So Why Don't We Ever Discuss Vision?

MattKing said:

1) things I want to record; and
2) things which inspire me visually.

Some times, I am lucky, and a subject will fit into both classes.

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I think this is wonderfully put matt.

I think it is really the main root criteria for any reason I choose to stop and photography something.

Vision is an interesting idea to talk about photomc (mike) I really like the idea of being able to put it into discerning words and an understandable context.
I think I seem to be drawn to photographing the presence of people without people within the image. the image containing elements of man kind... perhaps the neglect of mankind.. the beauty of mankind... sometimes (often times actually) the neglect is what I find beautiful. I used to take the occasional "pretty picture" but have all but expelled that desire or forced habit within myself.

The only reason I bother to stop is because something moved me emotionally. Emotion has always been at the root of anything I might attempt to express creatively. Vision wise Im finding that it is all seeming to fall into place and what I naturally choose to stop and photograph ends up speaking the same "language" it perhaps relates to previous images... they seem to speak the same tongue

not to sound like a broken record but really the more I think about it as I type this... the more emotions seems so profound and fundamentally the driving force... images I react to and hold the most admiration for are the ones that create an emotional response. Tillman cranes, michael mutmansky, carl weese, clay harmon, Lee carmichael, Jorge, steve sherman, michael kenna, all these peoples work really creates an emotional reaction when I view their work... just to name a few that came to mind at this very moment. such emotion is captured and I truly admire that and is something I strive to achieve with my own work.

Thank You One and All for sharing your insite.....Being fully aware that someone's personal vision is just that 'personal' I do appreciate you sharing part of yourself. It might be The most difficult thing (don't know what else to call it) in photography. Vision is real, but how to verbalize it is not an easy task.

Will digress for a moment and try to share some of my own 'personal' thoughts. In some ways the why seems to blur with the How, or at least in my mind they can....maybe I have not gotten to the point where I know the difference. Photography for me, up until now, has been a vehicle to record...vacation trips, special holidays or events. These images have been reminders of where I have been, and as my own awareness of photography has grown, have noticed the patterns we all seem to share. Used to be anytime someone got a new car (or new to them anyway) there was the obligitory photograph of them and their new ride .... have some old photos of my Dad, made with his twin brother on the running board of a Model A, with his Mother and Dad. Pretty cool stuff to see today, and recall other pictures that were made while growing up of the different cars, trucks, etc. Now my grandfather also loved to have his picture made with one of his cows/bulls when he got a new one (herford's were his favorites)

So, this is one form of why ... but then as my knowledge of photography grew, I started noticing the work of people like Dorothea Lange, Walker Evans, Laura Gilpin, you know the group...they managed to take some very artistic photographs while working for the FSA to document a period of time...yet some of these photographs transcend the documentary part of photography and have become - dare I say - Art (at least to some people). What was it in there vision that allowed them to not only make a documentary photograph, but something that is much more.

Another example might be the portraits of Yousuf Karsh (or Karsh of Canada, seems like I read that he preferred to be call that somewhere...anyone know if that is true?). We have all seen very good portrait work, but what is different in his work? They are very powerful, and are a notch above...have seen many portraits (haven't we all) but not all have the impact. The same could be said of the work of W E Smith, was it vision that brought those wonderful images alive in Life or was it just knowing how his materials worked?

So, I am still at the same point that started the thread...not sorry to have ask. After all, I do not think that there IS an answer to the question , but wondered if anyone else had given much thought to the question. There ARE photographers that I think have found the why.....they may not be able to put it into words...and yes it would be THEIR vision, not my own. But there is something special that I see in some photographers work that tells me they have that special something, it may be raw talent.....

After all, how does a painter bring out that special something...or why is it that some music sends chills over the body everytime you here it...think about it, how the heck does a poet sit down and write a work that last 100's of years? Dunno, but that does not keep me from trying to discover that part of myself...who knows, it may not be there, and then again....

Sorry fior the rather deep post...don't go here to often..

hi mike

i don't know if it is vision that i am writing about, but here goes ...

i photograph the world around me because i am searching for some connection between myself and where i live, to help me come to a better understanding of who i am, AND who i am not. i don't know if this makes sense ...

from a very early age, i used to hear stories of "the old days" or "the olde country" when times were different. my grandparents arrived in the usa with not much, as they escaped persecution in their homeland -for the most part, they came with just memories.
i want to make sure that i have more than just memories, and stories to pass on to my kids in the years to come. i find myself making photographs of the abandoned farm down the street, or the mill that lay in ruins &C because i know these things are not going to be around for ever, and they help me understand a little bit the place i am living. besides, my memory is really bad, and i know i will probably forget about these small links to the past if i didn't record them on film.

i guess it is like cheap "therapy" --- part of me feels that i am missing something, something that i can't put my finger on, something that makes me feel different isolated from others around me. maybe it is because of my grandparents' story - being forced to leave a place their ancestors lived for close to 2000 years. i know that is the story of a lot of people that come to this country - it is american dream, a promise of a better place. somehow, the photographs i take, lend some perspective into my own life. kind of like therapy i guess ?

photomc said:

but we never really discuss the making of a photograph? Why is that?

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Aesthetics is for the artists as ornithology is for the birds.
--Barnett Newman

Does a mother bird actually teach her young to fly? Or does she just teach them something before pushing them out of the nest that they use to teach themselves to fly?

The photographers who have nurtured my vision may not have taught it to me, but they taught me something without which the vision would never have developed.

Maybe 'teach' isn't exactly the right word, but something can be conveyed that causes the vision to develop where it wouldn't have otherwise.

I photograph because I see a vista or pattern that I think should be preserved.

To answer the original question of why our fascination with the tools.......

"He who dies with the most toys wins!" LOL

Therapy

i guess it is like cheap "therapy" --- part of me feels that i am missing something, something that i can't put my finger on, something that makes me feel different isolated from others around me. maybe it is because of my grandparents' story - being forced to leave a place their ancestors lived for close to 2000 years. i know that is the story of a lot of people that come to this country - it is american dream, a promise of a better place. somehow, the photographs i take, lend some perspective into my own life. kind of like therapy i guess ? [/QUOTE]

I can see that, too. When I first started photography, B&W film photography to be more precise, it was very theraputic. It delt with my memories from my childhood, allowed me to go back to the places where I had been left off, and I was able to start from there. It's not that I was in need of some psychiatric care or anything, but back then I had a few friends who were occupational thrapists, and they told me about their goals in their practice, which I found similar to what I was getting out of.

Over the years, I've overcome certain emotions and no longer react to them so dramatically, but they are still there just like in the beginning. And that's part of what has helped create my vision today.

I don't discuss vision because "following your vision" has always seems a very arrogant and prescriptive way to do photography. The artist imposing their will on the world, if only by acts of selective memory.

I prefer to take a more experimental approach, and enjoy being surprised by the world's powers of invention, and my own ability to respond to them. I have no need to strive for a coherent portfolio, or to produce a body of work that is convincing as a whole. All the same, themes and modes of expression do run through my favourites file, and it is a pleasure to discover myself by identifying and nurturing them. Far more pleasure than playing the role I originally thought was mine by birthright.

Vision

I think the bottom line for me is to take direct action and have involvements in certain events. For example, last year, I did some disaster-relief volunteer work in Japan. That was due to too many hurricanes and too much damage to simply ignore, so I packed my stuff and headed out for a couple of weeks for each gig.

Initially half of my motive was to photograph what was going on at the site and come up with a series of documentary photos later, but soon after I arrived there, I got my hands all covered with dirt and mud and held a shovel instead of a camera. I failed as a photographer because, unlike those from the newspapers who managed to stay out and snap photos only when they wanted to, I was in the picture.

My attitude hasn't really changed over the years. Way back when I got involved in another volunteer work, an after-school program, helping so-called, "at-risk" children, I took a similar approach. My photos went nowhere, but I was rewarded as a dedicated volunteer worker by the city. That's how I was recognized, and that even made me think to start my career as a social worker for a short while.

But there was an enormous amout of trust that these kids, their parents, the neigbors, the teachers, and the social workers who ran the place, had in me. We developed our relationship over the course of six months while I was there. When they gave me an opportunity to have a small exhibit at an event before my departure and talked about the half-permanent photo display on the wall, I was really pleased.

My point is, for what it takes to have people allowing you to take their photographs, you may have to do a lot of ground work. Maybe it's just obvious and not so philosophical or sophisticated. But when I look at hundreds of photographs in the relavant themes presented by other photographers, I know why I'm doing with my own method, that is to keep my point of view as a photographer. That is a significant part of my vision I can define.

I photograph to document reality, partially because I want to document my memories as well. With my black and white I want to channel Henri Cartier Bresson at my take on artisitc black and white shots. I also want to leave behind long after I am gone something for future historians to show how we lived in the early 21st century. I think digital format be it pictures and sound will be cursed due to incompatable storage technology, very little will be left behind. That should be part of our mission too document the now for the future.

Bill

Photography came to me as a language. A way to express my feelings when confronted to a subject that attracted me. But the attraction came via the light that illuminated the subject. So I had to reccord the light. Actually I feel like a descendant if the impressionist painters, in mind ofcorse.
Photography is my writing (with light...), the reccord of my wondering about the world arround me. But I happen to select, unconsiencely, I am attracted to the forms of nature (not the birds, beasts and bees) but a tree or a rock or water..., the 'material' and the texture.
My pupicturesr an response on the world araround me, as I am living in a rather big cicity, the silence of nature is a welcome compensation.
As a dislecticus, written langugae is not my thing, light is it!
Just like spelling, phototechnique is usefull in expressing. It is like the camera is the pencil, no more no less. But like manny 'writers' I happen to like one 'pencil' more than the other. That is when a camera becoms an tool.
The hand (head and belly) and the purpose (job or subject) dictates the selection of the 'best' tool. The seem for film and paper.
Philippe
P.S. Sorry for my pigeon English.

For me, pictures scream to be taken. I don't express myself, I just stop their cries.