What’s in a Name?

While in North Carolina last week, one of the books I read was On Being a Photographer an interview of David Hurn by Bill Jay. I was struck by the discussion about how Hurn wanted to be labeled as a photographer. That is, the specific descriptive term that best conveyed the kind of photography for which he wanted to be known.

I’ve thought about this alot myself. The way you name what you do is an important part of self identity. I used to just describe myself as a photographer, plain and simple. But the medium is anything but plain and simple. In other mediums, the situation seems different. If one were to say “I am a sculptor”,  or “I am a painter” they would be recognized as artists and would probably be questioned as to the kind of sculpture or painting made. With photography, people tend to say “oh, you do weddings?”, or “what publication do you work for?” They often assume a certain occupation more than an artistic endeavor. The fact that people dismiss wedding and publication work as an art form is another problem (but not one for here).

Photography is both an art form and a commercial tool, so it is meaningful to be specific in the title applied. I’ve considered rather specific titles like Nature Photographer, Fine Art Photographer, Outdoor Photographer. These names all have connotations that I don’t like. First, I do not photograph only nature subjects. Also, both Nature Photographer and Outdoor Photographer are magazine names and I don’t want to confuse who I am with those publications. I thought Fine Art Photographer would be fine, but it sounded a bit presumptuous.

I’ve finally settled on Artist-Photographer for now, but even here wonder whether people will think I photograph artists. It is difficult as I am not a news photographer, nor a sports photographer. I’m not a portrait photographer, nor a wedding photographer (although I do both of these on occasion). I don’t do food photography, advertising photography, corporate photography ( although my work has been used in corporate settings and advertisements). I don’t do product photography, crime photography, medical photography, nor astro-photography.

I photograph to make a statement about the things that excite me visually – usually nature but not always. My work is primarily for people’s homes and offices. Maybe, I’m a Wall Photographer? Nah, I know people who photograph walls (usually with windows and doors).

How about – Artistworkinginthemediumofphotography ?

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Hawk Mountain Wildlife Art Show – Sept. 29-30

This is the second year that this art show has been held at Cabelas (intersection of PA routes 78 and 61). We will be on the first floor this time and set up in Deer Country. The Cabelas venue is an interesting one with lots of outdoors enthusiasm and lots of visitors. The Hawk Mountain Art Show itself has a long tradition now, I’ve been doing it myself for about 10 years.

This show accepts artists by invitation and so I was pleased to be included in this event for 2007. I enjoy photographing at Hawk Mountain which is only a short distance from Cabelas. And while Hawk Mountain is best known for it’s raptor migrations in spring and especially fall, I have found it an inspiring location to make landscape images. I will have several landscape pieces from Hawk Mountain Sanctuary at the show, including the one pictured here.

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Outer Banks, North Carolina – 15th Trip

We first started spending our summer vacation on the northern Outer Banks in 1990 and have only missed 2 trips (the year my daughter was born, and after hurricane Isabel). Otherwise, we have enjoyed 15 years of different weather, shopping, houses, and for me personally, photography.

This year was a mixed bag of weather. At times it was very windy, during the end of the week it was very still. We had days of clouds, bright sun, cool temps and heat. It was just what I would want from a visual point of view. I balance the fact that it is a family vacation, with the desire (dare I say need?) to create new imagery. I work at image making most often in wooded areas, so being in an environment that has many more horizontal elements is actually quite a big deal for me. With the ever constant wave action, I can work with motion as well.

One of my favorite spots on OBX is Pea Island. There wasn’t much bird action when I went so I spent some time on the dunes. I have not been able to work the dunes visually in the past, so this was an opportunity. Since we knew we were coming back to NC this year, and since I have been to Pea Island before, I have had time to think about the imagery I would want to make. I was prepared mentally and tool wise to make graphic images of sand and sky. The wind was blowing fiercely though and seeing was difficult, both literally and figuratively. This image was very much what I was trying to achieve but I really feel that I’d like to go back and explore the Cape Hatteras Seashore more fully.

Anyone who has been to one of the shows where I exhibit will see various pieces made at the Outer Banks. This is some of my more popular work, and better art if I can say so. We are planning to go back next year on a slightly different schedule, so I’ll be thinking about new imagery all year.

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Anticipation

I still can’t think of this word without remembering the Heinz ketchup commercial and the sing-song way the word was used. Anyway, I am preparing for a trip and find myself falling into the same situation I do before every trip to photograph. The anticipation of the thing becomes overwhelming and I expect too much of myself creatively. It actually gets in the way of being creative when the anticipation of being creative is too strong.

I sometimes think I should bring just one lens and just expect to create nothing. Then maybe I could relax and just make images reflexively, intuitively, and relax-edly (yea, I made than one up).

My favorite and usually most productive places to create are the ones I go to often and which are close to home. These are the places I know the best and don’t worry about never getting back to or how difficult it is to get there. These are also places that I can go to and not put pressure on myself to be productive. This is true partly because of the ease of getting there, but also because I would want to go there just to be outdoors. Images I may create there are almost a bonus, I just “sit back” and relax and allow my mind to wrap itself visually around what I see.

If I could only develop that approach to the special, difficult to get to places I go to, who knows what kind of imagery I would make? On the other hand, who knows how the anticipation and fretting positively impact my images as well? Oh well, I think I’m a lost cause!

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Holiday Show Added

I received word today that I have been accepted to the Reading-Berks Guild of Craftsmen’s Holiday Show held at the PA Berks Campus of Penn State University. This show which is held on Nov. 3-4 has a great reputation and I am looking forward to being a part.

Here is a link to the show site with a $1 off coupon for admission:

Holiday Show

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How long does it take?

This is a question I am asked often at shows – “How long did you have to wait?”, or “How long did it take to make that image?”. The difficulty in answering such a question is that the process of making a photograph doesn’t begin in the field and it also suggests something about my process that doesn’t apply.

I am a strong believer in the somewhat cliche notion that every image I make is the result of a life’s experiences. Therefore, every image has taken me as long as I have lived to that moment to make. I don’t go to a location to photograph without my life experiences “in my bag”. I am influenced by them in the way I look at a subject, the way I feel about the image I want to make, and by the knowledge that I have accrued about the photographic process.

The other difficulty with the question is that it implies that a good image must have been one that I spent hours or days “waiting” for in the field. I could tell the story that I hunkered down in tall grasses from sunrise to sunset waiting for a buck or bear to enter a certain patch, but it just wouldn’t be true. I rarely sit still for more than an hour and even then, only if I have good reason to believe that a certain pre-visualized image is possible. I have on occassion waited hours to try to make an image that I thought I could achieve, or a whole day working in one location or with one subject. But in both cases, I am not sitting or standing around doing nothing else. I will always be staying keenly observant of what is going on around me and reacting to other image-making ideas as I think of them

 For certain landscape images, I have gotten up at 4:30am driven to the location, set up my tripod, camera, lens, and waited for sunrise. Usually, I have a specific image, or type of image in mind. I create that image(s) and pack up. The window of light that I want to work in is sometimes around for a half hour or less. But this is a preplanned, pre-visulaized image that may have required multiple trips to achieve.

How long it took to make a specific image shouldn’t even factor into the response to a piece. Whether I walked up to a landscape or Great Blue Heron, or spent hours in one spot before making an image, in my mind, makes no difference to the success of the piece.

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A Picture is Worth How Many Words?

I know the saying goes  – “A picture is worth a thousand words“. I am sure that I could write a thousands words on just about any image I’ve made. I would write about the process, the motivation, the subject, the feelings I experienced, that would be a thousand words easy!.

But when someone is looking at my images, do I really want them to be thinking about it with a thousand words? I think I don’t. I think there are words I would be pleased for people to think of when they see a piece of mine. Words like serenity, solitude, calm, peace, beauty, sensual, creative, interesting, reverent, inviting, strong, happy, joy, connection or spiritual.

I’d be just as pleased if no words came to mind at all. If the image just allowed you to be in the moment, maybe lost in the place or feeling of the piece. If you can explore the texture, composition, color, or geometry without thinking of any words, I would be just fine with that. If you just allowed the sensations that the image evokes to be part of you, or have the image conjure a personal memory of a place, experience, or  emotion, I would think that was wonderful.

If you come up to one of my images and start thinking of a thousand words, it could be that you need to step back and relax. You may be thinking too hard. If my images were only worth one word, I might choose – WOW! But no words are required. Oh yea, there are some other words I do like – “Will you frame this one for me?”

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Misunderstood

The more I read and talk to people about photography, the more I feel that the medium of photography is still much misunderstood. Of course it has been since it’s inception almost 170 years ago. Maybe more accurately I should say that photography is many things to many people. However, the statements I read and hear make me believe that the creative aspects of photography are often either not appreciated or just not thought about.

There are many reasons that photography is still not seen by many as a creative process on the level of other two-dimensional mediums. Photographers themselves often talk about the process in a way that is camera-centric instead of artist-centric. Camera manufacturers advertise and praise their cameras as being “idiot-proof”, automatic, almost conscious entities that will do all the thinking for you. Its an  paint-by-numbers mentality that the sellers perpetuate. The last reason, is that for most people, photography is not a conceptual process. It is for this reason that the term “point and shoot” camera was invented by advertisers.

So what’s the big deal if photography is misunderstood? Well I feel there are two primary negative results.

One is that people who don’t understand the medium will have trouble appreciating the work of artist-photographers. As a result, they look at photographs without the appreciation of the creative process involved and may miss experiencing the enjoyment that fine photographic imagery can provide. If a viewer thinks about photography as a mechanical process instead of an organic, cognative endeavor, then they miss the human element of the image. They miss exploring the image both from their own experience (projecting their own feelings into the image) and the experience of the photographer. Without sounding too self-serving about this, they also miss the opportunity to make photographic art a part of their lives.

Second, and this is just as important, misunderstanding the medium of photography, not appreciating it as a creative process, contrains them from putting themselves into the image making. Whether it is a family event, a vacation, or just a special moment at home, not allowing the human element to control the photographic process likely results in images with less feeling and meaning. Camera companies want us to believe that somehow the ability to make special images is built into the camera. Ultimately, the important decisions in the making of any photograph, are made by the person holding the camera, not the person who designed the camera.

I personally don’t like the vocabulary of photography either as a personal creative process or as an artistic endeavor to be shared with others. I think the way we talk about the medium does impact the appreciation of it as an art form, but that’s something for another time.

Even in imagery of our cat Dot (cats are a favorite test subject for photographers it seems), I consider composition, perspective, lighting, depth of field, color, and a host of other elements. I don’t think of the camera as having any say at all about the process or that it is considering in anyway what I feel about the subject.

Of course there is much more to say about the way photography is thought about, and I’ll do so more specifically in future entries here.

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Summer Reading

Hey it is still summer! And even with so much summer stuff to do, I try to get at least 2 hours of reading in a day. The first hour of the day will find me at the front of the house reading a photo mag with a cup of coffee. My afternoon break will put me on the back deck with an art mag with a cup of coffee. I also read before bed (no coffee), usually a book on art or photography and/or some work of fiction.

Currently I am enjoying  B&W magazine which is devoted to the art of black and white photography and Wildlife Art magazine, which covers all aspects of wildlife and nature art. The book I’ve got on my bedside table is Jim Brandenburg’s Looking for the Summer. This sequel to Chased by the Light, displays one image made each day of one summer. He adds his thoughts on the images and the process.

The image below is a summer image. It is one I made at my in-laws on Labor Day. With real image-making time getting so hard to come by, I have begun bringing my camera to events that normally I would not. I actually became so engrossed with the 2 dozen or so skippers that were on these flowers that I didn’t realize how quickly a one gig card could get filled.

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Connections

Even though I am a Sole Proprietor of my own business, what I do would not be possible without the hard work of, and interaction with, many other people. I have a local gallery that I work with for certain projects, supportive friends that are creatives in a variety of mediums, the promoters or organizers of the art/craft shows, and the materials suppliers, all of whom are a part of the total business component of what I do.

Another big and important connection for me is the Pennsylvania Guild of Craftsmen. This unique organization has just one mission – to foster the creation and appreciation of traditional and contemporary craft and art. I have been a member for several years and am honored to have my work State Juried. I have also been exhibiting and selling my matted and framed prints at State Shows run by the Guild for several years. I like being a part of a group of creative people and around such fine objects of craft and art.

I am also a member of a local chapter of the Pennsylvania Guild of Craftsmen – the Lehigh Valley Chapter. Last year I agreed to become the Vice President of this chapter and as a result, I have gained a greater appreciation for what is involved with running such an organization, the challenges, and work required. Last night I got the opportunity to visit another chapter, this one being the Reading/Berks Chapter which meets at the Goggleworks in downtown Reading. The Reading/Berks Chapter is the state’s largest and the Goggleworks is a great meeting place. I have submitted my membership for this group as well and hope to be involved with them as I can.

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