FIRST THINGS FIRST ... it appears that, in my last entry, I may have given Thomas Rink the wrong impression inasmuch as he left a comment which stated in part, "I hope that I didn't offend you with my comment!". To be perfectly clear, I thought that his previous comment, quoted in my last entry, was spot on, re: "getting" what my pictures are most often about. Which is why I wrote, in that entry, that, if I were to make an all-purpose Artist Statement, it would be based on his comment.
AN ASIDE: note to all .... I welcome comments of all kinds. Pro or con, re: my pictures or opinions, are welcome. Ad hominem comments not so much. END OF ASIDE
THAT WRITTEN, ON TO THE BUSINESS AT HAND. I just encountered an opinion piece on the medium of photography and its apparatus which dealt with the idea of intent on the part of a picture maker. In a nut shell, the piece advocated the idea that a picture maker must have a very clearly defined concept of what his/her picture making intent is in order that what he/she is trying to "say" will be perfectly clear to the viewer(s) of their picture making creation. Or, as the opinionator stated, in order that the picture be a declarative statement.
iMo, that idea states the obvious in that what picture maker makes a picture without an intent? Granted, some pictures made by the most casual of snapshot-ers or even the most dedicated fine artists might look like they are made by "mistake"-what? did the camera go off by mistake?-but I would emphatically suggest that even the most casual of snapshot-ers have a reason for making any given picture.
However, short of including, in a picture, a very obvious visual indicator of what the picture maker's intented meaning is-a practice commonly used in the making of propaganda-isn't, iMo, really the point of making art. Of course, many a fine art picture maker from academia will create a convoluted, obtuse and artspeak laden artist statement to explain exactly what the intent and meaning of his/her pictures are. Without either of those props, I can't see (literally and figuratively) how picture can be a definatively declarative statement of a picture maker's intended meaning.
Another point of disagreement I have with the opinionator is the statement that, when a photographer-one who's intent is to make art as opposed to one making pictures of world events-points his camera at something and makes a picture, he/she is saying / implying that that something is important. It is something that is worth considering and thinking about. To which I write, "nonsense!"
Setting aside the fact that, to my eye and sensibilities, a picture, in print form, is an object to be seen and "felt", not to be "read" and interpreted, the idea that, in the art world, all depicted referents are "important" is ridiculous .....
.... in the case of my pictures-and I am by no means alone-I place no importance at all on any of my depicted referents, in and of themselves. I don'think that discarded flowers are important. I don't think that kitchen garbage bags are important. I don't think my kitchen floor and cabinet are important. And, even though I do think that picturing them in pleasing manner sensitive to their relationships to one another makes an interesting visual statement when presented on the 2D plane of a photographic print, I don't think that makes them important or anything to think about.
I can write with relative assurance that those referents depicted in my pictures-those pictures made with the intent of making art-mean nothing to me. The only thing that means anything to me is how those referents look when photographed and viewed on the surface of 2D print. That is, the print as an object, in and of itself. Other than my personal snapshots, my pictures are rarely about the thing depicted.
A common notion expressed, re: my pictures, is that I find beauty in the mundane / commonplace. In fact, I don't think that many of my depicted referents are beautiful. Nor is it my intent to make them look beautiful.
In my picture making, my pursuit of "beauty" is to found in the making of "beautiful", or at least visually interesting, photographic prints. That is to write, the creation objets d'art.
