The Wisdom of David Brooks

David Brooks had a wonderful and insightful column in the New York Times on November 26 entitled "The Other Education." In the piece he discusses knowledge that we acquire indirectly through our life experiences rather than through formal training.

This knowledge "comes indirectly, seeping through the cracks of the windowpanes, from under the floorboards and through the vents. It's generally a byproduct of the search for pleasure, and the learning is indirect and unconscious."

I was particularly struck by this column because I think it applies to the arts in general, and photography specifically.

For a number of years I have given a lecture entitled "Learning from the Masters." It was a lecture put together by my good friend Professor David Carter and me to educate photographers on what they could learn from studying the work of the great painters. David and I gave it together for many year until his death several years ago.

Over the years of giving the program what frequently struck me was how few photographers, who profess to want to be "fine art" photographers, actually go and look at work. It's not that they don't go to see paintings, they don't go to see photography exhibitions either! In doing so, they are cutting themselves off from this indirect learning that will potentially seep into their vision.

I am a big believer in going to exhibitions, the good, the bad, and the ugly. Often there is a fine line between work that is truly wonderful and that which is awful. Where this line is drawn is different for each individual. However, denying oneself the opportunity to draw the line is a mistake.

Photographers, and all artists for that matter, should challenge their vision and understanding. It may be more helpful to determine why we don't like something than why we do. In failing to explore we fail to grow.

The Beautiful Photograph

I got into a discussion the other day with my good friend and fabulous photographer Craig Sterling. (www.craigsterling.com) Craig posed the question, "what ever happened to the beautiful photograph?"

This led to a discussion of what is going on in photography today, the role of conceptual art and its influence, and whether or not too many critics are afraid of saying that a lot of what passes for current "fine art" photography is "the emperor's new clothes" school of photography. So much of contemporary photography seen in museums and galleries is just plain boring, ugly, shocking for the sake of shock, and/or some meaningless drivel where someone has confused access to a subject with talent and has tried to pass it off as "important' documentary work.

I'm not sure we came to any conclusions but it seemed like good topics for discussion. As such I'd be interested in what others have to say on the subject.

Color

As a black and white, rocks, trees, and figure photographer most of my life I have always been very skeptical of color. Did a lot, never liked what I'd done, so stopped doing it.

Even when I was shooting a lot of color I firmly believed that if the image was in color then color should be integral to it's success. Otherwise shoot in B&W. Maybe that's why there are so many boring color images but that's a topic for another time.

Along comes digital. Most who do serious black and white digital work shoot in raw and convert to black and white in post processing. When shooting in raw the images is always captured with all the color information.

At first I immediately converted everything to black and white to evaluate the images. However, over time I found that occasionally images that I had taken with my "black and white" photographic vision looked better in color. What I'm finding is that as I shoot more digital my color vision is developing. I can't say it's returning because I'm not sure it was ever there to begin with.

While I am starting to explore color, very little of my color work today would I call "conventional." I am much more intrigued by color that really makes a statement whether it is extremely subtle or over-the-edge, off-the-reservation color.

If you want to see a small example of my color work go to Gallery X on my website at http://www.photographybysteele.com/gallery10.htm.

What and Why?

I got into a conversation the other day about what I photograph and why. This started me thinking about other photographers and wondered why they photograph what they photograph?

So, why do you photograph what you photograph?

Great Show at the National Gallery of Art

For those of you who haven't had the opportunity to see "In the Darkroom: Photographic Processes before the Digital Age" at the National Gallery of Art, go! It's a fabulous exhibition of photography and quite educational about traditional photographic processes. You can find out the details at http://www.nga.gov/exhibitions/darkroominfo.shtm.

I'd like to see them follow up with an exhibition of what I would call, "On the Computer: Photographic Processes in the Digital Age." It would make a nice comparison.

Speaking of the digital world, another exhibition at the National Gallery is "Robert Bergman: Portraits, 1986–1995." One of the interesting things about the exhibition is that all of the prints are inkjet and the National Gallery labeled them as such. No "archival inks on paper" or "pigment prints", just "inkjet." Maybe the legitimacy of digital processes is finally taking hold without the need for euphemisms if a museum with the prestige of the National Gallery feels comfortable with the term "inkjet."