Sejanus.Aelianus
Veteran
Exactly my point, and put much more succinctly than I managed.
Guilty as charged, m'lord. To misquote Winston Churchill: I'm a cynical little man with much to be cynical about.
fireblade
Vincenzo.
johannielscom
Snorting silver salts
Hi PKR,
How are you? Of course you are completely correct when you say I have to figure this out for myself.
I'm looking for authenticity here, a means to find an m.o. that suits me, as both a person and a photographer. Since I presumed other have undergone similar stages of doubt and re-plotting a bearing (or will do so in the future), I thought the subject interesting enough to start a thread on it. I will not be copying somebody elses approach but ideas might help me devise my own mindset and approach to images and technique.
@all: if you find modern life ugly, what are your visions that enable you to photograph it, and for a longer period or a greater project, even body of work?
Pickett Wilson
Veteran
I am concentrating my personal photography on in-depth essays about people. Individuals. "Modern Life" over the last several decades is too generic, to consumer focused in the U.S. to hold much long term interest, IMHO. But individual people are amazingly varied and interesting. And, an area not saturated by Instagram snappers.
johannielscom
Snorting silver salts
Pickett,
are you shooting single portraits, or are you shooting series? Is your in-depth essay a photo-only essay, or an interview, or a diary-style essay with several pictures?
I'd be interested in a link!? contact@johanniels.com
Pickett Wilson
Veteran
I'm concentrating on more in-depth photo essays. Also recording informal interviews, but I'm more interested in the photo stories at this point. In real life, I'm a newspaper shooter, and that is what it is. It's my personal photography that needed a different direction. After 50 years (since I was 10) as a photo obsessive, I've shot all the rocks, trees and buildings I ever want to see! People, though, are unique if you get beyond the surface.
I have an advantage, though, because after all these years as a PJ, I'm not shy about approaching people.
I have an advantage, though, because after all these years as a PJ, I'm not shy about approaching people.
johannielscom
Snorting silver salts
There are people who complain, and people who get to work. Never has it been easier to not only photograph, but also to travel to wherever you want, to print, to communicate and find subjects, to exhibit. Never was it so easy to share images to a group as large as possible, both in general and within a niche subject/scene. Pictures have never been more important than now, it's their abundance that scares people. Not their supposed lack of quality. I am sure that there are both more amateur as well as pro photographers in the world than ever before.
But to get back on topic...
Pictures of old things inspire because they strengthen the concept of what once was (but no longer). I am sure many have read Barthes' Camera Lucida. He more or less says photography is about death, a moment that once was but will never return. And the photographs that will touch you most personally are the ones from the lost past. Your old neighbourhood, old fashion, old trains. Those moments are death, like your deceased family members.
Now a photo of your deceased grandfather likely won't appeal so much to others, but deceased buildings, streets, signs, jackets and deceased photographic media like BW film all kicks us in the nostalgia balls. In many cafes I see old coca cola adds now for decorations. In the future too, shall many current things evoke nostalgia and touch us.
I think the images that will stand the tests of time most are the ones shot in the current modern environment. All others are either artistic visual expressions (abstract works) that can stand the tests of time like paintings anyway, or they are wannabe records of a different era, escapes from reality, victims of a nostalgia fallacy. In a way, instagram is a more relevant medium right now than film. It is a stamp from our times. Our Kodak (or maybe polaroid is a better comparison).
Ads and signs, plastics and electronics (including photoshop) are part of our world, not some evil (someone rightfully joked "alien") separation. I choose to include them in my photographs, here are some examples. They might not be good photographs, but I believe the modern "ugly" elements actually make them less bad
R1146375 by Rudy Shots, on Flickr
_DSF7672 by Rudy Shots, on Flickr
DSCF0473 by Rudy Shots, on Flickr
DSCF1242 by Rudy Shots, on Flickr
Rudy,
thank you for taking the time to reply to my complaining, most benign of you.
Of course both you and Barthes are right in saying that photography is about death in some way. My slogan for this for years has been: "herinneringen van morgen fotografeer je vandaag" (translated: "tomorrow's memories are photographed today").
My main reason for documenting todays 'ugliness' would be this notion of death: in due time it will all be gone and forgotten, unless we take pictures to remember it by. This is my main reason to want to photograph 'today' and not 'yesterday' when it comes to choice of subject, scenery, etc.
On a different level regarding death and photography. I've photographed dead things like ossuaries, dead birds and car-hit cats etc, because I am interested in the conflict between the gruesome content of the picture and the aesthetics-driven process that photography is, framing, composition, lighting, color, light, etc. Guess I've seen my share of 'uglyness' in pictures when it comes to that. Yet, I apparently cannot apply this vision to more daily-life shots.
I see you have found a compelling way to incorporate those items of potential ugliness in your pictures. Hat's off for that, I admire this since I'm struggling with it.
Question, since I do not know Japan from close up (like you obviously do): would your m.o. also work in The Netherlands? The images from Japan look sufficiently empty to my eye to make the single object pop out. Is it hard to frame images as 'empty' as those you posted, or can you find them all over the place?
I can't believe people think there is nothing worth shooting... or that there is nothing worth remembering in the US because of consumerism. Ridiculous really. I'm glad I live in NYC where there is always something to photograph. Use your eyes and be open and there is plenty to photograph anywhere you happen to be.
johannielscom
Snorting silver salts
NYC, yeah. I went to Berlin in October, cool too. But now, try my place. 65,000 in a rural town, mostly a suburb by demeanor, in a crisis
A quote from a Del Amitri song from the nineties:
Trust me, I've taken the pictures in which there's nothing happening at all. They all looked alike!
Pickett Wilson
Veteran
It's a personal thing. If what you are shooting still thrills you, then that is great.
But now, try my place. 65,000 in a rural town, mostly a suburb by demeanor, in a crisis
I would love to. There's got to be great stuff to photograph in that town. Sure, you wouldn't be doing street photography, but you can surely do many other types of photography. I don't need to photograph people to be happy.
MIkhail
-
But now, try my place. 65,000 in a rural town, mostly a suburb by demeanor, in a crisis
That's because you are trying to photograph beautifull and interesting things, especially those full-proof things of which NY and Berlin full of. Instead, try photographing your feeling and impressions of the things. It's much harder. Back to the original point I was making in the beginning of thread - photographing things vs. ecxpressing yourself thru phtography.
If you look into paintings (where every serious or semi-serious photographer should look for inspiration anyway) Hopper and Wyeth painted the most banal and ordinary things. Not a granger of battle filelds or exotic starving white-teeth african kids... Suburbs too, mostly.
Or, start testing and comparing summicrons with summiluxes, also something to do I guess..
petronius
Veteran
But now, try my place. 65,000 in a rural town, mostly a suburb by demeanor, in a crisis
Most of the pictures I post are made in villages from 500 to 5000 inhabitants. I go the same way of ca 1 km to work every morning at 7 am. I see most things over and over again, but the light is always different and your mood is always different.
MIkhail´s reminder of Hopper and Wyeth (or Caillebotte, Miro or Picasso in my special case) is very useful. I found Bukowski´s poems and classic Haiku a great inspiration too. (And I always loved Roosevelt´s: “Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.”)
Out to Lunch
Ventor
Cartier-Bresson was incensed with the work of Martin Parr. It did not fit into his esthetic universe. Martin Parr was then elected into the Magnum fold. Good on Magnum.
CaptZoom
Established
The above pretty much covers it!
I may be wrong, but to my knowledge Andy Warhol (I don't care for his work at all) is the only example I can think of who wanted to and succeed at being recognized as an artist. His work was done for that singular purpose: to be recognized as a celebrity artist. All other examples are if people who cared for bringing forth their own visions. Some were fiscally successful, others were not. However none created their works solely to forrecognition.
sleepyhead
Well-known
My visual pet peeve in the modern world is: CARS
There are to many of them, they are visual litter in my eyes.
I like buildings, but cars I find ugly.
I often have to tilt my camera up to avoid the line of parked cars in front of buildings.
There are to many of them, they are visual litter in my eyes.
I like buildings, but cars I find ugly.
I often have to tilt my camera up to avoid the line of parked cars in front of buildings.
Nomad Z
Well-known
Well, I don't know if I'd call what I do a modus operandi in the sense that I thought about it and adopted it as my 'approach to photography'. When I go out to take photos, it's either pretty landscapes and various takes on old architecture (like castles), or street. I guess the first two are pictorial in nature and quite slow-paced. Street is completely different - it's like hunting or something. Very active and busy, constantly scanning what's around me, looking for opportunities. I like the sheer doing of street photography, and the only thing I'm thinking of during it is what might make an interesting photo.
I don't think about how the photo is going to look in its 'presentable' form until I get home and review what I've got. There have been plenty of times when my shot of the day turned out to be rather crap, while an offhand shot turns out to be the one with some potential. I think there is an unpredictable element in photography - usually, what you see isn't quite what you get - so I just go out and take my chances, and then see what can be done with the results when I get home.
To me, photography, at least in the context pertinent to what I do with it, is a visual art. My experience of creative pursuits has taught me that the less thinking I do while doing it, the better the results I'm likely to get. Over-intellectualising an artistic activity is anathema to me.
I guess that's why I don't quite get this documentarian stuff. They're bulding a new bridge near me (major civil project), and I had plans to take a series of photographs of the work from two or three locations, over a long period of time, all shot on B&W large format, the idea being to be able to produce something for posterity. I scouted out the locations, bought a wider lens for the camera, and then came to the conclusion that I already have a job and don't really need another. The project was going to be nothing more than 'work', so I dropped the whole idea. A chilled out day doing landscapes or castles, or an afternoon of the buzz of fleeting moments on the street, are far more appealing and engaging to me than doing a sequence of photos of a bridge being built (even though I would very much enjoy looking at the bridge photos after the 'job' had been done).
For your situation, I have to ask, if you see modern life as ugly, why do you want to spend time documenting it? Why not just go out and take pictures that you like or that you think might be interesting? Why do you do photography in the first place?
johannielscom
Snorting silver salts
That is actually a good question that I instantly know the answer to but wasn't fully aware of until now. Thanks for asking!
In college I studied (radio and print) journalism and thought I would 'tell the truth' about injustice. Later on, I turned to education and taught Social Studies as a high school subject. Last year after a decade something snapped and I quit my job. Currently I'm likely looking for a new 'channel' to relay my views on society, which aren't that positive... I've been a cynic on society most my life. Positive in the small circle of family and friends (count in RFF) and always perceiving doom at large
I'm aspiring to re-start in journalism (both written and spoken, interviews mainly) and run work as an editorial photographer alongside. So, I'm looking for that m.o. to help me show the (perceived-by-me) ugliness of society in the esthetic process that photography is, and I'm struggling!
I think I gotta try Pickett's approach, paraphrase it, and document what a bad society is to a good person. That might actually be close to my personal views, area's of interest and esthetic preferences.
Bill Clark
Veteran
Every time I look into the mirror I ask, "Who's that ugly person?"
Must be the beginning of a Twilight Zone episode.
Must be the beginning of a Twilight Zone episode.