Ah yes, the predictable question asked of photographers when they show an image. Interestingly, painters do not often receive that eternal question. Why? Candidly, many viewers do not recognize photography as art. They see a camera as a means for recording people, places and events for the purposes of “making memories”. A major reason for these points of view is that nearly everyone has a camera and uses it to “take pictures”. In fact, when a photographer shows a very good image, many viewers want to know its location because of the belief that they could do the same thing. On the other hand, very few people paint after they complete elementary school. Naturally, they view photography as lower on the “food chain” of visual crafts.
Those of us who pursue advanced or professional photography likely started out with similar beliefs. However, after becoming deeply involved in the craft, most of us found that becoming a fine print artist, commercial photographer, photojournalist or a portraitist requires developing a high degree of skill very similar to paint artists.
Of note, digital technology further deteriorated the public perception of photographic artistry because it “seemingly” made our processes easy and automatic. Again, any serious photographer understands the hours of learning, the culling of poor images and the constant rejection makes the digital craft anything but automatic.
Those ancient ones of us who started out with film understand that there are more hours spent in the darkroom than in the field (serious photographers typically processed film and made their own prints). Similar to film photography, digital processing of raw files are critical elements in the creation of fine quality images by skilled practitioners. There are very few “everyday photographers” interested in pursuing these portions of the craft because “it’s a lot of work” and clearly “not much fun” for them. You know, like painting, carving sculpture and other crafts. Interestingly, many of us love processing images as much we enjoy camera work in the field.
As I painfully and slowly progress in photography, it is occurring to me that where I go to “make images” is not as important as the need to improve my vision. Lately, I am most satisfied with the photographs that I’ve made within 50 miles of where I live; even in my own backyard which backs up to a beautiful creek.
So, what’s the “so what” of all of this. For one, I am starting to exclude locations on my fine prints. For me, this mindset change enables me to focus on “seeing and noticing” rather than recording. The next step is to “stop taking pictures” and instead, create images based upon my emotional engagement with the environment. This includes pursuing abstract concepts such as luminosity, contrast, color, geometry and atmosphere (many thanks to Alister Benn for teaching these “tags). Therefore, “where I pressed the shutter” takes a back seat to the vision of my “mind’s eye”. From now on, when people asked me where I “took a picture” I will answer them with the one word question of: “why”?
