Thursday, October 13, 2011

An Idea I Am Considering--need your feedback

As some of you may know at one time I had three blogs. This, of course, is my personal blog which is likely to go off in almost any direction. It is mostly photography but from basically a very personal level. It is where the few that wish to keep up with what I am into now can. One, the Photography Discussions blog was members only and I wanted to keep it very small and available only to people that would participate in the discussions. That blog after two years seemed to have run it course and was discontinued. I had already started a third blog but I could never come up with a real theme that I was interested in doing so it has mostly lingered. I am thinking of trying it again with the following theme.
I have a real hang up about technique vs. content. Not that I do not respect photographic technique I feel that it is much over played on the Internet forums. I am very tired of hearing technique discussed as the how rather than the why. I understand why content is so seldom discussed; it is much easier to talk about technique—technique is impersonal. Discussing content is very personal because it reveals who you are and what you believe a lot more than you might think. The photographs that you take and post to the Internet or use in camera clubs do the very same thing. Your choice of subject matter, your choice of techniques, your choice of presentation all reflect on who you are and what you think. Happily as amateurs we can go about our hobby thinking that we are safe—we are just photographers. Oh, so naive.

Technique has no such pratfalls. You can go about discussing technique and conventional photographic wisdoms until your dying day and it will reveal little about you other than your lack of understanding of photography—which in a way is revealing in itself. LOL  Well, I am old enough that I don’t really care much what people think of me or what they know about me or about what I think so I believe I can handle content in a photograph and embarrassed myself only minimally.

What I propose doing is to build the blog around selecting photographs from the Internet that I can get permission to post to the blog and write my discussion of the photograph. One photographer has already given me permission to use a few of his photographs. I believe that I might find others.

What I need to know from those that follow this blog is whether or not you personally would find this something that you would be interested in reading. I will also discuss my photographic philosophies, I will be discussing the history of photography, I will be including quotations from photographers. I may even include the book reviews that I have been writting. Unlike the discussions blog it will not require any participation. If you wish to comment on the photograph or on my comments you will be free to do so but there is no requirement that you do so.

Please give me some feedback, your thoughts, whether or not you would find that useful. Post them to this thread. If there seems to be an interest I will do a sample of what I would like to do on the new blog.

3 comments:

  1. I can't speak for anyone except myself, but I am always interested in what you have to say, Gary.

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  2. Well, Jan, as I have long suspected you are the only person reading the blog.

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  3. I must admit I have not visited your blog very much but do intend to do so. I so much enjoy your 'rants' it pushes me beyond myself. If that makes sense! LOL

    Good to see you Jan!

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