More Than a Rock, 2nd Edition. Guy Tal
Preface
This then: to photograph a rock, have it look like a rock, but be more than a rock.
—Edward Weston
In our time, photography of natural landscapes is generally aimed at showcasing the inherent, objective aesthetics of natural scenes and subjects, interesting geographic features, majestic feats of light, and other naturally occurring phenomena. The idea of images as metaphors rather than literal depictions—although well established in painting and other visual arts—is often a revelation to photographers, and one I emphasize in my teaching and writing.
The above quotation by photographer Edward Weston is one I mention frequently as a means of distinguishing creative photography from representational photography. Creativity, by common definition, is the production of things both novel and useful; whereas representation in photography, quite literally, is the re-presenting of something already in existence.
In the context of photography, therefore, representation is accomplished primarily through technology, skill, and a fortuitous convergence of “right” places and “right” times. Creativity requires something beyond objective qualities inherent in objects, tools, or circumstances—something subjective that would not have existed had the photographer not created it.
To use Weston’s example, a representational image may portray a rock, which might be interesting in its own right. A creative image, on the other hand, must communicate more than just the likeness of a rock, even if a rock is all that is in the frame. Put another way, in creative photography the object is not the subject. Creative and representational photography both require degrees of skill, and both may yield works of great aesthetic appeal. Still, I believe that the pervasive and common failure to distinguish between the two is a severe handicap to the acceptance of photography as an artistic medium, on equal footing with painting, sculpture, music, or any others.
Where most people have no problem distinguishing abstract painting from technical illustration, or poetry from a news report—and applying different modes of appreciation to each—many people still perceive photography as a single category, to be judged by only one set of criteria (most often including fidelity to the original view) and lacking further distinction among genres, styles, and intents.
In this collection of essays I share some of my thoughts and experiences as one who seeks to express more in images than the mere appearances of the things portrayed.
Guy Tal
Torrey, Utah
Introduction to the Second Edition
On one of my workshops a student asked whether I keep notes of specific settings I’ve used to print a photograph. I don’t. This is because every time I open one of my files, I find something I want to change about it. I aim for my work to be self-expressive. By this I mean that I don’t write or photograph just to create some objectively appealing artifacts. I write and create photographs to reflect the person I am, to express things that are on my mind, and to give tangible form to qualities of my real experiences (at least in my own mind). It stands to reason that as my sensibilities and skills evolve, as my thinking matures, as my knowledge increases, and as I assimilate more of my living experiences, I change and my work changes with me.
Henri Matisse said, “I do not repudiate any of my paintings, but there is not one of them that I would not redo differently, if I had it to redo.” I feel fortunate that, five years after the publication of the first edition of More Than a Rock, I got the opportunity to do exactly that: to redo the book with the benefit of hindsight, with (hopefully) improved skill, and in light of feedback from readers. This feedback, to my surprise, is something I did not expect when the book first came out. In fact, I wasn’t sure then what to expect, or whether my words would resonate with enough readers to justify writing more of these essays. I feel fortunate today to be able to express my gratitude to those who not only read the book but also took the time to share with me some of their impressions and insights, and to do so from the pages of this second edition. I am grateful also to the wonderful team at Rocky Nook for their help with the book, and for being a pleasure to work with.
Although I have made a fair number of edits to essays from the first edition, I did so with the goals of preserving my original thoughts and streamlining the text for readability. I also included four new articles in this edition, which touch on more recent thoughts and experiences.
Guy Tal
Torrey, Utah
July 2020
PART IART
1The Mission of Art
It’s easy to rediscover part of yourself, but through art you can be shown part of yourself you never knew existed. That’s the real mission of art.
—Bill Evans
I’ve often been accused of taking my work too seriously. Understandably, many who practice photography as a fun hobby or as distraction from less rewarding impositions may be reluctant to overthink it. As a friend jokingly expressed, “why ruin a perfectly good hobby?” In truth, I never made the conscious choice to pursue photographic art as seriously as I do, just as I never made the conscious choice to limit art’s role in my life to being simply a satisfying hobby. I just followed where photography led me until I realized somewhere along the way that it had ceased to be merely a casual interest; that it had transformed my life and my personality in ways I could never have predicted and did not even know were possible. I also could not have predicted the depth of gratitude I would come to feel for these transformations.
We all pursue photography because we enjoy something about it—the creative process, the tools and mechanics of the medium, the aesthetics of photographs, sharing photographs with others, competing with others, or some other reward of making photographs. Every career photographic artist I know started off with one or more such motivations, but I have never met any such photographers who, in hindsight, can say they had any idea how such simplistic justifications would ultimately guide the course of their lives. It’s no wonder that those who choose explicitly to not take their work seriously, and who therefore have no frame of reference for (let alone personal familiarity with) where such seriousness may lead them, may fail to understand those of us who do.
Photography has many uses, art being just one of them. Of these uses, photographic art is arguably the most contentious, not only because art often requires venturing beyond the medium’s ostensible purpose of objective representation, but also because art’s purpose (at least to some) is different from the purposes of most other uses for photography. Most photographers aim to convey the appearances of things outside themselves—views, objects, people, events—to people other than themselves (viewers), serving mostly as conduits of visual information. We photographic artists, on the other hand, often seek to elevate our inner experiences beyond just witnessing beautiful or interesting things outside ourselves and relaying to others what they may have seen if they were standing next to us. Instead, we seek to give subjective and emotional meanings to external views, to discover things about the world and ourselves beyond what we already know and beyond what would have been obvious to anyone else in similar circumstances. We thrive not only on being in certain places and witnessing certain things, but also on the inner experiences and rewards of artistic creation and personal expression. We wish to contribute some worthwhile things of our own making to the world, and not just to be passive consumers of things already in the world. In sharing our work, our goal is not to merely convey information to our viewers, but to express to viewers our inner feelings