I’m in Melbourne right now – my first time to Australia, and my 50th country. I’m speaking at the Nikon AIPP, an incredible convention filled with some wonderful people. Yesterday I gave the keynote address that opened the conference; it’s a fearful task to inspire people at 8:30am. It was a presentation I’ve been obsessing over for a couple weeks and it was good to stretch myself, to risk, to wrestle with the fear again. It’s too easy in the creative life to find the little pockets of ease and comfort and hide out there. This article comes out of that presentation.
A couple years ago the number being floated around about photographs on the internet was this: 1.8 billion images a day were being shared on social media channels. All of them showing us what every minute corner of the world looks like. It is safe to say that there is little – if anything at all – that remains to be shown. Do a Google search for any conceivable thing, place, or person and there’s a good chance you’ll get more images than you can use. This used to be the job of photographers, particularly the so-called professionals: to illustrate. To show the world what it looked like.
In order to show the world what it looked like the photographer had to use a rather technical means, had to understand the physics, the chemistry, the optics. Owning and using the gear required was not easy. This was the means by which the photographer accomplished his craft and remained relevant. And that, for generations was the task of most photographers – to use complicated gear to show the world what it looked like.
Can you see where this is heading? Something only has value when it’s needed. When it’s scarce. And you can say neither about the use of the camera nor the need for more illustrative images of a world in which 2 billion photographs are shared, not to mention the ones not shared, every day. Before you despair or rush to the ramparts to defend this craft, let me say that I believe more than ever in the value and need for photographs. It just isn’t where it once was, in illustration.
The extraordinary opportunity now available to photographers is not illustration but interpretation. Of course there have been photographers for the entire short history of the craft that have done this, transcended craft and made art, showing the world not only what it looked like, but what it felt like, and – to some degree – what meaning could be found there. But they have been fewer. We need them now more than ever.
This is where we will find relevance. The world already knows what it looks like. It has seen itself from every angle. What it needs now, more than ever is to see itself in new ways. Ways that give it hope. Ways that don’t let us flinch and look away when we see the bits we don’t like. Ways that show us, also, the beauty. Ways that engage us and stir our imaginations. We need photographers now to stop seeing their cameras as their tools. They aren’t. The tools of a photographer are the tools of visual language, just as the true tool of the writer is not the keyboard but the words themselves, all of them combinations of the same 26 letters. The magic of the writer comes not in her ability to pound the keys but to form words and sentences that say something, that transport us, that stir imagination, that light a flame in our heart. It is not that they can write something, it’s that they have something to say.
Our photographs may be worth a thousand words, they might not be worth the paper upon which the words are written: what matters is what is said. So why are photographers so late to pick up on this? Well, for one, they aren’t. Not all of them. We have a rich history of people, both men and women that have used the camera with such courage. But for what is arguably the vast majority of photographers it is this: it takes guts to put yourself out there. It takes risk. It takes having an opinion in the first place and it takes an attention to the soul of things that is so much harder than just learning the Zone system. Our history is full of voices telling us to shoot not what it looks like but what it feels like. It’s time we paid even more heed to these voices.
It’s very, very noisy out there. The noise is only getting worse. And the only way to cut through that noise is with signal: with something to say. And the more human that thing is, the more it will connect, because that humanity and connection is the rarest of commodities. Our calling, as my friend John Paul Caponigro reminded me recently in an article he wrote on Abstraction is so much more than craft: “there is a world of difference between focusing a lens and focusing attention.” To do this we need to experience the word deeply, to live and love deeply, to commit to something, to open our eyes so wide it hurts. Vision, as Jonathon Swift reminded us, is the ability to see what is invisible to others. The calling of the photographer is to see the invisible and to show it to the world, and those are the things we see not with our eyes so much as with our heart.
I don’t know how you’re going to do it, the “how” has been the struggle of every artist for as long as art has stirred in the human heart and imagination. But I do know that for most of us, if we want to be heard, we need to find a way to dig a little deeper, we need to expose our hearts and souls more than we expose our film or sensor. We can’t show the world what it feels like until we feel the world deeply ourselves and have the courage to share that. That is how we cut through the noise. That’s how we remain relevant. The world knows what it looks like. It’s time to go deeper.
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The magic of the writer comes from HER ability?
Disgusting politically correct.
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This is a thesis of yours that I have always connected with, your work particularly influenced the way I looked at photographs. I really appreciated the way you explained your expressive approach to image making when I read Vision & Voice back in the day.
This is so good! I am a big believer in going deeper and pushing ourselves as photographers. If we are not pushing ourselves, we are not growing! Thank you for writing this and sharing!
David,
Thank you for an incredibly inspirational and aspirational presentation that was full of practical tips to improve our craft.
Cheers
Peter
My pleasure, Peter. Thank you – it was a wonderful evening!
Hey David,
Congratulations!! What a tremendous honor to be invited as the keynote speaker at AIPP (not sure what that stands for but sounds impressive 🙂 ).. “The end of what it looks like” is a title that should inspire photographers to continue to pursue a unique vision that resides in us all. And really, if one ponders the topic, is also somewhat of a misnomer. It might be the end of what a snap shot looks like, however, everything on this earth is in a constant state of flux and really never looks the same from day to day. So, in fact, I would challenge the concept to a small degree. Look at all of the subject matter there is out there, even in our own small communities!
As you so eloquently state, it’s our vision as photographers that is really constantly in a fluid dynamic of change and maturity. This vision is a constantly evolving skill that separates the good from the great. Separates another snap shot on Instagram from a true work of art that is museum worthy. So really doesn’t “The end of what it looks like” really mean that true masterworks of photography are now more likely to be within our grasp as we concentrate on our vision to separate ourselves from the hoard? That, we are now able to realize that creativity is that space in our mind where these images are really created, first as an idea that is a vision of the final image.
What a fantastic time in history to be blessed to be a photographer!!
Best,
Craig
Nicely put David. You’ve managed to put a finger on the pulse of what the world needs more of right now: people with a vision (oy, you’ve got me using the word now!) that bubbles up from deep within. How it pours out into the world is as unique as we all are but it’s so important that we take our views of the world outside ourselves and use our voices to say something that goes beyond the superficial. Photography can be our voice for that conversation.
Thank you for using your voice, through both your photography and writing. You inspire me to continue searching for my own.
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Thoughts and concepts, themselves are an abstraction, because they are at least one step removed from reality. There is a hugh difference between what we think and what we feel, even though thoughts can influence feelings and vice versa. Authentic feeling and being are subtle states that are borne out of stillness, peace, and quiet within, where heart, mind, and soul unite. When we achieve this subtle state, then can we express ourselves honestly and freely, it will shine forth in our work and touch the soul’s with eyes to see. It’s not always easy, but it is the path to freedom and creativity. Unfortunately, in many ways the internet has become a wasteland of egos trying to outdo one another, instead of being a community of light, campanionship and beauty. You, David , are of the light and for this I thank you. We need all the light we can shine on this troubled sphere and art has always been mankind’s greatest gifts from the caves of ancient France to the present. Let it shine in our work as we bear our souls to an off times unreceptive world!
I can always count on you for an insightful comment, thank you Tom!
Thanks David, for another inspirational post. You have put into words what has been on my mind of late as in what I want my photography to communicate. Hope you are enjoying Melbourne and that you have time to venture out of the city as well. Some beautiful places around there that are worth visiting and will hopefully inspire you to come back for another visit.
This goes straight to my heart, and speaks to me on so many levels. I have felt an uneasiness of late, and this sentence “It’s too easy in the creative life to find the little pockets of ease and comfort and hide out there.” is where I have been. I do care deeply about things and I need to find a project/subject that stirs the soul and get back to being a photographer.
Hi David welcome to Australia- hope you have inspirational and creative time here in this beautiful country.
Welcome to Melbourne and welcome to Australia David. I hope you find as much inspiration here as your words and pictures have provided us with over the years.
Are you talking anywhere else in Melbourne?
Hi Lynn – I”m speaking at a camera club on Friday evening as well, a bit of a last minute addition to the itinerary but I believe it’s sold out already. I’ll check and if there’s a chance of getting in I’ll reply again. Thanks for the interest.
I loved this article. You have helped me to understand how I need to take a photograph, what should be the very basis of my photo. I will try to forget the camera for a while and just go back and look for the shot.
I do hope your keynote was recorded, and will be made available online… I’d love to watch it. I’m sure you killed it.
Such an insightful post. Right to the heart! Thanks, David.
This is such a breath of fresh air. Thank you for the inspiration.
Thank you David, your keynote presentation was perfectly to the point and very well received. I feel inspired and renewed. Hilary