Photographer Magazine (2001)
Life is short, and since I am a painter, I must paint." "I can live without God, but I, who suffer, cannot live without creation." These two quotes from Van Gogh often come to my mind, at least every time I confront the modern trend of artistic verbosity and busybodyness. One gets the impression that all those involved in photography believe life is limitless and that a month of photographing, framed by twenty-three months of (vineyard) philosophy and social projection, justifies their status.
I have observed that the time of a contemporary photographer is roughly divided in the following ratio among these goals. He photographs very little, (claims to) think much more, writes and talks about his work or photography even more, is primarily engaged in promoting it, teaches a little, is dying for sales without admitting it, and fervently seeks the acquisition of a degree, and preferably degrees. When I say photographs, I am not exactly accurate. In reality, almost no one photographs anymore. Everyone works by project. And almost no one presents photographs. Most have a work in progress.
This attitude may be due to the prevailing hierarchy in our society where speech precedes action, where academic discourse supersedes common talk, where journalistic discourse competes with academic, and where poetic discourse retreats in the face of social observation. Perhaps that's why the teacher prefers to be treated as a theorist, and the artist sees himself as both teacher and theorist. And certainly, for this reason, those who secure his access to the coveted dance of thinkers are invaluable. Art critics, gallery directors, journalists, and academics are ideal levers for elevating a photographer's category.
However, society also has other values of comparable importance in its hierarchical chart. Sales and degrees. Van Gogh sold only one painting during his lifetime for a few dimes, and that likely out of sympathy. If his paintings weren't selling for astronomical amounts today, he wouldn't be favored by collectors and journalists. And if he were still alive, he would certainly need to seek a doctorate. Even honoris causa. Even from a marginal university. The combination of sales and degrees quickly abolishes class differences. Another reason why social hierarchy is also family hierarchy, exerting even greater pressure on the young artist. How then can the young artist(-photographer) resist the pressure from his father, society, his wallet, and competition? How to shape an identity since he's been convinced that each identity gains substance through the eyes of others?
The problem, however, isn't doing more or less, but to prioritize, weigh, and judge correctly. And the "correctly" refers to your own values, capabilities, and preferences, not to what society imposes or suggests. The photographer who feels like a photographer must feel life slipping away when not photographing. Like a lover who feels a day away from his beloved is a day less lived. Like Proust's allegorical example of the painter who climbs a mountain to paint a lake, but it gets dark and he fears he will arrive too late and miss out. Whatever we love, we must do with the intensity that our limited time and boundless passion demand.
I have posed all the above as questions to myself as well. That's why I always declare myself primarily a teacher and secondarily a photographer. My vanity might have wanted me primarily as an artist, but I, who may occasionally suffer (and certainly not as much as Van Gogh), cannot live without the joy of communication and transmission, without the warmth and pressure of students, without their questions and puzzles. Photography complements and fuels all this. It is therefore logical that I am not as good a photographer as a teacher, since my scale of preferences leads towards teaching. Likewise, it is logical that various good photographers who offer one or two short summer seminars annually teaching essentially the photography they do themselves (which is logical and harmless, as long as it doesn't take the form of theoretical positions) are also not so good as photographers anymore. Those who have chosen in their own hierarchy to talk about and promote their photography, with the risk of creating a good name and reputation, but then discovering they have nothing left to "sell."
Photography, easy to apply, humble in origin, yet multifaceted and contradictory in its approaches, suffers more than any other art form from the pressure of searching for identity and establishing hierarchies. Perhaps some answers lie in the two above quotes from Van Gogh.
Plato Rivellis