“Sadly, at some point children will begin to lose their fantasy thinking. They begin to figure out there really is no Santa Claus or that cartoon characters are not real. This is the beginning of logical thinking. School will begin to teach them more conventional rules, such as math and grammar. Even so, the brain still likes to have fun …” – Reynold Chan, M.D.

My ongoing professional evolution is from communicator to storyteller. An image remains in my head with me sitting in a freshman critique contemplating a picture of an empty chair sitting by a lake shore. My Professor asked me, “What questions does this photo inspire in you?” While I’m still unsure exactly what he was after, I do recall rewinding my 18 year old memory of lakeside and empty chair experiences.

“I like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells. Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living, It’s a way of looking at life through the wrong end of a telescope. Which is what I do, And that enables you to laugh at life’s realities.” – Dr. Seuss

Don’t you add photos after the story is written? Don’t book covers illustrate the book? Somewhat opposed to my early convention, that lake shore photo was my personal fairy-tale catalyst. This was my earliest realization that stories are told in every way imaginable. My lakeside narrative would not exist but for the photo in freshman critique, yet the photographer was oblivious to my tale.

The idea that the most powerful photographs create unanswered questions is somewhat counter intuitive. They launch what is familiar and relateable then add another element; a mystery element that forces you to search your experiences for unavailable pat answers simultaneously refusing to release the original connection.

Powerful images don’t deliver complete information; without the void you’d reject your imagination. It’s the same balancing act that is found in great storytelling. Void replacement propels the story forward.

In this video is Story teller Jay O’Callahan. Listen to him tell of the Moon Landing and try to imagine getting all that information another way: perhaps a Powerpoint presentation with all the bells, whistles and completed bullet points? Hardly. O’Callahan’s story gives us frames for our imagination. We feel it as part of our human condition; imagining the guts it took to leap from the lunar module. I don’t know about you but it never occurred to me that Armstrong’s leap moment was death defying.

The contexts of unanswered questions offer suggestions, and suggestions are valuable when the story is strong. Suggest too much and the questions are answered, not enough and the value is lost leaving context with no clout.

In the Masthead photo: Jay performing “Pouring the Sun” at Studio Arena Theatre in Buffalo, NY – Photo by Randy Krautsack

A conversation I seem to repeat is more or less a pep talk to accomplished photographers who want nothing more than to turn the clock back 20 years.  Overwhelmed with innovation, loss of convention and a fading uniqueness, I find myself trying to breathe courage into creative optimism.  I admire those who tolerate my rant.

Perhaps I should record my encouragements and replay them through headphones; I’m really the one I’m talking to.

Remember the snow ball we were rolling up hill?  Well … it’s melting nearly as fast as we can push, but here’s what I find myself saying to others:

You know shit.  All you photographers who spent years in the darkroom or designers who cut type or spent hours in the stat room – there is knowledge there that needs to be brought forward.  Uniqueness isn’t fading; it’s being lost in the noise of new.

Example:

I spent ½ a decade shooting product “to size” on 8×10 film so it could be cut and fit, relative to each other, into an elegantly designed page.  Through all the delicate well considered changes, I created a stack of 8×10 Polaroid dark slides (they made great film bags BTW) nearly 4 feet tall in one catalog season.

The exercise was to light the product in such a way that it would not only work together on a single page but also keep my mind from going numb with boredom. Light it this way, then that – different directions, shadow shapes – perfection had to be in front of the camera.  There was no formula, just me fooling around with light.

That will never happen again.  It’s easy to say, “So what” or “Thank God”. But my point is that I use that experience – that experience that will never happen again – ever day whether I’m behind the camera or computer.

I use this example because it’s one I know, but every photographer who’s been through a generation or two of technological change has similar examples.  Photoshop skill or Final Cut Pro expertise is available; early years of 10 hour day lighting experiments on 8×10 Polaroid are not.

Our job is to find a way to make the rarest of skills relevant.  Bring it forward it’s what makes you different; don’t let it fade.  The tech ground will continue to shift but at least us “established” dudes have a foundation.

by David Clark

I’m about halfway through his book “Photography in 100 Words” but being one who loves it when we (photographers) talk intelligently about photography I want to shine a light on David Clark’s effort.

The book doesn’t have an overriding message.  Rather, it’s held together by 100 words.  Read the short essays on each photographer and you can expect to have questions about your own approach and how you might put it into words.  I’m a big proponent for developing the language of art.  Every artist should be able to talk about their work in a meaningful way.

[via the book jacket]
David Clark is a photography journalist and author. He was the senior features writer on Amateur Photographer for nine years. During his career he has met and interviewed many of the world’s most iconic photographers.

David interviewed 50 accomplished photographers – you’ll  know many of them – and from the interviews chose two words from each photographer. The words were chosen for their descriptive efficiency of the photographer’s philosophy and creative approach.

The book consists of an iconic image and approximately 300 words from the interview of each photographer. In the back are short biographies for the interviewees.

Among the 100 words can you chose two that belong to you? It’s not easy; it’s much simpler to assign two for each photo taken.  Yet, if you’ve ever thought of describing your philosophy to another, it’s a damn good exercise. Perhaps primary and secondary descriptors – mine are these:

Primary – emotional, compelling
Secondary – Revealed, design

It’s well done. Find it here and here or with ISBN 13: 978-0-240-81300-4 .

Here are David’s 100 words in alphabetical order but not how they appear in the text:

Abstract, accident, addictive, ambiguity, anger atmosphere, audacity, awakened, awareness, celebrate, challenge, character, connection, contemplative, commemorate, compelling, completeness, confrontational, crisis, culture, delight, design, dialog, dilemma, discipline, discover, distance, dreamlike, drug, dualities, elegant, elegy, emotional, empathy, engagement, epic, experimenting, exploration, expression, forensic, geometry, historical, humor, ideas, identity, improvisation, inquisitive, insight, inspired, instinctive, interpret, intimacy, intriguing, investigate, irony, logistics, luck, magic, melancholy, memory, metaphor, mission, moment, motion, mythic, observation, obsessed, opinion, otherworldly, patience, pattern, preconception, provoke, poetry, political, question, recognition, reaction, revealed, romantic, scale, serendipitous, signal, signature, simplicity, speed, stories, subtractive, suggestion, surprise, surreptitious, symbolic, trust, truth, uneasy, unexpected, vision, visualization, witness, wonder.

There’s no wonder we’re struggling with authenticity. We’ve been dealt a line of crap so many times we

don’t believe as much of what we see and less of what we hear. What started as a 70’s T-shirt, “question authority”, has morphed into a societal mantra, “question reality.”

Undisputed credibility was considered the providence of photography, but genuineness is no longer that accessible; it’s not as easy to recognize when you’re being deceived into believing something. We settle for realism and hope we aren’t taken for too big a fool.

Mom used to tell me, “Never pretend to be someone you’re not”. That was 40 years ago. Today there are elementary lessons about judging accuracy from spin or truthfulness from propaganda. In the hierarchy of skill sets skepticism has move to the top tear. Photography’s relevance is shifting.

The medium that was used to prove reality is in the position to be a master deceiver; counterfeit authenticity. Photography is morphing further into illustrated reality. The “transparency” of the medium is nearly invisible.

I’m not sure all this matters except in a nostalgic sense. The savvy among us learn to read an agenda in symbolic moments. What matters is reciprocity.

We run from the loud broadcaster and tire of stoicism. The compelling is that which binds us.  It’s those 7 literary story plots that are common in our experiences and found in the moments available to capture.

“All of my work is about trying to find some element of what it feels like to be alive as a human being on this planet.” … “I’m always looking for moments of interaction, emotion and intimacy.” … “”it’s really little subtle moments of interaction that explains the connections we have”– Doug Menuez

There’s a small percentage of professionals who consistently embrace a viewpoint that extends reciprocity to me as an artist – Doug Menuez is one of those. In this video interview, Doug explains in clear language what is enduringly authentic about photography. He explains – beyond nostalgia and manipulation – what I believe is the timeless future of photography.

Doug was also a speaker at TEDx San Francisco in Nov. 2009. In his TED presentation he talks about his life as a photographer, how it has changed him and his project Fearless Genius about silicone valley.

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:

Jess Lee - InVisage CEO

I’m geeking out on this one. Since everyone is a photographer and nearly everything is a camera, it may do the imagination good to understand where technology is going.  I always figured it inevitable that lens resolution would be the limiting factor with respect to image quality.  In some aspects it’s already the case, but I’m talking about what happens when the only way to improve imaging is to improve lens resolution.

How long will it take for your phone camera to be as good as many Digital SLRs?  a) Ten years?  b) Five years?  c) Less than two years?  Not only is “c” the correct answer but we are returning to film; quantum film made by embedding quantum dots into an emulation that coats a plate.

As you’d expect, anything named “quantum” is very small.  Each dot can be tuned to the light spectrum with early production showing a 4X increase in efficiency with significant cost savings as well.  This would mean that your 3 megapixel iPhone camera would be increased to 12 mp.

Interprelated to your high end digital camera, you can anticipate 80 megapixel quantum film cameras with a native ISO of 800 and greater bit depth (told you I’d geek out) means we’d be creating nearly unimaginable photographic detail with a hand held camera in very low light.  The race for technical quality will essentially end.  I’m guessing each photographic file created will be in the neighborhood of 500 megabytes per image as a tiff.

What does this mean for a profession already reeling from 6 years of crazy change?  Hard to know but I don’t see this post becoming irrelevant any time soon.

A more detailed explanation can be found HERE at dpreview.com

For more information, watch this short video in which InVisage CEO Jess Lee explains his company’s breakthrough:

Taking a photo allows ownership of the subject.  Many cultures fear loss of soul through photographs. In brutal frankness, photographers characteristically pinch intimacy and trigger vulnerability that only close examination bares. Anyone retouching a high resolution image can tell you they risk knowing way too much about their subject.

Seth Mydanshe in a post for the New York Times blog “Lens” introduces the documentary “Camera, Camera”.  I have yet to see the film but still it inspired this post.

["Camera, Camera" was directed by Malcolm Murray, written by Michael Meyer and produced by Josh Haner, who is a co-editor of the Lens blog and has photographed Laos for The Times.]

Yes. My photography is being deeply affected by the democratization of quality imagery but, wait, there’s more.  The “more” is a cultural affectation that has relatively little to do with me. It has to do with an extreme global loss of the objective observer.

[via Wikipedia] The ideal observer is one who causes no unnecessary perturbations to the system being observed. An observation made by such an observer is called an objective observation. In basic school education of physics and chemistry, we routinely assume that our observations are objective.

But reality seldom, if ever, provides us with ideals. The real observer always causes an unnecessary perturbation of some kind. Scientists must remain alert in their efforts to minimize the magnitudes of these perturbations. The extent to which they succeed determines the level of confidence they can claim in their results and, therefore, the certainty they can expect in their knowledge of things.

As a professional I’ve spent decades making photos and, with unmistakable irony, it took digital imaging for me to discover that I can’t make something better than what is there to take. In other words, the harder I try to make my own reality, the more I am disappointed with its legitimacy. The act of observing destroys what I hope to capture.

While I may want to disappear with a camera in my hand, the ubiquitous photographer is changing what there is to observe. The camera is coming between culture and the unperturbed experience. We are witnessing life through an abstract medium and mistaking it for truth. The souls I steal are now permanently altered no matter how light I tread.

I’ve been influenced by Usher Fellig (aka Weegee the Famous).  I had no idea. But I’m in good company from Diane Arbus to Cindy Sherman, and the rest of us.  It’s hard to peel away the nostalgia from his photos from mid 20^th century NYC, but as I try the feeling of intensity remains; as though one held a candle under humanity fluid and let it reduce.

Photographic creativity is unique in many ways but one in particular in which Weegee’s body of work describes well is it’s demand on speed.  How many photos does one have to take before all the choices we make when pointing a camera happen faster than the subject is moving?

“I think about my camera all the time … There are photographic fanatics, just as there are religious fanatics.  They buy a so-called candid camera … there are no such thing; it’s the photographer who has to be candid, not the camera.” – Weegee

The trigger finds emotion.  I know from years of feeling subjects through a lens that the emotional moment is telepathic. Loud emotions are easy; it’s the quiet ones that lay demands on skills.  It’s the empathy of the photographer that presses the button at exactly the right moment after finding the perfect composition dictated by circumstance.

“People are so wonderful that a photographer has only to wait for that breathless moment to capture what he wants on film.” – Weegee

“When you find yourself beginning to feel a bond between yourself and the people you photograph, when you laugh and cry with their laughter and tears, you will know you are on the right track.” – Weegee

Also easily captured are surface emotions, or non-emotions.  Saying cheese is the best way to make sure a camera fails to reveal anything you own. We learn to say “cheese” early and often.

“Press agents, seeing my camera, pointed out notables to me, but I refused to

Weegee

waste film or bulbs, as I don’t photograph society unless they have a fight and get arrested or they stand on their heads.” – Weegee

Finally, there is nothing like a life devoted to their art. A part time musician is just that – “part time”. A fine artist making it her day job or a commercial artist carving out a career is at a different level – they just are because they must. There art is front of mind all the time.

“I’m no part time dilettante photographer, unlike the bartenders, shoe salesmen, floorwalkers plumbers, barbers, grocery clerks and chiropractors whose great hobby is their camera. All their friends rave about what wonderful pictures they take. If they’re so good, why don’t they take pictures full—time, for a living, and make floor walking, chiropractics, etc., their hobby? But everyone wants to play it safe. They’re afraid to give up their pay checks and their security they might miss a meal.” – Weegee

Weegee’s World

Permission To Suck Manifesto Law #3.    There’s NO plan “B”. Quit moonlighting.  Put in the hours; work without a net.  If you have a plan “B” it’s too easy to bail, and you’ll want to.  Part timers can’t keep up with the guy who’s bustin’ it like a sex crazed school boy.

[via: Wikipedia]

Weegee was the pseudonym of Arthur Fellig (June 12, 1899 – December 26, 1968), an Austrian-born American photographer and photojournalist, known for his stark black and white street photography.

Weegee worked in the Lower East Side of New York City as a press photographer during the 30′s and 40′s, and he developed his signature style by following the city’s emergency services and documenting their activity. Much of his work depicted unflinchingly realistic scenes of urban life, crime, injury and death. Weegee published photographic books and also worked in cinema, initially making his own short films and later collaborating with film directors such as Jack Donohue and Stanley Kubrick.

“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.

Things begin to go awry when I have no point of view; no opinion, no specific observation, nothing to reveal. I spend most of my time trying to uncover the problem, though once established, the rest is hard work that is relatively relaxing. I’ve discovered that most of my restlessness lies in finding the story not telling it.

I’m used to seeing life happen through a viewfinder; it’s my job, and probably why I leave my camera at home when on vacation or spending time with friends. I want to feel it without the camera framing it for me. The camera can keep me from seeing if I’m not careful; as soon as I raise it to my eye, I’m a professional and my craft dominates.

This whole “telling the story” thing has stalked me.  Photography, greeting cards, marketing, branding and advertising all tell stories. In my off hours, music, socializing, reading, listening – all involve stories. FaceBook is one big story made of short anecdotes from a select cast of characters.

I have a stream of self talk as I interact with anything. Looking at a photo or artwork creates a story in my head clarifying the memories it evokes, the emotions it churns or the actions I will take as a result of including this image in my life. Creating art is speaking the narrative.

A good photographer understands the craft of storytelling.  I think making a successful photograph usually incorporates at least some of these:

Slow Disclosure:
Like in films, each element of the story, revealed all at once, will cause the viewer to move on faster than it took you to take the photo in the first place. Framing, composition, angle of view, selective focus all contribute to the pace with which the viewer understands the story your telling with the image; too fast and their gone, too slow, and they’re bored.

Power of unanswered questions:
Learn to love the questions – there is power in the unresolved chord. Sometimes the story is in the details of the moment but the question it leaves behind can be equally as compelling. The best movie you saw left you talking about it long after you left the theater. Same goes for a photographic image.

Empathic Engagement:
The image isn’t about what you’re feeling, it’s about what your viewer is feeling. Cognitive and emotional integration of surprise, satisfaction, beauty, horror – or whatever the story’s point – needs to be empathic to be engaging.

It’s the discipline of storytelling that helps us build more meaningful experiences for the viewer.  Storytelling is deeply embedded in the way we understand things. Our world view helps us build expectations of our story’s plot, and the effectiveness of the spectacle can actually change the world view of others through a surprise resolution.

It all starts with a point of view.  Scott Simon tells us how it’s done.