Photographers: October 2005 Archives

Back in March, I mentioned a show by Eliot Shepard at jen bekman. I'd meant to do a short interview at the time, but various factors prevented that from happening and we were only just recently able to exchange a few questions and answers.

1) How much thought did you put into titling your photos for the bekman show. How did you decide to use the Nikon file names rather than a more traditional "Untitled" or descriptive titles?

On the question of why not descriptive titles: Generally, I'm not interested in giving more information than is in the photo, with the possible exception of location and date, which are fun in that they're factual. Anything is better than artistic titles. They annihilate mystery.

On the question of why filenames rather than "Untitled": I'm a digital photographer, and on some level, I want to assert that. Plus, the title "Untitled" is kind of a drag.

2) How would you compare the process of making selections for a show with physical prints and selecting what photos you blog? Did visitor feedback on slower.net influence your selections at all?

Editing, in all forms, is unpleasant because it forces you to separate what you wish was good from what is objectively good, or at least what you and someone else can agree is good enough. Coming up with some sort of conceptual scaffolding for the set as a whole was also irritating - basically my only concept is that these are photos taken by me. (I solved this problem by never writing an artist's statement. Jen didn't notice until two weeks in.)

Editing for a show was in my case additionally painful because there's this commercial reality - people just aren't hanging photos of strangers in their homes (when they're taken by a nobody). That's sort of nullifying, because I like the pictures of people.

Specifically relative to photoblogging, yeah, it's hard to focus and say "this photo is good enough to live on its own", because the nature of that medium is "on to the next". Seeing a photo on the gallery wall I had a vague desire to click on it and go on to something else.

Visitor feedback was a factor in selection, but heavily weighted toward the input of a few respected people than general chatter.

3) Many of the great photographers' best work is portraits of people close to them. How do you feel about including the infamous "Coke girl" photo of your fiancé [wife] in the show? What do you think of the fact someone (or someones) may buy that photo and hang it on their livingroom wall?

Other than the fact that I'm a little ambivalent about the quality of that photo, I have no problem with it. That photo is a good example of a selection made partially on the responses of others.

4) Many photobloggers started doing it to give them a reason to take photos everyday and improve their craft. Do you think you have progressed to a point where the photoblog format/activity is holding you back in some ways? That you're moving beyond the your original intent by using the blog format and you might be better served disengaging from the blog world of photography. Is there any tension around this issue now that you have had a proper gallery show?

The photoblog is still a great tool for motivation, and if you remember look hard at what you're doing (which is abetted by the blog archive), improvement. The act of publishing is a great way of staking a claim to something you like and tying it to a point in time.

That said, without additional processes, I think photoblogging can be a trap. It doesn't apparently reward focus or editing. It can promote pandering, because at the baseline level of engagement ("nice shot"), people will "respond" to stuff that is dramatic, minimal, sexy, or of cats. And if you participate in the whole commons of image sharers, it's easy to see too much. Fundamentally: It doesn't promote figuring out what photographer you want to be.

My plan is to remain engaged in the photoblog world, but not to rely on it to help me improve like I once did. I'll be talking with other photographers whose work I like, looking at good photos, writing things down, and thinking.

5) Photobloggers seem to be overwhelmingly oriented towards street photography. Why do you think that is?

Because that's one place where the life is. And as I think is evidenced by attendances at major shows of realist photography (Arbus and Friedlander being two recent examples), a lot of people are interested in photography from life. A lot of people who aren't photography dealers.