Digital BW, The Print

Truman Prevatt wrote:

>This is true in any creative field. One of the biggest problems graduate 
>students have when they come out is to shake off their teacher's (thesis 
>adviser) influence. Your are so ingrained with his approach and his 
>insights (while not nearly as honed ) to a problem that you 
>unconsciously find yourself approaching it the same way.
>
>You have to set you on a path and develop your own method and style. 
>Otherwise you will make no progress. It is very difficult to do - 
>especially if your adviser was a giant in the field.
>  
>
Very well said..

>When I was in graduate school, the department chairman invited over to 
>dinner every PhD candidate that was finally getting out that year. I 
>remember the conversation well, when after dinner he congratulated me 
>and over brandy he said - while Phil (Hartman) is the best in his field 
>he's not you and it time you find out who you are as a mathematician. It 
>was difficult and it did take some time but it was necessary.
>
>The same thing for photography - you have to chart your own course. It's 
>not easy. What an inspiration it was for Weston to look in his vegetable 
>garden when he got bored. Good photographs are everywhere - you just 
>have to know how to find them. That's the hard part.
>
>  
>
And anyone who has taught an intro level photo course has heard that 
disheartening refrain (and symptom of mind-numbing conformity/lack of 
imagination) from students: "But I don't have anything [interesting] to 
photograph [around here]...."

Anytime I hear that I simply want to say: "perhaps you should look into 
a course that requires a bit less individual creativity..."

Instead, I have found myself talking of Weston's vegetables or seaweed, 
photos of cracks in sidewalks by others and how it is all about seeing 
what the everyday traveler (through life) ignores.. For most artists, 
the problem is more rarely "nothing to choose from which inspires"  but 
choosing ONE direction from the plethora of alternative the world 
presents.. and then, doing justice to that which originally inspired.

Unfortunately, this takes me back to the argument of "realistic 
representation of reality" vs. "subjective interpretive vision"...  In 
my very humble opinion, it's all about what we "see" that others don't 
see.  If we give them unadulterated "pure reality" (IMHO not possible 
unless we simply recreate in 3d the reality we are representing - even 
then we would introduce human inaccuracy and imperfection) viewers will 
simply, once again, be likely to miss the "point" or "theme" we are 
actually struck by... That feature or "thing" which made us want to 
share the image with another person.  We can certainly try to just 
recreate faithfully, without any interpretation, realistic depictions of 
the world as it is..  BUT, how much more exciting it is to recreate in 
another the wonder or other FEELING we felt when viewing something.. In 
the former case we depend upon the viewer having the artist's ability to 
"see", in the latter we enable them to "see" what they may not see 
innately, and create art in translating what we "saw" into something 
appreciable by another as such..
Keith

 

"Just some guy," and founder of the Multiverse's largest EPSON printer 
User Community (highly recommended by Vogon Poets and MegaDodo 
Publications), at:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EPSONx7x_Printers/
 
"For the rest of you out there, the secret is to bang the rocks together 
guys"

 




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