I've always acknowledged the lighter, more humorous side of clicking a shutter. But very rarely have I thought about using the camera to portray something else than what it is meant to be. Obviously every picture carries a meaning and a message with it, and a lot of that comes down to the end viewers perception. A picture of a bacon sandwich will evoke different emotions in Austin, Texas to what it will in Kabul, Afghanistan for instance. On the technical side of this, the reason that the 50mm lens was and still is go to lens for photojournalist's is because 50mm on a full frame camera is the equivalent to the human eye's field of view and perception, the strive to tell a story through images as accurately as possible. Anything significantly wider will distort the image and eventually the truth, anything longer will compress the image and change the perception of the image.
This is something I found out pretty quickly when I started taking pictures, I do love wide angles and I do love smashing a background to pieces with a 200mm at ƒ2.8. This is probably why photojournalism has mused me, but never been a subject I would be interested in shooting myself. I look through the photo's I'm compiling for a book I want to put together, and I see a lot of people, I've focused very intensely on what it is I want and do not want to shoot. People is by far the most fascinating subject for me, not only the images, but the conversation, the relationship I have with most of my subjects. Very often what you see is the final product of what has been an emotional journey, a plan come together, a last minute phone call, a favour from a friend, a borrowed this or that. Obviously not everything can be conveyed in one image. As photographers or creative's in general we try to carry a message, to convey a feeling, to produce an understanding, and to bludgeon a cliche: "for the work to speak for itself".
What is the message your work carries? What is message does my work carry? You decide. Does some of it even have a message? I'm sure that there is a feeling that is given off. Through my recent delve into the f-word industry, (fashion, for all of you optimists out there!) I found out that final image has to be very close to what you have in mind to start out with. No amount of Photoshop or retouching will fix the mood or atmosphere of the picture if you blow it. I guess you have to take into account that the fashion that I have been shooting has been very conceptual and experimental. Not the catalogue, seamless stuff. This is where for me the line between art and documentation becomes fairly blurry. Art can only be defined as art when it serves no other purpose than to be art. Deep huh? Yeah. But then how can a fashion be art? How can fashion photography which is almost entirely used for promotion of a product be art? This enforces my previous statement even more, you have to picture in you mind very clearly before the camera even comes out. Communicating and discussing with make up artist's, hair stylist's, photo assistants and fashion stylists makes this slightly more challenging as well. That by itself is whole entire post I'm saving for another day.
What does all this mean, where am I going with this? I love the taking the pictures I take, I love the everything behind it, but what does it count for at the end of the day? Why do I work in the oil industry? Theres should be something way more meaningful out there for me to do. I love my job though. Makeup, hair, clothes, material goods than inspire teenage girls to be anorexic, cocktails, wrap parties, making people look better than what they actually are, all of this superficial shit, what does it all add up to at the end of the day? Yeah, I'm losing it here a bit, if I keep at it this way, I might end up working as a bare foot, lentil eating aid worker with my disciple beard in Sumatra. Not such a bad idea though.... I could do with a few less kg's on my constantly expanding mid-section and there are good waves in Sumatra. I feel like a sell out when I look at my peers work, take my friend Linn Heidi, for example, she shoots pretty much exclusively medium format film work. There she is working her ass off, taking light readings, metering her manual focus only camera, shooting maximum 12 shots per roll of film, and then developing her film. I whip out a light or two, turn my camera on, turn some knobs and shoot as many frames as I want and view them instantly. You can check out Linn Heidi's work here:
http://www.linnheidi.com/
Some people see digital format as being a craft. Shooting film, you are a craftsman/woman, shooting digital, you are merely an operator. Imagine the feeling in my stomach when I read this:
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| Image by: Taryn Simon |
"Zahra Zubaidi is currently seeking political asylum in the United States. Since appearing in the film, she has received death threats from family members and criticism from friends and neighbors who consider her participation in the film to be pornography.
The film is based on the gang rape and murder of a 14 year-old Iraqi girl, Abeer Qasim Hamza, by U.S. soldiers outside Mahmudiya on March 12, 2006. Abeer’s mother, father, and 6-year-old sister were murdered while she was being raped. After the soldiers took turns raping Abeer, she was shot in the head and her body was set on fire.
Four American soldiers of the 502nd Infantry Regiment were convicted of crimes including rape, intent to commit rape, and murder".
These are the words of my new icon, Taryn Simon. I stumbled upon her work today via http://www.strobist.blogspot.no/ I currently do not possess the words in my vocabulary to describe the feeling I got from looking at work and watching her presenting her work. You have to check it out for yourself. I strongly advise that no matter who you are or what you are involved, you will take something away from this. You can see her work here:
http://tarynsimon.com/
But in the meantime, you can get a taste of that indescribable feeling that I got by watching this video. The URL for the video on YouTube is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jKl0tb3VmfQ if you want to watch it in fullscreen. Have a good Sunday night and a meaningful week. N.
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