Philosophy Alert !!
I was reading through the comments of an old interview on the strobist blog, interviewing the phenomenally talented 17 year old Joey L . One of the comments that stuck me was when someone remarked that Joey's pictures had a singular vision. A vision that seems stamped into each photograph featured on his website (seems to have some issues with Firefox3, be warned), giving the viewer a sense of assertion of Joeys ownership of his pictures. Ownership, not just in the material sense of the term, but in terms of the vision.
Joeys' pictures are depressing and incredible at the same time, to most people over 17, depressing because you hadnt heard the term SLR yet, when you were 17 and incredible because, ... well, because they are incredible, take a look !
The picture of the dead bird, lying in the gravel, with its belly facing the sky, while a group of similar birds take to the skies in the background. The wandering Holy Men of India, defining their own boundaries of thought, all in the name of enlightenment, the tramp who refused to step down from posing until the photographer left, the beggar holding out his jar in the middle of the busy thoroughfare, the young couple that had tattooed most of their body lying on the ground ...
All powerful images, conveying a powerful vision ...
So, all of this got me thinking.
Thinking about whether the pictures I shoot have that vision, heck, any vision. In case they dont, if I should be thinking of adopting a vision (yeah, I know that sounds ridiculous).
Then there's this quote by the Greek philosopher Whitehead that has stuck with me for a long time.
It goes "The essence of dramatic tragedy is not unhappiness. It resides in the solemnity of the remorseless working of things."
He then' goes on. to explain, "This inevitableness of destiny can only be illustrated in terms of human life by incidents which in fact involve unhappiness. For it is only by them that the futility of escape can be made evident in the drama."
The way I understand it , Whitehead seems to say, that tragedy is implicit in the way things work. An effort to focus on unhappy events to merely depict tragedy is simply redundant. All life itself is a tragedy. OK, so maybe thats stretching it, but you do see my point, don't you ?
Not really? Well, here then is what I'm trying to say.
Would a vision that focused on the tragedies of everyday life, translate to a good vision, because it depicted reality ?
Or would it be more powerful, if not inspirational, if my pictures were to focus on the small victories, triumphs and the hopes that also seem to dot the tragic landscape of life that we all inhabit ?
I was reading through the comments of an old interview on the strobist blog, interviewing the phenomenally talented 17 year old Joey L . One of the comments that stuck me was when someone remarked that Joey's pictures had a singular vision. A vision that seems stamped into each photograph featured on his website (seems to have some issues with Firefox3, be warned), giving the viewer a sense of assertion of Joeys ownership of his pictures. Ownership, not just in the material sense of the term, but in terms of the vision.
Joeys' pictures are depressing and incredible at the same time, to most people over 17, depressing because you hadnt heard the term SLR yet, when you were 17 and incredible because, ... well, because they are incredible, take a look !
The picture of the dead bird, lying in the gravel, with its belly facing the sky, while a group of similar birds take to the skies in the background. The wandering Holy Men of India, defining their own boundaries of thought, all in the name of enlightenment, the tramp who refused to step down from posing until the photographer left, the beggar holding out his jar in the middle of the busy thoroughfare, the young couple that had tattooed most of their body lying on the ground ...
All powerful images, conveying a powerful vision ...
So, all of this got me thinking.
Thinking about whether the pictures I shoot have that vision, heck, any vision. In case they dont, if I should be thinking of adopting a vision (yeah, I know that sounds ridiculous).
Then there's this quote by the Greek philosopher Whitehead that has stuck with me for a long time.
It goes "The essence of dramatic tragedy is not unhappiness. It resides in the solemnity of the remorseless working of things."
He then' goes on. to explain, "This inevitableness of destiny can only be illustrated in terms of human life by incidents which in fact involve unhappiness. For it is only by them that the futility of escape can be made evident in the drama."
The way I understand it , Whitehead seems to say, that tragedy is implicit in the way things work. An effort to focus on unhappy events to merely depict tragedy is simply redundant. All life itself is a tragedy. OK, so maybe thats stretching it, but you do see my point, don't you ?
Not really? Well, here then is what I'm trying to say.
Would a vision that focused on the tragedies of everyday life, translate to a good vision, because it depicted reality ?
Or would it be more powerful, if not inspirational, if my pictures were to focus on the small victories, triumphs and the hopes that also seem to dot the tragic landscape of life that we all inhabit ?
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