Jul 23 2007
Working inside the box
Hi Garry. You caught some nice poses here. Biggest problem is I can tell the horizon isn’t straight. It doesn’t look like a hill. Man at right needs to be cropped out. Sometimes I find if I shout right before I take the picture I can get people’s attentions. If you had done so we would have been able to see more of their faces. George MacWilken.
The photo is “World’s Fair, New York City,” by Garry Winogrand. George MacWilken is Mike Johnstone satirizing internet/flickr experts.
There is a strong imperative for anyone with artistic pretensions to break rules and venture outside the box. For photographers this urge is almost irresistible - a way of regaining some of the respect that we have been robbed of by digital point and shoot gadgetry.
Ken Rockwell complains:
Typewriters don’t write Vonnegut novels, iPods don’t compose Brahms symphonies, and Leicas certainly don’t create Salgado photos. It beats the dickens out of me why anyone would think cameras create photos on their own.
Most people know that cameras don’t create photos on their own. You do have to press the little doohickey on top.
But Rockwell is not talking photos - he is talking art. Form over function:
Your photos need to be different from everyone else if you want them to stand out from the crowd. Standing out is important if you want your photos to get noticed, to sell and and to win photo contests….Photos show others the insides of your personality…. technique has nothing to do with making a remarkable photo”.
Photographers inhabit many different worlds - the worlds of videojournalism and corporate/marketing video have little to do with exposing your inner self and a lot to do with mundane technical details like capturing intelligible audio.
In these more quotidien arenas form must follow function. Using remarkable creative techniques is always tempting, but rarely appropriate. If viewers are noticing cinematic artifice - then attention is taken from the message. Walter Murch: “I know an edit is complete when I can’t see myself in it anymore”.
At least discover what is in the box before throwing it out.
