So how does a photographer find a subject?
February 18, 2011
One of the Creative Photography students, after displaying some beautiful images of light transforming an everyday scene, a bedroom, asked how do you go about finding a subject. Its a very interesting question, and one that must have a myriad of answers, so we would like to know your thoughts on how you choose to shoot something, and then why you shoot it in a different way.
Looking at Flickr, you could say in some respects it is the unruly or unfocussed offspring of Stephen Shore’s American Surfaces, a work that at first glance (and to many people at every subsequent glance) is a book of pointless snapshots of strangers in the street, motel rooms containing nothing, and meal after meal. In fact the shooting ‘my breakfast, lunch, dinner’ is a phenomenon that can surely, in terms of modern visual language be attributed to Shore and is now mimicked by thousands on flickr.
Despite embracing the ‘snapshot’ aesthetic for American Surfaces Shore has allegedly said of Flickr “I went on to Flickr and it was just thousands of pieces of shit, and I just couldn’t believe it. And it’s just all conventional, it’s all cliches, it’s just one visual convention after another.” Stephen Shore
Where are the great pictures on flickr?
Digging a little deeper into the background for this quote, I found this on Alec Soths blog
http://alecsothblog.wordpress.com/2007/08/09/shore-king-street-fashion/
it seems that the quote caused an outcry, even several years ago when Flickr was surely less homogenous than it is now, and Shore responds directly to Alec Soth’s mail with ,
“Thanks for bringing this posting to my attention and thanks for giving me an opportunity to respond. I was beginning to compose my response when I saw that you posted the full context of my comments. I think that helps clarify my meaning and I appreciate your posting it. That said, my original comment was a glib generalization that was unfair to a collection of images as heterogeneous as that on Flickr.”
Its worth clicking the links to see the full debate, and it certainly raises many questions. Playing Devils Advocate for a second it is hypocritical for Shore to shoot snapshots, make it into a large body of his work, and then dismiss others for doing the same. Perhaps because they don’t post rationalise their work in terms of the art world, or come up with the theory to match the images, does that make their picture less valid. In Shore’s eyes the answer seems to be yes.
But the idea of content, or subject is key here, does a photographer need to be interesting, or fresh, or even new? Is it even possible to be any of those things, I have more photos on my iphone than my parents generation had in the whole house. Has ‘picture making’ become so immediate that as soon as an image is shot and uploaded it gets lost in the visual noise? If so, why are these sites more popular than ever. I know many photographers who ‘flickr bash’ and I certainly hold my hand up to that on numerous occasions, but many of those photographers, even those full time agency signed pro photographers seem to have a flickr, or at the very least continue to look at the site. Are they drawn in for the spectacle, or the visual noise, or the sheer joy of finding some true natural talent which can be found on the site.
There are numerous inspiring quotes on looking for subject matter, or how it reveals itself to you and to you eye, and I’d recommend searching for interviews with Mary Ellen Mark and Diane Arbus, two photographers whose work we looked at later in the Creative Course session. As with all great Art, in photography the search for subject seems to come from within, somewhere deeply personal, but then must transcend that and use a visual language that is universal, that a picture should at first work on a purely visual level. But subject- how do you get to that strong visual image without a subject? I’d be keen to know your thoughts on this- how and why you shoot what you do, whether its a body of work, or individual images- how do you end up finger poised over a button, waiting for that moment to make something entirely new- because don’t forget, no two pictures will ever be the same. What makes your photography unique, and as unique as you are as an individual, different from me and everyone else, how do you choose that subject, that instant and then that frame from the edit? How I guess, do you find your visual voice?
