Photoblog Saturday April 30, 2005
As an amateur or aspirant photographer, you can feel humbled and intimidated when you flick through the lovely silky pages of expensive books. David Bailey, John Swanell, Cartier-Bresson, Colin Prior, and other professionals you have never heard of but have their published collections alongside the best. You may also feel inspired and find it a pleasurable experience, wishing you had a spare five hundred pounds to acquire a small library of these beautiful books. I certainly do. But at some point I noticed this: I felt there was a gap between my work and theirs, and it wasn’t only (or necessarily) a matter of quality. Some of Cartier-Bresson’s work is very wonderful, but when you flick through an extensive collection you realise some of it isn’t. It has undeniable historical interest – Paris in the fifties, India in the sixties etc – but that is a weak criteria for photographic evaluation. There are thousands of old albums lying in cupboards and bookshelves with images of bygone times: Mum and Dad when they were first married, Grandpa and Grandma sitting for a formal pose, extended families and distant ancestors you barely knew, with the clothes and surroundings from an anthropological past. Many of Jacques Henri-Lartique’s pictures are like this, ultimately no more than indiscriminate snapshots but with historic and documentary appeal.
Published collections are the cream taken from many years of work, possibly of decades or even a lifetime. Professional photographers amass thousands of negatives or digital files that you and I never see, because they are at best boring and at worst photographic failures. Despite decades of activity, huge numbers of cameras bought and used and huge piles of books and magazines discussing technique and artistry, there remains a mystique around ‘the professional’. Combine this with the books from famous people, and it is not surprising there are such large numbers of people unsure of their photographic achievement or promise. Photography is a glamorous subject and this probably began in the sixties and seventies with people like David Bailey, who was also the inspiration for the photographer in Antonioni’s film Blow Up. Art photography already existed but Bailey and others carved it out as a recognised cultural practice, and it was tinged with the trappings of facile celebrity appeal. His beautiful women were models; his striking portraits were of rock musicians, and so on. We all know you can see women as beautiful as any by walking down London’s Oxford Street or any other crowded place. And the music industry – just to expand on this for a moment – is governed and circumscribed by suited executives interested in balance sheets rather than original artistry, cheap manufactured bands that are pretty fronts for computer generated drivel rather than groups playing real instruments with proper voices rather than collective boy or girl-group chants. The world is increasingly driven by glamour, fame for the sake of fame rather than artistic achievement, and the facile obsession with celebrity. We all know you can find interesting recipes and make tasty food on a battered old cooker, wearing scruffy jeans and a faded tee shirt. So why is Nigella Lawson so popular? She makes it look so appealingly sexy, chic and fashionable. Darling, did you see what Nigella made last night? Yes I did: I made the same thing myself on a dark winter evening using a battered old kitchen, and ate it from my lap watching TV. And very tasty it was.
I think some part of photography is intuitive, and ultimately cannot be taught. Some of the ‘rules’, like the principles of composition, are formalised ideas that artists understood before anyone had described them. If you know how to create a balanced composition without anyone telling you what it consists of, you probably have more potential than someone who reads about it and tries to apply the rules in a mechanical and self-conscious fashion. Art and photography classes are full of these three types of people: those with innate sensitivity, those trying to learn the tricks and procedures, and those who are a bit of both. It’s not true that anyone can be an accomplished photographer, but there are probably thousands of people with innate sensitivity who could, if they knew the right people and adopted the right attitude, become accomplished professionals. And the interesting consideration, perhaps, is what the right attitude might be. There is a psychology and a practice to photography that is separate from any discussion about technique, and is only delicately related to aesthetics. What you do to ensure great pictures is not only what camera you use, which is important, and how intuitively artistic you are. It also concerns where you go, how you plan it, and what strategy you adopt. For example do you wander around a crowd waiting for an appealing decisive moment, or do you look around more actively for an interesting face or an interesting group, and then watch that person or people for an interesting narrative moment? In other words, are you entirely passive or do you adopt a more deliberate technique and if it’s the latter, the critical factor is the quality of what it is based on. These are matters of psychological self-organisation that are not entirely exclusive to photography, but they are a substantial part of it.
I think there are two levels of photographic work, not one. The expensive books suggest there is only one: the accomplished, published, technically flawless and carefully planned or fortuitous moment. But the fact is, behind those portfolios you inevitably find a large volume of work that has been discarded. Photography is like that – unlike the laboured certainties of painting, it requires that you take large numbers of pictures and select from amongst them the relatively few that succeed. You only rarely see this process but one of Diane Arbus’s images, for example, was selected from a larger number of similar but also different and inferior shots. It’s the one of the boy carrying a gun, with a strangely contorted face suggesting mental derangement. The other shots on her contact sheet were not especially disturbing. Quite often, photography is too random and happens too fast for it to be orchestrated and controlled – which is also part of it’s tremendous fun, because you are participating in the excitement and flow of multifarious life. Cartier-Bresson’s decisive moment idea is very often, I believe, a precise and perceptive recipe for photography, because it locates camera work in the wider and necessary context. Photography balances personal interpretation with the wider world, and its various and unlimited themes. It is a relationship, between personal psychology and general humanity.
I’m not suggesting you simply take large numbers of pictures and thereby expect to find a few successes, because there are other factors. But based on those other factors, your work will inevitably consist of two levels: one that pleases, and one that you more or less dismiss. I find that some of the images at www.photo.net are as striking and beautiful as any on the pages of expensive books; the only difference is they are not presented in the commercial, paper based and famous/celebrity context. On another part of the internet the photoblog is an interesting comparison, enjoyable for different reasons. It’s not a gallery, but typically depicts the daily life of a personality you learn to recognise. It’s a combination of three cultural and developmental streams: historical photography, scrapbook or diary expression, and the internet. You don’t evaluate a daily picture with gallery-like criteria; it may have comparable stature but often does not. It is formulated not as definitive or enduring artistry, but a transitory and changing conversation reflecting the fluctuations of life. In one sense this is a wonderful democratic leveling of high-art pretensions, free from market considerations. Anyone can do it, and anyone can show their work to everyone else. You don’t need the hallowed white walls of a gallery, and in some respects the internet presentation is wholly superior, not only because of its 24/7 power and convenience, but because it is like a slide viewer rather than a flat print. The silky sheen of a quality print is undoubtedly sensuous and pleasing, but it is a medium crafted with chemicals and tonality whereas a VDU display is crafted with radiance and light – arguably more appropriate for a light based art.
However in another sense, the proliferation of the photoblog is also a leveling down of ability and aesthetics. I do not subscribe to the political denunciation of high-low art distinctions; I think today’s world is frequently interpreted in inappropriately political terms. It is ridiculous to suggest that no one is better than anyone else, and ridiculous to object to any evaluation as if it were a racist, sexist or politically incorrect remark. Only a few people have the talent for international football and although aesthetics is a more subjective and subtle domain, the general principle is similar: some people are better than others. But for complicated cultural and political reasons – a substantial topic in itself – an artistic or photographic hierarchy is a far more contentious subject. Repeatedly placing a football in the back of a net is a conclusive and tangible result that no one can dispute. Aesthetic response is multi-layered, subjective, changeable, nuanced and arguable. But the fact that it is complicated and complex does not mean we should throw the argument out the window alongside racism and sexism, as part of fashionable political discourse.
The photoblog is ultimately a cultural practice, and current numbers suggest it will be less popular than the writing based blog. Although it is still a relatively new phenomenon, the growth and popularity of the blog was and continues to be more pronounced. Blogs are like a sea of pixels on which few people float, and those that do are often the digital elite of the established media world, dominating the internet form in the same way that celebrity influence dominates wider cultural life. They are the A List blogs, celebrity blogs by definition because they are ceelbrated. In this cultural respect the photoblog is arguably the more interesting cultural form, because you are less likely to drown or simply be ignored because of the large numbers of people doing it. And in terms of photographic practice rather than internet activity – useful to make the distinction – the photoblog can be a rewarding and enjoyable expression of the more superficial photographic level, with occasional dips into the deeper level. It doesn’t matter that the photo is banal because ‘the medium is the message’, and it’s fun to see inside someone’s personal life. The photoblog emphasises process rather than conclusive achievement and the feedback potential of comments can make it useful in terms of personal development. If you are not in college, not interested in local photography clubs which in my experience tend to be quite low energy and middle-aged affairs, how do you get any constructive criticism? The photoblog is one way of relating your work to a wider audience.