| Author | Thread |
|
|
07/21/2006 07:57:58 AM · #1 |
I am just curious to see, what does it mean for you to be a photographer? What sincere purpose do you believe in, that justifies that one or two perfect reflections of light?
I have always been taught to follow my heart, and let the pieces fall where they may. Sort of like "go from within, or go without", and I do for the most part, but it would seem that money, and bills, and life, and circumstance sometimes clouds focus.
A sincere cryout for the poets, and clear minded of the club. |
|
|
|
07/21/2006 08:09:30 AM · #2 |
A photographers purpose:
a mission to prove the existence of God, by capturing evidence of his majesty.
|
|
|
|
07/21/2006 08:15:21 AM · #3 |
| Photography calms me, more than anything I take photos just to be away from the world for a while. |
|
|
|
07/21/2006 08:20:15 AM · #4 |
A photographers purpose:
a mission to prove the existence of God, by capturing evidence of his majesty.
Good, good, I like it. But to prove the existence of God would seem a tedious task for a photographer beings the recieving subjects only had to look around them. If they haven't done that as of yet, why will they look towards photography to do so?
Message edited by author 2006-07-21 08:26:47. |
|
|
|
07/21/2006 08:20:54 AM · #5 |
"Sometimes i do get to places just when God's ready to have somebody click the shutter" - Ansel Adams.
Whilst i don't believe in God, i think there is some magesty about some things.
|
|
|
|
07/21/2006 08:25:36 AM · #6 |
Thank you for the calming statement. No doubt, photography brings us some sort of joy, all of us here.
|
|
|
|
07/21/2006 08:25:43 AM · #7 |
I've seen the most beautiful places in the world, but I've never been to them. I've felt compassion for families I've never met. I've seen super human feats that have only happened once.
Photography can be very powerful ... but not for everyone.
Originally posted by sacredspirit:
A photographers purpose:
a mission to prove the existence of God, by capturing evidence of his majesty.
Good, good, I like it. But to prove the existence of God would seem as though a tedious task for a photographer beings the subjects recieving only had to look around them. If they haven't done that as of yet, why will they look towards photography to do so? |
|
|
|
|
07/21/2006 08:31:28 AM · #8 |
I've seen the most beautiful places in the world, but I've never been to them. I've felt compassion for families I've never met. I've seen super human feats that have only happened once.
Photography can be very powerful ... but not for everyone
That's what I'm talking about, like focus in a bottle, TY Hopper. Good stuff. |
|
|
|
07/21/2006 08:41:09 AM · #9 |
To record things exactly as they are, and in the next breath to record them as I want, then as they could be, so that in the end fact and fiction merge and all that remains, is.
|
|
|
|
07/21/2006 08:54:07 AM · #10 |
We will never escape the Trinity, we have seen it often enough. Mind, body, spirit. Father, son, the holy ghost. Past, present, future. I like the idea Odyssy.
I took a stab at poetry, but I really suck. Somebody save me please, use it, modify it, re-work it, whatever.
Glimpses of a perfect world, moments of a perfect time.
Reflections in the light becoming somebody's perfect rhyme.
Experience from a distance or even life and its seven sins.
Not merely all perfection, yet somebody's next to kin.
Why then must we sweat, and why then must we bleed.
We've already taken that turn, the turn that makes us plead. |
|
|
|
07/21/2006 09:21:06 AM · #11 |
What you been smokin' preach?
Photography has nothing to do with God, no moreso than any other technology. It's just a tool to record patterns of light in a manner imitating how the eye sees them, no more than that.
Message edited by author 2006-07-21 09:23:26.
|
|
|
|
07/21/2006 09:43:04 AM · #12 |
Photographers HAVE NO Responsibility for or towards anything or anyone. Just as a Poet or writer or artist or musician has no responsibility towards or for anything.
All of these people create for the pleasure of creating in 'hopes' others will share in their joy. They create for communicating ideas,thoughts,dreams,desires.... but they do not have a responsibility for anything... unless, they place it upon themselves.
|
|
|
|
07/21/2006 09:53:57 AM · #13 |
Photography has a passive element to it, since at some point, regardless of how many settings you've set, you simply press a button and let the world in. But all art has that passive element. People ask me how I come up with stuff... and it's the same idea. I prepare myself, as one would prepare a camera, and then I let the world in. Finally, I filter it out to an end product. This is true for my painting, drawing, prose and poetry.
A photographer has no responsibility. An artist has a responsibility to the art.
|
|
|
|
07/21/2006 10:02:25 AM · #14 |
Originally posted by posthumous:
An artist has a responsibility to the art. |
How so?
|
|
|
|
07/21/2006 11:03:50 AM · #15 |
Originally posted by littlegett:
Originally posted by posthumous:
An artist has a responsibility to the art. |
How so? |
As an artist, you have a responsibility to your work, whatever that is... a responsibility to make the photo or poem or painting what it should be, what it needs to be. No one enforces that responsibility, but if you do not put it on yourself, then you are not an artist, imho.
Message edited by author 2006-07-21 11:04:13.
|
|
|
|
07/21/2006 11:41:03 AM · #16 |
I wouldn't call it a "responsibility", but when I think of photography and goals (and not all my photography is driven by this goal), I think of the poet Robinson Jeffers:
"The beauty of things
is in the beholder's brain �
the human mind's translation
of their transhuman, intrinsic value...
...as mathematics, a human invention
that parallels but never touches reality,
gives the astronomer
metaphors through which he may comprehend
the powers and the flow of things:
so the human sense of beauty
is our metaphor of their excellence,
their divine nature:
like dust in a whirlwind, making
The wild wind visible."
Robt.
|
|
|
|
07/21/2006 11:43:36 AM · #17 |
Originally posted by Bear_Music:
I wouldn't call it a "responsibility" |
I probably wouldn't either, but I'll use whatever terminology is thrown at me. ;)
|
|
|
|
07/21/2006 11:50:20 AM · #18 |
Originally posted by littlegett:
Photographers HAVE NO Responsibility for or towards anything or anyone. Just as a Poet or writer or artist or musician has no responsibility towards or for anything.
All of these people create for the pleasure of creating in 'hopes' others will share in their joy. They create for communicating ideas,thoughts,dreams,desires.... but they do not have a responsibility for anything... unless, they place it upon themselves. |
I disagree. A photographer has two responsibilities. First, to himself as he creates his image and second, to the creation, in whatever light he makes it.
As a writer, as well as a photographer, I feel that the responsibilities cover all the arts. You write/shoot/paint/compose for yourself (Responsibility #1). What you create may not be the original idea, but whatever it is should express something of you, and you should have a connection with it (Responsibility #2).
To say that such endeavors are naught but a technical process is to forsake passion and romance and a sense of something more in art. I believe that without these qualities, the final product is lacking.
It's like those high school bio classes, where you dissect the frog and cut the leg off. You can hook the leg up to a 9volt battery and make it twitch (total technology), but that twitching sure as hell ain't life.
@Robt. - Lovely poem, especially the final lines.
|
|
|
|
07/21/2006 12:07:25 PM · #19 |
TY Bear for posting.
As for responsibility, I think a play at words has inevitably set us astray. Its funny how words tend to that, all through history.
Of course there is no responsibility per say, but of course there is. The big IS/NOT. You picked up the camera right? Well then ultimately you felt a responsibility to yourself, as so mentioned above. Instead of running in circles with word play...
Maybe responsibility is the wrong word. Maybe the right question is, "what is it that people look toward us as photographers to accomplish" I think with this thread I have come to a conclusion.
To enhance the human experience. To make it into light that heightens the emotion. Memories, pain, love, romance, hunger, depression etc...
Life, and the raw emotions herein.
Message edited by author 2006-07-21 12:28:42. |
|
|
|
07/21/2006 12:12:49 PM · #20 |
There is no responsibility to create anything, an artist does it for the simple enjoyment of whatever medium they are using. They don't have to.
To me, Responsibility is something one HAS TO DO or is forced to do in situations.
The police have a Responsibility to Serve and Protect
The Firemen have a Responsibility to put out Fires,
The Military has a Responsibility to Serve and Protect,
Doctors have a Responisbitity to Heal,
The Clerk at the 7-11 Has a Responsibility of taking your money,
Granted, all of these people can choose at any time not to fufill their responcibitlites, but in doing so, they sis to be what they are. They all have duties (Responsibitlites) to others.
------------------------
re·spon·si·bil·i·ty (rĭ-spŏn'sə-bĭl'ĭ-tē)
n., pl. -ties.
The state, quality, or fact of being responsible.
Something for which one is responsible; a duty, obligation, or burden.
-------------------------------------
If you find it an obligation or a Burden to create your art, Im sorry. Maybe you should find something else to do.
Most all artists I have met, simply create for the enjoyment of creating. Once it because an obligation a burden, it loses its enjoyment and loses its art. It than becomes Work.
Granted, many people enjoy thier work, and make create art with their work, they are lucky.
Artist no matter what medium do not have a obligation to create (unless they were commissioned {hired} than it becomes work with the Responsibitly of creating for the client)
Alone in itself there is no responsibility. I don't have to say a certain message, I don't have to please anyone I don't have to pick up a brush or pen or camera. I choose do, because I enjoy it. Because there is no Obligation of being anything. Other than me.
|
|
|
|
07/21/2006 12:25:46 PM · #21 |
nevermind.
Message edited by author 2006-07-21 12:28:02. |
|
|
|
07/21/2006 12:37:49 PM · #22 |
Originally posted by sacredspirit:
nevermind. |
Im disappointed.
|
|
|
|
07/21/2006 12:38:47 PM · #23 |
I guess that I see "responsibility" differently. As we create our art, I see us being responsible for it, same as having a child - the responsibility to make it into whatever we desire. As littlegett said, we choose to pick up the camera and to do something with it. That choice carries the responsibility in it, to the end when you say, "That is mine, and I alone am charged with it." It's sort of an inherent thing.
I do NOT see responsibility defined as an obligation or "something you don't really want to do".
Even when working on commission/for a client, there is a responsibility to yourself and your art, and an obligation to the client, and the two are wholly seperate.
Message edited by author 2006-07-21 12:40:45.
|
|
|
|
07/21/2006 12:58:54 PM · #24 |
Originally posted by OdysseyF22:
I see us being responsible for it. |
For It Key words,
Yes, after I create whatever I create, I am Responsible for it. I created it, Not anyone one else. I don't have to do anything with with it. I don't have to display it or even let one other soul see it.
I can distroy it
I can ship it,
I can wad it
I can redo it
I can toss it
I can maim it
I can hide it
I can display it
I can do whatever I want to do with it with no obligation or responcibility other than saying 'Yes I Created That'
Just because you pic up the camera doesn't mean you have to do something or create something withit,
same as just because you pic up a brush you don't have to paint a house or a mural,
You pick up a BP cup doesn't turn you into a doctor and you have to heal someone,
Simply picking something up doesn't give you responcibility. Outside infulncies give you responciblity.
Message edited by author 2006-07-21 13:02:34.
|
|
|
|
07/21/2006 01:03:33 PM · #25 |
why can't responsibility come from within? as I said, one doesn't have to take responsibility, but then one isn't an artist.
|
|
