The question of photo snobbery emerged this week and as it’s the second time it’s happened, perhaps it’s worth exploring.
First of all the point should be made that both the questions have been raised in relation to comments I made about my own photographs. I’ve not been pointing fingers at anyone else, that’s not really my style. If you’ve been to one of my photo club talks, one of my opening slides expresses the view that I’m a ‘photo anarchist’. I’m not in favour of rules and providing people don’t cause damage, I’m not fussed about what anyone else does.
I made and shared the image above of Derwentwater, a view that is pretty well known among UK landscape photographers.
I happened to say that I’d never taken a picture of this gate before and my implicit suggestion, making it explicit here now, was that I’d never wanted to. This in spite of the fact that it is one of Keswick’s most photographed viewpoints by landscape photographers. This statement precipitated a discussion about snobbery regarding photo locations. I think it’s useful when such discussions take place as it causes us think a litle more deeply about about what we most do at an instinctive level.
I think the suggestion misses so much of what motivates so many of us to make photographs. Another blog will have a look at whether our landscape photography is predominantly intrinsically or extrinsically motivated but for now, many landscape photographers are driven principally by emotion. This leads to the presence of what some define as ‘Soul’ in the image. We seek to make photographs that stir something in us. We can't always define that and certainly can’t always articulate it clearly (something at which JoeCornish for one excels). We know however that some places, some scenes and some conditions combined with our own state of mind provoke an emotional response in us. This doesn’t imply an extreme response. Our response may be one of calmness, peace, happiness, sadness, excitement or any one of the huge range of emotions that we as humans experience. The feelings we experience are derived from our entire life experience. Every story we were read as a child, every book we read for ourselves, every film we’ve seen, every time we’ve been in love, every time we’ve had our hearts broken. Every photograph we’ve ever looked at is lodged in there somewhere too. Every single one of these and much more contributes to that moment when we make a photograph. For each of us, the effect is different in scale and character and in the degree to which we are conscious of it.
This leads inevitably to the conclusion that for each one of us some places excite us and some places don't. There is no value judgement there. There is no implication that some of those places are ‘better’ or that some conditions are ‘better’. The degree to which we are moved is a complex result of all the factors above internal and external.
The key and often misunderstood process here is that we are giving a response, not making a judgement. They are markedly different things and yet so frequently used so loosely and in overlapping fashion especially in the quickfire medium of social media. For instance:
‘I like that picture’ - is a purely subjective response and offers no judgement
‘That is an excellent picture’ - is entirely objective and judgement based (though clearly failing to provide any framework to support how the judgement is arrived at).
EDIT: I was rightly taken to task about careless use of language in the examples given above. Where I used the terms Objective and Subjective I would have been better to have used Response and Judgement. ‘I like that picture’ is a reponse whereas ‘That is an excellent picture’ is far more judgemental in tone. Mea culpa.
I’m making no judgement about the famous Watergate. Lots of photographers enjoy making photographs there. Plenty of photographers have never made a photograph there. That seems a neutral statement.
It is a classic view because many elements can be combined in a pleasing way to create what many, if not indeed most, would consider to be a balanced composition.
I’ve never photographed it because it doesn’t particularly stir me. I tried it this week in close to perfect conditions and made an aesthetically pleasing picture which still elicited little or no emotional response from me. I think the suggestion of snobbery is misjudged and based on a misunderstanding of what drives some of us to make photographs.
That some places or some kinds of image don’t please us is an entirely subjective response. It is not a judgement and not a condemnation of the fact that they may very well please others.