Concerning technique and imagination

Working in an environment ripe of proud and egocentric engineers, I have the opportunity to speak, more and more often, with people omniscient of all the technical aspect of Photography, except the photographs that they take. It almost seems that the public opinion is converging toward the conclusion that the effectiveness of message conveyed by a picture is somehow implicit in the quality of the picture taken. Which I don't believe at all.

I rather believe that, just like any other artistic expression of the human kind, practicing photography would be a sterile, useless and meaningless activity if we considered it simple technique, having few connections with the world surrounding us or if we only let technical issues rise above the others.

Technique is indeed very important, as far as it allows us to easily reach the results we have in mind. I would also dare to say that a good technique, not necessarily coming after a long practice, widens the photographer' sight and improves those skills which are important for the imagination to gear up and come out of the darkness.

Notwithstanding this unquestioned (and banal) truth, I feel to say once more that a good, perfect technique does not make the artist, as someone pretends to say. Art acknowledgement in photography should mainly be a matter of recognizing the influence of the artist's imagination over the image capture and elaboration. That is more and more important today, as the digital technology has removed most of the difficulties that traditional photographers met along the process that leads from the subject to the image reproduction on paper. Nevertheless, among traditional photographers, it's still spread the idea that technique excellence is mandatory for being ranked.

When I ask for details about a photograph that I like, I always get information about the film, chemical filters, lenses and so on. I never get an answer starting with the photographer feelings at the moment right before shooting. Sometimes, but rarely, I'm told about the aim of the photographer and how far the result was.

It looks as if the photographer was embarrassed to reveal his feelings.

A matter of freedom

"Let me look!" said Connie. He did look indeed very clean-shaven and very clean altogether, one of the clean young men of twenty years ago. But even in the photograph his eyes were alert and dauntless. And the woman was not altogether a bully, though her jowl was heavy. There was a touch of appeal in her.
"One never should keep these things," said Connie.
"That one shouldn't! One should never have them made!" - He broke the cardboard photograph and mount over his knee, and when it was small enough, put it on the fire.

[D.H.Lawrence, Lady Chatterlay's lover]

I've been lately asked if I ever considered to leave my current activity and try to find my way with photography. This sounds like a great compliment and surely is. Still it is at the same time one of those questions demanding an immediate and correct answer.

Since my interviewer was a technician, a specialist of electronic design, I answered him in the way he was expecting I would have answered and showed him the difference between working as a professional photographer, procuring assignments and keeping up with all those aspects that I never took care of before and taking photographs as a random activity, without risks, pressure and concerns.

Taking photographs in my spare time still leaves me enough freedom to express myself in the most natural way, without taking care of anyone. Each time I cast my glance through the viewfinder I feel, even though for a very short moment, alone with myself and free to choose the right spot to point at and the right moment for pushing the shutter button.

Self Assignment

The design and the implementation of my website, as well as the inevitable maintenance activity it demands are offering me the opportunity to face two different, though complementary, challenges. On one side there are the website conception, the design phase and the styling experience: in other words, the making of a message container, let's say the envelope. On the other side there's the daily arrangement of what constitutes its content: simply put, the composition of a message to post.

Indeed, a while after I started seriously thinking to a website, I realized that both processes are part of a "main project" and cannot be painlessly divided and managed apart. If I was asked to summarize my understanding of the word "Art" with a single word I would choose the term "communication".

Art is mainly a matter of communication and, whatever the artwork is, our aim is to make the message we send as close as possible to the one that the viewer believes, needs or wants to receive. Alternatively, one can always choose to get the viewer closer to his works and let him decode the message. A task that I not able to undertake in this moment.

I didn't think, at the beginning, that my web-design experience could be worthy of any note but, since I had to study quite a bit to learn new programming languages and spent more time on writing code than on taking photographs, I feel the need to describe my vision, the ideas and the moves I made to get here. That's what this personal journal page was meant for.