A guilty pleasure?

I'm referring to showing my images in person to someone else – the prospect of which always makes me feel very nervous indeed. Yet, something still makes me go through the trauma of showing my photographs. Perhaps something about the process gives me pleasure? Am I just revelling in showing off, feeding my ego? I don't think so; it's a bittersweet experience for me, a mixture of anxiety and a hint of gratification. Of course it's the gratification that makes me feel guilty...

On the face of it, surely I should have nothing to worry about when sharing my images. I've been making photographs for close on 30 years, my images have been published in over 20 books and a number of magazines and I've achieved some recognition from my peers for the quality of my photography.

But worry I do. When presenting my images to an audience, large or small, I feel diffident; I worry that my images are unworthy, I worry that the audience won't like them – more than that they won't love them as wholeheartedly as I do.

Don't get me wrong, I don't love all my images and I'm not labouring under the misapprehension that those I do love are perfect. I know that they're not. I'm fully aware that even my favourite images have faults in composition or execution. In fact I'm painfully aware of this, its as plain and as haunting to me as a disfiguring ulcer on the face of a dear friend. I'm certainly more aware of the faults in the image than my audience are. Yet, despite their faults, I still love these chosen images. My images are the offspring of my creative spirit and I love them in the same way that I love my children: unconditionally.

I know deep in my heart that I've made a few images that will stand comparison with the best of my peers. I just don't want to shout about it (though I suppose my two readers might legitimately accuse me of at least whispering loudly through "Oceans..."). Why don't I want to be demonstrative? Is it because I'm English? The butterflies in my stomach let me know that I'm not exhibiting false modesty when I shrink from the limelight. If I were supremely confident but trying not to let my audience see that arrogance I wouldn't feel this bad. Paradoxically I feel confident and unsure at the same time; confident that my images are good but also unsure that they are good enough.

The reason for my fluctuating confidence might lie in part in the findings of a study by Dr. David Dunning at Cornell University. He looked at confidence in relation to ability levels. Dunning compared a group of students scores in a series of tests against their expectations. He found that those with the lowest scores consistently overestimated their abilities. More than that, Dunning's team also found that those with the highest scores consistently underestimated their abilities. The researchers put this down to "the fact that, in the absence of information about how others are doing, highly competent subjects assumed that others were performing as well as they were". I'm sure that this is partly true, but I also know from my own experience that the more I learn about photography the more I realise what there is still to learn. The more I know the smaller my precious hoard of knowledge looks and the more insignificant I feel.

Given my discomfort at showing my images in person, should I, perhaps, confine this activity to only showing them to people who's opinion I value? No, I don't think so. However unpleasant it is for me I need to show my work to as wide an audience as I am able and to listen to what they have to say. I've said before that self-criticism is an essential part of the creative process but I feel that peer review is also – and not just garnering the uncritical opinions of those you trust. That way lies a complete lack of perspective and the withering of creativity. I think that we've all seen this effect from afar in the work of certain pop musicians. There comes a critical point in some successful pop careers where the performer has amassed a considerable amount of money and acquired an entourage. If they are unwise they will have surrounded themselves with yes men;

"Do I look good in this outfit?"
"Yes!"
"Isn't my latest single great?"
"Yes!"
"Wouldn't it be great if I drove my Rolls into the swimming pool?"
"Yes!"
"I am the new messiah!"
"Yes you are!"

You get the picture...

It's been unspoken, perhaps even unconscious until now, but it occurs to me that the reason I show my images is not to feed my ego but to get a perspective on my work. It makes me anxious but I want to find out if I'm one of those incompetents in Dunning's study who is overestimating their ability or if there is some merit in what I'm doing. It would be foolhardy to grant all opinions equal weight but also equally foolhardy to dismiss out of hand those that are critical. There therefore needs to be some system of checks and balances. My approach has been to compare three sets of opinions; my own self-critical view, the opinions of a wider audience and finally the views of those members of my peer group whose work I admire. I tend to filter out opinions that are universally positive in favour of ones where I feel the respondent has made an effort at providing a critique.

The anxiety, then, comes from putting myself up for judgement, opening myself up for criticism. Gratification comes from any degree of validation of my work, especially if that approval comes from those members of my peer group who's work I admire.

So, is it a guilty pleasure? No, I don't think so. It's important to seek and find external positive feedback to counter the inevitable negative effect that arises even from constructive self-criticism. As photographers we need perspective and a context for our work beyond that provided by our own egos. But we also need encouragement if we aren't to become irretrievably disheartened. Showing my images is scary but I just have to grit my teeth and do it!

Fern Frond

The structure of living things fascinates me. The great natural philosopher Robert Hooke noted in the 17th century how when you studied man made objects through a lens the structure became cruder the higher the magnification, whereas natural objects revealed finer and finer detail the more you magnified them. There is a deep beauty in natural forms.

Ferns are a particular favourite of mine because of the elegance and simplicity of the structure of each frond. Mathematicians have realised in the last thirty years that they can model infinitely complex structures by using simple equations repeated many times with the result from one fed back in as the variable in the next. The most famous of these fractal equations is probably the Mandelbrot set – something often dismissively used as a screen saver. The fern can be modeled using such a simple equation, great beauty arising from simplicity.

Kyriakos Kalorkoti is a professor of mathematics who also happens to be addicted to landscape photography and a producer of very fine images. I'm priveleged to know him and we have had many fascinating discussions about photography, reality and art. In an article on his website he writes about the old question of whether photography is Art (note the capitalisation!):

"Much effort has been expended by various critics on the question of whether photography is Art; i.e., can it be included in the growing set of work and activities that are labeled as Art (since there is no generally accepted a priory definition of Art). One of the objections is the fact that a photograph is an image of some existing physical reality (ignoring manipulations).This objection can only be entertained if we go with the facile view that material existence is somehow mundane and thus is of no particular interest to Art; put briefly the view seems partly to be that material existence is no rival to imagination and all that photography can do is to record it. In fact existence of any kind is deeply problematic and mysterious; the nature of material reality is by no means straightforward and is thus more than a fitting source for image making that aims at transformation and revelation."

I find myself so strongly in agreement with this insight!

Why do we praise representations from our imagination above those springing from reality? Photography is partly to blame for this. Before the discovery of the photographic process a large proportion of the effort of painters was applied to producing the most realistic rendition of the world possible on a canvass – that is not to say that the objects or subjects depicted existed but just that they looked as if they might. In other words Art strove to not only express the thoughts or emotions of the artist (or their patron!) but to do so in as "truthful" a way as possible. Making the image look "real" leant it weight as document. Along comes photography, a mechanical process that effortlessly produces images drawn from the stuff of reality. The painter's years of effort suddenly seemed for nought, how could they compete? A new direction was needed and what was left but to travel further into the realms of the imagination. That doesn't make the study of reality in photography invalid, it just makes it something that photography can do better than painting.