ON MY LAST ENTRY, A COMMENT WAS LEFT BY STEPHEN McATEER:
Some people I used to read on the internet seemed to think that a photograph had to have 'Meaning' to be any good….My own view is that it is a good photograph if it pleases the eye. Meaning does not interest me in the least.
To clarify my thoughts on meaning to be seen / found in a photograph, I believe every photograph ever made has some meaning or another, even if only to the individual who made it. However, that written, once the photograph is offered for viewing to those other than the maker, what the photograph means (if anything) is anyone’s guess.
Truth be written, I spent a lot of time, used a lot of internet space, and typed a zillion words over the years (on this blog and my previous blog) speculating / festering, one might even say “obsessing” about meaning in photographs. ASIDE: Stephen might even have been taking a shot at me, re: “used to read on the internet” wise. END OF ASIDE That endeavor was due primarily to my concern, re: did my pictures have any meaning? That concern was based up my very loose acceptance of the idea that “a photograph had to have 'Meaning' to be any good”.
After intense and protracted looking for meaning in my pictures, I discovered that, shockingly, there was none to be seen / found. However, what I did find was that all of my “good” pictures shared a common characteristic - that is, they all incited feelings and sensations instigated by their visual-senses activation. There was nothing to" “interpret”, nothing to “understand”. Their “goodness” was predicated upon how a picture looked and how that “look” pricked my eye and sensibilities.
If how a picture looks is the basis for a viewer to look for meaning in a picture-literary, cultural, art theory, historic connections, et al-so be it. I am not suggesting that there is nothing of the sort to be seen /found in my pictures. However, in the making of my pictures I am not trying to instill / insert any meaning. My intent is to make visible the experiences I see / feel as I traverse the planet-with my eyes wide open-in a manner that pricks my eye and sensibilities and of those who view my pictures.
That written, and despite the fact that the visual referent(s) depicted in most of my pictures is not what the pictures are about, some of those pictures can, and do, hold special meaning for me.
So, when all is written / said and done, I do not see meaning v. pleasing to the eye as mutually exclusive ideas. My only problem with meaning in photography is with those who elevate meaning, aka: content, over form. Or, when doing so, eviscerate a picture by dissecting / breaking it down into pieces.
FYI, you may noticed the non sequitur-like captions with the pictures in this entry. I am playing with the idea of mis-direction, re: providing a caption to a picture which causes a viewer to try to figure out what a picture is really about cuz it can not possibly be about what the caption seems to imply that it is about.
