Magnum Blog / Sad

Sad

I've been suffering from blogger's block lately. It might be environmental. Along with some serious snow and cold up here in Minnesota, we are still trying to dig out from the Senate election. Six weeks after the greatest presidential election of my lifetime, we're still arguing about 'lizard people.' I might not be able to write, but I can't seem to escape the interviews. (I even did one on 'lizard people'). Under the influence of Seasonal Affective Disorder, I recently did an interview with PDN where I said, "I have qualms with everything. I wake up I have qualms." Do I need professional help? On Michael Werner's blog, Two Way Lens he asks for advice to emerging photographers. I recently added my two cents, but I can't say it is worth more than that. For something more substantial, check out this two-part interview with Chris Buck on A Photo Editor (here and here). In the course of the interview, Buck says: "I believe there are two kinds of photographers. There are those who look at other peoples work and there are those who don't. I'm not one to look at someone else's work. I find it more distracting than helpful. I tend to be generous with young photographers and I'm open to meeting with people but I don't really look at my competitors work." Though I wouldn't use the word 'competitor', I also wonder if seeing too much contemporary work is problematic. I once had an assistant, Phillip Carpenter, who said something I'll never forget. Phil started off as a musician in Nashville. He was surrounded by a ton of talent and learned about everything going on. But this knowledge, he said, was eventually damaging. Phil explained that the best musicians often come from nowhere. They are in their parent's basement in Idaho, don't really know how to hold the guitar, and consequently develop their own peculiar sound. So here is the question: If limitation spawns creativity, is the limitless resource of the Internet a good thing? Does it do more harm than good to read all these blogs?

Eric

I believe that, to a certain point, reading blogs can do some good. Really good. The knowledge, the inspiration. But more than that, we should just go out and do our own stuff, take pictures or whatever. It will be damaging if one continue reading and stop doing. It will be damaging if one keep looking up and forget to do it yourselves.

I myself have a growing list on my Google Reader and I'm starting to feel the "damage". The lack of time to do other things. So I have to manage and balance my time, between reading and maintaing a blog myself and taking pictures and family and other stuffs.

Jalpers

I had that too before I moved to Arizona. I'm much better now, though last year I backslid a bit when I went to Kansas for Thanksgiving. While I was there I saw a very nice black and white photo of a saguaro cactus in a Taco Johns (really) and I started to cry.

bryanF

Well, if photographers aren't looking at the work of other photographers, then who is? j/k

Henry Miller is my favorite writer and he wrote a book called 'The Books in My Life,' which was basically a love letter to all the great books he's read.

I can't imagine not consuming art, be it photography, music, film, etc. If that means my own art suffers, than so be it. But I don't think so. I think you get there by learning to edit and making choices: this good, that is bad, this is interesting, that is bullshit. Then hopefully, the stuff that inspires and sticks with you crystallizes and you maybe on your way toward something original.

I think the myth of the lone genius working in isolation is propagated because aspiring artist's need the romantic notion that someone, somewhere can transcend mediocrity through sheer inspiration and brilliance alone.

In the real world however, I'm much more inclined to believe in the 10,000 hours theory...

paul

Well, first off, you can't read all of them ;-)

But yes, Mr Carpenter has a point. If you take note of the new names that pop up, they are often people who have worked out a style or language of their own, outside the mainstream, with constraints like access to materials or technology forcing them to make creative choices that make their work better, not worse.

We like what we are familiar with but we also like new things. We rely on people we trust to find those things for us (call them Cool Hunters or Taste Makers). So it's a thin line between the familiar and the new.

Patricia Lay-Dorsey

Thanks, Alec, for introducing a topic I've thought about a lot. My own introduction to photography was just doing it myself. For six years I kept a daily blog in which I wrote journal entries & posted digital photos of my life. Simple stuff really, but it whetted my appetite for more. In July 2006 I bought a Canon Rebel XT and started pursuing photography with a passion. But I still knew next to nothing about the history of photography or its current luminaries. I just shot & shot & shot. Then names & photo essays started coming into my consciousness, slowly at first and later, like a flood.

To be honest i'm grateful that I shot so much of my own stuff before seeing other work. I think my ignorance saved me from being too influenced by others or comparing myself to them. It left me free to develop my own eye, my own way of seeing, my own way of creating bodies of work, for I always worked in series, just as I had as a visual artist back in the 1970s and 80s.

And then when I was ready I found an online community ("Road Trips") and a mentor, David Alan Harvey. Now I lap up books about and of photography, as well as exploring photographers' work online. I have a sense of myself as a photographer so am no longer in danger of copying or comparing myself to anyone else. But I learn from everyone.

Speaking of blogs & online resources, DAH just launched his brand new online magazine called "Burn." Check it out at http://www.burnmagazine.org/

I think it's going to be a winner!

Patricia

Sean Davey

I love all aspects of photography, and a big part of that is looking at other people's work (and reading selected blogs and online sites such as the Magnum blog and 5b4). I believe my own work - and approach to it - has matured (somewhat) because of the work I have seen and the words I have read online. Bruce Gilden's motion piece about foreclosures has inspired me to pursue more audio inclusive photography pieces (for mass publication), and is infact one of the most moving pieces of journalism that I can remember. Not that I am inclined to involve myself as Bruce does, but the influence of his work at present is very strong to this particular aspect of my own work. Off subject: What really inspires me about BG's work is that I always see him in his work equally as I see those he is photographing, and my love and respect for his work continually grows the more I learn of his honesty in his approach to photography.

Who is not inspired, at one time or another, by the work many photographers whose work they have seen online, when such work is unavailable elsewhere? I appreciate that there are many blogs and www sites that I am blissfully unaware of, and to be honest, what I don't know doesn't bother me. But what I have gained from the sites have spent time looking at, they have mainly informed, educated & entertained me. I must admit that I hold Jeff Ladd personally responsible for my rapidly declining bank balance, but that's another story.

I feel that the selective reading of photography related blogs helps me in regard to my own little journey of photographic discovery, and being way down here in Australia, having the photographic world at my fingertips expands the breadth of my influence and inspiration that would otherwise be more nationally based. Books are everything, but I reckon the internet is pretty good too.

I think this is a wonderful forum, and at the end of the day, I think successful forums like this one (sometimes some participants get a bit off topic: Remember that this is not your personal diary entry) help make the approach to my own work more honest. And in my opinion that helps my work rather than hinders it, regardless of where it ends up.

Cheers.

jalpers

Sorry, I posted my reply above before I was finished. My point is this:
If you are feeling "sad", everything you experience will be shaded by that. Whatever it's a photo in a restaurant or the vast resources of the internet. But all experiences good and bad cause us to eventually grow.

Look at how many people have been inspired by Alec's own work through the internet. It's all part of the learning process. The good ones will take that knowledge, interpret it and make work that is uniquely their own.

Martin

Well, there's this saying "talent borrows, genius steals". It's a paradox, I feel that having a visual culture is important but it can also become a trap. Imitation is a great way of learning but you can get stuck there and end up creating derivative work. O

n the other hand there's the "wild man" theory of the guy from nowhere who reinvents an art form by the simple fact of being "unspoiled" and "fresh". I doubt this. We live in a environment flooded with images. There everywhere and it's unavoidable that some of it rubs on us in an unconscious manner. It's only after years of photographing that I realized that a LIFE compilation that I had looked through as a child had probably formed part of my sensibilities...

As for blogs, there great. I learned a ton from them. But maybe there's a law of diminishing returns going on if you end up spending more time in front of the computer than behind the camera.

Lord knows I'm guilty of that.

nigel amies

The best cure for SAD is sunshine! Get yourself out of Minnesota for a while - a good long while I'd suggest. Get out of it physically and mentally. Bob Dylan had to before he made any decent music. All that stuff about 'lizard people' and local election issues - forget it. There's a bigger world out there.
I like your work a lot Alex and would be interested to see what you'd come up with after a bit of travel in distant parts. Yes, too much time spent on email, blogging, etc is detrimental to creative work: it eats up time. But sometimes it can be inspiring - like a lot of stuff I've read on the Magnum blog since Alex took over. Looking at other people's work can be inspiring too, especially when you feel SAD and uninspired yourself. Looking at favourite photo books is like listening to favourite music or films, or re-reading a favourite book or writer - inspiring. Apart from that the best antidote is to pack a backpack and hit the trail. That's my two cents worth.

Michal Daniel

When I was learning, some 30 years ago, I devoured everything I could get my eyes on, in order to learn what to do. These days I glance around to see what not to do.

John W. MacDonald

The abovementioned quote reminded me of the 1991 movie What About Bob?
Bob Wiley says, "There are two types of people in this world: Those who like Neil Diamond, and those who don't. My ex-wife loves him"

Anyway, I believe it's a spurious notion that looking at other people's photos will harm your creativity. Unless, of course, if you don't get out of your chair and start working on your own stuff.

I know writers of fiction who will not read other people's novels while they are actively writing because it will interfere with their own voices in their own work. Or non-fiction writers who will only read fiction while working - and vice versa.

However, I agree with the poster above me, Michal Daniel, that there are people who "glance around to see what not to do" and people who glance around to see what to do. Both are legitamate stances in the fickle commerical-editorial-art photo market.

joe

i think with photographic Art there’s innovation and invention, and we all know who has the most famous mother.

so if we aspire to ‘invention’, where do we get the drive?,… why do we feel the anxiety that failure’s not an option?, … why does linear time not seem to apply anymore?

i suspect for some that drive…. not internet influence, nor internet impact,.. i need to hold those concepts for a bit.... that drives might come externally from competition with other photographers, (for me i think this drive-type motivates me the most).... for others it’s just the opposite, and for me that opposite drive seems a bit more romantic, it comes from inside.

from a productivity point of view i don’t think either drive, internal or external reigns superior; one just resonates a bit better from a poetic point of view.

Speaking quickly of ‘time’, i think the 1,000 hour theory seems convincing, i think it’s convincing for innovation,… those slow, methodical increments, creating a new permutation off the patterns that are now splashed everywhere for us to see,.. and use,… and extend….. and these new patterns are good, and i like them, if they were not there we would run out of new visual food.... and of course examples of invention exist for the 1,000 hour clause, a blogs been blogged about it, but there are examples for most theories, what i suggest is just a different one.

but it’s clear when you see pure invention and it’s then that i get really excited, almost anxious,… i’ve only been interested in photography for a few years now, but even in that short time i feel i’ve already witnessed pure invention born twice with regards to my taste: Trent Parke’s Minutes to Midnight and Roger Ballen’s Shadow Chamber…. and ironically i think both are motivated with dramatically polarised drives.

both of these photographers could easily be described as documentary photographers first, but i don’t think it’s by accident that Trent suggested just days ago that his influence comes not from the patterns of past photography.… I’ll go so far to speculate that with Trent it was largely the pulse of music videos and producing that language,.. that buzz,…. that energy,… that visual pace…. with still photographs… it was this that was really Trent’s own worthy opponent.

ironically if someone put a gun to my head and forced me to speak a third recent ‘inventor’ then it would actually be Trent’s partner Narelle. i’m purely speculating, but having someone like that so close to you, that is so inventive,…. well it makes you wonder if there is even more external, but healthy competition driving Trent. Can anyone even begin to imagine what kind of conversations take place at that dinner table? again purely speculating,… but i’m guessing that it would make Alice in Wonderland seem like an episode of the Teletubbies,… add wine and The Wall suddenly becomes Disney.. ok enough speculating there, it looks too much like I’m spoiling for an invite to dinner ;-)

as far as Roger Ballen it couldn’t be any more the opposite with his invention of Shadow Chambers and his own crazy dreams. He really drives this point home during his interview with Jörg Colberg:

JC: And who were your main influences as an artist?
RB: It is impossible to surmise what would have happened to ones' life in another situation. Nevertheless, thinking back over the past twenty-five years the isolation that I experienced living in South Africa forced me to look 'inward' rather than seek answers from others work.

again I don’t think that 1,000 hours played a part in either of these inventions, was it a pre-requisite?.... one could argue it might be, but we’ll never know. Was it a linear progression to the invention?…. i think it would be easy to argue that we don’t have a strong bread-crumb trail to say it is.

so here lies the fork in the road... do you want to be an innovator or an inventor?... does the recognition of past patterns in still photography help you invent or trap you to endlessly innovate? Personally, i think the internet and the prolific availability of photographs does not correlate highly with invention, but i could be wrong.

speaking specifically about the internet, there’s also the dilemma that it has an unhealthy influence on some types of images, specifically the size and method we are forced to view them,… conclude on them,… and at times dismiss them.

Maybe because I just read Nigel Amies post, but i immediately think back to the conclusion that Nigel made about Peter van Agtmeal’s Uganda photographs, suggesting that he expects better from a Magnum photographer.

It’s nothing personal Nigel, but how on earth can anyone draw such a conclusion from an image like that that’s rendered on a monitor,... at such a small size?... how can anyone conclude that of the sixteen human faces and all those extra objects also embedded in that image,... rendered at a size that only gives any of them a few pixels a piece to show story,... how on earth can anyone dismiss an image as complex as this when it’s rendered smaller than a 4x6 print?

This is where I’ve become very unhappy with the internet for influence. It systematically disqualifies images with multiple narratives (and therefore longer, more complex reads). With the small amount of visual real-estate the internet provides, many photographers are more likely to create single-dimensional images that are equally as interesting at the small copyright-protection-size as they do the thumbnail, a sad day there ;-(

you also can’t divorce the internet’s influence with the internet feedback loop introduced by images sharing platforms as popular as flickr... you can now go further than 'see', you can try, and you can get feedback... i’m not ashamed to say i was born out of flickr, and although i’m entirely through with it for my own reasons, it would be foolhardy to suggest it’s not producing some great photographers and some great photography.

I’m quite certain if not already, then in the near future, these flickr togs will challenge for commissioned work the same people that turned their noses at the platform,… there are even places in my mind, places like this: www.flickr.com/groups/onthestreet/ … that are actually seeking invention over innovation, much to the dismay of all the pattern recognition junkies out there that want their permutation to be accepted and wonder why some bizarre-ow-image was accepted when their HCB look-alike was not.

but i do think the image sharing platforms have the same trap that forces you down the fork in the road of innovation verses invention.... i think it can reduce the practice of photography from Art... to Craft. i think there’s something about the incremental addition of images and the psychology of incremental feedback that makes me suddenly suspicious since leaving the platform... i could be wrong, but i think those small doses of both feedback and gratification might actually inhibit the quantum leaps of invention.

anyway.... i suspect the jury is still out on whether the internet is accelerating the production of images we 'want' to see through the prolific availability of past patterns or accelerating the production of images we 'want' to see based on the virtual education belts that can exist where they weren’t possible before,.... but for me i think the internet’s influence has a nasty side-effect of pattern recognition, incremental innovation, single-dimensional images, only-if-good-as-small images, and group think.

i also think when i read the interview of the fourth inventor yet to surface for my taste....they will tell me they got their influence not from past patterns, but maybe from… don’t know,… guess that’s why its something to get excited about.

joe

Hi Martin or Alec,

is there a reason why my post was deleted?

I'm sorry if there was something i said that was offensive enough for deletion.

Jerry Englehart Jr.

Alec:

As a student still finding his footing in the clustered world of photography, I find myself questioning myself almost daily on how damaging the rapidity of information and need for visual satisfaction will hinder my abilities to work through a photographic essay, without a utilitarian, innate mannerism, but with a diligence to respond to the moments over a period of time where one can think about the progression of a project without worrying about the future marketability or ways to survive in-the-moment, out of pocket expenses. It seems like the days of magazine and newspapers funding photographers to do this still are drying up quickly. It is ironic to think that we have come to a period of time where it takes a $100,000 TED prize for a photographer such as Nachtwey to disseminate the reality that extremely drug resistant TB is here.

What message does that send the emerging visual journalists that want to report, grass-roots style, the reality of rural AIDs such as Jenn Ackerman? I suppose that is a question we all need steeping time to think about.

I recently listened to Bill Eppridge speak at the Atlanta Photojournalism Seminar and could only wonder the whole time - how is hell is an industry with such a demanding appetite for now, now, now going to be able to swallow the reality that good, honest visual journalism needs "time". There needs to be time to develop trustful relationships with people that you can't really do during the hustle n' bussel feeding of the masses.

This assessment makes it seem like a pig farm...

Ultimately, are we sacrificing quality journalism for quantity appeasement?

I have also been reading a lot of David Foster Wallace and Tom Robbins lately. It is quite interesting to see how applicable Wallace's views on technology, TV, and the old gumption trap of instant gratification will and are becoming damaging to society. I feel as though I am waiting around for the masses to get hit in the face with the reality that they have stepped over the edge like the cartoons I grew up on and can not realize quickly enough that regression (Infinite Jest by Wallace) or "lateral movement" (Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Pirsig) are really the keys to maintaining a healthy quality in the world.

We are a society juggling negative indulgences.

Emil Ihrig

I believe utilizing the limitless resource of the internet can be a hinderance/excuse for not following one's own outlook on the world at large. Like many things . . . blogging has it's place, but when overdone can keep our cameras in storage instead of being used as extensions of our eyes.

My new years resolution . . . blog less . . . shoot more! :0)

Jon Hornstein

If you look at the history of the development of civilization, the most exciting changes occurred in port cities, along trading routes and other areas where different cultures mixed. I believe the same is true for photography. No one is completely original. Everyone has influences. Everyone can benefit from new ideas.

The Web can make the amount of other photographers’ work too overwhelming to absorb. And it can be very time consuming. So as a practical matter, photographers should limit the amount of time they spend on the Web looking at other people’s work and reading blogs. (Except mine, of course.) But as long as a photographer is committed to finding and developing his or her own voice, viewing the work of others should be a positive influence.

J. Wesley Brown

And does an MFA do more harm than good?

Brian C. Frank

Should a classical musician never listen to another person playing Bethoven's 9th? Should a painter avoid looking at Goya? Where would brocast journalism be if nobody watched Murrow?

As someone that is still on the upward slope of the PJ learning curve, I've spent a great deal of time, not only shooting at every opportunity I can get, but absorbing as much as I can from others. Take it all in, let the brian sort it out later. Take what others have done, let it influence, but not overtake my point of view.

Martin Fuchs

Hey Joe, that's strange. I believe I already saw your comment published today. I just checked and saw your comment was marked as Spam, I probably marked it unintentionally when deleting loads of real Spam comments. I appologize for this, your comment is back up.

Phillip Carpenter

I do still feel that way sometimes even though the temptation to see more is often irresistible and so I often do look.
Speaking analogously through music again, take a fella named Jimi Hendrix for example. Here is someone that is considered by much of the world to be one of the most original guitarists to influence rock and roll music. He was totally unorthodox in everything he did on a guitar and even his singing is an acquired taste. He played a right-handed guitar upside-down and strung backwards to make it a left handed guitar; held the guitar’s neck incorrectly in the cup of his hand while he used his thumb on the same hand to fret the notes of the top strings in addition to his fingers fretting the other notes of the bottom strings (definitely unorthodox); had his amplifiers modified to sound slightly different than the stock sound; had guitar effects pedals that were modified and some invented per his request to get a certain sound. He played the guitar’s amplifier feedback as another way to make notes and bent them up and down as they cried out of the amplifier (which wasn’t done much back then). He made all this sound like a machine gun and bombs dropping and exploding in response to the Vietnam War.. (“Machine Gun” Jimi Hendrix 1970) But it was all about him trying to do something original based on and around the influences he had learned from in the beginning. …Just a way of trying to push past them (Muddy Waters, Buddy Guy, Curtis Mayfield, Wilson Pickett, Chuck Berry) or at least do his own take on those elements. In the beginning, you have to know a bit of the process which is like looking at the history of photography or what is contemporary. At a certain point you just let go and know that you’ve seen enough for a while and get lost in the basement or out in your world to do your own thing. After you’ve quit looking at the expected places of influence, the world enters, mixing with all of that old information and the artist’s inborn tendencies to make something else, …something hopefully good. Jimi’s sound was based in older blues and r&b music but he was able to do his own thing with it. Learning some of a language could be helpful to a point but then talking in your own way with those words might lead to some new words that you couldn’t have planned to know at the start. They might be hard to understand but could sound beautiful and interesting.

If I am bombarded with too much extra information while I am trying to work, I feel unsure about what I am working on. There are too many options. I need to sometimes just do my own thing in the basement for a while to get the best results. I’ve learned enough and it’s time to do it. Go to Idaho and get in the basement!

For the kid in the basement in Idaho listening to music, the magic of what he does not understand is powerful motivation. He sits at point “A” and listens to point “W” but has no knowledge of what BCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTU or V consist of. XY&Z are reserved for disillusionment and box sets. He doesn’t know how to hold the guitar correctly but has enough “magic” in his imagination to push through what’s not “correct” and maybe turn it into something as he learns about the middle alphabet within his own circumstances. Maybe not… but just maybe.

He invents himself and we continually redefine ourselves.

So the remedy for all of this in photography terms is to immediately stop looking at Jörg Colberg’s Conscientious photo blog.

Joe

cheers Martin... when i look back on the size of that post i think maybe your spam edit was more intelligent than it might appear!!... ;-( ...it's just when you're typing away in this little white box it's easy to lose sight of how much you've typed ;-( Sorry for taking up so much blog real-estate ;-) and thanks for the reply. :-))

Joe

Worth hearing again....

In the beginning, you have to know a bit of the process which is like looking at the history of photography or what is contemporary. At a certain point you just let go and know that you’ve seen enough for a while and get lost in the basement or out in your world to do your own thing. -Phillip Carpenter

Yep!!

....ironically this quote flies in the face of the last thing you say in your post Phillip... as some are still in phase one of that mission and one place is as good as another! tsk tsk ;-)

Phillip Carpenter

ps.. I do like Jörg Colberg’s mega photo blog. That was just a little humor. His blog is impressively continual.

Joe

....

:-)

you said mega!

....

Sean

I think the best answer to your question can be found in Robert Adam's essay , Making Art New.

doug ford

I once had an assistant, Phillip Carpenter, who said something I'll never forget. Phil started off as a musician in Nashville. He was surrounded by a ton of talent and learned about everything going on. But this knowledge, he said, was eventually damaging. Phil explained that the best musicians often come from nowhere. They are in their parent's basement in Idaho, don't really know how to hold the guitar, and consequently develop their own peculiar sound.”

Excuses.
Perhaps the inability to create something original is innate?
Listening to all of this music and viewing all of these photographs has resulted in my ruination! lol.

vivien

"Does it do more harm than good to read all these blogs?"

it is a so nice question that remind me of the lines from Walt Whitman as below.

" O me! O life!... of the questions of these recurring;
Of the endless trains of the faithless--of cities fill'd with the foolish;
Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and who more faithless?)
.......
Answer.
That you are here--that life exists, and identity;
That the powerful play goes on, and you will contribute a verse."

------
i love this poetry ,especially for the last line: That the powerful play goes on, and you will contribute a verse.

Darrius

The question of the internet being bad or good in the context presented is a question of the value and tradeoff in time when knowledge gathering vs. the actual "doing". It's also a question of focus. More data seems to lead to the potential long tangents of time disappearing rather than getting to the core of solving the problem or gathering the core knowledge you were originally after. And when surfing the internet there are links to everything which easily distract.

And for most of us the act of doing gets you a hell of a lot more progress than doing endless research. You just need enough research to get you started and to help you solve hard problems you run into. And the best part is getting the right amount of time in discovering things that keep you inspired. It's the internet that allows you to discover the things that will inspire and resonate most with *you*. Rather than 10 sources of inspiration there are countless sources. Inspiration and knowledge are powerful. It's just challenging to keep focused such that you dedicate more time to doing rather than reading about doing. Doing is hard work.

Ross Nolly

I don't think there is a right or wrong answer because we are all so different... The analogy is right about musicians/bands/photographers coming out of nowhere with unique styles. But how about those that thrive and grow in a creative partnership with other artists?

Take many of the bands from the 60's (Stones, Beatles), the cross polination of ideas from other musicians and artists actually spurred the creative output. Wasn't Leonard Cohen known as a poet until told that he should set his poems to music???

I think that all art influences unintentionally finds its way into your own work...

François Hendrickx

Alec. I think you have given your own answer by writing your contribution in the first place:

Besides, wasn't it you who said that we should abandon our fear of doing things because they had been done before (your interview in Picture makers, Picture takers)? There's a reason why we imitate. And as long as imitations don't make it into galleries and magazines, imitation is fine.

bobblack

"Quality is not an act, it is a habit.”-aristotle

limitation is not, not ever, about how many resources you've had access to, but about the limitation of your relationship to that to which you've had the good fortune to come in contact with....just as wealth aint at all about how much money you have, or that light about about the quality of the light but your imagination with it....

as for reading these blogs....hmmm.....there is both greatness and illness from having spent alot of time reading them and writing for them....again, for me, that aint the question, the question is what has been lost and what has been gained....and blogs or books or music or conversations with others or conversations alone with yourself still all lead to the same fundamental question...

there aint not arithmetic that answers the question for everyone, for everything done means something is lost in turn but everything done grows something else unknown....

soon, i'll show something at DAH blogs that came as a direct result of that blog AND a result of time spent alone away from the internet bombast and noise...

the question: how to make sense of your live lived...aint no track groove enough to answer that with any certainty....

PERSONAL HELICON

As a child, they could not keep me from wells
And old pumps with buckets and windlasses.
I loved the dark drop, the trapped sky, the smells
Of waterweed, fungus and dank moss.

One, in a brickyard, with a rotted board top.
I savoured the rich crash when a bucket
Plummeted down at the end of a rope.
So deep you saw no reflection in it.

A shallow one under a dry stone ditch
Fructified like any aquarium.
When you dragged out long roots from the soft mulch
A white face hovered over the bottom.

Others had echoes, gave back your own call
With a clean new music in it. And one
Was scaresome, for there, out of ferns and tall
Foxgloves, a rat slapped across my reflection.

Now, to pry into roots, to finger slime,
To stare, big-eyed Narcissus, into some spring
Is beneath all adult dignity. I rhyme
To see myself, to set the darkness echoing.

--SEAMUS HEANEY

running
bOB

Christopher Anderson

Hey Alec,
I don't know if blogging is good or bad for my pictures. But I did have a thought about SAD...
I kinda think of the practice of photography like farming: there is a season to plant, a season to wait for the rain, a season to harvest. There is a time for making pictures, a time for sitting an looking at your work and editing and understanding what you have done, and a time to put those pictures out for others to look at etc (Blogging might fit in as the equivalent of sitting at the local coffee shop as farmers do). You have just harvested "The Last Days of W" (great btw). Planting season is a few months away, and you have to get through the dark part of winter before that. But by the end of it, your beard will be longer than Larry Towell's!

Alec Soth

Great analogy, Chris. But if you see me wearing suspenders and a straw hat, please call for help.

joe

aaaahhhh farming... that's actually quite ironic Chris, because i was actually thinking about the pending rainy season recently ...

and i was thinking about it ironically because of Alec...

but it was more like the rain that brings floods…. because in that hp interview Alec gave i was left with an unshakable feeling that i was looking for a long time at a young Moses ;-)

In all seriousness, studying contact sheets, preventing yourself from picking up the camera for a while is one way to build up a hungry appetite, something about forcing yourself to figure out what you would do differently if you could take the shot again, something the delete dimension of photography seems to lack ;-)

John Vink

Chris, you forgot going to the market and selling your carrots...

mike

Reading photoblogs is, at best, a vaguely unpleasant activity for anyone who does not accept a specific symbolic order. I mean this in the traditional Lacanian sense...

Communities have rules, rules are dependent on language. If language is radically, permanently separates us from materiality (and it is: "This is not a pipe.")... it affects our perceptions, which defines our hopes and dreams… our fantasies. Any intrusion of materiality into our perception is traumatic... the point of The Emperor's New Clothes, right?

So to enter a community, one must accept a set of rules, a symbolic order which keeps the (dangerous) real at bay. We have law and religion... but the internet has its own, and each blog, in turn, has its own. To question this symbolic order is usually regarded by the community as a fundamentally destructive and unsafe, which explains the shrill cries of outrage, the brusque invitations to acts of sodomy and the childish hysteria one must endure as one pans for nuggets of wisdom or insight or diversion on the internet.

I'm sure anyone can conjure their own version of general photoblog meta-rules. This is what I see, more or less:

1. Intellectualism is intolerable. (i.e. outside thought that preceded the community)

2. Anything beyond the internet is irrelevant and/or dangerous. (Is the internet really a limitless resource?)

3. The internet experience is the same as, or preferable to the actual experience.

4. There is no better. (i.e. determinations of relative value outside the symbolic order are meaningless.)

5. History is unnecessary. (i.e. past events outside the symbolic order are meaningless.)

And so on... the theme being keep the outside (the Real) away from the inside (fantasy, or linguistically constructed communal desire as determined by a symbolic order).

Does it do more harm than good to read all these blogs? I don’t know. It depends. Neither. Probably.

steve r

photographers with control issues or indeed people with control issues who just happen to own a camera are the undoubted bane of the art in general, so i'm not too worried about seeing competitors work - i think competitor is not a strong enough word, photographic arch rival or nemesis is a much better term.

I really worry for someone who needs to see a photo to take a photo though, people who are inspired by the other fine arts or life in general and who translate that into a picture are fine by me.

Christopher Anderson

Hey John, Naturaly!:) but this brings up the question: how does a photographer view their pictures, as carrots? apples? turnips? watermelons?

Luis Gottardi

There's Oceans full of mostly unedited images in blogs & Flickrs. It's easy to see how someone could become overwhelmed or addicted, misplacing their energies, and drowning for a while.

One needs to eat, and knowing what healthy and tasty food is is wonderful, but it's easy to become a glutton.

--- Luis

garry

If limitation spawns creativity then perhaps we should all throw away our modern cameras and begin using 18th century photographic techniques again. Creativity is just the ability to show a different perspective I would argue the Internet has allowed us all to be more creative by expanding our horizons.

Akaky

I think reading other people's blogs is a waste of time and energy, unless, of course, you are reading my blog, which shows that you are a person of great taste and uncommon sensibility.

david bowen

the difficulty with blogs is that you can take up a full morning feeling like you are doing something constructive.. the metaphorical cleaning of the kitchen when there are accounts to be done

Flip

They are addictive both for writers and readers.

They make us work more for less reward, ie we have to filter through a whole load of crap. Noise pollution.

Most blogs are not sustainable financially, but they substitute sustainable media, they give too much for free and make it difficult for anyone to make money of quality content.

They disrupt family life or just real life in general, because they take up too much time.

Those without knowledge or talent can set trends.

Patterns can become too standardized and less diverse because trends become to influential.

They make you feel out of touch if you do not follow them.

Visual overload wearies the body and mind, and turns optimism into cynicism.

It's a popularity game, really.

To be seen with the right people is the name of the game, sucking up and link brown nosing is far too common.

david bowen

i thought i was reading an extended metaphor from enjoy-rs.. and then from zang.. and sys..
i think spam has occurred.. NIKE ARE RUBBISH - just for balance..

spam. the REAL downside of blogs and emails and websites and .. blah.

david bowen

that's pretty cynical FLIP.. part of the truth, certainly, while also far from the whole truth.

it's good to look at peoples work .. build friendships.. discuss and exchange ideas.

i've yet to meet anyone who gained a commission through posting on a blog or website, and so if people are posting to further their career more fool them.

Flip

Yes, its only the harmful side. I could list as many good things. Ultimately, though, I suspect the harm outweighs the good?

Justin Partyka

No David, that's not SPAM, that's a sponsorship offer for us photographers!

Remember: we must have good shoes!

maxim ryazansky

I don't know if living in Idaho makes you a better musician or photographer than if you were from some bigger city, but I think the reason your old assistant got ruined is because he didn't know how to filter through what he was being exposed to.

There's a certain charm to finding out about an artist from a rural place with no real scene who is doing something you think is truly unique, but in the end, if the work is good, it doesn't really matter how they got there or where they are from.

Mark Tucker

Here is a link to a good article in Vanity Fair that involves both photography AND obscure musicians. If Robert Johnson were born today, even in the same small town in the south, would/could he still be as pure?

http://tinyurl.com/52la7c

And for the CSI Miami freaks, the story continues:

http://tinyurl.com/64xmrz

tom hyde

As a sometime farmer with a straw hat but no suspenders, a seasonal Northwest hermit who struggles with SAD and cabin fever, I ask:

Are musicians in basements deaf then? Are great authors blind?

Given the assault of "bad" images from the earliest days of childhood on, perusing "good" content can help to remap the brain, like gaining an appreciation for fine wine or art in general. Unfortunately, much of what is on the internet is indicative of the broader image culture in general. Always happy to find the rare exceptions ....

For every photo turn, turn, turn ....

Agirlphotographer

I dont read a lot of blogs. I count on a few major ones to keep me informed. I let the rest float on by unless someone points me to something for a specific reason.

I do think there is a tipping point when it comes to looking at new work. If you are looking at a constant "stream" of images or thoughts and ideas, it can be hard to realize you need to stop and take a break, hibernate, think about what it all means. It's very easy to get oversaturated and overwhelmed. When I start to feel a little jaded, that's when I know it is time to step back and re-orient myself.

Producing something and disseminating it is fairly easy. Understanding what you're producing and why is tougher. My experience is that people seem to connect most strongly to the work that I have put something of myself in to. That can be draining. Afterwards I need to recharge.

Posting to a blog everyday is not as important as having something really meaningful and useful to say when you do post. Just like making a picture every day is not necessarily as important as making the picture you really want when you finally get out your camera. The problem with the internet is that it often seems to reward people who say nothing quite as well as those who say something important. Having readers and writers who know the difference is what will matter in the long run.

Sorry, I dont think I answered your question. But I did find a lot of comfort here knowing other people are wrestling with some of the same things I did over the holiday break. Thanks for that. And for the thought-provoking writing you've done the past few months here at Magnumblog.

ahmet polat

Maybe it's the whether. The time of the year. To much stuffing doesn't do well for ones digestion.
I started my blog with a writers block. And it's still there. I thought reading other blogs would help me get inspired but the only thing that comes up in my mind is that misery loves company.

Yes it's good when you are young . Just trying to get started while holding on to the older generations experiences and see where they made their mistakes. It helps to carve a path.

But when you are on that path does blogging or sharing really make a difference. Or is it just a marketing tool. I believe we started on a journey to experience life.
Sometimes life is overwhelming and you need help. Sharing is a good way to remember what your true reasons for this journey was..
But when life is not overwhelming , what are we sharing then. Doesn't it become something to live vicariously through others. Instead of realizing our own dreams.

It's getting harder that's for sure. The moment we have too many choices and too many voices we forget to listen to that one voice that spoke to us when nobody was around to help you.
It's a quit one, sometimes hard to hear. But when we listen it will tell us exactly what we need.

Mine is telling me now to stop pushing for everything to succeed. And get back to enjoying just where I am now at this moment of time.

Sorry to bother you guys with all of this. It's my 31st birthday today. 40 here I come.

craig

hi, yes im often surrounded and swarmed by a hive of influence that sometimes dominates my vision and finding it hard to shrug off that influence i lose confidance in my own work.
Confidence is something that has to be built up as any kind of artist and to start a series of work only to then see similiar work done by others can be problematic.
During my studies my tutors would often say that nothing can be created in a vacum and that softens the blow somewhat, but only a little.
My way to deal with this is just to keep shooting and shooting, sometimes ive got too much undeveloped film (like Winogrand, i think its the process of shooting thats important),
my next step would be to get it out there, but at the end of the day im competing only with myself.
Cheers Craig

david bowen

i just counted 41 rss photo-links on my computer.. on this work one, that is.. others are on the laptop and second comp.

i have only ever contributed words on 4 or 5.. 2 or 3 regularly.. and so mostly they provide headlines to see whats new or interesting.. sometimes resources for lessons