Simple attraction
I’ve read a couple of posts in the past week that have gotten me to thinking a little bit. Mind you, I don’t want to over-think things, but want to indulge in a slight bit of musing.
Paul Butzi wrote about meaning in this excellent post called “Sources of meaning”. The other post, by William Neill, is entitled “Thinking in Themes”. I think that I would have to say that, as far as my photography is concerned, meaning is overlayed on group of pictures much after the fact. When I’m taking the picture, I’m operating on nothing more than visual appeal, usualy, or attraction if you will.
The top picture is an example of pure attraction. There is no meaning attached (that I know of). Later, should I review the thousands of pictures that I have of the trees in Reedy Creek Park and decide that there is a theme, or deeper still, meaning, then I will put those pictures together and that will become the theme or meaning of a portfolio … applied after the fact.
Pure attraction, however, is not always the case. Take this photo to the right, for example, I’ve taken this so many times, but still it appeals to me. It has meaning to me. I feel somehow connected to the mystery of space with this little satellite dish. To someone else, perhaps, it’s just a Dish Network dish on someone’s house. 
Going back to SoFoBoMo, we sort of had to pick a theme before we started. Mine was Van Landingham Glen. The theme, I suppose, was discovery. I’d never gone there and finally went there and photographed it. It had (has?) no deeper meaning other than that. Perhaps, at some future time, I can look back upon it and say that it means something significant. Also, meaning is in the eye of the beholder. Someone might look at the book and say that it has significant meaning to them. Good, but that doesn’t mean that it has any type of global meaning. Your mileage may vary!
I’m still just love to click that shutter and my subjects vary, sometimes wildly, but I am pleased to be able to be out there doing what I love meaning or no meaning, theme or no theme.
What about you? Do you go out with definite themes or meaning or do you just go and chase the light?
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6 Responses to “Themes, meaning, attraction?”
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I’ve never really shot for themes in the past, but I find myself doing it now. I did today while on the Photo Walk http://www.photoshopuser.com/photowalk/ I want to learn to tint my black and whites this winter, so I shot a) with a theme and b) specifically for tinting. I still prefer to wing it, although I do preplan some as well.
Much like you. About the only thing that’s certain on a typical day is, that I have mounted a particular lens and that I am most likely not going to change it. From then on I try to think as little as possible.
I am in my most productive mode, when I don’t care about meaning, themes or anything like that. It’s not exactly automatic in the surrealist sense, but it is not very conscious either, at least not in the sense that most people would associate with consciousness
Basically I don’t care much about WHAT I photograph, the only thing that I care about is the picture in a very abstract sense.
I did smile a big smirk to read your first line “that got me thinking a little bit” as well.. that seems to come pretty natural
I think the meaning that WE attach to a particular photo is one of the great things about blogging in that we get to share a little bit beyond the pure visual element regarding what the photo means to us, certainly some have the universal hook but many many more are like the dish and moon.
I have to admit that most of the time, I just “go out”, I don’t even chase the light. Perhaps waiting a bit until a cloud has move to the right position or the sun is a bit lower etc. But usually I let things just come to me. Either it “clicks” (pun intended) – or it will maybe next time. Doesn’t make me overly productive, but hey, that’s the joy of being an amateur. No need to drag back at least 10 sellable shots in order to pay the bills…:)
A little bit of both for me. It isn’t often that I have a particular theme in mind when heading out, but sometimes when in the field something will hit me and I will go with the idea.
Nice shot with the trees by the way. I can see all sorts of themes there – wilderness, closeness, repetition, line, luminosity…
Most of the times, my collections and sets seem to develop ex post – of course I won’t bring home portraits when strolling through a canyon, but if it’s details or reflections or whole sceneries most often develops on location. Being there I try to develop a feeling for the situation and get into a flow state – seeing, framing, developing ideas… unfortunately that does not happen really often.
Meaning in my case most often comes from the selection of subject and my general attitude towards it. As an amateur I can afford to shoot most often only what appeals to me, what I do appreciate, where positive emotions are evoked, and in this sense photographing gets in touch with more layers of my self, strenghtening unknown aspects – I guess this is where creativity grows and where the need to create is satisfied.
Displaying the work, showing it to others is something different, and in this aspect the “thinking in themes” and the advice to rigorously edit by quality I think is correct. Mike Johnston over at “The Online Photographer” had mentioned the necessity of this act in his blog entry Reify and Redact – creating a “body of work” is a goal from which I am still miles away but which is on my radar even if I don’t actively think about it, and which I try to approach in small small steps at the pace permitted by my life’s setup.