John McCallum said:
Personally I think this can be an excellent environment for discussing the more abstruse topics of photography. We have a diverse range of experiences and opinions, and involved discussion can generate wonderful new directions for the critical thinker. But to make it work, and to gain that state of thought that can be so creative, it's vital to treat participants views as valid and valued. The intiator of the thread sets the tone, and should subsequently work to set the tone.
This thread started out poorly. The title is bad and the first post worse. Miller's subsequent posts would be an insult to anyone who thought they could possibly be about them. His abilities to discuss art in photography extend to preaching to the converted at a very shallow level whilst trying to invalidate any opposing views. This is what bothered me. I think it would help if the initiator of a thread like this had genuine intentions.
I don't consider myself a novice, and I am always trying to learn. Welcomed the opportunity to read the well thought out posts and rue the lost opportunity of the rest. Ah well, maybe next time.
What is really interesting to me is that there were a very select few that drew from my title or the first post the inference that others do not share.
I simply was trying to initiate a discussion of things apart from the technical in the are of creative self expression. So who is the difficulty with? Is it with me or is it with that select few.
I have had more then a few private messages and phone calls that have expressed the dismay over the name calling and harsh interpertation that was evident by Bill Schwab, John McCallum, Murray, Darr and others. Just because I failed to engage in the childishness is probably the greatest simple indicator of my lack of ego investment in this matter.
Where did I try to initiate control? I did not. Where did I fail to discuss what I experience within myself when I photograph and when did I fail to speak to this matter from my own personal experience as it applies to my life? The fact is that I have laid myself totally open to you in ways that very few have.
So if I have been formative to a long past due discussion then that will be a good thing to all. But for those who interpert things solely from the narrow egocentric and elevated position of the chosen few I am appalled to be linked to you in any way.
Darr made an observation...pretty harsh as I read it in which she said that I just don't get it...that I am asking questions that no one else asks. Is that a terrible thing? Am I subject to the review of the "chosen" disciples as to the questions that can be posed? I would hope the hell that is not the case for photography's sake.
So find yourself another whipping boy...face your own insecurities rather then trying and failing miserably at laying them at my door...Face yourselves for a change and for God's sake recognize that something inspires us to create. Discuss it, learn from it, and go out and make photographs that are not simply copies of things that have been photographed to death already. Learn to speak from your heart and not only the thin technical construct of your minds.
That being said. I am outta this discussion.