Ed Schlotzhauer

An artists journey

Category: Artist

Out of Context
Every image has a context, the setting or framework or circumstances where it was created. Sometimes we try to tell the context to our viewers. But really, aren’t most images viewed out of context?
The setting
Every traditional photographic image has a context. It was created someplace, about someone or something, for some purpose. That is an inescapable reality. Photography records the world around us. But how important is it for an artist to bring the context to the viewer?
If I am showing you street photography, it might help to tell you the country I’m in. That may help frame the culture, architecture, people we’re seeing. But, say I’m shooting in the USA for an American audience. Does it really matter if it is in New York City, or Cincinnati, or Seattle, or Dallas? You look at the image and try to read the subject and deduce what the scene means to you.
Context in this case is supplied from a shared cultural experience. We all know enough of what it is like in a large American city to understand the image.
Or for a landscape, if it is an interesting picture, does it really matter if it is the Colorado mountains instead of the Sierras, or the Maine coast as opposed to the Oregon coast? The impact of the picture is what intrigues us.
The story
And about story, we are told repeatedly that we must tell a story in an image or a project. I struggle with this. Somewhere I missed the training to understand this. Or I read too much into what “story” means.
One legacy of growing up as an Engineer is I start out thinking fairly literally about a proposition. To me a story has character development, conflict, and resolution. What writers call the story arc.
Personally, I don’t think many images tell much of a story unless they are about people. Even then, when we see a person we are compelled to figure out or create a story to explain what we see them doing, or their expression, or gesture. Regardless of the artist’s intent.
But I seldom present images of people. To me, a landscape or an old rusty truck or an abstract motion blur doesn’t tell a story. If it does, the story would be something like “pretty” or “gritty” or “interesting shapes”. Is that actually a story? That seems weak.
My inclination is to say most images do not, by themselves, tell a story. But they might provide enough structure for the viewer to invoke whatever memories or meanings they want. To create a story for themselves.
Do we have to supply the story?
As artists, we often feel compelled to write the story and present it to our viewer to help understand the image. Or, more likely, a gallery requires us to do it. Sometimes that is successful. If they actually take the time to read it. Maybe for a photo project people will read the artist statement summarizing the intent of the project. Maybe.
Even if viewers read a title, they tend to make up their own story about what the image is. Is that bad? I don’t think so. It is their story. If they are happy with it, great. I sometimes ask viewers to tell me what they are thinking when they see one of my images. Often I am surprised. Sometimes they are far off of what I saw and felt or what the image is actually “about”. Their story may be completely outside the context of the “real” image. But they are not wrong, because this is what they experienced. I believe the best art leaves room for varying interpretation.
I know that a well written story sometimes adds a lot of context to an image. But part of me thinks a strong image should stand on its own. If I have to explain it, it is lacking impact. A type of exception I often see is a project like Cole Thompson’s Ghosts of Auschwitz. His images are strong and impactful by themselves, but a few words taking you to the context of where they were taken and what he was feeling makes it a deeper experience.
Maybe the story is already there
What I’m about to say goes against all the conventional wisdom we normally hear. Maybe we do not write the story. Perhaps, in general, the scene is already telling its story. We see it, recognize it, frame and compose it, and try to help it tell its story in the best way we can. But it is its story, not ours. Maybe we give ourselves too much credit.
If this is true, maybe we are documenters more than creators. This aligns with an interesting statement Ben Willmore makes when he says that in composing a scene we should reduce the negatives and enhance the positives. Doing that does not really change the story. Maybe we can slant the story some and write some of our own vision into it.
I am not minimizing the creativity and skill needed to make a good image. Not at all. I know it is exceptionally hard and I wrestle with it every day. I’m just suggesting that maybe we are not actually writing the story. Rather, we are helping our subject tell its own story. Maybe our job sometimes is to recognize the story that is already there and help to bring it to life.
In isolation
This idea carries over into viewing an image. When we view an image in a gallery or on the wall or online, we are typically seeing it in isolation. A gallery may provide a title and perhaps even a short statement posted on the wall next to the image. People may or may not read it.
Does that matter? Once an image is printed and hanging on a wall, it is complete in itself. When someone looks at it, their appraisal or appreciation of it does not need to be tied to my knowledge of the context or its meaning to me. The image tells its own story, or it does not.
I actually love to provide an image that raises more questions than it gives answers. It would be a joy to me for someone to buy it and hang it on their wall at home and pause over it every time they see it. For them to feel free to create varying stories to fit it. When they are showing it to friends I want then to say “today I see…”.
When they buy the print I could give them a written description of what it is, the context where it was created, and what it meant to me. But then it is all my story. Isn’t that taking away some of their joy and creativity in participating in the art?
An image exists
So if we typically see images by themselves, that means when a viewer takes the time to look at it, the print has to be strong enough to “tell it’s own story”. Or at least to tell a story to them. It must be able to communicate something meaningful to the viewer. Perhaps its job is to connect to memories or to raise interesting questions that make people want to live with it.
If we have to use words to complete the image, maybe it is not strong enough. The words can supplement the effect, but they should not be required to make us see it as a good image.
Context could be important, but usually we should not push it too hard. As artists, we should not be so arrogant as to believe the viewers will or should internalize the context and meaning we intended. Part of their appreciation can be to make their own stories. As an artist I have created this image, but I have to send it our on its own to make its place in the world.
Today’s image
To me, this image has a lot of story. But who wrote the story? Not really me. I saw it, and stopped and took the time to frame it and compose it and narrow in to what I thought the story was. Then I edited it some, not altering any important components.
I can’t honestly say “look at this great story I told”. No, I found a story already existing and tried to put a little of my touch on it to bring it to you.
Would knowing the context make this a better story? Or would it interfere with you discovering your own story?
May 1, 2024
What Is Creativity?
I’ve discussed aspects of creativity before. Mostly from a practical standpoint. It is a topic that has a special call to me. But what is creativity actually? I decided I would do research to find out what the experts say.
Psychology
So I set out to find out what people who spend their career studying creativity have to say about it. I have mentioned Teresa Amabile and some of the intriguing papers she has written. They led me to believe there might be useful insight to be learned.
After some internet research I saw several mentions of a book “The Nature of Human Creativity“, published by Cambridge University Press. It is a collection of papers by 24 psychology scientists that are frequently cited in textbooks and other papers. The first page describes it as “an overview of the approaches of leading scholars to understanding the nature of creativity, its measurement, its investigation, its development, and its importance to society.” Wow! That’s exactly what I wanted!
I eagerly bought it and jumped in, only to find it was like wading through a swamp. Turns out the giveaway I should have caught was that this was by “leading scholars”. Works like this are written by PhD’s to impress other PhD’s. There is little thought of communicating practical advice to real people. But I have read a lot of PhD and above papers, so I pressed on, although with diminishing enthusiasm.
Spoiler alert: I gave up about half way through. It’s not that I couldn’t understand it. Instead, I found it very unsatisfying. I could tell there would be no light at the end of the tunnel, because the real answer is that the scientists don’t know. Sure there are lots of theories. Scholars live by making and publishing theories. That does not mean they are very meaningful.
So, what is it?
A lot of psychologists accept the statement that “creativity involves the production of original, high-quality and elegant solutions to a certain class of problems – novel, complex, and ill-defined, or poorly structured problems.” [Mumford, Medeiros, and Partlow, 2012] This is one of the simplest and most concise statements defining creativity I have found by the psychologists.
In practice, though, it leaves a lot of unanswered questions for me. The one word I definitely agree with is production. You cannot evaluate the creativity of something until it is made or built. Someone has to be able to see it, hold it, examine it, compare it to other things. Otherwise it is just an idea.
But then what about terms like “original” and “high-quality” and “elegant”? What do they mean? Who defines them? And is art included in the set of “novel, complex, and ill-defined” problems they study? To me art is definitely all of those.
How to measure it
One of the greatest problems I had with the psychologists, though, is how do you measure creativity? If something calls itself a science then its theories must be measurable and other scientists must be able to repeat and independently verify the results.
Most of the psychologists agreed, probably correctly, that creativity varied by domain. They pretty consistently solved the measurement problem for their research by using a panel of domain experts in each specific area to score the creative works. The expert scores determined the creativity judgment for any work being evaluated. The fact that the expert’s scores had decent statistical correlation was their “proof” that the measurement was valid.
That is easy and it takes the researchers off the hook. They do not have to be the judges. To me, though, it is the thing that invalidates the whole research approach.
Is art different?
The psychologist’s measurement approach will work OK for engineering or math or software or accounting. Most any problem solving discipline where the problems can be expressed and solution quality can generally be analyzed and agreed on.
I believe art does not fit this pattern and has a terrible history of valid critical judgment. There are no clear right or wrong solutions in art. Critic judgment is often strongly biased by their opinions and background and training. Just look at the resistance and rejection a new movement like the Impressionists got when they opposed the established Realist intelligentsia. Or look at Paul Klee. History seems to repeat itself about every generation.
On a much smaller scale, look at typical photography contests or exhibition competitions. Perhaps I am just an arrogant curmudgeon, but I often look at the winners selected and think “you’ve got to be kidding; I throw away better ones than that”. I have done judging (forgive me) and I know judges can come to consensus and select the top 3 entries they like best according to the criteria they have set. But unless a work is a blatant copy, I disagree that they can reliably determine a quantitative measure of its creativity.
To me this shows that we should have little confidence in the ability of critics to judge creativity in art.
If we don’t know what it is, how can we do it?
Sherlock Holmes seems to be the first to state “I know what is good when I see it”. Don’t we as artists do that all the time? Isn’t that the only criteria that can guide us?
We could say “I don’t know what creativity is, and judges seem to be telling me I must not be creative, and I can’t always do work that is demonstrably original and novel, so I will give up”. If we did that no art would ever be done. At least not by honest, truth seeking artists. It is easy to copy what seems to be popular, but really different work always fights against a headwind.
But think. Who is it that is telling you your work is no good? The same people who told Monet and Van Gogh and Klee they were no good. I’m glad they didn’t listen. They kept their head and did the work that was unique to them. And the world is better for it.
We each have to determine what evaluations we choose to accept for our art. Do not give weight to the negative talk by the critics when your inner voice disagrees. Your inner voice may not be right. It may need new training and experience. But you have to trust yourself, and go with your instincts. You really don’t have any other reliable standard.
Talent or skill?
So is creativity a talent or a skill? Does it come from the Muses or is it something we are born with? Can we develop and enhance it or are we stuck with what we have? Can other people reliably measure our creativity?
Probably some or all of that. Don’t expect the answers to come from psychology research . They are at least as blind as the rest of us. If scientists can’t give us objective answers, we have to decide who we listen to. As an artist we need to give greatest weight to our own evaluation. It is the only way we will follow our path.
One thing I do know is that creativity seems to reward hard work. If we sit around waiting for inspiration, we may be sitting a long time with nothing to show for it. Get busy. Go out in the field or go to your studio and make trash if necessary. Do something. Movement seems to generate creativity. Make your own path and don’t look back.
Disclaimer
I am not belittling psychologists. Most of them I have studied seem to be very intelligent, hard working people. I’m just saying I don’t think the methodologies I have seen used in studying creativity are destined to lead to much success in understanding art.
Maybe they can understand why 2 software developers with seemingly equivalent training and experience can exhibit vastly different levels of creativity and productivity and quality in their work. Something I have often seen first-hand. But that is a different and easier to study domain.
I wish them luck. But for me, I will not look to psychology research for future help in understanding artistic creativity.
April 10, 2024
It Is What It Is
It is what it is. This is actually an expression I hate, but I’m used to it because some of my kids occasionally use it. In one sense, what I photograph is what it is.
My methods
I photograph outdoors in natural light. The subjects I shoot are “found” things. Things I encounter on my way and I shoot them as I find them. That is, I do not stages shots. I will very seldom move anything or do any “gardening” to remove distractions or competing elements.
This is the method that appeals to me. There is a kind of honesty or transparency about it that feels right.
One of the things I am indirectly pointing out in it is that most of us go through our daily life with blinders on. We tend to be oblivious to most things we encounter unless they are what we are looking for or they seem a threat.
What I want to do is take these found subjects and elevate them in a way that makes them interesting and to gently say, “see what you missed by not being mindful”.
Explore
To accomplish this, I have to be an explorer. I forage for images rather than planning them. And it requires heightened senses. I have to be outside my head and paying attention to things around me. Some may say I’m out of my head, but I will call it outside my head. I have to quiet the inner critic and be constantly scanning around me for interesting things.
It is a learned skill that I have practiced for quite a while. While I am far from perfect, I feel like I am getting better at it.
It has become a joy to me. I look forward to these explores. Most often I am just wandering in the vicinity of my studio. Familiar and well worn paths. It constantly surprises me that I can discover new and interesting things in such familiar territory. Some days it is easier than others. But more often than not I find something new or I see something differently. Even if I don’t come back with any images, I have enjoyed getting out and being in tune with what is around me.
Go out empty
One of my inspirations is Jay Maisel. I have mentioned him many times. Jay is a famous photographer living in New York City – now Brooklyn. One of the many things he is famous for is just going out rambling every day on the streets close to home.
He is so good at spotting interesting scenes that it is almost depressing. I would hate him if he weren’t so phenomenal. 🙂
Jay describes what he is doing as “going out empty”. He wants to go out as unprepared as possible so he can get filled up with what the world has to offer. The point he makes frequently is that if he has a certain thing in mind to shoot, that is a mental block. He might find that, but would probably miss everything else that’s on offer.
Through lots of practice I have determined this style works well for me, too.
Make something out of it
So I explore. I wander. I’m searching for things that catch my interest. And when I find them, I don’t rearrange them or clean them up, except maybe for a stray blade of grass or a piece of trash.
Therefore, the challenge is to make something out of what is there. Position, crop, lens choice – these all factor in to making the image. Someone has said the picture is already there, we just have to crop it. There is truth to that. The excellent instructor Ben Willmore once said “What elements are adding to the image? What elements are detracting? How do I remove more of the detractions and add more of the good?” That is a good description of the game: try to remove enough of the bad and include enough of the good.
It is what it is – work with it
It is often stated that everything has been shot. What matters now is our personal treatment of it. Can we use our unique vision to see the subject in a new and interesting way?
I choose to work with things that interest me as I find them. It is what it is. How can I make it the best it can be? It can be a challenge, but the reality is there is a lot more interest in the world around us than we usually notice.
It is a joy to me when someone exclaims over one of my images and I can think – or say out loud – that is right where you go by every day and you’ve never noticed it.
A final quote from Jay Maisel: I want people to see what I see. It’s all out there. It’s a joy to look at.
Yes, it is what it is, but it can be more.
This process works for me. It fits me and there are benefits. I recommend you experiment with it. It might need several outings to become comfortable. You might discover a new world around you.
Let me know your experience!
Today’s image
OK, I didn’t find this around my studio. But thousands of people passed by this daily and I bet few if any ever glanced at the scene closely enough to take notice of it. It was clearly visible from a main highway. There seems to be a story and a lot of unanswered questions wrapped up in a single frame.
I was driving and I turned around and came back to it. I’m glad I took the time. It is a good memory for me.
The scene is gone now. But that is a topic for another day.
April 3, 2024
Lighten Up
By lighten up I don’t suggest we make more high key images. It’s not a bad idea if you don’t do it much. But I mean to give our viewers more opportunity to figure things out for themselves.
Serious
Most of us take the world very seriously. Of course, there are serious issues we live with all the time. I don’t minimize them. But I learned from an expert in culture that, being an official old guy, I typically have less anxiety than most of you younger people.
Personally, I’m glad. I hate going around burdened down with angst and fear. Instead, when I’m out taking pictures I see joy and hope and feel uplifted.
I’m not trying to change the world with my images. At best, I hope to help a few people have a better day by looking at my work.
But another way to lighten things up it to be more ambiguous. I notice that most of my work has a clear subject. Low ambiguity. Also, not so many questions for you to answer for yourself. This is probably a fault.
Ambiguity
Ambiguity is a marvelous tool. Used sparingly it can liven up our work and give our viewers more challenges and rewards. Ambiguity means being open to more than one interpretation.
I recently watched a video on Creative Live by Renee Robyn. She is a conceptual artist who constructs images as composites of many layers. Some of her work leads to various interpretations. I was interested that she said about one that she asked many people what it meant to them and every one had a different interpretation. And none matched what she had in mind. That is ambiguity.
Ambiguity introduces the option of different interpretation. Of course, that is always possible with any image, but more ambiguity makes it more possible.
Leave questions unanswered
As I get older I find my work asking more questions than answering them. Maybe I realize I know less as I age.
I cynically view that a lot of young people come out of art training thinking they now think deep thoughts and have to raise great questions for their viewers. Later, whether they realize it or not, most of them settle down some and their work says “this is what I see”. Even later, like me, they might come around to saying “these are things I still don’t understand, but I see them different and less rigidly now”.
Intentionally introducing more ambiguity is one way to move away from imposing my own interpretation on a scene. By leaving more room for the viewer to create their own story it becomes more of a conversation.
Say more
It is quite possible to say more by saying less. This is one of the beauties of poetry. Great poetry may introduce deep truths in a few words, but in a way that keeps the reader thinking about it on and off for years.
I have no images where I claim such insight or depth. But I do think that by leaving more for the viewer to fill in from their own experience and viewpoint, there can be more interest.
Giving viewers the clear answer to things can come across like a boring lecture. It may be good information, but it doesn’t necessarily engage you. I have this problem with a lot of landscape images I see (and take). It’s a landscape. Beautiful place, great time of year, I’d like to go there, but there’s nothing else. Nothing left for me to figure out or question.
It seems much more rewarding to hint that there is more depth there to be discovered. To give the viewer a chance to participate, to become a co-creator.
Today’s image
This image is a little ambiguous. I’ll let you figure out what it actually is. I left a couple of strong hints, but feel free to make up your own interpretation, your own story.
March 6, 2024
Print It!
Some would argue that an image is not final until it is printed. More and more I am tending to agree. Print it – you will learn a lot and be a better photographer.
What is the thing you are creating?
I am intrigued by the idea of creativity and I have studied creativity research some recently. Real, hard core theoretical psychology. It has been disappointing. One of these days I will write an article on what I have observed.
One of the things I do appreciate about the papers I have read is that they tend to tie creativity to producing something. Sort of the idea that if you just think creative thoughts, are you creative? If you can’t or won’t produce a creative work, is the creativity really there?
There is benefit in producing something and holding it up for yourself and others to see and examine. Small images on a screen do not have the impact
Why a print
A print is real – a tangible, physical product. It takes on a life of its own; it is held, examined, felt, passed around, hung on a wall. It is permanent.
Creating a print changes our thought process and our relationship to the image. We must finalize it, because the print will never change. And we have to re-think it in terms of the limitations of the print medium.
It is kind of like having a child. Initially it is my baby, very closely held and personal and protected. Then it grows up and becomes an independent person.
And by analogy, the print is made to be permanent and independent. It is a work we have produced for others to have and enjoy.
What do we learn
I am amazed by what I learn by printing an image. It was edited for hours until I am sure I am happy with it. Then when the print comes out, it’s “Really? That needs more work”.
Viewing a print is quite different than looking at an image on screen. We have a different relationship with it. Our perception is very different. Even at a simple technical level, an image on a screen is formed by light being generated, an additive process. A print is seen as light reflecting off a substrate as modified by colored pigments. A subtractive process. The perception and the psychological process is different.
But ignoring all technical considerations, there is something about a print that points out all the flaws in your image. Seeing it as a physical representation on paper changes how we look at it and what we see. If you want to find out if your image is any good, print it.
How is it that I can work with an image for hours on screen and not see that sensor dust spot in the sky? Why didn’t I see that the mid tone contrasts are inadequate? And that purple highlight just doesn’t have the punch I wanted. Where did that distracting line leading off the edge come from?
We see a print more critically. Since it is a different process on a different medium we have a fresh look. And a print is far more limited in dynamic range than our camera sensor or computer monitor, so we have to map it differently to get the result we want.
A real thing
Holding our image makes it real. It has weight and texture and it is a permanent work independent of us. To use the baby analogy again, before the child is born it is still kind of an abstract idea. After it is born it is real and living.
In the days of film, making your first print was often a seminal moment. The experience of seeing a black & white image “come to life” in the darkroom bath is often the moment people say they became hooked on photography. It can be somewhat similar with printing, if you do your own. Seeing this baby of yours coming to life on paper right there in your studio is a joy.
Have you held a print? Isn’t it magical? And if you hand a print to someone, watch their reaction. Wonder, joy, maybe fear of ruining it combined with a desire to touch it. They only see images on screens. When it leaps off the screen and becomes a real, physical object they perceive it very differently.
Summary
I am doing more printing recently. I knew it would be a change and a learning, since I had not done it for a while. But even I was not prepared for it. But I love it. A great print is a thing of beauty. The image becomes real, alive, permanent. Like our child, it grows up and has a life of its own.
Try it. It could change your viewpoint.
February 28, 2024