Pixiq

You are walking down a country lane with a camera when an alien space craft lands and aliens get out.  Not only don't they zap you, but they allow you to take as many pictures as you wish. Wow.  Then they tell you (yes they speak English) to go and spread the word that they are arriving in peace.  (They always say that, don't they).

You have never been a very good photographer but you manage to get properly exposed pictures and soon you have sold them to magazines and been interviewed on every talk show and because of the subject matter you become the wealthiest photographer in history (you also have a good business sense).

Now imagine a straight horizontal line.  On the left is a box that reads: SUBJECT.  On the far right of the line is a box called: TECHNIQUE.

This is an example of how SUBJECT can dominate the image. 

Another example might be Marilyn Monroe.  Think of how many photographs she did for the fan magazines on her way to the top.  It's nearly impossible to find a shot of her that isn't pretty good; and many that are great.  That same quality translated to the screen. 

Again: SUBJECT

Now imagine that you are standing on a street corner in New York.  There really isn't anything compelling in terms of subject.  It's like looking at a blank wall.  Yet, you think of the idea of photographing at close range every bit of trash, tar puddles, walls, windows, over a period of several weeks and then making it into a montage. 

Or you bring out your tripod and before anyone knows much about HDR you photograph the corner with 6 shots, bracketed, and put them together into an image that people find stunning.  Or as is the case today, many find too over the top.

Let's return to that straight line with the two boxes, SUBJECT and TECHNIQUE.  What I realized the other day is that it's when the two boxes have slid closer to each other, or are really overlapping, that something new is created.  Maybe that's saying it too crudely, but let's say - that's when things become very interesting to me.  It's also the reason that I've worked at both ends of that imaginary line and tried to bring TECHNIQUE and SUBJECT together.

An example of this in the art world would be Andy Warhol's treatment of Marilyn Monroe.  It's also explains one of the primary differences between painting and photography.

Compared to where the technique box sits on the line for the photographer, the TECHNIQUE is very close to the center for the painter.  Contemporary painters are mostly known for their TECHNIQUE.  In fact, a horizontal line with two boxes at either end might be in a gallery right now.

So, there are the thoughts that came to me slowly.  Very slowly.  And here are two pictures from my own mind experiments that represent either end of that imaginary, possibly infinite line.

p.s.

Now that I've written this down, I can see that I have overly simplified the process.  But, that was the idea.  When the technique over shadows the subject, what happens?  I'm not sure, but that is where the photographer shows their own thoughts and feelings.  The ideas of the photographer tend to hide in the technique more than the subject. (Again, I can think of photographers where that may not have been true, but let's skip 'em for now).

Let's just say that it's interesting to look at our own work, what we do, and how we're using those two boxes: SUBJECT and TECHNIQUE.