Category: Philosophy

Storm Cloud, 2015

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I have been accused of being arrogant for suggesting that the source of my Vision lies within myself and is not dependent upon the outside world or those who have gone before me.

I don’t believe this to be an arrogant idea. But here are some additional thoughts that may convince the unconvinced that I am in fact, arrogant.

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Look inward.

Everything you need is already there.

Discover your Vision.

See for yourself.

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We are all creative as children.

But then we learn how to seek approval.

And something atrophies and almost dies.

We forget how to please ourselves.

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There is a difference between Vision and Inspiration.

Inspiration comes from without, Vision comes from within.

A person can only do so much with Inspiration.

Inspiration without Vision is an unproductive effort.

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Look inward.

Ignore what others are doing.

Do what you feel inspired to do.

Create work that you love.

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Art is very selfish.

Or at least it should be.

If you are creating for others,

then you are not creating your best work.

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Do not compare your work to other’s.

Judge your art only by how you feel about it.

Create art that you are proud of.

Create art that you love.

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Look inward.

You harbor that secret ingredient.

The secret to success.

Your Vision.

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When I photograph, I do not seek to create images that are “different” from everyone else’s, I don’t calculate how to create unique images and I don’t research what others are doing and then react.

Different is not my goal.

Instead, my objective is to produce work that comes from my Vision and that is honest and original to me.

My work is all that I focus on and have control over. As my mother used to say: what others are doing is none of your business!

When I went to Easter Island the only photographs that I had ever seen were the 1950’s documentary images contained in Thor Heyerdahl’s book “Aku Aku.” I never looked at anyone else’s images for two reasons; first I didn’t want to subconsciously copy someone else and secondly I didn’t want to consciously try to be different from someone else.

My goal, as much as it was humanly possible, was to work in a creative vacuum. I wanted to see the Moai through my Vision and find my own Passion.  

Are my Easter Island images unique? I may never know the answer to that as long as I practice Photographic Celibacy and do not look at other photographer’s work.

And to tell you the truth, I don’t want to know. I love my images and am content with the knowledge that they were created honestly through my Vision.

Cole

Last week someone asked if I was flattered when people copied my work.  I said no, but that I wasn’t offended either.

What I actually feel is a bit of sadness. I’d rather see that person putting their energies into finding and following their Vision rather than walking where I have already walked.

Now these are friends and well-wishers who send me these imitations and so I am sincerely touched by the kind gesture. Sometimes they send a Lone Man or a Harbinger and sometimes it’s an Old Car Interior.

But honestly, I’d prefer they sent me something that they had created from their own Vision.

I very well understand imitation because I’ve copied other artists too, sometimes unconsciously and unfortunately sometimes consciously.  For years I tried to copy Ansel’s work, and not just his look.  Once I went to Yosemite and tried to recreate specific images of his!

I look back now and see how silly that was. Was my goal in life to be known as the world’s best Ansel Adams copycat?

Someone once wisely said to me: “Ansel’s already done Ansel and you’re not going to do him any better.” It’s true.

I know that many believe that imitation is a part of the learning process. I have many photography students contact me to say that their assignment is to copy one of my images.

I must say that I strongly disagree with this approach. I believe that their time would be much better spent finding their own Vision, and that imitation actually retards their personal Vision progress.  

Colefucius says: They who walk in another’s footsteps, never finds their own path.

Is imitation is the sincerest form of flattery? I don’t think so.

Cole

I don’t believe in “good art” or “bad art.” There is only art that I like or dislike and like everyone, I have my opinion. 

But sometimes someone voices an opinion as though they were “the expert” and their opinion, “fact.” Here is an essay by Jonathan Jones and he does just that.

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Flat, soulless and stupid: why photographs don’t work in art galleries

Photographs can be powerful, beautiful, and capture the immediacy of a moment like nothing else. But they make poor art when hung on a wall like paintings

Jonathan Jones

Photography is a miracle of the modern world. It gives us instant visual information from all over the planet and far beyond. It is a unique documentary record of our own lives, a simple source of creative pleasure and fun. I just wish people wouldn’t put it in art galleries.

Let me be clear: photographs on the page or screen are fascinating. Who can fail to be entranced by the first-ever pictures from the surface of a comet that were taken this week? The power of photography to show and to tell has never been greater, as modern technology takes it simultaneously to the far reaches of the solar system and ever deeper into the heart of daily life.

But that does not make it sing on a gallery wall.

It just looks stupid when a photograph is framed or backlit and displayed vertically in an exhibition, in the way paintings have traditionally been shown. A photograph in a gallery is a flat, soulless, superficial substitute for painting. Putting up massive prints is a waste of space, when the curators could provide iPads and let us scroll through a digital gallery that would easily be as beautiful and compelling as the expensive prints.

I try to suppress these thoughts, for photography exhibitions are taken desperately seriously. I recently joined the crowds at the Natural History Museum’s wildlife photographer of the year. It’s amazing how long some people can look at a photograph. I observed the observers, rapt before illuminated images that I really can’t look at for more than a few seconds.

That is because when you put a photograph on the wall I cannot help comparing it with the paintings whose framed grandeur it emulates, and I can’t help finding photography wanting.

Paintings are made with time and difficulty, material complexity, textural depth, talent and craft, imagination and “mindfulness”. A good painting is a rich and vigorous thing. A photograph, however well lit, however cleverly set it up, only has one layer of content. It is all there on the surface. You see it, you’ve got it. It is absurd to claim this quick fix of light has the same depth, soul, or repays as much looking as a painting by Caravaggio – to take a painter so many photographers emulate.

But we are encouraged to give it the same, or more, attention. Today’s glib culture endlessly flatters photography’s arty pretensions. The winning picture in the Taylor Wessing prize at the National Portrait Gallery “has clearly been inspired by Caravaggio”, raves the Evening Standard, as if this meant it was somehow as rewarding as the 17th-century master’s works. Sorry, but it ain’t.,

Why not try this experiment? Go to the National Portrait Gallery’s Taylor Wessing exhibition, then pop around the corner to see the National Gallery’s late Rembrandt show. If you can really see even a millionth of the vitality of a Rembrandt portrait in any of the NPG’s photos, we’ll just have to agree to disagree.

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Here is another opinion, a rebuttal by Sean O’Hagan.

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Photography is art and always will be

Still intensity … Samuel Beckett. Photograph: Jane Bown

Thursday 11 December 2014 11.50 EST

Imagine, if you will, the following scene. I pop into the National Gallery to view the 2014 BP National Portrait Award and look in bemusement at the exhibition, which is mostly comprised of rather old-fashioned paintings. It’s an uninspiring show, a hotchpotch, as are most exhibitions drawn from open submissions. Inexplicably enraged by this, I rush home and pen an article claiming that painting is dead and that it looks anachronistic, indeed stupid, on a gallery wall in the 21st century. Not only that, but I then extrapolate that all painting is dull and stupid – Caravaggio, Rubens, Picasso, Hockney, Richter, the lot.

Iowa, 1956. Photograph: Robert Frank

In November, our art critic Jonathan Jones went to see the wildlife photographer of the year show at the National History Museum and the Taylor Wessing prize at the National Portrait Gallery – an open submission award known for its eccentric shortlist, usually featuring people with their pets. Quite why he chose to visit these two shows eludes me. Did he think they were art photography exhibitions? He castigated both, as I, a photography critic, would probably have done had I the energy to kick a few dead horses.

I did not respond back then for two reasons: the “photography is not art” debate is so old it’s hardly worth revisiting, and the idea of using a wildlife award show as a yardstick just seemed bizarre. But, alas, he has repeated his claims this week,discussing a rather boring photograph by Peter Lik, which sold for £4.1m, becoming the most expensive photograph in the world. To which my response is: so what? It’s global capitalism – obscenely rich people with more money than sense. Or taste. For Jonathan, though, “This record-setting picture typifies everything that goes wrong when photographers think they are artists”. No it doesn’t. Here are a few artists who use photography: Cindy Sherman, Jeff Wall, Gillian Wearing. Here are a few photographers, off the top of my head, whose work is art: Julia Margaret Cameron, Edward Steichen, William Eggleston, Nan Goldin, Robert Frank, Stephen Shore, Diane Arbus, Paul Graham, Hiroshi Sugimoto. Their work sings on the gallery wall. Their work makes you look at the world differently.

Biloxi, Mississippi, 1972. Photograph: William Eggleston. © Eggleston Artistic Trust. Courtesy of The Wilson Centre for Photography

Several things are wrong about Jonathan’s reasoning, not least that he still thinks painting is in some sort of competition with photography. How quaint. He also seems to think that all photography is derivative of painting. This is plainly not so. A great photograph by William Eggleston, though he claims to be influenced by abstract painting, occupies its own space, makes its own rules.

A group of Kalutara peasants, 1878. Photograph: Julia Margaret Cameron/Royal Photographic Society

Jonathan writes that photographs look better on a computer screen than in a print. Some do, but most do not. Has he never stood in wonder in front of a Julia Margaret Cameron portrait? I doubt it. Has he ever seen a painting or drawing of Samuel Beckett that possesses the stillness and intensity of the great photographic portrait of Samuel Beckett by John Minihan or Jane Bown? I expect not.

He makes no distinction between types of photography, and seems unaware, that photography has changed utterly since Henri Cartier-Bresson. Look at the politically charged conceptualism of Broomberg and Chanarin, the playful invention of a fictional series by Joan Fontcuberta, the wonderful artists books made by the likes of Cristina de Middel or Viviane Sassen. Photography is as vibrant as it has ever been – more so in response to the digital world, which Jonathan mistakenly thinks has made everyone a great photographer. It hasn’t. It has made it easy for people to take – and disseminate – photographs, that’s all. A great photographer can make a great photograph whatever the camera. A bad one will still make a bad photograph on a two grand digital camera that does everything for you. It’s about a way of seeing, not technology.

Why damn photography because of the excesses of the auction houses and mega-rich collectors? Do we measure the health of contemporary art by the price paid for Hirst’s vulgar diamond skull? Or a Jack Vettriano? I have seen some idiotic installation pieces over the years, but that doesn’t mean that all artists who make installations are idiots and their work dull and stupid.

If anything is anachronistic, it’s the “photography is not art” debate. Warhol’s Polaroids and Ruscha’s deadpan photography books put it to bed years ago. I wish Jonathan had come with me to a group show I saw at Purdy Hicks this year called Natural Order. There were some good paintings and uncannily detailed drawings, but Awoiska van der Molen’s nightscapes made on long exposures in the volcanic islands of La Gomera and La Graciosa were breathtaking in their stillness and sense of mystery. So strong that everything on the walls around them seemed muted. I think that’s what art does, right?

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In truth I have no interest in such discussions and I don’t care what the “experts” have to say about photography, art or anything inbetween. These opinions have no bearing on my life or my art.

For some time now  I have been developing the “opinion” that there are those who create and those who pontificate. I’m committed to doing more of the former and less latter.

Cole

 

Sometimes the strangest things can catch your eye and make for a nice image.  

I was driving down the Oregon coast when I saw this sandbar. I liked its shape and how it contrasted against the water, and how it provided balance to the land in the background. It was a simple image and I further simplified it by using a long exposure to mute the detail in the clouds.

When I compose an image, I compose simply by how it feels and when it feels right, it is done. I never give a thought to the so-called rules of composition.

Thinking that following rules will produce a great image is like believing that following the instructions and staying within the lines on a paint by number kit will produce a masterpiece.

Following those rules may produce a “competent” image, but not a masterpiece!

I have no doubt that Apple will one day program the rules of composition into an iPhone so that every image we take is a competent image, but it will never create a great image. Great images are created by feeling people whose images cause others to feel.

Remember the wise words of the philosopher Yoda: 

Feel the image and beware of the dark side (rules).

Cole

I’m often asked: what’s the best camera, lens or paper?

My answer is always the same: there is no “best.” Most cameras are excellent, almost all lenses are better than their masters and choosing a paper is simply about personal preference.

It’s easy to buy into the notion that the right equipment: camera, lens, accessories, plug-ins, printers or paper will transform our ordinary work into extraordinary images. However from my perspective great images are rarely great because they are technically perfect or printed on the right paper. 

Or put more bluntly: I don’t think it really matters which equipment or paper you choose because they are not the critical component in a great image!

If you find yourself spending a lot of time researching the “best” (fill in the blank)…let me suggest another approach to improve your images.

Focus on the Image

Focus on your Vision

Focus on Composition

I believe a great image is created mostly from Vision and composition, and that technical skills plays a much smaller supporting role.

Where do you spend most of your time? Are you out of Balance?

But some will say: Can’t I seek both a great composition and technical perfection?

Yes, of course you can. But what I found in myself (and what I often see in others) was a tendency to spend the majority of my efforts on equipment, processes and technical issues, and very little time was spent working on my Vision or improving my composition.

I think the primary reason I did this was because I was insecure about my creative abilities, and I thought that I could compensate by excelling at the technical. And also let’s be honest, playing with equipment and learning new processes is just plain fun!

But Vision and composition is where the action is, and it’s how great images are created.

Cole

Bent Grass

When I was 14 and discovered photography, I created images for just one reason: for the pure joy of creating and personal satisfaction.

But over time I found that my motivations changed and I started to create for others and for praise.

Then I found myself creating to build a resume. I thought that I needed to prove, by the length of my resume, that I was a good photographer.

Then came the desire for fame. I created because I wanted to become famous and to be known as a great photographer.

Now at age 60 I have come full circle and it’s like I’m 14 years old again.

Once again I am creating simply for the joy of creating and for the satisfaction that comes when I craft an image that I love.

How ironic that a 46 year journey would take me to the same place where I started from.

I am so glad that I found my way back.

Cole

P.S. The above image was created a couple of years ago and it has always been a favorite of mine, but only today while writing this blog post did I understand why. It reminds me of what it was like to be 14 years old again, when I created for myself and didn’t care what anyone else thought.

What if you had two choices as a photographer:

To imitate the style of others, have it sell well and achieve notoriety

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Produce original work that you love, but it results in few sales and does not receive critical praise

Which would you choose…and why?

I think that how we answer this question reveals something about why we create. For a very long time I created to please others, to gain recognition and notoriety.

Because I was trying to please everyone, my work was all over the place. It seemed that every month I was pursuing some new technique, process or fad that I had seen in a photography magazine. And if an image received praise, then I was off in that direction until another compliment took me in another direction.

I was like the wheat in the field, blown to and fro by every wind. In a very real sense my work was not my own, it was imitative, and creatively…well it wasn’t.

Here’s another question that was once posed to me:

If you could choose between having your work sell for thousands of dollars

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Having your work in thousands of homes

Which would you choose?

There is no right or wrong answer to these questions, but knowing what you want is essential to defining success for yourself.

For many years I never questioned what success meant to me, I just assumed that it was selling my work for high prices, exhibiting, being represented in big name galleries and publishing books.

It wasn’t until I started achieving some of that success that I realized that it wasn’t very fulfilling. It was a transitory pleasure that felt great in the moment but afterwards left me feeling empty. It was like an addiction; I needed more and more of the spotlight to maintain that feeling and yet it was becoming less and less satisfying. 

Eventually I realized this formula wasn’t working for me and I finally stopped to ask myself “what do I want?” and “what will bring me lasting satisfaction” and “what do I consider success?” 

Answering those questions has changed everything that I do, it was a life changer that affected much more than my photography. 

I wish I would have asked myself these questions earlier in life, but I’m just grateful that I did eventually ask them.

Cole

P.S. I’m really enjoying the different thoughts and viewpoints expressed in the comments.  They bring to mind four points I’d like to emphasize:

1. My conclusions may not be your conclusions. We all think differently, learn differently and have different approaches to life. 

2. We are all at different places on the path and so what may be right for me for where I’m at, may not be right for you for where you’re at.

3. We all have different goals. If you’re earning a living from your art, then to some degree you must please the buyer. I do not earn my living from my art and so I have the luxury to please only myself. But I really do hope that those of you earning a living from your art do pursue personal work that is reserved only for pleasing self!

 4. There is nothing wrong with exhibiting, selling, publishing or gallery representation.  I do all of those things, but the difference for me now is that this is not my goal but rather a byproduct of following my goal, which is to seek and follow my Vision.  

Mary, 1971 – This is my friend from school, Mary Doyle, at Corona Del Mar in California. I created this image with one of my favorite cameras from my youth, a mini-Speed Graphic with a 220 roll back. 

1. A wonderful childhood. Beginning at age 14 and for the next several years, photography became my life and I spent every moment either photographing, working in my darkroom or reading about photography.

I have such wonderful memories of those long days working in the darkroom, experimenting and the thrill of discovery.

Two Hippies, 1970 – This was created at my high school, Loara in Anaheim, CA.  This was created at the height of the hippy movement, which along with the drug scene was very much alive at my high school.

2. Balance.  I chose not to pursue a career in photography for fear I would lose my passion for it, and instead went into business. Unfortunately, due to the demands of family and job I did not pick up the camera for the next 30 years.

My business life was all about numbers, logic and rational decision making, and with no creative outlets my life became lopsided. It was not until I returned to photography in 2004 that I realized how out of balance my life had become.

Photography and the creative process helped bring balance back into my life.

Wooden Indian, 1971 – I worked at Disneyland and this image was created on Main Street. This statue is still standing there today and every time I see it, it conjures up great memories of my youth, photography and working at Disneyland. Ironically I now work in downtown Fort Collins, the downtown that inspired Disney’s Main Street.

3. The Ability to see. Photography has helped me to see beauty in the ordinary and find uniqueness in the common. That makes every location, exotic or not, exciting.

Old Shoes, 1971 – This is a shoe locker at my High School.  I had just moved to Anaheim from Rochester, NY and being new, my eyes were fresh and saw everything for the first time. It was a very productive two years because of the encouragement of a dear friend and mentor, John Holland.

4. Vision. Through photography I found my Vision, or my unique way of seeing the world. What I see through my Vision is much different than what I see with my eyes.

My Vision is what fuels my creative process.

5. Confidence. Finding my Vision and learning to follow it taught me that I didn’t need another persons approval to feel good about my work or myself as an artist.

I’ve learned that if I love my work, that is enough.

Headlamp, 1970 – This old truck sat in a field across from my High School in Anaheim. I consider this my Edward Weston period, a time when I was mesmerized with his work and tried to copy it.

I thought about adding a sixth item: Purpose.  But as I thought about it, I realized that photography is not my purpose in life.

Rather, photography makes my life better and that helps me to fulfill my real purpose in life.

Cole

P.S.  The images in this post were created when I was 14-17 years old.  These images are like a time machine, transporting me back to those wonderful days when I was young and always had a camera around my neck.

Clay Figure, 1971 – Student projects at my high school.

Artist, 1970 – This portrait artist worked at the Disneyland Hotel shops.

Old Building, 1971 – An old farm shed in Anaheim.

Egg in Glass, 1968 – I was 14 and I had purchased a used Pony 828 camera. I removed the lens mount so that I could focus more closely, and using a ground glass on the film plane, composed this image. I tell people that this was my first “fine art” photograph!

Thousand Steps No. 2 – This was photographed at 1000 steps in Laguna Beach, CA. Many, many fond memories were made here.

The Fox – Downtown Anaheim, where I spent many hours visiting Val and Vic’s Camera Store and photographing.

Minneapolis Power Lines

People often ask me if I would look at their work and critique it. And while I would love to accommodate, I am uncomfortable critiquing another person’s work and here’s why:

First, I’m unqualified.  All I know is what I like and what I don’t like, and that should be irrelevant to you. Many think that because I create images they admire, this qualifies me to comment on their work, it does not.  I am only qualified to judge my own images.

Second and most importantly, I believe that your opinion about your work should be the only one that matters. Your opinion is more important than mine or any other and it is the only one that can help you achieve true satisfaction from your work.  

I used to ask others about my work, but in truth I was really looking for validation. I wanted the person to say “these are wonderful images, you are a wonderful photographer.” But even if they said those words, it didn’t make it so. Perhaps they were just being kind, and even if they were sincere, it was still just their opinion.

At the end of the day I need to respect and love my images and If I don’t, then it doesn’t matter how many people tell me that my images are wonderful.

How do you learn to trust your opinion over others? I think it starts with having a Vision of your work. Once you know how your images should look, then it becomes irrelevant what others think. Having a Vision of your work gives you great purpose and confidence.

When you don’t have that Vision, then the opinion of others is the only tool you have to gauge your work. And because you can never please everyone: true satisfaction can never come because you are subject to the changing whims and fancies of public opinion.

People frequently tell me what’s wrong with my images or what I should have done differently, but it doesn’t phase me. I know what I was trying to accomplish and only I know how close I came to fulfilling that Vision, they do not.

Tonight I was printing a copy of The Angel Gabriel and as I held the image in my hands I thought: this is beautiful, I love this image.

That satisfaction cannot come from another telling me how wonderful the image is, and it cannot be taken from me even if the image is unpopular.

My opinion is the only one that matters to me, and yours should be the only one that matters to you  And that is why I don’t critique other’s images.

Cole