Photography and Personal Identity

[Doug]

I finally pretty much gave up landscape photography, and that's why I kinda moved away from MF SLRs to rangefinders - now I like to take pics of interesting modern buildings, abstract stuff, shadows, pictures that are only interesting due to the light in them, brooding night-scenes pictures of kinda semi-witty scenes, stuff like that - but that's hard in a backwards-oriented city full of touristy cliche monuments, a place that is all tidy and gussied up for visitors, where romantic, nostalgic cliches are abundant on every other corner, where 'pretty' scenes and sights are much more common, and where the types of urban, modern, rough, 'hyper-realistic' types of scenery I like are hardly to be found. If I wanted, I could take a 'pretty' picture every other 10 steps, but precisely that I don't want - I don't want to take yet another 'romantic' pretty picture of a city I don't love, yet don't have the money and guts to move away from...
That's why I take less and less pics these days, and sometimes get the feeling I should give up photography and just find something else to do.

Ah, Roman, you need a Project! Every pretty-faced storefront or restaurant has garbage cans in the alley behind, doesn't it? Rats scurrying into dark recesses? You could contrast this gritty reality with the tourist-attracting face and enjoy criticising it! Throw in those favored building details, the brooding night views, with probably interesting reflections in illuminated wet surfaces, maybe even some shots of the tourists acting silly, and you have a gold mine there! 😀

 

[taffer]

Very very nice thread indeed,

I'm facing a problem here though, and it is that I cannot identify what moves me to photography, I've tried to find about it and the only explanation I can find is that since I started 'seriously' around a year ago, I haven't stopped enjoying it, day after day, week after week, and there has been nothing that I've enjoyed more.

I don't really know if I'm good enough with it or not, but I like how my photography has evolutioned since then, by means of practice, and that has also made me keep enjoying it more and more.

I wanted to be a writer when I was in hich school, maybe when after too many years of engineering killed the storyteller in me, then photography came to the rescue to help me find another way of telling them ?

😕

 

[Roman]

Ah, Roman, you need a Project! Every pretty-faced storefront or restaurant has garbage cans in the alley behind, doesn't it? Rats scurrying into dark recesses? You could contrast this gritty reality with the tourist-attracting face and enjoy criticising it! Throw in those favored building details, the brooding night views, with probably interesting reflections in illuminated wet surfaces, maybe even some shots of the tourists acting silly, and you have a gold mine there! 😀

Thanks for the encouraging words, but here the garbage cans are hidden behind rose bushes, and the rats are trained to dance Viennese waltz to Mozart tunes for the tourists... 😉
Maybe I just need a holiday - good coincidence that I'm going to Barcelona on Tuesday... Thriving outdoor night-life! A sea-port (I love the sea and hate to be landlocked)! Extrovert Southern Europeans populating the streets! Hypermodernistic architecture! I hope I find all of those scenes I imagine about that city, to take pictures of it...

Roman

 

[cp_ste.croix]

You know, I'm not sure I can trace my beginings in photography either; love of photography has been a part of my consciousness as long as I can remember, and began well before I actually started taking pictures at about 15 or so.

For me, photography has been a blessing and a challange to overcome at times (not including my lusting for gear). I find that taking pictures stills my mind in a way almost nothing else does. It provides me a distance from myself and the world around me as I make pictures; the camera becomes an intermediary through which I can interpret the world as I shoot. This had a profoundly negative effect upon me while I travelled through Africa, allowing me to disconnect from much of the poverty and suffering I encountered. It also moved photography away from constant image making to more of a mitigation of unfamiliar circumstances. I stopped shooting at home, and merely thought of shooting while travelling, compounding my guilt over the exoticization of 'the other' and my dissasociation with my experiences. What's worse, my pictures were consumed only by me, adding an element of selfishness and sick delight in the suffering of others (for I liked to photograph 'moving' events, emulating overseas reportage, but without the possibility of using the pictures to any end other than my own enjoyment)

I am now getting beyond the philisophical quagmire I had found myself ensnared in and returning to the joy I had in making images when I first started. To that end, the photographic process (and indeed any artistic process) for me is one of creation only, photos live for a brief moment after they are printed and then cease to exist for me. Though I may intellectually recognize a photo I have taken, there is very little emotional connection left in it for me. It is more about the act of creation, and the brief moments upon realizing said creation which has me so enthralled with photgraphy.

I hope this hasn't been too horribly pretentious, but it is something I have been struggling with for a very long time.

 

[taffer]

It always amazes me what a rotten photographer I was for the first 5-10 years. I'm still not great but I'm vastly better than I was. There are probably only about half a dozen good pics that I still treasure from that period. I get more good pictures in a good week nowadays than I got in a year then.

Incidentally, Beniliam, where in Spain are you? I get down to Catalunya intermittently -- I live in central France, about 600km from Perpignan. If my Spanish (or Catalan) were as good as your English I'd be a happy man.

Cheers,

Roger (www.rogerandfrances.com)

Cheers,

Roger

I if may ask, where in Catalunya are you during your visits Roger ? I live in Sant Boi, a small town 10 kms from Barcelona.

And btw, el Català és fàcil ! 😀

 

[Roger Hicks]

Dear Beniliam,

Believe it or not I've never been to Madrid. But yes; Catalan is MUCH easier for me than Spanish, and possibly easier than French -- but I have studied French and not Catalan.

Cheers,

Roger

 

[tedwhite]

Taffer:

Aqui en mi pueblo vive una senora de Catalunya, y cuando habla. su acento y varias palabras son my differentes. Y claro, porque aqui an la frontera hablamos un tipo del Espanol que probablamente no existe en otras partes del mundo espanol.

De todos modos, tengo ganas de aprender. Necesito solamente el dinero para volar.

And i'f I'd just quit buying cameras I'd have the money....

Ted

 

[nwcanonman]

"And i'f I'd just quit buying cameras I'd have the money....

Ted"
.........................................

No merde' Sherlock - LOL. 😛
____

 

[tedwhite]

Y no caca tambien, Sherlock.

Hey, a bit OT, but a J9 (85/2) in M42 just came in the mail from mother Russia. What a hunk of glass! Put it on my Pentax Spotmatic body and the weight doubled.

I compared heft with my Bessa R mit cv 35/2.5. The latter felt featherweight.

However, I wanted a portrait lens, and this was the cheapest way to get one. $20.95 is hard to beat.

Ted

 

[Roger Hicks]

I if may ask, where in Catalunya are you during your visits Roger ? I live in Sant Boi, a small town 10 kms from Barcelona.

And btw, el Català és fàcil ! 😀

Well, I mainly go to the spa at Llo, but I cross the border to buy sherry and olive oil: I was much taken with Tarragona when I stayed there last year and the year before that I was passing through Catalunya on my way home from Portugal.

In other words I'm down there once or twice a year -- but as I get older, the years get shorter.

Cheers,

Roger

 

[Pherdinand]

Roman, it's funny to read what you complain about, since there are people who dream about being in your place and complain about the garbage cans in FRONT of their houses and the mice and dirty cities and the busted landscape...
I guess it's oinly some variation we all need from time to time.
I also notice that whenever i go to a new place, the girls seem to be more beautiful than where i live. It's something similar, i guess - humans get bored of things rather easily.

 

[nwcanonman]

Ted,
Do you know if they made a J9 in LTM (M39) to fit Bessa R? I love my Nikkor 85mm f1.8 lens.

 

[tedwhite]

According to my info, canonman, it is made in M42, M39LTM, and earlier models in Contax RF mount. It is a copy of the CZJ 85 Sonnar, a formula from the 1930's. Coating and multicoating has improved the breed. Quality varies. Flare is a problem and owners recommend always using a lens hood. I have seen some stunning photographs taken with the J9.

Ted

 

[Beniliam]

El catalan con todos mis respetos a sus hablantes solo os va a servir para entenderos con la gente de Cataluña, Valencia e Islas Baleares. Y quiza para leer algun codice medieval, leer algun romance provenzal... Si Wilfredo El V(B)elloso levantara la cabeza se asombraria de q hubiera tantos hablantes de su lengua primigenia. El catalan puede ser un idioma de transicion entre el frances y el castellano. Algo asi como una Canon o una Nikon telemetricas, dentro de cenit que corresponden las Contax y las Leica. 😀

 

[taffer]

Roman, when you come to Barna city, don't forget to reserve plenty of time to wander around the old city, the gothic quarter and the raval quarter, barceloneta alleys, etc, trust me, if you keep walking those places long enough, you'll have enough garbage and rats for a while 😀

Remember to be careful though ok ? it's not that difficult to find other kind of rats 😉

 

[taffer]

Taffer:

Aqui en mi pueblo vive una senora de Catalunya, y cuando habla. su acento y varias palabras son my differentes. Y claro, porque aqui an la frontera hablamos un tipo del Espanol que probablamente no existe en otras partes del mundo espanol.

De todos modos, tengo ganas de aprender. Necesito solamente el dinero para volar.

And i'f I'd just quit buying cameras I'd have the money....

Ted

Hey, good to hear that ! por favor manda mis saludos a la senora de Catalunya, from a 'Santboiano' !!

Yes, the hard part is to stop to buy more cameras 😀

@Roger, fun, we used to cross the border to Andorra and France to get cigarettes, liquours and Dutch butter 🙂 The global market has made things too boring now, they are similarly priced all around. Please don't hesitate to drop me a line if you ever visit Barcelona or surroundings.

@Beni, I've always thought that if it wasn't for Spanish, a Bask and a Catalan couldn't understand between them 😀 Guifré el Pilós... I still laugh out loud when I remember that name from the History class !

So Canon and Nikon are 'transition cameras' from Contax and Leica... that one is good too !!!

Cheers,

Oscar

 

[l.mar]

It's in the blood...

It's in the blood...

... and I can't get away from it. My father was and is a devoted amateur and I have a snapshot of our family taken with his trusty Voigtander Vito II, with me at about age five holding his equally trusty Sekonic incident meter. Shot some freelance (sports, mainly) in high school and college, and then a long drought. Since then, I married a wonderful woman who encourages my "habit," and coincidentally enough, picks up cool old cameras to inspire my "vision quest."

 

[nwcanonman]

Taffer,
Don't worry your "story teller" soul never dies, maybe goes dormant and evolves through photography and will come back when you need it to.
Salude' ~ ; - )

 

[Beniliam]

@Beni, I've always thought that if it wasn't for Spanish, a Bask and a Catalan couldn't understand between them Guifré el Pilós... I still laugh out loud when I remember that name from the History class !

So Canon and Nikon are 'transition cameras' from Contax and Leica... that one is good too !!!

Hahaha Guilfred (como el antiguo portero nigeriano de futbol, o el mayordomo de cosas de casa) Es un nombre mitico en la historia catalana. La transicion politica en Cataluña debe rendir pleiteseia a Wilfredo el V(Belloso) mas q Maragall o Puyol. El desato el tarro de las esencias con su condado de Barcelona. Ay si hubiera sido coetaneo de Pelayo no hubiera durado apenas su empresa...

 

[Roger Hicks]

What decides which is the 'real' language?

Maybe Spanish and French are bad Catalan. Historically, languages have diverged. Maybe in the 21st century they can converge. I find the 'bastard' languages such as Provencal, Catalan and maybe even Letzeburgisch easier than their 'pure' neighbours (Italian/French, French/Spanish and German/French). Maybe it's because they contain the words I remember from the other languages...

Mit freundlich Gruessen,

Roger