it's not a "shot" .......... it's a picture

"menemsha memory"

martha's vineyard

100407

I gave a copy of my 2012 calendar to my therapist yesterday, with this image on the cover.  She started to say "nice shot"....but I have said that I don't like the language of aggression -- "shot", "capture" -- for photographs, and she changed her wording to say "nice picture".  We went on to talk a little about how the word "picture" is better, and her line of thought opened up many new possibilities for me which I have only begun to think about and see, but I want to say something about it now because it is fresh, exciting and encouraging.

Actually the key word IS "possibility".  It is much more exciting and encouraging to think about what lies between the four edges of the above image as a world to be explored -- a physical world of seas, skies, efforts and journeys, and a metaphorical world of those same things -- than it is to think about this image as a "shot", a "capture" of those fishing boats and piers, which contains, lists, controls,  enumerates, documents and fixes them.

We all know that those boats are not fixed.  We all know that they venture forth on seas known and unknown, in conditions safe and dangerous, so why not let this picture suggest all those possibilities in our minds and to our sight?  

I hope it does, and I wish you all the best of possibilities in your pictures.

~ robert

we need the language of love

I just read someone's nice comment someplace and I had to write this thought down, this thought that I have been thinking for such a long time.

In the world of photographic art we run the risk of being alienated from what we do by the fact that we are so involved with machines to do it.

I specifically would like to avoid using the word "capture" for what it is that happens when there is a wonderful intersection between me and the world I am seeing.  That intersection is mediated by the camera, and with the aid of the camera I try to share with others something about what I was seeing and feeling when I clicked the shutter.

Does it make any sense to use the word "capture" to express what is happening in this intersection?  I think not.  In what sense do I "capture" anything?  Did I put that sunset in my little box?  I don't think so.

Maybe in some sense I "touched" it.  I would like to think that I embraced it.  And if by my embrace I am able to share something with you then maybe I have succeeded a little bit with my picture.

I hope that photographic artists will abandon the language of hunting with machines -- "shoot" and "capture" -- and take up the language of love to talk about what they do -- "kiss", "touch", "embrace", and "share".

I like this way of thinking about it much better.

mistakes

This blog has always been as much about the process as about the pictures .... my process anyway.  How would I understand anything else, or anyone else's process?  I just know and try to know a little about how I try to make pictures.

What do I know?  I know I like to make mistakes, and I know I like to make them by myself.  All the varnishing I do today came from an utterly absurd mistake I once made......the paper and the print looked just so stupid with the wet varnish all over and through .....you could almost see right through to the other side.  Everyone knows that varnish is supposed to sit on the surface of the art....but to soak right through the paper ???   This was truly absurd, a definite failure of a try.

But, I was going away to Budapest, and instead of tossing the print in the dumpster, I left it home and I let it dry.  When I came back from my trip a month later, it had dried out, and it was looking wonderful, so I decided to keep doing this crazy varnish "through the paper".  Last summer the print that was that first mistake raised some money for the Falmouth Hospital and I was happy.

It is hard enough to make a mistake by myself.  I barely have the courage to do that.  I don't have the courage to make a mistake with someone else looking over my shoulder, or, fixing my mistakes for me.  And if that someone is extraordinary, then I surely do not have the courage to make a mistake.  This I know.

I also know that if I do not make mistakes I will not grow.  If I do not grow, I do not think I will be any good to anyone.  Not to myself, and not to anyone else.

If the only way to make mistakes is to be alone, then so be it.

Of course no one is truly alone;  I know I am not alone, even if I seem to do my best to drive people away.  There are a lot of people behind this image.  You can't see them, but they are there....... some day I will write out a list.

My Bodhi Tree

Sometimes we all have to pull back and look inside of ourselves in order to be true to anyone and to everyone. We all know this, and we all know how hard it is to do. So when someone takes that decisive step, it is clear that we must support them and it is also clear that we must thank them. Only when someone is not there does it become more clear how wonderful it is when they are.

This is an image and a message of thanks but it is not in fact dedicated to anyone, it is dedicated to everyone. It is dedicated to everyone because this need to withdraw and seek ourselves is a universal need, and it is dedicated to everyone because everyone and everything is connected.

This is my cedar tree on Patuisset. Of course it is not my tree, it is everyone's tree. it is the tree of all those wonderful people in this little paradise and it is connected to trees everywhere. It is connected to my grandfather's cedar a few miles north; it is connected to a cypress tree in Crespellano; it is connected to a Bodhi tree in India. it is connected to countless trees that I do not know.

I personally discovered that here, at this tree, I could touch the ground and ask it to bear witness to my own quest, and with Sile's help I found the technique to both touch the ground and reach for the sky in one image.

I put this tree here as a sign of thanks and as a return to the universe that bore it and me. The file is there. Anyone anywhere is welcome to do anything with it.

I, personally, will be here, touching the ground and asking it to bear witness to what is good, and searching the sky for dreams to dream.

Thank you.

Suffering

Girl with Mangoes, 1971

It is not a fun theme to explore, but it seems to me that suffering can produce great art. Without making any larger claims for this image, I know that I like it, and I know that on the day I took this picture, I was suffering greatly.

Here are a few more images that are connected to times of great pain, uncertainty or disorientation, where it seems clear to me that the act of making the image was part of a process of seeking a solution, of expression, or even of healing.

Bicycle at Rest, Florence, 1978

Knotting a Persian Rug, Khorasan, 1978

The Caregiver, Quissett, 2010

Documentation is an Illusion

In earlier posts I have discussed the burden of expectations that photography operates under because of its role as "documentation". Then my argument was that although the vast majority of photographs operate as documents, e.g. in newspapers, that there are many other roles for photographs, e.g. as an expression of creative imagination, and that there is no reason to believe that the rules for documentation applied to all photographs.

Now I think that the argument needs to go beyond this. I think the word document/documentary is suspect at its core, and is so much at risk for misuse or misunderstanding that it needs to be abandoned completely.

There are no "documents", no true records of "how it really was". Every photograph is a personal intervention, first by selection of space (framing), then by selection of time (release shutter). These choices, if made by people, have a message, a reaction that is expected from the viewer.

I grant that the intent may be to inform rather than to incite. I would prefer to use the word "report" when this is the aim rather than "document". If my aim is to inform you then I should follow methods and standards fit for that purpose. If my aim is to share a fantasy with you then there are no bounds.

I see on the New York Times web page an invitation to "Help us Document the decade". This is perverse. Why not just "Help us Remember the decade". Using the word "document" invites us to participate in an attempt at objectivity that is unnecessary and doomed.

Why not just acknowledge that this effort, worthy as it most likely is, is going to be a subjective personal effort of intersections between people and what happened mediated by a camera.

Because they will appear in a newspaper, it would be perfectly reasonable to request, or stipulate, and make a further request that the style of the photographs be "realistic" as in no further creative intervention beyond the "taking" of the photograph.

I think this would be better statement of what is the undertaking here, and a pretty worthy one at that.

The Art of Photography: Principles and Observations

On Starting another course at the Falmouth Artists Guild I thought it might be useful to set down some principles and observations.

1. This is about photography as an art form.

2. Art is a shared fantasy.

3. Realism is only one of the aesthetics available to the photographer.

4. The first rule of composition is "find great light". All other rules of composition are there to be broken; I don't think this one can be.

5. It's not that important what kind of camera you have, but it is important to know what it is doing.

6. Pixels are precious; know the count !

Photography as an Art Form

Last week I talked at Highfield Hall about Photography as an Art Form.  I may be able to write more but there are a number of simple propositions that are the core of what I want to say.

1.  Photorealism is as much an aesthetic in photography as it is in painting.

2. Although photography is a useful tool if one's objective is documentation, there is no reason that a photograph has to be a document.

3.  If you are in an art gallery, you should be expecting a work of creative imagination, not a document.

4.  The f64 group made a big mistake for photography by defining themselves by technique rather than by aesthetic objective.  Since then photography has been trapped by expectations of fstops and megapixels.

5.  An acquired image is a plastic form, not a fixed form.

6.  My relation with the forest is more important than the fine detail of its trees, leaves, and twigs.

7.  Art is a shared fantasy.

8.  The usage "artists and photographers" needs to be retired; so does the classification in bookstores, "art" in one section "photography" in another.

and a while

We are living in Ireland this year and there have been many steps to get here. It is strange to feel culture shock in a country where everyone speaks English; of course it is not just about language. And balancing the sense of things that ought to be familiar but are strange, are threads of memories from an Irish American childhood now connecting to their source.

My approach to pictures is the same, wander in the neighborhood, in our case Counties Galway and Mayo, around Castlebar.

Below, and on the home page of my web site for the time being, is one from northern County Galway that I like, from a volcanic crater lake called Lough Nafooey. A respected critic back in the U.S. thinks the skiff engaged head on in the picture is "too small". Is it? A positive way to put it is "minimalist". I like this description. The skiff is there; you know it. You know it is resting. The skiff to the right is only barely there, but you feel its presence too.



But I think this picture is about the lake, which stretches from the strangely sandy shore in such a gliding way that you feel you could just walk out on the water. To go more for that feeling, I think I will try some more with the skiffs even smaller. It is a magical place and I am making more trips there.

Since I last posted I have settled more comfortably into a mode of slightly abstracting using Photoshop tools. My aim at the moment is to achieve the effect at a level where it is not very noticeable. Is it here?

A set of images from Counties Mayo and Galway is available here.

Been a while

Yes it's been a while. I have been through March on the Cape and back to Budapest for April and May. Went to County Mayo, Ireland in April, and down to Tuscany in May for my annual pilgrimage to Florence. Only this time I decided to see what was the wonderful landscape of Val d'Orcia south of Siena all about. I have seen many beautiful images from here, and beautiful landscapes in "The English Patient" and "Gladiator" (Maximus' home) were set here.

I went, and extended my stay, so that this year's annual trip to Florence was really a trip to the Val d'Orcia. Did get to Florence though, and the highlight there was spending a day standing in the Uffizi arcade with the water color painters and the morocchini selling art prints and knockoff handbags, trying to sell some of my prints. Many compliments, no sales, lots of fun.

The Val d'Orcia was beautiful but gave me a strange feeling of taking pictures of what I have seen pictures of....not a very creative feeling. One day I saw a photo tour bus of photographers working on the famous stand of cypresses at Torrenieri. Their van had pulled off the highway that runs right past the spot, and I hope they did well, but it sort of reinforced the feeling of wondering where was my personal experience of this beautiful landscape.

I think it is emerging as I work through the images. Here are two from the day the sun really came out, the clouds blustered in spectacular fashion and I wandered wonderfully through the lands of San Giovanni d'Asso, as I moved from Montalcino to Pienza, by a very roundabout route.



I call the first one, "To Camprena" because just up the road and to the left is the turn to the monastery of Santa Anna in Camprena, which was the setting of "The English Patient" and some opening scenes of the movie were along this road I am sure.




The second one, "I Cipressini" is a revisit of the abstract look I started working on last winter. I like it, and am applying it to many of the Val d'Orcia pictures.

More images from the Val d'Orcia can be seen here

What is art ?

A couple of painter friends and I meet for coffee every week on the Cape to talk about our work and big questions like what is art. My contribution comes from the period when I was first entering shows and confronting exclusions that suggested that photographs might not be considered art. I wanted to know what terms could be used to enter a rebuttal discussion.

Also, as I was making inkjet prints on watercolor paper from digital files created from scanned negatives, I got myself into the question of just what is a photograph and how to call what I did....what to put on that little line of the entry card that said "medium".

This is what I came up with and have been working by.

First, I would hesitate to call this a definition of art...maybe elements.

Elements

1. the artist or subject.

2. the object...something the artist/subject engages with or reacts to. might be the artist him/herself. The easy example to imagine is a painter looking at an inspiring scene. We have subject and object.

3. the medium. what stuff is the subject going to use to convey something about the engagement with the object? Oil on canvas? Clay? Ink on paper? Sounds on a flute? Body motions?

4. the method. highly related to medium, but not the same. paper is a medium. painting on it is a method. printing on it using an engraved plate is another method. drawing on it is another method.

5. the art. this is the hardest part. something intangible that results from the artists engagement with the object and takes form in their application of method to the medium and elicits a reaction in the viewer/audience.

6. the audience. art is not complete without an audience. maybe art does not exist without an audience. if a tree falls in the forest and there is noone to see the painting I made of it, is the painting art? But this is a little sterile. It is not just the existence of the audience, but what happens in the soul of the audience when confronted with the art. Is it shocked? Stimulated? Pleased? Inspired? Amused? Turned on? Made thoughtful?

What is more important....what Leonardo did to make the Mona Lisa, or what the Mona Lisa does to us? Not sure, but if there were no "us" there might be a Mona Lisa, but it wouldn't be art.

Pictorialism

Knotting a Persian Rug

For a few years I have resisted using any of the effects filters in Photoshop - actually I have just been using Photoshop Elements so far - but I have been working on ground where it might make sense at some point. I like to work with abstracting in my images. Hard to say what that means in any specific or differentiating way as it's hard to think of a great image that does not abstract. I do know that I am not looking to max out the resolving capabilities of lens or image receptive medium; this is just not important to me. I am also interested in the common ground between paintings and photographs.

One of my favorite images - "Knotting a Persian Rug" - often gets the compliment that it reminds people of a Flemish primitive painting, specifically of a Vermeer. This is an incredible compliment to get, and I realized this more after I really dove into Vermeer courtesy of a great website that seems to have everything anyone one could ever want to know about him, including superb high resolution reproductions of his paintings. Here is a link to the "The Essential Vermeer".

Tired Maid

Getting wrapped up in Vermeer led me to make a picture which consciously appreciated his setting and lighting and subject. This image - "Tired Maid" - was captured in my room in the Pensione Sorelle Bandini, where I have stayed on my visits to Florence each of the last three years. I really like this setup and I hope to do a series of portraits in this spot when, and if, I get back to Florence and the Bandini this Spring.

I made a 12x18 inch varnished print of "Tired Maid" for my show at the Vagabond Gallery last summer (August, 2005), mounted in a black floater. In December, I made a smaller, 8x12 inch varnished print, and put this one in a subdued gold frame with a Florentine profile. I just found out on Friday that it was accepted in the Falmouth Artists Guild annual juried photography show.

I am glad of that, and eager to see the show when I get back to Cape Cod (am in Budapest now), but I am also waiting and hoping for the Falmouth Artists Guild to open their main, summer juried show to photography. I have been urging this idea for a number of years as I think it would be very exciting for me creatively and hopefully for the larger community to have photographs hung side by side with paintings. I have seen interactions between photographers and painters grow at the Guild in the last few years, and the number of shows excluding photography has happily shrunk.

The Cape Cod Art Association just took this step in 2005, opening up all of their juried shows to photographers, and photography to their juried membership categories. The Association has created a very active photography program, with courses, workshops, and a photography club.


I taught courses at both the Guild and the Art Association last summer, as well as at the Cataumet Arts Center. I enjoyed everybody, and the work, and became persuaded of the excitement of class photo shoots, securing my favorite image of the summer on an outing to Nobska Light. Its title is "Beach Chat in the Late Afternoon".

I used Photoshop (i.e. Elements) on this image to remove one of the photo shoot participants from the middle ground of the beach. I don't think anyone can object to this, especially if they understand that my purpose with this image is to convey something of the excitement and romance and beauty of this spot on a late summer day, something other artists, such as painters do as well, routinely adding and removing elements to support the composition and their desired impact.

I think the key is that my purpose, clearly conveyed, is to do art, not to document or report. If this image were appearing in a newspaper, as news, or as documentation of what the scene was like at Nobska on a certain day in August, 2005, then I and the newspaper would be under an obligation to communicate that this photographic image had been changed, and a person removed. But, in an art gallery, or on a web site of "fine art", I don't feel that I am under any obligation to state that, although I am aware that people may have a lingering expectation for a photograph to be of something that was "really there". Actually everything you see here was "really there" but some more was there that you don't see. And that is in fact true of any photograph, isn't it??

I worked through this question of modifying images a few years ago when I first encountered the tools that made this possible. The result of that "thinking through" was the essay What is a Photograph ?

Beginning

This is the start of another writing effort. My idea is to record a trail of my thoughts as I work on my photographs. You can see my images at www.robertmanz.net, and when I understand more about the blog process, I will move this blog over to my website.

Here is an image I have been working on recently. It is interesting to me because it is the first time I have used the abstraction tools in Photoshop to give a result that I might actually print and show.