I am Spirit, formless and free;

[Allen Herbert]

<p>" Are blind people spiritless? What path do they walk since they can't photograph or even see to record their world around them? Can they still be curious? Ha! There's the connection! They can!" Tim.</p>

<p>Why would they be spiritless? eye sight is just one sense among others. Do you need eyes to feel the wind?</p>

<p>" The awake and wondering eye of curiosity is inextricably tied to photography". Tim.</p>

<p>Indeed.</p>

[Allen Herbert]

<p>"Allen, neither of the two (in a black and white all inclusive sense) I think, yet something in between the nature". Arthur.</p>

<p>But can we escape from black and white and paint the imagination with colour?</p>

[Allen Herbert]

<p>"There is no path, there are cycles, small ones enclosed in larger ones". Thomas.</p>

<p>Endless cycles without an escape?</p>

[Allen Herbert]

<p>"Freedom from spiritualising, vaporising, flights of fancy. The photographs I make are reassuringly parts of the real world. They are a refuge from an overload of fictions plausible and implausible".</p>

<p>A path you follow which offers many opportunities and enjoyment...I understand.</p>

<p>But just sometime, just sometimes...would it be, perhaps looking around a corner to another place and being a explorer of different worlds. Would that not spike your imagination? </p>

[Allen Herbert]

<p>"Even though I'm guilty of it in the example posted above, I try to make all of my digital manipulations very explicit".</p>

<p>Why? its about the impact of the image.....why would the technical stuff matter? Your images fascinate me in the sense I've never been to that place....</p>

<p>I am Spirit, formless and free....and am able to travel to other worlds of photography.</p>

[Allen Herbert]

<p>"I see art as an adventurous journey, where all the answers don't have to be known. The taking of the photo is just the beginning of that journey of the art and artist together"</p>

<p>A true statement for me.</p>

[Allen Herbert]

<p>"In any case, what I'm suggesting to Allen is that it's not an either/or proposition and that one can pay attention to, learn from, and respond to what others have done without one's losing one's own voice" Fred.</p>

<p>Logical. Does Art depend on logic? What others have done before; is the influence so great, that it will always be our crutch to depend on?</p>

[Allen Herbert]

<p>" that one can pay attention to, learn from, and respond to what others have done without one's losing one's own voice" Fred"</p>

<p>Your own voice? Or, a multitude of voices which you are just one.</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p>Each of us is only one of a multitude of voices, ever. </p>

<p>Influence doesn't have to be a crutch, unless you make it that. Influence can't be avoided. It is part of the cycle of life. It's a matter of understanding it, paying attention to it, even honoring it at time, while also not allowing it to rule us to an unhealthy extent. Anyone who denies the role of influence is simply in denial and probably more prone to letting it take over their life than those who understand its ever-present role and deal with it effectively.</p>

<p>Art may not depend on logic but creating understandable sentences about art can sometimes benefit from it. I recommend Bach's music, particular some of his fugues, if you want to hear logic at work in art.</p>

[Supriyo]

<blockquote>

<p>Influence doesn't have to be a crutch, unless you make it that. Influence can't be avoided. It is part of the cycle of life. It's a matter of understanding it, paying attention to it, even honoring it at time, while also not allowing it to rule us to an unhealthy extent.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>I think I agree with Fred on this. Denying the existence of past influence actually makes us more vulnerable to such influences, may be in a prejudicial way.<br /> <br /> When photography first originated in the 19th century, the styles and compositions were reminiscent of paintings, but while walking in that direction photography found its own distinct path.</p>

[Julie H]

<p>Pushing a button to make a picture does not necessarily entail any influence whatsoever.</p>

[Supriyo]

<p>But framing a composition prior to pushing the button does?</p>

[Allen Herbert]

<p>"I think I agree with Fred on this. Denying the existence of past influence actually makes us more vulnerable to such influences, may be in a prejudicial way"</p>

<p>The past is undeniable it is part of our culture in a sense our being. A serious of stepping blocks to take us into the future. However, many Artists/Scientists have escaped from those stepping blocks and found freedoms in being free from those restrictions...</p>

<p>Those who have walked from the path walking a different path....history is littered with them.</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p>Julie, of course it does, because you didn't get to the point of when you chose to push that button in a vacuum. You inherited traits, your culture helped you learn how to see, your experiences helped formulate the moment when you push that button. Unless you set up your camera to shoot randomly at some unknown time in the future and in some unknown location, your many undeniable influences will be at work.</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p>How did you even know that pushing the button would take the picture. That knowledge just spontaneously generated from inside the vacuum-sealed bubble?</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p>Allen, no one here is arguing that history isn't full of people walking different paths. What's that got to do with your claim that influence is a crutch? All those of us who are being reasonable are saying is that influence exists and doesn't have to be (and doesn't have to be seen as) a crutch. We're not denying that people can escape it to varying degrees, that artists are free to the extent they can be, and that new ideas and ways of seeing are coming along all the time. We're simply not buying into some blind and mythical hyperbolic notion of absolute freedom.</p>

[Supriyo]

<blockquote>

<p>However, many Artists/Scientists have escaped from those stepping blocks and found freedoms in being free from those restrictions...</p>

</blockquote>

<p>I am wondering, even when someone has broken free from these restrictions, is it ever possible to be completely free from any influence whatsoever. I am curious if you can provide an example.</p>

<p>Past influence in one's work may not arise due to real influence, but merely as a coincidence. May be the path is so robust, that many artists follow it independently without each other's inputs. In that scenario, if one has to proclaim independence by rejecting such a path, wouldn't that be a restriction rather than freedom?</p>

 

[Allen Herbert]

<p>"Allen, no one here is arguing that history isn't full of people walking different paths. What's that got to do with your claim that influence is a crutch?"</p>

<p>Everything. We follow what has come before and build upon it. We struggle to escape from it.</p>

<p>For example the next Mars mission will be built on technology from the 1940's. We follow the same path....we struggle to escape from that path and walk a different path...hide bound is the thought that comes to mind.</p>

<p>We struggle to go somewhere else we just want to continuously build on the structures of the past...the safe and eaay way.</p>

[Allen Herbert]

<p>"I am wondering, even when someone has broken free from these restrictions"</p>

<p>Van Gogh just one name among many that come to mind.. They walked another path and were condemned by the excepted norms of their time. </p>

<p> </p>

[Supriyo]

<p>I am not an expert, but I think Van Gogh's unique style evolved out of the impressionist styles that existed at that time, like Renior and Monet? He was part of a movement, a collective effort of many individuals to break free of traditional styles. It was not like one person's struggle to break free of others' influences. I don't know, I may be wrong.</p>

[Allen Herbert]

<p>In the past free and formless thought was the strength and the creative ability of humanity. Then the structures of building blocks happened and we just built open them. And that is what we do.</p>

<p>Creativity and original thought was cast aside unless it was another building block on the same old building block.</p>

<p>Traditional photography is the norm...different Hmm. We are creatures of habit and habit is comfortable. </p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p>Allen, I suggest you spend just a little time (maybe an hour) reading about Van Gogh and his many influences, from the Japanes prints he collected obsessively that hung in his studio and which many of his paintings mimic and pay homage to to the peasant work of Millet which he also allowed to influence him greatly. The fact that he was condemned doesn't show that he wasn't influenced.</p>

[Julie H]

<p>Photographers have no idea what they're photographing when they'e photographing it. Whoever you are and for whatever reason you got there, you just don't/can't see what's in front of the camera -- for simple mechanical reasons or for psychological reasons. Here is Lee Friedlander on an early attempt at picture-making:</p>

<p>"I only wanted Uncle Vern standing by his new car (a Hudson) on a clear day. I got him and the car. I also got a bit of Aunt Mary's laundry and Beau Jack, the dog, peeing on a fence, and a row of potted tuberous begonias on the porch and seventy-eight trees and a million pebbles in the driveway and more. It's a generous medium, photography."</p>

<p>Most photographers keep trying ever harder, more carefully (harking to their influences) to get Uncle Vern standing by his new car. Some, however, turn to the strangeness, the dog peeing, or the seventy-eight trees and/or the million pebbles or whatever strange new world photography has offered to them (if they are paying attention). It's a gift from a "generous medium." In every sense of that word.</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p>Interesting that the quoter-in-chief is claiming photographic lack of influence. The irony abounds.</p>

[Allen Herbert]

<p>"The fact that he was condemned doesn't show that he wasn't influenced"</p>

<p>Fred, you keep stating the obvious as it was some wonderful insight. We need to move on from the obvious and common thoughts.</p>

<p>Influence is unavoidable, but some escape from its total clutch, and find some light of their own. Ands that's where we advance as humanity.<br>

.</p>