Earlier this week a reader posted a message on Facebook about one of my photographs (probably one of the more perplexing ones to some viewers/readers – a black and white photograph of a wall) and said: “not to be meant as criticism: but why did you take this picture – what intrigued you about the scene?”
I thought this was a great question, and I answered as best as I could. (Admittedly, I’m not always fully aware of precisely why I make a particular photograph – I may simply know at some intuitive level that it is interesting to me.) My quick answer was:
First, I’m intrigued by minimalist geometric (and sometimes natural) subjects. There were several things that caught my attention here, including: the gross difference between the large (almost but not quite) black area on the right and the thin and brighter area of the window frame on the left. I also liked the way the faint (and fading) shadow continues the line of the one bit of structure than interrupts the vertical pattern on the left side. And, although it isn’t visible until you see a large print, the larger area on the right side of the frame is far from plain – it is a fabric-like texture that is, itself, divided into rectangular squares.
It was, of course, first shot in color. I’ve gone back and forth on the color v. black and white question. The colors are so muted that you might actually think that the color print was black and white, so I’ve more or less decided to go with black and white.
Finally, you might think of this as a sort of “study” in which I’m experimenting with some very simple form ideas. As you might have noticed if you follow my stuff much, I post a photograph every day – and I have no illusions that I can produce 365 great photographs every year! :-)
And then I also included: “I’d be interested to hear more about your thoughts and reactions to the photograph. Ultimately, that interests me as much or more as my own thoughts.”
Part of her response included:
… I find it fascinating, in all its “mutedness” – but it is such an unlikely picture – and image of something that doesn’t easily catch someones eye. People pass this scene by – or better – they do not even go there (why would someone go to a wall besides a window – we’d not face it, we’d turn our backs on it). So ordinary, yet fascinating…
Her response was wonderful, and made me think of some things implicit in the photographs that I had not recognized until she suggested them. I had thought of the “mutedness,” which I thought of as a sense of “quiet” in the image. But her idea about how “people pass by the scene” and the comment about “why would someone go to a wall beside a window…” made me realize some things about the photograph that I had not thought of – partly precisely what she noted, but beyond that some idea that the photograph suggests things that are not really in the frame, and one thing that is at least odd about it is that the subject is the thing that a visitor to this place would be least likely to look at. I often learn a lot about my photographs from others. That may seem like an odd thing to say, but I can almost never see my photographs quite the same way that others do – if for no other reason than because I created them.
