I Can See it For You Wholesale

One of the perennial questions in photography is how to explain the relationship between a photograph and the world — or between the photograph and some specific part of the world (the subject). It is understood that the photograph is in some respect like a copy but is not actually a copy as such; no photograph is either as pure or as boring as a perfect copy would be.

Here’s my suggestion, for today anyway, for how to explain the difference:

To make a photograph is not to copy the world, but to abridge it, or to edit it. We read the world, and when we achieve a moment of recognition in response to some part of the world, we use the camera to excerpt it, to underline it — or to angrily strike it through.

Unfortunately, these marks are relatively unlikely to be incorporated into a new draft of the manuscript, so the photographer is much more like a critic marking up a review copy — or a reader making private notes for himself — than like an editor working in collaboration with the author to refine the work itself.

Of course, that proposed metaphor only covers certain kinds of photography — straight photography, more or less, as opposed to constructed photographs and photographs which are intended to be statements about photography…

I’ve made some slight updates to the web site. Mostly just de-crapifying stuff. I did add a new section, for my ongoing series of infrared flag photographs. I’ve mentioned these photographs here on the blog before, but if you’re interested in them, please do take a look at the tentative sequence here.

Sometime in the semi-near future I will also probably post up a short sequence of my infrared street photography as well.

For those who do not enjoy infrared, well, you’ve probably already stomped off in disgust. If not, don’t worry; I’ll likely be shooting more color this summer.