Bruce Barnbaum - The Art of Photography - An Approach to Personal Expression

There is also another limitation to photography: that of interpretation. You can say what you wish to say through photography, but viewers won’t always get the message you’re trying to convey. This is true of verbal communication, as we have all experienced. Visual communication compounds the problem.

I’ve photographed nature for years—not only recognizing and paying homage to its beauty, but also hoping that others would recognize that beauty as something to be preserved. But I may never see the lush tropical rain forests before they’re completely destroyed. I wonder how long air pollution will go on producing acid rain that destroys lakes, wildlife, and even our own photographs. I wonder what global warming will do to everything, and the horrible impacts it will have on wildlife around this planet. I wonder how many wild rivers I will have the opportunity to see, hear, and photograph before they are dammed and damned as extensions of our indoor plumbing and electric outlets. And how soon will our corporate mentality turn all of the world’s forests into tree farms, ranches, or urban sites?

I have long since accepted the limitations of photography as the perfect vehicle of expression in all situations, but the limits of interpretation are harder for me to deal with. Perhaps a new approach on my part will help solve the problem, and I will surely look for ways to more effectively state my environmental concerns in the future.

There are other minor limitations in photography that are often difficult to detect. One hidden limitation comes via semantics. Landscape photography, for example, is a misnomer. Nature photography is a more appropriate phrase because it is more accurate and allows wider interpretation. My photograph Figure 3-7 is a landscape photograph, in the usual parlance, yet without the fog that envelops everything in the scene, it would have been excessively complex. Thus, the interaction of the landscape with the ambient weather conditions—nature, in a word—made the photograph possible. It’s not just a landscape, but a nature study, which has broader implications. By speaking of it as a landscape, I believe there is a subtle narrowing of understanding.

Made in 1969, this image was my entry into photography. This photograph and several others were used by The New York Times as illustrations of this Sierra Nevada mountain valley, which was embroiled in an environmental battle and subsequently added to Sequoia National Park . The Times paid me for the photographs, clueing me in to the astounding fact that I could go camping and get paid for it! At that point I turned away from missile guidance computer programming, and photography became my new career .

The image, taken just before sunset, has strong side lighting and a dramatic diagonal line of silhouetted trees, adding both depth and a diamond-like design to the photograph. Even today, it holds up as a strong image .

Figure 18-6. Mineral King, Sunset

Most landscapes truly are broader studies; rarely are they landscapes alone. Interestingly, my abstract canyon photographs are the purest landscape images I’ve produced, for everything within each photograph is eroded rock. Yet they too are broader nature studies to me, because of my interpretation of them as cosmic or subatomic—the embodiment of nature at all levels throughout the known universe.

These are a few of the limitations of photography that I’ve experienced. Doubtless there are others. I feel it’s important to recognize them so you can avoid disappointment with photography’s inability to express every aspect of your thinking. It’s inevitable that such limitations exist. Push those limits to the fullest, but learn to live with them.

There are also great rewards, to be sure. It’s well known that the work of Ansel Adams was pivotal in preserving vast tracts of land for parks and wilderness, but the process must have seemed glacially slow to him over the years. W. Eugene Smith’s photography of the pollution at Minemata Bay, Japan dramatically alerted the world to the dangers of mercury poisoning, but he was nearly beaten to death by corporate thugs in retaliation. Yet the impact of his work was extraordinary. These are examples of photography at its most effective.

I may have contributed to a successful environmental effort even before I turned to photography as a career. In 1969, I photographed the Mineral King area of the southern Sierra Nevada Mountains, a high mountain valley surrounded by Sequoia National Park on three sides. At that time, a major controversy surrounded Mineral King: The Sierra Club wanted it included in the park, but Walt Disney wanted to build the largest ski resort in North America there. I spent several days camping, hiking, and photographing the area, then offered my images to the Sierra Club to help its efforts. Less than two months later, a few of those photographs illustrated a long article in The New York Times Sunday Magazine explaining the issues of the environmental battle. I’ll never know if it helped in the successful effort to get Mineral King into Sequoia National Park, but it certainly didn’t hurt (Figure 18-6).

Developing a Personal Style

Photography students of all ages are justifiably concerned about developing a personal photographic style. As a workshop instructor, I am repeatedly asked for the means, the method, and the key. My answer to these questions is always the same: don’t give it a second thought. (In fact, don’t give it a first thought!) A personal style, like stuff, happens. (There’s a better word than “stuff” in this context, but to keep this book on a higher plain, we’ll settle for “stuff”.)

It’s my contention that anyone consciously working to develop a personal style ends up with a self-conscious, forced, and false style. It won’t be natural. It won’t reflect you. Why not? Think of it this way: In life, there are people who develop self-conscious styles, people who aren’t themselves. We have names for such people: actors and actresses. It’s great when they’re on stage or in front of the cameras, but off stage, they can be themselves. They don’t have to pretend to be someone else.

You are you because of the way you look, the way you think, the way you talk, the way you move, the way you interact with others, etc. That’s you. You didn’t work at that. You didn’t think about being you. It just evolved. It happened. You simply ended up being the person you are. Nobody else can be you.

It’s the same photographically. Once you find the subject matter that really matters to you—that raises your passion to new levels—you’ll respond to it in your own unique way. You’ll see it your own unique way. You’ll interpret it your own unique way. You’ll photograph and print it with your personal stamp. Why? Because it really means something to you, and you simply can’t see or think about it in any other way. Beyond that, nobody else will see it, interpret it, or print it the way you will.

Of course, this implies that your technique as a photographer and printer allows you to do what you want to do. If your technical side is insufficient for the task, you’ll fall short. But while good technique is necessary to make your expression come to life, it’s not sufficient by itself. There must be the initial passion that ignites your fire, that starts your creative juices flowing. You have to find the subject matter that really matters. If you haven’t already identified what it is, keep searching for it. When you discover it, you’ll know; you won’t have to think about it.

A corollary to the thought expressed above about seeing, interpreting, and printing things that truly excite you in your own way is that it frees you from the petty thinking that you have to guard your “secrets”. People with secrets invariably lack confidence, and generally for good reason. They fail to make a personal statement about anything, and underneath it all they recognize that failure (though they’re never honest enough to admit it...even to themselves). Photographers with ability and confidence share their thinking, their techniques, and their locations freely.