Author: ro
My blogging juices seem to be lacking recently. In fact, I’ve had a multitude of ideas on what to post and really nothing much has materialized. I thought, then, why not give you a taste of the lesson I so carefully created for my students on photography last week. Obviously, the live effect cannot be emulated here, so all I can do is post some of my favorite quotes on photography with accompanying images. I would love to read your thoughts on the quotes.
“My portraits are more about me, than they are about the people I photograph.” – Richard Avedon
“There are always two people in every picture: the photographer and the viewer.” – Ansel Adams
“While there is perhaps a province in which the photograph can tell us nothing more than what we see with our own eyes, there is another in which it proves to us how little our eyes permit us to see.” – Dorothea Lange
“The photograph itself doesn’t interest me. I want only to capture a minute part of reality.” – Henri Cartier-Bresson
“If I could tell the story in words, I wouldn’t need to lug around a camera.” – Lewis Hine
“All photographs are there to remind us of what we forget. In this – as in other ways – they are the opposite of paintings. Paintings record what the painter remembers. Because each one of us forgets different things, a photo more than a painting may change its meaning according to who is looking at it.” – John Berger (critic)
What a great group of photographers. Interesting how Avedon’s portrait of Martha Graham (?) seems to fit right in with the sensibilities of the other photographers who pre-dated him by some years.
Avedon and Adams both carefully composed these subjects, although I’m sure it was harder to direct the elephants than the New Mexico landscape. Lange, Cartier-Bresson and Hine managed to catch a particular moment in time without the direction and control of a portrait or a landscape, making their images all the more remarkable.
I can relate to the Ansel Adams remark. More and more often, I find myself thinking about what others might see in what I photograph as well as what I see in it while I’m composing the shot. I’ve lost a few good ones this way, I’m sure, but have saved myself from a lot of probable bad ones as well.
Rarely, when I review a day’s shots on the computer later do I not notice many things I did not see when I shot the photograph initially. Dorothea Lange certainly understood that: the camera sees EVERYTHING, and while the same might be true for our eyes, what we see is the combination of what light reflects from objects plus the interpretation of those images by our minds. When I take a photograph (and I have time to think about it), I see a certain scene in my mind before I release the shutter. That’s what I want to capture. I forget all the minutiae outside of that vision or intention. The camera records all. Berger is right on with that.
I think the artistry in photography is being able to convey what one originally wanted to express prior to releasing the shutter through (and sometimes in spite of) all the accompanying visual record which is the result of that shutter release. You will see all that is there and hopefully what I wanted you to see as well. Your mind will interpret what is there: that is your perception. When that happens, it will then be your photograph as well as mine, even if I was the one who took it. Maybe, just maybe, if I’m really lucky (or skillful) that day, you will see what I saw as well.
Doesn’t Billy look adorable in that hat?
Oh my. Went on a bit, didn’t I?
Pax,
Nelson
Nelson Webbers last blog post..Ha ha ha!
steve: no, not Martha Graham; the Avedon shoot was for Vogue. What’s interesting to me is that most of my students have been veering towards photojournalists’ work. I wonder why that is…?
nelson: as always, great thoughtful comments.