003: Art [and Surfbort]

“You don’t have to go looking for pictures. The material is generous. You go out and the pictures are staring at you.” 

— Lee Friedlander

There’s another quote out there, somewhere in the abyss of words that is the internet, that this Friedlander quote (discovered today by the signal boosting account of @icphotog), reminds me of. Basically, the just of it is, we as photographers are really just editors of light and shape. The raw material is out there, we just have to edit out the unpleasantries to the human eye and boom, an artist we are. 

The concept of photography as art is one that puzzles me. Of course it’s art, because art is art and let’s not get too serious with that idea right now. But really, we are just using some sort of technology that someone else made and perfected, and saying with our little brains “Look at this moment in time, a split second out of millions a year, that I deem, in my most high humble opinion, more valuable and interesting than millions of others. Please press like.”

Is it art when we basically just press a button to create a tangible version of “huh, look at that thing”?  Are we artists? Why is it art when all we do is say “look at this but not at that”? 

I actually hate the word “Art”, or more specifically the word “artist”. I’ve always been reserved when referring to myself as an artist, and lacked the self referencing confidence to even call my self a photographer. For a long time, to me, calling yourself something means you are that thing, and you couldn’t really be anything else. I had jobs that paid the bills, so I wasn’t anything else other than what my current business card said. That’s obviously short sighted and ill conceived inaccurate bullshit, and I’ve grown over the past decade to understand, that yeah, you can be something other than Your Job Title. 

I’m not sure where the vileness behind my emotional response to the word “Artist” came from. Why I am so against it? I think it’s a combination of the stereotype loofy artist persona that is portrayed in middle America’s anti-rose colored glasses opinions of the Coastal Elites, and the first few people I met that addressed themselves as such a title, were personifications of the douchebag artist stereotype. (Sorry if one of those douchebags is reading, but honestly you aren’t, because you lacked personal connections with humanity, Chuck, so shut the fuck up and care about someone. Asshole.)

Art and artists obviously mean a lot. And we can get esoteric all day long about What Is Art And Why Does It Matter (obvi art makes life worth living, or is that love? All this and more on my Ted Talk.) but the point remains, this is my little slice of the internet and I’m using my Case of Dove to say the word “Artist” makes me feel a way. I get that, I’m working on it, and maybe I’ll some day be able to call myself one without internally cringing like I just said something stupid to a pretty girl (who I didn’t have a shot with anyway)(unless I said a smart thing than maybe I would have had a shot)(but I said a dumb thing)(damn.)

If you are looking for an eloquent musing in this last paragraph to wrap my ramblings up in a neat little package, an ah-ha moment if you will, that ties some of the above thoughts together to Form A Point, you won’t get that. I’m not a writer, I’m a photographer.

Here’s pictures of Surfbort  [10/27/2018, Baby’s All Right, Brooklyn]

NW: House of Cards Season This New One With Claire Fucking Shit Up (on episode 6 no spoilers or I murder you)

NL: Distance Is A Mirror EP by Public Practice (holy shit when Sam said “Distance is a mirror, shifting my perception of reality, reflecting everything that I knew” DID I FEEL THAT)

NR: I Must Say : My Life As a Humble Comedy Legend by Martin Short

More tk……