A Personal Dilemma

This is not directed at anyone. It is simply for my own edification, something I have to get out of my system, off my chest for awhile.

I am well known as the camera club member that has a passionate distaste for camera clubs. So why do I belong? Because I need an interaction with other photographers. There are people in the club that I greatly appreciate and enjoy as friends. Nevertheless, every year or two I simply have to drop out to recharge myself and I will do that again this year. I will continue to go to support Alcy but I will not be a member and therefore will not be able to compete.

I will not be going on competition nights. Last evening I asked Alcy for the car keys before the comments were complete on the first category. I just wanted to get out of there, to get some fresh air, but on the other hand I wanted to hear the comments on Alcy's work so I managed to stick it out. In the future, I will pick the program nights that I feel might be of some interest. I will likely go on many of the outings, again to support Alcy. But I don't want to be there on competition nights to see any potential talent destroyed by inane comments.

Last nights monthly competition sealed my fate. I was asked to comment on the photos. I begged off. I simply cannot, will not do that. I must live with a photograph to be able to understand what I see and how the photograph affects me before I am willing to offer advice, opinion, learning moment. I have a set of photographs taken in the 1960’s that as the result of a book I am working on I am still ‘discovering’. There seems to be a thought that you must comment or critique if you wish to enter the competitions. I will not be able to do that.

What is my objection to camera club competitions—camera clubs encourage making everyone’s photographs look like everyone else’s photographs. That is not art; that is homogenization.

Camera clubbers are not taught to see photographs. They are taught to see rules. As I wrote in my book, “they wouldn’t recognize a photograph if it bit them on their shinny red derriere.” They see rules. They see conventions. They see techniques. Then never ever see photographs. 

I doubt they have any concept of technique being the way we write the language of photography. Do they know that there is a language of photography, a language of the visual arts? You never hear it mentioned. Sure there are exceptions to these statements but they are few and far between.

At last night’s competition discussion every platitude in the book was pulled out to discuss the various photographs and I want to share one in particular. I have no idea who made this comment but it went all over me so I am going to write about it.

We have three categories at each competition. Last night it was Open, which can be anything you wish to enter; Assigned where you have to follow a set theme (New was the theme last evening); and Black and White, self-explanatory.

In the Black and White category, Alcy entered the following photograph. I only recall two of the comments, mainly because my hearing is bad and I do not hear a lot of what goes on. The first was that ‘it is flat.’ When I first heard it I thought someone had to be joking. I'm not sure they were. But the one that really got to me was someone said ‘that someone sitting in the chair would be looking out of the frame.’ There isn’t anyone sitting in the chair—that would be an entirely different photograph. Actually, most of the comments on all the photographs were about making the photograph into another photograph that is entirely different from the photograph being critiqued. All done without any input from the photographer as to why they had chosen to do it the way they did. Actually they were all made without any consideration of the photograph--they were simply applying rules, stifling rules and with regard only to rules. If the photographer had known why they chose to present the photograph the way they did, they would probably have understood how useless it would have been to explain that to someone who only sees rules. It is a do as I do commentary—not helpful, not how to develop your art, not how to improve as a photographer—but rather, how to do it as I do so that your photograph will look as if I took it. Homogenization.

Since this is Alcy’s photograph and I had time to establish what I thought of the photograph prior to the meeting, let me share what I see in this photograph—which obviously no one in the room but me saw. At least no one admitted to seeing it.

This is a photograph of a chair. It is a chair that someone saw in a furniture store and decided that it would look nice in their home. They paid good money to own this chair. They put it in their home, probably in a position where they could demonstrate their pride in owning such a beautiful chair. Their friends visited and admired the chair. The owner felt special when they sit in the chair. It was a prized and honored possession. But, as it is with this world, the chair out lived its purpose. Probably out lived the person who got so much enjoyment out of having this chair in their home. Its cover got dingy, possibly even worn through or torn in areas. It no longer holds that honored position in someone’s home. 

Now it is sitting beside the dumpster. Discarded, unadmired, unneeded. It is destined for the garbage dump, the land fill. It is a story of the fleeting nature of life. The chair still shines in Alcy’s photograph. Like a puppy, slurping and wagging its tail at the SPCA, it still seems to hope to attract the attention of someone who will put it in their trunk and carry it home or to the reupholsterer before it was carted away. It is display`                                                    ing its desire to once again regain is place as a loved possession in this world. The black and white conversion hides most of its decay. It seems to be putting on its best face, still longing for the days when it was admired. But its surroundings tell a different story; they are dark, dank and as dismal as its future. 

It is a wonderful photograph, well seen and well executed. Well emphasized. It is a photograph with a story of life and demise. Even a story of life and death. And yes, I realize that is a little overly anthropomorphic. Did anyone else see that. I guess not.

Did Alcy see this ‘story’ at the time of exposure? That I cannot say. However, much photography, when it is done correctly is done on a very subconscious level (see note above on the photographs I took almost a half century ago—very subconscious.) I do not care if Alcy saw the same story as I did. On some level she sensed a poignancy. She was touched by the hopeless state of this once beautiful object sitting beside the dumpster. That caused her to take the photograph. I am always thrilled when I see this working in another’s photography. It is this growth of an artist, as an artist, that camera clubs are dead set on killing at each and every opportunity.

And this is why I see no need to rejoin NWHPC It is more destructive than beneficial to be a member of a camera club.