Earlier today I saw the notion of “photography secrets” come up in an online discussion. There is, I think, a lot to say about this concept — too much, in fact, for me to fully deal with in this little “morning musings” blog post. But I do want to consider a few aspects of the concept of secrets relative to photography.
The word “secret” can be used in several ways — a bit to my surprise, since I began this morning with more or less a single idea of what the word implies in mind. (A look at a dictionary often sets me straight about such simplistic assumptions!) My original definition was, more or less: important information that is kept from others. Or, as one source states, “Kept hidden from knowledge or view; concealed.”
This implies that the existence of secrets is the result of intention — “people in the know” possess special knowledge and they act to control and conceal that knowledge so that others will not obtain it, thus giving themselves an advantage over others. It is not just that most people don’t know the secret, but that it is “kept hidden” intentionally by those who do. A related description is: Known or shared only by the initiated. This takes the concept just a bit farther — not only is the information “kept” secret, but it is also shared among a special, select group.
In photography, the mystery of secrets takes several forms. One is technical — we’ve all seen the “10 Secrets to Taking Great Photos” sort of stuff, which often recounts some standard practices or techniques that might well be useful to know. Another category of secret has to do with subject or place — it often comes up in relationship to “secret places” to photograph, locations that are not yet known widely. There is also the “secrets of the photography business” stuff — again, with the implication that there are things about the business that someone is hiding from you. Let me take a quick look at these:
- Technical secrets: It is my opinion that there really aren’t any such “secrets.” There are things you don’t know yet, but with a bit of reading, sleuthing, and experimentation you can figure out just about all of them. This takes some combination of digging, listening, and trying things out on your own. (One of the great virtues of digital photography technology is that it makes experimentation so easy and inexpensive!) It can be faster to get someone to just tell you — and I’ve been the beneficiary of such help many times — but these things are all techniques, not secrets. You can learn them and then decide whether they are useful to you. (Just yesterday I was thinking about a particular type of black and white architectural photography that has recently become popular in the online world — so I spent an hour with an image in Photoshop and managed to figure out how to create something that aligns with that genre.)
- Business secrets: There are many others in the photography world who understand this subject far better than I, but I have learned a few things. One interesting realization was that “the way it works” is sometimes confusing not because someone is keeping secrets from you, but because some of these things are just a bit confusing by nature! It would be easier if there were rules for every eventuality and every transaction, but you’ll quickly find out that there are quite a few cases in which there are no rules — and the goal is just to find an outcome that works well for all concerned. (Disclaimer: When it comes to business stuff a) there are laws that come into play, and b) you’ll have to ask someone other than me for advice!)
- Location secrets: There are a couple of reasons for being secretive about locations, but here I’ll just deal with the idea that “owning” a secret place can give one a leg up on other photographers. Perhaps for the first person who “discovers” a very special place or, more likely, for the first person who thinks to photograph a somewhat known place in a special way, there can be some value in being first and in being nearly the only person there. However, any specialness created in this way carries the seeds of its own destruction — a place that is deemed “special” because it was not previously known soon become the object of lots of other photographers, and it rarely takes long at all of it to become a commonly photographed icon. There are plenty of examples of this process — while Galen Rowell did make the first well-known photograph of the “secret” Horsetail Fall in Yosemite (which had apparently been missed by others for decades), today there are thousands of photographers producing photographs that are arguably very similar and even, in some cases, perhaps better.
After having suggested that there “are no secrets,” I realize that it isn’t quite that simple, and that there are good reasons for being “secretive” (or at least very discreet) about certain things — but for reasons other than trying to keep them for oneself and no one else. In fact, there are secrets in photographs.
Sometimes we know of a subject that is unprotected or too fragile to withstand a lot of attention. Once you have witnessed the destruction that can come from people “loving a place to death” you may understand this more clearly. There is a story of a particular wildflower location in California, about which much was written during an exceptional bloom year right about the time that internet sharing took off. In fact, this specific location was not really any more special than any of thousands of other similar locations — but this one was written about, a certain momentum developed online, and thousands of people headed straight to this one spot almost at once. In short order, the very beauty that had attracted people to the place was ruined as flowers and surrounding vegetation was trampled and permanent use trails crisscrossed the area. Once you see this happen to a place that you know to be both fragile and beautiful, you will likely reconsider how much you write/say about it — not because you are trying to “own” a place for yourself but because the place itself is too important and fragile, and because you know that there are many other similar places that can support visits if they are not all concentrated in one place.
This leads to a second thought. It takes a while to see past the compelling power of photographic icons (which I also photograph at times), but eventually most photographers realize that it isn’t the specific thing you photograph as much as how you photograph the things you see that matters. The initial and powerful excitement of seeing and photographing an icon or potential icon for the first time is replaced by the compelling challenge of trying to see more deeply into the subjects that move us — the specific place is not as important as what we express in our photographs. It may even distract people from what the photograph really reveals when we imply to strongly that the specific thing is the actual subject, when in reality it is light, form, color, shape, the evocation of feeling, and a sharing of our own way of seeing the world.
Finally, a photograph can be about certain kinds of secrets. A couple of Diane Arbus quotes come to mind:
“A photograph is a secret about a secret. The more it tells you the less you know.”
“I really believe there are things nobody would see if I didn’t photograph them.”
An implication is, I think, that photography is not about keeping secrets, but more about revealing secrets to viewers who are open to seeing them — “seeing” the secrets revealed in photographs often requires both the photographer and the viewer to look beyond the obvious material “reality” of the image and to see what else is there.
I’ll end with one more quote, this time from Minor White.
“One should not only photograph things for what they are but for what else they are.”
Morning Musings are somewhat irregular posts in which I write about whatever happens to be on my mind at the moment.
G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
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The “secrets” thing is a notion that can be applied to every pursuit of artistic or technical excellence. The common thread (using photography as an example) among them all is this: Person sees a photograph they find to be artistically or technically brilliant…or more importantly, they find it is beyond their current capability.
They want that. They wish their ability to immediately mirror that of the photograph in which they’ve fallen in love. What their mind does not reason is that the person who took the photograph took and learned from thousands of other photographs before achieving what said person has come to admire. It’s awfully convenient to forget that much hard work, experimentation, and trial and error lead to it.
Michael Jordan (perhaps the greatest basketball player of all time) is famous for noting just how many times he has failed to put the ball in the basket. I realize now that this is nearing the tangential argument of weather one is born with talent or not. But, there are no secrets, just knowledge one has yet to learn. The misconception that it doesn’t take hard work to get there is the desperate hope of some and the marketing ploy for others.
Dusty: Thanks for writing. You make a whole lot of important and pertinent points here, including about…
How we all see things that we aspire to understand or to be able to do ourselves, and the processes by which we try to understand how to do these things. We know that there is something that those who do the thing well possess that we do not (yet) possess ourselves, and we try to understand and possess that thing. In photography, one of the ways that some people do this is by trying to acquire the equipment that they associate with good photography — to the point that in some cases pursuit of the gear becomes more important that pursuit of the photographs. (In a sense, who can blame such people — up to a point — since equipment can be one avenue towards understanding photography, and it is a road that most of us have traveled at some point.)
Another notion is that these folks who produce such compelling and enviable work must know some “secrets” that the rest of us don’t know. In a roundabout way I was trying to get at this idea of “secrets,” and several related points. While it is understandable, it is a mistake to presume that when we don’t understand something that it is because there are secrets about it that are not revealed to us. Here we mistake the cause of our own as-yet-incomplete knowledge, assuming that the issue is that someone is keeping something from us (or that this “something” is only shared among the special people) rather than that this knowledge is obtainable… through careful attention, research, reading, experimentation, and long practice.
It is almost as if the Europeans of distant history who were not yet really aware of the Western Hemisphere had blamed the people who lived there for keeping it a secret! It was unknown to these European people, but it was not a secret!
The point about Michael Jackson and failure is a critical one that is well understood by virtually every good photographer I’ve known. The fact is that, at least in many genres of photography, there are far more “failures” than successes. One touchstone for me is the famous statement by Ansel Adams that a dozen really excellent photographs in a year was a very good crop. Needless to say, he made a lot more than 12 exposures each year!
Frankly, of all the things that might contribute to the production of great photographs, knowing “secrets” is pretty close to the bottom of a list that is topped by things like focus, doing the work, practice, more practice, experience, training the vision, and more.
Dan
Ernie, I think you are getting at some of the real secrets that might potentially be contained in a photograph. Your thoughts are probably worth at least another entire morning musing post on their own: the “secrets” about the meaning of a photograph that only the photographer can know, the individual ways in which we respond to images. Some of the quotes I included near the end of the post probably tie to your important point.
Those are secrets within photographs – not secrets about where and how to make them. :-)
Take care,
Dan
Well I’m sure you might have more to comment on this thought which speaks a bit to the very last parts of your great Morning Musing.
That is, sometimes a photograph is special to the photographer that is not visible/obvious in the photograph itself. It might be the special feeling you (the photographer) have from a being in a place where you took a photo.
For example, when I took a photograph I treasure at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial (aka Memorial Wall), no one else knows the depth of the feeling I had reading the names and the thoughts I had about classmates that were lost there, and my reflections on my own life in regards to the Vietnam War. Granted the photograph might evoke some of those same things in people looking at it, but their thoughts would never be my thoughts. Those are “secret” to me – when I see the photograph again, they come right back as if I were standing there.
And in another photograph, a simple one of my Mom and me exploring some critter at a lakeside in New York during the fall, one might guess its a Mom and her son, and that the fall colors are pretty, but I don’t they could ever share the sense of discovery and bonding that we had at that moment. That is a “secret meaning” that I see every time I see that photograph.
So, there is another type of photograph secrets – the ones that only the person taking the photograph knows inside their head.
Well said, however I do know that on the technology issue, Charlie Cramer has secret camera settings that only he can see, like the “make incredible” button.
Sven: Yes, but I have the secret of that button and I’m not going to share it! Of course, even if I did… “only he can see” it. ;-)
Regarding the first two points; technical & business, I think if anyone is touting that then they are probably trying to sell you something. Run for the hills I say!
Richard, you are so much less subtle than I am. ;-)
Just calling it like it is. :-)