Subscribe by email
Subscribe by RSS feed
Artist/Geek, Etc.
August 7th, 2008
The Artist.
I love writing but it’s tough-going sometimes, so I’ve been re-reading Ann Lamott’s Bird By Bird, Some Instructions On Writing and Life for inspiration. She’s refreshingly honest about how hard it can be to write, to express yourself in your chosen medium. She talks candidly about the blood, sweat, and tears shed by writers in the service of their craft. Got me to thinking – when painters, writers, sculptors, musicians, all spend such emotional energies on their vision and their craft – why are photographers so prone to the cerebral? Where’s the passion and the commitment to craft? I’m not saying it’s not out there – it just seems under-represented. In the tension between the Artist and the Geek, is the Geek winning?
What have you done to hone your craft this week? This month? What stories are you burning to tell? Why aren’t you?
The Geek
Gavin Gough has an excellent article on panning technique HERE.
Kelby ’s Guest Blogger yesterday was Adobe’s Andrew Rodney and he’s put up a great article on the perils of approaching Lightroom with your Photoshop lenses on. If you’re a Photoshop to Lightroom convert for your digital workflow, you should read THIS
Sorry it’s been such a slow week. In part I’m lacking in time, in part inspiration – not for true lack of either but because other projects are sucking me dry of both resources. So let me throw this out to you: if you have a burning question or a killer idea you just wish someone – anyone! – would write about, well, toss it my way in the comments section and I’ll think about it.
Hey, I JUST finished Bird by Bird. I thought a lot of what she said in the second half was also really relevant to photography, the parts where she said things like you have to believe in what you’re doing, and if you believe deeply in it, it won’t be contrived.
I wonder if your question can be answered by Myers Briggs. (I’ve been obsessed by MBTI lately.) I think your question is not, perhaps, why are photographers so cerebral, because I think other artists are very cerebral, but why are they so concrete in their thinking? I think writers and other artists are probably iNtuitives; abstract thinkers, they see the big picture, the connections between seemingly unrelated things. But lately I’ve started to wonder if a lot of photographers are Sensing: concrete thinkers, they’re all about the here and now, with information they can take in via their five senses. I suspect this especially of photojournalists and travel photographers because they seek out the risks of travelling – a definite trait of a group of types called artisans who are concrete thinkers and prefer to take in more information rather than making decisions. And of course, none of this probably makes any sense unless you’re already familiar with MBTI, so I’ll just stop rambling now.
And you didn’t ask but I think you might be more of an idealist type, an abstract thinker rather than a concrete thinker – which is why you think about your vision a lot, maybe more than other photographers you know? – maybe ENFP? If you know your type (or find it out) I’d love to hear if I’m anywhere near the mark.
Some comments from an INFP…
It seems to me photography attracts a wider range of personality types than some of the other artistic media: some of us are more towards the emotional end of the spectrum (where artists generally gather) while others are more towards the geeky end (no, that term’s not found in the MBTI). I think it’s the nature of the beast. A camera is a mechanical device, designed around some fundamental laws of physics, and (these days) it relies on digital processing of the images. So, it’s just going to attract the mechanical, physicist, computer literate, geeky kind of guy/gal. Your “typical” artist — the painter, the sculptor, the writer — isn’t mechanically inclined. Talk to a painter about f-stops and CPU processor speed and his/her eyes will soon glaze over. So it takes a certain geekiness to be able to understand the photographer’s medium. Conversely, everyone knows what paint and a paint brush are. But all is not lost for the photographic artist…
Michael Freeman and Freeman Patterson — two photographers David wrote about a few weeks back — write about the emotional aspect of photography. A friend of mine recommended a good book on this same topic, The Zen of Creativity by John Daido Loori, a photographer and Zen master. So they’re out there, but they don’t get the play that those who promote the geeky side of photography seem to attract. And of course the geeky side comes complete with corporate sponsors; the emotional side does not. Then there’s this…
We live in a society where speed is of the essence (at least here in the US)… I attended a photo workshop recently led by a well known, well-respected photographer. During one class on post-processing, he gave a demonstration of his typical work flow and when he was finished made the comment, “Bam, I’m in and out in 15 seconds, and on to the next photo.” Getting in touch with the emotional side of any craft takes a little longer. We’re in too much of a rush, and as Loori points out, to get in touch with the emotional aspect of your subject you need to learn how to be still.
Thank You! You have asked all the questions I have been asking myself for a while. I find it more and more that the geek is starting to win in situations that not so long ago passion and emotion of an artist drove the creative process. With more people having the tools to be creative such as with digital photography and computers does that make them artisans of a craft? Not to say these tools are not important to today’s artist to use in the creative process… but what if the power went out? True artisans would survive through their passion to create and communicate the emotions of their medium and subject matter.
So, with that said keep doing what you do and continue to turn to your passion for inspiration.
Sometimes we just have to put our emotions down on paper instead of trying to force an image to say them for us.
It is far easier for me to write an essay or poem or simple sentence than to attempt to make a photograph say something, primarily because I have been a professional writer far, far longer than a professional photographer.
Sometimes I write a piece before I go looking for an image that “fits” and other times I do the opposite. No matter what technique you use, our expressions, our hopes, our dreams and our feelings are shared, and that encourages and uplifts others.
Steve