Excerpts from my forthcoming book…
Vision…
Like the modernist painter, the fine art photographer has an internal vision relating to how they experience the world and reality. Perhaps this is the difference between being a painter, and an artist! In photographic terms, one could say that this is the difference between 'taking' photographs, and 'creating' photographs. The subject is not necessarily to be rendered as is, but rather as seen and felt. The artwork they produce is primarily the result of exploration, and often not a 'finished' article but part of an ongoing development of vision and practice.
It could be said that the photograph is more about the photographer than the photograph in this tradition, and an important element of the work is for the viewer to 'read' the work rather than accept it on face value. What is the photographer saying about nature, self, reality, or about something central to their portfolio. It was Picasso who once said,
“We all know that Art is not truth, Art is a lie that makes us realise the truth.”
Hence the fine art photographer is not dealing in the documentary part of the discipline, and the creative processes and methods he employs are likely to reflect this.
The photograph is the starting point of a journey of discovery, and the final print often bears small resemblance to the original. Hence it is about the transformation of the photograph, rather than the taking of it. It is about the person changing as they work, and about the visions of landscape changing and moving deeply within consciousness.
Mystery and Vision…
This is about sensing through the quiet discipline of photography something greater, and expressing it in the pictures created. The picture is a key to a vision, it is not just a picture. The work is about the sense of the greater mystery unconditioned by what one believes – leaving all religious and personal belief aside – it is about the sense of what is present!
"Art is the elimination of the unnecessary" - Picasso
Learning...
Working on a photographic trip is a great exploration of the elements and of self. This is because to discover new images and insights one needs to be open to new experiences and not too wrapped-up in the project of being a photographer. It's all too easy to reproduce the work of others, or to perform according to a clients brief. I believe the role of the artist is to break new ground, to do what has not been done before, to see new things, think new thoughts, and to find a way to communicate them with the world.
Mystery...
If all this serves to underline one thing for me as a person and a photographer, it is that life is full of mystery and the sense of mystery is another key motivation behind the work. One could wonder why this should be of interest to the busy majority of people, and to me the answer is simple: I am the mystery, we are the mystery, life is the mystery!
Monochrome...
The monochrome image has certain potential properties which helps the way I work. The monochromatic photograph removes many of the visual references provided by colour, so it can be impossible to tell if a photograph was taken at sunrise or sunset. Other references to place and time may also be lost, which is exactly what I want if the concept is not just about physical place and time.
Creativity in Photography…
In this time of the great digital revolution, everyone seems to be a photographer nowadays. Although many people use cameras today, it is still rare to see the medium used as a visionary one. Perhaps the revolution has made us suspicious of 'manipulating' a photograph, because we seek truth in the medium in a journalistic or documentary sense - a decisive moment captured as it was, and hence portrayed as it is!
Of course, the history of traditional film photography is replete with examples of photographic manipulation and fraud, one example which comes quickly to mind is the case of the Cottingham Fairies. In 1920 a series of photographs of fairies produced by cousins Frances Griffith and Elsie Wright came to the attention of the world. Experts declared the photographs genuine, and they were considered to be proof of the existence of fairies before later being debunked in the 1970's.
It is difficult to see in my view why photography has ever been considered a medium for literal truth even within the realm of photojournalism. After all, all photography is abstraction!
I view my own field of photography, which is monochromatic landscapes, as an interpretive one since the monochrome tradition has a long and established history of creative interpretation. For one thing, even before one considers the technicalities, the medium is not in colour so its intrinsic character departs from reality immediately, yet it is able to capture a deep and profound sense of subject. This truth reminds me that departing from literal reality, whatever that is, is not necessarily a departure from reality per-se, rather an exploration of other kinds of potential truths through a different medium. In the same sense poetry is not a departure from spoken or written truths, or an improvised jazz performance a departure from musical truths. The mind deals with impressions, imagination, and thought, and I would argue that the organ of perception itself, the mind, is at its core and interpretive one. It is this recognition of how we mediate truths through perceptions and impressions which has inspired impressionist and modernist art as well as much of the photographic tradition in America particularly in the last century.
“the advantage that impressionism possesses over all the other things; it is not banal, and one seeks after a deeper resemblance than the photograph” - Van Gogh
Ultimately, the medium lends itself to creative manipulation and the photograph becomes a malleable entity for transformation - a viable medium for expressing ideas and concepts.
Vision…
Like the modernist painter, the fine art photographer has an internal vision relating to how they experience the world and reality. Perhaps this is the difference between being a painter, and an artist! In photographic terms, one could say that this is the difference between 'taking' photographs, and 'creating' photographs. The subject is not necessarily to be rendered as is, but rather as seen and felt. The artwork they produce is primarily the result of exploration, and often not a 'finished' article but part of an ongoing development of vision and practice.
It could be said that the photograph is more about the photographer than the photograph in this tradition, and an important element of the work is for the viewer to 'read' the work rather than accept it on face value. What is the photographer saying about nature, self, reality, or about something central to their portfolio. It was Picasso who once said,
“We all know that Art is not truth, Art is a lie that makes us realise the truth.”
Hence the fine art photographer is not dealing in the documentary part of the discipline, and the creative processes and methods he employs are likely to reflect this.
The photograph is the starting point of a journey of discovery, and the final print often bears small resemblance to the original. Hence it is about the transformation of the photograph, rather than the taking of it. It is about the person changing as they work, and about the visions of landscape changing and moving deeply within consciousness.
Mystery and Vision…
This is about sensing through the quiet discipline of photography something greater, and expressing it in the pictures created. The picture is a key to a vision, it is not just a picture. The work is about the sense of the greater mystery unconditioned by what one believes – leaving all religious and personal belief aside – it is about the sense of what is present!
"Art is the elimination of the unnecessary" - Picasso
Learning...
Working on a photographic trip is a great exploration of the elements and of self. This is because to discover new images and insights one needs to be open to new experiences and not too wrapped-up in the project of being a photographer. It's all too easy to reproduce the work of others, or to perform according to a clients brief. I believe the role of the artist is to break new ground, to do what has not been done before, to see new things, think new thoughts, and to find a way to communicate them with the world.
Mystery...
If all this serves to underline one thing for me as a person and a photographer, it is that life is full of mystery and the sense of mystery is another key motivation behind the work. One could wonder why this should be of interest to the busy majority of people, and to me the answer is simple: I am the mystery, we are the mystery, life is the mystery!
Monochrome...
The monochrome image has certain potential properties which helps the way I work. The monochromatic photograph removes many of the visual references provided by colour, so it can be impossible to tell if a photograph was taken at sunrise or sunset. Other references to place and time may also be lost, which is exactly what I want if the concept is not just about physical place and time.
Creativity in Photography…
In this time of the great digital revolution, everyone seems to be a photographer nowadays. Although many people use cameras today, it is still rare to see the medium used as a visionary one. Perhaps the revolution has made us suspicious of 'manipulating' a photograph, because we seek truth in the medium in a journalistic or documentary sense - a decisive moment captured as it was, and hence portrayed as it is!
Of course, the history of traditional film photography is replete with examples of photographic manipulation and fraud, one example which comes quickly to mind is the case of the Cottingham Fairies. In 1920 a series of photographs of fairies produced by cousins Frances Griffith and Elsie Wright came to the attention of the world. Experts declared the photographs genuine, and they were considered to be proof of the existence of fairies before later being debunked in the 1970's.
It is difficult to see in my view why photography has ever been considered a medium for literal truth even within the realm of photojournalism. After all, all photography is abstraction!
I view my own field of photography, which is monochromatic landscapes, as an interpretive one since the monochrome tradition has a long and established history of creative interpretation. For one thing, even before one considers the technicalities, the medium is not in colour so its intrinsic character departs from reality immediately, yet it is able to capture a deep and profound sense of subject. This truth reminds me that departing from literal reality, whatever that is, is not necessarily a departure from reality per-se, rather an exploration of other kinds of potential truths through a different medium. In the same sense poetry is not a departure from spoken or written truths, or an improvised jazz performance a departure from musical truths. The mind deals with impressions, imagination, and thought, and I would argue that the organ of perception itself, the mind, is at its core and interpretive one. It is this recognition of how we mediate truths through perceptions and impressions which has inspired impressionist and modernist art as well as much of the photographic tradition in America particularly in the last century.
“the advantage that impressionism possesses over all the other things; it is not banal, and one seeks after a deeper resemblance than the photograph” - Van Gogh
Ultimately, the medium lends itself to creative manipulation and the photograph becomes a malleable entity for transformation - a viable medium for expressing ideas and concepts.