lewis_lorton1

<p>I am a street shooter and one of the fabulous benefits of a small camera is exactly the 'insignificance' factor. People who would pose for a big camera just ignore me - and that is just fine.<br> This is a demonstration against mass surveillance and the irony factor of all the cameras is really high. (the cap in the man holding the poster shows he's from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a prime mover in the privacy world; irony x 10)<br> <img src="http://lewlortonphoto.com/img/s10/v115/p248829652-5.jpg" alt="" /></p>

<blockquote> <p>Lewis, have you considered why that may be the case and does it matter to you? Have you been able to articulate, for yourself, why your work is or isn't meaningful/good/important/etc. and if it isn't or isn't enough, what could make it more so, if you'd want to?</p> </blockquote> <p>I didn't mean to imply that I don't think my own work is 'meaningful/good/important/etc.' I am my own second favorite photographer (behind Garry Winogrand) but I am very chary of talking about any specific picture because that bell cannot be unrung. Once I say <em>what</em> and <em>why</em>, the listener is influenced by my emotions and feelings, having heard them. I will go so far as setting the scene but rarely, if ever, say why I took the shot. That should be evident.<br> For approximately that reason, I don't participate in shows because I don't want to consider audience reaction and let that influence what I choose to enter. I made this decision forever when a gallery committee chose what they thought the audience would like. <br> I like it when people like my pictures but don't care if they don't. At this point, the only disappointment in photography that I feel strongly is when I'm not as good as I want and I don't need approval from others to support my own feeling of self worth. (All of that may be anticipatory self-defense against rejection.)</p>

<p>I read as many of the responses as my eyes would manage, got lost quite a few times but here is my feeling about photography and criticism, essentially unaffected by what has been said before.<br> Any photograph has two possible components - content and meaning (or idea). Too often, 'critics' have addressed the idea only, perhaps just because the 'idea' can be well expressed in words and words are their tools and thus the 'idea' portion has become inflated in importance.<br> So I see photographs/shows where there is purportedly some grand unifying idea and concept and yet there is nothing new or original or fine within the frame that justifies the excitement. I saw a two-person show in Baltimore where this concept was demonstrated in both extremes. The first photographer made very lovely, even beautiful landscapes all with and within her phone - and that was the extent of the art. It was lovely but no more. The other artist constructed a series of still life images, all reflected off of some surface; the idea was interesting, but the images not very skillfully executed.<br> The discussions of these two artists were extensive and full of high flown ideas and emotions that weren't represented in the frame. Words and ideas are essentially no cost additives to pictures. Art is hard and using words and injected ideas to make any specific attempt at art more important is easy and critics like it because it makes the critics part of the creative process rather than being on the sidelines.<br> There is a balance between totally pre-digested art, like Hummel figurines, where everything is solved and there is no effort required from the viewer to understand and relate and what I see too often in galleries where the art doesn't carry any meaning or idea and that all must be supplied by words added on afterwards.<br> For me, I hope my work is a communication between me and the viewer. I am showing them something I think is important or interesting and I expect only a certain minimum amount of shared knowledge for what I am showing to be understandable. <br />If I have to explain anything then the art has failed.<br> Yes, I accept that this is an almost primitive attitude but my gut feeling is that is the only way I know that what I am doing is real and successful. A comedian does not want canned laughter, I don't want extra words telling anyone why my work is meaningful/good/important/etc.<br> [<em>to be clear and honest, no one has ever yet said that my work is 'meaningful/good/important/etc' so my last hope is that I will be recognized as a great photographer after I'm dead but I am putting off the inevitable fame as long as possible. <em>:)</em> ]</em></p>