A friend told me about a Palin rally this weekend, and I went. It was a different affair from the Obama rally, but I'll save that for when I have my photographs.
About which. . . I was reading more Arbus last night. Her writing is as disturbing as her photographs. But this. . .
"I did the the class interviews last thurs. a bit grim. . . . I just felt confused. their pictures mostly bored me and I had a slight feeling like I didn't know what was wrong with em, they werent after all so wildly different from Good pictures, except there was that mysterious thing. . . I didn't want to look at them, as if it might be catching and I would end up learning from the students how to take just such boring pix as those."
The truth of that just chills me. I know I've been putting up photos that are not "so wildly different from Good pictures." Part of that lies with trying to do this every day and of course is understandable, but there is another truth to it, too. There is a difference.
Hers was a personal statement, of course, not something she brought to the public, but rather is excerpted from a letter to her ex-husband. She ends the letter by saying she accepted all the students into her class. It is not like she is telling those who don't sing well not to sing. Singing is good for the soul. The soul of the singer, that is. The rest of us just have to smile and suffer.
" I didn't want to look at them, as if it might be catching and I would end up learning from the students how to take just such boring pix as those".
ReplyDeleteThis is a fear I have too and sometime an unavoidable, unfortunate influence. All images can be unfortunate influences. Sometime I wish I never saw another photographers work. I wonder what my work would be like. My preconceptions and influences from other artist can crowd out me.