"Curiouser and curiouser." I'm still thinking about what someone said early on, to the effect that if you've previsualized a result, you've already created the result, and that a product is evidence that something has been created, but not a necessary result of the creative process itself. And now the idea that photography is about making photographs is being challenged?
Maybe it's that I work in gum, but for me visualizing what I want to produce... well, yes, it's important because without the vision the work could never be created, but it's only a small part of the actual process. I'll "see" in my mind what I want to do, but getting there can require days, weeks or months of work in the shop, often involving considerable trial and error, as each project introduces new technical challenges. (A couple of examples: when I visualized very big prints, bigger than I had sinks or trays to accommodate, then I had to figure out how to develop big prints. When I visualized images that weren't there and then suddenly appeared, it took weeks of experimenting to find a way to get the effect I wanted. And so forth.) The visualization is only a fantasy, a dream, until the challenges are met and the work is created. To think that imagining the result is the same as creating the result is to fail to understand the process of creation. Imagining, dreaming, about creating art doesn't make one an artist; it only makes one a dreamer. Only the hard work of actually creating art makes one an artist.
What makes a good mother? Is a good mother who does all the hard work of being a mom and ends up raising a good kid a good mother? Yes
Is a good mother the one that thought a great deal on just how to be a good mother? I say yes. That's visualization. I don't believe you can be a good mother without putting thought into what being a good mother means or how one goes about becoming one
Not to say you're a polished mother with already perfect adults before you give birth -don't know if I can say that
It's the fact that you truly care that makes you
As one matures one will produce better and better "results"
I don't think it's the mistakes that makes one better at something or "the magic that happens along the way"
It is the perserverance to stick to their goals created at the beginning that makes one the good mother or artist etc
The process of motherhood -or anything- will be full of trial and error
You cannot get good without knowing what is bad
Keeping on the correct path leads to desired product
I believe once you say you want to be a
You are
That does not mean you are highly polished
I think that's the important part to understand
It's not the ability to sell something to another that makes one an artist
It is not actually the raising of a child to adulthood that makes one a mother/father
Producing a child does not make one a mother/father
It is the one that has thought about how one best goes about doing the act that is the
..whether they have a child of their own or not
..whether they have ever made a single print or not
"I'll "see" in my mind what I want to do, but getting there can require days, weeks or months of work in the shop, often involving considerable trial and error, as each project introduces new technical challenges"
It is not the mistakes/serendipity that makes you the artist
It is that seeing of something that drives you to do all that other stuff that is the artist within
Artist doesn't mean a person that produces artwork
Artist means a person that sees artitistically
The job/career/title "Artist" means a person who produces artwork
most everybody already sees artistically on some level
We all see how beautiful a sunset is and leaves in autumn and whatnot
It's the artist that loves experiencing that, though. "Lives" for that.
The artist is only a normal person that is operating on a different level actively seeking out the beauty in things rather than being content in being hit over the head by it
It's normal for an artist to want to "make a living" by producing artwork but producing something -I believe- has no importance on whether one is an artist
Product is only evidence of the process-the decision making
If a photographer makes millions of negatives but never prints any of them
What is he? What if someone 50 years later finds his stash and prints one
What is he now? What if the photographer takes the shots but has someone else print them
what is he then? What if the printer sucks ..what is he now? What if the printer is great? Is the printer the artist now? Are both artists? Is the beauty the artist and neither person gets full credit?
Who critiques the art that is created? If you have to produce than what you produce has to be marketable or else I don't see anyone calling you an artist ..more like time waster/dabbler. I can do lots of hard work and produce garbage. That's not going to make me an artist. Lots of people have done lots of hard work and only later were considered true artists.
If no one made paper anymore could you still call yourself a photographer?
Do we take pictures or make them?
Do we make pictures in camera or only on paper?
If you only make pictures on paper shouldn't you be able to make pictures using any negative?
If you can't use just any negative you have to be able to make pictures in camera
If you can do that than one does not need film because we make the picture through the viewfinder
Film just records what you saw for future viewing ..evidence of the moment/skill/artistry
man that needs editing but I ain't doing it
?
