IN A COUPLE ENTRIES BACK, some of these pictures are just like the others, I mentioned the oft-heard lament that "everything that can be photographed has been photographed".
In doing so, I qualified that idea by writing that, in a general sense, there is some truth to that concept. However, what I failed to write was that, in a specific sense, that idea is totally absurd inasmuch as the planet and everything on it has a nearly incomprehensible amount of stuff-i.e., specific referents-that have never been photographed.
What might be more accurate to write is that many (most?) picturing genres have been worked to near death. And most of that work reaches the level of repetitive, carbon-copy cliche (as dictated by the "time-honored" picturing conventions of a given genre)-what Robert Adams called "the ten thousandth camera-club imitation of a picture by Ansel Adams". The net result is to create the impression, within the confines a given picture making genre, that, indeed, everything that can be photographed has been photographed.
That written, one of my favorite sites, Don't Take Pictures, has a semi-regular feature, Rule Breakers, that begins with the premise...
"I never want to see another picture of ________.” and, goes on with Industry Veterans who "share their pet peeves on themes in contemporary photography... [and] present their “rule” along with five photographs that break the rule in an effort to show that great work is the exception to the rule."
This exercise, re: Rule Breakers, is pretty much a rehash of the (once again) "time-honored" admonition that, even if everthing that can be pictured has already been pictured, one can create something beyond the cliche by making picures with one's own personal "take", the vision thing, added to the mix. That is, to stop making pictures of what one has been told is a good picture, and start making pictures of what one sees.
That's good advice but, unfortunately, it does seems that most picture makers "see" in cliches. They are unable to let of what they have been told is a good picture or what constitutes a suitable referent for picture making. And, most often their attempt to find their vision is to layer on flashy techniques and gobs of art sauce. iMo, that's cuz-and I know I'm treading on the third rail here-true vision, unlike technique, can not be taught*.
True vision can only be "discovered" within oneself, most often by an extensive course of trial and error. An undertaking characterized by continuous or natural development based upon the belief that innate ideas exist. Or, in other words, one's vision is kinda like a hidden, amorphous pre-exisitng condition which needs to be coaxed out of the shadows. The purpose of which is to recognize it / "feel" it, not to necessarily fully understand it, as the nativistic** / intuitive structual backbone of one's vision.
AN ASIDE: Consider this aside a warning or, alternately, an invitation. There is more to follow, re: the vision thing...how to "find" it, how to understand it and how to use it. END OF ASIDE
* "Self-education, only, produces expression of self." ~ Robert Henri / from his book, The Art Spirit, the only book one needs to read in one's quest to find one's vision and become a maker of good pictures.
** in the field of philosophy, the doctrine that the mind produces ideas that are not derived from external sources.
