I asked a friend of mine this [odd] question once: "Am I weird?"
She gives it a thought, of course. She first assures me that I'm not
weird. Then later, she suggested that maybe it was because I'm an
artist, and it's that part of me that makes me an artist that also
makes me a little "different" from people.
I asked her once or twice again months down the road and she gives me the same answer.
I used to have a lot of ambivalence with the word "artist". It's
because I was never really sure I understood art. Corollary to that
point, there's sometimes a measure of pomposity and pretentiousness
when using the word, i.e. if I use it to describe someone (or worse,
myself), I imply that I understand what art really is and how it
manifests itself in the essence of a person. Nevertheless, I hear the
word thrown around (rather carelessly, but that's just my opinion) and
I really don't take it seriously.
People call me a photographer. I have no problems with the term because as much as I do not understand art in general, I
at least understand photography and have formed my own concept of it.
The requirements for being called a photographer to me are simple: You
have a camera and you use it. At least at the moment of pressing the
shutter button, you become a photographer.
Whether or not you're a good photographer or a bad one is another
matter of course. So sometimes I end up wondering if my photos are
worth anything.
But at least now, I think I like being referred to as an artist or even
just "artistic" because it seems to give me license to say and do
strange things.
Recently, I came upon this conclusion: In a vague sense, we are all
artists. There is no better proof than reading about an archeological
article about cave paintings. Those little cave wall scratches are
called "art" - or at least, that's what the so-called experts tell us.
I wonder if the people who came to such conclusions are artists
themselves or they're just sort of winging it. For all we know, the
drawings of cows and pigs constitute a prehistoric grocery list. ("Pork
casserole tonight! Yum,yum! Ungga! Ungga!")
As a photographer, I look at photos that aren't mine all the time- both
of well-known photographers and of not-so-well-known people whom I
personally know. And then there are those memoirs that people easily
dismiss as snapshots from someone's dinky camera. Sometimes, those are
even better than what some people shoot with their $4K Canons. (By
using a Sony Ericsson K750i - the same phone that I use - it was
demonstrated by a well-known photographer that it's not about the
camera, it's the person behind it.)
At this point, I'd like to relate what I see when I look a other people's photos.
I tend to look at aesthetics first. I've seen a lot of photos from
people in the Singles for Christ for example, and I'm never really
happy with what I see. But this is my opinion, and it's the opinion of
someone who isn't happy with his own photos anyway. So basically, if
you perceive me as an artist, I guess I'm one of the more miserable
ones.
I see people breaking rules, for instance.
"Keep the horizon level." I've seen a wedding photographer in Canada
break this rule for no apparent reason other than to make it look hip
and dynamic. Just sloppily done.
"Rule of thirds." That vast empty space in there doesn't tell me anything.
"Do not crop certain at certain parts of the body." Do not crop people at the joints for instance. It looks painful.
See, rules can be broken. They aren't really rules, but they're usually
based on well-established aspects of human science and history. The
golden mean and the golden rectangle have been present in the design of
ancient Greek architecture like the Parthenon. Just recently, a friend
referred research on human attractiveness in something called the
golden triangle. (I read a similar article in the Scientfiic American
once, about facial feature symmetry for instance.) So if you have to
deviate from the typical, you better make sure it's for a good reason
and people will actually get it.
But beyond the math and science, I see more important things. I'd like
to put in a quote from the writer and photographer Freeman Patterson:
"A camera always looks both ways. Like all serious photographers, I
have to accept and deal with this fact - the reality that my images are
as much a documentation and interpretation of myself as of the subject
matter I choose."
So…
1. When I see Guy #1's photos, I see someone exacting and adhering to the rules. I see someone conservative.
2. When I see Guy#2's photos, I have this nagging feeling that he likes women a little more than he does photography.
3. When I see Guy #3's photos, I can see that what he cares for the most is documentation of the event. He cares.
4. When I see Guy #4's photos, even with the good ones, I see someone unsure of himself but he's trying.
5. Guy #5's photos exude confidence and drama and I see that the photos in his gallery are a labor of love.
6. With Girl #1's photos, I see child-like amusement at her subjects.
The list goes on. In the end, this is much more important to me as I
know all the six people above. As far as I can tell, the products of
their cameras are a reflection of their character -- perhaps a pale
reflection but a reflection just the same.
A friend of mine made this comment about me liking a girl because I had so many photos of her in a certain event.
I answered her by telling her to look at the photos on the 2005 Singles
for Christ sports fest on my blog. I tell her, well most of the solo
close-up shots are of men. Does that tell you I'm gay?
Well people here can vouch for my machismo (right?). But seeing photos
and what they mean to the photographer, it's really not that simple
sometimes.
Art is everyone's business. It is not a province exclusive to those who
bravely wield a pencil, a paintbrush, a camera, a chisel or a laptop
with Photoshop CS2. It is not just the playground of critics and
academics who put their thumbs up or down on other people's work. It is
not about wearing a silly black beret and black turtleneck and carrying
an Apple Powerbook around (my hard-drive crashed recently, by the
way). It is not about saying God-awful stupid things (because
honestly, sometimes I can't tell if someone's just quirky or he's just
being pretentious or impossible). The business of art is life.
Once at a resort in the Philippines back in May, I took photos of a
sunset. For the next 20 minutes or so, I stood there with my tripod. My
mom was around and I even took pictures of her walking towards the
water. Because she observed the sunset with me, she remarked at how
fast it actually happened.
Minutes later, I retreated to the pool where my sister and her family
were as I didn't trust the beach that much anyway. Later, some
attractive, young women who seem to be part of a company excursion
joined us. Minutes later, they started snapping pictures amongst
themselves, and I was sort of watching the spectacle of attractive
women in bikinis giggling and posing. Then at one moment, I was distracted with the sky above me.
I immediately got out of the water and retrieved my camera bag and
tripod a few feet from the poolside. Then I hurried back to the beach
and found the water and the sky swollen red. I spent another 20 minutes
shooting that scene. The sun was gone but that only meant it shot
gorgeous red light up in the sky, which was then reflected by the
water. All I could see were some blues and deep shades of yellow,
orange, and red.
When I got back to the pool later, my brother-in-law remarked with a
smile that he thought I was going to try to pick up chicks with my
camera. "Akala ko didiskartehan mo yung mga babae."
Ok, so that may have been a good idea in retrospect.
But there will only be so many brilliant sunsets in your life. You can
only have so few chances to take a photo of your mother walking towards
the water during sunset, or walking with her grandson early in the
sunrise.
And yes, there will always be random beautiful women around, but what
is the laughter of these nameless faces compared to the smile or frown
of this one beautiful woman you know and are totally enamored with? Or
even just that trademark facial expression of a close friend?
We are not the same people we were last year and we won't be the same
people the next. Soon enough, my memory will fail. Or I can die a
sudden death. In the meantime, I have in my archives with me and it
affords me a chance to stare at these photos and relive the same
feelings I felt when I first took them. Even for a little while.
Technology may fail and my archives may be lost forever after I'm gone.
But at least, it afforded me those little moments of recollection. In
the end, what we do isn't as much about art as much as it is about life
itself. The business of art is life, and as it so happened, life is
everyone's business.
