An Overdose Of Ice-cream
Please excuse the dodgy ice-cream metaphors. This was written late at night after a coffee-chocolate ice-cream bender, courtesy of my ten-year-old-son’s supreme cooking skills. From this we conclude that too much ice-cream and sleep deprivation make me rant incoherently.
It turns out that Rich’s disillusionment with studio nudes didn’t happen until he joined Deviant Art. Do you remember back to the Scott Church workshop where he walked in and was horrified to discover that everyone else looked exactly the same as him? Well DA had a similar effect on him. Of course he was well aware that his style of fine art studio photography wasn’t unique by any means, but he really didn’t realise just how very common it had become in the last couple of years. Finding hundreds of photographers shooting images with incredibly similar composition and lighting was a profoundly dispiriting experience.
Ansel Adams once said that you’re not a photographer until you’ve made 10,000 negatives. In Ansel’s time this would have taken twenty years to shoot and develop. Nowadays many photographers achieve that in less than six months. There are literally millions of “fine art photographers” out there. Digital photography has now become so cheap, automatic cameras are so easy to use and the quality has become so high that photographic art is now within reach of the common man. Up until now I had always applauded the digital revolution and I argued passionately for the new digital democracy which meant that anyone could have a go at art, even complete beginners like me if I felt like it. I loved looking at the millions of cool fine art images online. I felt that the genre was infinite and that there was room for everyone. Yes indeedy, I was the champion of the millions of wannabe fine art photographers…until now, until it hurt the one photographer I really care about.
Call me naïve but the scale of the problem simply didn’t hit me until very recently. In my selfish desire for more, more, more fantastic nude photos, I didn’t really stop to think just what effect it would have on long established photographers who had made their lives from creating art. I just didn’t realise how the sheer glut of images would weigh down the spirit and suck the artist’s soul dry. No photographer wants to be a pack animal. Each budding artist wants to create something personal and unique, but how is that possible in this modern saturated digital photographic world?
Now there are those amongst you who will say, “Don’t worry about volume. Good images will stand out from the dross.” But wait a minute. Let’s say there are about a million wannabe fine art photographers at any one time (a very conservative estimate by today’s standards.) Even if half of those million fine art photographers have the technical expertise, the passion and the creative vision to produce reasonably good artistic photographs, then you suddenly have half a million reasonably good photographers on the scene, all jostling to pimp their art, all greedy to be noticed. How does Rich (or any photographer) fight back the torrent of ever-improving images? How does he make his work stand out from the 499,999 others? It simply isn’t enough any more to say that the cream will always rise to the top. Technology has resulted in a global dairy overdose, and I can honestly say that in this house we’re beginning to suffer from a very strong lactose intolerance.
Finding out that you’re not remotely unique, that despite your best efforts you’re still the same as thousands of others, has been a real wake up call for a developing photographer like Rich. I would desperately love it if he would keep shooting studio nudes, and it may be that he decides to do so, but I also realise that he may need to tread a new path. He needs to find his own style, his own new flavour of ice-cream so to speak. Discovering a new take on the thousands of flavours already out there isn’t as easy as going out and buying a new tub from Ben & Jerry’s, it’s going to take a lot of thought. But as his creamy old muse, you can be sure that I’ll be giving Rich all the encouragement that I can, whilst also acknowledging that he needs space to think before he can rediscover his mojo, before he can start to taste fun again.
I often refer to photography as my faith. To be honest this isn’t too far from the truth. I am probably deluding myself but I would like to believe that quantity still doesn’t beget quality in this new digital world. The volume of images might be off the scale in the face of the fine art tsunami, but there are still very few truly unique photographs which really pack a profound emotional punch, which genuinely move a viewer with their message – such aesthetic flavours of art remain as elusive and difficult to create as they have always been.
In my opinion, striving to discover your own unique photographic flavour should in itself be reason enough to keep on shooting.
Don’t photograph to compete or compare yourself with others.
Do it because it’s who you are.
Images are of Syd and A.J.
It turns out that Rich’s disillusionment with studio nudes didn’t happen until he joined Deviant Art. Do you remember back to the Scott Church workshop where he walked in and was horrified to discover that everyone else looked exactly the same as him? Well DA had a similar effect on him. Of course he was well aware that his style of fine art studio photography wasn’t unique by any means, but he really didn’t realise just how very common it had become in the last couple of years. Finding hundreds of photographers shooting images with incredibly similar composition and lighting was a profoundly dispiriting experience.
Ansel Adams once said that you’re not a photographer until you’ve made 10,000 negatives. In Ansel’s time this would have taken twenty years to shoot and develop. Nowadays many photographers achieve that in less than six months. There are literally millions of “fine art photographers” out there. Digital photography has now become so cheap, automatic cameras are so easy to use and the quality has become so high that photographic art is now within reach of the common man. Up until now I had always applauded the digital revolution and I argued passionately for the new digital democracy which meant that anyone could have a go at art, even complete beginners like me if I felt like it. I loved looking at the millions of cool fine art images online. I felt that the genre was infinite and that there was room for everyone. Yes indeedy, I was the champion of the millions of wannabe fine art photographers…until now, until it hurt the one photographer I really care about.
Call me naïve but the scale of the problem simply didn’t hit me until very recently. In my selfish desire for more, more, more fantastic nude photos, I didn’t really stop to think just what effect it would have on long established photographers who had made their lives from creating art. I just didn’t realise how the sheer glut of images would weigh down the spirit and suck the artist’s soul dry. No photographer wants to be a pack animal. Each budding artist wants to create something personal and unique, but how is that possible in this modern saturated digital photographic world?
Now there are those amongst you who will say, “Don’t worry about volume. Good images will stand out from the dross.” But wait a minute. Let’s say there are about a million wannabe fine art photographers at any one time (a very conservative estimate by today’s standards.) Even if half of those million fine art photographers have the technical expertise, the passion and the creative vision to produce reasonably good artistic photographs, then you suddenly have half a million reasonably good photographers on the scene, all jostling to pimp their art, all greedy to be noticed. How does Rich (or any photographer) fight back the torrent of ever-improving images? How does he make his work stand out from the 499,999 others? It simply isn’t enough any more to say that the cream will always rise to the top. Technology has resulted in a global dairy overdose, and I can honestly say that in this house we’re beginning to suffer from a very strong lactose intolerance.
Finding out that you’re not remotely unique, that despite your best efforts you’re still the same as thousands of others, has been a real wake up call for a developing photographer like Rich. I would desperately love it if he would keep shooting studio nudes, and it may be that he decides to do so, but I also realise that he may need to tread a new path. He needs to find his own style, his own new flavour of ice-cream so to speak. Discovering a new take on the thousands of flavours already out there isn’t as easy as going out and buying a new tub from Ben & Jerry’s, it’s going to take a lot of thought. But as his creamy old muse, you can be sure that I’ll be giving Rich all the encouragement that I can, whilst also acknowledging that he needs space to think before he can rediscover his mojo, before he can start to taste fun again.
I often refer to photography as my faith. To be honest this isn’t too far from the truth. I am probably deluding myself but I would like to believe that quantity still doesn’t beget quality in this new digital world. The volume of images might be off the scale in the face of the fine art tsunami, but there are still very few truly unique photographs which really pack a profound emotional punch, which genuinely move a viewer with their message – such aesthetic flavours of art remain as elusive and difficult to create as they have always been.
In my opinion, striving to discover your own unique photographic flavour should in itself be reason enough to keep on shooting.
Don’t photograph to compete or compare yourself with others.
Do it because it’s who you are.
Images are of Syd and A.J.
Labels: Philosophy, Syd
posted by Lin at 10:47 AM
13 Comments:
For what it's worth, the last 2 lines in Lin's post sum it all up. So why I present the below long winded version is a mystery even to me. Perhaps simply to put one big exclamation point onto the end of each of Lin's last 2 lines.
I would suggest that Rich not worry about having work that "stands out" among the rest. Is the goal to "stand out"?..or is the goal to present photographic art that is an unfettered true artistic representation of what each of us as a Photographic Artist sees?..and thus photographs. As opposed to “marketing” (creating with the intent of having) our photography to “stand out”?
I am the first to agree with you both on the plethora of generic erotic/art nude imagery presented on the World Wide Web. I believe we shoot what we shoot because it is what we shoot. Meaning...true art comes from a very personal place in our heart/mind, and is not software and included in the box with our new fangled digital cameras.
I believe that by being “unique”, we allow our individual creative juices to flow without compromise. I also believe that by attempting (for the sake of just doing so) to be “different”, we are in fact compromising what should flow and come naturally.
With the advent of the Digital age..yes…there are gazillion art nude/erotic photographers…with more each and every day taking their first Erotic/Art Nude photograph. But why worry about the newest latest and greatest Automatic Nikon Digital or Canon Digital camera ending up in the hands of a fledgling Art Nude or Erotic Photographer? Is not the most important ingredient still located 3” BEHIND that camera? Does what someone else photographs compromise what we do? Art is not a sport,..no one wins…no one looses. Why do we worry about someone being “better or worse” than ourselves? Does it matter regardless? Given the concern however, there is no quantitative way to “compare” Photographic Art. Art is absolutely 100% subjective. Sure..we have our likes..I hate this and love that (as everyone does)..but that does not mean that anyone is an elitist authority, being above all as the absolute on judging photographs as being better or worse than the next.
At one point about 1 week after being ask to be part of the New Erotic Photography Book by Taschen, I felt I had to “force” my new work…I felt I NOW had to aim for loftier imagery…to get to the “next” level (as if one exists). I felt that I had to elevate up to the Taschen world class standards. My following work I felt SUCKED (and all that matters is HOW I feel about it)!!! I felt as if I had lost my “mojo” all of a sudden. Why?..because I was “forcing” it,. trying to photograph as I felt I SHOULD be photographing…to meet some “standard” that I had set in my mind (as I looked at my Taschen books on Newton, Kroll, Batters, Man Ray, WeeGee..etc), instead of photographing naturally as I had been doing all along. I then realized…I was selected by Taschen because of HOW I naturally see things…how I enjoy a photograph to look and from my unfettered artistic imagination. This is what they liked about my photography, the fact that is WAS my photography, and not an attempt to be something that it was not…it was truly from my artistic vision. This is how we should photograph..I suggest to do otherwise is perhaps a prostitution of sorts of our artistic vision.
About 80% of the time now..I don’t even plan things anymore..I simply put the model in a situation that I envision..and go with it and let creativitity flow as in a free form Jazz Improvising way. 20 minutes later I have want I want photographically. Always eager to see in print (the ONLY way to look at a photograph)…I anticipate the moment that I get the print back from my printer. I am not patient…so this is a real torture. This is the type of anxiety that I enjoy however.
Rich, I know it’s easy for me to say…but simply ignore others. Simply forget that anyone else makes Art Nude photos. Sit there…and think about the photographs that YOU and YOU alone like to look at. Then, make those photographs. Each of them will contain a personal piece of you…because they are about you..and your likes. Forget about others…don’t even think about wide acceptance…it matters not unless your goal is to simply sell photographs as if they were fruit, or get endless redundant kind comments on a Art Nude website somewhere. And there is noting wrong with that if that is your goal..but we cant confuse the 2….one is a commercially created photograph…the other is true photographic art that represents the photographic artist.
There I go..long winded again on a subject I fell strongly about. Richard…just be you…because that is You.
bt
Very well said Lin. I have been recently advised by a good friend and artist to just keep doing what I do, keep doing it, don't try to keep up with the trends etc, just put your head down and hammer away at what you produce from "the gut". I am trying to take his and now your, advice.
BT, I think that wins "The Comment of the Year" award.
Great art essay, highly inspirational. Thank you! This is why I write this darn blog - to get comments like that :-)
Hi Lin!
Great post. I can concur with BT in many ways. I've had some of the same feelings and made some of the same observations. dA was indeed overwhelming in terms of the sheer volume of "fine art nudes" out there. The two things that really got to me initially was the point that Rich makes about the challenges of standing out, but I also saw all of the great talent out there who are already established, making a profit, published everywhere, and have accolades coming out their ears. How do you compete with that? So you are getting the whole volume issue on both ends. You've got the GWCs out there cluttering up the web. And then you have the Michael Helms' of the world who get a million hits in the first hour he posts an image.
One thing was for sure. I wasn't dropping my photography. I had to step back for a bit to think about the real reason I began this thing. It wasn't about the money, fame, or notoriety. The reason was as simple as the love of the female form and my means of capture and expression. If I were not doing photos, I'd be drawing. Beyond that, I obviously want to share my art. So I do what I do, post it on the venues I've selected, and just see what happens.
Of course I want to get better and I also want to exhibit to a wider audience of appreciators. So, I am in a perpetual state of evolution, but like I said, I put it out there and see what happens. I try to maximize my options of viewership, but its fun to do it. Keeping content on my blog that viewers come back to has been a challenge but its fun and I want to be better.
Do what you love, Rich. Search yourself and see if you still love this thing. If you don't, then find something else to do and express it your way. If you do, then don't stop. Let the ocean of paparazzi-style shooters drain away from your vision and concentrate on yourself, the way express you work and the way you choose to present it.
...and just see what happens!
Well welcome to the reality of true creativity.
I don't mean to sound critical, or judgemental or indeed, negative, but don't you think the conundrum you describe Lin is something that artists have struggled with since, oooh, time immemorial? And photographers, since at least the advent of digital.
There are thousands of photographers out there that have been lamenting the very same democratisation of "their" art since Noah was a boy. Welcome to the real world.
What do you want your photography to represent? Who do you want to please? Why would you want it to stand out anyway? How big is your ego?
If the objective of your favourite photographer is to be famous, then he has to find a creative expression that cuts through the currently exceptional standard of everyman's photography, to find something that is accepted by his peers as being "creative" enough.
And why are you judging your chosen level of creativity against anyone else's? What do they know?
Regrettably there's a lot more to being a creative photographer than simply taking a "creative" image. Unfortunately.
If you want to set your photography apart from the masses, and the adulation of the chattering classes is irrelevant, then go and find it. If you can.
Bottom line. Who cares that the product of Richard's efforts are similar to zillions of other digitally equipped competitors.
If that disturbs him, it should be a spur to change the way he captures his images. That's called creativity!
The only real judge of what is creative is the artist who creates the art. (And maybe his muse.) That may not suit the people who cannot create, but can only copy what everyone else thinks/does/says.
Think about what you want to create, rather than merely continue the same old, same old - that's not creative, that's called commuting.
Experiment. Explore. Discover. Rewrite the rules. Break the barriers in your mind first, and tread a different path than everyone else.
Convince yourself that it's creative and believe me others will follow. It's the nature of the beast. Hell, their doing it now, to wit, your joy at being invited to contribute to Michelle 7. (Tacky, tacky, tacky. A sort of poor man's Suicide Girls!)
And a word of advice from one of the herd, forget the CGI. It's not big; it's not clever, and wherever you want to take it has been done to death already. Probably 15-20 years ago.
Develop your photographic skills, and explore what's inside your head. Find the way to express it using the tools you have, not new one's you're way behind the 8-ball on.
As usual, it's nothing personal. It's just that it's fascinating to see people realise what's been happening in the real world ten years after the fact.
Sorry again if I breached the bloggers etiquette. That's merely a different form of self censorship isn't it?
Well, Lin, I read your post and came in to leave a comment of encouragement...but I find that BT has already said everything I had to say, and quite eloquently. So, "what BT said." That pretty well sums it up.
Short and sweet.
DA is a site for perverts. Period.
Females or males. Doesn't matter. The male expose themselves. The females expose themselves. Maybe not directly, but the end result is the same.
I have zero use for that site, and I have little respect for those who use it.
It is a want ad for singles.
Nothing more.
I was going to comment...but...Master B.T. Charles took any words I might have written and sucked them up like a black hole. Good post great comment.
D.L. Wood
BT, Mark, Dennis, Dave, Dave, Terrell and Michael,
Thanks for your supportive comments. Your right of course, but there are times when everything is so tiring and it becomes difficult to keep the faith.
I'm not giving up photography, for all Lin's panic attacks might have you think. I just need to find my direction.
Your support is, as ever, appreciated more than I can say.
I guess it's all been summed up quite nicely by the other comments. The only thing I wanted to add is that this type of situation is much broader than photography. There are also thousands of models out there who are wanting to pose for art nude photographs. I don't really worry about any of them, and I don't care if they are prettier, skinnier, taller, or whatever adjective that seems desireable. I don't care if they end up doing poses that are similar to some of mine because they are not me, even if there sometimes is a resemblance. I've never viewed my modeling as a competition, other than competing with myself to be the best I can be for me. Don't worry too much about it. Do what you do, do it to the best of your ability and most importantly.. have fun while you are doing it!
You can add one more voice to this. BT and the rest have said it so well.
Photography has been my livelihood since 1972, so at times it's tough to see all these "kids" making all this beautiful work and diluting the market. It makes me feel like a bit of a curmudgeon. So the reality is that it's harder to make a living at photography than it used be. It's kind of like how much easier it was to be a rock star when there was just the Beatles and the Stones. I guess I'm showing my age.
On the other hand there is something very democratic about this brave new digital world. We are all free to find our own voice and to express ourselves in any way we choose. One should do it because they feel the compulsion to do it. None of us is unique, yet all of us are.
I still get paid to do photography but these days my best work is that which allows me to take a look deep within and to learn something about who I am. That would seem to be reason enough to keep shooting.
Photography in the hands of the masses is just another creative tool made widely available. Brushes and paints, chalks and charcoals, sculpturing tools and materials, pencils and crayons, to name a few, have all been around for a very long time. What if all the greats had decided to chuck it in because so many others--professionals, amateurs, et al--were using these same tools for producing artwork?
One of the big differences these days is not so much that there's so many people pursuing similar art with the same tools, it's that their work is being so widely distributed (via the web) and viewed by so many. It's more daunting to see verifiable proof that so many others are doing things similarly to what a person might have thought was their own, unique, art.
Still trying to catch up, so only now coming to this post, which jerks not a few chains in my own world.
I am sympathetic to everything said, and probably even empathetic. Rich's reaction to DA speaks volumes to why I no longer contribute to DA (and rarely look at others' work there), no longer to PhotoSIG, no longer associate with Community Zoe, etc., etc. I am at the center of my own artistic universe, and do what I do often oblivious of the efforts of others.
I appreciate those who appreciate my work, but I'm old enought that I don't expect that my efforts will resonate beyond a small circle of fans.
Which is not to say I don't occasionally suffer angst similar to Rich's. Hell, anyone who creates will do so sooner or later.
You know, somehow I expect that Rich will return to studio, perhaps with some frequency, just for the pleasure of photography and of interacting with a real person -- man cannot live by CGI alone.
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