Does your online Gallery reflect you?

[jtk]

I think mine reflects me... perhaps even does it well.

 

Might be illusory: three obvious antique images aren't "mine" but speak to me,

while "my own" go back to 69' (but then, so do I).

 

My P.N Gallery seems to be nudging me forward...maybe it hints who I'm becoming,

as much as reflecting who I "am" or "have been."

 

If you have an online gallery or portfolio or a website, do you think it reflect

you?

 

If you don't have an online gallery, are you afraid? Fear had something to do

with my resistance for a few years.

[phule]

Didn't you already ask this question?

 

http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=00MPtt

 

:)

[jtk]

Times change Rob. That was August. Sometimes, and for some people, things change, even grow...that's my experience.

 

Did you contribute back then?

[don_e]

No. I want a photo to "reflect" the subject. I think some of them do.

[timkeller]

The photo does reflect the subject, but the selection of subject and handling of the image

reflect the photographer/artist. And then, yes John, the portfolio does represent the

photographer/artist...whether or not he or she acknowledges that.

[bruce levy]

Mine reflects the guy who lives down the block.

[Norma Desmond]

I'd say my portfolio reflects me more and more as I grow as a photographer. Early on, I

think it

reflected the image I was comfortable with portraying and the me that most people knew

and expected. That can be seen in my HOLDS folder, which has most of my early stuff

buried from view unless you go directly to the folder through my bio page. Now, I think

the portfolio reflects more of the me I've kept hidden, perhaps

a bit darker, perhaps less controlled than previously.

 

I think one has to do a fair amount of extrapolition when determining in what ways a

portfolio or a photo reflects its author. Often, there won't be a one-to-one

correspondence. Emotional and reflective nuance and relationships are often so visually

obvious.

Symbolism and significance (sorry) are not always as straightforward as the train going

through the tunnel.

 

From what I've read of you, John, I get the feeling that your portfolio reflects you. Two

things that strike me primarily are a quite refreshing and welcome straightforwardness

and directness and an attachment to friends and family. Perhaps someone

photographically stuck a bit in the past (but your newer works are few), perhaps simply

someone nostalgic. The store window shots, mundane, and perhaps self-consciously so.

 

An interesting additional consideration might be to what extent we've manipulated our

portfolios to reflect ourselves in a particular way.

[don_e]

Tim, maybe in Casual Conversations, but not Philosophy of Photography.

[constance_cook]

No, I don't have an online gallery. And no, it's not fear. I just have no interest in what others think of my photographs. If I want someone to see them, they do. The further I progress and the better my work is, the less I feel any reason to show it to anyone.

 

I need not share everything I do in life. Not sharing is a choice I make because that's the way I want it. I am very confident and fear isn't a part of my life.

 

Conni

[bobtodrick]

John, I think it is relevant to re-ask this question over time.

 

About 3 months ago I deleted my PN gallery...the images were all of the 'past me' (see: http://www.artists-society.ab.ca/artists/default.aspx?id=2232)

 

The images here (and in my old PN gallery) were all taken between '98 and '05. But after the death of my father in the summer of '05 my outlook on my photography took a dramatic change. After taking photographs for 25 years I could come up with a total of about 10 images I'd made of my father.

 

Parents...you just always think they're going to be around.

 

Anyways, as much fun as photographing beautiful naked young women was I realized my photography could be so much more. A visual history of myself, my children (I have two very active young boys, 4 and 6 yrs) and my surroundings. In 30 years I'm sure these will be much more precious to my descendants than dated images of naked people.

[jtk]

Constance... I think you're saying it's the absence of Gallery itself, that reflects you. You also seem to say people who post Galleries aren't as far along as you are, that you're too good for Galleries. What am I missing?

 

Don ...you seem to assert very strongly that your photos don't reflect you, perhaps even that you don't like the question...does your Gallery say nothing at all about you, only about your subjects?

 

Bruce..the topic appears to have made you anxious...maybe that's not a proper inference...what does your post mean?

 

Fred, you're right, I'm "stuck a bit in the past." I do think that has to do with appreciating my civilization, and that the alternative is alzheimer-like. Yes I'm inclined toward history, nostalgia if you like...though I find it integrated with the present and assume it will continue pungently into the future. Maybe that is "stuck." Live fast, die young, rust never sleeps etc. Happily, I never middle-aged in the suburbs :-)

 

Tim, Some of us persist in types of images that pile up and bury us: For years I did little but decorative graphic-inspired images, for example. Made my living in advertising photography and graphics back then. My Gallery avoids representative images from that period ..I'm increasingly interested in chaos, and maybe even in portents...

[don_e]

"Don ...you seem to assert very strongly that your photos don't reflect you, perhaps even that you don't like the question...does your Gallery say nothing at all about you, only about your subjects?"

 

They aren't intended to reflect (or represent) me. They are intended to reflect (or represent) the subject, which, broadly speaking is the light at that moment. I don't dislike the question. I think it is worth discussing. What I dislike is the dismissal of the aesthetic.

 

In the most casual way, of course, they reflect (whatever it means) me. I took them. I was there, not elsewhere. I took that, not that. I took it then, not earlier or later.

[jtk]

Don...I plead guilty to "dismissing" certain aesthetics. Are you referring to that?

 

When I compliment someone it is almost always with specifics, and it's always well-considered. For example, I like your images of habitations because you're paying attention to things that others have missed, and you're not cynical. Does that reflect you or an aesthetic that you objectively control?

 

I didn't mean to address "intentions" but I can see how that relates. Picking from years of photos for Gallery is unavoidably intentional, of course...I think of Gallery as a way of seeing what I'm doing, like photos spread out for review...as well to establish my credibility or lack thereof as a person who obsessively posts: an attempt at honesty :-)

[jonk]

I've found that what I select for the gallery has helped define what I photograph: Since this is an international forum, how I interpret the Mid-West for people not familiar with it seems interesting and useful.

[GerrySiegel]

I would find it hard not to show at least some pictures when I am participating in a photo web site. I never take it as any more than a surface picture of who I am. I hope it establishes, or suggests, a bare minimum of basic knowledge of the medium with which I work. Maybe it says this guy has a taste for this,and not that.

As for the what have you done lately that shows the shift in subject matter, I don't think that is relevant to the "self portrait" unless

you choose to make it relevant,Bob.

 

As to currency of themes, in our society I can hear a gallery dealer saying: "Hey Vincent,enough with the haystacks. Let's get experimenal,my man..:-)"

I have a budding idea for a comic photo series of self portraits,not giving away the idea, but I need a mirror or TV monitor arrangement and I haven't figured it out yet. The juices still flow is all!. Love digital. Like to stand behind a tripod and direct someone to reveal selves,if I can. And thus reveal a little of me I suppose.

[bobtodrick]

My own personal opinion...to say ones photos do not reflect the self is delusional...even to say "they don't reflect me at all...only my subjects" in my opinion (really stretching the philisophical here) strongly reflects the selfs wish to remain anonymous, to be a voyeur.

 

I think the only photographers who can truly not reflect themselves would be the BORG ;-)

[don_e]

John, I am cheered you find some of my photos to be without cynicism. If there were cynicism or any other "attitude" in them, the subject would have been defaced, used and abused by me. I'm not that sort of person.

[don_e]

John, why ask the question? Do you want "reflect" to be taken as a philosophical term, or as a term in pop psychology? As the OP, can you let pass the equating of "reflect" and "represent" without questioning it?

 

You avoid posting "representative images" from your career in advertising photography. Why is that? You are interested in chaos and portents, instead. What is it about advertising photography? Can't it "represent" chaos and portent? And isn't it art to do so? And wouldn't that "reflect" you?

 

Perhaps chaos and portent are just the way things are outside the controlled photographic environments, outside of cliche, and genre, outside of making it happen. With impact.

[GerrySiegel]

John, I like to think that a member's portfolio reflects their taste and dignity, respecting the artistic nature of our mutual goals. Our real selves are better kept vague,or indistinct. They might wind up in some scandal rag and spoil our political viability one day. After all, everybody gets a little too much egg nog once in a while. Or maybe we ar all multi headed creatures, and show the side we want to show. Me,I am half Ukrainian and half Austrian. Some days the Ukrainian part takes over,to wit:<div></div>

[mrstubbs]

Mine simply reflects a current taste of raters. I know this because I generally delete low rated images. This, in the end, will give me some indication of what p.net raters decide is their favoured image or style...at the time. That will change...as we do.

 

Photo net is like any book. There may appear a lot of tripe..including mine ...but occasionally ..a gem, an image, a paragraph...and I learn something. If I learn, the journey is generally worthwhile.

[timzeipekis]

I like to think of my gallery as a public visual diary of my journey of self discovery. I'm still trying to find my niche in this medium and all of you get to play a part.

[johnw436]

My PN gallery is crap. I put zero effort into it and can't remember the last time I looked at it. I use Picasa for all my stuff and that's where my effort goes. I do not present photos for critique anymore and don't often rate others' work.

 

I'm just here for the forums.

[mrstubbs]

I hope your model didn't hear you say that John!

 

http://www.photo.net/photo/3002775

[DickArnold]

No it doesn't. It does only partially. I will not put the human pictures I have done. I was paid for most of them either from a newspaper, a wedding, a portrait, or old aviation colleagues. The best work I have done is faces. I will not post them out of respect for customer privacy, the privacy of my colleagues and the fact the newspaper pictures are gone. What it does reflect is a little of a forty-one year aviation background, my interest in New England, a very small piece of my Russian experience and my cat(she gave me a release). I put pictures up not because I think they are great pictures but rather because one of them might be interesting to somebody. They are all my pictures and all fairly current except a few pictures taken in Russia in the early nineties. As for an example of something that may interest, I put up a pictures of a B2 bomber. It is it's own polarizer as nothing reflects directly off it and it photographed as just a black shape in certain light. I thought Darth Vader might step out of it. As an old, not bold, pilot anything that flies interests me whether it's airplane pictures or birds. I love capturing things on the wing. I have lots of airplane slides but I need a scanner. But above all I love to capture what's inside a human being and put it on a print, even if only to a very small degree. I have done quite well with this aspect of my endeavor but it is one that I won't post. It wouldn't be faithful to the trust I had built with my customers and subjects of the years. I only have about thirty pictures posted and generally will post when I have something that I think, as I said, would be interesting to someone else.

[jtk]

Don ...Thanks, hard questions. I don't identify with my advertising work. Whatever that means. I'll scan and post the goofy shot a food stylist and I put together the day John Lennon was killed. I played mandolin into the wee hours. To her credit, the stylist and I never did have sex.

 

"Perhaps chaos and portent are just the way things are outside the controlled photographic environments, outside of cliche, and genre, outside of making it happen. With impact." - Don E.

 

OK..with a qualification: We're gods. We do make things happen. Buddha wasn't enlightened enough to know that about himself.

 

As to "reflect," I used it the way a novelist does. I do sometimes talk simplistic, beatnik zen, but pop psych strikes me as poison: I relish paradox and hate answers.