Over a decade ago I saw Ben Okri on TV, talking about the final image. Whenever he thought about death in general and on a more personal level about his own end, he would ask himself what he would think of at his very last moment in life, provided he would be able to do so as opposed to being the victim of a random thought about the light bulb above his head or a stain on the wall. Okri chose an image of the river from the place where he grew up as a kid.
Naturally the question arises what image would justify being such a final image, and even if this can be a - somewhat dramatic- guideline in making photos. To me being a photographer is just being someone who makes photos, virtually like everybody now. Which means everybody is a photographer. But how can one become a better one? Perhaps even one that makes final images.
Quantity: more than many
In photography there is not just a quantity- related development, there is also quality. In this predominantly visual culture of exhibitionism that we see on the Internet an on TV, cameras are not just everywhere, they make screwing up a shot a very difficult task indeed. And even if we do screw up, there is always post-production software such as Instagram for a mildly ironic tag. The method of how we shoot photographs is becoming less and less relevant. New technical developments like those used in the Lytro camera, make it even possible to decide what to focus on after making the shot. The fact that Steve Jobs was very interested in this technique and other ideas from Lytro’s whizz Ren Ng, suggests that phone cameras will become even easier to use in the future.
Timing: The indecisive moment
It's not just how we make photos that has become less relevant throughout the years. Also the timing of when we shoot something is becoming less relevant. With local memory getting bigger and faster and the possibility to immediately upload photos to the cloud, we see many people going photo crazy whenever something moderately interesting occurs. They make dozens of photos and pick one out of the bunch later, or not even that: they can use a collage app and put a series of photos online. And as ongoing integration of video cameras with photo cameras continues, it will become even easier to just shoot some film and pick out a still to use as a photo or make a photo while recording a video. That last development in particular has a strong effect on the act of photography.
Even before 1900, you could point a camera to something that looked interesting, push a button and some image would be recorded. But an essential part of making photos has changed by making the precise timing of a photo less relevant. Until recently, what Cartier-Bresson called the decisive moment was of cardinal importance to making most types of photos. But this is the era of the indecisive moment.
-this is a photo of a cat-
It is somewhat alluring to think that this is symbolic of this era of (over)information: in-stead of concentrating on something very interesting, one often has a quick look at lots of stuff that may or may not be worth the attention. Browsing around, zap from this website to that podcast to a chat with this guy and a portrait of that girl might be the cultural equivalent to the way most people make photos nowadays. Assuming there is at least some sort of relationship between these two phenomenons, between creating a plethora of images and living in a culture with a zillion images, which might even be a (partly) causal one, one can ask oneself what we can learn from this. This brings me to the next question, which as a why-question is usually the most philosophical one: why do we make photos? How to turn quantity into quality?
Why photos? Naturally there are many reasons to take a photo. I refer to the first essay about what makes a good photo and the distinction between the three types of photos: the personal, the semi-personal and the impersonal one. These types of photos represent three types of reasons why we make photos. A professional photographer might want to take a photo of a car to make it look fast and make it easier to sell. A forensic photographer might want to make a technically perfect registration of a crime scene, making it easier to solve a crime, and so on. Naturally, there are many more reasons to make photos, but mostly they are part of one of these three types or a combination of these types. A seductive photo on a dating site for example is partly a personal image, trying to capture a certain look you like about yourself. But it is also a semi-personal photo, trying to evoke certain thoughts and expectations with the viewer that does not know the subject of the photo, thus trying to sell the subject.
The melancholic photo: when down is up
We mostly take photos of moments we do not want to forget: personal and happy photos. Such moments may consist of a look of a person, a cat in the sun or an apple on the pavement. The reason why we make photos is a way of conserving certain experiences.
To me this mimetic type of photography of trying to recreate a moment whenever you look at a particular photo is something done by simply recording the image of the thing you wish to remember. What can be more interesting is to make a photo that has a more universal value. Not by showing a dramatic scene, but by embodying a very rudimentary emotion in an image that somehow universally resonates with experiences that are entwined with a specific base type of emotion. This is something that quite often happens with an old pop song, for example. Such a song can act like a trigger or a window for a very basic type of emotion and experience. It may be associated with an experience from the past, acting like a personal photograph, but it may also evoke certain emotional imagery, experiences or memories of things that never occurred, at least not to the listener personally.<br/><br/>Although an image can be very &quot;up&quot;, giving a sensation of vitality, to me the effect of any picture is much stronger within the realms of the tragic. Maybe it is because the time we have is so extremely short compared the past and present. This might be the reason why a particular photograph that does not explicitly show a complete scene, but rather makes the viewer question what is not there. This has a -potentially- deeper effect than the sometimes almost vulgar explicit photos we find in newspapers and magazines.
At times I like to think that this is what defines the difference between for journalism and art: it is the difference between showing something and making something disappear. Whether relevant or not to the practice of making photos, this distinction can be of practical use within the nomenclature of photography. In any case, it is usually nice to know where you stand as a photographer, putting some label on your identity.
-a somewhat timeless image, I accidentally photographed only part of the reader-
Houdini, the tragedy of the image
Every photo is a selection and captures an image within the frame’s limits, this automatically excludes the rest of the world. Making a photo of something means making the rest of he world disappear. Every photo we make turns the photographer into a Houdini, because essentially we make ourselves disappear with the rest of the world when making a photo. We become one with the rest of the world for just a moment being the negation of the photo, turning the tragedy of the condition humaine into a moment of eternity.
As a photo is just a moment in time, the timeframe within which we make our choices is also a moment in time. Like every choice we make, we exclude a million other choices. Therefore there is an apparent analogy between the choices we make and the photos we make and this makes it easier to sense a feeling of loss and of temporality. So apart from a photo being tragic because of the disappearance of the rest of the world including the viewer, this relationship with time, can also have a certain tragic effect. Not just because a photo is a moment in time, but also because it always depicts something from the past.
A photo that has a deep effect is a photo that touches on the tragedy of loss, the feeling of seeing something and meanwhile missing the rest. By looking at a photo the image acts as a mild exorcism of the inescapability of death. The photo can act as a visual catharsis: a feeling of loss evoked by the photo through basic human emotions that resonate with experiences and the canon of all eras: the mystical, golden era of Kodachrome, memories of events from before our own existence, like a sense of remembering something that never happened to us.
An image, just like a certain song or even scent, can be associated with both the personal and the universal. For example, listening to a song from 1969, we feel part of what is long gone and this type of song can make us think of things we experienced ourselves listening to that song before or things that were part of the era the song derives from. Perhaps because we saw an early recording of that song on Youtube or we heard it as a part of a soundtrack of an old movie. Listening to an old song may make us feel part of something in the past, almost like remembering something we know as part of that era and still it can feel like it was a personal experience from long ago. And by making us feel part of the past, it also makes us feel lost. This is why old pop songs usually have a more melancholic feel to them than newer ones, although songs like Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Damake this a very difficult enterprise indeed.
The immortal image: about the consolation of photos
And this is also why a photo that is not obviously modern has more potential than one that is. I would say that photography can in fact be therapeutic: making photos that remind us of what is lost, and at the same time acting as an exorcism of our own sense of loss. This is what consoles us. We feel part of something outside of us, yet feel lost since we feel part of something that is no more and by this we achieve a certain existential realization: we become part of something that is not here and now, but there and then. Thus we exchange the volatile for the eternal.
Art has always had an intimate relationship with (im)mortality. For example, if we look at the drawings from the Chauvet caves of Southern France we can sense this in quite extreme form, since these drawings have been made so long ago by men who have been dead for thousands of years, meanwhile these drawings are virtually immortal themselves and have been for many generations.
Much later, Aristotle described a practical use of art in general and of Greek tragedies in particular as catharsis for the tragic emotions of pity and fear, though not without a certain aesthetic pleasure. A more modern view on tragedy is that of James Joyce, who defined tragedy as pornographic didacticism: something that excites a feeling in the viewer both of fear and the recognition of the self in the observed subject experiencing life’s horrors such as mortality. As a result of aesthetic pleasure in the face of these horrors, tragedy provides redemption.
So both in terms of time and space a photo can console us, because we become part of the eternal past as well as the rest of the world (the negation of the image), feeling lost and part of something more than ourselves. I am not saying a photo is a Greek tragedy, I am putting making photos in a broader perspective in order to clarify what I personally strive for when making a photo: offering an aesthetic pleasure, luring the viewer into the tragic feel of loss and, as said, by doing so also offering some degree of consolation. Admittedly, this sounds rather dramatic. Yet, as a photographer one should know what to strive for in order to know in which direction to go.
-a Greek tragedy-
The better photographer, you<br/><br/>So, should you just make some old looking shots where something is obviously missing and call it art? Sure. But that is not the point of becoming a better photographer. I am merely stating that in order to be conscious of one's development, one needs to define what to strive for. Whenever I go to a place to take some photos, say a faraway city, I am always afraid that I will miss a potentially brilliant shot. And afterwards I'm happy with the good photos I made, but more than that, I am deeply frustrated with the shots I missed because I was running out of battery or film or whatever the reason may be. Those shots become almost mythologically great in my mind. In stead of being the hunter for the decisive moment, it is much more important to indulge in indecisive moments.
Of course you can hunt for the mythological, perfect image, or try and make as many of them as possible. But it is likely that by looking for some beautiful accidental event, you will miss much more.
As a photographer, you need to stop thinking, being an automatized scanner that continually looks around to make sure no great shot will be missed. You need to stop looking and start staring. That is: start looking at someone or something for a long time often with your eyes wide open. Then, every now and then look at the photos you made during this visual submersion and show them to your preferred audience: see what photo has what effect and why that might be. Print your photos. Cut the prints up and see how that works.
One popular advice that inspired me greatly: get an old camera that does not require any batteries, buy a roll of film and make some photos. Even with a fairly modest amount of experience composition, focus etc will come naturally and automatically. Essentially: look at the world in an open, more subconscious way and you will come across the melancholic beauty of it all. And if you're lucky you will make a good photo of it too. If not, don't worry. Not everything has to be captured and shared with others. Your own memory is a good place for images too and apart from being a more private place, this way you won’t be needing wi-fi, photo prints or anything else besides your own head.
Occasionally something is too beautiful not to let it pass you by.
