I totally disagree. You are entitled to your own opinion, but not your facts. Truth is fact. Truth is absolute. There is no gray in truth. You may not like it, and you may wish it were different, but its there none the less.
Now if you are creating art and the composition is perfect except for a tree you do not like in the frame, if you change the composition to leave it out is that the truth? Yes for that spot on the earth exists at that moment in time. If you take the image from the original point and clone it out is that the truth? No but for a print I am representing as art and not documentary, I would have no problem doing that at all. A model shows up with a big tattoo on her shoulder that disrupts the lines of her dress flowing. There is a big difference in cloning out the tat from a gallery print and cloning out the tat for an ID photo.
I don't believe it is that hard to show truth, but showing emotions is a really tough assignment. Creating an emotional response to your work in the viewer that is the response you intended is the ultimate measure of success of an image.
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: Psychological Motives for Pursuing Photography
From: Herschel Mair <herschel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Tue, August 30, 2011 11:33 pm
To: List for Photo/Imaging Educators - Professionals - Students
<photoforum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
I wanted to study music and my family wanted me to be an architect... I
studied photography. The faculty was in the printing and lithography
department. It was "The British way" - Professionalism and know-how
above all else. The old debate about "Art" hardly entered the equation.
I'm not dealing with truth at all. It's such a vague abstract.... your
truth my truth our truth... and changeable. I don't believe photographs
are capable of translating what we feel or what we see truthfully. They
will almost always trigger a different and personal experience for every
viewer. The viewer feels and sees from his own life and experience.
"We see things not as they are but as we are." Einstein
I am motivated by two dynamics. I take pictures to sell stuff and I
take pictures to please myself.
The former is done to other people's specifications mostly. I shoot to
please an art director or a client etc...
The latter is done to satisfy an urge to play with light and perhaps to
collect... To find images that fit into my projects so that they tell a
better story and are visually more pleasing.
I almost never shoot stuff that I don't "Need" for a project. What would
I do with a pretty sunset? I love them as much as the next man and
sometimes the light is so beautiful it turns me inside out. But I am not
tempted to reach for a camera. I don't take gear with me when I go on
vacation.
For over 25 years now, photography has been work. Work that I love to
do, but work nevertheless.
Herschel
On 8/30/11 9:58 PM, Trevor Cunningham wrote:
> Amen.
>
> On 8/31/11 12:18 AM, Lea Murphy wrote:
>> I'm not trying to reveal Truth, I'm trying to show what I saw, what I
>> felt, what I felt about what I saw.
>
>
