SAQ
These are not ‘Frequently Asked Questions’, but ‘Seldom Asked Questions’ because I can’t really see much point in discussing photography or photographers as it’s all just a question of taste and preference anyway. But here are some questions that I’m sure some people might ask if I did. This is also by way of an explanation of how some of us image nerds think!
Q. Why don’t you take normal pictures?
A. I do. If you mean ‘normal pictures’ to be pictures of where you went at the weekend, the cat lying on his back with his legs in the air, a sunset over the back wall in the garden, etc, then I do, occasionally, just like everybody else. But they have nothing to do with other interests in my life that I sometimes choose to illustrate by using a camera. And those things being very diffuse and elusive – thoughts, feelings, observations, memories etc are not concrete enough to be photographed of course. So I will sometimes rely on allegories, symbols, equivalencies, allusions and metaphors or whatever you want to call them in the image to tease out reactions and answers to diffuse and elusive questions. There’s nothing new or strange about that, artists do it all the time and as I share in their spheres of interest much more than in a technical recording of objects or events, I attempt to do the same. I’m not saying I succeed though, I’m just saying that’s what it appears to me to be. And in my case I find myself using a camera instead of a brush, for example.
Q. So you use a camera because you can’t paint?
A. Yes, you could say that. I would love to be able to paint, but I can’t. I would love to be able to draw, work with sculpture, work with ceramics, sketch, blow glass, write novels, sing etc as well but I can’t. So I do what I can.
Q. What photographers do you like?
A. I don’t. That is to say, I prefer to like certain images that some photographers make. It’s just like your favourite band. There are good albums they have made and then there are the ones the record company wanted them to make. By that I mean it’s easy to pick on ‘famous names’ but that results in including all that they have done and I can’t do that because there are plenty of award-winning photographers, for example, that produce many mediocre images, in my opinion. Besides, it draws attention away from unknowns that have produced wonderful images. One fantastic shot from them can be far better than a dozen mediocre shots from a famous photographer. Having said that, there are a few icons that I could mention!
Q. Well, what sort of photography do you like?
A. I don’t. It’s the same question almost. For example, I like the work of Henri Cartier-Bresson. But that doesn’t mean I like that type of photography when other photographers have a go at it. He leaves most others behind in that work in his genre of course and has produced timeless classics. Again it’s the images that I like, not necessarily the genre. I wouldn’t dream of taking a portrait or a fashion shot myself as it’s just not my thing but it doesn’t stop me from appreciating a quality image!
Q. Well what do you think about modern art photography today.
A. I don’t really seek it out or think about it too much. Some of it is very good of course but there is much that seems to leave me wondering and unmoved. It’s a difficult area as the ‘goal posts’ have moved over the years and some seem to lean too heavily on a paragraph of ‘artspeak’ to make it work. I maybe guilty of that too in my old age to a certain degree but that’s probably true of most contemporary art forms I suppose. ‘Art Photography’, whatever that might actually be, does inherit a burden of countless shots reliant almost solely on exercises of technical expertise and an anorak obsession with ‘gear’. And that’s OK as a hobby but isn’t a necessary ingredient concerning other, dare I say it, deeper issues. So, the jury is still out.
Q. I just don’t understand some of your work. Why would you even take such photographs?
A. In one way I don’t, I make them, there is a difference. But a recurring theme is ‘the extraordinary in the ordinary’, if that helps. I realise sunsets and so on are glorious but they overwhelm and shadow normal life and I’m a great fan of the mundane, being what it is in its humbleness and I feel like championing it sometimes. Maybe I’m visually left-wing. Or they might be concerning memories, reminders, dreams, feelings, visual pleasure, hidden horrors or who knows what; something else that wasn’t in front of the camera at least. Apologies, I know they can be demanding. Just give them a little time to see if you can find something there.
Q. So what photography has an effect on what you do?
A. None in particular. Anything I like, photographic or not, I will take on board for any reason I fancy and leave the rest behind. That might make me a dilettante in academia’s eyes but I’m too old to worry about that. I enjoy photography as an art form quite simply. I can’t take on other people’s concerns about what I do and their personal vision of what they think photography should be.
Q. What do you recommend if I wanted to start in photography.
A. I don’t. Everybody should go their own way. That’s the beauty of it all. Anybody who is into portraiture, for example, would obviously not ask me; I haven’t a clue and I don’t care. But I would definitely encourage them to pursue it though and take the path that feels right for them. Any other way could cause unnecessary conflict.
Q. What about equipment?
A. Charles Fort once said “One measures a circle, beginning anywhere” and he was right. Mobile phone, 10 x 8 stand camera, cardboard pinhole camera, Polaroid, 35 mm film, medium format digital, it’s all good fun! Beg it or borrow it first and go on from there. The magic is automatic and guaranteed in all cases. Any image is an image to get started! Later on you can consider all the posh stuff, if that’s where your aim is.
Q. That doesn’t add up to much as advice or help. There must be something you can offer?
A. No, not really. I am where I am and I do what I do because of what happened in my life and I suppose that has affected what I do now to a certain extent. And that presumably is the same for everybody, everywhere. Where you might go in photography only you can find out.
Finally, if you’re still reading this, I suspect you are considering looking a little closer at photography. So therefore I am definitely encouraging you to take it a stage further. They say everybody’s a photographer these days, because of mobile phones. If that’s true then, assuming you have that kind of mobile, you are already on the road. Now start walking along that road. You never know what’s waiting for you around that bend!