Brooks Jensen’s podcast of November 16th makes an interesting point about the way that different artists work.
The tenor of his thought is that photographers tend to be less likely to be artists in other fields as well – in comparison with painters or sculptors etc. He is not claiming an absolute line here (please listen to the podcast), but a tendency.
I think he probably has something.
The question is ‘why?’.
What I’m about to say is riddled with exceptions and iffs and buts. I’ll try to deal with the major ones as I go.
Photography is a dramatically different art process from any artform where you start off with a blank canvas, a white sheet, or an empty space.
As a photographer I don’t build an artwork piece by piece. I don’t need an idea. I can’t dramatically alter a work once it has begun.
No, as a photographer, I put myself in positions where there is something to see. I subtract the things that I don’t want to include and then I press the shutter. Once I have pressed the shutter, 95% of the work is done.
This doesn’t mean that I can’t have a project in mind, or that I can’t have some thoughts about what I am doing in advance. But I can’t influence what there is; I can’t control to any great degree what will pass in front of my camera. I decide where to stand and when to press the button. This may explain our collective fascination with street photography. Is this the form of photography where the photographer has least control over what is in front of the camera?
There are photographers who work out in advance a picture and then work to create it. I’ve recently seen an interview with a photographer who can take months of preparation before getting to the camera work, and, even when shooting, will go days without making an exposure. I think such photographers are the exception.
I think that photography is most like the additive arts when still life photographs are involved. There is no great difference, I think, between the thought processes behind creating a still life painting and creating a still life photograph. I also think that the ‘clean sheet’ art closest to photography is drawing from life (or possibly watercolour painting). The production time is short enough, and the possibilities of reworking are limited enough, that the same ‘see and react’ process could be happening. Photography has been called ‘instant drawing’.
Brooks Jensen also noted, as an exception to his general view, that a considerable number of photographers have been musicians. I think that this makes sense. Musicianship is also an art where the important bit is in the doing. Not the thinking beforehand, nor the artefact afterwards.
The idea that such a large part of the art of photography has happened when the shutter is pressed makes sense of the observation that photographers don’t often show unfinished work for comment. Showing an unfinished work makes much more sense for an additive artform because somebody can say something that may significantly, rather than marginally, influence the final piece.
It also begins to explain some of the miscommunication about communication. If to begin an artwork you have to have an idea, then you are probably likely to bind that idea, in your mind, into the finished product.
So, photographers aimlessly wander around and randomly press the shutter button not having any idea in advance what they are trying to achieve……
Lots of people before me have said that ‘photography is about deciding where to stand and when to release the shutter’, so there is no credit to me in inventing that phrase. But it is a powerful one. Deciding where to stand doesn’t just mean ‘up a bit, down a bit, left a bit, fire’. It also means deciding where in the world to go and when to do it. But once you have done that you have to accept what there is. You can’t invent snow that has melted, or bring out a sun that doesn’t shine. You don’t create by adding. You don’t use your imagination, you use your eyes.
Whereas, if you start with a blank sheet, you can examine your idea and ask ‘is this an oil on canvas idea, or a linocut idea’ (or any combination you care to mention).
This is a very good description of what photographers do, whilst this is an incomplete, but nonetheless interesting, take on the f8-and-be-there serendipity mindset. By the by, the ‘f8 and be there’ idea is another take on the whole craft question – but that is for another time.
There are artists who are signficant photographers but who also are known in other art fields. Wright Morris was a novelist (I can’t explain that combination); David Hockney was a painter who did photography for a while (that is a much more likely way around for it to happen); Henri Cartier Bresson was a photographer who also drew (I think the phrase ‘instant drawing’ was his). Any more?
This entry also posted in Photostream.
“Once I have pressed the shutter, 95% of the work is done” can be misleading if by “work” one refers to time spent by the photographer to produce a final print. At least that’s the case for me. It is accurate in the sense that the elements one has to work with are now all in place. Moving further, however, I think that the advent of digital has already opened the way to much more unconventional approaches that are closer to, say, painting. It’s so much easier to be additive now, it no longer requires heroic darkroom work a la Jerry Uelsmann. That is not my particular cup of tea, so I’m not prepared to cite specific photographer/artists for you, but I can’t believe we won’t be seeing more in future.
Steve,
Yes, 95% doesn’t refer to the amount of time involved.
And yes, additive techniques are now much more in the realm of photography than they were previously. I don’t think many ‘digital artists’ have yet been represented in Lenswork though, and I’m really talking within the limits set by Brooks Jensen here.
A lot of the debate about whether digital is ‘real photography’ stems, in my view, from the question of additive versus subtractive ways of working.
Colin,
What an interesting post. I went and listened to that podcast, and I found that I really don’t know enough photographers to make an informed decision or adjudication, but the ones I have known do tend to be what we call in the US ‘gearheads’ — meaning “good with machines,” but also generally technically inclined, like with computers.
But in this post and with others and in your comments, you yourself demonstrate skill with the supreme art of them all — philosophy. I mean that in the pure, old fashioned sense as in a love of wisdom and a knack for looking, wondering, and expressing such.
How true is this of other photographers? In the podcast, Brook Jensen shows that same quality. He mentions Ansel Adams and his musicianship. I met Ansel in Yosemite National Park. Nice guy. I used to buy books at his shop/gallery when I worked there in my youth and went to one of his book signings. Very inspirational being. He had that philosopher’s way about him too.
I will say one thing more. I first learned to draw and paint under the tutelage of my mother. She first told me something when I was, oh, maybe eight years old. Forty years later, and I am still learning from this, so here’s a great Patricia Dougherty quote: “Art is not in the doing; it is in the seeing.”
In a sense what you’re describing seems to say that photography, the way you approach it, is more an art of selection than of creation.
But as you mention, there are also photographers that spend a great deal of time working out in advance and setting up what they will photograph. There’s a history of that in filmmaking (Hitchcock was a great proponent of storyboarding). And there are of course “still photographers” that do the same thing. It strikes me that that way of working is somewhere between the art of selection and the art of creation, in that one first creates a world (additive) and then can move around in it and select from it (subtractive). Of course the world that one creates may be made up of things that one selects, and after one shoots the photograph they have the option of manipulating it. In painting, someone may start by staring at a blank canvas, make marks on it, and go from there. Or they may start by selecting images that they find, by photographing or sketching them, and use these as starting points for their painting.
So there seem to be pure forms, characterized in photography by your approach and in painting probably by the Abstract Expressionists, but much of what artists do in either medium falls somewhere in between.
Jerry Uelsmann gets called a photographer, but his method was also that of a collagist, even though he did his collaging in the darkroom and ended up with a silver print. He taught at the University of Florida when I was there, and I remember being fascinated by the way he worked. He would shoot photographs, print them, and then cut images out of the prints, using them as masks to print through. He had a darkroom setup where the mask was set up above the printing surface on springs. While the enlarger was projecting the image onto the paper, he would jiggle the mask on the springs to get rid of hard edges. He built up his final print by meticulously and repeatedly going through these steps. Today the whole thing is a lot easier with Photoshop (though doing so well requires a great deal of skill), but at the time his approach was quite inventive.
Interesting that you mention photographers who started out as musicians. Andy Summers (Police) and David Byrne (Talking Heads) both come to mind. Another musician-turned-photographer, Graham Nash, started Nash Editions here in Manhattan Beach (California), which was one of the first professional digital photo labs.
PS – I haven’t had time to listen to the podcast or follow the links. My comment is in response to what I read in the post itself.
Rex,
Gearheads – there is a little of the gearhead in most photographers. There have been one or two very high profile exceptions, but photography is a very technology dependent occupation. I spent an hour today trying to get my scanner and computer to talk to each other. They always have before (and hopefully they always will in the future….), but today they weren’t playing. I would have switched to dealing with some of my digital backlog instead, but I remembered that I hadn’t yet received the upgrade to the raw conversion software that I need. Perhaps I should go out and take some new photos. But the lens that I most want to use has gone back to the factory to have some coding added so that my camera will recognise it.
You don’t have to love this stuff to be a photograher, but you do have to put up with it and follow it with enough understanding to get the machines to work for you.
I don’t think that there is anything special about photographers as a group vis-a-vis wisdom, but thank you for the kind words ;-)
Perhaps I should go out and take some new photos. But the lens that I most want to use has gone back to the factory to have some coding added so that my camera will recognise it.
Might be a good day to play some music :)
David,
We are defintitely talking about a range or continuum here, and not two separate camps.
Photography has never been a purely subtractive form, and in recent years it has reached out more and more into the additive area. But one might characterise it generally as subtractive, not additive.
Does that mean it is more an art of selection, than of creation? Well, some folks would get upset about being excluded from the creative camp, so that it a potentially loaded question.
But if I take what I do for a moment…..go back to the fake fish picture, or look at this one from the same day. As I think that I have already said, I was killing time waiting for a vehicle to pass its annual inspection. I had no preconceived ideas about what I was trying to achieve. In one instance I had no notion that there was potential (never having been to the precise spot before). In the other case I had seen the potential whilst driving past on some other occasion. The fake fish picture doesn’t fit into any project that I’m working on except in the vaguest of senses. The linked picture does.
What I did was see, select, record, and then perfect during processing.
You could argue that I have added this skill or that skill. That I have created or not created. That I have used my imaginiation or not. All of which would get down to ‘depends what you mean by’ questions.
For me to have a stack of aircraft in my picture there has to be a stack of aircraft in front of my camera. For some others, the aircraft could have been in front of multiple cameras. For a painter the aircraft might be from memory (skipping lots of other options here).
But despite the linguistic complications, and the fact that there is a range involved with lots of overlaps, there does seem to me to be a real difference if you stand towards one end of the range and look at the other end. And understanding this helps understand some of our (speaking generally) different perspectives on the questions that we discuss.
Colin, I probably chose my words poorly.
I wasn’t trying to imply that photography, even of the most purely “selective” variety, required any less creativity than making a painting. I think I was trying to distinguish between the types of activities (of making something from scratch, as opposed to finding and selecting it) to define the two ends of the philosophical spectrum. And also to discuss the many ways that things can fall beween those two poles. My intention wasn’t to exclude anyone from the creative camp.
Perhaps the word “generative” would be a better choice than “creative”, in the sense I was trying to use it.
David,
I understand the point you were making. I was just choosing my words carefully as these are value loaded words.
I am definitely selecting rather than generating.
Generative from the dictionary means “of or relating to reproduction”, and photography could be said to be a means of reproduction – ‘this is real, and this photo is a reproduction of it’.
Slippery things, words.
Oh, and I’m one of the world’s less musical souls :-)
Slippery things, words.
I guess that’s why I’m a painter and not a writer :)
Images are slippery too, but I think that can add to their poetry. When words are used in poems (or song lyrics), that slippery quality is a bonus, but when you’re trying to say something specific they can drive you nuts.
Colin,
THe other aspect of ‘gearheads’ is that they are constantly experimenting with new toys and new tools, often with no other reason than an insatiable curiosity.
I know when I look in on photo blogs, I see a tremendous amount of equipment analysis and reviews. I usually have no idea what they are talking about, but the passion with which this is done is remarkable.
Then there are others who are complete minimalists. One of my favorite photgraphers, Ernst Haas, liked using the old rangefinder Leicas because they were virtually indestructable, and he went through a lot of soul searching before he added an SLR to his kit, but did so because it was just too damn hard to compose very close, close ups with the rangefinder. He used the same old film all the time, either Kodachrome 64 or 25 preferring the latter when he could get away with it and only resorting to Ektachrome when he was in 3rd world countries and couldn’t get the Kodachrome processed, Always just a few lenses, very occasionaly a 400mm for bird shots, but almost never a tripod, saying, “Nature will usually provide me with something to rest my camera on.”
And there is that philosophy thing again. That’s a whole way of dealing with the universe in one little sentence.
In Edward Weston’s journals, I see more of this stuff (a lot of stuff about human relationships, his women, his kids).
Perhaps my view is limited by the words and pictures of great photographers. These guys think about life, and somehow this comes through in their work.
I know when I look in on photo blogs, I see a tremendous amount of equipment analysis and reviews. I usually have no idea what they are talking about, but the passion with which this is done is remarkable.
I don’t share that passion for equipment analysis, but I’m glad there are people who do. When I was shopping around for digital cameras, a friend turned me on to the website Digital Photography Review. I was able to use the information I found there to narrow down my choices, including eliminating cameras with known problems. Sure was helpful.
THe other aspect of ‘gearheads’ is that they are constantly experimenting with new toys and new tools, often with no other reason than an insatiable curiosity.
A lot of the guys I work with (software company) are like this (I see it as an extension of the hacker mentality) and are into digital photography – not exactly fine art photography but they love the toys and just messing around.
For the last 3 or 4 years we have gotten together at lunch on fridays for “geek photo” to share our images and talk about cameras, photoshop, etc.
I did learn everything I needed to switch from slides to digital for photographing my artwork from these guys (and explains why this clueless amature has a calibrated monitor). They are great guys – but definitely a different mentality than I have, and probably from fine art photographers as they are basically software engineers with an expensive hobby.
Lisa, David, Rex:
There are doubtless photographers for whom the gear is the thing (I don’t know if the term is universal, but the British name for a camera bag has been ‘gadget bag’ for some time), but it is also true that the equipment side of photography in many ways is the craft part.
Knowing how a lens from the 1950’s draws is a part of the knowledge base that you need. Haas may have had very simple equipment but you can be sure that he understood that equipment and that he knew why he had chosen it over other options.
To become a successful digital photographer you need to know a lot about technology and equipment (and yes, necessary, but not sufficient). There are a very people around who can get an inkjet print and an offset book print to have the same colours.
Because the art photographers and the gear photographers need to know the same things, it is difficult to distinguish one from the other from the outside. Do people in other disciplines get fascinated by the craft aspects? I don’t know, but that is partly what the gear thing is. It explains why both Paul and I have written reviews of (different) tripod heads (that’s the bit that goes between the tripod and the camera). Well, it doesn’t explain why we’ve written the reviews, but it does explain why we knew enough to write the reviews.
Another aspect to think about is the role of the working photographer. If your job is to get a picture of the winning goal (or news, wildlife, social, wedding etc alternatives) then you can’t rely on nature providing you with something to rest your camera on. A wedding photographer who isn’t prepared for the fact that there is no light in the reception hall is a poor wedding photographer (in both senses). These working photographers are often laughed at because they have so much gear that they need staff to carry it for them. But nonetheless they provide role models for amateurs (the top ones do have a glamorous lifestyle after all) that influences some of the gear talk. If so an so says that carbon fibre tripods are the best, then I’ve got to have one as well.
Rex – you make an interesting point about the thinking more widely and philosophy. Whilst I think about that, I’m going to throw a quotation back at you: Mondrian – “I don’t want pictures, I just want to find things out”
A couple comments from someone with a music background.
First, Ansel Adams was apparently a very talented pianist and might have had a career there if that photography thing hadn’t worked out.
One connection to music is a topic that I’ve seen many posts about recently – doing photography frequently and regularly as “practice” that will develop both the ability to see and the intuitive skills to operate the equipment of photography.
Another connection – and a surprising and odd one – between photography and the music world occurred to me last year. Many years ago I first encountered the work of John Cage. While I’m not that fond of it as sound, I still think his ideas about music/art being in the mind more than “out there” are very important. n his view, any sound could be perceived as music – it is art because someone perceives it that way rather than because someone creates it that way.
In a sense, photography is at least partially an expression of that idea. Most photographers don’t exactly create their images. Rather they discover the qualities in something that already exists.
(I know it is not quite that simple, but I still see the connection.)
I know when I look in on photo blogs, I see a tremendous amount of equipment analysis and reviews. I usually have no idea what they are talking about, but the passion with which this is done is remarkable.
A certain amount of this is caused by a desire for community based around photography, complete with sensible, supportive dialogue.
It’s easy to write about/talk about gear. It’s real, physical stuff, and the properties of it are easily determined. As a result, the dialogue about it is easy.
Writing cogently about the creative side of things is much harder. Frank Zappa once pointed out that writing about music was like dancing about architecture. I’d lump talking about the creative aspect of any art in that category – it’s just very hard, especially without the dialogue being face to face.
Colin and Paul (and other photographers) – I’m curious about the gender make up the community of photographers. From looking at your 2 blogs I see a few females posting but not many. Is this indicative of the general population of photographers or just who happens to read your blog?
I listened to a few other podcasts on Brook’s site and found a few comments to be similar to comments that I’ve made about art quilters. In particular in his podcast about what photographers have on their bookshelf. I know many quilters that don’t care about art beyond the world of fiber – it is a very inbred group of people, which is what Brook was saying about photography. Is this a common thought among photographers?
Lisa,
I think that if you count camera buyers, you will find a heavy male majority.
However, if you look at significant photographers (however you might choose to define that) the bias is much less significant.
There have been great female photographers right from the beginning, and in all genres, including some apparently unlikely ones (such as war zone photography).
You might smile so see that the first person to comment on this posting on Photostream was Julie.
There is a terminology trap to watch out for. (I can’t remember who said this….but) If you buy a piano, you own a piano. If you buy a camera then you are a photographer. I think many photographers, in this sense, don’t even have books of photographs on their shelves, let alone works from other art forms.
Dan,
Most photographers don’t exactly create their images. Rather they discover the qualities in something that already exists.
I think that this is exactly right. I could have responded to David by saying ‘I don’t create. Why do I need to create? The world is rich and varied and fascinating enough to last me out without me needing to create new. In fact there is more out there than I could imagine.’
Paul,
I wanted to comment back last night about dialog, but several glasses of wine and a lot of yucking it up with one of my sisters generated a fun face to face dialog. As always, the people nearest me will get the attention.
It’s interesting what you say about the equipment being easy to talk about and the creative, art aspects being more difficult. It’s the same with other forms. It’s easy to talk about technique and tools. It’s hard, or harder, to talk about meaning and being. It seems I tend to buck that trend though. I got to some stage in my technical development where I did not, absolutely did NOT want to discuss or explain art techniques to anyone or with anyone. For one, it took me many, many years to learn, and I knew it was impossible to do a good job explaining without a whole book’s full of background information, and for another, I discovered that few people were disciplined or ambitious enough to warrant the hours and hours of work on my part it took to explain, for I’d see them do exactly nothing with the chest of treasure they were given.
But that breaks down whenever I discover anyone who really will test, try, and work. It’s a whole different story then.
I’m really glad that A&P has photographers who contribute so much. It helps to keep the subjects more universal. It rather forces us to look at cross discipline denominators.
Dan,
I’m of the same opinion about Cage. Interesting ideas, but his results are not so interesting. There is something really apathetic about Cage’s constructions. Others though have done some beautiful work using naturally ocurring sounds. If it is true that art is in the perception, it follows that those who put more there to percieve, are more likely to be received. That seems to accord with how I see people respond to any art. So just “letting things happen” is more than likely to produce audience reactions that “just happen” to walk on by, bored.
Colin – I purposefully left the definition of “photographer” vague in my question as I was curious how you might fill in that blank. Interesting choice of word “significant”. I might try that on the art quilt world as the issue of how to divide those that have a lot of fabric and a sewing machine from those that are pursuing the activity in a more “significant” way is always a bit contentious.
You say the gender bias is less in the more exclusive group – but I’m curious if it is ever an issue that is noticed and discussed or no?
I’m of the same opinion about Cage. Interesting ideas, but his results are not so interesting.
If you think of Cage as a composer, then I agree. I find his music to be pretty unlisten-able. But if you think of him as a philosopher, then his results are the things he wrote and said, and those are completely inspiring and thought-provoking.
Lisa,
but I’m curious if it is ever an issue that is noticed and discussed or no?
Yes, it is discussed. The magazine that Brooks Jensen publishes had a long editorial about this very subject sometime recently. Is it a hot issue. No, I don’t think it is. Is there discrimination? Probably. More in some areas than others. Some fields are completely gender blind (nobody buying a stock photograph need know the name of the photographer let alone anything about them). Any area sponsored by public money will have its own set of gender agendas. Other areas? Who can tell from the outside?
Thanks for the answer Colin, sorry I was vague, I was fishing around to see what you might say for a specific reason.
Here’s why I asked. I read an interesting article a while back on a theory as to why women are underpaid in computer science. I can’t find a link to it anymore but the thought was that to stay on top in the field it is necessary to stay on top of the technology and there just isn’t time during the work day to do this.
So the theory put forth was my male coworkers go home and read articles and mess around with the latest and greatest thing and my females coworkers go home and play with their kids, talk to their husbands and spend time with friends. Because women value balance more than the men. So naturally the men end up on top and stay on top.
I think the idea has some merit, I’m not sure I agree with it completely but I’ve kept it in the back of my mind to observe how things match up with the reality of my specific situation.
So I was wondering if there was ever any parallel thoughts on this in the photography world, where technology is also very important as you pointed out.
I know it’s not quite the same thing but having to relearn new technology each time there is a change does present a time drain that is not directly related to making specific work. Something that painters or quilters working with traditional methods don’t really face.
Lisa,
The phenomenon you describe exists, but I don’t think it is particularly a technology phenomenon.
I’ve managed a hospital with only three male nurses on the payroll – all of whom were heads of department (but I’m glad to say, all of whom were recruited by a female director of nursing). Ambition, home life, personality, technology, bias….it is a complex mix.
Oops, wrong thread!
Right needle?