photography is about photographing the light

ntenny · Apr 7, 2014

To play the devil's avocado, I'd like to point out that there is *some* sort of "quality of light" that's aesthetically important, even if we don't have a good vocabulary for describing it.

To take examples that everyone knows, doesn't "Moon And Half Dome" rely for its impact on conveying a sort of "thin-air" montane brightness to the light; or doesn't "Behind The Gare Saint-Lazare" depend on the backlighting having that vague diffuse mistiness of a grey day where the rain could start back up at any time? Not always, but often, I think it's true that a successful photo needs to capture "how the light looks" in a way that's very, very difficult to say anything objective about.

AA talks about the "mood" of lighting quite a bit in _The Negative_, and IMHO he experienced an uncharacteristic failure to really say anything about it. There are a lot of examples about which the text says "here the mood of the lighting was X, and technique Y was applied to convey that", without much insight into why the viewer should see the mood as X or why technique Y would be appropriate for showing it. That's not his failing, obviously---you could look far and wide without finding an expository writer as explicit about the steps as AA. I think this "quality of light" thing is simply *that* evanescent.

Here's a strawman idea: I submit that "capturing the quality of the light" is closely related to "the viewer can tell what the scene smells like". Discuss.

-NT

Vaughn · Apr 7, 2014

I'll stick with my way of seeing that emphasizes the patterns and forms created by light reflecting off objects. It is how I see, think and feel about light. I do not chase after light. I prefer to find it, to experience it and to use it to convey some of that experience. All I can say is that I compose with the light as the most important element, not with the objects reflecting the light.

Color images can fail because the photographer did not use color as part of his/her composition or failed to take into consideration the effects of color on the viewer. In the same way, B&W images can sometimes fail because of the same reasons.

dpurdy · Apr 7, 2014

Isn't it a bit like "Painting the paint". In any case the light is always the prime concern in making an exposure, however it isn't necessarily the subject or the quality I want people to think about when looking at my work. When I paint I usually do paint the paint.
Dennis

Shawn Dougherty · Apr 7, 2014

snapguy said:
Some people like to reduce everything to one snappy little saying. Life is more complex than that.

While I certainly enjoy short, insightful quotes and the lines of thought which they can generate I also recognize their inherent inability to capture the true complexities of life. I believe this is just such a case, nanian. Photography IS about photographing the light... but it's also about other things as well and just what those other things are vary from person to person.

cliveh · Apr 7, 2014

Shawn Dougherty said:
While I certainly enjoy short, insightful quotes and the lines of thought which they can generate I also recognize their inherent inability to capture the true complexities of life. I believe this is just such a case, nanian. Photography IS about photographing the light... but it's also about other things as well and just what those other things are vary from person to person.

+1

removed account4 · Apr 7, 2014

i guess sometimes i have a hard time seeing the forest through the trees.
while im a skeptic i'll have an open mind.

frank · Apr 7, 2014

gandolfi said:
the more I photograph, the more I think it is (for me) the lack of light that defines my images... We "set" the light - but we also use that to define the shadows - and the shadows makes the form/mystery which is important for me....

It's like the empty spaces between musical notes.

gandolfi · Apr 7, 2014

frank said:
It's like the empty spaces between musical notes.

yes!! which is the most impotrant ones....

Steve Smith · Apr 8, 2014

frank said:
It's like the empty spaces between musical notes.

You're supposed to leave spaces?!!!

Steve.

removed account4 · Apr 8, 2014

thanks for the responses ...

if the images were about the light / lack of it
is the work to be considered "avante guard" or "conceptual" ?
often times when i hear things described like that
or in similar ways it is the precursor to
the images that are kind of out-there
( yeah i know, some of my photographs are out there too )
thanks for the music references
some of john cage's work is definitely considered avant guare /conceptual / out there by some

i am going out on a limb by suggesting that most of the imagery made with film is not too far out of
the main stream ( or pictorial / arts-crafts mainstream of the early 1900s)
photographs made of things that exist
or compilations of physical things ( combination prints &c )
but at the same time suggesting it is a record of the light or
not about the light. this means
to me at least less about people who make it describe it conceptually
rather than another way .. it leads me to wonder
if all photography is always conceptual ( i started a thread here years ago asking the same question )

so, i guess light is always the mcguffen, and something else might be the subject
unless it is actually the light and its interaction with other things in the field of view
or the onlooker ( person with the camera ) ..
conceptual not conceptual its always about the light ...

hoping he hasnt offended anyone who chases light &c,
just trying to figure it out
john

ntenny · Apr 8, 2014

jnanian said:
i am going out on a limb by suggesting that most of the imagery made with filmis not too far out of
the main stream ( or pictorial / arts-crafts mainstream of the early 1900s) and some of the people who make it
describe it conceptually ?

You probably are, but you don't mind going out on limbs, right?

All kiddin' aside, I'd tend to agree, though I guess it depends on what you consider to be the mainstream. Maybe it's more precise to say that most film images are not too far removed from being "a photograph *of* ________", i.e., a reasonably literal representation of a subject. Maybe it's distorted by lens effects or perspective, maybe it's flattened to black and white, or whatever, but it's pretty rare to see a photograph that can't be described in terms of the object(s) depicted.

As for the "conceptual" descriptions, is the situation any different from artist's statements in other media? There's really no objective way to tell when the artist's discussion of a work contains important insight vs. being a bunch of self-important intellectual puff pastry.

As I write this I'm looking at one of my images on the wall and I can come up with endless different explanations for it, with various artistic tones. Give me a paragraph for an artist's statement and I can make it be a commentary on Anglo imperialism, a glorious capture of some beautiful light, a celebration of border fusion culture, or a tequila advertisement, and that's just off the top of my head and without deploying any conscious contrarianism or heavy lit-crit machinery. I actually think that's a worthwhile exercise; try it with one of your own photos, Gentle Reader, and see how many different Concepts you can squeeze out of it.

So I'm skeptical about attaching much importance to "some of the people who make it describe it conceptually". Maybe their descriptions mean something about the images, or just about the artistic Self they want to project, or the expectations they perceive themselves to work under, and so on.

John, you'll enjoy this essay if you don't know it already, I suspect: http://web.pdx.edu/~singlem/coursesite/ddfos.html. (SFW, no images.) The relevance to this discussion is indirect, but I think real nonetheless.

-NT

removed account4 · Apr 8, 2014

thanks nathan
i agree,
anything can be about anything
its all open to interpretation ...

i'm reminded of someone i know who left
photographs outside, nailed to trees for 6 months
and it was part of a series about human aging
and her turning 40 or 50 or something ...

i checked out the link .. yeah ...
there is a connection, a deep one

the thread i started way back when is vanishes
but i found something else .. sorta
(there was a url link here which no longer exists)

photography is an interesting medium
its about 100s of different thing or nothing at all
its about state of mind setting, illusion artspeak
as well as something simple and undefinable..

the ultimate chameleon i supose

removed account4 · Apr 10, 2014

jonasfj · Oct 4, 2016

I pretty sure that when someone says something in the line of "photography is about nothing except photographing the light", they mean that by understanding the various aspects of light make you a better photographer.

"are photographs taken with a flash, or long exposures on a grey day about the light, or is it only the drama that is about the light?"

Yes, and there is a lot to learn about the light a flash creates that can be used to control how the photograph looks.

Yes, and there is a lot to be learned about how to control the light on an overcast day that can improve an image.

Yes, it is common that dramatic light makes a photograph stronger, but it is not a natural law.

Thomas Bertilsson · Oct 4, 2016

Oren Grad said:
Photography is about whatever you want it to be about.

My feelings exactly. To each of us, it's a personal journey.

baachitraka · Oct 4, 2016

...from darkness to light and to darkness...

Gerald C Koch · Oct 4, 2016

Saying that photography is about the light is only partially correct and a bit simplistic. It can also be about the absence of light such as shadows. There is a very novel and effective photograph of several pairs of shoes on the street pavement. For each pair where the person should be is a shadow of the person on the pavement. Then there is the famous scene in Nosferatu where the count is climbing up the stair while his shadow on the wall is walking independently. There are many of other scenes where the shadows are the most important part of the image.

OptiKen · Oct 4, 2016

Photography is about light?
All this time I thought Photography was about Bud Lite
Sheese

I may have to start looking for a new hobby

TheFlyingCamera · Oct 4, 2016

Light is only half the equation - a photograph is as much about TIME as it is about light. Light is just the medium used to transmit the notion of time into a two-dimensional object. This becomes much clearer when you use a pinhole to photograph- even in full daylight a pinhole exposure is one second or more.

Vaughn · Oct 4, 2016

Photographing the absence of light is still photographing light, in my way of working/thinking.

frank · Oct 4, 2016

Obviously light is essential to seeing and to photography. Some images are mainly about the light just as some images are mainly about the colour, and some images are mainly about texture/line/form, etc.

michr · Oct 4, 2016

I've always had the impression that there was some implied spiritual component to the saying. People who hear it are supposed to have some vague warm feeling and not think to much about it. Needless to say, it's always bothered me. It's trite and meaningless. As to what photography is, it's easier to say what it is not, but I think it a mistake to identify it too strongly with the mechanical and chemical instances of its manifestation.

blockend · Oct 4, 2016

Turning photons into emotions by means of a dumb mechanical box. That it rarely works shouldn't surprise us, the fact that it sometimes traps the magic is the shocker.

Moopheus · Oct 4, 2016

MattKing said:
Or bends around subjects.

As a student in the 1980s, I was involved in analyzing images of a gravitational-lensed quasar. (Early CCD camera, too) So we were actually photographing an object's light bending around another object.

Arklatexian · Oct 5, 2016

frank said:
Obviously light is essential to seeing and to photography. Some images are mainly about the light just as some images are mainly about the colour, and some images are mainly about texture/line/form, etc.View attachment 164763 View attachment 164764

This post is the first time that I have ever read what was said about "light". After reading the answers posted so far, I think the saying should be modified to apply to B&W and modified, also, to apply to color. In B&W, photography is about using light and shadows for greatest effect. In color, photography is about using light, shadows, and color for greatest effect. If you find it difficult to describe what one of your photographs is about, remember that Ansel Adams found it almost impossible to do. Let the viewer decide what it is all about............Regards!

photography is about photographing the light

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