learning the media
I often hear questions about a situation in which someone tried to capture a certain scene with a camera, and got something very different from what he intended. It used to be all the more frustrating, when people used film cameras and couldn't see the results of their photographing until days or weeks later, but even now with the digital camera, it happens a lot… and the man or woman behind the camera becomes frustrated by his inability to turn something that he already sees in his mind to a picture on paper or on the screen of his camera.
Of course, photography is a craft, and in order to get the best results, one has to learn the craft. There are a lot of automatic cameras out there, or cameras that can be set on some automatic program, but the objective of most of those programs is to catch a picture which won't be blurred and will be light enough and in focus. If you see something that is really exceptional, and try to photograph it with an automatic program, the program itself may neutralize some of the most beautiful aspects of the picture you are seeing, and the only way to overcome that, is to understand how the camera works, and how to adjust it so that you will get what you want to get.
But there is another issue, that even advanced students sometimes grapple with, and find hard to understand, and that is the nature of the tool and its influence on the finished product. When I was a young man, I became fascinated and enamored by Jazz music, and started listening to it a lot. On records, and when I could, live. Once I was at a club, where I'd gone specifically to hear a certain pianist that I'd heard many a time on record but wanted to hear him as he played; experience the excitement of the actual expression of the music. And, as usual for me, I came a little early, got a good table, and was drinking bourbon on the rocks when a young musician was called to the stage as a warm up before the popular performer arrived.
The young man got up on the stage, told a joke, swallowing half the words, so that it really didn't come across well, and then pulled a comb and a piece of paper out of his pocket, and started playing music on his comb! I had never heard anything like that. It sounded a bit like a kazoo, but at the time, I was still unfamiliar with that particular musical instrument, and having been educated only in classical music before encountering Jazz, I was unprepared for the possibilities. The music that this man played was daring and powerful, and I was carried away by the melody, and almost forgot the incredible instrument that he was playing. The experience made a great impression on me, and influenced my work as an artist. I realized then, that if you have something to say, it doesn't necessarily matter what tools you use to express yourself. You can buy a piano that will cost you a few years salary, and has to be brought home with a truck and a few moving men, or you can pull a comb out of your pocket and start making music. This is true in the plastic arts as well. You can sculpt using scotch tape (and I have some photographs of such sculpture that I have to remember to publish one of these days), or you can draw or paint using anything that will make a line or a patch of color on the paper.
When you've learned your art, and it doesn't matter if it's music or painting or photography, the tool you use becomes an extension of your bodily existence in this world. It isn't the brush painting, it is you. And the brush is as much you as your fingers holding the brush are you. You don't think about the brush. You think about the image you are transferring to the paper… and all that is between that image and your mind is a series of connectors who become irrelevant in the act of creation.
But to do it right, you have to be aware of the media, of the character of the paper you are drawing on, and the character of the brush you are using. And the pigments you are using. It is impossible to paint a picture in water colors that will really have the presence of an oil painting or visa versa. Every camera has its own personality, just like every one of a painters brushes. You can have only one camera, but you have to learn the personality of that camera, and only use it for those things it can by its very nature do. If you try to force it, it's like pulling a donkey against his will. The camera will be cross. He will be kicking and biting, and making noise; getting in your way. No, you have to chose those adventures that he wants to take part in, and you'll find a beloved friend in your tool. He'll be leading you, and cooperating with your every whim and desire.
5/9/05
