at about 11 pm this evening i had just
finished my book, didn't want to hook up with another movie and wandered
about my apt wondering what i wanted to do. i was considering a walk
when i looked out into the rainy darkness and argued against it. i
considered sleep but it is much to early on a saturday for such a thing
to occur.
i didn't feel like starting a new book yet. sort of being in the book
denouement period where you kind of have to let things settle before you
can continue. so i picked up a book i had purchased a while ago on
jewelry making. i read it for a moment or two before deciding that there
was nothing about it that was interesting me at all. but what i did
realize that i was in just that sort of mood where i want to read or
look at something that is non-fiction. right now i will freely tell you
that this is a rare occurrence for me. my non-fiction books collect far
more dust than my fiction shelves.
so i was looking at the selection of books in my shelf and thinking, you
know i have way more photography books than this and went into my
bedroom to the shelves that should be slowly transitioning into my book
nook as time goes by anyways. i took down 4 books and sat on my reading
chair to look through them.
you know what, i am constantly and consistently enthralled by how much
simple photographs can blow me away. art can do the same thing but much
more commonly in person and not in books. photos, in person, on walls,
in books, anywhere have this power over me. instill this reverence.
rarely is it the technical skill of the photographer that is doing it,
or rather, most have the level necessary to produce usable results. no,
it is the eye, the composition, knowing what to put in your photograph.
for that is where the art in photography lies, in my mind....in
paintings and sculptures and other hands on type arts everything is an
interpretation of something. an artistic metaphor or image or whatever.
it may not be the easiest thing for an artist to put paint to canvas and
say what they want to say but no matter what they do, when they are
putting paint to canvas they are saying something that they are saying.
(if you can see what i mean). when a photog takes a picture they have to
know that for most of the people that see it, it will just be a
representation of real life. one to one if you will. that for most of
the others, there is so little chance that they could get what the
artist/photographer is trying to say.
instead...i think, at least, that the best they can hope for is to touch
someone through their concept of beauty, of stillness, of form, of,
well, whatever. how hard is it to really know if the story that you are
trying to tell is going to be heard by anyone. ok, the same issues exist
in all art, they do, they really do, but i feel that in photography its
so much more ethereal and vague.
but none of that is truly important as long as something you can take
can make someone feel. i've noticed this about my own photos. each and
every one makes me feel something or other, and some of them make most
people feel something. but some of them, can sit there, perhaps
displayed on my website, perhaps on my wall, or on someone else's wall,
for years without anyone ever saying anything. and then out of the blue
someone new will see it, or someone old will really look at it for the
first time and they'll say something. perhaps something simple about how
much they like it, or something better, about how it made them feel
something.
that's the sort of thing that really rules. that's really cool. when you
are doubting whether you truly have talent, or whether you're just
playing and should stop wasting people's time, it's those comments that
make things come back into clarity and focus. it's a fine line between
knowing that you mainly do your art for yourself but knowing that you
can touch others and it being just mental masturbation.
so anyways, i was sitting flipping through my books; looking at the
photos, seeing some for the first time, even though i have looked at
them before and remembering others as long lost friends and these
thoughts occurred to me. i'm glad that perhaps i touch some other people
in much the same way that these photos in these books can reach me.
on a related but not to be discussed in this already long note, i have a
lot more art photography books of nudes than any other subject matter.
people are so beautiful. waterfalls are glorious but people just exhibit
more character than anything else possible.
