March 24, 2011

Not for Photographers Only


When I got my first (and still only) iPhone 3G in December 2008 one of the first unexpected Apps I discovered was Toy Camera, which came to me from Laurie Wagner (who is the first to tell me lots of things). I remember thinking “but why do I need a quirky little photo processor when we have iPhoto and Picasa on our computers?” Well the Toy Camera App does stuff you just can’t recreate on casual photog programs, and the pics look great.


Then late last year I glanced across a NY Times article about hot new Apps and wrote down “Hipstamatic” ($2 I think). Well I eventually got around to getting it and it blew me away and continues to. It comes with all these minuses, such as an unnecessarily small viewfinder for instance, and no zoom feature like on the regular iPhone Camera. (Smart asses. Why do that??) In a subtle way they seem to not want you to know what’s coming, and that becomes part of the fun.


This issue reminds me of Brian Eno, who has talked about limiting your creative options instead of increasing them and how that can lead to great discoveries. It’s nicer if someone else makes the limiting choices for you, and it’s really telling if you get better results when you don’t know how you did it.


After a few weeks of taking really nice pictures I logged on and bought every single extra accessory Hipstamatic sells (it came to 6 or $8), set the camera on Random and then headed on the road with Madison and a friend to the Winchester Mystery House in San Jose for a rainy first day of Spring Break.


After two very enjoyable hours of listening to absolutely rapturous East Indian guitar music on my iPod while taking hundreds of pictures, I stood randomly gazing into the gift shop rafters while the girls made a purchase and thought about qualifying photographic subjects/objects.

What makes a subject relevant? What makes it appealing? Why do we care? For example, as a photographer I have recently been appreciating objects that include rust and decay, but unless you’re strictly going for texture, a subject like that can quickly lose its relevance without the context of the past.


This year, no one cares about an 8-year-old Dell computer monitor sitting on the sidewalk, but in 50 years when Monitors may be virtually projected from our reading glasses onto a weightless virtual screen, that Dell might make an amazing snapshot. We won’t know until we get there, and until someone takes a good picture.


As I continued to gaze into the ceiling area of this particular gift shop I noticed discrete fluorescent track lighting, air conditioning fixtures and early 80’s spittoon shaped speakers for Muzak. At that moment, these things struck me as aesthetically offensive after a day of seeking what I currently consider photographic pearls on Sarah Winchester’s nearly psychotic estate.


My mind began to wander to painter Jasper Johns’ oddly placid and reconceived paintings of the American flag, and then to Igor’s Stravinsky’s initially hostile reception at the premier of The Rite of Spring. Finally I thought about some very gross vintage 70’s Chandeliers I saw selling for $1500 at a boutique shop in the Rockridge District in Oakland (that I admit are suddenly interesting to me because the guy selling them was wearing an exceptional old Rock T-shirt I hadn’t seen before).


Context is everything, the question is: whose context are we talking about? What was going through Stravinsky’s mind as he composed each movement of his classic masterpiece? As crowds of people lined up to buy tickets to hear Brahms or Romantic symphonies in 1913 Paris or New York, one imagines the outside world becoming a quiet universe in Stravinsky’s mind as motifs played out through his composer’s pen.


Somewhere this week someone with a smart phone is taking pictures of 80’s Muzak Spittoon speakers, or discarded Dell Monitors, or perhaps only 5-year-old Ikea furniture already on its way to the landfill, because they see something.


I want to see that too.


As a composing musician myself I have learned that by ignoring any creeping impulse to be original and not being afraid to comply with written and unwritten rules I have been able to unexpectedly step creatively closer to who I feel I am. My plan is to apply this same approach to my newly renewed interest in photography.

I am having too much fun to do otherwise.

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