The word every photographer fears
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- Опубликовано: 21 сен 2024
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When I first got into landscape photography, I was exciting to be trying my hand at something new. I loved the interplay of the technical and creative, and the pursuit of good light and great subjects. But after a while, I could tell something was missing. I especially had a hard time grouping and organizing my images. That's when I realized there was a problem.
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The last half of the last sentence says it all.
`Offering a sense of peace and clarity I had been unknowingly searching for.'
This is what's going on.
Why? Why does the desert offer peace and clarity. What's wrong with everyday life?
Why? Why are you unknowingly searching for something? What's missing from your life?
It's a profound statement you just made and a never ending mystery peering into the eternal. Run with that
Love the video, Todd! I found the suggestions and insights shared to be incredibly powerful and helpful. In my own journey with photography, I've come to realize that mastering the technical aspects is crucial. Once the technicalities become second nature, it allows our minds to fully engage in the creative process, leading to the creation of images with genuine intent and meaning. Thank you for sharing this valuable content, and I truly hope it resonates with many others as it did with me.✌😉
Interesting thoughts there Tom. My appraoch is to shoot from the heart and try and capture some of the feeling for the time, place and subject, that initial emotional connection you get. That means I shoot for me and if other people don't get that when they see my images that's on them.
you completely lost me with this concept firstly, why should you care with she or anyone else might think? She declares the painting has no intention, but how does she know? She’s only speaking on behalf of her own internal perspective nor does she provide any foundation for which she derives her opinion.
Lest she were with the artist as it was being painted or grew up with him or her and had some form of deeper understanding into the insight of the artist, she’s simply speaking from pure ignorance. she has no clue what the intention was or wasn’t.
when I first saw this scene, my interpretation of her statement was that perhaps whomever was responsible for the interior decoration Did so without much skill or knowledge and perhaps put the right painting in the wrong place by happenstance as opposed to by intention based on her view of how a room should be put together.
Had it been in another place she may have had a completely different opinion
also, given the decisions that her character has made over the latter course of the series, is indicative of a smart person, making bad decisions.
And my favorite character is buddy. 😂
Journaling (pen and paper) this creative journey has helped me get from one intent to the next. No rules for that, just express. Txt, visual, you'll surprise yourself how much your subconscious is tricking you :)
Fantastic video and topic Todd. Personally, I feel I have been moving in this direction for the last couple of years, albeit kind of subconsciously (if that makes sense!). The thought of stopping and writing it down had not occurred to me, but I can certainly see the value in doing just that. Consequently, having now been inspired by your video, I am going to do just that. I anticipate that developing my artists statement will probably be a journey in itself, and evolve over time, and I look forward to seeing the evolution unfold! Thank you for the inspiration!
Thanks Todd! Well articulated and very helpful content. I think there is a natural progression of being focused by the technical aspects of photography and creating solid visual compositions, and once you summit that peak the burning question is “where next?”. I believe the answer is diving into intention and “why”, precisely as you present, and for me that has been a struggle. Glad you shared your process for navigating these waters, it definitely helps to realize we are not alone in this and hear some constructive tips to develop. Keep the great content coming :) Thanks!
We understand that it is a show and not a true art critique. Every painting carries the artist's vision, which may not be apparent to everyone. While some may not see, understand, or feel the intended message, the artist does. Sometimes, the lack of obviousness is intentional on the part of the artist.
Having an 'INTENT' in the field of 'ART' quite often limits your creativity. Sometimes it is what it is and needs to be appreciated for what it is. Intent is limiting and subjective. Sometimes yes it should be there to create a meaning as such.
But then there is meaning in no-meaning also. 🤷♂️
Just what I needed to hear right now. Thanks bunches for such a clear, heartfelt, and inspiring commentary.
Great video Todd! Just what is needed - struggling creativity.
Couple of questions: Where will you be using your Artist statement? Gallery’s, website?
How long have you been shooting landscapes?
Keep asking why? Yes. You probably drove your parents and teachers nuts as a kid because you wouldn’t stop asking why. And they reached that point of discomfort, not because you were an annoyance (and you probably were) but because they couldn’t express their own sense of why. Then when you realized there’s no more answers available you gave up and made your own simplistic conclusion. Or, it became a lifelong quest….
Sums up my creative process exactly! Really well explained and thank you for iterating the vague thoughts I've been musing over for the last few years
This video resonated with me because I've been in the same situation you described. This is what makes us unique. The capacity to notice and see things others might consider trivial or just ordinary. Rocks are just rocks, but you saw beauty in those rocks and intended to showcase that beauty. Other photographers shoot clouds and see patterns or gestures. How you articulate your thoughts and know-how has helped me not be afraid to see things from a different perspective. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
A picture shows intent, it doesn’t require words. Example: The Sistine Chapel’s frescoes or the Night Watch. This is true for any art form with one exception: literature.
I have been struggling with what my intention is when shooting. I know that I’ve shot some pretty cool images with intention. I’ve wanted to create a body of work for the longest time. However, when it comes to writing about them, it has always felt daunting. ‘
Asking why’ seems like the key I needed this whole time. I’ve never asked myself that concerning my photos or any other creative medium I am working in. So, thanks for this video. Came at the right time for me.
Great thoughts... thank you...
Excellent description of searching for truth in one’s work.
Thanks so much for this video, it really resonates with me and I found it insightful and helpful in thinking about why I make photographs and how to put the why into words
Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this important topic. Got me thinking a lot and was really inspiring!
Thanks for sharing your thoughts. It has helped clarify possibilities for my own expressions. I live in SLC and I have been to many parts of Utah. The area you talk about in this video is heart-wrenchingly beautiful.
I enjoyed this video. Thx!
Thank you for sharing!!
This is gold. Thanks for sharing your thoughts! Although my "why" for what I create is very different, I could relate to your experiencie out in the desert so much. And a tangible example, I find, helps much more than a lenghty abstract explanation. It took me about ten years of working through my personal life to gain a vague understanding of why I express what I express, and there are some striking parallels in my music as well as my photography that at the start I was completely oblivious of. I actually have sat down and written about those thoughts, much like you, to simply understand them better myself. But I think I’ll work on an artist statement more consciously. Thanks for inspiring me. :)
I agree completely that a piece of writing giving an autobiographical framework to a collection of images can add too their understanding and enjoyment. I do not think of this as an artist's statement. The best example I can think of is the "Daybooks of Edward Weston," which give wonderful context to images that also stand alone as art. Most "artist statements" are transparently in need of the attention of a decent editor. Thanks for the thoughtful post.
Amazing video Todd. Absolutely love this. I am gonna reflect on this for myself as well. I loved you said you feel insignificant compared to old rocks. I feel thesame but for me it is just a very humbling feeling to nature and also to the stars (I do a lot of Astro work).
For myself I have two modes, intentional shooting (partially planned shoots) and just unintentional unplanned shoots. Travelling to new locations or new cities is mostly unplanned. Shooting landscapes near home is mostly planned. I do like both though.
Sidenote: Also totally love you DJI Air2S LUT’s. Absolutely great.
Another great one, Todd. *Thank you.*
Back in the early 1970s when I was getting started in photography reading cinematography books changed my approach to still photography and photo journalism making me realize I had been trying to cram too much context into my photos making it difficult for the viewer to find what the intended message was. That is particularly difficult in landscape photography.
There is a formula in movies for changing locations: wide shot to establish the scene, medium external POV placing the actors in the scene, close-ups of the action being performed, interspersed with ‘over the shoulder’ cut-aways switching the POV to what the actors were seeing.
The close-ups always have the most impact because they isolate the focal point and eliminate distractions. So when approaching scene I started by mentally zooming in some compelling feature then expanding the frame outwards, moving the focal point around inside the four ROT node looking for compelling leading lines paying attention to whether they lead my eye from the edges of the frame to the focal point or pulled my eye from the focal point out of the frame.
It became easier for the viewer to see the ‘intent’ in my photos because I stopped taking photos which didn’t have any compelling message to tell.
When shooting stills I do the cinematic process backwards. For example if doing street photography I’ll start with my 70-200mm or 100-500mm and capture action candidly then if I thing there is an interesting story approach the subject, introduce myself, express admiration for what they were doing which inspired me to take the photo and then seek their cooperation in setting up posed MEDIUM POV photos in which I can control the lighting on the faces and facial angles by posing the face to the light them moving the camera around them to get the most flattering view of them. I will also shoot the cutaways to change POV then finally while departing the wide establishing shot. By shooting it last, after all the others I usually have more insight how to compose it.
This is a process I learned assisting renowned wedding photographer / teacher Monte Zucker in my first salaried job as a photographer when I was 20 years old. The only photo we took during the actual wedding ceremony was a wide shot of the interior from the back or balcony with ambient light. But then after the ceremony, by pre-arrangement we reenacted the key moments on the altar with dual flash lighting and very close attention to lighting patterns and facial angles making them look like studio lit shots. The same dual flash approach was used at the reception, wheeling around the off camera key light mounted on a rolling IV stand and alway recording a full rich range of detail because there was an identical flash over the camera for fill.
Even photos of guests at the reception were pose for a very simple reason: posed shots with careful attention to lighting pattern, facial angle and clothing are more flattering for the subjects. As a skinny 20year-old introvert it was a bit intimidating to walk up to his very rich clients and ask them to please button their jackets, straighten their ties, etc. while explaining I was doing it to make them look great in the wedding album. But Monte explained the richer people are the more they become concerned with their appearance and more than once after fixing some wardrobe malfunction before taking the photo I was complemented for my ‘professionalism’.
Shooting weddings like that helped me overcome a fear of approaching people I found interesting and ask to create a photo essay around them. I did that one morning at the Vietnam Veteran Memorial in DC and used it as a teaching opportunity on my web site: photo.nova.org/CinematicApproach/ coming away with an interesting story. The guy in the photo was visiting DC and his father who had served asked him to find the name of a member of his platoon who had been killed and make a rubbing of the name. I sent him copies of the photos and both he and his father really appreciated them.
Why does it matter what others think? Is it the be all and end all? It's you that matters. Or are clicks everything?
It must be difficult to keep thinking up new topics or viewpoints to explore in videos. This was a very interesting and well articulated talk, and 10/10 for coming up with something different to explore.
In overcoming personal existential creative dread. Maybe, for some, 'writing' a statement of intent. Is the way forward. In seeking a better understanding of the creative self. But, what if, you suck at writing and are creatively visual by nature. One could end up believing you have nothing to say visually , because you can't define it through words... Just a thought.
Huh, I thought the word photographers would fear would be macular-degeneration. Or blindness. Silly me.
I made a video on my channel a few weeks ago titled “Sometimes A Photo Is JUST A Photo”. It was based of similar critiques I was seeing in the photography groups on Facebook and Reddit. I couldn’t believe how petty these people were! Sometimes a photo is nothing more than a snap of a particular moment. No intent, no meaning…JUST a photo! People have become too full of themselves thinking they are high and mighty! Pathetic!!!
i was going to guess "blindness" 🙃
Your videos are top five percent, impressive. Love the calm statements and the honesty. Allow yourself to value yourself as "good", please, since this is what you are. Sometimes you're almost too humble, almost ashamed to put yourself out there. Don't be. Your work is excellent, your photographs are a joy and your videos are great. The only thing I really don't like is the fact that I couldn't get my hands on a copy of those "Keeler" zines 😉🙂
Such a beautiful, intense video!
Thank you for that, I really feel inspired and touched by your thoughts.
I'd like to contribute to your channel with a brief critique, if you don't mind.
Personally I felt like I was slapped in my face when, in the middle of you interesting, fascinating speech, you unexpectedly began to talk about your sponsor.
I know you invest time and effort in your videos, but I can't give up to the idea that everything must be monetized, even when we talk about art and creativity.
Just to give an example of what I mean, I'd like to mention one of my favourite youtuber, Jonna Jinton.
I subscribed to her channel many years ago, when she wasn't so popular, fascinated by her spontaneity and semplicity, but most of all by her art and creativity.
I never saw ads in her videos, she never asked for likes or subscriptions in all these years, but thanks to the quality of her work now she has more than five million subscribers.
Could it be a different way to have success, to express yourself free from the limitation of sponsorship?
I believe it is.
Hard to portray intention in boulder pics.
Cheese ?
I am autistic. Unlike you, I don't waffle.
"I photograph stuff that interests me."
I don't fear it, so your statement is not only false but very arrogant that you think you know what every photographer fears, and not only that, you say we all fear the exact same thing, how stupid is that statement
Pure BS! Because she doesn't get the Intent it doesn't mean the artist was wrong! Everyone is different, she might be the one in the wrong! She may be the only one who is right but who knows?!
YOU can only convey what is there, if you make the White Sands, Big Sur, DV, Iceland, India, NZ,,, you are doing something wrong! Of course going backwards is disingenuous, there's a clue in the meaning of the word Intent!
Lucking out then going backwards in't Intent no matter how confident you are saying it! Even with the add in little giggle RUclipsrs use to be "likeable!"
You've got a "better view than the Average person" "there were other better places" how crass do you want to come over as?!
As for AI, surely the whole vlog narrative was written by AI, nobody could speak such crass BS on their own!?