ramble, ramble, blackberry bramble
It occurred to me today, while I should have been thinking about something else, that photography in the sense that I once practiced it (nature, color) is a creative endeavor that has thus far escaped massive bodies of theory. All that talking plagues black-and-white stuff, and photojournalism, but if you snap scenery you’re still safe. It is also an endeavor wherein one does not, as in writing, immediately reference one’s background. Nature photographers do not inherit their use of light from so-and-so the way I might cite Faulkner’s verb structures in my own, for example. Compositional aesthetics seem to be based mostly in what conjures up some aspect of Kant’s sublime. Make it goddamn gorgeous. Simple.
I can’t tell if this is a blessing or a curse. There is something liberating about learning the aesthetic yourself, without having to chew through the better part of the Western Canon and a bit of the Eastern too, if you’re feeling ambitious, and then come up with a that style fits the subject matter. Subject in photography is governed by light, and there’s only so much you can do with that. But within the realm of nature photography, this lack of a theoretical articulation to the craft makes it difficult to create a recognizable aesthetic of one’s own. Photographers tend to be known as much for topic as for style (Brandenburg’s wolves, for example). There are not modernists and post-modernists here, nor are there horrific debates over representational ethics that have forced certain photojournalists to adapt particular shooting styles.
In short, it would be good to shoot some stuff again, if only because it involves a complete voiding of this headspace in which I so usually find myself these days.
I can’t tell if this is a blessing or a curse. There is something liberating about learning the aesthetic yourself, without having to chew through the better part of the Western Canon and a bit of the Eastern too, if you’re feeling ambitious, and then come up with a that style fits the subject matter. Subject in photography is governed by light, and there’s only so much you can do with that. But within the realm of nature photography, this lack of a theoretical articulation to the craft makes it difficult to create a recognizable aesthetic of one’s own. Photographers tend to be known as much for topic as for style (Brandenburg’s wolves, for example). There are not modernists and post-modernists here, nor are there horrific debates over representational ethics that have forced certain photojournalists to adapt particular shooting styles.
In short, it would be good to shoot some stuff again, if only because it involves a complete voiding of this headspace in which I so usually find myself these days.