I came across a couple of interesting videos of photographers on the web today.
The first is a wonderful video of Michael Kenna photographing in the snow in Hokkaido, Japan. The video is partly an interview, partly a visual narrative of Kenna at work, and partly a collection of interesting scenes and images associated with some of his photographs. There is a lot to think about and consider in the video, and it struck several chords for me. Among many was his use of the word “hunt” to describe the act of looking for and finding photographic images, and not perhaps just in the sense of tracking and capturing an image, but also, I think, related to the need to be patient and to understand the “quarry.” I often have thought about the “hunt” aspect of looking for subject. (Link originally seen at George Barr’s Behind the Lens blog.)
The second video is rather different but also features a very talented landscape photographer, Charlie Cramer. Unlike the slow moving and rather poetic video of Kenna with its long silent shots and occasional sparse music, this video interview (on the Marc Silber show) is pretty “straight ahead” – basically a record of Charlie talking about his ubiquitous framing guide, a sheet of mat board with a 4 x 5 cutout that he uses to help him visual photographs while he is in the field. This is interesting and Charlie makes a compelling case for using this “tool.” (I’ve thought about it, but never “gone there.” Perhaps I will now…) More interesting to me were a few side comments that Charlie makes in the course of the interview. For one, he refers to the frame as a “blood pressure meter,” and suggests that he more or less “just knows” when a scene is going to work because when he views it in the frame he feels his blood pressure rises. (In another context he has spoken of hearing the scene whisper, “Take me!”) The point, I think (and forgive me if I have this wrong, Charlie!) is that all of the rules of composition in the world won’t help you that much in the end – essentially you need to be able to look at the subject and “just know” that it will work and how.
Charlie, it reassures me to hear that photographers like you rely on the heart and the gut and the emotional response to the scene. My thinking is that much of the composition analysis that people talk and write about is really more about trying to understand how and why a particular wonderful photograph works than it is about taking those “rules” and applying them to the goal of more predictably making good photographs. To put it more simply, I think that one perhaps needs to build a very extensive and rich visual vocabulary in a thoughtful and aware manner… and then go out and see what moves you.
When you write that “out of hundreds or thousands exposed, only a few are truly special,” I relate this partially to my idea about making photographs on a regular basis and thinking about the musical concept of “practice” – in other words, more or less tuning up the system of vision, judgment, awareness, and all of that so that when one of those special moments occurs there is a better chance that you’ll be looking, see it, and be prepared to create a photograph from it.
For me, realizing that most photographs will not be great is liberating! It is a terrible burden – and crushing on creativity, I think – to feel an obligation to make every photograph stand up to comparison to the greatest work. How could anyone make photographs under that kind of pressure!?
I’ve been tempted once or twice to share a post with a title along the lines of “I make crappy photographs! And lots of them!” I’ve avoided this so far because some might miss the humor in the remark and instead think I’m embracing mediocre work. But I’m not! I’m acknowledging that if we hope to make a few great photographs – and I’m still trying! – that we cannot only wait for and make those great photographs – along the way we have to make many that are the best we can do at the time but which may be no more than that.
I do have one question for you. Sometimes I make a photograph that I think is among my best – it really works for me – and the response to it from others is not what I expected. And on the other hand, sometimes a photograph that I think is decent but which doesn’t really “raise my blood pressure” does seem to get that response from others. How to deal with that issue?
Oh, and had you seen the Kenna video before?
Dan
Dan,
I think that, after some experience, photographers can make good compositions. But then it comes down to determining which images are “fine” and which are “wonderful”. How can you tell when something special is happening out there? Instead of using my intellect, I’ve come to trust my emotional response to a scene (the blood-pressure analogy). Unfortunately, in most cases even this does not seem to translate into an exciting image! I used to think that Ansel Adams only made great photographs, but he seems to have had the same problem that I and most photographers experience. That out of hundreds or thousands exposed, only a very few are truly special… Charlie
Two exceptional videos, beautiful, inspiring and informative. Thanks for sharing.