From: Jonathan Bailey (quryhous@midcoast.com)
Date: 08/27/02-07:04:13 PM Z
Jeff,
> "Don't worry about categories." Huh? How
> can I think
> and not "worry about categories"? I mean, I'm on board, I'm
> DOWN, but if I
> want to make pictures (as opposed to documents of some kind),
> then I'm engaged
> from the start with the question of what is pictorial, and
> "pictorial" is a
> category. "Worrying" about what fits or does not fit is the
> consequence of
> the fact that I'm not the first person that ever lived who cared
> to do this
> sort of thing.
Maybe I can phrase or 'couch" this a little differently - I'd like to
help....
I suggested in an earlier post that we can be in this world primarily
through our personality (the intellect) - the dominant mode in this culture
today; or one can be in the world primarily through our senses. The latter
mode posits that the world is not an "inert backdrop" against which we play
out the drama of our lives - it posits that our relationship with what we
see is organic: a "living" connection; that it is NOT a "me inside here and
a world outside there...."
If you're still with me (and I in no way assume you are) - this raises
important issues, especially as a photographer.
Have you ever asked what photography (and the images) might want or need
*from you*?
Have you ever considered that an image may have its own reasons for being??
Perhaps your role in image-making should be as a *facilitator,* rather than
*originator*???
The latter leaves the personality in complete control: you - the personality
"you" - has to puzzle out intellectually, deductively, THE ANSWERS. The
former allows the process and, more importantly the *image* - a voice in the
outcome. You bear witness to the results - and are either interested in
them or you're not. Perhaps the world speaks to us through ATTRACTION. It
could be our connection with the world is essentially an erotic one!!!!
Wouldn't that be grand!?!?
Maybe you could leave the issues of "categories"/ "pictorialism"/ "worrying"
aside for a moment - and just attend to the things that attract you. Trust
they might lead you someplace. This "someplace" might not be "the thing
itself" - but rather, a door through which you must go in order to get
someplace (more?) important. Trust is crucial. Often, the personality
isn't good at trust.... you'll need to listen to voices more subtle than the
personality's carping about embarrassment or "seeming trivial...."
I am not, generally speaking, attracted to photograph "things" - I am
attracted to a certain quality of light that I've learn to be attentive to -
and to trust. I'll photograph any "thing" suffused in this light. But that
is my way - it may not be yours. The important thing, it seems to me, is to
allow some part of you other than the strident, insistent, voice of reason a
voice in the process. Reason is a tyrant. Art is, therefore, a bit of
anarchy....
To repeat myself - "the light is green - you can go!"
Best -
Jon
www.jonathan-bailey.com
Tenants Harbor, Maine
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : 09/19/02-11:02:50 AM Z CST