Narratives about what we see are fundamental to good photography. Capturing what we see in a deliberately composed frame adds a well examined viewpoint and inculcates ideas and emotions into what we see in the photograph. It changes the narrative but doesn’t eliminate discussion.

This is where it begins; the 1000 words theoretically embedded in every photo. Art and photography depends on language translation. The narration begins in our heads as we create. Just as music rises above its mathematical roots, imagery is descriptive.

Beyond “that’s nice” a good photograph excites curiosity, inspires imagination, and invites empathic exchange. How do we know it’s beyond a nice photograph? “Beyond nice” translates into language without straining our vocabulary.

Good art students learn through classroom discussion to translate the visual into language. We learn to ask ourselves the right questions. What was I feeling at moment of capture? Why did I make that frame that way? What am I feeling while viewing the finished photo? What changes would increase the volume of that feeling? Is the volume loud enough to reach an audience? And so on.

Motivated by massive frame numbers, a competitive market, and an incessantly starved ego, among other things, our nuanced talk begins to morph into criticism. Criticism breeds authority; influence embodies itself while meaningful relevant discussion corrodes erodes.

What is an expert? “Unless you’re an academic” – I’ve read like phrases repeatedly in reference to art writing. In your face academia, I’m an expert by default; by working in the field for 30 years post relevant college degree. Furthermore, so is every vaguely accomplished human who’s learned to translate visual to language despite published pedigree.

Art criticism has a few inherent problems. It’s irrelevant to most everyone but the critic and those interested in assigning material value, plus, it’s inwardly focused. Critics talk to other critics in some “other” vernacular. At best it’s readable and at its worst, comedy bait.

The value of most expert criticism to the artist is minimal if not destructive. Divide art discussion into two piles: 1) What you know 2) What you think you know, and you’ll find one pile much larger than the other. The challenge is that the latter is typically presented with more authority than the former.

What we know belongs to the artist and viewer but involves no speculation.

The Artist: I know why I made this photograph and listen as I describe why it’s important to me and what I hope viewers take from it.

The Viewer: This is what it makes me feel, how it’s changed me, and why I find it important.

The Historian: This body of work has changed the way people respond to (insert subject here) . It is evident for these reasons and through these examples, and influenced the art era in these ways.

The Critic: This is why this photo will be important to society. Listen as I describe why art endures in the historic body of collected works; this is why it’s a collectible piece. This is how it should make you feel and why this body of work has overestimated value.

Bruce DeBoer - post author

Tell the difference? Undeniably, there is room for intellectual discussion about art. In fact, I enjoy it.  The challenge, in my opinion, is to keep it relevant to viewers, artists, and historians while at the same time rejecting speculators. Speculators are non-value adding to the process.  They are typically outsiders offering “expert” opinions about speculative artistic value. They wallow in the pile of “what we think we know” beyond nice.

Similar posts with alternative viewpoints:

How We Talk About Photography – Asad Haider

We Need Better Critical Writing about Photography – Joerg Colberg

Conscientiously Full of Myself – Art is Hard

I have a friend who asks at the end of a shoot, “Did you make art today?” “I think so” was my typical response because I’m never sure what I do with my camera will ever be considered art exactly.  Thinking back, it’s probably because I’ve assessed too many contact sheets and digital proofs filled with prosaic visual records.

Classically, visual attention can be registered in seconds when viewing photos. See it, scan details, like it (or not) – turn the page – on to the next. On the web we’ll hit the fwd button like a flip book. The occasional extraordinarily recorded event will slow this down. Let’s call that pace “significant attention”.

An extraordinary event brilliantly recorded will hold your attention for a minute or two. Art of the “fine” variety, however, must hold your significant attention everlastingly.

The last half of my photography life has been an obsession with reducing detail. Less is more but not always easy in commercial applications. If you’ve ever tried to get away with dead black shadows, blown highlights and partially obscured product you know from what I speak.

“Music is the space between the notes” – Claude Debussy

I thought of this quote before discovering someone much more intelligent said it first.  I was at a show listening to bluegrass virtuosos play so fast that it was hard to discern a space between notes.  It made me realize that there was only one interpretation possible.  There were no spaces for me to think or feel anything but the energy of their content.”  – From a post dated – Dec. 17, 2009.

The objective is to gain significant attention as long as possible ahead of an inevitable boredom strike. Offer enough detail to entice an empathic exchange; leave room for interpretation for with no space between the notes boredom strikes fast.

Instinctively, owners of the iPhone Apps Hipstamatic and Swanko Lab know this.  Instant analog art automatically obscures enough detail to give your most pedestrian recording significant attention. It’s what’s behind the craze; easy, fast, shareable, instant art – sometimes of the fine variety.

Both Apps are grab bags of washed out highlights, muted blotchy colors, unpredictable tonal shifts, lens flair, dark edges, dust spots, scratches and numerous “add in” color effects; like shuffling through an old shoebox of treasured snaps 20 years premature.

Samples from the Hipstamatic Flickr Display:

Previously Titled: A Hunt for Empathic Exchanges through Curiosity and Imagination

There are elements of a great picture beyond composition, simplicity, light, color, texture and all that designy-crafty stuff. With some tormented thought, I’ve narrowed it down to three elements that seamlessly overlap but are also separate enough that they seem to own a category.

[Warning] This is a less concrete way of thinking about quality imagery of the 2D variety; no “how to” list found here. I prefer to stay on the softer more inquisitive side because I believe if your art stimulates curiosity, excites imagination, and induce empathy, it matters little how it’s presented; success on these are paramount, nothing else really matters.

The elements I’m presenting belong to both the artist and the spectator; presented by the artist and collected by the viewer. The extent to which the art is successful belongs to the viewer with blame placed firmly on the artist.

Curiosity:

It’s the power of the unanswered question. Nothing happens in your art without first stimulating viewer curiosity. It’s what I’d initially call the “give-a-shit” portion of our viewing experience that promptly transforms into something else.

This is where surprise lives. We can be surprised by how similar yet different the artist depicted familiar territory, or perhaps how foreign the subject is altogether while remaining relevant.

Curiosity ought to linger unsatisfied to some degree lest the spectator loses interest and leaves unaffected. If there is no need to review the artwork it’s unmemorable, and who wants that? The intensity and shape of disclosure further feeds or disposes of the viewer’s curiosity.

Imagination:

By imagination I think most of us consider the “how” of it: a works staging, basic concept, or overall presentation. Most of us intend “be imaginative” when we say “be creative”.

What I suggest by imagination in this case is as though there were such a thing as an active noun. A two dimensional image is perpetually abstract so it requires some degree of fantasizing for the artist to portray, while involving an active imagination for the viewer to perceive.

Bring me there in my mind, make me fantasize; cause the imagination to jump the chasm that is linking artist and spectator. This is how we see a moment’s capture or still picture as an event. There is a tolerance of ambiguity by the artist and viewer but we surround the still visual with a mind experience that lasts more than the split second it takes to perceive the picture.

The still picture plays as a story in our head and it changes with every new experience. Imagination is what triggers empathy in the viewer.  We project a personal narration as part of a fantasy involvement with the image.

Empathy:

It’s where passion and compassion lives. Art is an empathic exchange. What we are “Seeing-In” [from Richard Wollheim on The Art of Painting] a picture are projected personal narratives. We see art similarly as we see a cut finger on a friend; it makes us feel beyond what is offered to our senses. Call it your pictographic syntax if you will.

As a picture maker I induce empathy; I’m projecting my passion and sensibilities in a search for empathy. I want my art to make you feel what is in you to feel, but I can’t do that without using empathic abilities.

“We see something in the picture, and then become aware of an affinity with some emotion, only then to reperceive the subject which is then couloured by the emotion.” – Malcolm Budd

If artistic imagination and curiosity is used adeptly then there is room for the spectator to maneuver their empathy in the openings we’ve allowed. The door to empathy is closed by being too literal and by answering all questions in the presentation. Think of it as enigmatic empathy; it’s a response intended or unintended, appropriate or inappropriate that the art work pulls from its spectator.

I think a void of artistic empathy is the artwork epitome summarized in this definition of Artistic Narcissism found in Wikipedia:

Artistic Narcissism is the personality trait of egotistic artist denoting vanity, conceit, or simple selfishness. Applied to a social group, it is sometimes used to denote elitism or an indifference to the plight of others.

The name “narcissism” is derived from Greek mythology. Narcissus was a handsome Greek youth who had never seen his reflection, but because of a prediction by an Oracle, looked in a pool of water and saw his reflection for the first time.

Even an artistic narcissist will find viewer empathy but without seeing a reflection in the art produced, it’s impossible the artistic narcissist to connect with their viewer.  Ultimately, isn’t that what we want as creators?

My art is my attempt to elicit empathy from you while simultaneously attempting to empathize with you.  When I make the right empathic trade I create a tribe  through my works of art – a.k.a. admirers – my tribe are those with whom I successfully induce empathy through my curiosity and imagination that I present as artwork.

Permission to Suck Manifesto Rules applied:

6.    Your creativity is about your heart, not their surface. Creativity is your world view filtered through your talent. It’s your passion, experience, expertise, inspiration and your rules that drive you to create wonderful things that you’re destined to hate because they’re not good enough, and others are open to admire because they couldn’t do it.

14.    Don’t let anyone talk you out of your passion. If you have passion for an idea, don’t lose it by asking others if they think it’s good.  They probably won’t.

16.    Imagination is hot, execution is cold. The flame is illusive; if you must obsess about something, make it a flame search. “I think part of the process of this whole thing is to get as close to the flame as you can get without being burned” – Graham Nash

17.   Imagination accelerates in the abstract and slows with tangibility.  Daydream,  maintain vulnerability, innocence and a sense of wonder so that your creativity stays vigorous.

I firmly believe, as this presentation video suggests, that empathy is the invisible hand. To truly understand art’s role in civilization, our society, and our relationships, we need to understand the profound degree to which empathy has shaped our culture.  RSA 21^st Century Enlightenment and Jeremy Rifkin, author and political adviser, helps us examine empathy in this animated video.

What is the street artist’s intent? Anti-social pop art with an extreme satirical point intended for consumption across all socioeconomic barriers, or is it hype driven brandalism by an artistic terrorist bent on pulling one over on a naïve culture?  Tagging is clearly vandalism but the line of intent is vague and does mere intent define vandals as artists?

Exit Through the Gift Shop is an extremely thought provoking film by Banksy, one of the more notorious street artists in the UK. I was no more than tenuously aware of Banksy or street art beyond the mundanely obvious, but the fascination button has been pressed.

My fascination is not as much with the art as it is with its place in culture; it’s acceptance or failure, it’s hype driven value and its democratic canvas. I relate stronger to the street artist than I do with his work.

Street art can be beautiful but from my extremely limited surveillance, so far I see its beauty as mostly unconventionally embedded in the “of the people essence” found in the act. Yet street art crosses over and when it does the artist is there to embrace success in the most conventional way; think Shepard Fairey. Which brings us back to intent; was the original intent to gain lucrative artistic notoriety through cheap illegal stunts?

Shepard Fairey (who has a role in the film), for example, was ready to lie about the origin of his work to bolster personal profit. It drives the innocence of illegal art into the ground like a paper airplane; beautiful in its short flight.

In Banksy too, there is a contradiction to his art: a street rebel but also a gallery artist and book publisher making a strong living and building his brand legacy; he’s a (s)pray-on provocateur seen from multiple angles.

The film is filled with anti-heros but the main character is more like an anti-anti-anti hero; he bites back. I’ll pass on to you the favor from a friend who guided me last week by repeating one of the loudest lines in the film:  GO!

Creativity is a near simultaneous encounter between our imagination, introspection and reality. The richness of imagination is fed through inspiration to encounter surroundings and cultivated with intense motivations. The value of our introspection is sustained by wisdom and experience; what is essentially you. Confrontation with reality is how creativity is birthed; it’s the final relationship with objectivity.

Artistic creativity is an act of intimacy or not;  it’s genuine art or it’s artifact.  Learn to manipulate tools and their crafty mechanisms so they become secondary or not.

Mechanization serving up uniformity, predictability, and orderliness (i.e. image capturing devices, signal processors, computers, or any fine apparatus) can either heighten the creative encounter or cheat it. Left to dominate with crafty mechanization and we cheat expressive intimacy.

Roughly, in the late ‘80’s, Mark Zimmer and Tom Hedges, founders of the Fractal Design Corporation, created Painter.  I recall passing photographs through a software “filter” to create a painting effect. Extending photography,  it instantly aped wrist skills without the hard work. Incredibly, Painter transformed every photograph into works of painted art.

Yet, it didn’t take long to realize painting filter presets produced artifacts, not art. Extraordinary turned less than ordinary within weeks as my employer’s entire creative department mastered the programmed keystrokes. What just happened? Amazement transformed into distaste within a few weeks.

Now the cheat is obvious, back then, not so much. We correctly felt the excitement in discovering a legitimate creative extension. What failed us was our loss of expressive intimacy; the new tool masked our art transforming it into a mechanistic artifact. There are no shortcuts.

Case in point: A camera is either an extension or protection from the creative encounter. Countless photographers feel defensive because they’ve cheated the encounter and lied to themselves and others about the intimacy of their works. Most recent democratization of the cheat is forcing photo artists and others to cope with the creative encounter that produces art rather than artifacts.

How many of us can say we are hiding behind the mastery of crafty mechanization?  Suddenly, there’s a need to pull up to the creative bar or be forced out of town. It takes courage to rediscover artistic expressive intimacy especially after producing artifacts for years.

“There are no accidental masterpieces in painting, but there are accidental masterpieces in photography” – Chuck Close

Here we go – Déjà vu all over again – into the world of vernacular photography. Like colloquial speech is to literature, vernacular photography is any type that isn’t intended as art: keepsakes, advertising, forensic, documentation for records, passport photos, etc. It was made possible by George Eastman when he invented The Kodak Camera and roll film.

The modern disparity is found in history; more specifically – there is a history.  When you bought The Kodak in the late 1880’s there was no strong artistic tradition; no best practices for the flock of newcomers.  Someone first introduce smiling for the camera. “Say Cheese” was unfamiliar.

It’s 1890, photography is suddenly accessible. There is always more film to be had, it wasn’t messy, and it was fun. There is no need to be serious, this isn’t art.

The camera can produce art with little more participation from the photographer than a button push.  The medium is generous and extremely democratic. Yet the product result of a button push can be elevated to an art often by accident.

Henri Lartigue is a great example of amateurism (he made a living as a painter) producing occasional brilliance while the majority of his large quantity of work reached art status merely through our draw to nostalgia. His work represented the vernacular of his time until they became documents of longing. His playfulness with photography brought us a new type of art.

Photographic artwork is rife with nostalgia – it seems impossible to take a serious fine art photo of something new. Our homesickness for the past lifts everything old to an artistic prospect; signs along old Route 66, peeling paint, abandoned warehouses, old general stores – even old people become fine art when recorded by a camera more frequently than those of living less than 4 years.

Mom at Museum - Hipstamatic Photo

An iPhone App called the Hipstamatic Camera gives us democratized digital nostalgia – “digital photography never looked so analog”.  Its whole purpose is to replicate faded films exposed through second or third rate optics.  The result is instant art.  I posted snapshots on Facebook and got excited comments eager to discover my magic tool.  Old meets new; our nostalgia is now digitized. Is camera art done if a digital “look” never passes for future nostalgia?

Gradually the camera became more generous; more accidental master-pieces are posted to Flickr sites. The beauty of old processes before The Kodak invention are now the sandbox of vernacular photography; Déjà vu all over again.

Below is a segment from a BBC presentation on The Genius of Photography.  It’s thought provoking in that we get a glimpsed reminder of how similar the introduction of The Kodak is to the adoption of digital imaging by the vernacular picture taker.

If you want to continue the series The Genius of Photography by the BBC go here.

The most remarkable of remarkable things I witnessed during a month spent in China was culture clash – very old and very new – coexisting and competing for road space. Young and old, physically one or two generations removed, expose a gap wider than Jimi Hendricks and The Christie Minstrels – in many ways it’s the land time forgot.

We are analog beings. Analog is the smooth steady sensation on our hands, through our eyes, and in our ears, it’s unlimited in detail and richness.  Analog is the space in which we create things; it’s where we get our hands dirty. Our senses are not nearly acute enough to capture the immense detail of our analog world.

Digital is like touching a hair brush of ones and zeros, it’s like looking at an image full of holes or listening to harsh staccato tones.  Move the bristles close enough to each other and potentially it’s a good surface simulation. As we experience every day, those 1’s and 0’s eventually reach the edge of our senses. Digital detail is limited to what our senses need to perceive the facsimile of analog richness.

Digital gave us efficiencies and the ability to move and edit large numbers. Large portable numbers give us the ability to manipulate a simulated world. What we know is that digital technology is fast, inexpensive and accessible. As generations die, we further bake digital into our culture.  When fully baked, what then?

We all know quality when we see it.  We know what it feels like, and how it sounds, tastes and looks. Quality is not a simulation, it’s analog. Digital quality is a facsimile – albeit a good one – of real analog quality. What we experience as quality is the realness of fine detailed conception. Quality is the best humans can create.

Creativity is analog. There is no such thing as digital creativity.  Accept it, then understand there are critical points at the Analog to Digital conversion and vice versa.  In audio they’re called D/A Converters and they’re found in ever CD player and computer.  Lousy D/A converters mean you’ve lost sound fidelity. Want a quality photo print?  The D/A conversion from light to pixels or back from computer to ink on paper is the most crucial.  Everything else is just editing numbers, and yes there is good and bad editing but don’t forget the priorities are at either end.

My point is that the richness you and I perceive as quality, just like my experience in China, can be like old and new competing for road space. I recently viewed a presentation where an advertising opinion leader characterized the new definition of quality to a room full of students as: fast, accessible, and cheap.  As generations die this will get further baked into culture but, in reality, it’s more or less a digital simulation of what’s good enough and has nothing to do with real quality.

My point is illustrated in this beautiful video “UP THERE” about the precarious profession of hand painting billboards.

The Music: “Window” and “Twentytwoforteen” written by James Lavalle and performed by Album Leaf Courtesy of SUBPOP Records.

Seth Godin's head

I’ve been reading Seth Godin since his second book Unleashing the Idea Virus 2001.  Linchpin is his most personal book to date.  In it he describes our current economic transformation from an individual’s viewpoint. Think of it as a pep talk for Purple Cows or a kick in the ass for the rest of the herd.

I’ve always thought of Godin as a marketing guy for the rest of us.  Idea Virus explained viral marketing, Purple Cow outlined market differentiation just as his others made marketing ideas clear and accessible.  Permission Marketing was a breakthrough since he was ahead of the curve and brought more new ideas to market with that book.

In Linchpin, Godin defines art as “The intentional act of connecting with someone else and changing them.”  While this might not be what many think of as art, it is a great definition when referring to the art of doing.  And really, is there any other kind?  I suppose there is the art of thinking but doing gets more results.

This is by far my favorite of his issues probably because in Linchpin, Godin covers nearly every point in the Permission To Suck Manifesto starting with number 1:

1) Snub expectations.  Excitement needs space; throw a few elbows if required.  Picasso’s friend and art critic, Guillaume Apollinaire, encouraged his cohorts to “innovate violently!   Much more risky for creative professionals, is to abide by rules.

Translated to words closer to his in Linchpin: To follow rules is to be a factory worker which these days is very risky since our factories are dying.

Piers Fawkes from trend blog PSFK interviews Seth Godin about his book Linchpin.

Simplicity makes me breathe easier.  Complexity assaults me because I’m not close enough to what’s important or it overwhelms me because I haven’t stepped back far enough.  Stepping back aids organization while moving in requires elimination of extraneous noise.

Boneyard Confusion

In a recent “art adventure” we drove to South Carolina to visit Bulls Island near Charleston.  On the northern tip of the island is Boneyard Beach; a stretch littered with weathered trees long succumbed to salt and sea.  Erosion has left tree ruins stranded on the beach or in the surf predictable with the tides.  Its feeling is one of a surreal natural apocalypse.

I was born with, what they called at the time, a lazy eye.  The treatment was performing a minor operation on the eye muscle then patching the good eye to strengthen the weak one.  The result was a fix cosmetically but it caused my depth perception to suffer; my eyes never learned to work together since they were literally separated at birth.  While I don’t really know what it would be like to see in three dimensions I believe that my 2D view has caused me to be a fierce proponent of visual simplicity.

Approaching the beach was like entering a tree junkyard, I knew there was a lifetime of images to be found but none so obvious that I could start my typical point and shoot frenzy.  Boneyard Beach is pure visual complexity that’s often found as one wanders through natural beauty; your neither close enough nor distant enough to avoid an ambush of at least 3 out of 5 senses.

A Stab at Simplicity

I had given myself five hours on one day to find a few black and white images so I began searching through the confusion.  A few years ago, now President of The Rhode Island School of Design, John Maeda wrote The Laws of Simplicity.  I put these two into service immediately:

Law no. 1: The simplest way to achieve simplicity is through thoughtful reduction.

Law no. 2: Organization makes a system of many appear fewer.

Followed by,

Law no. 5: Simplicity and complexity need each other.

Law no. 7: More emotions are better than less.

And finally,

Law no. 10:  Simplicity is about subtracting the obvious, and adding the meaningful.

The last two are the hardest to achieve in my opinion.  I want my viewer to feel as much as I felt on Boneyard Beach.  To do that in a flattened abstract version of reality is hard; good art is hard.  To achieve #7 we need #10 – searching for what is meaningful takes every ounce of wisdom I own.

John Maeda talks about simplicity in an entertaining TED presentation from 2007.

Visit MaedaStudio.com

The lucky among us experience an occasional connection with surroundings that – while nearly impossible to describe – is characterized by a feeling of oneness. New Age craziness aside, the mystery of that feeling resembles a moment of creativity responsible for propelling artists of all breeds to suffer their creativity.

Those gloriously tactile instruments of color were my first link between creative brain and reality of hand.  Finger painting is communication without the need for speech.  Give me a tool and I’ll create something of beauty that brings your attentiveness.  Suddenly I’m in the world of making things and traveling a path of mysterious surprise.

Whoa – sidetracked.  Praise, ego, competition, notoriety, sex and dreams of fame or money contaminate my hand to brain connection.  The drive moves from satisfying diversion to desperate need.  Still, it’s a measurement of being that advances my craft beyond mere peer.

What’s the point; a value christened “Art Money” or is it simply a factory work replacement?  Art wants to be fine – that is – without contamination.  Pure art contains curiosity, emotion, a reach for spirituality, communicating self, and is an implement of survival.  Art money terminates fineness and puts survival at risk.  If our culture faced destruction what could be salvaged?

Artists (in the broadest sense) are historically respected because they create astonishing stuff.  To be sure, art isn’t technique – it is finger painting.

“If it moves you to attentiveness it is art, if it doesn’t it’s something else.” – Milton Glaser

Milton Glaser, Inc.