This post is a response to
Emil von Maltitz's article titled
"Why I call myself a landscape photographer". Please read his article, then come back and read my response.
For as long as we know, we have tried to
classify things. Linnaeus is the name we associate, scientifically at least,
with classification but when modernity got bored of its own dogmatic
organization, post modernism was born. The trouble with post modernism is that
it fragments and falls apart into individualism, reification and self-defeating
senselessness (the proverbial snake eating its own tail). And what on earth has
all this got to do with photography?
Everything and nothing, depending on if you
are a post modernist. But I thought I would try and play devil’s advocate this
month in response to Emil’s Light Writing titled, “Why I call myself a
landscape photographer”. Here goes. I hope it makes sense.
Sense. That is all classification is - an
attempt to try and make sense. Attempting to make sense is also what we do as
photographers when we approach our subjects (portraits, landscapes, conflicts,
wildlife, still life, whatever) and that is what we do when we look at/see
images (looking and seeing are not the same thing by the way). We take what we
know and combine it with the didactic content of the image, and then draw on
both, to try make sense of the scene/image before us. More simply put: the
viewer weighs in heavily with context, the image provides the content, and together
we make meaning. The problem with classification is that it is so often an
uncomfortable, albeit, best available fit.
Jiang Rong interviewed Don Mc Cullin in
2006. Arguably one of the greatest war photographers, Mc Cullin had just received
a Cornell Capa Award and Rong, noting Mc Cullin’s aversion to being called a
war photographer, asks why. Mc Cullin’s answer: “It doesn’t have a nice ring to
the name war photographer…. It makes me seem like all I can do is photograph
war.” As Emil points out the man now photographs British landscapes. The point
is categorization often seems inadequate. Mc Cullin later tells Rong, “You
can’t imagine how many things I can do photographically…. I am a wide range
person and hate to be categorized. Why do we have to have titles? Why can’t we
just be photographers?” I was asked exactly this by Brent Meistre, my Master’s
supervisor. I was concerned with how, or where, I fitted into the photographic
classification system. I had a Bachelor of Journalism degree and was now tread
watering in the deep end of Fine Art. It seems that perhaps the answer lies not
in what we call ourselves but in what we are called.
In Rong’s interview Mc Cullin is called a
‘war photographer’. Emil calls him a ‘conflict photographer’. I would too.
What’s the difference? Probably nothing other than that in Mc Cullin’s heyday
they were called ‘war photographers’. These days ‘conflict’ is more current,
being preferred most likely because there are simply more conflicts than wars.
A nation has to declare war, but people can just go and get on with a conflict.
And photographers can flock to photograph it.
I agree with Emil and think he comes very
close to making sense of why a landscape has a particular kind of affinity for
photographers and viewers alike: “the desire to translate one’s own feelings
towards that land”. In many ways though, this is what we do with all
photographs/photography: translate our feelings, making some sense of it, and in
the process, ourselves. But there is even more to it than that. Landscape as
subject material is different to ‘landscape’, a chosen approach when
photographing.
The key is in the word ‘contemplative’. I
have made photographic studies of a number of subjects with a landscape
approach, ranging in diversity from pieces of land no bigger than an A3 page, debris
placed in a studio, even corpses. Indeed, the body (not necessarily deceased)
is a favorite subject among artists when it comes to this approach (see Bill
Brandt’s seashore nudes in his Perspective of Nudes series for example).
It must be said though, that there is certainly
something very rewarding in being presented with the vastness of a physical
landscape, squinting through the tiny peephole that is the viewfinder, and
striving for the reward of an intimate, emotional, and aesthetically striking
capture. There is great skill, satisfaction and power, in the God-like ‘arranging’
of elements and features in landscape photography. Elements vast and huge,
arranged and ‘placed’ only by the photographer’s careful choice of position,
lens selection, camera settings etc. Personally, I love this challenge. I
especially love it when I know there is an image hidden in there, the
landscape, somewhere. It is ephemeral. I get a glimpse, a tease, and then it is
gone! I just haven’t managed to see all of it - yet. I need to contemplate. I
must look with both eyes, not just one, and see. Once I have seen, I can
separate ‘it’, extract ‘it’ and ‘take’
the picture. And this is why I could never call myself a landscape
photographer. Its not that I don’t enjoy landscape photography, I do - immensely.
But landscape photography, for me lacks surprise. Add to this the onslaught of
digital photography and its capacity for instant gratification, and landscape
photography can be stubbornly unsurprising. The results may remain pleasing,
inspiring and breathtaking, but for the meditative landscape photographer,
contemplating and constructing away, the unexpected is her nemesis.
This leads us into another important point,
one that Emil also makes. What is the point? “What moves me as a photographer
and a person?” Why do we do what we do, or chose to define ourselves in this
way, via the images that we make? Sometimes, I suspect the photography that we
enjoy can be likened to fishing. It is not always about the fish. Often it is,
and fish in the bottom of the boat certainly helps to measure success. Likewise,
sometimes photography is less about the photographs. It is more about being and
not just ‘getting’. Photography, not photograph. Process, not product. This is
perhaps why I love wildlife photography. I love being in the space, amongst the
landscapes where the animals are. That and the fact that my photographic interest
was born out of a decade spent working as a professional safari guide.
So what do I call myself? A photographer? I
have to. I am too scared to classify myself. But ‘photographer’ is a category
unto itself isn’t it? Then again ‘photographer’ seems so unsatisfactory,
nonspecific and loose. How can I expect to separate myself (therefore classify
myself) as a ‘professional photographer’, distinguishing myself from the ever
invasive ‘run and gun’; shoot it now, shoot it again and again, and again, choose
later, don’t stop, don’t look, don’t see, don’t contemplate, type of
photographer? Why should I? I have come across so called professional
photographers who think ‘P’ on a camera’s shooting mode stands for
‘professional’ and ‘A’ for automatic – true story! Maybe I am a ‘photographic
artist’? My MFA says I could be. But then again I have come across those whose
artistry with the camera extends to being able to hold the camera at a 45° angle
and whose creative expertise is demonstrated by their ability to locate and
apply filters in photoshop.
So what should I call myself? Tell you what
… why don’t you decide. The devil’s advocate is off to find a hobby.
Included in in the collection are a number of type specimens. Type specimens are those individual specimens from which further specie descriptions originate. Thus the type specimen is like an anchor or prototype that helps to centralise the defining features. Although the scientific name of every taxon is almost always based on one particular specimen, or in some cases specimens, it is important to note that there is no requirement for a "typical" individual to be used. Thus, the term 'name-bearing type' or onomatophore is sometimes used, to denote the fact that biological types do not neccessarily define "typical" individuals. Mimacraea neokoton is one such specimen, a type specimen collected in December 1955 from the Chirinda Forest, NE Zimbabwe. 
