Odd how some things come about, and from whence comes inspiration.
The other morning (Saturday it would have been) saw me sat at the old computer desk trying to knock some sense into the infernal machine when my endeavours were interrupted by the rising Sun.
Beginning to shine through the window.
Well, beginning to shine through the window through the curtain to be more precise. Or maybe vice versa, cos that doesn’t sound quite right. Dunno. I give up.
Now there’s a funny thing about that curtain. For starters its always drawn (as in closed). Well, I don’t want every nosey bugger peering in at me as I work, now do I? Not that they could of course. Cos the window’s on the first floor and the house frontage is “protected” by rather… er… “overgrown” hedges and stuff. And there’d be a bramble-infested garden to navigate. But that’s neither here nor there.
Anyway…
The other funny thing about that curtain is that I’m rather fascinated by it. Or rather, fascinated by the light that shines through it when the Sun’s rising.
Always seems to distract me from whatever I may be doing, and on odd occasions its been known to propel me into grabbing nearest camera and firing off a few shots.
Utterly pointless I know, but that’s the way I am. Though I actually think I’m getting quite good at photographing that curtain. Its about the only bloody thing I am good at (thought I’d best say that before anyone else did). Snag is, there’s only so many angles you can do it from. And only so many pics you need of the same damn curtain.
So, t’other morning it was, and the nearest camera happened to be that fairly recently acquired (and proving to be quite fun to use… I can sense another blogpost about it gradually crystallising in my little old brain) compact digi, the Lumix FZ38.
And in amongst the totally meaningless pics I took were a couple of an hourglass I happen to have, semi-silhouetted against the curtained window.
Quite liked them so uploaded them to Flickr. The pics that is… not the curtains!
I’m not entirely certain one could upload curtains to Flickr anyway. I s’pose the real trick would be getting them into the computer in the first place. Prob’ly have to rip out all the gubbins. Which might actually be an improvement. At least I’d know why the damn thing takes so long to do the simplest task.
However, back to the matter in hand…
And gazing thereat thereon (yes, the wording does make sense if you think about it!) it struck me that this particular hourglass offered potential for a few more pics in its own right sorta thing.
Which prompted me to spend the next few hours or so mulling, and coming up with some ideas about what might be fun to do with it. And this morning bright and early (wasn’t actually very bright, but it was certainly bloody early) saw me hoiking the old kit out (camera kit that’d be, just to clarify things for those who’re possessed of depraved minds) and knocking out a few shots.
The complete set of which are now, of course, on Flickr. But here’s a few examples, just to whet the appetite…
And I have to say, I thoroughly enjoyed the little session. Beats braving the elements in quest of things to shoot!
That’s a great set of shots. The blacks in the black and white shots are so sharply black, it looks really nice. The last shot is kind of creepy, but I like it.
Wow… I hadn’t even finished polishing the wording of the post and it gets a comment! That’s gotta be a record!
Anyway, cheers Maggie. It was great fun doing them.
You really do not see the Artist in you coming forth, do you? Quality of light. Moving things ’bout. Creating shots instead of simply taking them. Turning them into b&w.
(sigh)
Sometimes I think I’m just completely misunderstood
Y’see, whilst I’d agree that the original visualisation, the arrangement of the elements and stuff, and all the rest of that bullshit may have some artistic qualities to it, when that’s all done I just click a button and bingo… a photograph.
That’s all. A bog-standard photograph. Anyone could have taken it. The only effort it took was clicking the button. So what we end up with is just a photographic rendering of a scene that may conceivably have some artistic quality to it. Whatever that may be. But one thing the photograph itself certainly ain’t is art.
Now had I painted the scene on canvas… had I used whatever skills and talents I may possess to painstakingly and accurately reproduce that scene as I saw it, detail by detail, each caressingly drawn in by hand on a blank canvas, then that would be Art.
I’ve never denied I’m an artist. Well, ex-artist actually. Used to earn a living at it in fact… until bloody computers took over my life. But is one ever an “ex-artist” I wonder? Hmm. But that wasn’t using a camera. That was with brushes, and paints, and pens, and pencils, and easels, and wood, and metal, and… er… other stuff. Anyway, what I do dispute is that any pics I take are art. They’re not. They’re just photographs.
And of course being a common-or-garden artist (or ex-artist) is vastly different to being one of those camera-wielding artsy-fartsy types who preciously affix the word “Art” to all their so-called “work”. Hmph!
So whilst some artistry may have contributed to creating the scenes I photographed, I didn’t “create” the pictures… the camera did. All I did was push a button. And, as I said, that ain’t art. Its photographs.
See? Easy, innit?
Ah! But you didn’t just press the shutter release and presto!
You had to edit and process the images as well, didn’t you? In turn you made decisions regarding the qualities of the image and subsequently made adjustments that brought the image more in-line with your vision of the scene.
Of course you know I’m just giving you shit….because I can.
Ho hum. Heard it all before. And its still the same old claptrap that it always was.
Y’see, what you’re talking about now is the manipulation of a previously created image. Previously created, in fact, by the camera.
And since when has making decisions been artistic? Oops… I’ve artistically decided I suddenly need to take a dump. Or p’raps its that I’ve decided to artistically take a dump! Heh heh.
Nope. Won’t wash I’m afraid.
Now, here’s the real question…
Having once “artistically” arranged a scene, or maybe even observed a scene that strikes one as worthy of artistic reproduction, why then the choosing to use a camera to reproduce it rather than pen and paper, or canvas and paint? Or even stone and chisel? Hmm? Laziness perhaps? Or… ?
“Of course you know I’m just giving you shit….because I can.”
Absolutely. Why else would we even bother flogging this particular dead horse? Because we can. As if either of us really gave a toss.
But I must say it makes a pleasant change being able to argue the issue calmly, rather than being faced with the intense passion and very often personal abuse that seems to be a hallmark of a lot of the “Photography is Art” cult. This defensiveness is one of the things I find rather worrying. They seem to be so ferociously intent on espousing their cause. As though the louder they shout, or the more they repeat the same old mantras, the more they’re likely to make their point. The fact that they’re trying so hard to persuade us that photography’s art tends to make me even more dubious about the proposition. If it truly is art then it should be self-evident… but it ain’t. Not as far as I’m concerned at least.
Y’see, that’s why I call them a “cult”. Cos its more like a cult or religion than anything else… nowadays it seems intercessionaries are needed to tell us what’s art and what isn’t. High priests, disciples and acolytes… all to promote worship of the great god Art. (And of course that’s bound to render “Art Photographers” something special… distinct from the hoi polloi. Load of old bollocks if you ask me.) They’ve even got their own theology as it were… nonsense about messages and meanings and communicating visions and life-changing (although in their case its perception-changing) experiences, and all the rest of the bullshit.
When I first started doing art (as in real art) all I was concerned about was satisfying a need within myself… not all the rest of that New Age nonsense. And I suspect that’s been the case with a lot of genuine artists. They do what they do because they want to; to fulfill some inner need; to satisfy some inner urge; to derive pleasure from the real act of creating something in the fullest sense of the word. Seems to me its a very insular, solitary, almost selfish pursuit. Sod all that rubbish about communicating a vision or whatever.
Let’s throw this thought into the mix…which just popped into my head when I read it…
You stated, …why then the choosing to use a camera to reproduce it rather than pen and paper, or canvas and paint? Or even stone and chisel?
Because the camera wasn’t always available.?
Art was created via the means by which humanity had available to them. Should we poo-poo photography as not being Art simply because the tool is modern and requires less talent to wield than a brush, chisel or pen?
By no means would I suggest that every photograph taken is Art, but clearly the process through which you went the other day mimics the process a painter may have gone through, except that your tool was different.
Fortunately, I haven’t ever found myself in the position of having to defend my position on photography as Art against some raving loon. And to be frank, I’m still quite uncertain where I stand upon this issue. It is, in no small part, these tete-a-tete we have that are helping forge my opinion.
Of course, it would simply be far more fun to take a contrary opinion to yours….;-)
“Because the camera wasn’t always available?”
Ah, this is one of those imponderables that’s really quite meaningless and doesn’t actually address anything at all. Who the hell knows?
But I will make this observation… its not unknown for certain relatively contemporary artists to use a camera in addition to more established techniques. I’d like to be able to quote you names but unfortunately I can’t cos the old memory isn’t what it used to be, but I have a distinct recollection of having heard of both painters and sculptors using cameras… not to create a finished piece of art, but to assist in its creation.
Indeed, were I ever to be seized by the urge to paint (though in my case it would probably be chalks, which latterly were my medium of choice) a landscape or whatever I might also be tempted to visit a particular location and take photographs of it first. Not simply to thereafter copy, but to remind me of the placement of various elements and other such details.
That doesn’t render the photograph art though… just another tool in the creation of art.
“clearly the process through which you went the other day mimics the process a painter may have gone through, except that your tool was different”
This seems to be one of the principal arguments the “Photography is Art” cult use to try justifying their assertions, and in fact its simply restating albeit in different words your comment that initiated this discussion.
I don’t know how many different ways there are of saying what I’ve already said, and I don’t understand why it seems always to be totally ignored.
Yes, the process may be comparable up to a point, but there’s one key element absent. And that is the actual physical act of taking your chosen medium and actually, physically, laboriously, detail by detail, over a period of time, creating a representation. Using one’s own vision, manual dexterity, and ability to convert a vision into a tangible representation by such things as reproducing perspective, dimensions, proportions, the placement of elements in relation to one another, etc etc.
And that entire task is totally absent from photography inasmuch as the camera does all the hard work so to speak… it is the camera that actually creates the image, not the photographer.
As a mate only yesterday remarked to me… the word “capture” so often used in photography is a curiously apt description (which is possibly the reason why some photographers don’t like the term… its too apt!). By using a camera the photographer is essentially capturing an image rather than actually creating one. And that is one of the key differences (there are others).
So whatever the photographer may subsequently do to that image is more closely akin perhaps to the work of a copyist than to that of an artist.
Which doesn’t mean that a photographer cannot also be an artist… but it does suggest that photography isn’t art per se. Not in my book, anyway.
One doesn’t need to defend one’s position in the “Photography is Art” debate if one is challenging the assertion… for the onus of proof must surely reside with those making an assertion.
As for having certainty about where we stand… well, I’m quite certain where I stand! Although I’m open to the possibility that someone, someday, may be able to convince me otherwise. Just that so far I’ve not encountered any argument that I find truly persuasive… just a load of rather noisy (and often unjustifiably passionate) rhetoric and the introduction of complete irrelevancies.
I particularly like the way you have phrased this reply. It is more direct and on-point than some previous efforts, with the argument centered around the term “capture” being especially apt.
As I have usually leaned towards the notion that photography can be Art, I am now leaning more towards the contrary. I think you may have sold me.
Ooh, let’s not be too hasty here!
For starters I’m not in the business of trying to convince anyone of anything. If someone wants to think that photography’s art that’s entirely up to them. Just that I don’t happen to agree. What I do object to, having stated my disagreement, is then having one irrelevant argument after another tossed at me in seeming effort to try to get me to acknowledge what I’ve already stated I don’t agree with. As though I hadn’t already encountered and deeply thought about the pros and cons, and reached a considered decision. Hmph!
Interestingly (and revealingly) so far those arguments have seemed to principally emanate from that type of photographer who’s already claiming their “work” is Art, or from folk with some other vested interest (such as those people actually flogging the stuff). Hmm.
Anyway, qualify all the foregoing with the caveat that I readily accept that some photographs can convey an image that may be regarded as artistic. More precisely, “in the style of…” Its just that I’m contending that the photograph in and of itself as an object is not Art. Sort of thing.
Where I am at the moment is regarding photography (specifically stills) as a transitional stage, finding ultimate expression in films, which I do actually regard as Art. Though that could change!
This doesn’t mean of course that every photographer should, or even want to, progress toward making films. I certainly don’t!
Forming my own opinion regarding photography as Art or not-Art is, in no small part, based upon conversations such as these.
As I wasn’t firmly in the Art camp anyway, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that a smart and well-structured argument against photography as Art would help better form my opinion.
Of course, knowing you, you’ll be in the Art camp sometime in about 18-months or so
Heh heh.
But if so at least such a dramatic change of mind would be based on sound rational reasoning rather than some airy-fairy nonsense based on flawed logic and uncertain definitions.
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Now here’s an interesting footnote to the foregoing discussion. Even though it seems to have been penned in 1989 I’ve only just stumbled across it, yet essentially the writer is articulating precisely the same thing I’ve offered as one of my principal objections to photography being art, although saying it in a much more illustrative manner:
From
http://www.nytimes.com/1989/08/13/arts/l-mapplethorpe-etc-photography-isn-t-art-942289.html
I would further add that the whole “reasoning” put forward by the “Photography is Art” cult to justify their position, that compares the processes photographers employ to those employed by a “true” artist, is in fact fundamentally unsound. It is akin to the “reasoning” that asserts:
“Cats have four legs. This animal has four legs. Therefore it must be a cat.”
Sorry, that just doesn’t work. Not for me at least. Nor probably for anyone who’s mastered elementary Logic.