Apparent Confusion about Artistic Expression

David Brown said:

That's what makes it difficult, if not impossible (for some) to talk about it.

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David, You make a valid point. I think that many of us initially more comfortable in talking about technical matters for that very reason. We are not putting ourselves out in the open for all to see when we discuss technical matters. However, in contrast, we fear that when we discuss our motivation...our creative impetus that we somehow make ourselves more naked in the process.

I think that this is really unfortunate because I alway find new things about myself when I speak about my personal experiences and the lessons that I have learned in process. I would hope that others would experience the same thing.

I think that this fear of self exposure is mostly when we speak of these things as opposed to showing our work. In showing our work, we may have evidence of our efforts apparent to others but we are not sharing the reasons behind the evidence of our efforts.

Thanks for your contribution.

I approach things or depict things in a manner that reflects how an object speaks to me. I choose materials that will best promote the idea of the shot. I keep in mind what I need to do so that materials will behave -- if not or hopefully not behave predictably, but be workable.

What the thing says to me is unique to my experiences. This message can be literal; i love the curve of the line and I will shoot it to emphasize that curve; or it can be somewhat more obtuse; where i juxtaposition or even bury the beautiful amongst items which say different things or argue with it. The former would be akin to shooting a flower for the latter maybe just the stem growing out of crack in a parking lot tarmac.

If you extrapolate from there and increase the complexity of the objects and message you will have a pretty good idea of what I am trying to do with my art.

I find things that have resonance for me. I do this a lot and think about it always, so my understanding of why they resonate is pretty clear.

I try to figure out if there is a punch line or where that punch line exists. The punch line can be some irony, conflict, harmony, etc... I try to think in terms of meanings not the literal objects. I try to compose using the arbitrary restrictions of the film format. I try to keep in mind the formality or drama of the frame.

I frame the best picture I can find and shoot it. I figure that I'm not that good and find two or three more compositions and shoot again. I know that the perfect exposure is not always the best exposure so I bracket.

As mentioned earlier I shoot for myself and wonder what others will see.

I try to keep a fairly straight line in my shots. I shoot things that have a cultural meaning in a manner which (I hope) gives them a louder voice and a slightly different but truer message than that which we hold in our minds. The louder voice is an exaggeration and is attained with the film, aperture, time, final print and or light, the organization of the frame is often a ruse to make the subject visually interesting, but may have no bearing on the message.

The thing is I am working hand in glove with my knowledge of medium and message. For me one does not live without the other.

darr said:

Donald, I respect you and your work, but this sounds a bit like psychotherapy meandering. I believe artists make art because they are tweaked by nature to do so. If you pull it apart enough you have lost "being in the flow" of it all. Producing photographs is different things to different people. Can we leave it at that? I have had art historians deceiver their own thoughts and ideas on my work and most of the time I have laughed about it. I was just turning out art with no psychological or critical thoughts intended. Yes, I am art school "polished" so I know how to play color and form when needed to pull off quick commercial pieces, but honestly, some people read way more into it than intended. I produce art that I think is just plain pretty.

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Thank you for your contribution. I have a different view then you do. I guess that is what makes us individuals.

I could probably take the position that those who produce "pretty" art for "pretty" sake are shallow and unrealized just as easily as you made your assessment of me. But I won't do that in your case because you are entitled to your own method of self expression.

I personally do not have the view that beauty is a necessary componant of art whereas thought provoking and emotion stirring responses is a vital consideration of art.

I guess that is another place that we differ. At any rate, thank you for your contribution.

mrcallow said:

I approach things or depict things in a manner that reflects how an object speaks to me. I choose materials that will best promote the idea of the shot. I keep in mind what I need to do so that materials will behave -- if not or hopefully not behave predictably, but be workable.

What the thing says to me is unique to my experiences. This message can be literal; i love the curve of the line and I will shoot it to emphasize that curve; or it can be somewhat more obtuse; where i juxtaposition or even bury the beautiful amongst items which say different things or argue with it. The former would be akin to shooting a flower the later maybe just the stem growing out of crack in a parking lot tarmac.

If you extrapolate from there and increase the complexity of the objects and message you will have a pretty good idea of what I am trying to do with my art.

I find things that have resonance for me. I do this a lot and think about it always, so my understanding of why they resonate is pretty clear.

I try to figure out if there is a punch line or where that punch line exists. The punch line can be some irony, conflict, harmony, etc... I try to think in terms of meanings not the literal objects. I try to compose using the arbitrary restrictions of the film format as a restriction. I try to keep in mind the formality or drama of the frame.

I frame the best picture I can find and shoot it. I figure that I'm not that good and find two or three more compositions and shoot again. I know that the perfect exposure is not always the best exposure so I bracket.

As mentioned earlier I shoot for myself and wonder what others will see.

I try to keep a fairly straight line in my shots. I shoot things that have a cultural meaning in a manner which (I hope) gives them a louder voice and a slightly different but truer message than that which we hold in our minds. The lojder voice is an exaggeration and is attained with the film, aperture, time, final print and or light, the organization of the frame is often a ruse to make the subject visually interesting, but may have no bearing on the message.

The thing is I am working hand in glove with my knowledge of medium and message. For me one does not live without the other.

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John,
Thanks for your contribution. I a question if you don't mind my asking. I assure you that my questions are sincere and are based in my lack of understanding of what you are saying.

You mentioned that you have a good idea of why things resonate with you. Would you feel comfortable in sharing what your understanding is?

Thanks again.

Joe

Not every image needs to be new fresh or original. Is not the act of taking a photograph of even the most mundane or bucolic scene enough of a reward if it brings a moment of happiness to the artist?

I don't really care about the motivation or intent of the person who made the photograph or work of art. If it speaks to me that is a bonus for the photographer. If it has meaning that is only understood by the photographer it does not make it any less valid or important.

Not all images are going to excite us or enlighten us to a level of satisfaction. But the image that we dismiss may have been a moment of deep wonderment or revelation for the photographer.

Just like it is a mistake to try to hard to impress an audience, it is a mistake to "shout" at a photograph to say what you think it should say.

Donald,
I could give you a laundry list of what moves me and why, but I think it is like everything else. Why do some like fish others cabbage? We live our lives, form our beliefs find out what makes us happy sad, etc this is our human vocabulary. If you are a writer you write about these things, painters paint about them, I photograph them. What these folks often do is speak about 'it' -- they don't necessarily describe 'it.' Speaking about it starts the conversation describing it ends the discourse.

I have no desire for a concise documentation of the objects I shoot, because the objects are like tuning forks. I am after the sound or voice of these objects.

In simple terms a photograph of a flower shot as if it were to be used in a seed catalogue, doesn’t capture the voice of the object -- the aspect that sings to you. To record the voice you might need to play with reality, shot from an odd angle or include items that point the viewer toward the sound.

This is all personal stuff which is not easily written about and no amount of intent and intellectualization will cover the intuitive response that is often the fulcrum for any image.

I have, for myself, built a foundation (which is constantly changing) from which I work. I probably skirt the edges or even jump off the platform as often as I stand smack dab in the middle.

I spend most days wanting to find some sort of solace and peace and after a hard week of going back over my own week amidst a number of personal problems which I am sure color my reactions (as everything does, we don't live in bubbles though some may try) I have discovered that I, for the most part, photograph the rigid and the geometric. It's like I am trying, through my photography, or my paintings, to find a sense of stability that I find lacking in my own life and thoughts and feelings.

I've attached an image of a gazebo at night. Why at night? Because I couldn't sleep. Why this gazebo? Because it had a swing in it which I wished I could have sat down and rested on, but I was in too much pain and had to pace back and forth. The permanence of this scene and its geometric rigidity also appeal to my senses.

I have even tried to take this to a new level with a new skill I learned by using a warm gum tone to push a sense of warmth and invitation into the lit gazebo, while a blue-black layer was attempted to bring down the shadows and surrounding areas into a sense of the cold and inky.

This picture for me was successful because it evokes the feelings I was trying emote for me--most people will just see a gazebo at night.

For somebody who can dish it out, he sure can't take it!

Murray

Jeremy Moore said:

This picture for me was successful because it evokes the feelings I was trying emote for me--most people will just see a gazebo at night.

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That is all that is important in the long run. Is the picture successful for the photographer? The motives for the creation of any image can be many. It is not always important or required that the viewer understand the work in the same way as the creator of the work does.

Jeremy,

Thank you for sharing where you are in your journey. It takes courage to open oneself to others and I applaud you for taking the risk. I think that creative people are perhaps blessed and cursed in the same breath. We are blessed by the ability to express and we are cursed by our search for greater self expression...at least I believe that is true for those who are truly artistically driven.

I don't mean to hog this thread...I respond only because I was the one that started this discussion. Thank you again.

Jeremy Moore said:

This picture for me was successful because it evokes the feelings I was trying emote for me--most people will just see a gazebo at night.

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Jeremy,

I believe that if I am successful when making a photograph that most people will NOT only see a gazebo at night. I see it like this: A photograph is a transmission of information. Unlike language and writing, it does not use words, and accordingly, doesn't suffer from the inherent dualities of comprehension present in language.

People who see a photograph have an emotional and intellectual reaction based on their own awareness of themselves. If I have managed to convey something universal in the photograph, they will get it. Some will get it more than others. Some might not get it at all, but they are fooling themselves.

Your point might be that it doesn't matter what people see or what reaction they had, and I agree with you there. You made the photograph. It was important to you. Making it was important. Why? I figure that out then I make the next one. But I don't think viewers are ever going to have the same emotional response seeing my picture that caused me to make the picture in the first place. They aren't me (thank goodness!).

Best,

Will

Jeremy... that is an extraordinarily beautiful photograph, and evocative of a good many things. I appreciate knowing that insomnia led you to this image, but at the end of the day, your personal discomfort when making this image isn't relevant to the success of this quiet and contemplative photograph. My own work is deeply personal, and revolves around my family and friends. I strive, sometimes for my photographs to be about something greater than the particulars of my own life. I think you've managed that, Jeremy, with the above photograph. Perhaps, I have with this one:

(there was a url link here which no longer exists)

This thread seems to be more about self-expression than expression. I think there is more to art (and by extension, life) than self-expression.

mrcallow said:

I have no desire for a concise documentation of the objects I shoot, because the objects are like tuning forks. I am after the sound or voice of these objects.

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John,

I like what you've said here. I've grown to feel much the same. I used to struggle to the point of tormenting myself about what it was I was trying to express with my work. I've been to the brink of packing it in more times than I have fingers and toes simply because, intellectually, I couldn't make it all fit. "What was the point?", I would ask myself. "Everything has been done. What can I possibly add?". It wasn't until I let it all go and stopped trying to be pretentious with myself. Stopped concerning myself with the question of how I was going to rise above all that has been done and truly do something unique. Gimmicks are not style and nothing is worse than trying to lie to yourself. It is a fool's way.

At the lowest point, I had an epiphany. I started to look at all the unpretentious work I had been steadily creating since I was 12 and considering unworthy and realized I really did have a style that was mine. It was already unique and there was a huge body of it created over years staring me right in the face. It told the story of my life... my experience, my loves and my losses. It was right there in front of me. It no longer mattered what anyone else thought but me. My boring "rocks and trees" had become priceless to me. This was incredibly liberating and allowed me to create with abandon. The worked stopped being something that concerned a viewer. It was no longer made to be seen, but made to fulfill. I have flourished creatively ever since. The world opened up to me figuratively and literally around that time. It was if my work was coming from someone or somewhere else. I look at certain images I've made throughout my career and can't for the life of me imagine where they came from. Sure, I was there when I exposed the negative and remember the experience, but the photograph can be infinitely more than that experience. What possessed me to create that particular image? I can't explain it... it just is. In effect I had to unlearn everything I had learned. Everything getting between me and my core, my soul so to speak, had to be swept away. Both psychologically and technically. As soon as I start becoming conscious of trying to "say" something with my work, or over over-intellectualizing, I can feel it slipping away. The same thing happens when I start thinking in terms of zone placement or f stops. It becomes like a fine dream that escapes you as you awaken. As I said in another post in this thread, I've learned to follow my gut over my mind every time.

Bill

PS.... Before posting this I saw Jeremy's photograph. Now THAT says something to me. Woo Hoo!

Donald Miller said:

Ed, thanks for your contributions on the subject. My work meets the inner expression of a self that I am slowly coming to recognize...So who am I to judge what manner it finds expression of truth to me..

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Who are you to...? The best person. Who else?

In a way, that was a loaded question. Why is a "judgement" of the manner of..." at all necessary?

You (and I) do our work. We both share the emotional - and whatever - content with others. That sharing - or the offering to share, is a great gift... and we are connecting ... note that I did not use the word "communicating" ... with others, "kindred souls". Some out there will not be "kindred". But ... "judging"...? For what purpose, and comparing to what criteria?

Ed Sukach said:

Who are you to...? The best person. Who else?

In a way, that was a loaded question. Why is a "judgement" of the manner of..." at all necessary?

You (and I) do our work. We both share the emotional - and whatever - content with others. That sharing - or the offering to share, is a great gift... and we are connecting ... note that I did not use the word "communicating" ... with others, "kindred souls". Some out there will not be "kindred". But ... "judging"...? For what purpose, and comparing to what criteria?

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Ed, I agree...it simply is as it is...or stated another way "I am that."

billschwab said:

... It wasn't until I let it all go and stopped trying to be pretentious with myself. Stopped concerning myself with the question of how I was going to rise above all that has been done and truly do something unique. Gimmicks are not style and nothing is worse than trying to lie to yourself. It is a fool's way.
At the lowest point, I had an epiphany. I started to look at all the unpretentious work I had been steadily creating since I was 12 and considering unworthy and realized I really did have a style that was mine. It was already unique and there was a huge body of it created over years staring me right in the face. It told the story of my life... my experience, my loves and my losses. It was right there in front of me....

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Exactly my point.

We all have our own unique styles. They are there, and, we cannot truly escape from that style.

Our styles, however, are not immutable. They change as we change. Every life experience, each word we hear, each image we see ... changes us - and our styles - to some degree.

Possibly there is another way to look at "style". It is the manifestation of our own "personalities". We ALL have a personality - "good", "bad", indifferent... it is there, whether we, or anyone else tries to "grade" it. How does one work toward developing a personality? I don't think we can, or need to. We may strive to "improve our act" ... but all that means is trying to be more like we WANT to be.... something I think we ALL do, anyway.

Not only that, but ....

I have a model scheduled for Thursday. I intend to do figure studies, initially using white "veiling" against a black felt background in the composition. I have to put aside this lofty conversation, for the moment ... and get my studio in shape.

Donald Miller said:

I could probably take the position that those who produce "pretty" art for "pretty" sake are shallow and unrealized just as easily as you made your assessment of me. But I won't do that in your case because you are entitled to your own method of self expression.

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What assessment of you did she make Donald. I must have missed it. I think she is right on the point in this discussion.

I love the Whys of the image. I started a thread not to long ago asking why photographers do not tell the story of their photography. At the time you, and many others, expressed how distastful this was. Many stated that their art should stand or fall on it's own merits without the photographer present to discuss it.Now here we are again and folks are giving their stories. SOme of the same folks, you included, who are giving the stories behind the art. Maybe Darr is right.


I was reading Watercolor: Simple, Fast, and Focused : Essential Concepts for Mastering the Medium by Mel Stabin the other day, for the fifth or sixth time. In it he says (paraphrased) that the artist should not concern themselves with creating the next great masterpiece. They should, instead, concentrate on enjoying what they are doing. I agree fully with his statement. He also states that people are drawn to the subject for a reason and should know exactly what drew us too it. Both aesthetically and personally.

It seems, to me at least, that as soon as we WORK to introduce symbols and alternate meanings into our work then there may become an artificiality to our work.

If one naturally sees in symbols and wants the art they create to convey those symbols, the artist has the responsibility to convey that to the viewer. IMO the artist wimps out when they begin to belittle the viewer for not seeing what they intended. There is a lesson taught in writing schools: If you intend to include symbols and underlying meanings it is your fault if the reader does not get it, not theirs.

mark said:

What assessment of you did she make Donald. I must have missed it. I think she is right on the point in this discussion.

I love the Whys of the image. I started a thread not to long ago asking why photographers do not tell the story of their photography. At the time you, and many others, expressed how distastful this was. Many stated that their art should stand or fall on it's own merits without the photographer present to discuss it.Now here we are again and folks are giving their stories. SOme of the same folks, you included, who are giving the stories behind the art. Maybe Darr is right.


I was reading Watercolor: Simple, Fast, and Focused : Essential Concepts for Mastering the Medium by Mel Stabin the other day, for the fifth or sixth time. In it he says (paraphrased) that the artist should not concern themselves with creating the next great masterpiece. They should, instead, concentrate on enjoying what they are doing. I agree fully with his statement. He also states that people are drawn to the subject for a reason and should know exactly what drew us too it. Both aesthetically and personally.

It seems, to me at least, that as soon as we WORK to introduce symbols and alternate meanings into our work then there may become an artificiality to our work.

If one naturally sees in symbols and wants the art they create to convey those symbols, the artist has the responsibility to convey that to the viewer. IMO the artist wimps out when they begin to belittle the viewer for not seeing what they intended. There is a lesson taught in writing schools: If you intend to include symbols and underlying meanings it is your fault if the reader does not get it, not theirs.

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Mark,

Thank you for your response. I think that the assessment that I was mentioning had something to with psychotherapeautic meandering or some such definition.

Now more to the point of what your concern about a disparity between what I said at one point and what I am seeming to be saying as you read things today. I don't think that it is my responsibility to convey to a viewer what considerations or meanings that were incorporated in one of my images... unless and until someone asks me what prompted me to make the exposure and what meaning I draw from it. Beyond that the viewer can draw whatever meaning, if any, that they want from it.

My point in beginning this thread is to introduce a discussion of what creative self expression considerations we as photographers may have influencing us. Symbolic meaning can be one of those...not the only one and certainly not "the appropriate one".

For instance I have a great inner conviction that the objective reality that I experience in my daily life is but the miniscus of my and our (collectively) existence. That means for me that there is a great deal about life that we fail to recognize, address, or allude to in our images. Thus a spiritual componant of interconnectedness within all things is a large part of my life view. It is at the core of all of my photography.

Do I pretend to believe that I have all of the answers about this? no, not hardly. Am I influenced by it, you bet.

Now for a dyed in the wool atheist or even some agnostics this will be a damned bitter pill to swallow. I recognize that...but still my personal orientation prevades all of my efforts. We are after all individuals and we have differing views. Does my pyschotherapeutic meandering take a subservient or an elevated position to someone who wishes to portray only beauty? No it is simply what it is...no heirarchial position needs to be assigned by you, the other poster or by me.

I believe quite strongly my images tell me a heck of a lot more about me then they will ever tell you or anyone, for that matter, about the view and my beliefs when I made an exposure. That is as it should be for me. My photography is about self discovery, first, foremost, and never, ever what you may take away from my description of my images to you.

My photographs, today, are about exploration of spatial relationships that exist within forms, lines, patterns, and textures, They are not intended nor are they in many cases about beauty....let's face it life isn't about beauty all of the time ...there is a hell of a lot of suffereing, pain, and sorrow interspersed in with the beauty and joy. I believe in being honest and for that reason I believe in showing reality as it exists for me.

I hope that I have given you some idea of where I am with this subject and the basis of my considerations in initiating this discussion.

Thank you for your contribution. I look forward to hearing any further thoughts that you may have as they apply to your personal experience.

jnanian said:

i agree with you wholeheartedly, but the thing is that people with cameras are trapped in reality, and unless they do something drastic, photography will always be based in reality. i don't know what creative or artistic expression is. i do straight documentary photography ( most of the time ). i just use my camera as a tool to record what is around me. sometimes i see reality a little different than others, but we all see the world around us differently.

- -john

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I understand what you mean by "trapped in reality"; what I believe is that the question of meaning is something evacuated out of the critical assessment of photography, and much visual arts as well.

Of course you can't be as pictorially radical as Cubism with photog, because it would probably involve collage or heavily pictorial technique that may take you out of the specificity of the photo medium. But it's a bit disheartening to stick to merely technically perfect rocks, barns, or shafts of light, which is what I meant by the invasive Stieglitz. Let's not forget also that abstract art and straight photography were once revolutionary, but also that they have been eventually coopted into the equivalent of musak.

I'm not better either, judging from what I posted in my own gallery, so I don't pretend to be a great artist. My "holy Grail," to borrow another recent thread's name, would be to make photography that is meaningful, and that uses adroitly form to structure its meaning.

I find that photographers who are good at taking people pictures seem to be able to create far more poignant content than those who stick to nature mortes. There are exceptions in either cases, but we react in fundamentally different ways to living and inanimate objects. In literature, you can't make much without a persona (in poetry) or a character (in prose).

I don't know if this will work as I'm new to both scanning and posting images, but here goes...

(there was a url link here which no longer exists)

What am I saying with this image? I could be saying - the dark tree symbolizes youth, aged before it's time, cloaked in the hanging moss of despair over it's struggle to gain the light, or success, through the surrounding mature forest giants.

Or I could be saying - cool...I've been hiking past this tree for years and it's never looked like that before. I'll take a photograph of it and share my luck of seeing it this day with others.

At some point a photograph has to stand on its own, and the photographer has to be strong enough to let it go. Everybodies interpretation is just as valid as the photographer's, because they're seeing it through their own eyes and influenced by their own life experience.

Murray

mhv said:

I find that photographers who are good at taking people pictures seem to be able to create far more poignant content than those who stick to nature mortes. There are exceptions in either cases, but we react in fundamentally different ways to living and inanimate objects.

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Couldn't that be reversed? Maybe some nature photographers do an outstanding performance on taking the pictures of people, but they don't put them in their business portfolios.

Or the line is so blurry that there's no distinction on the photographers' part, but maybe the audience's.

The photographs of people could be easier for the viewers to comprehend because we all interact with each other on a daily baisis even if we do minimumly.

But the nature subjects are different: Not everyone (the viewer) lives in the environment with plenty of green and non-human live creatures to experience them regularly enough. Therefore when they see the nature in the photographs, they will have different reactions.

Maybe they just don't understand the nature of the nature!

WOW, this one has gone on for a while!

firecracker said:

Couldn't that be reversed? Maybe some nature photographers do an outstanding performance on taking the pictures of people, but they don't put them in their business portfolios.

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MHV was referring to "nature morte," which is French for "still life," not nature photography (which is not to say your point isn't still valid--just clearing things up).

David A. Goldfarb said:

MHV was referring to "nature morte," which is French for "still life," not nature photography (which is not to say your point isn't still valid--just clearing things up).

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Thank you for the collection. I was not aware of that specific reference.

But I was more on the "inanimated objects" in a way. I should've mentioned about the examples of all the concrete and metal constructions that are merging into the pure "nature", like ivy on a brickwall or car wreckage in the middle of field or something.