Listening to "Art" - Emerson podcasts on itunes, I found this paragraph, from one of the most brilliant men to have ever walked this earth, quite enlightening.
"Because the soul is progressive, it never quite repeats itself, but in every act attempts the production of a new and fairer whole. This appears in works both of the useful and the fine arts, if we employ the popular distinction of works according to their aim, either at use or beauty. Thus in our fine arts, not imitation, but creation is the aim. In landscapes, the painter should give the suggestion of a fairer creation than we know. The details, the prose of nature he should omit, and give us only the spirit and splendor. He should know that the landscape has beauty for his eye, because it expresses a thought which is to him good: and this, because the same power which sees through his eyes, is seen in that spectacle; and he will come to value the expression of nature, and not nature itself, and so exalt in his copy, the features that please him. He will give the gloom of gloom, and the sunshine of sunshine. In a portrait, he must inscribe the character, and not the features, and must esteem the man who sits to him as himself only an imperfect picture or likeness of the aspiring original within. " -Emerson
Posted by Paul Wegemann on July 10, 2010 at 12:11 PM
This really resonates with me, Matt. Thanks so much.
Well, great(yeah, right!) minds think alike. I just posted a question that really piggybacks onto your post here, and I had not even bothered to read yours first. As far as this quote. I don't think anyone could have expressed this any better. Thank you for bringing this!
Emerson and Thoreau are two of my biggest inspirations. Of course, I'm an English teacher who came late to photography, but their reverence for the relationship between nature and "man" and their abilities to depict the visual and visceral experience of nature in words make them an inspiration worth revisiting if it's been a while. Thanks for posting this.
This is great stuff Matt, thanks for sharing. I would consider passing it on to a coworker who disregards contemporary landscape photography as "phony" but they would likely smirk without fully comprehending.
Posted by Luis Argerich on August 6, 2010 at 3:26 PM
I just love this quote!
Posted by Kent Mearig on August 6, 2010 at 9:20 PM
Thanks for sharing this quote. I think it will be central to a new photography/am. lit. course that I'm co-teaching.
Posted by Brian Jackson on August 9, 2010 at 12:03 PM
Posted by Jerry Greer on February 1, 2011 at 5:08 PM
I understand where you guys are coming from but we are not painters, we are photographers. We take pictures of nature, we don't just look at it and whip up what ever we want, though some do. Photography is the only medium that is directly connect to reality by the population. There's a difference between being a photographer and a digital artist. It seems that everyone wants to take digital artistry and make it the new photography. Bruce, this is why your coworker thinks the way he does. A lot of the landscapes that I see today are phony with respect to the landscape that was there in front of the photographer as the shutter was released.
This is a quote that really resonates with me. The words that hit home to me are "pictures are not ornaments or relics, but windows and doors". Some are more concerned with ornaments.
"The camera is a point of reference, a bit like a compass though not nearly so predictable. It is the discipline and the opportunity of vision. In relation to the enclosure we call civilization, these pictures are not ornaments or relics, but windows and doors, enlargements of our living space, entrances into the mysterious world outside the walls, lessons in what to look for and how to see. They limit our comfort; they drain away the subtle corruption of being smug; they make us a little afraid, for they suggest always the presence of the unknown, what lies outside the picture and beyond eyesight; they suggest the possibility of the sudden access of delight, vision, beauty, joy that entice us to keep alive and reward us for living; they can serve as spiritual landmarks in the pilgrimage to the earth that each one of us must undertake alone."
Wendell Berry – “ The One Inch Journey” from The Unforeseen Wilderness
Jerry, the word photography literally meant light painting/drawing. We are all painters. To paraphrase Ansel Adams, some of us take pictures and some of us make pictures.
The biggest mistake we can make is to tell the world that photography can only ever be one thing and can't be anything else. Not only is it patently untrue, as evident by the abundance of photographic art out there, but it also serves to foster ignorance rather than a finer understanding of the many things the medium can be.
The fact that many laypeople don't make the distinction between "straight" photography and art is not a failure of photography, it is a failure of photographers. It is OUR job to make sure we are effectively communicating our work for what it is and what it means.
I don't see this as a contradiction to Berry's quote. There are literal windows and there are metaphorical windows. What comes through can be trees and flowers or it can be thoughts, feelings, and concepts, or it can be any combination of these.
There are literal windows and there are metaphorical windows. What comes through can be trees and flowers or it can be thoughts, feelings, and concepts, or it can be any combination of these.
Beautiful.
Posted by Jerry Greer on February 1, 2011 at 9:32 PM
Guy, I'm not telling anyone how to or what photography is only my personal feelings about comparing photography to a painter. For me, I just cannot compare it to a painter and the canvas. Again, no other medium is so tied to reality like photography. If that makes me ignorant then I guess I'm just that, ignorant.
Jerry, clearly you are not ignorant since you acknowledge that photography is indeed used in multiple ways and for multiple purposes. I think it's important that we make sure others are not ignorant of this fact, either.
Much as people want to believe that a photograph represents some kind of objective reality, in most cases it does not. I think it's important to make sure we educate our audience so they know what they should or should not believe rather than perpetuate the illusion.
I want to believe that everything I read in the newspaper is true, but I know better. I know what news sources I can trust, I know when to question the objectivity of a commentary, and I know what stories are pure fiction. I get value from all of them when I can put them in the right context. The same should be true for photography.
Guy
Posted by Jerry Greer on February 1, 2011 at 11:13 PM
Guy, I for one do believe that nature photography does represent a form of reality. For me, if I'm displaying a print of an open Appalachian Bald covered with the endangered Roan Mountain goldenrod, at some point in history, I had to have stood there with my camera pointed in that direction and I had to physically release the shutter to take the photo. That landscape was reality. I could not have just visualized the scene in my head and pulled out a flashlight and painted the photograph. Photographs of nature do represent a very real sense of reality in most every breathing human with a brain. including myself.
Posted by Jerry Greer on February 1, 2011 at 11:38 PM
Guy, have you read "The Unforeseen Wilderness"? When Berry states "these pictures are not ornaments or relics, but windows and doors..." he is stating just that. He is linking the photos taken by Mr. Meatyard for their cause, stopping the flooding of the Red River Gorge, to reality. Just as I would've done had it been me.
Posted by Carl Donohue on February 2, 2011 at 5:18 AM
"the word photography literally meant light painting/drawing. We are all painters. "
Hey Guy
And the word 'gay' meant brightly colored.
But .. let's take this idea further. How is painting with pixels painting with light?
Jerry, I'm holding "The Unforeseen Wilderness" in my hands right now. The photographs are B&W, most are poorly exposed (or poorly printed), some lack focus, and at least one shows obvious blur from camera shake. Other than the general lines and shapes, they look nothing like a human eye would have perceived the place.
This is not the point, though. The point is that you correctly used terms like "I, for one" and "for me". In your own work you can represent the things that make it meaningful to you. This doesn't mean that every other photographer in the world should feel the same about theirs. You know they don't. This doesn't make their work any less valid; just different.
Carl, this is off topic for the thread but the graphic qualities of a photograph are created by light projected on a light-sensitive surface. Whether it is a piece of celluloid containing pigments or a sensor mapping the measurements to pixels is really secondary to how the initial image was formed. Pixels are just another form of representing visual data which can come from any number of sources.
Guy
Posted by Jerry Greer on February 2, 2011 at 1:21 PM
Guy, the book is not a photo book. The photographs were added to fill a space and to give extra substance to Wendell's text. Personally, I'd like to see a book put together like what we publish here at Mountain Trail Press. Maybe a small version printed like Blue Ridge.
Also, I made mention earlier in this thread to the fact that I am not trying to dictate how people shoot nature and what nature photography is. I just think that comparing nature photography to painting is stretching it at best and to use it to condone heavy manipulation as the norm is wrong. I'll say it again, no other medium is so connected to reality the way photography is (you cannot dispute that Guy) and I've explained why I feel this way and why most of the "laypeople" do the same. The photographer must be standing there with the landscape (or whatever subject we are working with) stretched out there in front of him/her to make the photograph. We CANNOT pull it from the depths of our mind and throw some paint (or light) on a canvas ( or photo paper). Some painters must look at what they are painting and some (like my wife) does not. This is all that I'm saying! And to clarify, I'm talking about the field of nature photography and no other form. This site is about nature photography and this forum is about landscape.
I don't dispute it, Jerry. In fact here's an excerpt from my own web site:
"I am often asked about the visual qualities of my work and how they relate to the elusive concept of "reality". I strongly believe that photography is the most restrictive of the visual arts but at the same time also has the potential to make the most impact with the viewer for one simple reason: photographs have a binding connection with real events, real elements, real light, and real moments in time. Any obvious departure from these realities will cause an image to be dismissed outright regardless of any other aesthetic qualities it may possess. The photographic artist's tools are primarily well-crafted composition and careful adjustments of the captured image within very narrow margins.
My goal is to produce images that inspire without venturing outside the realm of the believable. The ability to imbue a photographic image with one's personal thoughts and emotions is indeed what puts the "art" in Fine Art Photography. To be clear, my images may well represent a personal interpretation that may differ from, extend, or even alter what others may regard as a strict documentary rendition of a scene. They are to be regarded as works of creative art, though they are always based on real elements and express a real reverence for the subjects portrayed. "
Guy
Posted by Jerry Greer on February 2, 2011 at 5:38 PM
Hey, I understand and I do the same. My only issue is the comparison of photography to painting and the use of quotes like these to lump full blown digital manipulation in with all nature photography. That's it! I really don't care what others do but if we don't care about these issues as individual photographers that love nature then the decent from those "laypeople" you talk about will only get worse. I want people who look at my images believe them and not question them whether as hanging wall art or standing in front of a judge during an environmental case. For some, getting "WOW" comments is worth more than the nature that they shoot. If I had to choose between photography and the natural world I'd most certainly choose the natural world. Nature got me in this business not photography.
Discussion
21 replies"Because the soul is progressive, it never quite repeats itself, but in every act attempts the production of a new and fairer whole. This appears in works both of the useful and the fine arts, if we employ the popular distinction of works according to their aim, either at use or beauty. Thus in our fine arts, not imitation, but creation is the aim. In landscapes, the painter should give the suggestion of a fairer creation than we know. The details, the prose of nature he should omit, and give us only the spirit and splendor. He should know that the landscape has beauty for his eye, because it expresses a thought which is to him good: and this, because the same power which sees through his eyes, is seen in that spectacle; and he will come to value the expression of nature, and not nature itself, and so exalt in his copy, the features that please him. He will give the gloom of gloom, and the sunshine of sunshine. In a portrait, he must inscribe the character, and not the features, and must esteem the man who sits to him as himself only an imperfect picture or likeness of the aspiring original within. " -Emerson
This is a quote that really resonates with me. The words that hit home to me are "pictures are not ornaments or relics, but windows and doors". Some are more concerned with ornaments.
"The camera is a point of reference, a bit like a compass though not nearly so predictable. It is the discipline and the opportunity of vision. In relation to the enclosure we call civilization, these pictures are not ornaments or relics, but windows and doors, enlargements of our living space, entrances into the mysterious world outside the walls, lessons in what to look for and how to see. They limit our comfort; they drain away the subtle corruption of being smug; they make us a little afraid, for they suggest always the presence of the unknown, what lies outside the picture and beyond eyesight; they suggest the possibility of the sudden access of delight, vision, beauty, joy that entice us to keep alive and reward us for living; they can serve as spiritual landmarks in the pilgrimage to the earth that each one of us must undertake alone."
Wendell Berry – “ The One Inch Journey” from The Unforeseen Wilderness
The biggest mistake we can make is to tell the world that photography can only ever be one thing and can't be anything else. Not only is it patently untrue, as evident by the abundance of photographic art out there, but it also serves to foster ignorance rather than a finer understanding of the many things the medium can be.
The fact that many laypeople don't make the distinction between "straight" photography and art is not a failure of photography, it is a failure of photographers. It is OUR job to make sure we are effectively communicating our work for what it is and what it means.
I don't see this as a contradiction to Berry's quote. There are literal windows and there are metaphorical windows. What comes through can be trees and flowers or it can be thoughts, feelings, and concepts, or it can be any combination of these.
Guy
Beautiful.
Much as people want to believe that a photograph represents some kind of objective reality, in most cases it does not. I think it's important to make sure we educate our audience so they know what they should or should not believe rather than perpetuate the illusion.
I want to believe that everything I read in the newspaper is true, but I know better. I know what news sources I can trust, I know when to question the objectivity of a commentary, and I know what stories are pure fiction. I get value from all of them when I can put them in the right context. The same should be true for photography.
Guy
Hey Guy
And the word 'gay' meant brightly colored.
But .. let's take this idea further. How is painting with pixels painting with light?
Cheers
Carl
This is not the point, though. The point is that you correctly used terms like "I, for one" and "for me". In your own work you can represent the things that make it meaningful to you. This doesn't mean that every other photographer in the world should feel the same about theirs. You know they don't. This doesn't make their work any less valid; just different.
Carl, this is off topic for the thread but the graphic qualities of a photograph are created by light projected on a light-sensitive surface. Whether it is a piece of celluloid containing pigments or a sensor mapping the measurements to pixels is really secondary to how the initial image was formed. Pixels are just another form of representing visual data which can come from any number of sources.
Guy
Also, I made mention earlier in this thread to the fact that I am not trying to dictate how people shoot nature and what nature photography is. I just think that comparing nature photography to painting is stretching it at best and to use it to condone heavy manipulation as the norm is wrong. I'll say it again, no other medium is so connected to reality the way photography is (you cannot dispute that Guy) and I've explained why I feel this way and why most of the "laypeople" do the same. The photographer must be standing there with the landscape (or whatever subject we are working with) stretched out there in front of him/her to make the photograph. We CANNOT pull it from the depths of our mind and throw some paint (or light) on a canvas ( or photo paper). Some painters must look at what they are painting and some (like my wife) does not. This is all that I'm saying! And to clarify, I'm talking about the field of nature photography and no other form. This site is about nature photography and this forum is about landscape.
"I am often asked about the visual qualities of my work and how they relate to the elusive concept of "reality". I strongly believe that photography is the most restrictive of the visual arts but at the same time also has the potential to make the most impact with the viewer for one simple reason: photographs have a binding connection with real events, real elements, real light, and real moments in time. Any obvious departure from these realities will cause an image to be dismissed outright regardless of any other aesthetic qualities it may possess. The photographic artist's tools are primarily well-crafted composition and careful adjustments of the captured image within very narrow margins.
My goal is to produce images that inspire without venturing outside the realm of the believable. The ability to imbue a photographic image with one's personal thoughts and emotions is indeed what puts the "art" in Fine Art Photography. To be clear, my images may well represent a personal interpretation that may differ from, extend, or even alter what others may regard as a strict documentary rendition of a scene. They are to be regarded as works of creative art, though they are always based on real elements and express a real reverence for the subjects portrayed. "
Guy