Bracketing Mao: An Ode to Kodachrome

[Pherdinand]

Juan,
that was just so full of...passion!🙂)

 

[photorat]

Thanks for your comments, Juan. I really do appreciate your frankness and as a learning photographer myself (when do any of us stop?), I can take it.

I would beg to differ, however, on your categorical denial of the use of text with photographs. Is this not something we see every day? I work as a freelance copywriter and 90% of my advertising work involves creating an organic unity between words and images. In a reporting context, photos often come with captions.

"Bracketing Mao", granted, is neither advertising or reporting. It is intended as art. And although I also like taking "good" photographs, photographs that tell a story and can stand on their own aesthetically, I wanted to do something different with this project. I wanted to divert the gaze beyond the frame of a single photo (and in this case towards the series of photographs itself). And although I don't want to pre-empt or enforce any particular interpretation of the resultant aesthetic effect, I don't see the harm in suggesting certain avenues as is common in a lot of contemporary art. That said, I think the text is in addition to the actual object. The photographic series should remain central, the text should be considered as the "catalogue".

I'm sorry you feel the photos don't express anything at all. Maybe they at least express a refusal to express anything at all, at least in the conventional way?

I recommend you not to use words as part of any photograph or series.

That way you'll see clearly what you got visually, instead of feeling you are expressing visually what you are not.

Without your words (and with them either) the shots don't express a thing at all, and they have no relation with your perception of Mao or China. They are not a creative or even normal use of Kodachrome, and they're no ode.

I hope in some time you'll remember this as coming from another learning photographer, full of respect for you and your work. I wouldn't have given you my opinion if I felt there's nothing inside you.

Let your images grow in the absence of words.

Regards,

Juan

Edit: I enlarged the photos again for European viewers. For others, a more convenient "autoviewer" version is available here: http://photo.copyrat.eu/mao/autoviewer

Thanks again, all for the constructive comments.

 

[anorphirith]

very beautiful work, lots of soul, very creative. I'm jealous of the idea !
love the text also
keep it REAL

 

[Jaans]

I recommend you not to use words as part of any photograph or series.

That way you'll see clearly what you got visually, instead of feeling you are expressing visually what you are not.

Without your words (and with them either) the shots don't express a thing at all, and they have no relation with your perception of Mao or China. They are not a creative or even normal use of Kodachrome, and they're no ode.

I hope in some time you'll remember this as coming from another learning photographer, full of respect for you and your work. I wouldn't have given you my opinion if I felt there's nothing inside you.

Let your images grow in the absence of words.

Regards,

Juan

Most respected photographic series that has been publlished have a small or long preface or artists statement that signals the artists intent. This also doesn't necessarily have to be written by the artist - it can be written by the editor, publisher, critic etc Look at Frank's The Americans, with the intro by Keroauc.

This statement or preface is the norm more than the exception. I understand your learning but I think that your advice is wrong in the overall context of the medium- for example go to magnum, just about EVERY series or project has this statement or introduction, normally written by the photographer.

On a smaller scale, the Santa Fe center for photography demands this statement if you want to enter that project competition which is very highly respected; also the major Eugene Smith Awards and Guggenheim. The Bresson foundation also suggests this statement for the Oskar Barnack award - another prestigious competition. The emerging photography fund also has this statement as compulsory which is run through magnum.

I personally don't believe that a series doesn't always need this preface or statement, but you will find they are more in the majority than the minority as per the examples I have highlighted above. It can be good for a beginner to just worry solely about the images and let them do the talking, but I think that the OP's project is definetely one that needs that introduction as it is quite conceptual in its approach.