woke up. looked out the front door. made a picture. ~ All photos (embiggenable)
drank coffee, had a donut. went upstairs to get dressed. made a picture.
after a doctor appointment went to grocery store. made a picture.
went back home. went upstairs to warm up the cocktail hour porch. made a picture.
late night just before retiring noted part of an 8 year old arrangement on the fireplace mantel. made a picture.
SO ALL THIS STUFF ABOUT COLOR PHOTOGRAPHY HAS ME thinking, re: forget about defining what may or may not constitute a good color photograph and/or photographer. Instead, how about defining what constitutes a good photograph independent of categorization- i..e., bw / color, street / still life / landscape / et al.
CAVEAT there can never be a universal definition cuz, as Julian’s grandmother said, “For every pot there’s a lid.” Itaque, the definition found herein is decidedly influenced by my bias(es).
It would be easy, and a cop-out, to just quote Ansel Adams and be done with it:
“There are no rules for good photographs. There are only good photographs.”
On one level that makes some sorta sense. Although, yes, he was most likely offering an opinion about rules, as in, you don’t need no stinkin’ rules to make a good photograph. However, the fact of the matter is that, if there are good photographs there must also be not-so-good (bad?) photographs-plenty of which were made by the rules. In any event….
My photographs-and those which give me viewing pleasure made by others-tend to be driven by an openness to every picture making possibility the world offers. An openness-sorta like making photographs “to find out what something will look like photographed” (Garry Winogrand)-which is akin to curiosity. That is, a curiosity which recognizes that any thing in life, if accurately and profoundly penetrated by “seeing…observation full and felt” (Walker Evans) is interesting and always strange.
My photographs-and those made by others which give me viewing pleasure-most often present interweaving repetitive visual elements of line, shape and color. Nevertheless, the recognizable individuality of any motif is superseded by its role in the pictorial whole. It is the resultant pictorial effect, not the technique, that predominates. The whole is indeed is greater than the sum of its parts. And, I might add, the whole is most often greater than that which is literally depicted.
I am not interested in technique beyond having enough to get the job done. And, the last thing I would want to be evident in my photographs is how they were made. To wit, Robert Adams said it best:
“…if the goal of art is to be reached, only pictures that look as if they had been easily made can convincingly suggest that beauty is commonplace.”
My photographs-and those made by others which give me viewing pleasure-always dwell in the two dimensional world. That’s cuz there ain’t no 3D in the world of photography. It’s flat as pancake, paper (substrate) thin and best viewed-and pictured-in that perspective. Apologies to stereoscopic practitioners.
All of the above written, I suppose I could have just written that my photography pursuits have the goal of suggesting that the commonplace is a never-ending, ever-changing world of visual patterns / forms which present the opportunity for the making of interesting, strange, and therefore, to eye my and sensibilities, beautiful pictures. I also like pictures made by other like minded picture makers. Although, I am always open to surprises.