Writing and photography

[Roger Hicks]

How many RFF members write as well as taking pictures?

How many of those feel that their writing and their photography influence one another?

This is displacement activity before going to try to write a new short story. To read an old short story, go to http://www.mctie.com/fiction/fiction.html

Cheers,

R.

 

[Paul T.]

My photography definitely influences my writing..

in that I waste time on photography sites when I have a deadline to meet...

 

[Roger Hicks]

My photography definitely influences my writing..

in that I waste time on photography sites when I have a deadline to meet...

Gosh! That's NEVER happened to me or to anyone else I know...

Cheers,

R.

 

[Turtle]

I don't know, yet. I am finding a growing urge to write and have scribbled a few pieces when the need to expel those thoughts has proven overwhelming. I would regard both as being derived from the same internal dialogue, but the actions and experiences that follow can play upon each other and end up in either realm.

Now I will read Ellysian Fields!

 

[johannielscom]

My photography definitely influences my writing..

in that I waste time on photography sites when I have a deadline to meet...

Right. Thanks for the wake-up call...😀



My writing has been dormant for quite some time but recently I lost/abandoned my teaching job and am getting back into it.

I feel that I am sufficiently matured now (finally!) to write in a manner that will actually get me something that is interesting enough to read for people outside my circle of acquaintances. I want people to enjoy the story, not the fact that it was written by someone they know.

I find that being a photographer helps me when I'm determining the mood of scenes and subsequently including the essential attributes of that scene in the story without spelling the scene out to a reader completely. Don't want to treat them like ignorant children, right?

Furthermore, my interview skills needed a revival as well and currently I am working on an article that contains an interview with a former student who has singer/songwriter ambitions. Needless to say, I've shot a portrait to go with it...🙂

 

[Richard G]

On the thread on what it would take to make you give up photography, someone mentioned that seriously taking up writing poetry might be enough to make him give up photography. I can see that working for me too. But so far I hardly write at all.

I have an old friend who writes and he says that smoking is the only thing that keeps him at it. If he didn't have a cigarette to roll and then to smoke, he would think that he had writer's block instead, when he found himself standing outside in the sun. As Wilde's Lady Bracknell opined, when she enquired of Jack whether he smoked and found that he did: "A man should always have an occupation of some kind." I don't know that she would have approved of photography, and I am sure my friend would find it no substitute either.

It is generally said that a poet should not give up his day job, and that is not just on account of needing money.

 

[rhl-oregon]

In the opposite direction...

In the opposite direction...

I for one returned to photography after many years of (exclusive, concentrated) self-identification as a poet, publishing a number of books and hundreds of individual works, winning fellowships and prizes etc., and teaching creative writing to a few thousand students over 2 decades.

Google "Robert Hill Long," quotes included, for more about that.

I decided not long ago to keep my literary identity out of RFF. First, I want to respect the terms of engagement here. Second, the passion for photography has returned/grown here, near the end of my working (for-a-living) life, and brooks no distraction from other fields, though I love my guitars and can look back on my writing/publishing career without shame.

I do not know whether I will return to poetry and flash fiction the way I practiced them between the 1970s and 2010. This isn't distressing, it's liberating. The medical and psychic issues associated with my past 2 decades of being a poet have floated away. For now, at least.

On the other hand--respecting the OP and other followups!--I am all for whatever sparks and releases creativity in others, and can understand how photographers with decades of work might turn toward other forms of image-making and story-telling, other forms of discipline and expression. If you are one, I shake your hand and wish you the best, though we may be passing each other in opposite directions toward our still-mysterious fates.

 

[Pete Myers]

An interesting time

An interesting time

Greetings Roger:

You and Frances were the ones that inspired me to write on photography after I read your excellent books. I have been a fine art photographer by profession for two decades, and I still pick up your books now and then for inspiration.

I am a member of the Authors Guild, and I have written for a number of photo publications. But in recent years, I have slowed down. Not because of lack of interest in writing, but rather because there is so much "noise" out there now that it is hard to be heard above the scream.

Further, I have found the print publications to have dried up, and the online publications to be "one man bands" of highly opinionated and rather cliquish reviews. Too bad really. Real editors are lacking, and mostly we have rich, techno-guys with websites.

Well behaved forums are fun, and a lot of information can be exchanged.

Things cycle, and I do hope that there will be quieter days ahead when the art of photography can be written about, not just the endless frenzy of needless technology.

Pete

 

[thegman]

I've done a bit of technical writing, but nothing "creative", maybe one day.

 

[Timmyjoe]

Working as a photojournalist I am sometimes forced to write a piece to accompany my photos when the editor can't send a writer to cover the story. And I really struggle. I've gotten really positive feedback from the results, but for me it's like pulling teeth, I really don't like it.

Best,
-Tim

 

[Paul T.]

I actually did my first writing and photo assigment in Japan; normally someone else does the shots.

Bloody hard. It's very difficult to cajole a subject to say the right things, then cajole them to stand in the right place in the right light. I got away with it - just. I realise also with digital I have a terrible tendency to spray and pray - if it were film, I would probably have been more assertive with the photos.

So I'm not a jack of all trades - and of course many would deny I'm a master of one.

 

[Damaso]

I write (nonfiction) to go along with many of my photo essays. The research and interviews I have to do for the articles helps me put the images in a larger context and makes me a more informed photographer.

 

[Timmyjoe]

Just to revisit if I may, the weird thing is, I love to interview the folks I am covering, I find 95% of them absolutely fascinating, and many times I will turn my notes and recordings (I use one of those micro recorders to record interviews) over to the person writing the story. The whole reason I love photojournalism and documentary photography is that I love finding out about people.

But to take those notes and recordings and try to write a coherent article, that terrifies me.

Best,
-Tim

 

[oftheherd]

Mr. Hicks - Interesting that you should ask such a question. Do you find writing influences you photography, or vice versa? BTW, I noted in another thread you mentioned reporting for Shutterbug. Glad to hear that. I have been missing yours and Frances' articles and was going to let my subscription run out with this month's issue. Now I will have to scramble to renew. To answer your question, I don't write, and barely get to photograph these last few years, so I can only answer by saying no.

rhl-Oregon - thanks for your post. I checked your site and enjoyed the photography and writing there. Refreshing.

 

[Dave Jenkins]

For me, writing and photography have always had a symbiotic relationship.

My career as a working photography began in the early '70s as a photographer, script writer, and producer of slide-based audio-visual programs. I did this for about 20 years. I also had a steady sideline through most of my career writing copy and making photographs for brochures and other sales and advertising materials for various clients.

The times I enjoyed most were when one of my major clients, a mission agency, would send me to a foreign country with an idea for a story about things that were happening there. I would make photographs while at the same time fleshing out the story line and outlining the script in my mind. Back home, I would edit the photographs, write a finished script, and put it all together as a three-projector-with-dissolve slide show which could be transferred to videotape for distribution. Those were great times.

Unfortunately, the slide-based A-V was pretty much supplanted by video in the early '90s. I tried shooting and producing videos, but found it neither enjoyable nor profitable, so re-invented myself as a commercial photographer.

Nowadays, I write articles on various aspects of professional photography for such magazines as Rangefinder, and write brief essays to accompany my photographs in my books. My writing and my photography are intertwined, but I suspect photography influences the writing more than the other way around.

 

[kxl]

I think the two are more or less part of the same creative thought process expressed via different media.

When I write, I compose scenes in words.

When I take photos, I compose scenes in pictures.

 

[johannielscom]

I think the two are more or less part of the same creative thought process expressed via different media.

When I write, I compose scenes in words.

When I take photos, I compose scenes in pictures.

+1 on that. I assume many creative writers feel the same.
I can also relate to the above comment on the combination of an interview and a portrait. It's what I like to do, depicting a person in both words and images.

 

[Roger Hicks]

Thanks to all for the revival of this thread. Like Dave, I did a lot of 'teaching machine' AV, which died; fortunately, after I'd moved on (late 70s). Oftheherd:: there'll be photokina reports in early 2013 or maybe December 2012 AS WELL: no desperate hurry if Frances and I are your preferred writers. Others: yes, I agree that they're different aspects of the same thing. What intrigues me is how different.

Cheers,

R.

 

[sepiareverb]

I do some small bits of writing about my photography from time to time.

 

[Teuthida]

IMO, the best writing that accompanys photograpghs are captions that do not directly comment on the subject pictured but rather lend it context.

I incorporate writing with documentary work. K'm currently engaged in a project that involves pictures of normal places in a southern US state accompanied with captions about traumatic events that occurred on these same sites in the past. Wouldn't work without the writing, obviously.