When we make a picture of something, we elevate the importance of that subject merely by the act of paying attention to it with our camera. This basic idea is one my most closely held photographic beliefs. It doesn’t matter how insignificant the subject may appear to be; the camera’s lens and our point of view give it importance.
Steve's Boots, 2011 - Photograph by Jeff Curto
With this 100th episode of Camera Position, I return to my roots as a photographer and also introduce the theme for the 2013 Society for Photographic Education conference, which I’m chairing. “Conferring Significance: Celebrating Photography’s Continuum” will be the theme of the SPE conference next year as the organization meets at the famed Palmer House hotel in Chicago for our 50th anniversary. Mark your calendar for March 7, 8 & 9 of 2013; I hope to see many of you there.
Photographer Robert Frank said, “It is always an instantaneous reaction to oneself that produces a photograph.” Reading that quote in a wonderful essay by noted photographer and art historian Gretchen Garner, I also noted her idea that photographers respond to the world with gestures that are different from those that painters use. As Garner puts it, “Indeed, my belief is that in many ways, fine photography is more purely intellectual, purely visual, because the gestures involved are less connected to hand gestures but much more connected to intense observation, to harder seeing.”
Passion for the medium is, in the end, the thing that keeps us going. This episode of Camera Position discusses passion and its strange bedfellow, direction. Thanks to photographer and friend Al DaValle for providing some inspiration for this podcast in the form of an email.
The Gallery Photographica Exhibition, which opened March 3 at the Michelle O’Connor Gallery in San Francisco is showing some really excellent photographs. While I can’t highlight all the great photographs that are in the show, I wanted to comment on a few of the photographs that really impacted me as I selected the work. I will be at the gallery the evening of Saturday, March 24, 2012 for a reception that is planned as a part of the Society for Photographic Education conference in San Francisco.
