The consolations of photography...
I've recently finished Alain de Botton's interesting book The Consolations of Philosophy and it got me thinking about what the consolations of photography might be. You may be wondering why would I wonder at all about the consolations of photography? Surely photography doesn't produce or require consolations, surely it's just a simple pleasure (a past-time akin to gardening) or, at most, a simple desire to create. But for us to go to the trouble and expense of travelling across the globe and getting up at a seriously unsociable hour to make an image, surely there must be more to it than that. Conversely, for a viewer to be attracted to a photograph there must be something in it that rewards them – either emotionally, or intellectually, or aesthetically, or all three. Might an image do more than this, might photography alleviate the pains of a viewer or the woes of a photographer?
As a photographer, it has seemed to me for some time that my relationship with photography exhibits many of the same traits as an addiction: I need regular 'hits'; as time goes on I become inured to my level of 'exposures' and 'need' bigger hits; I experience extreme lows between receiving my doses of photography; I spend a disproportionate amount of my life thinking about making photos; I don't think about the costs (social or fiscal) when I'm getting a hit. All sure signs of an emotional addiction though, thankfully, not a physical dependency – I say thankfully because if it were a physical dependency I am surely doomed. I fear that my body will soon rebel against the 3:00am starts and the effort of dragging 20kg up a hill as I approach my sixth decade. Perhaps this is why playing with a digital compact is beginning to seem so appealing!
As well as highs, any addiction always has downsides. For me these include a large amount of time spent away from home and my relative poverty (compared to those sensible people I was at school with who now have proper, grown up jobs and five bedroom houses in Buckinghamshire). But the highs do console, easily compensating me for the lows. I wouldn't swap my life for another. It is very hard to surpass the moment when you place a 5x4 transparency on the lightbox for the first time and, miracle of miracles, find that you have largely fulfilled your vision. Perhaps it doesn't quite achieve the ecstatic feeling that accompanies a religious revelation, doesn't quite compare with the physical intensity of a sexual climax. But the intense feeling of euphoria that I experience when it all goes "right" has kept me coming back for more for 25 years.
Picking apart the causes for my addiction is bound to be only partially successful but I think that I have determined six motivations. I want to:
Record the beauty I find...
I have written at length about beauty elsewhere so I only want to reiterate here that a desire to capture the beauty we see around us is very often the foundation of any journey into art and it was certainly my starting point. I also believe that as we grow as artists so our sensibilities become more honed and so new beauties are revealed to us. This progressive revelation, this expectation of there always being more to find, is also key to my continuing fascination with photography.
Explore the visual realm – not to "express" myself!
I used to think (and say, if asked) that I was expressing myself through my photography, but I'm no longer comfortable with the notion of self-expression through the medium of a single image. My dictionary defines self-expression thus:
noun
the expression of one's feelings, thoughts, or ideas, esp. in writing, art, music, or dance.
The problem I have is with the word 'expression'; it implies a transmission of accessible data, the transmission of a "message". But images, dance or music don't have an agreed set of definitions. They aren't the same as words or even facial expressions; there's no possibility of truly knowing what has been 'said'. There's no direct translation of these art forms into words or emotions, often there's no possibility for even a partial translation. Single images are my métier but I strongly believe that there cannot be a clear transmission of meaning or emotion through a single image. Any image is both a window on the world and a semi-silvered mirror of the photographer. At its best it can reveal something about both, at worst it only tells you what you already knew or weren't interested in finding out. No matter how sharply focused, a photograph is a distorted and indistinct representation of the many signifiers it carries. If one really seeks self-expression then words are the best means.
I do still make images because I am moved or intrigued by the subject, but I don't have an expectation that an audience will have more than a vague notion of these motivations. So, rather than seeking to "express" myself I now think of what I do as an exploration. All I can do is hope that the resulting images might sometimes be a revelation to an audience, or at least resonate with them.
Find the boundary between description and evocation...
This is really another part of my journey of exploration. I want to find the boundary because for me this is the most exciting and elusive part of photography. The idea that one might make an image that is a perfect description of some thing but which evokes something greater, or something else entirely, is intoxicating.
The imperfect nature of message transmission via a photograph means that this process is bound to be a bit hit and miss – but it's fun to experiment. Given that photography is such a poor transmitter, how can we know where the boundary lies? I think only by observing where it lies for us individually and with our own images. Perhaps one of the greatest conundrums is how we might make an image yet find that the result surprises us, that it tells us something unexpected. How can it when we were there from beginning to end? That's such an exciting question for me. I don't think that we can find the boundary with a systematic search. I think that only by innocently playing with photography might we find some answers.
I found my friend Giles Stokoe's recent talk*, "Why we make images", both relevant and very interesting. I was particularly taken by his comments on play and photography as it struck a chord with my own views. I've thought for some time that we take our photography far too seriously (hark at him, I hear you cry!) when we should be playing with it. There is a temptation to stop messing about once we have reached a certain level of technical and compositional competence; to stick with what we know, to "play" it safe. This way we know that we will produce reasonable images. But this way lies stagnation. If we want to grow as photographers, we need to take what we've learnt and play with it with childish abandon. We should strive to see with the innocence of a child, work with a child's disregard for rules and their fearlessness about getting things "wrong".
Console myself with a glimpse of the possibility of perfection in an otherwise imperfect world...
Salvador Dali reputedly said "Don't worry about perfection... You'll never reach it" but for me a 5X4 image that I make that both excites me visually and is technically good is as close to perfection as anything that I will ever encounter in my life. It is also the most direct translation of my imagination. That is why I feel that the tranny is the embodiment of my vision; it is both a near-perfect object in its own right and the closest I will ever get to a perfect realisation of my vision. Not perfection but damn close.
I'm obsessed with form as is photographer Robert Adams. He asked the question, "Why is Form beautiful?" and answered, "Because, I think, it helps us meet our worst fear, the suspicion that life may be chaos and that therefore our suffering is without meaning." This might seem a little melodramatic, perhaps even quasi-religious. Adams isn't suggesting that Form is the meaning of life but just that it suggests that there might be some meaning. Part of my motivation for photography is the desire to reach an imperfect understanding of the world, to glimpse order within the chaos that surrounds me. Without photography there are so many things in life that I would never have truly seen, perhaps never have even noticed. Photography provides for me a way to dissect the world, to distill a visual essence, and in the process to begin to understand.
Create...
Cecile B. DeMille said "Creativity is a drug I cannot live without." What can possibly be more satisfying than making something? Enough said.
Please myself...
All of the above combine to make photography a pleasurable experience for me. But more importantly photography is an area of my life where I am in control(?), where I can do as I please without having to worry (at least at the moment when I release the shutter) what others think!
* At the Light & Land Discovery Day
Highlight this Comment Jason14/09/2008, 19:24
Funny David, I think your addicted to writing. You seem to place a lot of effort into expressing yourself here and I'm certainly happy for you to continue. I wouldn’t want to idly speculate here, as this is your blog and I’d hate to make assumptions, but I wonder if writing helps work things out, to learn about one’s self as a method of exploration. Does not writing help one think, formulate and consolidate creative ideas? It certainly does for me, helping me delve deeper into myself catalysing personal development.
What ever you write for, (oh and make photographs) keep it up, the journeys fun and many are enjoying it with you.
Highlight this Comment David14/09/2008, 20:29
Hi jason,
Well, nobody said that you can't be addicted to more than one thing! ;-)
I do use this blog as a means to express what I believe about photography and also as a way to explore and crystalise my ideas. I'm glad that you're enjoying hitching a ride on my journey, it's a pleasure travelling with you!
David
Highlight this Comment Charles Twist15/09/2008, 08:47
Hello David,
One of your most enjoyable posts in a long while - thanks for that. I agree with a good deal of what you say, what's more. I'll allow myself a few comments though.
(i) This is a personal comment but not one directed at you personally, David - it's more a comment for all photographers. What chance is there that all this fine rhetoric is but a frontage, something to mask and justify something deeper seated? I am not saying that your mum beat you as a a kid and that you never knew your dad (or some such Daily Sun grade story ;-)), but could it be that photography is a refuge - an escape from reality, and I don't mean just from the frailty of the human condition?
(ii) You mention that photography might be a way of making sense of our world, a way of taming it, or reducing to understandable chunks. I wonder to what extent seeking Form is a male endeavour. Would the female of the species look for the same? In which case, the argument would have limited applicability.
(iii) Your paragraph on expression-transmission bothers me. You're mixing the two up, I feel. Expression is etymologically the act of drawing out of you - it is you modelling your chosen medium in order to put an idea into a perceptible form which will have a life of its own in the human or natural world. This you do every time you m/take a picture - expression is independent of any viewer. The modelled medium is a vehicle only if the idea is transmitted to another person without any distortion. We are agreed that is unlikely to happen. As I have argued elsewhere, the level of distortion is inversely related to the cultural identity of the two individuals - in practice how close they are in upbringing and outlook. Cultural identity erodes with time and distance, thereby decreasing the probablity of transmission.
However, the modelled medium may be perceived by anyone at any time within the bounds of practical feasibility. And so, you have the viewer's perspective (viewer in the case of photography): he does not perceive your ideas, he perceives what you shaped. He is totally free to react to this in any way he cares, emotionally, intellectually or aesthetically, as you say. For me, this process mirrors expression and I therefore call it impression (which you fail to mention). Impression is what happens to you when you are out in the field looking for photo-fodder. And it happens in much the same way as the viewer at the gallery. Now, it is often stated that the mark of a successful photograph is one in which the impressions of the photographer and the viewer concur. It is something with which I am increasingly in disaggreance. I am glad to read that you are seeking to go beyond that, that you are looking for "evocation", as you put it here.
(iv) I don't know why you seek the boundary between evocation and description: you cannot control the impression made by one of your works. An anodyne, descriptive, "postcard" shot may bring fond memories to some people without you ever realising. The boundary also ties in with the distortion in transmission I mentioned above. The boundary will depend on the cultural identity of the photographer and the viewer so that it is not absolute. Your search will be further complicated by the fact that the boundary is also time-dependent.
To seek that boundary for yourself within the instant of opening the shutter might be feasible, but what would that achieve? Wait a bit and your perception of your own tranny will alter, simply because you have changed. That change is probably related to your perception of other events in the big wide world, and that includes (for the photographer) seeing the real thing, seeing the image on the ground glass/LCD screen, seeing the tranny then peering at the tranny very, very closely (typically!), and perhaps getting prints done and exhibited. How very much that one tranny can evoke! How very many are the impressions it can make! As I said above, that tranny, once created, has a life of its own.
(v) Ay, aren't we having fun?
Best regards, Charles
Highlight this Comment Paul15/09/2008, 08:57
Hi David. Next time my wife questions my sanity I'll direct her to your essay!
Otherwise she'll have to put up with my ill-thought-out excuse that photography fulfills a primitive urge to hunt something down. While I may have suppressed the desire to pick up a spear and go gallivanting through the woodlands of north Kent in the vain hope of spearing a boar (or a maybe even a bore!), I can't altogether suppress the need to chase 'something'. So the camera has substituted for the spear, and the underexposed, badly composed image has been substituted for 'the one that got away'.
I've also thought that memory is a key motivation for photography. Maybe we want to preserve experiences and emotions against the fear that at some point in the future we will not be able to accurately recall, or describe by other means, the beauty we have seen. Our desire to make something more artistic, or emotionally involving, in our image making perhaps reflects the reality that photography will always be a poor substitute for the real thing, so a mere record shot will always fall way short of the feelings we experienced at the time.
Paul.
Highlight this Comment David O15/09/2008, 14:39
I have a complaint. I have a wife and 2 kids and a job that keeps me busy. For the record, and in case my wife reads this, I'm not complaining about my wife or the kids. The motto is "get out more, take fewer photographs." How am I supposed to get out more (or even at all) when I am becoming addicted to this confounded blog!? I have come to the conclusion that I can no longer visit this website.....oh, OK, I'll be back in a week when I have had time to think about all this.......but by then you are more than likely to have started a new string! I know, why don't you write another book?
David
Highlight this Comment David16/09/2008, 06:36
Hi Charles,
It seems I didn't express myself very clearly...I understand and agree with what you're saying about expression being independent of a viewer. Unfortunately, I think that the vast majority of people would think that self-expression results in them transmitting something to a viewer. We commonly use the notion of expression to describe the act of putting across our feelings or ideas in words; we say phrases like, "I want to express my views on this." You and I both agree that this isn't particularly reliable or maybe even feasible with art.
Self-expression might result in imperfect transmission but it might just as easily result in no transmission for the reasons you and I have mentioned. I just feel that as a phrase it engenders unduly high and false expectations in both creator and viewer. I think that it's better to take a different tack entirely.
As to why I seek the boundary between description and evocation I'm tempted to repeat Mallory's oft quoted statement, "Because it's there!" (somewhere...) Surely it's better to try (and more often than not fail) to find this shifting indistinct boundary than to ignore it. It seems to me that the best art straddles this divide. Of course its location depends upon the perspective of the viewer, it's not a fixed line – either straight or sinuous. You say that it achieves nothing to look for it, I wholly disagree. If the search were for a definite goal I might agree with you, but for me the search is one of several pretexts for my journey of exploration. The voyage of discovery is my goal, not arriving at a particular destination. Our perception of all images, both our own and the work of others, shifts through time. We cannot control this but that doesn't mean that we should just sit around thinking, "There's no point doing this, I won't find it interesting/relevant/worthwile in 23 1/2 years time." (Unless we're Marvin the Manic Depressive robot...) It's fun to explore!
David
Highlight this Comment Chris Andrews16/09/2008, 07:03
David - this excellent piece really rang true to me. When producing my website I decided that the four words that described my photography were exploration, observation, revelation and experimentation. You seemed to have ticked all these boxes in this entry! More evidence that I truly am a graduate of the "Ward School of Photography"... :-)
Your talk of the recent L&L Discovery Day does raise a question in my mind. Over the last couple of DISCO days, and on the Montana tour last year, it seems that Charlie is suffering from a creative block (feel free to correct if I'm wrong - you know him better than I do). It is quite sad to see and feel his frustration with his image making. Is there anything you can do to get his creative spirit going again? Perhaps he should get out there with a camera phone or a G9 and just get the feeling of enjoyment that taking pictures provides?
Chris
Highlight this Comment Charles Twist16/09/2008, 07:33
Hello David,
We are agreed on the expression thing and I shan't comment further.
Your last paragraph I found beautiful as an exhortation to explore and as an artist's creative manifesto. "It seems to me that the best art straddles this divide" will be the most contentious sentence as not every artist seeks to work at the descriptive-evocative boundary, but as a first-time viewer, I suspect that it is nearly always true since we are apprehending an object we have never seen before in the pursuit of something beyond (moving from perceptual to conceptual). The object would have to retain this bivalence after the first impression to be successful by your definition; I suspect this too will be contentious. The only caveat I will give is that I suspect there are other boundaries, other sources of ambiguity, out there, which could fulfill the same role (I don't know whether your "other pretexts" include these or refer to the list in your original post).
Great stuff!
Best regards, Charles
PS I have been compared to Marvin before - I obviously haven't gotten the hang of this playful thing yet :-)).
Highlight this Comment David16/09/2008, 07:54
Hi Paul,
I'm not sure if your first sentence is meant to mean, "Look dear, no need to worry about me – he's even madder than I am!" ;-)
I've touched on the idea of the chase in a previous blog entry and I agree that, for male photographers at least, this may be a motivation.
It's interesting that you mention memory as it was on my original list but somehow got omitted when I wrote the piece. I think that you're absolutely right that capturing a moment, holding time in a bottle as Jim Croce sang, is a strong motivation. I would think that it figures in a very high percentage of images, particularly those made as social documents. It's also there in landscape photography, sometimes it's subsidiary to others and sometimes it is the prime reason.
David
Highlight this Comment David16/09/2008, 15:51
Hi David O,
Well, I'm sorry! I'll try and be less interesting... of course many would feel that it would be impossible for me to less interesting! ;-)
David
Highlight this Comment David16/09/2008, 15:55
Hi Chris,
Charlie has just got a new Panasonic DMC - LX3 digital compact so maybe this will put the 'f' back in fotography for him!
David
Highlight this Comment Charles Twist19/09/2008, 07:41
Hello David and Paul,
This memory thing: I understand and accept the idea of recording a moment in order to create a memento of an event, but I wonder if anyone else feels that part of the reason is to materialise, to make concrete the image - that little bit of world. What I mean, and I am talking mainly about landscape photography, is that the camera is concentrated on a small part of the scene and ignores all senses other than sight, so that photographing is a pure recollection of one particular sense. Do you feel that photographing helps your mind to focus on the one bit of that scene that mattered and saves the effort of having to abstract it and allows you to enjoy it without the distraction of the other senses? This is not a negation of anything said previously but an addition.
Best regards, Charles
Highlight this Comment jason19/09/2008, 13:11
It’s very complex why we do what we do and as David has already pointed out is multifaceted... but...
I'm sat here (in my office) with a scene of a Cornish storm I photographed last year. For me the image takes me back to the place, it reminds me of how special it was to be there, it makes me escape my office and place myself in back to that wonderful place. It sparks the memory of being there and in a funny way the longer I look at it, I see more, more than I did whilst there. Snag is that I would prefer to be there than here in my office... speaking of work, back to it!
Highlight this Comment Paul19/09/2008, 18:14
Hi Charles
I don't completely disagree with your point. However, I take photographs because the subject evokes in me an emotional response that, in most cases, goes beyond the sight sense to include multiple senses. I'm also seeking to make images that convey a sense of atmosphere or mood (combinational sensory perceptions?). My best images (i.e. the ones that I like) evoke in me the memory of the strongest senses experienced at the making of the image. For example, I have an image of the ice on Loch Ba cracking in the sun one afternoon. When I look at it I recall the stillness, the colour, the conflicting coldness and warmth, the eerie sound of the ice cracking all around, and my slight concern that I might not be able to make it back across the ice to the car. I doubt whether other viewers of this image would infer these feelings or sensory responses (maybe this image is not sufficiently 'connotative' ;-)). So for me, both as photographer and viewer, photography is not about enjoying the image without the distraction of the other senses......in most cases.
On the other hand, I took a photo recently of St Michael's Mount. The experience itself was pretty horrible owing to the large amount of sewage that had accumulated in the peaceful seas between the mainland and the island. When I look at the image I find it difficult to forget the almost overpowering odour that prevented me staying longer. There is nothing in the image that conveys this though (and had I wanted to convey the feeling I had at the time I'm really not sure how I could have done that). I am certain that other viewers just see a pretty image of the mount in beautiful magenta light, with not a whiff of sewage to spoil the view! I sincerely would like to be able to view this image without the distraction of the other senses, and being serious about it for a second, the image is of course devoid of unpleasant odours. However, unfortunately I am unable to view this particular image without the complete recollection of the main senses that were occupied in its making.
Cheers
Paul.
Highlight this Comment David19/09/2008, 19:33
Hi Charles,
I certainly think that part of my reason for making a photograph is to still my vision, to fix what I have seen. I'm obviously not the first to have thought of this – way back in 1900 the great photographer Jacques Henri Lartigue imagined that he could fix a sight in his mind by blinking three times. How incredible to be able to freeze vision: to still that which is normally ephemeral; fugitive; in a constant state of flux. How amazing to be able to hold a moment indefinitely. Photography is the only art-form able to freeze the river of time without obvious distortions or transformations.
Once my vision is stilled I am free to examine the space rendered, to interrogate the captured forms in a way that perhaps wouldn't be possible in real life. Part of the reason for this freedom is the "flattening" of space in an image created using a large format camera. By flattening I mean making everything 'sharp', this sharpening has the effect of bringing everything into the same plane. We can then apprehend the depicted space without our eyes having to accommodate focus. As a large print on a wall we can also often take in the whole image within our foveal vision and perhaps with a stationery gaze, something that would probably not have been possible in the real world. These two factors combine to give us a perception of incredible visual acuity, almost a hyper-reality.
David
Highlight this Comment jason15/11/2008, 12:32
Hi David
I was wondering why things have slowed down here? I suspect it’s because you’re busy, but I did wonder if there was any other reasons.
I for one gain a great deal from the intelligent conversation here and I hope it’s something that you’re planning on continuing...
Warmest regards, Jason.
Highlight this Comment David18/11/2008, 11:11
Hi Jason,
No reason for the slow down apart from personal circumstances. My mother died at the beginning of September and apart from dealing with that I have been away leading tours and workshops almost continuously since my last post. I do intend to continue and hopefully I will be posting something new in the next ten days or so. Perhaps not best to hold your breath though, I wouldn't want to be responsible for any cases of asphyxiation! ;-)
Kind regards
David
Highlight this Comment Jason19/11/2008, 12:47
Hi David I'm so sorry to hear your sad news.
Highlight this Comment Chris Andrews01/12/2008, 10:02
Hi David
It's good to see some of your new images posted to the gallery. You can now add skulls and barrels to the list of "the one thing I do". In fact the range of subjects in the new images section should help to dispel this myth. Looking forward to your next blog entry when you're ready for it.
Chris
Highlight this Comment Phil Staff06/12/2008, 11:15
Hi David and let me be the first - season's greetings,
I couldn't agree more; from barrels to the radical image of the sands at Uig which are looking fabulous, every single grain of them. I'm looking forward to some of your inspiration to rub off when we're in Glencoe next month.
Best wishes, Phil
Highlight this Comment Chris Hopkins17/01/2009, 12:31
"My relationship with photography exhibits many of the same traits as an addiction: I need regular 'hits'; as time goes on I become inured to my level of 'exposures' and 'need' bigger hits; I experience extreme lows between receiving my doses of photography"
Just came across your site and this rang true to me. I also find myself climbing out of bed at 3am, driving 90 miles, spending a couple of hours getting feet and legs wet, but heart and soul warm and content.
I have a long way to go yet but you can see my offerings here
I have bookmarked your site and look forward to a regular read.
Chris
Highlight this Comment David Owen25/02/2009, 21:15
I think it might help you to read some proper philosophy on expression, a good accessible and short work is Aaron Ridley's COLLINGWOOD (in The Great Philosopher series)
best
David
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