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Sep 30, 2022Liked by Andy Adams

When my children were small I documented much of their lives. At a certain point I realized that the camera kept me from fully engaging in those moments. So I decided that I needed to put the camera down at times and be present to my kids and my life in a way that isn’t possible when you’re balancing the technical aspects of making a good photo with the aesthetic decisions that have to be made. I treasure the photos that I have, but the time I spent without a camera in front of my face is far more important to my relationships with everyone in my life.

I truly cannot do two things at once, and I think anyone who thinks otherwise is deluding themselves. Be where you are. When making photographs, just do that. When with family and friends, just do that, maybe with a few moments to make a memory. But remember to be a part of your own life, and not apart from it.

Find balance.

And decide what is important to focus your time on. You don’t have to photograph everything.

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Sep 30, 2022Liked by Andy Adams

Interesting ideas here, but the story ultimately begs the question: "Weren't you, a person, dare I say it, obsessed with photography, carrying an actual camera on your trip?"

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Sep 30, 2022Liked by Andy Adams

So well said, Andy. What you're tapping into here is something we can all relate to, and somehow adjacent to the broader way that the smartphone (and its accomplice, Instagram) has changed everything for anyone engaged with photography (in fact, in a leveling and inclusive move, now everyone is engaged with photography). It's certainly fueled the primary question I ask myself in my own work: why THIS? Why does this need to be photographed? What is this adding to the conversation?

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Sep 30, 2022Liked by Andy Adams

Hey Andy,

I’ve just been traveling and asking myself similar questions. Some of the places I visited were so overrun and the landscape destroyed, and I couldn’t help wondering, for what? We’ve destroyed the actual place so that we can have idealized photos of the place?

I worry about that and how I may be contributing to it. I’m cringing as I post to instagram, but ‘friends’ want to know what I’m up to. What’s the balance for sharing the beautiful places you visit but also being cognizant of the impact you’re having on the actual place?

Have you read Don Delilo’s “White Noise?” I think about the red barn all the time - you’ll understand if/after you’ve read it.

I’m not sure what the answers are either. For myself, personally, I’m always asking, why am I taking this photo. Sometimes it’s for memory. And then I’m thinking about how I’ve altered the memory with a photograph - at the time of the photograph, because now I’ve changed the experience, and also after because of what I will remember.

It’s a constant balance of experiencing life without the camera and being cognizant of your practice with the camera. It’s a lot to think about while on vacation! 😂

I hope you enjoyed your trip :)

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“Or are we giving short shrift to our lived experience by defaulting to seeing the world through our lens?” No, you’re giving short shrift to your artistic experience by not seeing the world through a lens. Photographers see the world through a lens, writers through words, musicians through sound etc. If you lose that you might as well pack it in. But I’m not endorsing going out and buying yourself a new phone— no one said the lens had to be perfect. The great god above has given you a damaged piece of equipment— go make art anyway.

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Sep 30, 2022Liked by Andy Adams

Photography can offer a closer connection, with your experience, rather than take you away from it. A bit like looking someone in the eye rather than just looking in their general direction. But not always; you have to go by the feel of the moment; it has to feel right. So the moral is: get yourself a new phone camera.

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Sep 30, 2022Liked by Andy Adams

Thanks for alerting me/us to the Dorothea Lange quote. It's definitely a theme of my work, though it is not my intent to teach others. My camera, Photoshop, and other people's work continue to teach me.

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Sep 30, 2022Liked by Andy Adams

I sometimes force myself to keep my phone out of my hands. I left it home last week as I was running out and about. Of course I saw many things I wanted to take a snap of - but couldn't. Instead, I allowed myself the pleasure of looking and observing. It's good to be present - it isn't always necessary to document a situation for yourself - or others - to prove you were there. The Queen's funeral: what in the world are the millions of people going to do with their out of focus images and video? Store it as proof? Print an image(? highly unlikely). Share with others on social media - no doubt. And for what? Proof of existence? Bragging rights? I always start my photo workshops by asking my students why they photograph. After being initially startled - it is often the beginning of a very revealing conversation.

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Sep 30, 2022Liked by Andy Adams

I had to go looking for this short story by Italo Calvino that I read more than 20 years ago...so much more powerful now and extremely relevant to your questions. Found the whole thing at this link https://archive.vanityfair.com/article/1983/8/the-adventure-of-a-photographer

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Opinion time! My perspective… “Full engagement” is a puritanical ideal that we love to long after. In the myriad ways we fail to attain it, we penalize ourselves with guilt or regret. From my view, as a photographer, there is no shame in storytelling — it is the core human feature. Telling them, keeping them, curating them, manipulating and re-contextualizing them even in the moment. There is no “pure experience” — only the story we tell ourselves about what’s happening. The story ABOUT the sensory experience is the thrill.

Sex, drugs & rock n’ roll — and art and religious ecstasy, if that’s a thing — get us there quicker and more easily. But it’s a heavy burden to put on the “over” thinking human being. Death and loss presses in on all of us. So we want to keep it? This sunrise? We want to declare something about it to other humans, share it, multiply it, fashion our identity through it. Nothing more human than that. This is what we do. This is who we are.

Animals don’t watch sunrises either, but angels probably do. Photography as an art form, a weird cyborg extension of us, a defense against death, a utilitarian tool to remember... None of this needs a defense when we see it’s humans doing it. This is us. We make things. We deceive through imagery and language. It heals, it perplexes. The impulse to remember is in us like a biological fact. We collate experience and try to form it into some gestalt whole. There is no other “real life” in which we’re not doing this, though rest is good and so is putting the damn lens down from time to time.

“Can’t you just live in the moment?” goes the question. I am — with my third arm, my second brain, this tool that is as natural as anything else. Purity wants something more, but I am a mere mortal. As for known human history, there have never been humans without recording tools.

Rollo May said, “art is the necessary sequel to being.” We create because we are. It’s the next natural and inseparable step. Courtesy is good, and quality attention to nature and loved ones. But let us not ever think of photography as cheapening the quality of our attention. I photograph what I love. Let me photograph my beer in peace 😂

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Dec 17, 2022·edited Dec 17, 2022Liked by Andy Adams

"... the inherent angst in not being able to make images when you see something that begs to be in a picture!"

I feel this every time I go out without my camera. Quite often, a moment I want to remember, cherish, write about, print for my wall, comes and goes like a quick passing smile from the person you say you're going to marry. I then kick myself for not bringing my camera.

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When I was a young photographer, in my teens, I used to go to a lot of concerts. I would bring my camera, walk up to the stage and photograph the artists. I soon realised that I was missing the concert, some I even completly forgot. That was one of the first lessons phoptography thought me. I learned that to not photograph in many occasions is better than to miss the a whole point of my presence.

I always loved this quote from Balthazar (Lawrence Durrell, 1957) that summarizes the question :

"That mania to perpetuate, to record, to photograph everything ! I suppose this must come from the feeling that you don't enjoy anything fully, indeed are taking the bloom off it with every breath you draw. "

I still am addicted to photography but, I think, as many of us, with better jugement. Most of my phone pictures go to Facebook or Instagram, in small doses. Some important ones I show at the hardware store, looking for that thing I photographed that I despertly need ! The IPhone has become a very practical camera because it is so common, inconspicuous and easy to use, giving me sometimes, I must say, a better picture than th regular camera. My "serious" photography is made with one of the actual cameras I use with very specific sujects. I don't share them because I think they immidiately loose there "aura". I keep them for later...

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Yes, where would we be without our phone? That ubiquitous capturing tool. And so conveniently small! But then, my Olympus XA is actually smaller. But if course: we are now so used - and addicted - to the instant gratification of seeing our pics immediately!

Interesting you mention Susan Sontag (are we allowed to mention her on a photography promoting site/app 😳). She had a vision of the future. You might enjoy reading https://www.mantenphotography.com/blog/2019/5/picture-this-ms-sontag

Btw: I love this new approach Andy!

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Experiencing the sunset, the city of your travels/vacation through the lens of whichever camera you’ve got on your person, has become an extension of the human psyche. We’ve forgotten to just down tools (cameras, phones etc) and to just relish in the enjoyment of our environment. Especially in the glorious locations around us and beyond. Not saying it’s a bad thing but sometimes, memories are the best photographs. A case of, you just had to be there to see it.

Just think it’s possible now to take photos and to compose and focus in post production with the advent of 360 degree technology. So maybe we could return to enjoying the then and now. Produce the photo from the data later? Now there’s a thought!

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I tend to get stuck in my own head. I usually keep to myself and don't spend a lot of time socializing. Others seem to be champing at the bit over pandemic restrictions, but I have been wallowing in expanded isolation to a perhaps unnatural degree. It's my issue, one that perhaps most people don't have to deal with, and one that I've used a camera to help manage since an early age. The camera moves my focus out of my head and out into the world. It doesn't stand in the way of my engagement; it _is_ my engagement, and often a point of departure for even greater engagement.

That's just me, though.

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Oct 1, 2022Liked by Andy Adams

Thank you Andy. Enjoyed the read this morning, looking forward your next.

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