There is a lot to say about the subject of feedback – what constitutes useful feedback, when it is and is not appropriate to offer it, when to be “direct” and when to be diplomatic, how to offer it, and so forth. I’m thinking about this today – though I think about it often – after a thought-provoking experience I had yesterday.
Yesterday I visited Charles Cramer’s beautiful solo show at the Center for Photographic Art in Carmel – for the third time! I made a point of dropping in one more time because a) this was the final day of the show, b) I’m a huge fan of Charlie’s work, c) I knew that he would be there in the afternoon, and d) it gave me a perfect excuse to photograph on the Monterey Peninsula yesterday before and after visiting the show!
Charlie asked several of us two questions – one merely difficult and the other very difficult. The former, merely difficult question was, more or less, “Which are your favorites?” This wasn’t too difficult, since there are some very specific photographs in this show that “speak” to me very powerfully. In fact, I basically responded to this question by pointing those out and trying (with varying levels of success) to say something about what makes those photographs “work” for me. But there are so many that work in so many different ways that I could really do the question justice. Some work “as photographs” alone, there are others that I probably see differently because of my affinity for the subjects, some require some time to understand, and so forth.
But the second question was the really tough one: “Which photograph(s) would you leave out of the exhibit?” Really? You are asking me, Charlie? :-)
But then I thought about this a bit more and decided to attempt an answer. I’m not going to write about which photographs I would leave out – frankly I would add more of his photographs rather than removing any – since my selections are not the point. But I do want to think out loud a bit more about the question and the value of asking it and trying to answer.
I think that most photographers understand something that I’ve written about before, namely that the photographer is usually the person least able to form an objective opinion about his or her own work. The photographer is the one person in the world whose view of his/her photography is the most different from everyone else’s view. The photographer knows things about the photograph that no one else can know. These range from the technical (“I wish I had focused 6 inches closer.”) to the intent (“I wanted to juxtapose this form/shape/color with that form/shape/color and/or evoke this mood.”) to the experience (“I walked 5 miles before dawn to be here for this, then waited an hour in freezing fog before this instant of astonishing light appeared and was gone!”). The creator of the photograph (or musical composition, or poem, or painting, or dance, or…) knows it in an entirely different and profoundly individual way. (See a guest post by Gary Crabbe about photo editing at Jim M. Goldstein’s blog for some related practical thoughts about this issue.)
When you talk to photographers about how others react to their photographs you will often hear a familiar story that includes variations on the following: “The photo of mine that others like best is not my favorite photograph.” “I’m disappointed that no one likes this photo of mine – I think it is my best!” “I was sure that this one was going to be successful, but others don’t see it that way!” “It surprised me that this one is my best seller,” or “I’ve never understood why people like this photograph of mine so much!” In short, others don’t view our work the way we do. (There are exceptions – those occasions when someone does see exactly what we saw in the photograph when we made it.)
My reason for this lengthy preamble is to explain why I decided to go ahead and try to answer Charlie’s question – with all of the reservations I had about doing so – but only after I put my response into a certain perspective. I don’t believe that Charlie will – much less he should! – give much weight to my individual preferences and tastes. As if to reinforce this, I got to hear the choices of a couple other photographers while I was there – and we all picked different photographs! This suggests that there was nothing intrinsically less valuable about the photographs we mentioned – it is far more likely that our selections said more about us individually than about the photographs themselves. That said, I’m betting that Charlie understands this perceptual issue (photographer’s view versus “public’s view”) and is genuinely interested in trying to understand what others are thinking as they view his work. Ask twenty people for their thoughts about your photograph and you might get nineteen responses that are predictable and/or not helpful… and one insight that turns out to be very important. Or, if fifteen people seem to react consistently to a photograph in a way that you did not expect, this suggests that it may be worth considering their reaction and trying to understand it.
For my part, I’m (almost) always interested in hearing reactions to my photographs, especially when a photograph does speak to a viewer. I’m not so much asking people to tell me “what I should have done.” (I usually avoid offering that sort of commentary on the work of others unless they ask for it – and even then I’m careful about how I offer such a response.) I am interested in the individual response – does one person like it and why. But beyond that I’m also interested to note trends in the general responses evoked by a photograph. Do three people respond to it, or do thirty? What do they respond to in the photograph? What thoughts or associations does the photograph evoke?
There is much, much more to say about this – how to balance what “others” see against what you believe is there, for example – but I’ve rambled long enough for this morning…
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Dave, I wanted to think a bit about your post before replying.
I’m no expert in the field of art criticism, so we can both take what I write with an appropriately small grain of salt. In answer to the question of whether we should judge the value of photographs objectively or subjectively, I think the best answer is, “Yes. Or maybe no. But sometimes both.”
There are things we can say objectively about a that we like or dislike. We can certainly see clumsy technical execution – poor focus in a photograph where it does not seem to be intended, plain and boring content and composition where we think the photographer had something else in mind, work passed off as technically excellent that isn’t, photographs being described as pure and unaltered when this isn’t the case, failure to retouch blemishes that the photographer was probably unaware of, odd colors in images that seem to intend to suggest realism, blown highlights and blocked shadows due to lack of control or attention. We can also identify aesthetic issues with photographs that don’t speak to us or which speak negatively: odd or confused composition, mutually distracting elements, boring or unclear subject, etc.
It is easy to find things that are wrong with photographs. I am certainly not immune to this temptation. Sometimes I see work that I regard as pretentious that doesn’t stand up to scrutiny – it seems to me to be passed of as something great and astonishing when I respond to it quite differently. In fact, some people use easy criticism of the photographs of others as a way to reinforce their own weak egos… ;-)
But I’ve also been wrong a good number of times.
Because of this, I have to remind myself regularly that to a certain extent my taste is only my taste. For example there are certain genres of photography that do not seem to value the attention to technique and detail that some of us like is important. I have been guilty of looking at such work and thinking, “That is just a snapshot!” But then I’ll “get” some of these photographs and find out that it isn’t quite that simple. (I saw a photograph of a piece of trash on the street earlier this week – and, I’ll admit reluctantly, that I actually thought it was a very effective photograph! And not only was it a “picture of trash,” but it violated pretty much all of the aesthetic and technical “rules” of photography! Go figure…)
It is also the case that, as lots of folks keep telling us, every photograph involves a bunch of participants – yes, the subject in front of the camera, and most certainly the eyes behind the camera, but also those who view the photograph and who bring their own perspectives and backgrounds to the image.
In the end, at least for me, a lot of this turns out to remain very mysterious. And I’m fine with that.
I have to admit that I’ve not seen Charlie’s work but your post brings up another question that has been much on my mind recently. Is there such a thing as an empirically good or bad photograph? I tend to believe that the merit of a photograph is something that is very personal and that, if an image speaks to you, it may not speak the same way to someone else.
To offer one concrete example of this, I had some work in a show a couple of years ago and attended the opening with my mother-in-law who is a pretty well-respected local artist and photographer whose work I really enjoy. As we drove home from the gallery, we both agreed that the show was excellent but, on discussing particular images, it transpired that my favourite 3 pictures were her least favourite images in the show and, conversely, the images that worked best for me were the ones which she was least impressed with. I reckon we both have good taste in photography yet our choices were diametrically opposed.
Over the years, I’ve grown to enjoy all kinds of criticism but I typically take it with a grain of salt and realise that a given reviewer’s comment isn’t necessarily the only valid way to look at a particular photograph.
John, the beauty of his subjects and the clarity of his vision of them aside for a moment, Charlie’s prints are “delicious,” to continue with your food analogy. If anyone were to see me inspecting them very closely, which I most certainly do, it is not that I’m looking for flaws, it is that I’m deeply admiring what he does and trying to understand it.
Dan
Wow. I know I’m an idiot for never having seen Charlie’s work, but thanks for enlightening me! I can see how he’s an inspiration for you, Dan, and both of your work inspires me. In fact I wish I was out there somewhere right now. I know those prints must be damn near edible. Great stuff.
Dan – thanks for both the thoughts and the links to Charles Cramer’s work. I really appreciate the effort that he put into that YouTube video. A lot of very understated, but very deep, information in there. And gorgeous photos.
Charlie understands just fine, you’ll win that bet. ;) I had the privilege of taking several of his workshops back in the 80’s. This is one of the questions he would ask of everyone during the critique sessions. He is a great teacher of photography and is always teaching. Thanks for sharing this, I wish I could have been there too!
Thanks to both of you for posting. The youtube video is even more interesting now that I have seen the prints and heard him discuss them.
The comment about Charlie as a teacher is especially interesting to me. I’ve only had one semi-official experience with Charlie in the role of teacher. Because of a long-time personal relationship with Charlie (who played organ at our wedding!) I had renewed my contact with him a few years ago in the context of photography. I asked him some questions about printing and he invited me to come over to his place and bring a couple photo files.
I’m not certain what I was expecting exactly but what I ended up receiving was quite astonishing. He selected one of my photographs and took it through a basic workflow to fine tune it. The specific photograph and the end result in that context is not the important thing. What is important is that I learned more about photography and printing during the morning he generously shared with me than I had learned in all other ways up until that time. There were certainly many specific techniques that I picked up, all of which immediately became core features of my own workflow. But more important, the experience enabled me to see my photographs as prints and the process of getting them there in an almost entirely different way than I had until that time – I can’t over-emphasize just how significant this has been.
I say this not just as someone who does photography and who appreciates photography, but also as a person whose career has been in higher education for several decades and who knows a lot about what makes for effective and even transformative teaching.
Dan