What is becoming blatantly obvious is that the technical aspects of photography, despite being challenging, and somewhat interesting are the fleeting side-show. You can tell that with time, these will no longer be issues. It seems the fastest way to learn is to find problems, big, twisted problems to solve.
The oversized monster in the room is the problem of emotion. How do you get your viewer to feel something. With no dialog, music, or sound, no real story, no thoughts, no language, no movement, often no colours, no smells, and you don’t even know who the viewer will be, photography has a difficult task. The other thing is not be vulgar. I don’t mean someone picking their nose (that’s fine, more than fine!) But showing people blown up in war, or the hideously disfigured to draw out raw, superficial emotions is a bit of a cop out.
One method is to pick the photos that move you. Actually, this is the only method, everything else is either unrepeatable, or ethically or aesthetically compromised (I don’t even know what ethically compromised means). What a bizzare way to end, with a slogan: ‘Art: move yourself.’
Posted 2 years ago
