The Seven Deadly Sins of Contemporary Photographers.
By Ian Ramsrud
26 Sep 2009
Have you ever woken up in a mood you cannot shake? Where you open your eyes in the morning and you just know what kind of day it is going to be? And you know it is going to be that way because you are going to make it that way. There are those times where I wake up and I know I hate the world, not just on a personal level, but as a photographer, as an artist who works in Photography. Today, is one of those days. One of those days that every word that comes out of someone's mouth and every image I see conjures a critical critique. I have decided that today is going to be productive and not just a day where I hate on everyone, it will be a day that I offer up the advice that I have, advice that will improve your standing within photographic communities, and the world at large; and possibly make you immune to the critical eye of jerks like me. Ladies and Gentlemen, Young and Old, Near and Far, These are the Seven Deadly Sins of Contemporary Photographers.
I like to start at origin, because thats what the word means. It Starts here. Photography is a relatively new medium in the grand scheme of the Arts. Now if you would please hold my hand and take a hop, skip and jump to the year 1826. Nicéphore Niépce creates the very first known permanent image made through photographic processes. His exposure time? Roughly 8 hours. When was the last time you took an 8 hour exposure? Never. Point being, photography has come a very long way. And the first Sin of Contemporaries is Ignorance. More than any other thing I see wrong in the world today is the very fact that so many people are too lazy to research, investigate and invest into knowing the history of something they are passionate about. We are standing on the shoulders of almost 200 years of breakthroughs and innovation and so few people know anything about photography. It's forefathers, its superstars, its innovators and its hall of fame. Not everything will be interesting to you, but there is value in knowing what you do not find interesting. So Pick up a book, flip through, read what catches your eye and go for it, know more than the person next to you. Because I can promise that every name and fact you pick up will only make your photos stronger and more powerful in todays landfill of imagery.
If I was to pick a second most detrimental Sin of Contemporary Photographers, it would be difficult, because they are all so troubling to me. But I will go with the one that irritates me the most, and that would be "Faking it to make it." If you do not intimately know a photographic processes, please do not attempt to recreate it digitally. First and foremost, Stop it right now with your polaroid borders and your obscenely tweaked color schemes and filters. It disgusts me, it makes me sick inside, and I cannot help but lose respect for anyone who tries to use any of those gimmicks in a serious way. Its not that I don't like your picture, or that I think polaroids aren't cool, but that you are putting things together that just never were together in reality, and on top of that, you are doing it poorly. Don't put your image into a program and let it toy with it and then spit out a finished product without any input from you, the artist, that is not Art, and it is a crime against us all. Stop. Please. You are hurting yourself, I'm just attempting to bring your attention to it before its too late. and just to make this an easier pill to swallow, We all have done it at least once, tried something that we saw others doing and years later we looked back and just laughed at it. I'll touch more on that later.
Now to round off the top three with a Contemporary Sin that I have to look in the mirror when I say it. Please do not hate on other Photographers because of their Genre of Interest. We are a family, and we need to love each other, or at least offer basic social respects to one another when we are at moms house for thanksgiving. I hate it when I am having a conversation with some of my photographer friends and it turns into a conversation about how impossible it is to respect a Landscape photographer, or appreciate someone who takes pictures of their baby. That baby is adorable, and nature rocks my world, so please, give them the same credit you would give someone who works in the studio or someone who makes your mouth water with food photography. All genres have their place in the world of photography, and they deserve to be given a nod just as much as everyone else. But, this Sin comes with a big asterisk by it, and I will acknowledge it. If you do not do a genre justice, and you claim it, and someone just shrugs their shoulders and moves on past your image, thats not hating or disrespecting you, thats just someone who doesn't find your image interesting, and thats allowed. I can look at an entire book of iPhone photographers and still see the beauty in its low resolution, noisy quality. There is something to be said for taking a picture when you see something, and wanting to show it to the world, because, truth be told, You are not alone.
Coming in fourth place in my list of 7 Sins reminds me that all of these Sins are more universal to humanity rather than contained to the Arts. Number 4 is directed at photographers in the know, Don't get Trendy on me! Falling prey to social pressures delivered by the trends in photography and the media confirms that you're committing the previous 3 sins, if not all seven. If you are concerned with the new hotness, then you must be concerned with where you fall within the genre's of photographers, and you obviously don't know the history of photography, because if you did, you would know which artists this trend is building off of and how cheap it is in comparison to the real thing. For example, when Ansel Adams first began to show his beautiful prints of historic landscapes, viewers were amazed by the tonality of his prints, achieved entirely by his innovative approach to exposure and printing, called the Zone System. Obtaining a 7 stop range out of your film was hard enough at the time, but then to expose your film to allow those 7 stops to be accessible in printing was another challenge entirely, and then printing that negative intelligently was another step further. Nowadays, HDR (High Dynamic Range) photography and composite programs allow for an incredible depth and tonal range within digital photography and although it is an incredible breakthrough in photography, certain programs and users apply this effect to their entire catalog and make it little more than a one hundred dollar gimmick of technology. But used sparingly and as a tool gives an artist the ability to add just exactly the right touch to whatever project he or she is doing at the moment. A tool box should be robust and extensive, but a specialty tool should never replace the foundational tools, no matter how amazing they seem at the time.
Deadly Sin number 5 is placed directly after number four due to its easily mistakable contradiction. Picasso once said, "Good artists copy, great artists steal." This concept is much deeper than I will do it justice, but drive it like you stole it, because you did. If you are flipping through a magazine, or surfing JPG and you see an image that you absolutely are amazed by, be inspired, and run with it. Take everything you see that you love and roll it into one picture, throw it around, blow it up, destroy it and own it. Know you are taking someone else's idea, aesthetic, subject matter or medium and make it your own. It is critical to your artistic growth to expose yourself to as many experiences as you can, visually, mentally and emotionally. Flipping through magazines is a great way to get an up to date look at what is going on right now, but I'm even talking about music and reading and conversation and everything that life has to offer. There is not a single place that I have been where I have not found at least 1 thing that has inspired further artistic thought. The hardest thing to do, and a challenge for everyone who reads this, is to turn around and look at your immediate surroundings, the places you view every day, the dull and boring, and discover again what that area is. But If nothing, go pick up a magazine at a store and flip through for something that catches your eye, go to the library, go play in the park, do something for yourself. Feed that artistic being inside of you in any way you can, legal or not.
Contemporary Sin number 6 is something of a lightbulb moment for some people, a hand to face moment for others, and highly disagreeable to a select few. As a photographer, You need to think before you speak. By speak, I mean snap that picture. Ask yourself questions about it, think about it, feel it out, look around and then shoot it. Having an idea to convey and having a voice through your imagery is the point of photography, its a way to express yourself. They do not say "A Picture is worth a 1000 words" if it wasn't true. I come here to you today because I want to be able to read your one thousand words, I want to understand you, I want to feel it, and I want to take a step into your shoes as a viewer. It is impossible to do that if the artist does not think before hand, I have seen so many images that have 3 cognitive sentences and then its gibberish for the next 900 words. Think slow, shoot slow. Your quality will increase, the depth will expand and your viewership will too.
Lastly, caping off the 7 sins, is more of a pride issue than anything else. I know a lot of people who shoot, and just do not think they are good enough to show off their images and be proud of them. I know other people who aren't that good and think they are and they show their work to everyone, and the dog. Whichever side of that spectrum you are on does not matter, what does matter is that you realize that your work doesnt have to be loved by your parents or anyone, do what kind of things You love, because it will show. Not everything has to have a purpose or a reason or some deep thought behind it, it just has to be there for you. Whether it belongs on the fridge by the finger paintings or in the gallery downtown. Make art like you believe you are. Express yourself in a way that is confident and intriguing to you. If you can develop a habit of expressing yourself and working through your art like a problem and believe in yourself and how you do things, there is no doubt in my mind that your work will grow and expand and improve in ways you could have never imagined. Begin to push yourself and provoke thought in others, experiment with what you have and expose yourself to things you do not. Every moment is a moment you have to impart to something, anything, and if you decide to dedicate that to your art, then in time your investment will pay off, to someone, for someone, within someone. You are an artist. So Act Like it.
With that I am happy to say I have satisfied my personal obligation to be positive and productive during this highly irritating and critically minded day. I hope you can read deeply into each "sin" as they all have a depth and range that I have not completely covered. But whether you are into toy cameras and their crappy lenses or digital stand alone programs that spit out images or you are the guy with the really nice camera who just takes pictures of naked women and calls it art, I don't care, you are all photographers, and I hope you are all artists. I don't know a single person who couldn't benefit from reading this, including myself, artist photographer or not. There is so much to gather from the past and the present and unsurprisingly there are universal umbrellas that beautifully connect the two. I write to you all because I want my life to be easier, because Sartre said "Hell, is the other people." I feel that statement on days like today. So rather than taking the usual approach and just throwing my hands up and trying to ignore my irritations, I am going to attempt to do my part and see if I cant better the situation. Next time, I'll try to take a picture of how angry you make me and see if that works.
6 responses
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Dorothy Menosky said (26 Sep 2009):
So listen, Ian. Your prose was quite interesting and well written, but don't you think advice from a photographer, submitted to a photography site, ought to include a few more photos than just your mugging mug shot?
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Ian Ramsrud said (26 Sep 2009):
No.
I'm not trying to tell the viewer what a good photograph looks like.
I could make a series of horrible photographs that exhibit the characteristics that I described, but then I would be hating on those people who compare their photographs to mine, and I dont want to do that.
So I left just the text.
thanks for the complements on the writing though. -
Brian Betteridge said (27 Sep 2009):
I have to agree with Dorothy on the photo thing, but my main concern with this is actually the writing. Your points are lost in a jumbled mess of quasi-rant and the whole thing completely lacks flow and real organization. It could also stand a good proof-read...and a refresher on the whole "your/you're" concept. It was very, very difficult to read and even harder to pull out the important points you were trying to make.
You seem to have good ideas in there. Maybe you should rewrite it from a more objective point of view and make it more about advising others instead of pointing out the ills of the photography world in a manner that borders on being inflammatory. It would be a very good piece, then. -
Ian Ramsrud said (27 Sep 2009):
I'll give it a proof read and check it for that, I've never been more than a conversational writer, so ill give that a look.
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Marj Kline said (28 Sep 2009):
I agree with Ian on the no-photo approach. You were critical without being judgmental. I can't tell you how often my $100g education makes me resentful of hobbyist photographers that don't know who Niepce is, or Minor White, or Robert Frank, or Elliot Erwitt.
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Kel Casey gave props (4 Oct 2009):
I thought I was going to dislike this, b/c there were no photos, but I think you made very valid and important points. A little too wordy (sometimes the point can get lost in too many words), but I like what you have to say.
