Pixiq

It's time for resolutions. New Year's assessments about gender as a factor of artistic voice is an important issue is for photographers and videographers. Probably even more important than for any other arts media, in light of the sweeping changes in the photo industry that continue to catch us with surprise each and every year of the last decade. As background, try reading Jennifer Conlin’s article, “The Freedom to Choose your Pronoun”, in the Sunday Styles section of October 2^nd’s New York Times, 

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/02/fashion/choosing-a-pronoun-he-she-or-other-after-curfew.html?_r=1&ref=fashion

When I think about “my” pronoun, I almost always think “we”, because who we are and what we do is an “us” 24/7. But from another angle, it’s always been the executive recommendation for any small business firm to speak in terms of “we”. The point being you don’t want to appear too small as a company to handle important jobs. “We’ve got people...” 

I also have days when I’m definitely a “me” with attitude, or an “other”, maybe a celebratory “everybody” or even an introverted “no one”? Artists have an extra right that ordinary humans don’t get: we’re permitted variable personas and genders. 

Photographic artists get to be fairytale characters with multiple lives and special powers. Sometimes super powers. It’s actually our job, not just our feelings, to put ourselves totally in another point of view, another lifestyle, another being all together. This is how we strive to become great pictorialists, portraitists, screen play writers, videographers, abstractionists, architects and all the other related artistic endeavors. Shapeshifting is an undeniable part of being a great photographer. In may cases we inhabit several personas at once. 

A good New Year's resolution is to further explore your dual personal as artist-entropreneur.

Perception and imagination are key for any artist. Our photographic vision is to size up situations and personalities in a flash, and through the eye of the camera ingest those situations and personalities in order to interpret them in manner so clear and impactful that the viewer is struck and captivated. A breathless series of mental/physical streaks that often converge and conclude in just a moment.

We are storytellers first and foremost.

"This is where the honored name “Griot” comes in. The griot, or griotte in the feminine, is the person in whom the heritage, intelligence and tradition of the tribe resides. The griot is the advisor to kings, the troubador with the news, the seer with magical powers to see and see through. In short, the person telling the stories around the campfire."

It’s the impact and storytelling, the tip and the foundation of my photographic pyramid, that are artistic genius. Lighting, exposure, color, focus or lack of it, composition and so forth are The building blocks in between the tip and the foundation. These are learnable, teachable. But I believe the genius of the artist is something you either have or you don’t. I can help you to foster these qualities, but I can’t teach you any more that I could define exactly what I have done to grab attention and sustain loner interest as a viewer’s eyes revolve within one of my photographs. The oft repeated, “ƒ11 and be there!” implies some of what I mean.

Photographic persona or gender has something to do with all of this. We do naturally tend to divide types of photographic jobs along ordinary gender lines. Usually wedding photographers welcome in the bride’s dressing room are female. Interestingly, if Karl and I are working together, he and the video camera are usually called in, even when dressing is still going on. Baby and child portraiture are not the exclusive province, but increasingly the sphere of moms who work from home part time. Warm and snugly patience is an easy winner. But in my experience many of the finest portraitists of people of any age are male. More often you find males in war zones for obvious reasons, witness the horrible assault and torture of a woman reporter during the Egyptian revolt, and the reluctance of most administrations to place women in combat roles. When I was a possible photographer-hire at National Geographic many years ago, there were no women, and typical macho attitude was rife. For that and other reasons, I declined to play. But women now constitute, by my informal survey, at least 60% of all professional photographers. Roles and niches are now very mixed.

Take time for personal projects in photographic art. Conceive of a story and tell it to its fullest, regardless of potential audience.

Do not become so involved with your perceptions of others, that you forget or are shy to define your voice, persona and gender through your art.  I’m not reluctant to use words that might sound inflated. Think how great is your responsibility as an artist-griot. At any one time you may be the voice of conscience, of truth in reportage, of respite in stressful times, of insight in face of hard-headedness or bigotry, of joy and enjoyment in the grace and beauty of nature and people. The flat gender definition of “her” or “him” just doesn’t fit. Never did. I believe that I, and you, are “other”. But that’s not good enough either.

What words would I use to self-define gender? Seer, visionary, medium are all good and true. In our wedding album there is a page that speaks to how we see our interchanging roles in marriage. “Artist and muse, muse and artist”. And it’s repeated in Spanish, due to our intense relationship with an artists’ retreat in Acapulco where we were married almost 9 years ago.

The term gender may well be as outmoded as race, and never could apply to the constantly moving target that is a photographer. Aren’t we all a combination of things, rather than confined in one jail-cell of a box?

Please share your own experience in gender definition as an artist-photographer and your thoughts for the new year. Your photographic resolutions could be our inspiration as well!