How personal is photography?

My bookshelves are filled with other people's photographs. They are my constant companion when I'm looking for inspiration. The people who took those photographs are my companions as well. It's because they write freely about themselves, their ideas, thoughts, passion, likes and dislikes, friends and enemies, family, homes, illnesses that I feel some remote connection to each of them. That knowledge inspires me as much as any photograph.


Photographs are personal. From the amateur with the point and press at the gran child's birthday party to the professional putting all his/her skills into a grand production, all parts of the creation are personal. They may not be deep and meaningful, world shattering, or even obvious, but in each photograph goes a part of each of us in its taking, making and presentation.

Some photographers can express that person aspect in their photographs with such accuracy and acuteness that its hard for any, even the most ignorant in their knowledge of photography, to miss it. Others are not so skilled and fill the gap with words, descriptions, titles to encourage the viewer to look deeper.

Which ever way we go, the photograph is very personal.

So, how do we react to that, knowing that?

As the viewer, we can react equally. Personally. It could be a simple response: stand and stare. We might have the opportunity to express our personal thoughts to the photographer or just someone within earshot. 'Like' is one way. 'Dislike' is another but less well received in some circles. We might talk on or about or to the photograph in a literal sense. Critics do this. We might share our own experiences and memories that have resurfaced as a result of the viewing of the image. Our personal thoughts might wander to a more technical side and we share our knowledge of the precision and engineering involved. We might even learn something and even change our thinking based on what we hear, see and feel.
All from a photograph. And its all personal.

One of the most exciting things about sharing photographs here, for example, is the opportunity to see, not just the photographs, but the different approaches to photography. And its all personal. From the technical expertise of some, to the family oriented flavour, the landscapes of places people live and breathe to the homes and castles in which they live, the passion of their beliefs, the humour, temperament, ideologies, cultures and commitments.


When we look at a photograph we see the surface first. Tones and colours, shapes and patterns on a flat surface bound by a frame. It has no personal content perse. It's just a photograph. Or is it? How personal can we make the receiving or giving process? And what do we make of the response?

We know the photograph was taken by a person. Our response will be personal (from the viewers perspective firstly). We express our own personal views and thoughts through words. The photographer hears the words spoken. They head those words firstly, as we did the photograph: just words with no personal content. Then they decipher what meaning they can (as we might with a photograph) and see that the words are a personal reflection of what the viewer was thinking at the time.

Now, if these words were a photograph, the process might end there. The viewer moves on to the next and the personal contact is broken. But. alas, there is another possible scenario.

The photographer is stimulated by the words spoken, just as the viewer was stimulated by the photograph. The photographer now attaches his own personal thoughts and feelings to the comments made by the viewer. The photographer is not reacting to the photograph or the viewer but to his own thoughts and feelings. He is elated, despondent, content, annoyed, reassured, insulted, pleased, displeased. Funnily enough, these might have been the same collection of feelings that went through the viewers mind at the time of viewing.

Photography is personal. We are people and that makes anything we do personal. We can't help ourselves.
Or can we?

Hi, Tom,

A very thought-provoking essay. Thanks.

Closely related is the truth that for any form of art - a photograph, an oil painting, a wine cabinet, a poem, a novel, a biography, a symphony, a paper on exposure meters, the prime imperative is this: the creator (author, composer, cabinetmaker) must above all, at the end of the day, please himself.

If that does not happen, then no matter how the work might seem to meet the criteria of others (the buyer, the agent, the "target" reader) the work will fall short of what it might have been.

Best regards,

Doug

Doug Kerr said:

Hi, Tom,

A very thought-provoking essay. Thanks.

Closely related is the truth that for any form of art - a photograph, an oil painting, a wine cabinet, a poem, a novel, a biography, a symphony, a paper on exposure meters, the prime imperative is this: the creator (author, composer, cabinetmaker) must above all, at the end of the day, please himself.

If that does not happen, then no matter how the work might seem to meet the criteria of others (the buyer, the agent, the "target" reader) the work will fall short of what it might have been.

Best regards,

Doug

Click to expand...

I'm not sure that this seemingly straightforward and almost obvious assertion is in fact true. The expert might do the task as well as humanly possible, even breaking new ground but it could provide no personal satisfaction.

Asher

"Photographs are personal"

Well Tom,

That too seems pretty straightforward, but then there are issues with that as well. So at one end of the spectrum, there are crime photographs and documentation of bombing runs or of possessions for insurance.

There is a dearth of personal investment in these pictures and in fact we'd expect personal influences to be absent so that the images are documentary and do not manipulate the facts buy some unique way of shooting.

Then there are pictures designed to evoke emotions, thoughts and feelings where we have some personal investment in the experience that the picture will evoke in us.

So given that not all pictures are documentary and not all folk are heavily invested emotionally in their surroundings, there's going to be many pictures with little to no personal strings attached or woven into their fabric.

Still, when we laud photographs we see shown in galleries and museums, it's often the case that there's something very personal that makes it so special and contributes to its unique magnetism that makes us linger, return and even recruit others to like.....or belittle it!

Documentary pictures can be interesting for many other reasons, but hardly ever becasue of the connection between the photographer and the subject. There are major exceptions to this of course.

Asher

This is interesting. I like it a lot. there's some energy in these rods. I wondered why. Then I realized that it reminds me of the groupings of people in the first picture above.




This to me shows how the mind is constantly filtering and having liked Diane Arbus' work, Tom, you go on to choose a composition that's similar. So yes, you are indeed being influenced by your collection of books of other photographers!


Asher

Doug Kerr said:

Hi, Tom,

A very thought-provoking essay. Thanks.

Closely related is the truth that for any form of art - a photograph, an oil painting, a wine cabinet, a poem, a novel, a biography, a symphony, a paper on exposure meters, the prime imperative is this: the creator (author, composer, cabinetmaker) must above all, at the end of the day, please himself.

If that does not happen, then no matter how the work might seem to meet the criteria of others (the buyer, the agent, the "target" reader) the work will fall short of what it might have been.

Best regards,

Doug

Click to expand...

Feel free to share all those thoughts, Doug.
I remember in the past, writing essays for my studies and hating every minute of it. Bored, tired, uninterested, detached, and not agreeing or understanding all that much of it. I did it because I chose to for another reason other than satisfaction in the product. It was more about telling the lecturer what he wanted to read.
What worried me most was that I would often get D and HD grades with comments like ' an unusual approach.' Maybe I needed to be in a shitty mood to write well.

Asher Kelman said:

"Photographs are personal"

Well Tom,

That too seems pretty straightforward, but then there are issues with that as well. So at one end of the spectrum, there are crime photographs and documentation of bombing runs or of possessions for insurance.

There is a dearth of personal investment in these pictures and in fact we'd expect personal influences to be absent so that the images are documentary and do not manipulate the facts buy some unique way of shooting.

Then there are pictures designed to evoke emotions, thoughts and feelings where we have some personal investment in the experience that the picture will evoke in us.

So given that not all pictures are documentary and not all folk are heavily invested emotionally in their surroundings, there's going to be many pictures with little to no personal strings attached or woven into their fabric.

Still, when we laud photographs we see shown in galleries and museums, it's often the case that there's something very personal that makes it so special and contributes to its unique magnetism that makes us linger, return and even recruit others to like.....or belittle it!

Documentary pictures can be interesting for many other reasons, but hardly ever becasue of the connection between the photographer and the subject. There are major exceptions to this of course.

Asher

Click to expand...

I disagree, Asher, but that's not unusual with you and I.

The person strings as you call them are not attached to the photograph. They are attached to the person. Those attachments are stimulated in some by the photo and will be contradicted by others.
Nor does the personal attachment need to be strong, highly emotive or logical.

Having no emotional attachment might be seen as signs of psychopathy at its extreme but we will all think and feel, momentarily at least, when we see a photo. Recognizing that reaction as our own is important. Not attaching those personal thoughts to the photo is important. Not taking the response as attached to the photo or the photographer is important.

Being personal is what it's all about. Accepting where those thoughts and feelings are connected and how they are dealt with is not to do with being a better photographer but being a better person.

Hi Tom!

Interesting read!

Best, regards
James

Doug Kerr said:

Hi, Tom,

A very thought-provoking essay. Thanks.

Closely related is the truth that for any form of art - a photograph, an oil painting, a wine cabinet, a poem, a novel, a biography, a symphony, a paper on exposure meters, the prime imperative is this: the creator (author, composer, cabinetmaker) must above all, at the end of the day, please himself.

If that does not happen, then no matter how the work might seem to meet the criteria of others (the buyer, the agent, the "target" reader) the work will fall short of what it might have been.

Best regards,

Doug

Click to expand...

That is the case for most of us, Doug. We are our worst enemy when it comes to our own expectations. How often I have looked at a photo of my own and thought "well, that's not quite what I wanted". When I feel disappointment brewing I keep in mind what my Old Man would tell me at such times.

"So you didn't get where you wanted to go. Big deal. You just got somewhere else".

From that I take that he meant I learnt a lot on the way so I should enjoy the journey, I might not have been ready for my expected destination and disappointment in oneself is a waste of time. That's when it gets personal again. Recognizing the disappointment is towards yourself and not the photograph will lead to understanding how to deal with the feeling. It will make me a better person in the long run.

Tom dinning said:

I disagree, Asher, but that's not unusual with you and I.

The person strings as you call them are not attached to the photograph. They are attached to the person. Those attachments are stimulated in some by the photo and will be contradicted by others.
Nor does the personal attachment need to be strong, highly emotive or logical..........

Click to expand...

Tom,

It's more complex than that and there are at least two components to suche "emotive strings" we might talk about.

In most cases, weddings, holidays, vacations, visits to old friends and family -grandchildren too- are all immediately vested with complex emotional feelings exported from the subjects to the camera and from the photographer's brain to the work of art - "the photograph". The photograph of such emotional and feeling-rich social events always have, as part of their fabric these emotive expressions built in, on purpose, by the photographer. In fact, the extent to which such, or related feelings are reinvoked in strangers viewing these pictures later on, (even without knowing the people so pictured), the photograph is a success and the photographer has done his/her job!

These kinds of pictures, without the emotive threads would be sterile, cold and dystopic.

So it's clear that personal attributes are indeed owned by the picture, as the picture, now a form of art, has air in its nostrils and lives on, long after the event it has memorialized. All that has to happen is that the photograph has just to be activated by bathing it in light and then observed by any person and the feelings of joy, angst, happiness and more will erupt, all because they are built in to the design of the picture by the photographer.

Now those experiencing the picture will ALSO import their own experiences and old romances, histories and incidents will be drawn on to expand the scope of the image's impact as the observer muses. But this extra coloring of the emotions, is merely that, a nuanced set of flavoring that acts to individualize in each of us our appreciation of the same emotive photograph. here the people own the emotive strings, yes, in that case it would be true - but only in that restricted sense. The primary emotive strings are woven into the photograph when the shutter is released. everything else is dependent of that action which embeds emotions into the picture, ready to be reacted to by the observers to come, each with their own joys and baggage.

Asher

Asher Kelman said:

Tom,

It's more complex than that and there are at least two components to suche "emotive strings" we might talk about.

In most cases, weddings, holidays, vacations, visits to old friends and family -grandchildren too- are all immediately vested with complex emotional feelings exported from the subjects to the camera and from the photographer's brain to the work of art - "the photograph". The photograph of such emotional and feeling-rich social events always have, as part of their fabric these emotive expressions built in, on purpose, by the photographer. In fact, the extent to which such, or related feelings are reinvoked in strangers viewing these pictures later on, (even without knowing the people so pictured), the photograph is a success and the photographer has done his/her job!

These kinds of pictures, without the emotive threads would be sterile, cold and dystopic.

So it's clear that personal attributes are indeed owned by the picture, as the picture, now a form of art, has air in its nostrils and lives on, long after the event it has memorialized. All that has to happen is that the photograph has just to be activated by bathing it in light and then observed by any person and the feelings of joy, angst, happiness and more will erupt, all because they are built in to the design of the picture by the photographer.

Now those experiencing the picture will ALSO import their own experiences and old romances, histories and incidents will be drawn on to expand the scope of the image's impact as the observer muses. But this extra coloring of the emotions, is merely that, a nuanced set of flavoring that acts to individualize in each of us our appreciation of the same emotive photograph. here the people own the emotive strings, yes, in that case it would be true - but only in that restricted sense. The primary emotive strings are woven into the photograph when the shutter is released. everything else is dependent of that action which embeds emotions into the picture, ready to be reacted to by the observers to come, each with their own joys and baggage.

Asher

Click to expand...

A very romantic point of view, Asher, and not surprising, coming from you, you old romantic, you!
I wasn't aware that a piece of paper or a computer screen have emotions " embedded" in them and when light falls on them the emotions are activated. That must be the next generation of Mac. I'm still working on the old model which is an emotionless git with no feelings at all. Just cold hard wiring.

Are you also the sort of person who believes the actors in a sit com are real.

Emotions are ours. That is an undisputed fact. A photograph does not have emotions, not even threaded through it, embedded or attached. It's an inanimate, flat surface. You can't give away your emotions to inanimate objects like you might write it on a Sticky Note and attach it to the top left hand corner to remind you what is there next time you see it. People carry the emotions with them, along with a whole stack of thoughts stimulated by vision.
Photographs provoke emotion, I'll grant you that. But not always and not to all people in the same way.
So, don't go getting romantic about this. Give me some science. Maybe Doug has a formula for it.

You confuse the concept of being encoded with emotive strings with being able to feel emotions. Notes, sculptures, pictographs and photographs all can be end products of the human mind containing emotive strings in their fabric. This is fact not fantasy and hardly romantic.

The photograph, in the dark, cannot be read by any person. However' when light falls on it, the pattern encoded therein is now readable by any other person with eyesight. The built in signals are now able to evoke feelings.

All that, Tom, is part one of the feelings evoked in us. The second part is the flavor sour nature and prior experiences add to the this reaction we have.

That's the way it is, a scientific explanation with no reference to romanticism.

Asher

Asher Kelman said:

You confuse the concept of being encoded with emotive strings with being able to feel emotions. Notes, sculptures, pictographs and photographs all can be end products of the human mind containing emotive strings in their fabric. This is fact not fantasy and hardly romantic.

The photograph, in the dark, cannot be read by any person. However' when light falls on it, the pattern encoded therein is now readable by any other person with eyesight. The built in signals are now able to evoke feelings.

All that, Tom, is part one of the feelings evoked in us. The second part is the flavor sour nature and prior experiences add to the this reaction we have.

That's the way it is, a scientific explanation with no reference to romanticism.

Asher

Click to expand...

You're getting closer. Keep working on it. Without exposing your lack of differenciation between thoughts and feelings or your misleading semantics leading to a still romantic approach, I'd like to simply explain what I'm getting at.

The person is personal. The photo is not. The photo is a product of the photographers personality, if you want. The viewer is a person. The reaction is a result of the viewers personality, if you want. Evoking emotion isn't the same as having emotion. A photo isn't moody, happy, fearful, etc, nor does it make us that way. The photograph evokes thought which might lead to emotional reaction.
To pass of our responsibility for our own thoughts and actions to something else is irresponsible and dangerous.
I know you think this might all be a bit pedantic and if I read between the lines, we probably agree.
You just left out a few important steps.

Tom dinning said:

You're getting closer. Keep working on it. Without exposing your lack of differenciation between thoughts and feelings or your misleading semantics leading to a still romantic approach, I'd like to simply explain what I'm getting at.

The person is personal. The photo is not. The photo is a product of the photographers personality, if you want. The viewer is a person. The reaction is a result of the viewers personality, if you want. Evoking emotion isn't the same as having emotion. A photo isn't moody, happy, fearful, etc, nor does it make us that way. The photograph evokes thought which might lead to emotional reaction.
To pass of our responsibility for our own thoughts and actions to something else is irresponsible and dangerous.
I know you think this might all be a bit pedantic and if I read between the lines, we probably agree.
You just left out a few important steps.

Click to expand...

Tom,

You omit what artists do. They imagine something emotional and find away to embed that instruction set into a physical form, be it music, sculpture, picture writing or the artistic photograph.

Thoughts are a secondary phenomenon in experiencing art. First there's the eruptive primitive reaction. The photograph is the store of these marks and representations and just needs to be illuminated and observed for the viewer, often even before thoughts have occurred, just basic, reflex emotional reactions, to re-experience the imagined state the artist has designed,composed and exported to physical form for us.

While the viewer or observer has his/her own personality, Beethoven's 5th will be 99.99% as the composer imagined it and Picasso's art as he designed it for us. Except for provision of empty space or social situations that require our active input, the viewers previous experiences are of trivial import compared to the automatic power of the works of art to command pre-cognitive emotional reactions.

Forget about the great value of the visitor's thinking in most cases. They're pretty unimportant compared to the dominance of the masterful artist or sculptor. What happens in the viewers mind comes from the picture mostly with just a little coloring by the individual observer.

This is not an equal opportunity creativity meeting with the viewer rising to the rank of the creator. You might wish for that, and it sometimes could occur in interpreting Rorschach ink blots and the like, but for most creative work, we are just humble beneficiaries!

Asher

Asher Kelman said:

Tom,

You omit what artists do. They imagine something emotional and find away to embed that instruction set into a physical form, be it music, sculpture, picture writing or the artistic photograph.

Thoughts are a secondary phenomenon in experiencing art. First there's the eruptive primitive reaction. The photograph is the store of these marks and representations and just needs to be illuminated and observed for the viewer, often even before thoughts have occurred, just basic, reflex emotional reactions, to re-experience the imagined state the artist has designed,composed and exported to physical form for us.

While the viewer or observer has his/her own personality, Beethoven's 5th will be 99.99% as the composer imagined it and Picasso's art as he designed it for us. Except for provision of empty space or social situations that require our active input, the viewers previous experiences are of trivial import compared to the automatic power of the works of art to command pre-cognitive emotional reactions.

Forget about the great value of the visitor's thinking in most cases. They're pretty unimportant compared to the dominance of the masterful artist or sculptor. What happens in the viewers mind comes from the picture mostly with just a little coloring by the individual observer.

This is not an equal opportunity creativity meeting with the viewer rising to the rank of the creator. You might wish for that, and it sometimes could occur in interpreting Rorschach ink blots and the like, but for most creative work, we are just humble beneficiaries!

Asher

Click to expand...

Not beneficiaries, Asher; participants. Without that participation, art is just what it is: a heap of **** apart from the artists own perception.
You're still being romantic in your approach. I like that. I don't understand it but I am interested.
You see, I think it is an equal opportunity experience.

Tom dinning said:

Not beneficiaries, Asher; participants. Without that participation, art is just what it is: a heap of **** apart from the artists own perception.
You're still being romantic in your approach. I like that. I don't understand it but I am interested.
You see, I think it is an equal opportunity experience.

Click to expand...

Well, we are coming closer. The folk can participate by being there and being open to a new experience, even if they've visited the sculpture or photograph ten times previously. After all, during the passing time, they have changed and so they can look with fresh eyes.

However, even without them, the work has all the emotions permanently carved in to the music, shape of sculpture or gesture in the mother's fingers as she nurses her newborn.

We can turn up to get another dose, but with or without us, they are ready to ignite the same feelings in anyone else that comes along.

It flummoxes me how you think my views are "romantic". If anything, that's your amazingly rosy and generous view of the common man, crowding into the Vatican galleries to see the stacked "art" from behind 200 other pushing and shoving, shuffling and flashing tourists.

One picture, that's all that's needed and time!

Asher