these views of a tree
Last weekend I found myself in Kashiwa and saw a space/place that I responded to with my camera. That is an accurate description of how I photograph. The space has a large tree in the middle. So, I took a shot with my leica and one with my cheap-o digital camera.
There was probably a good photograph around here somewhere- and while the one above was not it, it was later when I realized I had already seen that good photograph before. He also took one from the other side of the fence.
Is it because there was a large round tree there surrounded by all that stuff that I wanted to take the picture? Probably. But a further description to express a feeling would negate the reason to make a picture about what ever it was I was looking (feeling) at in the first place. I am not sure to what point photographs can honestly or truly work as emotional expressions, but if telling you something was the best way to express it why would I photograph it? Making a photograph is a chance to see something new based from what you might have felt, that is, just how you dealt with it through a lens and into a picture.
This makes less sense each time I read it. It takes several second of concentrated thought to remember if an American book opens up from the left or the right. Why am I so tired at 8:51pm?
“I am not sure to what point photographs can honestly or truly work as emotional expressions…”
This is something that I’ve been almost plagued by recently. Your use of the ideas “honesty” and “truth” relative to emotional expression is interesting - is it important that we as viewers somehow percieve the “truth” of your reaction to a space or place? Isn’t that reliant upon you never fooling yourself? Is that even possible?
Comment by Justin — 9/21/2006 @ 10:39 am
Oh, and, I got that book you recommended: The Ongoing Moment, by Geoff Dyer, and I’m about halfway through it. It’s really good - surprisingly readable and photographically relevant from a man who does not own a camera. Thanks John.
Comment by Justin — 9/21/2006 @ 10:44 am
The Honesty and Truth part.. yeah that is something I am stuck on. A picture is a lie, or at the very least a narrowly select truth. The truth mainly being the camera’s description of how things look and how they are spaced/related in a frame. Is there room for emotion there? Probably but mostly from the viewer… right? I am not sure. I don’t buy the idea that a picture of something sad makes it a sad picture, and I am not about to go around pinching babies to make photos that I say express how I feel about the Bush administration. Re-reading what I wrote it looks like I was talking about feelings, the kind that are easy to teach in ESL classes with smiley and frowny face flash cards, and not … Impressions(?) that are based from non emotional (!) feelings. A “buzz” vs. just being impressed or wanting to cry. Now I am less sure but I like to think like this.
“is it important that we as viewers somehow percieve the “truth” of your reaction to a space or place?”
The “truth” I am more interested in is the form of the picture, all those neat games that aesthetically evaluative pictures can play. At least with those pictures of places and spaces. But what happens when someone I know (or don’t) is put in that frame? No easy answers here, or probably ever. Justin, how do you think that taking a portrait is different than that of one of your form-heavy landscape pictures?
Comment by John — 9/21/2006 @ 6:35 pm
Truth has always been a word that I have stuggled with. It’s something that I just can’t seem to believe in. Can you ever know that anything is “truthful” and if so how? How do you know that you haven’t distorted every bit of information that you’ve taken in? What truth are you looking for in form? Truthful compared to what?
Comment by bradley — 9/22/2006 @ 8:01 am
“Justin, how do you think that taking a portrait is different than that of one of your form-heavy landscape pictures?”
Everything depends on what you mean. (Go figure.) The actual act of taking the photograph is totally changed - taking someone’s portrait is active interaction with a real person in an environment; taking a landscape is passive interaction with someone else’s creation (the environment) - and both are tempered by the individual’s editing process. That is, my portraits tend to look a lot like my non-portraits. This is something I’m attempting to challenge right now - putting myself in an uncomfortable position: active interaction.
I think that truth is playing less and less a part of my picture-making process, and hopefully, thereby will start showing its head more and more in the photographs.
You have to acknowledge the falsity of your art before you can make art that isn’t always about that falsity. I think. Maybe.
Comment by Justin — 9/22/2006 @ 9:58 am