Writing Abolut Your Work

Are Photographers more objective and painters more subjective, and if so does this require photographers to speak of their work more so than painters?

I guess there is a bigger questions that should be answered in order to get to this one.

Is there the need to write about art (specifically, one's own work)?

Right now I am reading Robert Adams' Why People Photograph, and I must say I really enjoy the "easy reading" aspect of Adams words. Because I have been so unmotivated as of late, I needed a more straightforward read, as opposed to forcing myself back into all those crazy French guys. That being said, Why People Photograph is wonderful in its motivation. I know what he is saying with the first read through...I recommend it. Anyway...rambling.

Robert Adams states, "The minute they do so (artists writing about their work) they've admitted failure. Words are proof that the vision they had is not, in the opinion of some at least, fully there in the picture." He backs up his thinking with statements from multiple artists in multiple mediums. Charles Demuth, "I have been urged...to write about my painting...why? Haven't I, in a way, painted them?" Robert Frost, in a response to why he doesn't write about his poems' meanings, "You want me to say it worse?" And, C.S. Lewis said that he had never been less sure of his beliefs then when he tried to verbalize them.

Does this mean that photographers should not be writers of their own work? Maybe they should try to write about others' works , especially when that work is admired or seen as influential to the photographer. This approach, Adams believes, is as close as photographers want to come to writing about their own intentions. Adams does point out that if this approach is taken up by a photographer, more than likely, the influenced photographer's work can be directly traced to the previous photographer whose work he/she wrote about. (Easy analogy; me writing about Ray Metzker's work...there are obvious things I like in his pictures, and am more than likely trying to reproduce in my own). A reader can understand what a photographer enjoys in terms of an aesthetic or subject matter regarding another artist, then can see if the photographer's own work conveys a similar sentiment.

In the end it must be agreed upon, considering the difficulty of writing (about one's own work at least), that as John Szarkowski has said, "The better the writing is the more necessary it makes the picture."

Opening Statement

With this blog my intention is to create a space for discussion and dialogue within the photographic community. Whether you are in agreement with the opinions or not, any and all commentary is encouraged. I am envisioning a new generation of the photographic forum- continuing on the tradition set forth by Baudelaire in his photographic criticisms, furthered by the retaliatory letters and divisive sentiments on photography between Henry Peach Robinson and Peter Henry Emerson, and even further defined by Alfred Stieglitz and company in Camera Work.

This is a new Century and a new generation of artists, and I believe that the blog forum is the new best way to carry out a lasting discussion between interested parties. As the magazine racks are full of techno-talk and adverts, and the newspapers becoming less of a tradition and more of a chore, the Internet becomes the place whereby almost anyone can have access and express a viewpoint. Unfortunately, a blog can easily succumb to what has become the norm of today's world, the "sound-bite" (or is it -byte?), where one does not develop a thought or idea but just jots down a couple of the more expressive words, barely formulating a sentence (it would be ridiculous to think that Emerson's letters in The Photographic News at the turn of the 19Th Century could be reduced to single-sentence talking points). Ah, but such is our world and such is the way we are familiar with reading and listening to news!

So, without creating a forum full only of single-line, point-by-point bulletins, I would like to utilize the way people think and write by encouraging any initial questions or opinions about a topic. By expressing these quick, short, or even blunt views within this type of open 24-7 forum, we can together create a more in-depth dialogue. Think of this as a classroom (I know, I know..."a classroom, but I just finished school!"), but a classroom without a teacher, full of individuals eager to each put in their own view; asking lots of questions, but also willing to spend time thinking and developing deeper sentiments and philosophies, not wanting the thinking to end at the sound-bite.

I guess we need to quickly mention things of no interest to me (and hopefully to you as well). To use one word...GEAR. I think this word pretty much sums up exactly what is off limits in this forum. I could care less about how many lights you had to use on your last shoot. I don't lose sleep over when the next new Canon SuperDigital Zoom Lens DeLuxe ver.14.2xp comes out. There are more than enough places on the Internet to discuss all that technology, and parts, and stuff, and GEAR. I don't want to get involved. So, no GEAR talk. I would also like to stay away from the whole realm of commercial photography, i.e. photography made by one person expressly for another person in return for money. I do want to discuss differing views on commercial photography, and how it fits into today's culture (Because it's impact is huge) but no silly banter about how you shot a wedding last week then dropped your flash drive in the toilet, but it was fine because you didn't yet erase the images from your card, and how if it were film you would have lost the whole roll...Forget it. I can't waste my time with all of that. This place needs to be about more than art school hallway talk (already had three years of that stuff). This is for real questions and real opinions like:

What is photography's role in society today? Or,

What impact does photography have on society?

What is photography?

The digital medium in inherently not photography.

Cropping images into altered frames is an untrue representation of the photographer's eye.

How important is process compared with product?

There, now that I have offended (Or at least riled up) half of my audience, let us discuss.