This is a complex question.
I came of age during the reign of the abstract expressionists. Many of them were adamant about their work being emotionally rooted and insisted that it was expressive of emotion. I have, after many years attempting to prove this true and consistently failing to do so, had to change my mind about it, but the change of mind is, itself, in conflict. Now, I have to see it as a rather quaint romantic conceit, sort of like the common notion that writers receive their material through inspiration, rather than through hard work. I think that very often, people go out to shoot and try to force themselves to have emotions about the image they see. That is NOT emotion. It is delusion. But...
Here's an example.
There was one day when I was under a very severe "superego assault" as a result of a misunderstanding at a memorial service. I felt very foolish, misunderstood, and confused about whether something was my fault, whether in trying to help, I was instead adding to someone's already considerable grief. I was having a very hard time finding anything at all to like in myself. I went out to shoot, and literally fought with myself to maintain any sort of equilibrium. I used everything I knew to let go the brutal lashing I was giving myself, to no avail. I was a total mess, hated myself, was close to wishing myself dead. All this while out in the fields, my gear set up, myself alone out there with a war going on inside.
For some unknown reason, I've been having trouble attaching images, so here's the url where one of the images from that session can be found:
http://www.pbase.com/bullis/image/90119235/original. Have a look and let me know what you think.
This image has graced more than one cover, and a similar one done within the hour, a vertical made from a location on down the dike a ways, was used as the cover on the yearly anthology for the Whidbey Island Writers' Conference a few years back. Many people love this image.
Can you see the emotional turmoil in it? While I don't think I can categorically proclaim that emotion doesn't enter into the work, I tend to think about a statement my wife quoted from Rebecca Brown, a well known writer in these parts. I have to paraphrase, because I don't have confidence the words are really hers. Someone had said "I just love to write" to which Rebecca replied "I don't love to write. Writing is my job." Photography, in one form or another, has been my job for a very long time. One big difference between a professional and an amateur, is that the professional gets the job done regardless of how s/he feels, regardless of circumstances. While I envy amateurs and aspire toward becoming a member of that truly exalted group again, I fear that it may be too late.
This doesn't mean, though, that I'm willing to deny that emotion may enter the work and influence it. I can remember times when we'd analyze images, and I can hear comments about this piece in my mind where the viewer might point out the foreboding clouds, the pilings forming a barrier, etc., the conflict between the darkness of the clouds and the brightness of the foliage (this was the 70mm aerial version of Kodak's High Speed Infrared). One could speculate that I might have made certain choices influenced by my emotional state. But, I remain rather suspicious of rationalizing the image to conform to whatever philosophical parameters one may wish to drop on it.
I'm not comfortable with this as anything to which there even can be an answer. For me, it will remain, at least for now, one of those areas where two apparent contradictory ideas may both be true.
