HAVEN’T BEEN AT MY COMPUTER FOR A FEW DAYS while recovering from a very nasty icy sidewalk fall. However, Also haven’t been inclined to make any pictures but I did spend some time making Lego flower arrangements. And while I was wiling away the time, I did receive a notice that one of my photographs was accepted into a REMAINS-themed exhibition.
# 6438-42 / decay • common places • people ~ stumbling down a dead end street
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“Established artists sometimes find a "comfortable" style that brings them success in the moment .… And they find themselves repeating the same basic work for decades and decades …. They seem unaware that they are stumbling down a dead end street …. Their real impetus going forward should be re-invention and an embrace of their vision of now …. A new format. A new color palette. An unusual angle. But the core of the original vision stays the same …. But art doesn't really work that way for the vast majority of artists.” ~ by an unnamed idiot
AS MENTIONED IN A RECENT ENTRY I WROTE that the plethora of bad advice from “experts”, re: picture making, is akin to all the hay you encounter when looking for a pin in a hay stack. The pin in this case being good advice.
The perpetrator of today’s bad advice example is advancing the idea that an artist’s vision can be sloughed off like yesterday’s clothing and a new suit of clothes-”re-invented” by the dictates of what’s happening now-can be manufactured whole cloth. This notion is so far off the mark, re; vision (which by, BTW, is not a “comfortable” style) that it’s difficult to know where to start. However ….
…. let’s just start with a re-fresher course, re: an artist’s vision. An artist’s vision is the bedrock on which all of his/her art is created. It is deeply personal. ASIDE It can not be “invented” therefore it can not be “re-invented” END ASIDE Rather, it reflects who a person is, what he/she believes, and how he/she sees-literally and figuratively-the world. iMo, it is often innate, waiting to be discovered and, ultimately understood. And, wait for it (this will piss off a lot of people)…it cannot be taught.
“Can photography be taught? If this means the history and techniques of the medium, I think it can…if, however, teaching photography means bringing students to find their own individual vision, I think it is impossible … As for studio courses in ‘seeing’ … I was never tempted to take one … Arrogantly, I believed right from the start that I could see." ~ Robert Adams
Nevertheless, it can be learned. That is, learned from a fair amount of picture making experience. Picture making which centers around just picturing what you see, not what you have been told is a good picture, and beginning to recognize how you see. And, once learned it is my belief that it can not be un-learned anymore than you un-learn how to breathe.
Of course, once one’s vision is identified, one will apparently-according to our idiot expert-be doomed to unknowingly stumbling down a dead end street for decades and decades, all the while repeating the same “basic” work. What shame.
And, here’s a clue for our clueless expert … discovering, understanding, and refining one’s vision and being grounded by it for the duration of one’s art making life is, quite actually, the way art works for a vast majority of artists.
PS bringing one’s bedrock vision to bear on a wide variety of referents is quite different than bringing “A new format. A new color palette. An unusual angle.”, aka: a “comfortable” new style to bear on one’s picture making.
# 6267-74 / autumn color • flora • decay ~ 15 minutes in the back yard
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“If a medium is representational by nature of the realistic image formed by a lens, I see no reason why we should stand on our heads to distort that function. On the contrary, we should take hold of that very quality, make use of it, and explore it to the fullest.” ~ Berenice Abbott
THE LEAF-PEEPER RUSH IS ON. THIS YEAR AUTUMN COLOR is late, rather subdued, and of short duration. Blame a dry Spring and early Summer. Consequently, the happy leaf snappers will have to resort to saturation-to-the-max in order to illustrate what they wish Autumn color is suppose to be. Cuz, you know, reality just isn’t good enough.
# 5978-80 / still life (kitchen sink • kitchen life • decay & disgust) ~ what's in a name?
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IT HAS BEEN A WHILE-A COUPLE YEARS?-SINCE I HAVE MADE a decay & disgust picture. I attribute that situation to the fact that the wife has been exceedingly diligent in making sure there is a deficit of decaying referents for my picture making fodder. However, since she is over 2,000 miles distant, suffice it to write that when the cat’s away the mice will play. In any event, I have a few thoughts about the picture label still life.
The decay & disgust and kitchen sink pictures were made 2 hours apart. Judging from my experience in the photo world, both pictures would be considered to be still life pictures. That is so even though the making of those 2 pictures could not be more different. To wit, call me a dyed-in-the-wool traditionalist cuz, iMo, the decay & disgust picture is the only of the 2 that is worthy to be called a still life picture and that is due to the fact of the difference in their making.
I’m guessing that 40-50% of my commercial picture making was comprised of still life photography. That is, pictures that were made with total control, much like a painter, over the creation of the image. Starting with a blank canvas-some sort of background-and, piece by piece, add elements to create a pleasing arrangement and then add lighting to taste. There were times when this process happened over a couple of days-involving a couple people-cuz props had be acquired, a set constructed and lighting tests run.
While the decay & disgust picture was put together in a hour or so, every item in the picture was chosen and arranged by me. Even the lighting was chosen by me inasmuch as all of my decay & disgust pictures are made in the same setting on cloudy days.
On the other hand, the kitchen sink picture-like all of my kitchen sink pictures-is a found picture. I had no hand in selecting the pictured items nor in their arrangement (really, I never touch a thing in the sink prior to picturing it. Really. Honest Injun.) And the lighting is the light that was falling on the scene at the time that I noticed the arrangement.
Consequently, I do not consider the kitchen sink to be a still life picture. To my way of thinking, it is, more accurately, a straight photograph of a segment of the real world.
# 5890 / decay ~ or, if you prefer, entropy
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IT HAS BEEN QUITE A WHILE SINCE I made a decay and disgust picture. That may due simply to the fact that a resident of the house has been remarkably scrupulous about keeping the frig clear of such picture making items. Perhaps it is time for me to start cultivating and harvesting such picturesque items.
That written, I have no idea what my decay and disgust pictures mean.