Photographic Statement and Purpose

[Julie H]

<p>Luis said, "... the "statement" is an ur- conceptual and visual <em>kernel</em> around which many other things accrete (and erode), and it goes much further, functioning as an analog to messenger RNA, guiding, building, informing the work as it grows."</p>

<p>Wrong.*</p>

<p>The statement is never "in" the work. It is always outside of, not a part of, the work. When Luis or Fred or Phylo or Anders or JohnA formulate a statement, no work appears; no pools or men or whatever. A statement is not the sand around which a pearl forms or the dust that precipitates the rain. It's not that primal shiver that generated matter out of the void.</p>

<p>The statement (I use "rule" but everybody has hissy-fits when I do, so I'll use "statement") is a cage, a detector; it's the means necessary to get stuff to be present to you whether it be cats (as in herding), birds or neutrinos -- whatever your statement encircles.</p>

<p>I have never made any picture anywhere at any time that did not originate from the rudiments of a statement to myself. But my statements are not "in" the work. The cats do what they will within the cage that I use to catch them (the neutrinos usually get away).</p>

<p>[*<em>Ah, the joy of being able to say "Wrong" to Luis first thing in the morning</em>.]</p>

[AJHingel]

<p>Reading you Julie, when you refer to "the sand around which a pearl forms" where the sand is surely in the pearl , why should "the means necessary to get stuff to be present to you" not equally be in the "stuff"? Your statement is <strong>in</strong> your work by your own definition, as far as I can read.</p>

<p>In both cases you refer to what I would maybe call the "Initial statement" or the "ur statement" ("ur" meaning : "you are"), which answer the "why" a photo came to be. But why should that statement not be "in" the work? Why refer, at all, to this initial statement if it is not connected to and "in" the work? For me it always is, because photography is a human act.<br>

What I at least talk about is the statement conveyed or intended to be conveyed to the viewer. Such a statement is surely "in" the work - or the work is failed, which might often be the case, I admit. Statements such as, in ultra short versions: "There is suffering!"; "Alienation is daily urban reality"; "Embezzling reality", "Beauty is decivious" etc. etc</p>

[fate_faith_change_chains]

<blockquote>

<p>When Luis or Fred or Phylo or Anders or JohnA formulate a statement, no work appears; no pools or men or whatever. A statement is not the sand around which a pearl forms or the dust that precipitates the rain. It's not that primal shiver that generated matter out of the void.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>The pearl is in the statement, rather than that the statement is in the pearl, or, the statement "in" a pearl is the pearl in the statement.<br /> A photograph of the pearl is neither the pearl nor its statement, but the sand around the pearl, formed by the photographer's statement, which is "in" the photograph-as-statement. Or not ?!</p>

[fate_faith_change_chains]

<p>In Fred's description of why he photograph's the subjects he photograph's, he has given his motives. The photographs are a statement of those motives.<br /> Just like I was decribing the motives for wanting to photograph the bridge scene that I mentioned. The statement is the ( to me ) best possible photograph of that scene, whether or not that photograph tells a statement.<br /> <br /> What also happens, is that I make pictures and afterwards look for a motif in them, by which to make a statement with.</p>

[luis_g]

<p><strong>JH - "</strong>[*<em>Ah, the joy of being able to say "Wrong" to Luis first thing in the morning</em>.]"</p>

<p>...and the joy it brings to read it... now I know I wasn't kidnapped by aliens last night. My idea of the conceptual part of the 'statement' dovetails more or less with Julie's. So, there's zero visual encoding/manifestations of your inner statements in the work? If so, why bother with them at all?</p>

<p>One thing we could agree on, and then only to a degree, is that for many of us, Julie included, the 'statement' precedes the work, and if it's not too much to suggest, has a causal relationship of some kind to it.</p>

<p><strong>JH - "</strong>I have never made any picture anywhere at any time that did not originate from the rudiments of a statement to myself."</p>

<p>"Originate" is the operant word there. So by saying that there's zero manifestation of the statement in the picture, those origins are then disconnected, excised, left behind, (?) when you make the picture?</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p>Ross, I looked up chronicle and got this definition: <em>"An extended account in prose or verse of historical events, sometimes including legendary material, presented in chronological order and without authorial interpretation or comment."</em> Obviously, it should have included pictures! I was surprised to see the last phrase included, "without authorial interpretation or comment." When I read your post, I immediately thought of a diary, which would be somewhat more personal. I'm curious, do you feel more removed when you're taking these pictures, as if it is as objective as the word "chronicle" as defined implies, or is it more like a personal diary? Either way, taking pictures of one's family and life is probably one of the most significant uses of a camera. Thanks.</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p>Phylo, it sounds like you're taking a pretty grounded approach, kind of doing what's in front of you, yet still incorporating a kind of "discovery" motive you've developed over time. (?) Sometimes, <em>trying</em> to do something "more" gets us a lot less. One of my best shoots came on a day when I set out to experiment with a combination of flash and movement. Something Luis said seemed especially at play that day: <em>"the work has a way of telling you where it wants to go."</em> While I was being practical, I seemed more open to listening.</p>

<p>I think that can also relate to your approach of "dead pan neutrality" without losing your already somewhat ingrained ability to include subjectivity. It might lead to a personal yet not self-conscious approach. Or maybe even more like the very objective reading of an account by someone whose voice is very distinctive and seductive.</p>

<p>I was in Leuven (Flemish part of Belgium) a couple of years ago to get a Dutch friend's son settled in the dorms there and I remember at first thinking what an un-exotic place it seemed to be and that if I had the time to take pictures (which I didn't), I would go for the unassuming aspects of it. Then we took a walk to the town square, and that big ol' <a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bc/Leuven_Stadhuis.jpg">town hall</a> kind of smacked me in the tourist face. Mesmerizing building and iconic in its own way but I imagine not in the way you're seeing right now.</p>

<p>I love your idea about limits. I'm suspicious of claims of absolute or even radical freedom and I think it is often our willingness to be in touch with and even create limits that sets us free. </p>

<p>Phylo, you also bring up something important in talking about your seeing two photographs this morning. I think there's a big difference between taking a picture of a scene and seeing a scene as a (future) photograph. You're seeing possibility and, perhaps, even artifice. That may make it all the more real in the end. And they may help you in accomplishing one of your goals: <em>"to make that strictly visual in the photograph </em>as much<em> the statement as the statement which the visual is used for to express."</em></p>

<p>And I like your very last line above: <em>"I make pictures and afterwards look for a motif in them, by which to make a statement with."</em> It strikes me that's a kind of dialogue (which may capture what I'm talking about better than the word "statement." Again, going back to what Luis said, the work tells you where to go. My own experience has been, as I said in my OP, that it was when I opened myself up to a different kind of exploration, somewhat unformulated, that a statement started congealing. Now, I play back and forth with that and it plays with me. I develop the statement but I'm more attuned to listening to what my photos and subjects are telling me.</p>

[fate_faith_change_chains]

<blockquote>

<p>One thing we could agree on, and then only to a degree, is that for many of us, Julie included, the 'statement' precedes the work, and if it's not too much to suggest, has a causal relationship of some kind to it. - Luis</p>

</blockquote>

<p>I'm beginning to view it now as the photographs <em>being</em> the statement, with a motive preceding the photographs or statement. I have many photographs that were not made without a motive but certainly without a motif, which was only to be revealed afterwards, to propel the statement or work with.</p>

<p>I think there's this *thing* between motive and motif and the statement being the work that is derived from both.</p>

<p> </p>

[john_a5]

<p>Fred, I got the sense from some of the opening volleys here that you were talking about trying to define the work in a statement that you could then discuss with others--like a sort of validation that what you think you are doing, your statement about a piece, is what the others are seeing as well. Something more specific--and maybe more defining of a specific image and what it was specifically about, although you did add group to that. Did I misunderstand you? The current dialogue here all seems to go back to the "artist statement" sort of mode or framework or making sense of the work in that way.</p>

 

[luis_g]

<p><strong>ross b. - "</strong>What I do is take pictures of my family, friends, our lives and the places we go and see. It's a chronicle of our lives. It will not be a book, a show or anything. Just photos in albums, and pictrures in my home."</p>

<p>I suggest there's at least one implicit statement in family snaps: An obvious affirmation of life.</p>

<p> </p>

[john_a5]

<blockquote>

<p>The term "photographic statements" is poor and much too general, like "written statements".<br />"Statements" (an expression of a view, a declaration) is inherent in any photography, if it is not done by robotics. They are the very reason why the shot what shot and shown, instead of another shot, no shot at all or ending up in bin.- Anders</p>

</blockquote>

<p>I don't know about this one, except maybe in a very loose way. Do photographs really have to make any statement? Do they really have to express some viewpoint other than a visual? Can't they ask questions or even ask questions without subject or answers? Is that a statement per se?</p>

<p>Certainly, I have to decide which images of that sort to show or choose which ones might fit what I am after, but is that a statement or just an offering. To me "statement" is something more limited and the reason I suggest that an artist statement should be more a pointing in a direction, not a map of the route. I might have some work that is more pointed towards a specific point or statement, but I don't think that is necessary in all work.</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p>Luis, thanks for your "kernel" description!</p>

<p>Are their specific photographic maneuvers you made to highlight or show the "sham" part of the ponds? I can imagine approaching them photographically in a mundane manner, my I imagine communicating "sham" is a bit more of a challenge. I also think one can (and maybe this applies to your pond series) be motivated by something (e.g., the sham of the ponds) without necessarily wanting to show it or winding up showing that. </p>

<p>Anders/Luis, I read something you've each said as counterpoints to each other. Luis talked about an overriding thread running through it and also the statement/kernel for a given work. Anders talked about the "grand statement." Such a grand statement would be hard to put in a photograph (if it were even desired) but photos could help, along with many of the other things Anders mentioned, add up to a grand statement.</p>

<p>I also think <em>trying</em> to make grand statements can be a trap (which is not what I think Anders is doing) and can lead away from what Phylo seems to be trying to do, which is to put one foot in front of the other. Many conscious grand statements are self-conscious and often seem to miss point. When, on the other hand, they are built out of a number of more specific, smaller statements, they can have an awesome kind of presence and power.</p>

<p>Luis, I do think the relationship of statement to photo is causal to an extent, but as you also said above (<em>"the work has a way of telling you where it wants to go"</em>) the work itself starts to have a causal relationship on itself, or at least on you, the maker. Yes?</p>

<p>Anders, I can see why you would say that any photograph makes a statement, and on one level perhaps they do, but I approach that differently. I think so many photographs just seem to be incoherent captures. Sometimes, that's a plus, a gem. More often, not.</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p>John A, no. I wasn't looking for validation at all. I was talking about defining and being able to explain my motivations for taking photos. I was and am talking about having motivations that I can explain to myself. I was trying to share those motivations with you guys and was asking you guys to share your motivations with me, in fairly specific terms. Not so they could justify the work or accompany the work or stand on their own as an exercise in writing, but so they could help solidify in our own minds what the heck we're doing and why we might be doing it, as opposed to, say, wandering around aimlessly (which can certainly be part of any more directed or intentional work and certainly can be a way to work in itself). And, perhaps even more importantly, and maybe at some later time, we could talk more about how we actually photographically accomplish what we set out to do, what it actually looks like. The question is, does your work, or do your individual works and series have a purpose that you can talk about? Do you have specific aims?</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p>Julie, I ask you the same question. Does your work, or do your individual works and series have a purpose that you can talk about? Do you have specific aims? How do you go about accomplishing them?</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p>John, I just read your response to Anders and agree. No, I don't think they have to make statements. I was asking if yours do. I think many of mine do. And, yes, I think a question is very much a statement. That may not be so in grammar class, of course. But I'd be very interested in a photographer who was trying to ask a question with his photos. I would probably be dissatisfied with an answer such as, "I'm asking what life is all about." Of course, that would depend on the context and the person and whether I sensed they were just trying to be evasive and whether I also sensed that their photos leaned toward the incoherent. But if I sensed a photographer asking why, for example, we're defiling the environment or how does it feel to work in an office day after day, that's the kind of thing I'm talking about.</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p>Phylo, I like this quote:</p>

<p><em>"If there is something in a picture that you cannot explain, it's a sign that there is something interesting "</em></p>

<p>I was originally wondering, I guess, about not quite the opposite of that but maybe a corollary to it:</p>

<p>Is there something in your pictures that you <em>can</em> explain?</p>

[fate_faith_change_chains]

<blockquote>

<p>Phylo, it sounds like you're taking a pretty grounded approach, kind of doing what's in front of you, yet still incorporating a kind of "discovery" motive you've developed over time. (?) Sometimes, <em>trying</em> to do something "more" gets us a lot less. <br /> ....<br /> I think that can also relate to your approach of "dead pan neutrality" without losing your already somewhat ingrained ability to include subjectivity. It might lead to a personal yet not self-conscious approach. <br /> ....<br /> Then we took a walk to the town square, and that big ol' <a rel="nofollow" href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bc/Leuven_Stadhuis.jpg" target="_blank">town hall</a> kind of smacked me in the tourist face. Mesmerizing building and iconic in its own way but I imagine not in the way you're seeing right now.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Fred, yes. Where I'm coming from with this "dead pan neutrality" is the photographic subject aesthetic found in Stephen Shore's work for example and in other photographers in that realm, Atget of course too --- ( I see it also in many of John A's excellent photographs ). I find that this on the one hand dead pan neutrality gives room to such a rich photographic expressiveness, yet witout being excessive.</p>

<p>I would love to travel a whole year throughout the U.S. and photograph and experience such "banal" scenes in my own way. Maybe a month or so next year. But then I also realised that from my perspective such Americana - vibrating and oozing in all of its dead pan'ness - is much like your experience when you saw that town hall in Leuven, and much lesser 'dead pan' for me as a subject and photographic investigation as it must have been for those photographers like Stephen Shore, Robert Adams' et all ( or you ), who are operating from within their own cultural visual environment already and to whom such subjects are much less - if at all - inherently "exotic" than they are to me.</p>

<p>So I figured that if I'm <em>really</em> serious about this visual objective neutrality, that I must find and record it in my own environment first, which from my perspective afterall <em>is</em> banal by the fact that we get somewhat desensitized to our own daily environments.<br /> It will proof a greater challenge - a more authentic one - for me to pierce through that banal'ness and find the photographic richness behind it, much like the photographers in and from the U.S. worked in that way from their perspective, visually and culturally.</p>

<p>This is not at all to say that I want to erase my personal subjectivity or 'inner'ness' in photography, but, that is already more ingrained and established, while the other side of that - letting the immediate outside world come in, rather than the inside world go out - much less in comparison, and in someway I want the work to express a balance between the two, yet as one single vision or statement.</p>

<p>But so far, that has been mostly a model or a construct in my mind, : /.</p>

[john_a5]

<p>Validation is probably a too loaded word, but I was suggesting from your comments that you had a group of individuals that you maybe "tested" your intent to see if it was communicated. It was these words, from two separate entries that got me there:</p>

 

<blockquote>

<p>We can understand the inadequacy of words but I don't want to rely on that inadequacy to be non-committal when I'm discussing my work and intentions with other photographers.<br /><br />I think a lot of things we might say about our own work and we might say in reaction to another's work can close doors. But I think it's better to get it all out on the table and then look at it all than to be overly cautious about looking at it out loud, as it were.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>But as to your point, I know that I have different ways of working and that I can shift between them in some cases.</p>

<p>I don't think there is any question that what I show has some meaning or purpose behind it. As I said earler, all of my series have statements attached to them. But I also think most of it works on many levels, not all will I openly discuss in that way. I know what they mean to me on some level, but I know that they also have some unanswered questions to them as well or I probably wouldn't be showing them.</p>

<p>But I don't necessarily work with much of any definition or hard statement about what I am doing when I am doing it. I sort of trust that the work will uncover itself and I don't have an interest in forcing any overlay to it. In this way, I find that what I thought I was working on can turn into something else or splinter into different things. That my own discovery and investigations grow this way. Then, when I put a group of work together in the series, it has more complexity to it--hopefully--than that which might be discussed in a statement about it.</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p>John, thanks for that response. As I said, I was curious to hear how people work and think.</p>

<p>BTW, as I said quite a bit earlier, there was an early misunderstanding which I take some responsibility for. Be assured, I wasn't trying to validate or test my intent to see if it was communicated. I was stating my intent to share the fact that I had one. I wanted to see if others had such kinds of intents that they could articulate and if they considered their photos themselves, at least in part, statements they were making. The reason I showed my work is because I think examples sometimes help. I wanted to show what I think photos that make statements look like.</p>

[fate_faith_change_chains]

<blockquote>

<p>Is there something in your pictures that you <em>can</em> explain?<br /> The question is, does your work, or do your individual works and series have a purpose that you can talk about? Do you have specific aims?</p>

</blockquote>

<p>So far I tried to just let it flow. But without being too specific, because that would defeat the purpose of the photography itself as a way of communication, both to myself and to a viewer, I want the work, series, or individual photographs,...to be some sorts of a dialogue between the dark(er) and the light(er). Between the vague and the specific.<br /> But there's no real purpose to that, other than wanting to know, experience and investigate reality and life itself. Photography is just a vehicle to that, a possible alibi to go a bit further than without it.</p>

[AJHingel]

<blockquote>

<p>I think so many photographs just seem to be incoherent captures. Sometimes, that's a plus, a gem. More often, not.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>I'm more modest. I see the same but would normally just conclude that I don't see the coherence and problzbly because I don't know the person or don't care enough.<br>

Coherence is obviously easy to achieve if you only shoot steam-engines, shot front-wise in sunshine, but that is not what "statements "are about. Statements, at least if the term should be of interest, is the inner message of what ever subject/object matter being shot.</p>

[jtk]

<p>Phylo, your coherence and clarity are predictable. Evidently not universally appreciated traits :-)</p>

<p>Using photos to look for "motifs in them" is something many of us do, and perhaps that does lead to creditable statements. On the other hand, once one finds a "motif," does that facilitate further explorations or might it make one static? "I am a railroad photographer" or "I photograph irony" or "I photograph environmental crises."</p>

<p>Your "sand around the pearl" metaphor is challenging and new (to me). Not the same as saying the photograph and the pearl are "equivalents." It sounds like you wonder if the photograph may be less than the pearl, mere sand. I think most "fine" photographs are like that, claiming to be "art" sometimes but actually remaing windows to their subjects...the "photograph of whatever" syndrome. Nan Goldin does that without embarassment, but also questions the "art" aspect.</p>

<p> </p>

[dennis_campbell]

<p>am first time to forum and what caught my attention was the statement of purpose....have been mentored by a couple of people who are commercially successful in their work and they have taught and directed me along the tech. path.....so now i have the "best brushes to paint good pictures" nikon d3 and suitable lenes........as knowledge grows so does the question what am i saying with all this.......have looked and read about bresson adams lang and get what they are saying but formulating my own has escaped me .......its as if when i shoot its just what catches my eye at the moment ....and i dont find any great connection of substance in them.......... to have some meaningful contribution to those who view my work is important .......pretty is nice but not a reflection of the times we live in or direction to be courted .....it scares me silly to think that i may be one of the many with no purpose to my images except as a hobby to keep time with.... perhaps im overlooking the obvious ....but it feels more like i dont know where to start.........any / all input will be greatly appreciated ..........<br>

thanks<br>

dennis </p><div></div>

[dennis_campbell]

<p>am first time to forum and what caught my attention was the statement of purpose....have been mentored by a couple of people who are commercially successful in their work and they have taught and directed me along the tech. path.....so now i have the "best brushes to paint good pictures" nikon d3 and suitable lenes........as knowledge grows so does the question what am i saying with all this.......have looked and read about bresson adams lang and get what they are saying but formulating my own has escaped me .......its as if when i shoot its just what catches my eye at the moment ....and i dont find any great connection of substance in them.......... to have some meaningful contribution to those who view my work is important .......pretty is nice but not a reflection of the times we live in or direction to be courted .....it scares me silly to think that i may be one of the many with no purpose to my images except as a hobby to keep time with.... perhaps im overlooking the obvious ....but it feels more like i dont know where to start.........any / all input will be greatly appreciated ..........<br>

thanks<br>

dennis </p>

[dennis_campbell]

<p>am first time to forum and what caught my attention was the statement of purpose....have been mentored by a couple of people who are commercially successful in their work and they have taught and directed me along the tech. path.....so now i have the "best brushes to paint good pictures" nikon d3 and suitable lenes........as knowledge grows so does the question what am i saying with all this.......have looked and read about bresson adams lang and get what they are saying but formulating my own has escaped me .......its as if when i shoot its just what catches my eye at the moment ....and i dont find any great connection of substance in them.......... to have some meaningful contribution to those who view my work is important .......pretty is nice but not a reflection of the times we live in or direction to be courted .....it scares me silly to think that i may be one of the many with no purpose to my images except as a hobby to keep time with.... perhaps im overlooking the obvious ....but it feels more like i dont know where to start.........any / all input will be greatly appreciated ..........<br>

thanks<br>

dennis </p>