Short Essays and Notes on Photography
*** A work in progress
Color verses B&W photography
Black and white photographs look artistic. But in a polychromatic world, color photographs look more realistic. Early photographers, constrained by the technology of the day, established monochromatic images as the standard reference for photography as art, and the purist form of photographic expression remains the black and white image. But as soon as polychromatic films became available, photographers began to use them to create more realistic documents of events, to represent reality more convincingly, and to add a whole new dimension to artistic photographs using color in addition to the elements of shape, shade and texture already used in black and white photography. But black and white remains the purist form of photographic expression to the extent that there remains a core of elitists who feel that only black and white is true photography. They probably still use film too.
II - "Taking" or "making" photographs
Does one “take a photograph” or “make a photograph?”
Ansel Adams published a book in 1935 titled “Making a photograph: an
introduction to photography.” I
don’t suppose the answer can be any more definitive than that.
Yet how many times have you spoken, or heard someone declare that they
took a particular photo, or inquire whether they can take your photo?
Perhaps it is simply folklore, but I recall learning that many native
people of indigenous cultures were afraid of early pioneering photographers
capturing their soul on the photographic plates they made–at
least to these people photography was an act of taking something even as
precious as one’s soul!
Photography
is a captive process. A slice of time and space is transferred to a
recording medium and stored. Once there, it cannot escape. It is
only lost by accident or carelessness of the photographer. The
photographer acquires the image, and by doing so, acquires something of the
subject.
III - Photos as records
The vast majority
of photographs made (including family snapshots languishing in long unopened
albums) are documents, or records, of people, places, things and events.
In fact, including all photographic negatives, prints and now digital
files ever created, the number of “art (be it low- or high-)” photographs
made is absolutely miniscule. So,
trivially, photography is predominantly a documentary medium.
But there is a healthy population of people who seek something else from
photography, either as photographers themselves, or as admirers or owners of
photography as a visual art.
Photography is art, or at the very least, craft.
My father used to paraphrase the following statement, attributed to St.
Francis of Assisi:
He
who works with his hands is a laborer.
He who works with his hands and his head is a craftsman.
He who works with his hands, his head, and his heart is an artist.
By this definition nearly everyone who has
made a print in a darkroom, or framed a photograph from last summer’s
vacation, or thought about an alternative exposure setting, is a photographic
artist. And I can live with that.
So the product of such an artist is art, by definition.
But to this supply-side interpretation of art add the demand side: art is
in the eye of the beholder, and the viewer defines art.
If people look at certain photographs and see art, then it is art.
And I can live with that, too.
Although
initially deemed a mere pretender, photography begun to be recognized as art
about a century ago, thanks to people like Alfred Stieglitz, who in 1902 formed
the Photo-Secession group, photographers committed to establishing the artistic
merits of the medium. Presently
there is no doubt that photography is a legitimate artistic endeavor, and people earn their livelihood from making art photographs,
even though many rely upon the documentary aspects of the medium—portraiture,
weddings and annual reports—to pay the rent.
The sale of Ansel Adams original prints (and who hasn’t ever owned one
of those huge 2x3 foot Yosemite posters?), for large sums has helped establish
photography as high, expensive, art.
Having seen
many exhibits of photographs during my life, most by famous photographers, even
those photographs owned and exhibited by museums and galleries offer much
documentary, and historical, value. Early
daguerreotypes, for example, are valued more these days, perhaps, for their
historical content than pure compositional or aesthetic aspects.
But museums and galleries also display the best photographic art, by
those recognized as the Masters. Life
magazine used to, and the National
Geographic journal continues to, present photographs monthly, albeit on
pretty standard paper, that while primarily documentary and photojournalistic in
intent and nature, are often magnificent art. While many major photographers established their careers with
Life magazine, the photographers of
the National Geographic maintain and
promote the highest standards of the craft.
Even in its most primitive state as document of record, a photograph is
an abstraction. Even more than
painting, photography maps a 3-dimensional and ever changing world into a
2-dimensional, static image, stored on some appropriate medium. The classical black and white image takes the abstraction one
step further by removing all color from a colorful reality.
Shunned by purists, color photography compared to black and white is more
realistic, more mundane, less abstract, less artistic.
Manipulation of the black and white image in the darkroom allows the
photographer to create an even greater abstraction, dodging shadow detail and
burning in highlights, increasing contrast or toning the print.
But all this abstraction and manipulation has as its motivation an
artistic expression. Ansel Adams is
on record admitting to severe manipulation of Moonrise
over Hernandez, and a comparison of the original negative and most prints
reveals the extent of his efforts to create a mood and feeling in the viewer
that could only ever have been pre-visualized in the minutes it took to make the
exposure on the roof of his car off the road outside Espanola, New Mexico (see
Examples, the Making of 40 Photographs, 4th ed. Little and Brown, 2001).
While the abstract nature of photographs surely helps when claiming
photographs as art, the intent of the photographer is, I believe, the defining
element. Returning to the quote
from St. Francis, an artist uses hands, head and heart to create art. Use of hands and head is essential to craft, and photography
beyond snap-shooting is undeniably a craft.
While nearly all modern cameras that use roll film, and digital cameras,
provide the photographer with a plethora of automated functions, they also
provide considerable control over exposure, focal length and focus, giving the
user more creative options than ever before.
Mastering the camera as a tool requires time and a concerted effort, and
is rewarded when the photographer is able to capture the moment, or determine
the exposure quickly and efficiently. But
why this photograph? Why that
composition? The photographer’s
heart can be found in the eye. If
the photographer views the image as documentary, then it will likely turn out to
be such, with little regard to art. That
is, if the primary intention is creating a record of a person, or event, then
art and emotion, even composition, become secondary. Alternately, producing
artistic images very often involves subjects as they are found in their natural
state and position, and framing, angle, and scope are defining choices for the
photographer. Subjects are chosen
and framed to accentuate lines, shapes, textures, colors, and—with
people—expression, emotion and action. Very often artistic photographs are
made of the most banal subjects, but the constructed image exists quite
separately from the subject.
If
predominantly record-makers of people, places and times, why do photographers seek
recognition, and claim themselves as, artists? Artists produce art.
Of course, writing in a journal does not make one a Pulitzer prize winning
writer. But degree and recognition aside, posting your web-site URL on a
newsgroup and inviting people to peruse, and possibly comment on, your
photographs is clearly a statement of intent to be a published, and reviewed,
artist. Placing your prints in frames and displaying them to friends and
visitors is similarly a cry for acknowledgement and recognition as a producer of
something worth looking at.
IV - Digital "processing"
Digital photography is often criticized and reduced to a lesser skill because it does not involve the wet processing of film and paper photography especially black and white photography. Black and white photographers, most notably in my experience the serious amateurs, pride themselves on their abilities in the darkroom, wherein wonderful paper photographs are created from inverted images on plastic film. It is in the darkroom that the art of photography is performed. It is under the glow of soft red lights that the magic happens. Take away the Dektol, hypo fixer and clothes pegs on a stretched wire, and you take away all that magic. You are left with soul-less, technical, manipulation on a computer screen, done in broad daylight no less!
V - Photography is anti-social.
Of course photography is anti-social. In between the photographer and subject is a massive chunk of metal, plastic, glass and technology. And this thing is stuck against the photographer's face, hiding a substantial fraction of it including an eye. The photographer are Borg. They walk around fully equipped with camera, tripod, and all those accessories available for immediate use in the handy camera bag. As an accomplished photographer once said to me, "carry your tripod as if it were a sword, of honor." To be taken into battle, helping you defeat the enemy--the obscure and taciturn subject.