Chromasia posted a pleasure doing business / 10 November, 2005 and John from Shots Photography started a discussion. I’m not sure what the heart of the discussion was about, but I posted some thought about photography and the medium that I felt were interesting enough to repost here.
I’m terribly confused about what the debate going here actually is. Anyone care to sum it up?
While I’m waiting for that I’ll throw my random two cents in, because heck, I’m always up to talking about the medium.
Personally, I think the photoblog has limitations as a medium. I’m not putting the photoblog down, man, I love my photoblog. But the way you display images and the context you put them in is as much a part of the editorial process as photoshopping the image to turn the raw data into the picture you wanted.
Sometimes I get frustrated a little with the linear nature of the photoblog format. I used to post whole galleries at one time and put up a notification. When you do that, it makes more sense to view images not as distict wholes, but as parts of a bigger picture or idea.
I’ve pondered on starting a photography/literary magazine just so I would have a place to publish a different kind of photoset. Maybe I will someday, when I have time. ;-)
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I’ll also chime in with John on the issue of how it becomes difficult to try new things when you become accomplished. I think part of the reason for that is because there are less new things to try. I don’t want to continue doing things that I know don’t work, and so tend to avoid a lot of techniques with serious flaws. The challenge as a photographer, as you learn the craft and what goes on and a more fundamental level, is to take that increased understanding and use it to create something new and perhaps better.
I can see the benefit of forcing yourself to engage in something random occasionally, just to startle yourself out of the norm. But I think you will be better off in focusing your experiments. Createa scenario or a challenge and try to solve the problem. Set up controlled experiments like, how many ways can I present the same subject? or how many different way can I light the same scene without changing the angle or lens on my camera. I think those are better ways of breaking out of the mold than simply doing things at random.
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Well, that was a long rambling response. Dave, I like both todays and yesterday’s images. My reasons are simple. The subjects in both were caught in moments of genuine emotion. Regardless of how the model’s may have actually felt, their expressions are true. I find that little window into the heart of humanity interesting.