Hi Pete,
I always resist analogies between art and music or literature, unless I'm
the one making the analogy :-).... but as far as iambic pentameter is
concerned, I'd say it would certainly hinder the kind of "creativity" of
*form* that has been hallmark of avant-garde poetry (which mostly I
eschew, so why am I defending it?), which in fact was largely a liberation
from set metre.... as 35 mm is a liberation from the view camera...
In photography, the *form* at issue would be "the shot." And anyone around
here thinks the shot is as free with view camera .... well, you're either
*really* a wizard, or out to lunch! But as I remember the remark was made
in response to (oh, David is a nice name!) David's comment about having to
think a lot before taking picture with all that baggage -- mathematical
and physical baggage. Of course the thinking could be creative and no
doubt often is, but:
you're jettisoning at least half the ability of photography if it has to
be figured out like that all in the mind.
And frankly, well, of course this is personal, perhaps mark of my own
*serious limitations* but I haven't seen a whole lot of view camera work
lately struck me as ****creative*****, as I think of creative, however
awesome it might have been in other respects.
> > I suggest this comparison because using a view camera does
impose certain > restrictions on one's photography just as haiku does.
However, any > hindrance to "creativity" is most certainly a issue of the
photographer - > not the equipment.
I don't know a lot about haiku, perhaps it has the range and depth I look
for in photography, but my sense of it is that it's elegaic, melancholy,
whatever.... but the results are *decorative* and in the mind of the
beholder. Or maybe that's not the best analogy, how about analogy to only
making contact prints from 35 mm....?
Or maybe I'm being snuckered -- after all, photography itself has severe
constrictions of form to begin with.... doesn't need any more... So in
fact, lens, film, "the curve," silver materials, paper, light, pigment
or whatever, are our "haiku" and our metre as well. You want a haiku on
your haiku?
I think I also couched this in terms of my *** personal *** esthetic.
Obviously I could never limit myself to 17 syllables.....
Judy