The perfect is the enemy of the good

I came across a little quote by Alan Ross this week that I'd like to share. Ross was Ansel Adams' assistant for a time, and the quote addresses a point I've spoken to before, namely that we don't make great work all the time, no matter how wonderful a photographer we are. I think it's a lovely little revelation and well put:

“When I first went to work as Ansel’s assistant, one of the things that struck me the most was the realization, while going through boxes and boxes of his work, that he had made an awful lot of very ordinary photographs! I was somewhat stunned to learn that he had no illusions and no expectations that every film he exposed would wind up being another one of what he fondly called his ‘Mona Lisa’s. As an awe-struck young photographer in the presence of The Master, this revelation was an incredible relief to me; it came as a release from the burden of expecting myself to produce only perfection. It was better to experiment and try things that might work, and openly and simply respond to feelings than to over intellectualize. In fact I soon came to learn that one of Ansel’s favorite phrases was ‘The Perfect is the enemy of the Good!’ ”
— Alan Ross, Photographer

What's special about a film portrait?

The other day I came across a photographer wrestling with the task of capturing his daughter on large format film. He declared, with some modesty given the skill he showed in his images, his attempts a failure. I got the sense he would triumph, however, his declaration being at any rate interim in nature.

Large format photographers are not strangers to difficulty (their medium certainly brings its challenges) nor are they afraid to pursue highly individual whims and visions. It would be easy to dismiss this gentleman as a maverick, and to retire with a sigh, saying something like ‘wrong kit friend, try 35mm and continuous focus for better results’.

Yet an essential part of this photographer’s vision, the look he desires, is 5x4 film. It is a very particular look. And film. Something I fully appreciate in the endeavour is the idea of committing a person’s, nay a loved one’s, visage to film.

So in mulling this over, I set myself the task of expressing what exactly it is that makes a film portrait special. The obvious comparison is with digital, so why choose film instead? The answer I have so far come up with may be no more than a kind of illusion, a piece of analogue nostalgia in an increasingly digital time, a fool’s gold of image making.

When I think of my own film portraits, I think of the silver gelatin crystals in the negative that have reacted to the light that emanated from the subject. Physical stuff, now tiny grains, that make up an image. A person, etched in a transparent medium that becomes, through the further action of light, a physical photograph to hold in wonderment. When the negative (or the photograph) is in my hand, I hold a token of a causal connection to the being who was once before the camera. I believe semiologists call this kind of relationship between sign and thing represented ‘indexical’. Like footprints in the snow signalling someone’s presence.

Now, digital is of course no less physical than film, hence my talk of fool’s gold. Yet the physicality of digital is, well, just not very physical. Many others have pointed out that images on memory cards and folders on computers are ephemeral. Negatives and prints, by contrast, support the romance of the imagined connection to a person that a portrait fosters. Like a Proustian smell, they are evocative and sensory, and nurture memories. The negative in my fingers is like a little light trap; a special light that really came, indexically, from the person caught within.

My ruminations don’t address the ‘look’ of film as a factor, but I think this isn’t the best place to look for distinctions, at least not on its own. I use and enjoy film simulation presets on my digital shots. These go a long way to imitating film (although not the whole way, for further technical reasons involving focal lengths and formats, old lenses and so on). It is not (just) the look of film that makes it special. It is that and the gravitas of the physical light trap of which I write. Digital pictures image people; film ones bear their imprint. 

The Emulsive Ilford community interview

Purveyors of photographic materials Ilford really need no introduction. Their name already permeates this blog. They are rightly known for the quality and consistency of their products, and many a photographer and darkroom worker relies on them.

In May, Emulsive (a website dedicated to film) invited questions via social media to put to this great company. Ilford have been generous in the time and consideration given to their response, and they answered an impressive number of questions. Click on the button below for the link. It makes good reading for anyone interested in the UK photo industry, and especially the future of film.

Be a better photographer - a postscript

So, today I have posted the tenth, and final, instalment of my little weekly mini series of photography tips. Writing them has been enjoyable, and I have learnt about myself as a photographer and potential blogger.

My website is not very old, and while I can monitor visitor numbers to some degree, and have linked to social media, it is not easy to tell how my writing has been received (or how many readers it has had). I suspect the lot of the blogger is fundamentally a lonely one, especially in the early stages of a blog’s life. Perhaps the game is changing too: maybe the blogs with large audiences were formed when such things were possible, but now a proliferation of blogs means a smaller and more specialised audience for each new one.

A writer is naught without an audience, and so for this reason I invite feedback on the ‘better photographer’ series, or any other posts for that matter. The contact link in the menu above is an easy way to get in touch, or there are sections for comments under specific posts. The latter are moderated and so there may be a short delay before they appear.

Some useful questions are: Which bits did you like? How did you find the format, the length, flavour? Are there things I didn’t cover that you would like to see? Were the tips helpful? Do you want more? Would you like to see some beginners introductions to photo topics? If so, which ones? 

The content of such a website is always going to be the responsibility of the owner, and of course I reserve the right to make it indelibly mine (it wouldn’t be Richard Pickup Photography else, and I have only begun to scratch the surface of what I have to offer). I plan to address darkroom more than I have to date, and certainly more on digital inkjet printing. Modest reviews of equipment and papers will continue. 

At the same time it is abundantly clear from my experience with social media that collaborative and community based dialogue is on the rise (this may link to my suspicion of more numerous, but more specialised photography sites). I welcome this social aspect, and thus if you wish to stick around and get involved, you have an opportunity to shape what I do. I hope, then, that an audience and indeed a community, with you a part of it, will emerge. If you think my content is for you, please do follow and voice your opinion.

 

Be a better photographer - tip 10

“You don’t make a photograph with just a camera. You bring to the act of photography all the pictures you have seen, the books you have read, the music you have heard, the people you have loved.”
— Ansel Adams

Train your visual memory

I believe in creativity, but I also believe that we learn a social language ‘through’ which we speak. As it is with words, so it is with photography. Adams puts it economically when he says that ‘you bring to the act of photography all the pictures you have seen’. Photographers learn photography by learning to speak its language. That language is made up of the work that has gone before us, the grammar, so to write, established by those who find their way into a culture’s visual memory, passed on through books, museums and latterly the web.

Just as a writer might conjure an original feeling or sentiment using the established words, phrases and literary devices of the past, so a photographer aims to carve out a niche in picture-making. Literary minds are nourished by the traditions of literature on which they draw and are immersed. The same goes for photographers. I am not so much of an expressionist as Adams, and maybe the full quote above is unfashionably romantic. However, I think we would not be off the mark to read Adams’ as an educational message to look carefully and widely at good work by others, in order to improve our practice.

So my tip for the day is to consider the wonderful photography of the past as great works that we can read to improve our photographic eye. If you have seen good photos, in other words, you will stand a better chance of drawing on them to make good work. Give time and space in your engagement with photography over to careful looking and contemplation. Galleries and museums are great because we are in the physical company of the work and peruse with minimal distraction. Books are tactile and inhabit our living environments, such that we spend more time digesting a photographer’s oeuvre. Numerous times have I chanced on a photographers monograph from my bookshelf and re-awakened my engagement with the work. Such images stick around, literally and in the mind.

Sure, we might start off being under the spell of great photos, feeling like we’ve made another ‘Adams’, say. Yet given enough time and a generous diet, we might come to put that ‘language’ together, in fresh and contemporary ways. It’s an essential part of learning to be a better photographer.