John M. Setzler, Jr. Life in Black and White

That which has been done

I read a lot of photography blogs.  I'm always more interested in what people are thinking rather than what they are shooting in most cases, but I occasionally stumble across something that really makes me cringe.  I ran across this quote from this post over on Ted Byrne's ImageFiction blog the other day...

"The Moral: When it isn't your idea in the viewfinder, Don't trigger the shutter."

I can't find much agreement with the idea behind the statement (be sure to read the post on Ted's blog for more context.)  The idea that I do agree with, even though it's not stated in his post, is that photographers should always strive for something unique in an effort to differentiate themselves from everyone else who carries a camera.  The main theme that I disagree with is that it's a waste of time and effort to duplicate an image that has been done many times before.  I suppose that self esteem and confidence may cause many photographers to avoid shooting a scene they have seen in pictures many times before, but there are several points of interest that surface when you examine the entire concept.

Have I seen it before?

If I travel to a new place that I'm not intimately familiar with, nothing I see will be overdone or cliche in my mind.  I'm experiencing everything for the first time.  I'm not going to spend time considering whether or not some other photographer has worked an interesting scene before I go to work on it myself.  If my personal muse speaks, I will listen without hesitation.

I have seen it before.

If I was to travel to Yosemite or some other site that has been worked over and over by thousands of photographers, should I just leave my camera at home?  I don't think so.  If I'm inspired in some way to shoot a scene that I have seen before, there is nothing wrong with that.  The images I produce will be inspired by something other than a previously noted photograph in my mind.  The image I create, even if it is identical (let's consider identical for the purpose of discussion) to someone else's photo, is still my photo.  It's my personal account of what was going on in my mind at the time I made the image.  Should I beat myself up if I discover that my image is almost identical to someone else's?  No.

Besides the image...

A photograph is more than a photograph, or at least it should be.  This part of photography gets overlooked too often... not just in photography, but in other arts as well.  I don't know what the most photographed subject in the world is, but I'm sure it has been photographed more times than I can imagine, and I'm also sure that a huge majority of those photos all look the same.  The missing link in all those supposedly identical photographs is the inspiration behind the image.  What caused the photographer to raise the camera?  If the sole reason was to duplicate a previously noted photograph, then Ted may be right.  If the inspiration came from some inner feeling, then no two images are really alike at all.  You, as a photographer, may be the only one who understands the differentiation. 

This small detail is the root of the problem.  Photographers tend to be egotistical.  We want praises from our work.  The last thing we want to hear from an observer is something like "Wow... that looks just like an Ansel Adams photo..."  We would rather hear "Wow... That's amazing... I have never seen anything like that before..."  For some reason, photographers also tend to show their work to a lot of other photographers, which is generally a recipe for disaster in the long haul.  Those other egotistical photographers aren't really going to spend much time pumping you up even if they do like your work.  They will probably hold back the "I wish I had thought of that" comments...  Those other photographers will be the first ones to tell you they have seen your idea many times before...

The reality...

Photography, as we know it today, was born in 1839.  Almost 170 years and billions of photographs, how unique do you think you can be?  You can spend all your time working on being different, or you can enjoy what you are doing and let your personal inspirations guide you.  If you aren't having fun with it, then take up knitting...

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