Wishing all my readers a prosperous, creative and happy 2008...

May you all have great light, make amazing images and contribute to the discussion here on Oceans of Instants!

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!

Although I've taken images since 1979 I don't feel that I became a photographer until 1999...

I can more or less pinpoint the transition from "taker" to "maker" to the day when I created the image on the left.

It was the first time that I had consciously 'seen' a part of the landscape as an abstract rather than just a 'detail'. It was also the first time that I sought to impart more than a simple description. This is an important distinction.

The detail is merely an illustration of a small part of the wider landscape, its ambitions are limited to describing some noteworthy (for the photographer) portion of reality. In this way it fulfills the role of answering the viewers' questions (if they have any!) about the subject of the photograph.

The abstract, on the other hand, doesn't seek to answer anything; rather it forces the viewer to ask some questions of the photograph / photographer: what am I looking at? why did the photographer make this image? why did they choose to compose it like this? how does this make me feel? unmoved? curious? what is the scale? is scale important?

These questions, and many more, make the abstract photograph more 'difficult' to view in the sense that viewing an abstract image requires the active participation of the viewer. Most photographs are viewed passively; we absorb what they show without any conscious effort. But, in the same way that a McDonalds is pleasant to eat but no more – because it requires very little mastication – one of these passive photographs leaves no permanent impression on us. An hour, or at most a day, after we've looked at a passive image it's lost to our memory.

What we get out of photographs is directly linked to the effort that we put into the viewing and it seems obvious to me that the photographer's duty is to try and engage the viewer; not simply by making 'pretty' images but by asking something of them in return for the gift of the image. They should sing for their suppers!

To make or not to make...

A tongue in cheek comment has got me thinking about the infrequency of my image making and wondering whether I should be anxious about it!

The question was posed; if we make fewer images as we become more proficient photographers then what would happen if one ever achieved genius level? Would it mean that one would never make an image again? Perhaps the genius landscape photographer would still wander across the land, a forlorn figure, glancing around from time to time and completing a stunning composition in their head but never bothering to get their camera out of the bag. Perhaps they have achieved some Zen like state of perfection but perhaps it's just a case of seen that before, done that already!

It is undoubtedly true that many photographers (myself included) make fewer images the longer that they have been photographers. Rather than a symptom of creeping apathy or rising indifference this is, in fact, a healthy sign. It means that we're learning from our accumulated experience, that we're realising more consistently what images will or won't work before we press the shutter. I'd be very worried indeed if I was still making as many mistakes now as I did twenty years ago!

Making fewer images doesn't necessarily mean that at some point we will run out of images or feel that we don't need to make any more. I find that the longer I work as a photographer the more possibilities I realise for image making, that I see beyond the obvious and notice subjects that a year or two before I wouldn't even have realised could be used as the basis for successful images. However, these possibilities are often more technically or compositionally challenging than my earlier work. And this factor also means that I'm likely to make fewer images.

So, rather than feel downhearted, I view this dwindling as a positive sign. The images that I make may be fewer in number but I feel that their quality improves with each passing year.