changing the channel

On a previous post, I had a comment left by 4sb:

When you have no choice, you experience things that you would otherwise never encounter . I wonder whether with all the richness of the web, that we might be letting go of that avenue of growth. Is it possible that there are more people of closed minds than open minds?

He used the example of the contrast between our ability to almost infinitely tune the content of the internet that we see, compared to when you used to watch TV and there were only 3 channels – so you’d end up watching something you wouldn’t have thought you’d be interested in and possibly being inspired by it to go in a whole new direction. What happens when we’re funneling all of our inspiration through a filter of what we already know we like? Does that have an effect of ‘distilling’ that taste to be something very strong (and possibly narrow in scope)?

I think there’s something to be said for coming into contact with that which you’d not originally have thought you’d be interested in, which wouldn’t be rocket science to most people. But maybe not just in the way described in the last paragraph, where you find something you like unexpectedly. What if you’re exposed to something and even though you don’t end up ‘liking’ it as such, it still teaches you something? Most of what I feel I’ve learned about photography over the last couple of years hasn’t come from looking at photographs I admire. It’s come from looking at photographs I wouldn’t have sought out under my own steam, and listening to the thoughts of the photographers that are approaching things in a different way than me. Or even, it’s come from talking to people who aren’t even photographers, or reading books that aren’t about photography. Sometimes even seeing something and deciding you don’t like it, or reading/hearing something and deciding you don’t agree with it, can be better than not having seen/heard it at all, in that it may have strengthened your original opinion, or even made you realise you have an opinion on the subject, in the first place.

making peace with your motivations

Maybe it’s just me, but it’s taken me this long (at 30 years of age) to finally realise that sometimes the hardest thing to understand is what’s inside you. I remember reading The Alchemist where the boy has an actual conversation with his heart, and I sort of glossed over it at the time as being an obvious thing to do, just written about in a metaphorical sense. But since then it’s itched the inside of my brain, because I’m not sure it’s something I’m able to do in any sense.

If you ask yourself a question, you might not tell yourself the truth. You might wonder why on earth that would happen, but it’s almost like our selves are made up of a whole community of little personalities, and each one has its own agenda. I’m not talking about multiple personality disorder here, it’s basic stuff that seems to run through the course of the history of psychology. I think I’ve mentioned it before but the book The Happiness Hypothesis mentions lots of different schools of thought on psychology all having an element of how the self is split into two or more parts, each one having different motivations – sometimes conflicting with each other. So when you ask yourself a question, which part do you listen to? The sensible bit that has learned the rules of society? The carnal, self preserving bit that acts on pure survival-of-the-fittest instinct? Is there any way to even realise which bit has the strongest voice in answering? That’s not even taking into account how we save up all the criticism we’ve had over the years and build it into one ‘voice’ that makes itself heard when you’re feeling a little wobbly and sends you into a spiral of self loathing. Ok, I got a bit drama queen there, but I think we’ve all done it.

This does have a link to photography, I promise.

It’s one thing to say that art is subjective, and there is no easy way of measuring ‘good’ or ‘bad’. That’s why when people enter photos into camera club competitions, they get judged on sharpness, composition, vivid colour or range of tones, and ‘impact’. Those are tangible things you can, to a certain extent, quantify and compare. This is stuff I’ve said before. But what happens when you take the first thing I was talking about, and think about it in conjunction with this telling the truth stuff? To be more specific, I suppose I’ll give the example:

“Why am I doing this? Do I want recognition for being good at it, or am I happy just pottering along, pleasing myself?”

The obvious answer is that there’s no need to please anyone but yourself. But that’s the sensible answer, the one we are taught by society to believe is right. Some people are happy to admit they are in it for the money, some relish the competition of the marketplace and use sales to measure success. But what happens when you’re conflicted, and your heart won’t answer that question? When you’ve told yourself long enough that the opinion of nobody but you matters, that it’s all about taste so what someone else thinks is irrelevant, but you still have a horrible, guilty, sneaking urge to put yourself out there on the offchance, the vague hope that you’ll be regarded (by some at least) as talented and good, but you hate yourself for wanting to do that? I also realise that marketable!=good, so success in that area may still end up leaving me feeling empty if that’s actually what I’m after.

I think it would make things a whole lot easier if we could suss out just what it is we’re really looking to get out of any given situation like that, and make our peace with it. I’ve been having the urge to try and break into the gallery scene, and it’s bothering me that I don’t know why I want to have my stuff on a gallery wall – or rather, it’s worrying me that I may be doing it for the sake of a bit of chin tickling. I need to know that if that is why, I’m comfortable with it – but also that I’m prepared for it not to happen. Telling yourself you don’t care about something then being slapped in the face when it fails is not a nice feeling, doubly so. If you’re clear about your motivation from the start, you can be more ready to deal with the possible outcomes and how they might make you feel – and more importantly – how to get over it and keep going to try and reach that goal. At the moment all I can do is look for other possible motivations, and try them all on to see which feels genuine – that’s the closest I can get to a conversation with my heart.

a sense of belonging

People like to analyse, label and group things together. I think it’s a thing that helps us make sense of the hugeness that is the world around us. We also like to find other people that like the stuff we like, and spend time with them, talking about that stuff. The internet makes it even easier to find those people that are also into the obscure stuff we’re into, so it’s almost an expectation these days that whatever you like, you don’t need to like it alone.

I see these groups of people that are into the same stuff, and I interact with them where my interests cross over with theirs. But it feels like I’m only dipping a toe into each group, and I don’t really belong anywhere. I enjoy getting all misty eyed over the odd fast prime lens or high iso full frame sensor with the gear heads, or indulging in some girly pastel split-toned butter smooth bokeh eye candy shots, or trying to get beyond the superficial and talking about the real art behind what we do. But I get bored of the technical, sickened of the sweet and bogged down in the whys and wherefores, and I suppose that’s why I don’t commit completely to any of those groups.

But isn’t that what makes me an individual? The same as having gone through those fashions in processing – the heavy contrast highly saturated, the vignettes, the gaussian glow, the desaturation with heavy shadows, and now we’re into split tone with low contrast and blown highlights – and each one I try on, like an outfit, and as the fashion passes I keep a bit of it that feels right to me. Over time those bits that I’ve kept mix together and make what I think of as my own style of processing, and I suspect that process itself is going to continue to a certain extent, whether I become more settled and try each new thing less, there’s still an evolution of style in there. So why is it that I want to belong to one group, rather than being happy with doing the same thing there?

I suppose it’s got something to do with the fact that when you want to progress in something, you look to someone who is further down the line to give you an idea of where you have to go, what you have to do to get there. I know, nobody is going to be groundbreaking using that approach, but I never set out to be groundbreaking. I always figured I was following in someone’s footsteps. But what happens when those footsteps all diverge in different directions and you want to combine bits of all those paths, to make your own?

I’ve gone through various stages where I’ve had an urge to get my work up on a wall somewhere, and I’m feeling it again. But I’m getting lots of contradictions between the type of work that I do, and what gets hung on walls. For one group it’s too arty, for another it’s too dark, for another it’s too pretty… when the gatekeepers are people who fit neatly into one of the boxes, what happens when you don’t, but you want the same result? Do you have to put on their team shirt to play that game? Do you have to sell your soul and walk the walk and talk the talk for the sake of being allowed in to their realm? I suspect I’m mixing metaphors now, I’m tired. But I think I’m making sense.

But, as per usual, all I have for you is questions, not answers…

teaching an old lens new tricks

From a post by Kirk Tuck over at The Visual Science Lab:

The idea being that the hand/mind relationship (haptics and all that) predisposes one to work in the same fashion over and over again and only by making a conscious attempt to change the tools will you change the construct and the paradigm that keeps you slavishly locked into the same subconscious fabrications.

The psycho therapist had to get off the phone at that point. You see, we’d been talking about the really cool f2 zoom lenses for the Olympus E system and he wanted to go play with them right away.

It’s true, when I start playing with a new lens or camera it brings me fresh vision, and inspiration to go out and shoot things in a different way.

I’m thinking about how to balance that up with the premise that when you are ‘at one’ with your equipment to the extent that you don’t have to think about how to use it, you can get on with the stuff that comes from deeper down.

How can I get the best of both worlds? How can I use the ability to work away without having to think about operating the tools to my advantage, but not get stuck in the rut that sometimes comes with using a particular lens or camera? Is there anything else you can do to kickstart your mind, whilst using the same tools?

personal work

At some point a while ago I felt a definite shift in my photography, where it became less about what was in front of the camera, and more about what was going on behind it. I’ve still been doing the pretty flower thing since, but it’s been mixed in with more and more stuff that’s meaningful for me (although maybe not for anyone else).

Even my SoFoBoMo book was based on the premise of exploring (ugh, I hate that term but can never find a suitable alternative so you’ll have to deal with it and it’s pretentious and arty connotations) feelings through images, and I have a reservation about going much further than adding a word or two to the photos because it then becomes less about allowing for interpretation and more about broadcasting my personal life.

It’s made me wonder what the scope is for showing your more private work. If you just present the images without any kind of explanation, it’s a double edged sword because then they will be what anyone thinks they are – either understood or misunderstood on any given level. Of course, this is exactly what a lot of artists do, because they feel that each individual viewer’s experience and reaction to the image is what makes the art, even to the extent that when pushed, they won’t share their own thoughts on it. But after reading so many blogs and reviews, I do struggle to see a photographer getting away with saying that because the quality of photography seems to be judged by the combination of intention and implementation, or ‘concept and form’ – with emphasis often placed more heavily on the concept.

I suppose my musing is circling around the idea of presenting work that’s very personal to you in a way that it can be appreciated properly, but without having to open up your feelings to everyone in the captions. Do you just post the pictures and let people take what they will from them? Do you come to terms with the sacrifice of sharing your feelings with strangers? Or do you simply keep that stuff to yourself and only post the pretty flowers?

new clarity

Some people can come along and put something so eloquently that it makes you feel like a whole load of puzzle pieces have come together to show you the bigger picture.

From Paul Lester:

“Sure, it’s easy to get caught up in the grandeur of the mountains, the vast open spaces of the beach, or the mystery of a swamp, but those are the shouts. The big “Look at me voices”. Below that, there is something quiet. That’s what I seek.”

And then:

“When I listen to the shouts, I usually end up with pictures that are simply ‘nice’ and have little meaning to me. The easy shots. The ones that are easy to delete.”

By golly, he’s right. Read the whole post here.

finding a course for my horse

I love it when I get something new and it gives me something to work on.

I got a polaroid SX-70 sonar from ebay and praise the noodly one himself, it turned out to be in perfect working order! I’ve been really loving the quirkiness of it – the actual mechanics of taking a picture and having it pop out the front, the unpredictable overexposure and skewed, muted colours, the square format, and the novelty of not processing the results – what I get is what I get. But most of all I’m enjoying figuring out what works best with it.

I wasn’t really conscious of the process when I did it before, but it’s exactly what I did with the holga lens when I got it. I tried it out in different situations, to see what felt right. I discovered that it worked better with things that I hadn’t been inclined to shoot before, like proper Dublin brick walls and glass fronted buildings. I think of it as ‘what it likes to look at’, and when I shoot what it likes to look at, I get better results. So now I’m trying to figure out what the SX-70 (nicknamed “the batcamera” because of the sonar autofocus!) likes to look at, and this is what I’ve been thinking about so far:

- Somewhat predictably, retro stuff looks good. But in a predictable way. It’s not quite me. It seems too ‘easy’, and possibly a bit twee.

- I’m tempted to try shooting flowers because I’ve seen a number of absolutely breathtakingly beautiful polaroid flower shots. But I’m very wary of falling into a particular niche, and want to find something different than what’s already out there. Flowers are me with the vanilla lenses (glass ones that produce sharp images) but polaroid flowers seem more like me trying to be something else, so I’m treading carefully there. But: I will be bringing it to the botanic gardens soon enough, to find out.

- I was surprised to find that my tendency to simplify and minimise doesn’t seem to work so well with it. I don’t know if it’s the white border, but somehow by isolating one or two elements in that square frame, it’s introducing a certain sense of claustrophobia. This one has kind of knocked me for six because, well, if you read my last post, I’m all about the simple. I do think though, that it isn’t as simple as that (boom boom). I think the distance from the subject also has an impact on how claustrophobic it feels, because beach shots with just one or two lines and shapes don’t feel like that but a slatted wooden door next to a painted white wall does. Maybe horizontal/vertical lines are bringing in the walls and diagonals are pushing them out.

I think it’s more than just choosing a subject though. It’s to do with choosing how to approach each subject. Small details like looking up or down can affect the feeling of an image, placing objects in the centre or close to the edges of the frame, balancing a composition or bringing in tension, and using scale and proportion all do their thing with different subjects in different ways, so I have a lot of (expensive!) experimentation ahead of me. I plan to visit a forest or two, and I do have a sneaky little idea to try it out on landscapes, because I like how the paleness works with wide open spaces. (Update on that after the May bank holiday weekend in the Burren!)

I do wish I could use it for the SoFoBoMo project but I’m not sure I can justify using up 35 frames on it. bah :(

simplicity

Can simplicity have depth in photography?

I’ve been thinking a lot about the parallels and the differences between photography and painting. Because painting is (possibly, depending on your own viewpoint) about the process of creation by hand, brush stroke after brush stroke, and this contributes a large amount to the value of the finished piece. It gives you something to think about when you’re looking at it. So when something is created by mechanical and electronic means and within a fraction of a second, what do we look to, when we’re trying to find the artist in the work? There seems to be a general belief that there’s skill involved in balancing images with complicated compositions – or even, not balancing them in order to say something, or balancing them so that what is actually complicated doesn’t seem so. Then there’s the inherent quality of photography that allows us to capture more detail in a scene than we could actually perceive at the time, and come back to marvel at it in the resulting image. It seems to be about having plenty to look at in a photograph.

So what happens when we have simple photographs? Can they only ever be suitable for superficial appreciation? Surely within minutes of browsing something like Michael Kenna’s work it’s clear that there’s something else to it, beause even though sometimes the compositions are pared down to the minimum, there’s something else there. And he does it, over and over and over again, and I remember seeing his stuff years ago and I still love the same images now that entranced me back then.

I like to shoot simply. I found out early on that to make my images work, I had to strip them down to the bare bones of what I was photographing before I was happy. But I wonder, when you’ve done that so much that you don’t have to think about it anymore, does it start to get repetitive? Is it too ‘easy’? I think it takes skill to suggest the form of something with only a couple of strokes of a brush but a simple photograph just doesn’t have the same foundation. I’m floundering a bit trying to distill my musings into a concise question but the closest I can get is:

What’s the value in simple images?

a small confession

Photography’s link to reality (perceived or otherwise) is like a noose around my neck, I’m constantly straining to get away from it. I sometimes wonder if I’m just a failed painter. I’m not interested in representing what’s in front of me to show what’s in front of me. What I’m trying to figure out, though, is what I am interested in doing.

local participation

I’ve apparently made enough noise about sofobomo this year that I’ve encouraged, cajoled and guilted a few locals into taking part. I’m not sure whether this is me claiming responsibility, or admitting blame…

Behold, the Irish contingent:

Danny O’Brien
Well known for beautiful landscape, wildlife and character shots from around the Valentia islands and their vicinity, and relentlessly producing visually arresting shots of anything and everything else that falls in front of his lens from hot air balloons to those gannets. Danny tells me he’s never done anything like this, and is looking forward to working on a project with a theme.

Darren Greene
We’ve known each other both online and in person for a couple of years now, and Darren’s style has overlapped mine now and again, when we share a like of flowers and falling-down-buildings – but he’s rather more adept with a wide angle lens than me! He hasn’t shared the details of his sofobomo project yet, unless the book title on his sofobomo page is more than just a reference to how nervous he is about getting started…

Tommie Lehane
Tommie is a bit of a quiet one and lets his photos tell the stories. Glimpses of everyday life, humorous juxtapositions and visual metaphors show a skill for spotting a picture that I’m hugely envious of, it’s an entirely different breed of photography from my usual so it’s lovely to have something different in my round of regular photoblogs. Tommie regularly works on projects so the interesting thing will be to see how he works in a more compressed timeframe rather than gathering along the way like I – and a few others I know – would usually do too.

Hugh Chaloner
I’ve been a long time fan his other worldly imagery that shows a world I thought only existed in my imagination, but it looks like Hugh has chosen to make use of his skill at capturing personalities in a spilt second, whether a stranger or family he’s definitely got a knack for it. I’m looking forward to seeing how he presents his photos in the pdf because he’s got something of a flair for graphic design too.

Louise Barnewall
A fellow flower and gnome enthusiast, and also recently dipping her toe into the world of film (and holga!) and soon developing chemicals (figuratively of course), Louise has been getting more and more into the birdy ways of late and it looks like she’s going to base her sofobomo project around a trip to the Saltees so there should be plenty avian activity there to provide enough book fodder. I expect pictures of birds flying, eating, fighting, loving and generally being otherwise birdly.

Ryan Whalley
He shares my love of details, quirky stones, old stuff, foresty goodness, indulges my standing under trees for what is probably longer than would be considered normal, as well as what is growing into some serious garden/flower geekishness but when we clamber up hillsides and through squelchy bogs he somehow manages to replicate not just the scene itself but something else about the place. I’m hoping he also shares a seat in the car every weekend during May so we can go and shoot plenty of material for our projects. I’d better help him pick one, seeing as how I made him sign up…

I think there are a couple others who are hovering on the edge of signing up too, so my encouraging/cajoling/guilting isn’t over yet.

So, keep an eye out for this lot when the sofobomo fuzzy month gets into full swing and see if you can sneak a preview of what they’re doing on their blogs.