September 2009: Working your way
When I am working on a problem, I never think about beauty. I think only of how to solve the problem. But when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong.
– R. Buckminster Fuller
What is your working method? It doesn’t matter whether you are a photographer, painter, ceramicist, chef, or writer. Regardless of your creative medium we all have to discover how we work best, and from this knowledge, design our individual workflow. Each of us has to figure out our own way of working that allows us to produce work that is uniquely our own. Although certain procedures in life require particular adherence to specific detail for success (i.e. film processing) in most cases placing your own foot in the footsteps of another doesn’t result in work that is unique to you. I believe that by looking at why we work and how we work enables us to craft a workflow all our own. This in turn allows us to be creative, reaching for a depth in our experience that is required for truly honest and real work.
As a photographer, how would you describe your process from conception of the image to completion of the print? More specifically, do you make the image and then process and print immediately or do you let the latent image sit and “age” before processing and printing? There isn’t any right or wrong answer to this question, other than the methods you choose to work with in order to make the images you need to make and present to the world. What is paramount here is that each of us creates a flow in our work that is ours, one that evolves out of experimenting with ideas from our teachers, from readings, and from observation of the world around us. Photography is a creative endeavor and for a creative result you need to be creative in how you approach your work. If we photograph mechanically, without thought to what drives us individually, then the images we produce will be mechanical, perhaps technically “perfect” but devoid of a beauty which brings it alive to others.
After the last newsletter several people wrote and asked to “see the photograph” that I spoke to of making that morning in the fog. It hasn’t been processed yet, and may not be for several weeks. I find that I need to separate the steps involved in taking an image from concept to completion. Making the image, processing and editing the image and finally, printing the image need to be three separate events. And each needs to be evaluated differently. I enjoy each step of the process separately. I like to let negatives age before they are processed because I want to forget the experience of making the image. When I am processing the film I want to see the emerging negative with fresh eyes, to see it really for the first time. I have forgotten the preconceived notions of what it “should be” and try to see it for what it is. If I wait long enough, then every negative I process is a new negative to me. I have forgotten the experience of making the image and can concentrate on what I see in the image. Later, as I edit negatives, again I see them with fresh eyes. Does the image actually “say” anything? Can I see the idea of the image months after exposing the film? And later yet, when I make the print, again I am re-experiencing the image for the first time. The separation from exposing, editing, and printing is important. So I let my images sit for weeks if not months. It is important for me to let an image age, like good whisky.
It is important for each of us to find our own working method, one that allows us to do the work we need to do in a manner in which we feel comfortable. Obviously I am not talking about working on assignment with deadlines, I am talking about doing the work that as artists we are compelled to produce. The work that is important to us. Finding this working method is a long process, with one right answer, and many wrong ones. I want to encourage you to find your own workflow, your own method of working that makes sense for you. It is by discovering your methodology for producing work, that you will produce your best work. But it requires asking hard questions, separating out the different aspects of your art and understanding how they work together to make your work uniquely yours. Follow your own path, and it will allow you to make work that speaks to others.
All the best,
Tillman
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