MY 2-BOOKCASE PHOTO LIBRARY IS COMPRISED MAINLY OF INDIVIDUAL PICTURE MAKER'S monographs. However, also included are a goodly number of books devoted to the discussion of the medium and its apparatus* (none of which are about gear or technique). My acquisition and reading of such books was driven my desire to obtain an answer to the question (in my mind), what is a photograph? And, perhaps to an even greater extent, what the hell am I doing when I make photographs? and/or (i>why the hell am I making photographs.
After decades-primarily 2000 onward-of going down rabbit holes and traversing vast, at times tepid wastelands, of thought and theory, re: the medium and its apparatus, I am arriving at a point of enough already. Which is not to imply that I have been wasting my time with such pursuits but rather to indicate that I have come to a few very simple conclusions about the medium and its apparatus...
...re: what is a photograph? A photograph is an actual thing that is, or can be, anything the maker or viewer thereof wants it to be. Hell, it could actually be Art.
...re: what the hell am I doing when I make photographs? I am making a thing (because I make prints) which could actually be Art. Or, it could actually be a waste of ink and paper, depending upon what the viewer decides / wants it to be.
...re: why the hell am I making photographs? Simple answer ...as Robert Adams wrote (from his book, Why People Photograph), "At our best and most fortunate we make pictures because of what stands in front of the camera...", which is, iMo, a kind of "no duh" statement cuz what stands in front of the camera ain't there by accident. It's in front of the camera because the picture maker has deliberately placed the camera in front of the what. And, in my particular case, the question is, why did I place my camera in front of a particular what?
And the fact is that no book I have read has been able to help elucidate the drive / obsession / desire-otherwise known as the "why"-I possess to make pictures of what I see (and place my camera in front of). Without deep diving into psychoanalytical self-analysis (re: the why?), I can write with assurance that, as far back as I can remember in my childhood, I have been making pictures-of one kind or another-of the world around me.
I believe that propensity is embedded in my bones. Call it preternatural. Call it an art gene / marker in my DNA. Call it, as used to be the case, a god-given gift (or is it a curse?). Personally, I don't call it anything. It just is. And, consequently, that is why I make photographs.
*as always,
apparatus = conventions and practice.
