One Hundred Compositions – Benjamin Williamson Pictures

I just lately listened to an episode of the Lenswork podcast by Brooks Jensen and was flummoxed by an argument he made. Now, Jensen isn’t shy about expounding on how he practices pictures. He could be very prolific along with his opinions. I don’t at all times agree with them, however typically once I disagree, as I did with this episode, he challenges me to consider the place I stand on issues.

This episode was titled “One Hundred Compositions”, and the argument he made was that so as to make actually private expressions, actually unique work, it’s good to first exhaust all the ‘obvious’ or ‘easy’ compositions first. It gained’t be till you’ve made many various compositions, working the scene vigorously and being inventive as potential over a time period, that you’ll start to make unique work.

My preliminary response was to this concept was annoyance and disbelief. This merely isn’t true, at the very least in the way in which I follow pictures. I do know that I’ve been impressed instantly upon recognizing a robust second or scene. Some of my favourite photographs have include little or no effort, inside the first few frames that I’ve captured after pulling out my digital camera. They additionally feel and appear a lot unique to me.

Take this instance. I used to be strolling again to my automotive after photographing the evening sky at Popham Beach once I observed the moon rising out of the water. I raced to seize my lengthy lens, ran again down the seaside, and made the picture beneath with little or no thought or effort. Its easy a quite simple, putting composition and it stays one among my favourite photographs.

It’s true that follow with the digital camera helped me rapidly reply to inspiration and make a ensuing picture that communicated what I meant to, however I definitely wasn’t ‘working the scene’, and even avoiding what got here simply. I used to be responding to what initially impressed me to wish to make {a photograph}, and I made it.

Now, I feel what Jensen is arguing for is a inventive train, not a literal argument that it’s important to make 100 totally different compositions each time you exit with a digital camera. Where it rubs me is the concept being distinctive is of the utmost significance in creating art work. It’s potential that wasn’t his argument, however I’d wish to push again vigorously nonetheless.

What I wish to argue for is artwork that’s deeply felt vs. artwork that’s pleased with its being totally different. This is the place I argue we ought to be placing our energies. Let the individuality come up naturally out of being actually within the second, deeply moved and related with what’s in entrance of us.

Perhaps Brooks can solely lose himself within the second when he’s working laborious on a scene and exhausting as many inventive prospects as potential. Perhaps solely then can he enter that movement state I’m describing above.

To me, nevertheless, this method simply feels pressured, greedy. For me, I really feel just like the ensuing photographs, whereas maybe being distinctive or unique, could be vastly inferior as a result of they’d most likely be up to now faraway from my preliminary response of what attracted me to the scene within the first place. To me, the preliminary response and impression is totally very important.

I feel for folk who’ve spent their lives immersed in a topic, like Brooks, merely being totally different has turn out to be extraordinarily necessary. When you’ve seen all of it, you place greater worth on novelty. That’s completely pure.

Diving additional into this concept, I feel there’s a vanguard of familiarity and novelty, a candy spot the place everybody responds positively to issues which can be totally different, however not too totally different. That’s why we love listening to a brand new music from our favourite artist, however tire of it after it’s been performed a thousand instances. Some individuals love discovering new music, whereas others are content material to take heed to their favorites from highschool time and again. I’ve somewhat little bit of each in me.

Thinking of this concept when it comes to music additionally leads me to what I consider as a hipster mentality, a type of conceitedness that appears to say, “I’m cooler than you because I like more obscure stuff.” Sometimes I get that feeling listening to Jensen. I really feel like he actually thinks he’s higher than me when he derides was he calls ‘calendar’ or ‘postcard’ pictures. “That’s my bread and butter!”, I say.

(But actually, a few of my favourite photographs have little common attraction, and in addition actually, he’s talking for himself, not telling me what to do. My response has extra to do with my very own insecurities than it does him.)

He additionally says he as soon as spent many days photographing a useless cat and was extraordinarily happy with the ensuing prints, and remembers displaying them to a pal who remarked, “Yeah, technically these are good prints, but it’s a fucking dead cat”. Admittedly, he will get a chuckle out of this recollection and might poke enjoyable at himself for it! And this simply goes to point out that his tastes are totally different than mine, and lots of others.

I feel the search for originality is an ego factor, a pleasure in the truth that solely you’ve gotten acknowledged or observed one thing. I additionally acknowledge that ego is a big a part of what makes artwork, artwork. We worth this. We love seeing the world by means of the eyes of nice artists, who appear to have highly effective insights, who make significant expressions from their very own unique, and distinctive, factors of view. These are the forms of works that I really like viewing, too. Works like Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks.

Only Edward Hopper might have give you this, I feel. He’s exploring his emotions of isolation and loneliness within the city setting. He has an unbelievable ability with displaying gentle and geometry. He has a deep recognize for a majority of these scenes and areas after a few years of finding out and portray them.

Ansel Adams’s The Tetons and the Snake River seems to be at one other aspect of this argument, extra according to my mind-set. The variations in painterly vs. photographic ideas of originality come to the forefront right here, too. Could solely Ansel have made the {photograph} beneath? Yes, I’d argue that’s true. But anybody with half a coronary heart could be stopped of their tracks at this view and would attempt to seize it a way, right this moment, in fact, with their cell telephones.

But, let’s give credit score the place credit score is due. Adams’s abilities and abilities had been groundbreaking on the time. His mastery of black and white, a type of abstraction, is simple, and nobody on the time might make prints, a particularly troublesome endeavor that Ansel mastered and was an artwork kind, as highly effective as this. But, is that this a scene that just about any of us could be deeply struck by? Absolutely. Even with out shade, the sensation that we could possibly be standing right here is speedy and the surroundings is enticing in a really classical panorama sense. It’s efficient for all of those causes.

I’ve presentation on pictures during which I argue that actually nice pictures “Challenge us to see the world differently” and “Shed new light on familiar subjects”. I nonetheless suppose that’s true. And I feel that actually nice artwork not solely tells us in regards to the artist making it, but additionally ourselves. Someone else can let you know {that a} murals is nice, that it’s necessary, but when we don’t really feel related to it, why ought to we even care?

This is the place I get hung up. I’m drawn to the locations and areas, the themes and concepts, that dwell in our collective consciousness. I’m drawn to tradition, to landmarks, to areas in nature, and in addition moments that others acknowledge and that almost all of us agree are fascinating. I’m not drawn to all of them, however plenty of them. That’s a part of the entire attraction of them to me. I really like being a part of a narrative that isn’t simply my very own, however a part of the larger story, the human story. I really like the human connection that outcomes from sharing the ensuing photographs, too. I’m not extraordinarily concerned with useless cats.

Work that isn’t nice is apparent. Work that feels boring, dumb, and low-cost. Think advertising and marketing. Think careless snapshots. Think most AI “art”.

It’s clear that intention issues. Feeling issues. Time spent issues. Work that’s impressed comes from a deeply felt response and connection, a resonance that’s each deeply private and common on the similar time.

The greatest artists truly typically describe inspiration as typically coming from an unknown supply, and feeling stunned by it themselves. Paul McCartney says the melody for Yesterday got here to him in a dream.

Bob Dylan used to say he didn’t know the place his songs got here from. Now he says they got here from emulating the greats that got here earlier than, from studying the songs he beloved by coronary heart, and from the 1000’s of hours of follow and obsession with songwriting. That rings true to me. It comes from being sensitively tuned, to being practiced in noticing, and greater than something, being practiced in creating, of taking your influences and mixing them in your individual distinctive manner. This normally at all times result in good artwork, and typically, if we’re fortunate, it results in nice artwork.

And right here’s the place I’m going to begin coming according to what Jensen is arguing: Even nice artists and photographers can get sidetracked after they take the straightforward manner out and persist with what they already know are profitable formulation for making robust photographs. Images that may be good, however not nice.

I feel climate is each my photographic superpower, and my crutch or Achille’s Heel. It’s once I really feel most engaged behind the digital camera, however I additionally depend on it. I do know that once I’m photographing in mundane climate, be it clear blue skies or flat gray overcast, I typically really feel uninspired to make pictures. But, once I have a look at the instances once I’ve made pictures that aren’t reliant on dramatic climate, and give you one thing particular, I really feel an awesome sense of satisfaction.

One picture that I do know is nice is the picture beneath. I captured it on a cloudy day whereas main a photograph workshop group in Tenants Harbor, Maine. There’s nothing actually iconic about Tenants Harbor, and the climate definitely wasn’t doing the scene any favors, so I used to be pressured to search for different choices. The reflection of the boat registration ME (which stands for Maine and will have been adopted by numbers) on a weathered dinghy caught my eye. I didn’t discover that the reflection spelled WE till I introduced it house on the pc, after which my thoughts was crammed with metaphor and storytelling concepts, like how, upon some reflection, there’s extra to life that simply ME.

The picture beneath was captured simply the opposite morning. I used to be with a pal photographing round South Portland and needed to take her to Bug Light, despite the fact that it was gone dawn. A earlier go to throughout mundane climate had helped me to note that the main points of the Greek Revival styling on this lighthouse had been stunning and interesting. So I returned with that in thoughts and made the picture beneath, one among about 30 totally different compositions or makes an attempt to showcase it.

Is it an awesome picture, just like the earlier one? Well, no, however I nonetheless take pleasure in it. I additionally really feel like I get nearer to what Jensen was arguing for right here, an train. I had exhausted all the ‘easy’ choices, and my crutch of counting on dramatic climate was gone. Getting out of my consolation zone results in development. Hopefully, I’ll take these classes that I’ve realized and apply them the subsequent time I really feel impressed. I’ll discover ways to look somewhat deeper and recognize scenes and topics which can be somewhat extra distinctive or *gasp* totally different.

I felt like I used to be doing extra of this over the previous week whereas main workshops, simply making an attempt out new concepts and making an attempt to make new compositions in acquainted locations.

Are these groundbreaking artistic endeavors? Probably not. But I did take pleasure in making them, and it was enjoyable to attempt to see acquainted scenes from new angles, in new lights. As a inventive train, I see the worth. This makes me suppose that Jensen’s train, forcing myself to make 100 compositions, would in truth, be good for me. Just every now and then, that’s. Hah!

I suppose that is what it boils right down to for me. I’m not big on being intelligent, on being totally different. I’m big on experiencing, on being in moments the place I’m not fascinated about myself. My greatest artwork, or at the very least what satisfies me probably the most, are the moments once I really feel like there isn’t a boundary between me and no matter is in entrance of me, once I’m most deeply enraptured, most deeply related.

And in reality, Jensen would by no means attempt to argue with me, otherwise you, saying his method is best. It’s merely what works for him, simply as my method works for me. It’s what brings him satisfaction and leads him to make work that he considers partaking. I’m making an attempt to do the identical factor right here, simply share what works for me, and within the course of hopefully not making you are feeling like he does me at instances, like I’m not doing this complete art-making factor accurately. Hopefully I’m merely difficult you to have a look at your follow and work somewhat tougher, to get on the market and be engaged and related, and perhaps toughen work because of this. We all have to seek out our personal manner of doing this.

Even if we’ve got totally different tastes and approaches, I’m very grateful that he’s on the market, sharing his ideas, and I’ll proceed listening to his fantastic podcast and arguing with him in my head over this follow that we each love so dearly. Hopefully you are feeling the identical after studying this.

Thank you for studying this essay after a protracted hiatus. I’m in the course of main a bunch of workshops and am heading out right here shortly for 3 days of backpacking the Pemi Wilderness in New Hampshire.

If you’d like to hitch me in MidCoast Maine for a one-day workshop this Saturday, you may enroll HERE. If that doesn’t work, take a look at my different workshop listings HERE.