# 6460-64 / scrub • scraggle • tangles ~ creativity & imagination

February 8, 2023

“If you have a magic camera that can take a sharp, clear, well-exposed, well-focused, and color-correct picture of most anything, what are you going to photograph? And, at a deeper level, how are you going to express yourself using photography in a way that is individualized or idiosyncratic to you specifically…?…that personal expressiveness and a stylistic identity…” ~ Mike Johnston

FOR THE BETTER PART OF A WEEK I HAVE been struggling with the subject of this entry, i.e., creativity and the imagination in the making of photographs. Specifically so, in the cause of making fine art photographs. I wrestle with the concept of creativity / imagination, re: fine art photography, cuz, to be honest, I do not think it plays a part in the making of such photographs…

…Huh? Say what?

Isn’t creativity/ imagination the answer to Mike Johnston’s question, “…how are you going to express yourself using photography in a way that is individualized or idiosyncratic to you specifically…?…that personal expressiveness and a stylistic identity…” that sets one apart from the maddening crowd.

iMo, the answer to that question is quite simply, “No, it-creativity / imagination-is not the answer.”

To clarify my opinion, let me emphasize the fact that I am addressing the making of fine art photographs as opposed to the making of decorative photographs. That’s cuz, in the referent-centric, decorative photography arena, the repertoire of creativity / imagination most often, if not always, consists of the application of art sauce, aka: flashy technique, “unique” picture making POV (body position), special gear (lenses and the like), and the selection of traditional, spectacular / dramatic-so called “picture-worthy”-referents.

Whereas, in the idiocentric, fine art picture making world, the only application of what might be labeled as creativity / imagination is the use of the picture maker’s innate-not something you can buy at B&H Photo-“individualized or idiosyncratic” vision in the making of his/her photographs; the vision which directs-one might even write, “demands”-what and how a picture maker photographs. More often than not, he/she considers the referent and its visual essence as inseparable with no need to tart it up with any art sauce.

While there are many differences, re: fine art v. decorative photography, one primary difference is that decorative picture makers tend to employ creativity / imagination in the cause of making pictures that scream. “Look at me and let there be no doubt about what my pictures are about.”

Whereas, fine art picture makers have more respect for the viewer inasmuch as they see no need for cheap tricks in order to garner and hold a viewer’s attention and interest. And, in the brave and simple act of presenting to a viewer the unvarnished true-to-the-actuality-of-the-real-world that which has pricked his/her eye and sensibilities, he/she lets the viewer discern what their pictures are about.

“I think about photographs as being full, or empty. You picture something in a frame and it's got lots of accounting going on in it--stones and buildings and trees and air--but that's not what fills up a frame. You fill up the frame with feelings, energy, discovery, and risk, and leave room enough for someone else to get in there.” ~ Joel Meyerowitz

Moral of the story: if you need to think about your picture making, spend more time thinking and getting in touch with (aka: feeling) discovering, understanding, and nurturing your vison than you do about being more “creative”.

# 6443-50 / bodies of work ~ stumbling down a dead end street #2

February 3, 2023

***Life without the APA*** ~ (embiggenable)

***Adirondack Snapshot Project*** ~ (embiggenable)

ACCORDING TO THE IDIOT QUOTED IN MY LAST entry, I have apparently been “repeating the same basic work, for decades and decades, unaware that I have been stumbling down a dead end street”. That would be because I have been making pictures driven by my very own picture making vision. A vision that does not allow me to go careening around the technique / visual effects / gear-obsessed picture making landscape like a drunken sailor. To wit, I see what I see and that’s how that I see (all credit to Popeye who said, “ I am what I am and that’s all that I am.)

That written, re: careening around like a drunken sailor, I will readily admit to careening around the referent landscape like a drunken picture maker. A picture making condition condition (affliction?) that I call discursive promiscuity. To my eye and sensibilities, any thing and every thing is fair game for a picture making possibility. The result of that discursive promiscuity is that I have accumulated, over the past 25 years, at least 15,000 pictures.

One might think that that glut of pictures would make for a very unruly mess. However, that is not the case cuz, thanks to the guidance of my vision, the overwhelming majority of my pictures exhibit a consistent,-but not formulaic-very particular attention to form, aka: the “arrangement” of the visual elements-line, shape, tone, color and space-within the imposed frame of my pictures.

This “consistency” leads to a very interesting result; while I rarely work with the thought of creating a body of work in mind, nevertheless, I have, over an extended period of time, realized that my eye and sensibilities have been, and still are, drawn to specific referents again and again. The result is that eventually-many times over the course of years-I “discover” that I have, in fact-albeit inadvertently, created many bodies of work.

ASIDE the body of works illustrated above, with a few images each, are some of the bodies of work I have created, most of which were “discovered” in my library (as opposed to deliberately created). The are at least 6 more bodies of work I could display. END OF ASIDE

And, what I find interesting and very surprising is that, once a number of referent related pictures are organized into a body of work, the coherent consistency of vision is, quite frankly, amazing.

Makes me quite happy that I have not tried to “re-invent” my vision. And BTW, I really like the “street” I am on. It is not a “dead end” and, in fact, there is no end in sight as far as I can see.

# 6427-31 / nocturnal • common places ~ the night is filled with shadows

January 27, 2023

***fiddling*** ***while house burns*** ~ fireman taking a picture (embiggenable)

SPOILER ALERT: well, not really. However, this entry will divulge a key part of my intro for the Philosophy of Modern Pictures book/project. To wit….after a lot of thought and research, I have come to the conclusion that the more things change, the more they remain the same, or, as David Byrne sang, same as it ever was.

Ever since the introduction of the digital picture making age, there has been considerable caterwauling and lamentation-don’t get me started with the monochrome crowd who can tell you the day the music BW died-re: the landmark, tradition changing, revolution about how picture making has change. To which I call, BS.

A far as I can see, sure, sure, light sensitive picture making substrates has changed from film to digital, print making has changed from the wet darkroom to the desktop / software ”darkroom”, and making good pictures, technically wise, has gotten easier BUT, paraphrasing Robert Adams…"

“…the only thing that is new in art [insert “photography’ here] is the example: the message [insert “photographs” here] is are, broadly speaking, the same-coherence, form, meaning.”

In other words, the medium and its apparatus are still inexorably / intrinsically a cohort of the real. That is, we all continue to make pictures of real-world referents-you know, people, places, things. Sure, sure, the tools have changed, but the “message” remains the same.

Of course, one could argue, what about all that special effects / filters / digital constructions stuff? Answer: one of the earliest “movements” in photography was Pictorialism and continued through the ages with Jerry Uelsmann as one of many prime examples. However, virtually all of their works, aka: acts-of-the-imagination pictures, start with pictures of referents snatched from the real world.

iMo, and that of many others, those making acts-of-the-imagination pictures are not photographers. In point of fact, they are artists-often referred to as photo artists-who employ the tools of the medium and it apparatus to create images, not photographs. And, there ain’t nothin’ new ’bout that activity.

So, from my point of view (literally-how I see the world-figuratively-my picture making vision), everything is the same as it ever was.

# 6422-26 / common places • common things • civilized ku ~ what am I spota do master?

January 26, 2023

“I really didn’t have much to teach. I didn’t really believe in it. I felt so strongly that everybody had to find their own way. And nobody can teach you your own way…. in terms of art, the only real answer that I know of is to do it. If you don’t do it, you don’t know what might happen.” ~ Harry Callahan

IN MY SEARCH FOR A NEW BOOK WHICH IS built around a large number of digital photographers’ work-to date an unsuccessful search-my search query yielded up a seemingly endless number of landfill-worthy how-to digital photography books and workshops. Many with an emphasis on how to make so-called “fine art” digital photographs.

Needless to write, none-and I repeat, NONE-of the self-proclaimed “experts” were making pictures that had any resemblance to fine art. You can take that assessment to the bank based upon the absolute fact that, to my extensive knowledge, there is not a single bona fide fine art photographer on the planet who would even consider the idea of making a how-to book. That’s cuz they understand well the verse of poet X. J.Kennedy:

The goose that laid the golden egg Died looking up its crotch To find out how its sphincter worked. Would you lay well? Don’t watch.

Or consider this from Robert Adams:

“Photographers are like other artist too in being reticent because they are afraid that self-analysis will get in the way of making art. They never fully know how they got the good pictures that they have, but they suspect that a certain innocence may have been necessary.”

iMo, how to operate camera or use editing software-or, for that matter, process film and make prints in a wet darkroom-can be taught. In any case, it ain’t rocket science but hooking up with someone who can show you ropes can speed things along. But, while anyone can figure out how to make a picture, getting to the point where one’s pictures are considered to be fine art is not so easy.

The hard work arrives in the form of identifying and then understanding how one sees the world. That is, both literally and figuratively. No one can do that but you. For some it comes easy, for some its much more difficult, and, dare I write it, for some it is impossible. ASIDE Re: impossible; that’s where the “rules” of photography come in handy for those can’t figure it out for themselves. END ASIDE

The danger involved in looking for “expert” solutions to the hard work issue is that, upon choosing an “expert” from whom to get advice on how to make “great” pictures, one is more apt to become a photo groupy of sorts-aka: follow the leader-than one who is apt to free one’s mind from the boundaries of conventional picture making. As Brian Cohen says in the film Life of Brian:

You’ve got it wrong. You don’t need to follow me. You don’t need to follow anybody. You’ve got to think for yourselves. You’re all individuals. You’re all different. You’ve got to figure it out for yourselves.

Of course, as Brian exhorts the crowd to be individuals-”yes, we are all individuals” they respond collectively-they repeat all he has to say as dogma / doctrine. I guess that explains why all the “experts” are so successful at finding recruits for following their picture making “wisdom”.

# 6407-11 / windshield series ~ keep your eyes on the road

January 19, 2023

WHILE RUMAGING AROUND LOOKING FOR PICTURES for the Philosophy of Modern Pictures book/project, I discovered that, yet again, there was an unintentionally-made body of work lurking in my picture library. I have labeled it as the windshield series. Although, if it is ever exhibited in Great Britain, it will be the windscreen series.

The pictures in this entry are few examples of pictures from the series. A series of which I am quite fond. So much so that I will begin to deliberately seek out such picture making possibilities. Those possibilities should not be hard to come by inasmuch as I live in a geographic anomaly in that I am at least 30 miles from everywhere.

# 6406 / the new snapshot ~ playing games

January 17, 2023

“It rarely occurs to such a photographer” - (the lowly householder who desires only to have a camera around the house) “to take a picture of something, say a Venetian fountain, without a loved one standing directly in front of it and smiling into the lens…because of his very artlessness, and his very numbers, the nameless picture maker may in the end be the truest and most valuable recorder of our times. He never edits; he never editorializes; he just snaps away and sends the film off to be developed, all the while innocently freezing forever the plain people of his time in all their lumpishness, their humanity, and their universality.” ~ Jean Shepherd

BEEN AWAY FROM MY BLOG ENTRY MAKING station for a few days cuz I+wife were entertaining some out-of-town family and hanging around various Olympic venues-curling, speed-skating, ski jumping-watching the Lake Placid 2023 FISU World University Games - 11 days, 2500 athletes from 600 universities and 50 countries competing in 12 winter sports.

We are, and will continue to be after our guests have left, planning to continue with watching the curling competition and the ice hockey semi and final rounds. Last evening we attending the men/woman’s ski jumping competition which was won by a Polish woman and Pakistani man respectively.

FYI, while all of the competitors are students, some are also World Cup / Olympic athletes so we are seeing some pretty damn good performances. Tickets for most events are $15US-$9US with the locals 40% discount. That’s a pretty good bang for the buck.

# 6396-6405 / discursive promiscuity ~ a time line

January 13, 2023

SOME DEFINITIONS, RE: the philosophy of modern pictures…

re: modern - for the purposes of this book / project I am inclined to define “modern” as beginning c. 1970 and proceeding to the present. I base that designation upon the fact that it was around 1970 that, in the major and minor league Fine Art World (which is the focus of the book / project), picture makers began-in a dramatic and terra firma shaking turn of picture making conventions-to take seriously the making of color pictures. And, it was also around that time that the BW Pepper and Rock era was on the wain.

Another reason for that designation is that-again around the same time-major art institutions were beginning to take note of and exhibit what Sally Eauclaire dubbed as the new color photography. Think MOMA’s 1976 Photographs by William Eggleston exhibition as a prime example.

ASIDE There are, of course, exceptions to my “modern” picture time frame. Eliot Porter’s work, as presented in his 1962 book In Wilderness Is The Preservation Of The World, is an outstanding example-early on it opened my eyes and sensibilities-of color picture making that, in a very real sense, foreshadowed the 70’s color picture making revolution. In fact, I would not object if someone (that would be me) opined that Porter’ work was the bedrock upon which the 70’s color photography revolution was predicated. END OF ASIDE

c.1970 is, iMo, is also notable for the fact that the new color photography picture makers “discovered” that any thing in the real world could be a suitable referent for the making of a color picture. Ya know, say “hello” to kitchen utensils-Jan Grover-and a tricycle on a suburban street-William Eggleston. Quite truly, the world was, and still is, our oyster.

So, like it or leave it, c.1970 > the present is it.

# 6383-88 / common places /things ~ winter

January 6, 2023

WINTER IS NOT PRIME TIME PICTURE MAKING for my eye and sensibilities. That is most likely due to the fact that the white landscape does not normally possess the visual complexity that pricks my eye and sensibilities. However, when I am driving about the place, I do encounter some picture making opportunities; emphasis on driving about inasmuch as most of my winter pictures made over the past decade or so have been made from the roadside about 20-30 feet from my car.

That situation is somewhat ironic cuz, prior to moving to the Adirondacks 23 years ago, most of my winter pictures were made quite a distance from my car - at 5,000+ft. elevation, above treeline, many miles from my car, in 0ºF weather, in the dead of winter, deep and high in the Adirondack High Peaks Wilderness Area. FYI, the Algonquin pictures below were made with my Pentax 110 SLR. I have the complete system - extra body, film winder and 4 lenses.