all photos ~ embiggenable
the other Autumn color
“Most photographers start with some core topic …. and slowly build up a body of work around that predetermined topic …. But (like me) there are a few people who photograph purely and simply the things that move them prick their eye and sensibilities and who think to categorize and to find a way to present them only after the fact of creation …. rather than filling in the blank space inside a a known perimeter / core idea we are working in area where neither core nor perimeter are know until after the fact …. But surely that is as it should be–– in any true exploration, there is no way to know what you’ve discovered until you’ve been there …. so, as I move forward in seemingly meandering fashion, making piles of unrelated images …. what I am becoming aware of is that through these images I am involved in uncovering, or identifying …. a widely spread locus of visual points that are the boundary of my Spirit unique vision.” ~ from a letter to Sally Mann from Ted Orland-Ansel Adams former assistant / printer
FINISHED READING SALLY MANN’S BOOK, Art Work ~ On the Creative life. I would still recommend it but, be forewarned, it is not a how-be-creative manual. It is more of a tale of life’s ups and downs––everyday life + things photographic thrown for good measure––that might actually be a good draft for a docu-drama motion picture; lots of drama, struggle, insecurity / self doubt, crying––she does not handle rejection well––serendipity, and adventure.
I did find a few nuggets of interest which tended to confirm / “validate” much of what has guided my picture making life inasmuch as I find it reassuring that I share similar thoughts and pursuits with other creatives. The above excerpt, case in point, is a perfect example of how my process of assembling after-the-fact bodies of work is not as uncommon as one might think.
One thing I did learn about Mann is that she is a bona fide, dyed-in-the-wool instigator / agitator; she admits to deliberately––in her words––”releasing into the world” pictures that were not her best work but that she knew would rattle a few walls / antagonize the status quo-ers. Although, one picture in particular, The Three Graces, was never exhibited in the US cuz she literally pulled it from the wall of a prestigious NYC gallery on the opening night of one of her exhibitions. Strangely, she writes about the picture at length but then teases the reader by not reproducing it in the book. Apparently she is worried about be arrested inasmuch as picturing a child peeing is actually illegal in some states. She even goes so far as to not naming the person who clicked the shutter––Mann is one of the pictured “graces” in the picture––for fear that he-she-it-they-them might be arrested.
In any event, my main takeaway from the book, advice to photographers-wise, is her repeated directive to work, work, work––aka: shoot, shoot shoot––making lots and lots of pictures and then ruthlessly editing out the losers. A process that she labels as “killing your darlings”. In the chapter entitled, Your Darlings accompanied by a Faulkner quote: “In writing, you must kill all your darling.” Mann states that if your pictures “are not good enough, send them straight to the choppy-chop.”
RE; the above excerpt: I have discovered yet another “hidden” body of work buried throughout my picture files; one I have labeled as the other Autumn color. FYI, the “other color” referenced here is Autumn color that is not slathered all over––essentially the entire image––the surface of the print. Rather, my eye and sensibilities are pricked by a more subtle visual indication of the change of season. Ya know, more of whisper than a scream.