Sometimes, for me, it is enough that a photograph is just what it purports to be. It doesn’t conceal some meaning or tell a story, doesn’t point to the photographer’s social agenda, and doesn’t reveal the photographer’s psychological anguish. It isn’t reportage or social commentary or documentary photography.
This, e.g., is a photograph of a flower. Just a flower.
Recently I heard a comment attributed to Todd Rundgren about the direct relationship between effort and value.1 Something to the effect: “Effort increases value.” The people talking understood Rundgren’s point to be: the harder you work at making a [piece of art] and the more effectively you convey that effort to the audience, the more valuable the [piece of art]. Some version of that opinion seems rather common lately. See, for example:
While these examples are drawn from photography, I could collect them from most other arts (e.g., writing, painting, woodworking, baking, knitting, sandcastle building).
I confess: I don’t see how knowing all this background context contributes to the value of a photograph (or any piece of art). For me, knowing the labor invested in producing a photograph has no effect on its aesthetic quality (or lack thereof). Perhaps I will appreciate or understand the photograph in a different way knowing the calories burnt or miles trekked or hours spent searching for that decisive moment, but I doubt that understanding will make like a photograph that I initially disliked, or make me dislike a photograph I had previously liked. In the end, the photograph is either aesthetically pleasing or not, visually compelling or not.
Thinking more about the comment attributed to Rundgren: what if he wasn’t saying anything about audiences but was, instead, saying something about makers. If approached that way, Rundgren’s comment contains a degree of truth but is not particularly new. I expect someone who is passionate about a particular endeavor to spend loads of time and effort doing it, more time and effort than people who are not passionate about it. That passion and effort will, I suspect, lead to making better art, excelling at some sport, crafting better tables, grilling better burgers, whatever. I’m not sure what Rundgren meant by “value” (and not even sure that he said it — I couldn’t be bothered to look it up), but maybe we can understand him to mean something like: If you work really, really hard, and do so with intentionality, you will get better at something. Then whatever you produce will be more valuable because it more fully embodies your intentions and goals. But that form of value is first and foremost a value to the artist (or athlete or woodworker or chef or whatever). Any value that an audience invests in the product (art, performance, burger, etc.) is secondary and a different type of value.
Robert Mapplethorpe Flora is a lovely book that highlights the subtle and varied beauty of flowers. And while we can read all sorts of meaning into his photos, meaning most often it seems shaped by what somebody thinks of Mapplethorpe the photographer, in the end they are just beautiful photographs.
I don’t think every photograph has to tell a story or reveal the inner psychological states of the photographer. Sometimes all I want to do is look at a pretty photograph.
Everybody takes photos of flowers. Snapshots. Artsy black-and-whites. Bold colors against dark backgrounds. Everybody. They are a photographic cliché, though I confess I don’t know quite what the original meaning or significance was in taking photos of flowers and so I don’t know what the practice has lost. I suspect part of the draw is: flowers are dependable subjects. They are easy to find. They don’t move. They can be arranged as you please.
Some photographers are able to transform ordinary flowers (and vegetables and fruits) into sensual images, e.g., Weston or Mapplethorpe.
For me photographing flowers combines the pleasures of working quietly and methodically. I enjoy the slow, deliberative process. I also learn a lot about light and how to get the light to illuminate the flower in different ways. But I will freely admit: I also enjoy the photographs. I think they can be beautiful: the elegant shapes and curves, the rich, subtle tones. Photographs don’t always have to tell a story or make a point or reveal some philosophical truth. Sometimes, it is enough for a photograph just to be pretty.
With the new month comes a new postcard. This month I was inspired by the detritus I found on a local walk and recollections of Penn’s portraits of cigarettes. Let me know if you want to receive a postcard.
A selection of cigarette butts from a local “nature trail.” I look forward to a day when the cigarette butt goes the way of the pulltab.
When I started this Daily Photography Project I committed to taking one still life photograph each day. Nothing too elaborate, no lovely basket of fruit spilling across an opulent tablecloth, or pile of exotic flowers and fine bone china. For my goal was not composition. Instead, I had pragmatic and instrumentalist goals: to become better at using my flashes and better at understanding how to light something simple. The variable was the lighting, not the subject.
Now for nearly four weeks I have been taking photos of glasses, usually filled with some liquid, and the occasional flower. But just taking 30 photos without pausing to think about them seems unlikely to help me improve, except by chance. So I’ve spent some time looking at the photos and thinking about how they did or did not capture what I had in mind, and how much and what sort of work I had to do to get them close to what I imagined.
I’ve learned some things, and become aware of others. I have a new appreciation for and awareness of how shiny surfaces reflect light from other light surfaces. I think now about how a flash (or any light source) will reflect on certain surfaces and not others:
How many times have I had to adjust slightly the flash so it doesn’t overexpose the close side of a glass? Or how many times have I had to put up a dark book or some other object to block the light from spilling back from the far wall, which happens to be white and therefore rather bright?
I have a better sense of how shadows fall depending on how near or far the light source is from the object, and how large or small that light source. Want a hard, distinct shadow line? Take off the softbox and move the flash a bit further away. Smooth shadows? Softbox and close flash.
I haven’t discovered any insights. What I have become familiar with these lessons to the point that I can now produce the effect I want without going through a series of trials and errors. Insofar as I wanted to learn something about flashes, this exercise has been useful.
However, I have largely disliked this project. I find it dull. I have fallen into the habit of thinking that making the single photograph (which I do each evening) is sufficient. As long as I do that, I’ve accomplished something for the day. Consequently, I find myself taking fewer photographs as I wander with my camera. As if I’ve replaced taking photos of the world around me with taking my daily flash photo.
I appreciate that other people might find these daily projects useful and generative. But I don’t, at least not in a particularly fulfilling way. Useful? Maybe for acquiring a particular skill. Generative? No. Maybe I need to think about the project differently. Maybe by imposing greater constraints, e.g., a photo each day of the same half-filled glass. Michael Beirut who popularized the 100-day project reportedly drew his left hand every day for 100 days. Or more open, e.g., commit to taking a photo each day that captures the sense of some word I’ve chosen for that day (Day 1: Green; Day 2: Anger; Day 3: Wealth; etc.).
In the end, for me, I worry all these parameters will encourage me to produce quantity without encouraging quality or creativity or imagination or questions.
With the new month comes a new postcard. For this month I tried to produce one photograph each day of something on my table. Some of those photos were better than others. Some more peaceful. Let me know if you want a copy.
A still life can encourage us to pause and relax. Forget for a moment the chaos of everyday life and just sit still, as the name implies.
