What do I look for? I look for something that no one has seen before. Since this is impossible, I look for something that I’ve never seen before. This is possible.
I look for something that means something. Since this is impossible, I look for something that may mean something to me, that may hint at something in my psyche. This is very possible.
I look for unadulterated, raw emotion. Since this isn’t always possible, I look for humans being human beings.
I try to get close so that I can see what I’m looking at. I’m short sighted. I also try to get close so that I can smell, touch, taste, and hear what’s going on. It helps me to understand.
I don’t like to make moral judgements. Not because I’m saintly, but because I find ethics, positions, and values (even the lack of values) boring. Also being definite is very bad for a work. It is the best way I know to making something mediocre. Better to be ambiguous, maybe even enigmatic. Best to be entertaining. On this, I take instruction from the methods of astrology.
In a way what you are fighting is what is obvious. Is how most people will think of a situation. What is obvious isn’t interesting, or, it’s interesting to those who aren’t interesting. You must ask in any given situation, what is the expected reaction to this. Ok, that done, how else can this be seen? What other ways can this be understood and explained. As an example, if you are to shoot a lodge for rich people in an alpine setting. The expectation amongst people who look at photography is that you’ll take photos of the ostentation, or the banality of rich people, or concentrate on insentient objects as a representation of what you want to say. It may be best however, to not show any of that. To instead show rich people just being like us, being more normal than you and I, but with these very abnormal things being around them. It would be great to get a photo of a gentleman tripping as he gets off the helicopter. But it mustn’t be us laughing at him, the photo should make us understand that it is easy to trip in that situation, that we could have done it ourselves considering how far you have to jump, and we want to maybe care that he doesn’t get his head chopped off. Also, if he does get his head chopped off, you may want to get a picture of that.
As I was beginning I was worried that I wasn’t a ‘concerned’ photographer. I now know that that shouldn’t be a concern. I’m interested in something else and that’s more than all right.
It’s good to look for something that you rarely find. Because once you find something you stop looking for it.
Posted 2 years ago
