Artist’s Statement

If I could express my artistic vision in words, I’d be an author, not a photographer.

All kidding aside…

When I walk around with one of my cameras—either shooting it or simply going about my day—invariably someone will ask me about it, and especially whether it uses film. Sometimes I even get asked why I don’t use a digital camera. So this page is meant to answer that last question, and hopefully it will morph into some sort of “artist’s statement.” I hear you have to have one if you’re going to call yourself an artist. And of all potential media, photography is likely the choice of most impostors.

I started getting serious about photography when I bought a digital SLR (single lens reflex) camera in 2008. Being an engineer and scientist first and foremost, I did what I thought was a lot of research. Very early on in my process of taking pictures, I realized that the tools greatly affected the end result. I could not achieve certain pictures if I did not have the right equipment. I found I was very much a fan of prime lenses. A 50mm lens was the first in a long line of self-imposed restrictions that seemed to elicit better shots by brute force.

As more time went on, I found myself increasingly envious of other people’s images, leading me to explore techniques outside simple equipment choices. Of course, one of the dominant tools available to modern photographers is Adobe Photoshop. As I would discover new tips and tricks, I would notice more frequent references to the seemingly dead medium of film. There are guides for making your digital images look like they were taken with a “Lomo” camera, or like a Polaroid image transfer, or like they were taken on cross-processed film. As I looked into what these terms meant, I became enamored with the simplicity of the real thing. The “Lomo” look could be achieved with a cheap plastic camera. Cross-processing was simply using a different set of chemicals to develop color film. The simplicity of it was overwhelming.

I jumped right in to color film and cross-processing to give it a try. A nearly top-of-the-line autofocus film camera cost a fifth of what my entry-level digital camera cost. To make a long story short, I fell in love, quickly ditched the digital—though I still have the camera—and embraced photographic film. Since then, I’ve delved into a million different worlds, from rangefinders to a Hasselblad to a 4×5 monorail camera. I never stay in one arena for very long and continually switch styles and cameras.

But the question remains, can I call myself an artist? Surely just choosing to use film doesn’t entitle one to call him-or-herself an artist. It’s like saying I’m an artist because I print on fiber-based paper, and that resin-coated paper is for amateurs. Where’s the art in photography? If I take a street shot, how much credit do I get if I don’t look through the viewfinder? Where’s the art?

Since I have a philosophy minor on my resume, I’m quite used to thought experiments. What would it be like if I took the digital approach to the extreme? What if I shot the equivalent of video—24 frames for every second—and just pulled single frames from the result? I’d say the skill (and by extension, the art) comes from the limitation of 36, 24, or however many frames you have to work with before you pop in a new roll. Rather than selecting a final cut after the fact, you must prune the experience of real life down to a very finite series of images, all of which could be so fleeting that you miss them. That’s a real challenge, and I believe that the selection process, is where the art comes from.

Then there’s another aspect of art—the ability of the work to stand alone. In most cases, the ability to sell the work or have it exhibited somewhere. It gives affirmation that there is real value in the work. Currently, through a bunch of Internet avenues such as this blog, Flickr, and Tumblr, I can show my work to others. I’m not sure whether it’s good art, or even artistic, because I’m just posting it to be freely viewable and receiving comments on it. Value becomes more obvious when people are willing to give you money for prints, and that just hasn’t happened yet.

To conclude this page, I will list a sort of guiding principles of photography, which I consider to summarize my views of the art form (these can change over time):

• Photography is democratic. Those who own a camera and use it are photographers. Being a photographer does not require one to be an artist or even tradesman, though many use the term to do so.
• Photography cannot tell a story. All photographs are recreations of finite moments in time, and therefore are devoid of any narrative process. All associations of stories with photographs come from the viewer, though the photographer can compose the photograph to elicit such associations.
• Photographs by their nature are removed from reality. Not only is the dimension of time eliminated, but the third dimension of depth is eliminated as well. In addition, the remaining two dimensions are now finite. The use of monochrome film adds quality by further separating the real, colorful world from the photograph.
• Photographs should exist as prints. Presentation on a computer does not give the same experience as viewing a print. While making digital files yields many benefits—instant distribution, unlimited reproduction, and a wider audience—the quality of even scanned film as presented on a screen when compared to a silver gelatin print is pitiful.
• Whereas many artistic elements of the photograph are fixed at the time of the firing of the shutter, there exists an artistic opportunity at the time of printing through various printing techniques.  Contrast selection, dodging and burning, and even framing selection are tools the photographer can use.  Only through making a print can the photographer ensure that a particular photograph produces the desired effect for the viewer.