. I can choose what size to print them and drastically affect their impact and demeanor, whether in the show or as individuals. At another time or in another setting, I may want a very different feel. Like doing the same song at one performance with a rockabilly beat and at another with a hint of reggae, I can modulate the tone and feel of my photos at every turn, if I want.</p>

<p>I will likely rarely think of a photo as "finished" again, until I've stopped printing new ones I suppose. There is too much possibility with each of them. It's really opened my eyes. The photos themselves have started to feel like performances, which can continually change. They now seem eminently malleable.</p>

<p>I'd love to hear your experiences with this sort of thing and how it's impacted your own photographing over the years, or whether it has. It's been an epiphany for me and I wanted to share it here.</p>

<p>I think anything seen by a viewer is the result of a performance, not the performance itself.</p>

<p>It's akin to the work of special-effects makeup artists where results involve elements having nothing generically to do with makeup: lighting, model, set design. <br>

<a href="http://www.spacecast.com/Face-Off.aspx?videoPackage=124467">http://www.spacecast.com/Face-Off.aspx?videoPackage=124467</a></p>

<p>In photography, whether you see a large print on the wall of a gallery with museum lighting or on an Android tablet, both involve similar elements having nothing to do with photography generically but enhances and influences the viewing experience. </p>

<p>The same can be said in the performing arts. A performance of a dancer or musician is facilitated by the performance stage. The raw performance is what you see in the practice studio just like the raw unframed print in your hand. </p>

<blockquote>

<p>The negative is the score, the print is the performance - Ansel Adams</p>

</blockquote>

<p>I caught the printing bug the Summer of 1977 where I was taught the basics by a kindly older civilian photographer who ran the photo rec center at the Army post where I was stationed. All through high school, I shot plenty but all my processing and printing was through the local drug store. I thought those prints were great.</p>

<p>However when I was introduced to the art of B&W printmaking it seemed like an entire new world of possibilities opened up. The various papers, chemicals and techniques all helped shaped the photographic message beyond the exposure. The print became a unique thing onto itself. The downside was that it was time consuming and often frustrating along with spending a lot of time alone in a darkroom with tons of smelly chemistry. I found I didn't like the work but I did it to tap into the added value hand-crafted printmaking brings. I carried forward with color printing positive and reversal materials, deeply inspired by the dye transfers and Cibachromes of Elliot Porter.</p>

<p>Today, I feel a photo is not complete until it's printed. Unlike a screen display, it is a tangible object. The image/print <strong>IS</strong> the artwork. With the wet darkroom in the distant past, printing has now become a joy as well as unique opportunity to shape your ideas to their final form. For me, the real advantages of modern digital imaging is not in cameras but in the power of digital printing. The control I struggled with as young man now is achieved with ease.</p>

<p>Good luck on your printmaking explorations, Fred! Whether working with an experienced printer or doing it yourself, printmaking is a unique opportunity to push an image, and your own creativity, to new levels. The image (score) may be beautiful but the performance (print) can be inspired.</p>

 

For exhibitions and sales over the years, I've done a lot of my own printing and have also used various

outside labs for printing as well. Ditto for personal alternative photo presentation methods, being project-oriented and a woodworker. It's pretty straightforward with respect to getting results I'm seeking for a

particular purpose. Today being more into book design (hand-made as well as outside printed), I find that and packaging much more

interesting and challenging with respect to creative possibilities.

<p>For me my beginnings in photography began with the print, back in the 1960's when I was a teenager. I had access to a darkroom for the first time, and for the first time realized that the prints I got back from the photo retailer were just "machine estimates" based on "normal values." In the darkroom I discovered could interpret a negative in infinite ways, having control over exposure, contrast, dodging and burning, etc. I guess ever since then I have had the understanding that the print was an entirely different creative process, with infinite variability. Now, with digital photography and software, nothing has really changed. I always shoot in raw format, because I like to have something like a negative, that I can to back to any time and re-interpret my vision whenever I need to.</p>

<p>My darkroom work is unquestionably a performance. The adrenolin surge is there when I face a new printing challenge. Each time I print a negative I see new possibilities that I am exploiting or that I should exploit. Print size is one parameter, but more important to me are the changes I can personally make to local tonality, to overall tonality, to contrast, to slight reframing, to increase briliance or to subdue it, to obscure or to highlight different areas of the image, and so on. I write down most of these subtle or not so subtle changes, on one hand to serve as a guide for further reproduction of the image and on the other hand to keep track of what I learn in each such performance. Some exhibition viewers or purchasers want to know how I obtain a certain effect and I will freely make that information available to them if requested (in any case, you can explain how to play a piano, but doing it is an individual performance). But above all, I enjoy the experience of personally making a print that may never be repeated exactly as done. </p>

<p>Making prints from a digital file is a different order of performance from that of the darkroom for me. My own digital printing technique is not to my satisfaction to date, and when I allow a lab to print my photos it is not the same feeling of performance for me simply because I am less a part of that chain. I do interact with the person doing the printing, to suggest changes, but ultimately it is the lab that is performing (they may not consider it that way, of course) and not me. I can understand, however, the involvement of the photographer in that digital process, even if it is understandably less hands on than the traditional (black and white) darkroom creativity. </p>

<p>The use of "performance" in the OP seems contradictory to me. "A" performance is a conceptually discrete thing or event. An act, is not necessarily so. "A" performance would have a beginning, a middle, and an end. Yet the the description of photos as "alive" and "rarely" finished implies unending continuity and therefore something that is not performance at all. Or maybe an interest in discovering this very conundrum.</p>

<p>If you say, "I can modulate the tone and feel of my photos at every turn, if I want," I would claim that the "want to" is inseparable from what (in this case, the picture) makes you want to and from what ensues (is part of the act). The "want" and the "modulate," the "I can" and the thing that prompts the urge are inseparably intertwined -- in no way discrete.</p>

<p>My stuff doesn't have any beginning and it doesn't have any end (which is in agreement with much of the OP). My stuff might be entirely "middle" if that's possible absent beginning and end ... It's all inextricably inextricable.</p>

<p>But Julie, maybe each print is one performance, much like a song when performed by a musician, which is what Fred was getting at. It may be different each time it is performed, but each performance is its own thing. Anyway that's how I interpret it. Jazz is an example where each performance is expected to be improvised off the main theme (like the negative/raw file in photography) and so each performance takes different twists and turns, some more memorable and powerful than others.</p>

<p><<<<em>In photography, whether you see a large print on the wall of a gallery with museum lighting or on an Android tablet, both involve similar elements having nothing to do with photography generically but enhances and influences the viewing experience.</em>>>></p>

<p>Michael, good point. I was talking about those kinds of differences (presentational differences like size, lighting, location, medium of viewing, etc.) But I was also talking about presenting the same photo in the same way but creating differences in the printing process itself. So that after this show, I might have another show where I would want to get a very different mood out of one of the photos. I might print it very differently, though at the same size and put it in the same frame with very similar lighting, but it would be a different performance or interpretation.</p>

<p>_______________________________</p>

<p>I am using "performance" metaphorically (and thanks, Louis, for the Adams quote, which I've heard but didn't remember until you added it), and don't expect the metaphor to work for everyone, but you all seem to relate to what I'm talking about, and I appreciate the responses.</p>

<p>_______________________________</p>

<p>Louis, thanks so much for the good wishes and for your personal and moving description. There is something to the tangible aspect that I'm really enjoying. I think this experience will even have me looking differently at how I treat images that will be seen on the screen. I'm not sure how yet. Yes, in many cases, I've had the lab do as many as a dozen prints as I fuss with the files between each print to get what I want. As I've learned, I'm able to cut the number of tests print down because I'm anticipating much better than I did at the beginning.</p>

<p>_________________________________</p>

<p>Yes, Steve, I've shot in RAW for some time now, and like the flexibility it affords.</p>

<p>________________________________</p>

<p>Arthur, I do something similar with my digital processes, often keeping extensive notes on what I've done in post processing and in print preparation (and some of that is helped by the computer's memory). I am now keeping at least two copies of my photos, one for monitor viewing and one for print. I find they are often different. When I started printing, I spent time trying to imitate what I was seeing on screen. I'm less inclined to do that now, since I've seen first hand what a different medium the print is and I often want the print to have its own feeling which may be very distinct from how the screen image feels. Often, the wow factor or pop of the backlit monitor doesn't really translate to the print and I opt for different subtleties and a whole different relationship to the print image. In other cases, I've learned different ways of achieving that sort of pop in the print, when I want to match more closely what I'm seeing on screen.</p>

<p>____________________________________</p>

<p>Julie, "contradictory" is fine. As I said, it's just a working metaphor for me and, as you pointed out, we seem to have similar feelings about the process regardless of what words we use. Besides, if my use of "performance" is contradictory (which it is in the sense you described, and I'm OK with that), I'll see your contradictory and raise you a redundant as in your use of "inextricably inextricable." LOL. I think we use these terms and phrases descriptively and emotionally rather than logically and it's the ideas behind them that tell most of the tale.</p>

<p>I like the way you talk about no beginning in addition to no end. Hadn't thought about that, but it's true. When does any photo begin? Long ago . . . and probably before that!</p>

<p>Steve, but it's a *still* picture! However, I know what you mean ...</p>

<p>The thing is, "a" performance is, to my mind, a "unit." It's sort of ... conclusive. For me, a picture is a process. If I can back up and start with the Ansel Adams quote that Louis gave, "The negative is the score, the print is the performance." I think that what Adams meant, practiced and believed is that the performance was always in the service of a monolithic PRE-visualization. A print was better or worse to the degree it approached his *pre*-visualization -- which *pre*-visualization did not change. He had his conception in his mind and he worked *to* that fixed target. I think he was strongly opposed to *post*-visualization.</p>

<p>This is very diffferent from what I believe in and what, I feel that I see in the work of many other contemporary photographers (especially those that work in series or in tight circles around some particular focus of interest). For me, the picture that I see *teaches* me in the sense that, upon seeing it, I realize what I want. The picture shows me or allows me to realize what I want; I edit or reshoot or otherwise *post*-visualize. Whereupon, the next/new picture shows me what *more* I want, and so on and so on. It's a flexy, bendy, growthy, never-ending simultaneous development, of simultaneous ratcheting into who-knows-where ... (I hear Adams rolling in his grave ...)</p>

 

<p>"Now I'm thinking about photos themselves as performances". Fred.</p>

<p>Welcome to the World of Photography.</p>

<p>We manipulate the process to create the "look" we desire for each individual image. Call it a performance .... ." of image vision" to achieve the Photographic effects we desire.</p>

<p>"It has always been about vision ... not just about the big button on the cam ,or, the process....it's all up for "grabs" to get to the place we want to be. That simple.</p>

<p>Your Photograph, your vision; take control.</p>

<p>Allen, I think the OP is about being willing to give up or at least share control.</p>

<hr />

<p>For a slightly different angle on this, here is a quote from an interview/discussion:</p>

<p><strong>Chuck Close</strong>: I came of age in the 1960s when minimal, reductive, and process issues were certainly in the air, like those wonderful Sol Lewitt wall drawings with blue lines one way and other lines another way. That is something I was always aware of, and it interested me a great deal. I really did believe that process would set you free. Instead of having to dream up a great idea -- waiting for the clouds to part and a bolt of lightning to srike your skull -- you are better off just getting to work. In the process of making things, ideas will occur to you. If it isn't right the first time, you alter the variables and do something else. You never have to be stuck. I have never had painter's block in forty years, because all I have to do is alter one variable, and I have a whole new experience in the studio. I have plenty of time to dream up other things that I want to do. showing how the prints got made really interests me. It's like exploding the singular view of things into a sequential plan. There are so may other things to look at other than iconography, so many other things to experience. Style is often embedded in process and not connected to iconography. A signature style is about how it happened, not what is made. I think of myself as an orchestrator of experience. I make experiences for people to look at. [<em><strong>/end quote</strong></em>]</p>

<p>That differs from my own feelings about my photography-as-ongoing-process in that I feel that I'm always working on -- aware of, intensely interested in -- some core concept or motivating idea, but it's the back-and-forth interplay of image and myself that pushes us both (images and me) ever further. In other words, where he says "In the process of making things, ideas will occur to you," I would change that to "your idea will morph and grow," etc. The "process of making" works both ways; to and from the image.</p>

<p>I do love his explanation of style, and I love the idea of "exploding the singular view."</p>

<p>Iconography in photography, fortunately or not, seems to me to be a natural characteristic and accepted tradition of the medium which risks imposing on the practitioner an approach that tends to truncate, more so than painting, the desire that Close describes as "to explode the singular view of things into a sequential plan." Painting is very open to such a sequential plan (or "act" or "performance"), as the variables are so numerous. His example of never being stuck (blocked) because there is always one more variable that he can alter, can nonetheless apply to photography despite the structural slavery of the latter to content. I always enjoy a photograph that incites me to question "what is he or she trying to achieve with this, what does the image express?". When the meaning is too evident, there is often an inconographic meaning to the image that quite reduces its potential, except perhaps for those meanings that strike me as being very important, as either witnesses to an event or as evoking a feeling or emotion that I can relate to.</p>

<p>Transcending the iconography that is inherent in the process of photography is a key part of the "performance" or "act" or "sequential plan of creative development" that I agree as being important to invoke. "Performance" and "experiment" are quite analogous, with experiment being a key part of the process as it applies to making photography a creative process. We cannot usually wait for the image to be created in front of our lens; we have to influence that, and/or additionally experiment multiple variables in the process of modification that leads to the final print. The "getting there" is iterative and sometimes surprising, as Fred infers when speaking of how he reacts to certain variables of the print production process. Speaking of "final" print, I wonder how many of us close the book after an image has been made, rather than go back and re-interpret the work with new ideas. Sort of like an artist painting over previous elements of his or her painting. </p>

<p>Echoing most everybody's thoughts:<br>

I agree that photography is comparable to the performing arts in numerous ways. The exposure, the print, a suite of prints, an exhibition, and books are performances of the original exposures. Beginnings and endings are not possible and not expected. A good performance plays on in the head - a good value for the admission price.<br>

Doing urban photography I'm looking for a performance as well as performing. The film panorama camera can't be ignored it is such a curious thing. <a href="http://www.panoramacamera.us/WALLSTREET-1.html">LINK</a> <br>

With regular -- all digital cameras now -- I alter between a sham-tourist and a shooting-blind technique. Someone watching would see a performance. </p>

<p>We are just screwing around ( "exploring" in art-speak) if we don't employ the skills and practices that allow us to anticipate a <em>printable</em> outcome. The photographic expressions: "pre-visualization" and "decisive moment" imply and even <em>insist</em> that only one outcome is possible. As in science, where all <em>proofs</em> are provisional, images are never final. Anticipating printable outcomes (plural) when making the exposure is more creatively productive.<br>

Post-exposure performance extracts a multitude of graphic image possibilities out of the <em>as-acquired </em>image. (I always include "as-acquired" in my "media" description if I haven't somehow "cooked" it.) There are limitless options -- just a few thousand exposures could fill a lifetime. As some here have attested, it is possible to not <em>see</em> the picture in the acquired image -- to not see what we saw! A picture's overlooked mood or a feeling will process in the mind for years before you see it -- "Can't step into the same stream twice." etc.<br>

<br />A few years ago I played a little game. The objective was to extract images from old negatives I hadn't yet printed for some reason or another. They might have been too tough to print or not fit in any series of the time. Some were whimsical, decorative graphic exercises and some were new <em>seeing</em> of the original exposure unaltered. It was a blast to do and I made a Blurb book called "Lookaround Again." At that point I knew that if I had to stop taking new pictures for good I'd never get through the archives.</p>

<p>Alan, nicely said. But I'd vary on a couple of things:</p>

<p><<We are just screwing around ( "exploring" in art-speak) if we don't employ the skills and practices that allow us to anticipate a <em>printable</em> outcome.>>></p>

<p>I've always had a love for prints and have long felt the difference between prints and screen images and am now making those feelings more tangible for myself as I discover the joys of printing my own work. BUT . . . I do think that non-printed images (monitor viewing) will more and more become an accepted finalized medium. I look forward to the day when people are maturely using monitor viewing as a medium distinct from the print, rather than only conflating their effects and purposes (which is valid as well). I've seen some work that is already doing that, in local galleries, using the monitor as the final destination. These folks have no intention of printing their photos and are using monitors very creatively.</p>

<p>Even in my own world, I've done several portraits for web only. Handled very differently, from the beginning, than if I were going to make fine prints of these portraits. Printability just doesn't come into play sometimes. In the future, there may very well be photos I post on PN that I never intend for print, but that will express just what I want to express for this here vehicle.</p>

<p>As for pre-visualization, many photographers employ it without being limited by it. There are many who do see the "finished" result in their minds, are aiming for something, etc. but who also know that that is open to further exploration or, as Arthur put it, experimentation during the rest of the process. One can start out with a pre-visualization, which is different from shooting more randomly, without hamstringing themselves to only that visualization once the wheels are in motion. That's, again, as you noted, Alan, the performance aspect of the entire process. Being limber and flexible enough to have a pre-visualization that guides rather than constricts. It's like actors having a script. We go to the theater not just to see the script (we could have read that at home). We go to see it come alive. Pre-visualization is even less literal and less circumscribed than a script. It is the BEGINNING, even if it has an end in mind. It is the photographer's job to keep the process alive and open to possibilities, even when working from a pre-visualization. The photographer works on a continuum, from seeing the pre-visualization as a very close and almost exact blueprint of what he wants to a preliminary and very loose sketch.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>FRED: Being limber and flexible enough to have a pre-visualization that guides rather than constricts.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>I like that way of putting it. Only problem I find is the redundancy "pre" gives a narrower - those who need <em>rules</em> -- implication to those who are more literal minded. Too bad for them. <br>

I couldn't think of a word besides "print" to cover ANY output mode -- which is what I meant. Anyhow, I'm inspired to ask is there a "salon" quality web photography presentation craft to investigate? Virtually everything I do now goes to my web pages eventually. I consider that a performance that deserves my best efforts. Its a big mess right now but I'm slowly pulling things together. A bit off-topic note -- "smart" phone images with their tiny screens dictate how web pages must be designed. Though I suppose someone here know how to have both a small AND large screen version of a web page performance. </p>

<p>Alan, I believe that the term pre-visualisation is not related just to rules and image technical considerations, but rather to imagining how a photographer perceives and wishes to approach a certain subject matter. It can be a creative approach and first step to a work in the making, not necessarily bound by rules. As said, it is often just a guide, much as a painter can pre-visualize how he wants to treat his subject matter. He has to start somewhere. He then goes on to discover other things or his own evolving thoughts, like the photographer progessing from single or possibly multiple exposures, through post exposure treatment of his subject and the eventual presentation of a print, large transparency or screen image.</p>

<p>Arthur, as I read Alan, he wasn't saying the pre-visualization is just related to rules and technical considerations. He was saying it was unfortunate that some people think that way. That's why he followed his statement about it with "Too bad for them." He was saying that those who are too literal minded might think of pre-visualization as rule-oriented.</p>

<p>Fred, I guess that Alan finds the prefix pre- redundant and that visualisation is perhaps a sufficient term. I agree entirely with that. However, I disagree that pre-visualisation more than visualisation incites a narrower view related to rules. The narrow view of some that that part of the process is controlled or mandated by by rules is independent of the terms used. That narrow view can attach to pre-V or V itself.</p>

<p>I accept with humility that I overlooked that Alan does not hold that view of rules alone, which is a bad error as he was quite precise about that in his first sentence. The heart of my comment, however, was related to the use of pre-V or V as simply a guide and part of the overall process that many of us use in seeking a creative result of some sort and which forms part of the exploratory process. That opinion of Close and his wariness about iconographic images is I think really relevant to some interesting enactments of the photographic process. </p>

<p>Speaking of previsualization, I spent the last 6 months, in part, previsualizing the show . . . and re-previsualizing and improvising when what I previsualized didn't quite come together or was practically impossible for me to accomplish. So, part of the print previsualization was the entire show's previsualization. What tone did I want (both color tone and emotional tone) in each photo given where it would hang and what it would hang with and what would be on the opposite wall. I've used the metaphor before of the orchestra when describing the texture of a photo (somewhat like the color of the orchestra). Well, here it seemed like each photo was an instrument but instead of playing solo, each was playing a part in the orchestra. Which meant a lot of individual tuning up, practice, and perfecting (no, not really perfecting, but you get what I mean) and each sympathizing with the whole. It's another case of what Julie was talking about with no beginning or end only this time it had a spatial aspect as well. Though I've experienced this before even with individual photos, it seemed more profound and evident to me now that the photos could not be contained within their borders. There is seepage.</p>

<p>I think performance, in the open-ended way we're talking about it here is simply(!) about knowing -- in your bones more than your mind -- and believing in that knowing. And I mean *really* believing; as much urgent urges as deliberate judication.</p>

<p>Here's a caption from one of Joel Meyerowitz's pictures in his new 2 book publication, <em>Taking My Time.</em> I will tell you, in advance that the black and white picture, to my first look, is totally ... mediocre. Neither bad nor good, just ... <em>meh</em>:</p>

<p>"There are turning points that enter our lives when we least expect them. Only later when, in the case of this photograph, a singular image keeps calling out for your attention might you understand that there is a lesson disguised in a seemingly uninteresting image, but one that is difficult to discard. I tried to toss this photograph many times during the months that I reviewed the work from my trip around the country. But it was insistent, first on the contact sheet, and then later as a print, nagging at me as I tried to understand it. What is it that's there? A few dilapidated bunkhouses set in a hard, scrubby landscape, an overturned and oversized toy train lying on its side, mountains far away. All of this seen at a distance that makes me uncomfortable still, as if there was too much space in the frame. Yet I stopped and made that image, walked into the space and felt the call of it all, knowing even then that it didn't add up, but still accepting the urge to know something more about it. Now when I look back forty-eight years later, I see that what spoke to me then was the odd discovery of the simple <em>fact</em> of this place, coupled with the unknowable reasons for its being there, plus -- of most significance to me -- that I had the curiosity to stop and act on an impulse, to say yes to it, even though its meaning was unclear."</p>

<p>Forty-eight years ago, he took this picture. For forty-eight years, he could not throw it out. Today, he is telling me that it's worthy of being in amongst his collected works, and, because, for forty-eight years, he has believed in this image, here I sit reading his caption and thinking about this picture -- that I would not otherwise have looked at for two seconds. Out of the two billion images per second being made, presented, posted, chatted about in the world today, I'm looking and thinking about, for a long time THIS picture. It's part of Meyerowitz's performance, part of any/every "serious" photographer's performance, to know/believe and to keep on knowing/believing for forty-eight years -- in what he's doing, however he's doing it -- more or less without end. The *full* performance includes the forty-eight-year-long-and-counting, bone-deep <em>urgency</em> of belief in what you are doing and what you have done.</p>

<p>Julie, thanks.</p>

<p>It brings to mind that part of "performance" and certainly a big part of photography is presentation, not only the presentation of photographs but the simultaneous presentation of oneself. </p>

<p>Had you come across this Meyerowitz photo on your own, as you suggest, you would likely have passed it by quickly. But its presentation to you, by the photographer (and it could have been by a curator, or a book publisher, or a friend advocate, etc.), had an impact. That's so important to consider and it's where I differ from (though understand) what Michael Chang said above about modes of presentation having "nothing to do with photography." To be fair, as I said, I understand what Michael is saying and we surely can talk about photographs and talk about modes of presentation as distinct things. But, as I experience it, you don't get a photo without some sort of presentation, even if it's looking at the negative alone in your darkroom. You can't see the print without some sort of lighting and that lighting impacts what you see. So it's not as if there is some ideal or generic print <em>sans</em> lighting. The lighting will always present the photo and the photo will always be tied to and influenced by that presentation. In that sense, presentation is part of each photo.</p>

<p>So, we have various aspects of presentation, from the physical location to the lighting to the size, etc. to the words or actions of the photographer relative to his photos.</p>

<p>Just the other day, as I am finalizing the details of my show, I was telling a friend that a few things were making me feel a little self conscious, that it was so much a "me" event (even as I know how much the subjects of my photos are so much a part of this endeavor and the viewers will be as well). He simply said to me, "Of course, what else could it be?" I mean, it's my studio, my photos, I'm doing the framing, the curating, the hanging, and with the guidance and handiwork of a devoted friend, the lighting, and the design. I've designed and sent out the invitations, all impacting very much people's impressions even before they've seen the show. </p>

<p>So, yes, I do believe and that belief pushes me forward even while it constantly causes me to question. The questions, the second-guessing, are all guided by a sort of core belief in what I'm doing. Whatever uncertainties I have are supported by that knowledge that I'm where I'm supposed to be . . . and will be somewhere else tomorrow.</p>

<p>It's funny, with much less experience than Meyerowitz, I'm also at a different point, one where I pretty much know in my heart that there are photos in this show that won't stay with me for the next few decades. And, even if all the photos stay in my top tier, I expect that many of these prints will become anachronisms as I develop my printing skills. So there's the knowing of what will stay with us and the knowing that much is also transient.</p>

<p>The example of Julie (the 40 some year experience of Joel. M. living with a photo and believing in it) and the comments of Fred are I think very appropriate to the topic. Believing in one's work and re-evaluating it with time, with increased or decreased appreciation, is part of it, and sometimes the desire to make other prints from the original negative or digital capture.</p>

<p>While important, we shouldn't take all viewer reactions as major benchmarks in our own ongoing evaluation of our work. I have two early images that I made in the mid to late 1980s, in my first decade of photography. Each received little attention of the then viewers and judges at camera salons I once participated in, but which I felt particularly connected to and which have stayed among my preferred photos of my own work. I may change my mind about them in time as I develop my approach (one has since been reprinted with different tonality and some masking of selected parts of the image, whereas the other is more fixed, as it required 16 exposures under the enlarger, moving the easel with most of those exposures in order to place a violin in different positions over a sky image. I have copied it with a film camera and print it larger or smaller). The two were, by some chance, selected among only four amateur photographs that went into a retrospective 1839-1989 book of photographs (150 years of photography, "The magic of the image" - in French), international in scope but heavily Canadian, that was published by a Canadian photo magazine editor and two historians. This was not a major event, but it did help to reinforce my belief that I could occasionally interest other viewers and maybe there was something in my view of the world around me that I should pursue.</p>

<p>Like Fred says, there are images that we leave aside, as we may see them later in a different light and decide they do not meet that approach. But they and our more successful images are all part of the performance, nonetheless, and perhaps just as important for each of our future developments. I wish Fred much pleasure and reward in his upcoming exhibition and perhaps some Photo.Net readers will be fortunate enough to be close to the venue. <br>

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<p>Late to this party, in agreement with much of what's already been said. Back when I was making my own prints, I soon noticed the way I printed the same negatives varied, even while looking at a reference print. One goes into a print with a trait aspect of aesthetics, experience, intention, etc. and a state aspect of where one is in the moment. Sometimes I felt more than one interpretation of a print to be perfectly valid and picking one to be an artifice of convention.</p>

<p>When I began to work in color and later commercially, the printing got farmed out to labs where I knew or got to know the printer. Someone who prints eight hours a day is going to print better than me. Strangely, what initially appeared as an obstacle, collaborating with someone else in printing turned out to be a positive in the sense that it forced me to think more about decisions in the process, what and why I wanted them to look like. Recently I had thirteen 30x40" prints made for a group show which was funded by a grant. This involved going through a new (to me) printer. This young guy was very good as a printer and photographer. He told me that he thinks he prints other people's work better than his own.</p>

<p>On the pre/visualization vs. photographing to see what it will look like photographed, I vary widely, but lean towards the pre- side when photographing set-ups, much less so in fluid situations. <br>

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Something is pushing and/or pulling us forward. I'm not so sure that it is the same thing for everyone. </p>

 

<p>Fred - Your use of "performance" really helps to underscore how important it is to view a photograph as more than just an object fixed in space/time. It is more of an activity or a process. Just as a different lab may produce a print that varies from prints done by other labs, a photographer may modify the postprocessing of an image so as to create a totally different feel, mood, or story.</p>

<p>Fascinating topic. Thanks for posting it.</p>