From: Diana H. Bloomfield (dlhbloom@mindspring.com)
Date: 08/23/02-11:57:39 PM Z
Since I'm the one who first mentioned the ever-present sunset and pet
photos I consistently see in classes, I felt compelled to respond to
your comments. Just for the record, I don't believe I have personally
ever "shamed or brow-beaten" a student into not photographing these
subjects--nor any subject for that matter.
My earlier point, which I'll try to better articulate for you, was that
students often continue trotting out familiar work (familiar work for
them), simply because they know they can do it and do it really well.
Often, when one is first starting out, he/she will receive
praise--well-deserved, I'm sure-- just as you did with your
"lichen-encrusted . . dazzling . . . surreal. . . otherworldly . . .
sunlight dancing throughout the image" waterpocket photo. They've
received all that approval, validation, and praise and want to continue
doing so. So sometimes that means they literally keep making the same
picture over and over and over. Now, that's understandable, and there's
nothing inherently wrong with that. However, for the semester that I
have them in my class, I'd like to try to challenge them as well as give
them the confidence to know they can take some risks and do more--even
if that "more" is simply, as you say, to "breathe new life into overdone
subjects." And, again, when I speak of "overdone," I really am referring
to a subject matter that is overdone by the student himself. I could
care less what's being done or overdone anywhere else.
Also, I am speaking about a group of beginning photography students
here--clearly not the "sophisticated" group of photographers others have
talked about teaching. These students really do want to know and learn
more than simply what they've already been doing. (I know this, because
they tell me.) That's one reason they sign up for the course. This
beginning course is not required, and I don't give grades. The students
run the gamut from undergraduates to graduate students to the older,
non-University community.
I'd also just like to say that one of the first things I tell my
students--on the first day of class--is that each of us has our own
separate history, background, experiences, and memories. That alone will
ensure that you will never be able to make an image like mine, nor to
"see" as I do, and I'm pretty confident I will never be able to
photograph or "see" as you do. That is an absolute given.
One of the first assignments I give in this beginning class is to send
my students to a local park, a rose garden. I send them all there, not
because it's a particularly fascinating landscape; in fact, it's very
small, nothing but roses, a small amphitheatre, a stone wall, and a
water fountain. That's it. And when they return and show their work
the following week, not one person has taken the same picture as anyone
else. And, class after class, students are always so surprised. How can
that be? They were all out there together, in the same small place, all
photographing the same thing. Never have I had a class where any one
student came back with a photograph of that area that was remotely
similar to anyone else's. That one little assignment nicely drives home
the idea that we each see and perceive the world in our own unique way.
And not to pat myself too hard on the back here, but my students usually
leave this beginning class with a new appreciation for, and greater
confidence in, their own abilities and in photography as an art form.
(Again, I'm not imagining this. I know this, because they tell me.)
And if they have one complaint, it is consistently that I wasn't hard
enough on them.
So if you've read this far, thanks, and I hope this clarified some of my
earlier statements.
--Diana
Cactus Cowboy wrote:
>
> One print I submitted for an assignment at Colorado Mountain College (in the
> early eighties) was a tight b&w closeup of a lichen-encrusted waterpocket
> with dazzling reflections of sunlight dancing throughout the image. The
> picture was a surreal, other-worldly 'landscape', with no sense of scale.
> My instructor loved the photo, praising it at length. She asked if I'd ever
> seen any of Minor White's work. I had not. Although some of my work was
> strikingly similar to White's, she did not dismiss it as having "been done
> before". It was more important that she was able to recognize the spark of
> creativity in my work, and push me to develop my vision. She was a good
> teacher.
>
> There are very few subjects that haven't been done before. A good
> photographer will find a way to create an exciting, fresh, and different way
> of depicting the most mundane, ordinary subject. Rather than shaming and
> brow-beating students into not photographing sunsets and pets, maybe
> teachers should challenge students to breathe new life into overdone
> subjects. For example, the same instructor (who loved my b&w closeup) gave
> us an assignment to photograph a "dog's tail so it looks sexy"! Not only
> was that a challenge, but it was fun, and yielded some very interesting
> work.
>
> Best regards,
> Dave in Wyoming
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Shannon Stoney" <shannonstoney@earthlink.net>
> To: <alt-photo-process-l@skyway.usask.ca>
> Sent: Tuesday, August 20, 2002 2:24 PM
> Subject: Has this been done before? Really? Show me.
>
> > Diana,
> >
> > It's hard to talk about these things without being in the presence of the
> > images under consideration themselves. I know what you mean by safe
> beach
> > sunsets, pictures of pets, et al. But people in my class had gone way
> > beyond that, yet they were still being castigated over and over again with
> > the "that's been done before" rap. I'll try to describe the kind of work
> > that was being done.
> >
> > One person was trying very hard to deal photographically with issues
> having
> > to do with her sexuality and relationships with men, a difficult topic and
> > one not easy to photograph "about." She tried over and over again
> > photographing herself nude in different ways--color, b and w, sexy, not
> so
> > sexy, gagged with plastic bags even --each time to be told that "it had
> been
> > done before," or the other golden oldie, "what is your point here? well,
> > we're not getting that." By the end of the year her work had completely
> > degenerated, and she was no longer even making photographs, but simply
> > zeroxing and transferring to newsprint stuff out of sex manuals! (By the
> > way, this was very well received.) I think it's sad that she was
> discouraged
> > from continuing with her much more ambitious project.
> >
> >
> > Another young woman was attempting to translate her interest in landscape
> > photography away from pretty nature scenes, to the Houston urban
> landscape.
> > She would bring well-crafted pictures of freeway overpasses, etc, and be
> > told, of course, "that's been done before." She too got very discouraged
> at
> > getting shot down each time she tried ANYTHING, and in the end was making
> > very little work.
> >
> > Another young woman was trying to portray her frustration about living at
> > home, being ready to graduate but not quite having flown the nest yet. She
> > photographed herself nude behind a wall of cellophane, attempting to cut
> the
> > cellophane with a knife. You could sort of see her body but not clearly.
> > Ok, maybe not the clearest metaphor in the world, but she was really
> trying.
> > And what was she told? "That's been done before." By whom? Where? Show
> me!
> > Of course that never happens. This woman had gotten off to a slow start
> and
> > had finally done something sort of ambitious. After this failure, she
> went
> > back into hiding again and didn't come out the rest of the semester.
> >
> > Yet another woman was trying to deal with the issue of body image and
> makeup
> > and fixing yourself up to be attractive to men. She put some sort of
> latex
> > makeup on her face and then photographed herself in front of the mirror
> > peeling it off. Some of these images were quite grotesque and a little
> > shocking, enough to be "edgy." But, of course, it's been done before. We
> > should know that by now.
> >
> > I could go on and on. By the end of the semester I was beginning to
> suspect
> > that since the teachers don't know what to say, they trot out two or three
> > stock criticisms. Speaking of taking the easy route: it saved THEM from
> > having to think. And, I can count on one hand the number of times they
> said
> > anything positive about somebody's work, or pointed out a strength that
> > somebody could build on.
> >
> > Maybe these things HAD been done before. But if they had, whose fault was
> > it that these students didn't know about this work?
> >
> > The photo history teacher, meanwhile, who doesn't come to our studio
> > critiques, was puzzled as to why the students seem so downcast and
> > demoralized, and why they didn't seem to have their heart in their
> studies.
> > In other words, the demoralization was obvious to people other than
> myself.
> >
> > Perhaps dwelling on the failings of this particular department is
> irrelevant
> > to the larger discussion, but I have gotten the feeling from talking to
> > people at other schools that this sort of lazy critiquing goes on in a lot
> > of art departments. My partner says it's a form of hazing, like the
> > gruelling residency that doctors go through. But young doctors are made
> to
> > feel that eventually they will be good at what they are bad at now. That
> > doesn't happen in a lot of art schools.
> >
> > --shannon
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