A Post on 'Cliched Image Making' Turns Into a Rant And Goes Off The Rails

 

 

 

"Spring Wildflowers - Audubon Wildlife Sanctuary"

Canon G7x Mark II
Snapseed
Brushstroke

I was reading in another blog recently how the author thought that the act of her photographing flowers in springtime was 'cliched.'  I reject the 'cliched' label because I subscribe to Andy Warhol's exhortation on making art (and yes - I consider little photographs of the first wildflowers of spring to be art..).  He said: "Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art." While the resulting image I make (regardless of the subject) may be regarded by those with refined critical sensibilities to be 'cliched', the 'looking' never (ever) is. The 'looking' yields a momentary connection with the world around me - sometimes a surprisingly deep and powerful one given the circumstances... The 'looking' is one of the most constant of what could be considered a speerchul practice for me. Admittedly, it's not about a fussy posture or a perfumed room or being blessed by an ossified lineage of long dead dudes, and it is completely uncredentialed, but it is a practice nonetheless. And (and) it's a practice that happens every day or pretty damned close to it - at all hours of the night and day and in all sorts of weather.  The only other thing that comes close to 'looking' for me in terms of constancy of practice is writing in this little bit of internet backwater.    It would not be an exaggeration to say that 'looking' saves me over and over again. Here's something I wrote back in '09 when I was still breaking rocks at the Joe Big-Ass Corporation: at least just a few seconds of looking can get me through the next many hours of boredom imagine what a whole day of looking could get me through. a year? two at least

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