Day 4...and The Big Deal...continued

Carrying over from the post the other day, much of that interpretation was derived from later reflection on the photograph. When I took the photo of the tarp and garage doors I was just walking around, saw that scene and thought, "Oh, look, a slice of life. That tells a story." And, too,  I was drawn to the contrast of the rigidity of the shapes of the garage doors and the amorphous shape of the tarp. Later as I was looking over the photos of the day on my computer, I kept coming back to that photo wondering, "why do I find this so interesting?" Then I started to realize that along with the explicit rectangles in the back left there are also all these implied shapes lurking mysteriously in the shadows on the right. And I thought, "Now, I've got something! That's interesting. Now there is this subtle element of material vs. immaterial, the concrete world vs. the world of ideas. O.K. I like this photograph." Then I must have liked it too much and thought, "how can I muck this up? I know, I'll try to force some mood on it. Art is supposed to be "moody", right? Alright, that'll do the trick!" Note to self, let the photos speak and pay attention to what they are saying. As the photographer sometimes you should only be the interpreter.

Which brings me to my next point, I've been noticing with these recent projects where I am returning day after day to the same subject, that round about the 3rd/4th day the excitement and newness of the subject starts to where off and I enter this existential quagmire. Nothing seems like a picture, confusion as to what I should shoot begins to sink in, and my focus is all over the place. Mostly it kind of goes like this, "Well, there's that thing. I guess I'll take a picture of that." Click. Check the back of the camera, "eh." Move on. And at the end of the day it's sort of like, "What am I even doing?" Ah, but then you find something that sets your mind at ease. Recently I found this quote by one of my early influences, Harry Callahan (who was an Abstract-Expressionist photographer in the 1950's) and it made it all alright. It reminded me of what I'm doing and that it's not always going to be easy. There will be bad days. It's part of the process.

"I photograph continuously, often without a good idea or a strong feeling. During this time the photos are nearly all poor but I believe they develop my seeing and help later on in later photos. I do believe strongly in photography and hope by following it intuitively, when the photographs are looked at they will touch the spirit of people."      -Harry Callahan