Please. That an individual with OCD can find exercise and meditation in
process is a moot point...seems people will publish anything these days.
But, that this brand of therapy (craft) finds its way to market leaves a
much more interesting deficit in the DSM-V to explore.
A math professor of mine made a statement in class once that will follow
me to the grave: "Social Science is the art of obfuscation." In like
sense, any photographer that thinks they're capturing truth is just as
guilty as any psychologist. I try my best not to fellate academics
(sorry, don't have a non gender-specific equivalent in my vocabulary).
On 8/30/11 9:29 PM, John Palcewski wrote:
I’m working on a piece on the topic of the various psychological
motives that draw people into serious photography. After a lot of
reflection, I’m aware of a few of my own, but I’d be most interested
in hearing some insights from others.
I got the idea to pursue this the other day when I was revisiting
“O’Keeffe& Stieglitz: An American Romance,� by Benita Eisler. I
was particularly struck by these sentences by Eisler:
Photography, if not truth, in Alfred Stieglitz's life seems an
inevitability. In its complex fusion of the technical and aesthetic,
of process and practice, "seeing" and intuition, art and craft, the
making of pictures with his new machine embraced both psychological
need and expressive impulse.
Conferring the illusion of control (a piece of the world reduced,
arranged, and contained in a little black box), photography leaves the
power drive and fragile ego structure of the narcissist intact: the
photographer is the metaphysical magician who, disappearing under his
black hood (and, for Stieglitz, under his black loden cape as well),
emerges to mystify and demystify at will.
Of equal importance, the process of the work legitimizes the demands
of the obsessive-compulsive personality. In the trial and error
method necessitated by primitive equipment, the photographer could
reasonably shoot the same wall over and over; he could wash, rewash,
and wash again the heavy glass plates, cleansing them of
imperfecctions no one else could ever see. He could then "spot" the
print, chemically removing, speck by speck, any trace of impurity that
had remained hidden on the plate. What emerged, after the plate was
dry, the print perfect--as Alfred occasionally announced one of his
efforts to be--would seem nothing less than Truth, revealed and
recorded for all time.
So I’d be happy—and grateful—to hear some reactions to this, as well
as anything else that occurs to the PhotoForum membership.
Thanks!
JP
