The golden rule is that there are no golden rules

-George Bernard Shaw

Rules are made to be broken and are too often for the lazy to hide behind

-Douglas Mac Arthur

I received this email the other day from a member of a local camera club. I am going to call him Frustrated of New Brighton. I would like to think he was a lone voice in the wilderness. I know he is not. I have heard this story any number of times. But first, his comments…

The one thing that irritates me about camera clubs is their strict adherence to so called rules of composition. It is a cardinal sin to crop a limb off someone in a photograph, the rule of thirds etc…….etc……..While I acknowledge that a photographer should have an understanding of  these so called  rules,  it is counterproductive to insist that club members adhere to them religiously. Tony, you will remember the humming bird shot in the club competition that you recently helped judge. Do you remember that the bird was smack bang in the middle of the frame? Does it matter?

I came across a classic timeless image by Henri Cartier-Bresson the other day while browsing online galleries. It’s the one of the boy strutting around a street corner with a bottle of wine tightly tucked in each arm, but it is the expression on his face that says it all. In all the times I have seen that image I never noticed before that the boy’s legs have been cut off in the photograph. Why didn’t I notice that before? Because it isn’t important to the impact of the image, and it isn’t important to the story the photographer was presenting to me. The image below is one I took at a recent Maori Cultural Evening at Willowbank. The club was invited to take photographs for promotional purposes.

I won’t be entering this in any club competitions next year. I know that the judge will throw it out because I have cut the hands off.

DOES IT MATTER?

FoNB, it doesn’t matter, and it does. Let me explain. It may take a little while…. (more…)

“My painting is almost entirely autobiographical - it tells you where I am at any given point in time, where I am living and the direction I am pointing in. In this present time it is very difficult to paint for other people - to paint beyond your own ends and point directions as painters once did.”

-Colin McCahon

My friend/fiend Jenny asked a difficult question a little time ago in a comment to a previous post. She wrote:

Okay! Next question…. related to this post in the spirit of generating some dialogue. Having thought about some of the ways ego is constricts creativity how do we completely devoid ourselves of it’s influence?? How do we recognise all the layers of its influence??

Difficult to answer, Jenny, but here is a partial response.

Sometimes you have to let go. Sometimes you have to get out of your own way.

I spend a lot of time previsualising, using my visual diary and of course the images themselves to examine my ideas and reflect upon the direction my photography is taking. Sometimes I think I try too hard. I was reminded of that last Saturday night when I went out to make some new work. I had pictures in my head.

It didn’t quite work out that way. (more…)

Kia ora tatou:

Time for a Sermon on the Mount.

On Monday night I had the singular honour of being asked to judge the Canterbury Roundup, an interclub battle for projected Images, along with Ian Smith (ex-Photo Access) and Linda Lee, a Fine Art photography teacher from Christchurch. Nice to see clubs looking for input from people outside the system. Widening the range of inputs can only be good for photography as a whole and for enlarging our awareness of the possibilities the medium can offer. CPS came first (again), followed by Rangiora (YAAY!- No, I am not being parochial-much) and then Kaiapoi. Congratulations.

On that subject, I want to raise (and hopefully dispel) a common fallacy: that professionals are better photographers  than amateurs.

Wrong. They are the same, only different. I have seen work from amateur photographers that had a long way to go. And I have been asked to explain ” this depth-of-field thing” to a professional who was making $80k a year, shooting families, weddings and children. A professional makes his/her living from photography. As such, he/she is driven by client expectations. An amateur photographs for the love of it. We are all amateurs. Or we should be. (more…)

Kia ora tatou:

1. I always intended this blog to be a community. We grow as photographers when we debate and discuss. As Robert Adams said, “Your own photography is never enough. Every photographer who has lasted has depended on other peoples pictures too - photographs that may be public or private, serious or funny but that carry with them a reminder of community.” I depend on my mentors and artists’ models; I also depend on you and I value your visits and the comments that you leave. Please, if you have a thought, a debate or question, ask it, state it, vilify me, whatever. If it is an Ian-Walls-question (many thanks, Ian, you hook me every time!), I will write a post about it. Morris Dancing excepted!
   
2. For those of you still thinking about attending the Freeman Patterson workshop in Akaroa next year, there are still a few places left in the first ( Digital Intensive) and 3rd workshops. This is an ideal place to spend a week working with other photographers and taking a solid step towards photographing with your own voice. The three of us never cease to be amazed at the way attendees’ photography takes a giant leap forward.
3. I am on the cusp of sending out a newsletter. If you don’t get it, that is because you aren’t on my database, and spam laws prevent me sending it out on a whim. You can sign up here or here.
   
4. Last Saturday night I did something I haven’t done in 31/2 years. I went out and shot a roll of film, AgfaChrome RS 1000, dated 12/96. I won’t tell you the number of times I shot, took a look at the back of the camera, and then called myself a Richard. But it was fun. More importantly, It showed me a new technique that I can add to the armoury. Appearing on a Creative Workshop near you…. O, and yes, I have given it a little nudge in CS3. Well, I would, wouldn’t I? I am excited! Now, where is that Mamiya RZ67? And if anyone has fast transparency film in the freezer they don’t want, my address is…. (more…)
   

When you come to my fights and I’m under the lights
and you see that my footwork is false
don’t count me out, at the start of the bout
I’m just doing the secondary waltz
doing the secondary waltz

- Mark Knopfler (from the Kill to get Crimson album)

I blame Mark Knopfler. It is all his fault.

Sometimes I am as influenced (read: informed) by music as I am by what I see, and sometimes music affects my perception of the landscape. Heaven knows what I will produce if I start listening to Metallica or ACDC while I am on the road!

Lately I have been giving myself permission to move beyond the representational, to move further into post-visualisation and expressionism. Let me explain. (more…)