Ping
I spent this whole holiday weekend alone, don’t feel bad, it was heaven as far as I was concerned. Nothing to do but fuss around the house, play with the cats, and watch a really fantastic marathon called The Genius Of Photography from the BBC. At one point they were talking about the working relationship between Edward Weston and Charis Wilson, with one commenter saying something to the effect of, “the camera becomes an equal sign, the person on one side of the camera equals the person on the other side of the camera.”
Now I don’t necessarily agree with that in it’s literal sense of course, but after some discussion over on my Facebook page we all sort of settled on Tom Bennett’s interpretation that “it suggests the photograph is as much a self portrait as it is a portrait”. Again, without being thoroughly literal that makes sense to me in that I only want to take pictures of things I like or feel connected to, friends, family, walls, dead things, it’s all more or less things that feel like a part of me.
Sometimes I get a little down on the whole taking pictures as art thing, it’s not that I don’t love doing it, but the process is so immediate that sometimes I don’t feel like I did anything, and lately I have been thinking about more tactile forms of art that I enjoy making, but so often those things are time eaters and take forever for results. After thinking about it I realize that I need both, and that they each give me something I can’t get from the other. The slow art gives me an outlet for my hands, time to meditate and puzzle out problems, but when I use the camera and get a shot right I get an instant adrenaline zap to the brain. Those are addictive, and often I can tell when I got the one even without looking because there is a something like a sound that goes off in your body, to me it sounds like a bell. One large loud ping on a very good crystal bell.
I work best collaboratively so it’s no surprise that most of my favorite pings come from portraits. Here are a bunch ranging from last week to when I got my first camera.
2009
2008
2008
2007
2007
2002
2000
December 2, 2009 at 2:06 pm
These are great, Toni, and I can totally identify with all of what you are saying in the commentary. I think that photography, especially portraiture, is about exchange. This (seeing your work together from different years/cameras) actually brings up another conversation that I had recently. Someone had stated that the idea that a camera does not limit a person’s potential as a photographer was a myth. I wrote them back saying, “Looking strictly at the vernacular of any given set of cameras shows differences between them. However, if we use the basis of vernacular to define what a picture is capable of, then we omit the photographer. For instance, given the RIGHT set of circumstances, any automatic camera can produce the same level of “success” (in terms of sharpness, IQ, exposure, etc.) as any camera operator, professional or otherwise, of that same camera. Thus, the difference between a successful photograph and art are two separate things. Art requires a photographer to bring direction and touch to the technology, and I don’t believe that technology places any advantage or limitation upon that.”
December 6, 2009 at 11:23 pm
some of the cheapest cameras in the world are the most fun, polaroid and lomo spring to mind, so i agree that so much is what you choose to do with the tool, as much as the tool itself. i remember the first camera i got the one that i took that last photos with, had 4 megapixels and i was super jazzed about that. haha, how quickly we can become spoiled. ha!
December 5, 2009 at 7:50 pm
I like that that top portrait alot, Toni. It’s intense and playful at the same time. And it’s nice to see a bunch of your work all together.
I tend to think most artwork is as much a reflection of the artist as it is a mirror of it’s subject so yeah, that quote and Bennett take on it make perfect sense to me.
great post!
December 6, 2009 at 11:27 pm
thats a pretty accurate summation of the personality at hand, so i am happy to hear i captured that. it was fun looking back at everything in a group, i rarely do that, and it was satisfying to see that from beginning to end i had an underlying approach to this that i wasn’t really aware of when i started, but am by now. it makes it easier when you know what you’re trying to get out of the activity, especially during those times when you have no idea why you are doing it.