Viewpoint: In this world but not of this world"

CameraQuest

CameraQuest

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It strikes me that a photogs work, or at least my own pics, are better if I take a viewpoint outside of the subject matter.
That allows me not to get caught up in "what I know" and look with new eyes at the goings own.

"the real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes."
Marcel Proust (1871 - 1922)

So, do you work best IN your subject matter, or OUTSIDE of it ?

Stephen
 
Best work?
It's hard to judge. I would agree with you that in my experience "looking from outside" has created my most interesting images (interesting for me and maybe others).
I certainly find myself a better observer of new experiences when I'm involved in photographing them.
Interesting topic.
 
Sometimes we don't get the choice. For example, I love to travel but, as myy travel tends to be limited to holidays, I seldom go somewhere twice. Consequently, the places and culture I see is usually very new to me. Does this help me take better photos? I don't know - but I doubt it as some level of familiarity with the subject (whether animal, human or just landscape / urban view) can help you choose the best approach. One recent example was our trip down Route 66. We'd done some research before going but nothing could prepare us for some of the places we encountered. That unfamiliarity meant that some of the photos I took became snapshots and, looking back / learning from the experience would, I believe, allow me to approach things differently / better and achieve more of the results I really wanted.

Occasionally, however, there are times when not having any preconceptions can work in one's favour - so long as that ignorance doesn't manifest itself in creating a social faux-pas that gets you in trouble.

On balance, I prefer to work on things where I know a bit about the subject with which I'm dealing - and that tends to give me results I prefer.
 
This is an example of inside the subject matter:

tumblr_mflihjODcG1r916qao2_1280.jpg


And this is an example of outside the subject matter:

tumblr_mjkaodGegJ1r916qao1_1280.jpg
 
Reminds me of Mirrors and Windows, (Szarkowski, 1978). Are you a photographer who looks for the picture to reveal something or do you use it as a tool to express something in you?

And like that, I think this is never really an either/or thing. You can approach it from either angle, but in the end isn't it always a bit of both?

This is a really great video I've linked here before where the photographer has some interesting things to say about this...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGaljgqHr7Q
 
gns said:
This is a really great video I've linked here before where the photographer has some interesting things to say about this...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGaljgqHr7Q
Click to expand...

I'm confused, I watched this for 23mins and felt like my teeth were being pulled. The photography is not good there is just nothing else to be said of it ... and has no connect to anything he has said. I thought it was like a crossed telephone line where he was talking about his photography but the photos belonged to a skateboarder and youtube has somehow mixed the URLs together. He remarks about one photo a breakfast table and what he sees is window light as if he has seen it for the first time. He goes on to say the best of your pictures are after you have taken them and I wonder how he cannot see his own blown exposures.
He says "someone asked him why does he photograph? and I think he misunderstood what they were saying ...that they were saying he should stop.
 
Actually about that utube video again, am really bothered by it (grin). He gives an explanation of documentary at 23mins, that it is not possible as the moment has already passed. This guy is at Stanford, is that right ... LOL
 
CameraQuest said:
It strikes me that a photogs work, or at least my own pics, are better if I take a viewpoint outside of the subject matter.
That allows me not to get caught up in "what I know" and look with new eyes at the goings own.

"the real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes."
Marcel Proust (1871 - 1922)

So, do you work best IN your subject matter, or OUTSIDE of it ?

Stephen
Click to expand...

Seems a very sophisticated approach. How do you do that, take a viewpoint outside of the subject matter? You are related to the stuff, or you ain´t.

My best pics are clearly of the things/people I love, that´s your IN view.
 
I start off with either approach (doesn't matter), but I always end up inside the subject before I take the photographs I intend. If I don't know the subject, this can mean months of research before I feel competent to begin photographing. Personally, I can't imagine how to take a meaningful photograph without knowing the subject intimately.

Take my last project "Insecta" (currently on show in Stour Valley Arts' Cornershop Gallery, and from late March in Tokyo in 72Gallery). This is all about natural history and insect collecting, or, rather, what happens to these collections over time. I ended up working closely with a natural history museum, learning about taxonomy and entomology, and writing several research papers, such as "How to read a moth" (published in Introdex magazine here), before I felt ready to photograph the subject.

The first photo below is of a recent exhibition of "Insecta". showing two photos and the book accompanying the project, while the second photo shows four more images from "Insecta" (taken from an Introdex magazine feature on my project).

ma1s.jpg


​

gktn.jpg
 
I wonder how many photographers know about this 'mirror' in photography. I once asked a group of mixed genre photographers if they can see themselves or anyone else in their photographs and got these incredulous blank stares in reply. Its a literal view that they have and when they look in a mirror they see themselves as they did yesterday and that it was a rather ordinary day. Looking through a window is the same for them, that whatever is seen can be seen as plain as plain as day and so their photographs are equally as plain as day and as plain as the noses on their faces in the mirror.
A guy jumped into a street forum elsewhere just to make the declaration... "I don't like street photography" and disappeared again. I went and looked at his gallery, it was motorcycles. No flash, no lighting no anything just motorcycles as though they were the object of his desire and I thought it funny that these people run about the photography forums and at it lowest denomination ....dont even know what a photograph is.

----
I didn't know about windows and mirrors gns and bought a copy yesterday and its such a beautiful and simple description and I'm hugely grateful to you for mentioning it.
 
In my worldview, a photographer supplies context (whether universally understood or unique to a single perspective, i.e., the photographer's), so I don't know how one through whose perspective context is created can be "outside."
 
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