Podcast Entry

Camera Position 213 : What’s your hashtag?

4 Comments

How do you consider yourself as a photographer in terms of the work you do? Is it important to tell your viewers how you define your work as being a particular kind or made with a particular camera, or does the work you make define you instead?

If I make more images, like the one in this post, am I a #lunarphotographer or a #GreatLakesPhotographer? If I shoot it with #film or with #digital, how does that change what the image says? I think my intent as a photographer matters more than the label or the gear and if you make photographs that are genuinely yours, your own personal hashtag will write itself.

Rather than think of myself as this kind of photographer or that kind of photographer, I prefer to think of myself as photographer – I’m interested in subject matter as it presents itself to me, or as I think of it relative to things I’ve read, music I’ve listened to, places I’ve gone…

Rather than pigeonholing yourself into a particular genre of image-making, or that you use a particular kind of camera, think rather of how the work you make defines who you are and let that be your “hashtag.”

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Blue Hour Moonset – Lake Superior – photograph by Jeff Curto

4 thoughts on “Camera Position 213 : What’s your hashtag?”

  1. Hi Jeff,

    Thanks for another podcast. I do enjoy each one you do – but I think I have to disagree on this one.

    You confuse the notion of photography and a photograph. Sure in the commercial world or in the kind of competition you describe nobody cares how the image (or do we mean print) was made. Although perhaps in a competition subcontracting the work out to another photographer might be frowned on!

    But photography is different. It is a cultural activity not a product. It’s like a football supporter. Does it matter to them if their team wins? Very much so. On their deathbed would it matter how many times their team had won? No. They derived meaning from the act of rooting for a team all those years, the camaraderie etc. Supporting was a cultural activity both dependent on and not dependent on the outcome.

    I go out with my camera and I come back with no keepers or maybe no exposures at all. It wasn’t a wasted trip, not because I was learning to one day make perfect images, I may never do that, but because I was participating in an activity that gave meaning to my interaction with the world. Sure I wanted to make wonderful images. If making wonderful images wasn’t my goal then I’d not be doing photography I’d just be carrying a camera about. I’d be like a supporter who didn’t care if his team won or not.

    In the context of photography as a cultural activity the process you are using (the tool in your hand and the medium you choose) are very important. They dictate that relation to the world and how you respond to it.

    Two people standing on top of a mountain. Does it matter if one took eight hours to climb and the other took the cable car? They both achieved the same result. I’d suggest it definitely matters to the people concerned, even if a bystander can’t tell them apart.

    Judging a competition or if the images from a commercial shoot are good enough doesn’t need to take the photographers concerned into account at all. Cultural activities, like singing and dancing and cooking and eating and all the things that make life worthwhile do have to take the who and the how and the why into account. It isn’t just about the end product.

  2. Roger!
    Thank you so much for this!

    I’m gonna tell ya… I anguished with this podcast episode for a few weeks – knowing that the topic would prove controversial and I’m happy that the first comment (yours) is contrary to my statements. Really, thanks, because I kind of wanted to stir the pot.

    You’ve hit upon the part that I intentionally left out – the process and its impact on the photographer who is producing the work. I know that when I go out with my view camera, I think differently, partly because that linguistic “syntax” that I was describing toward the end is different – there are things I can say with that camera that I can’t say with other machines that I have – and vice-versa.

    I think what I wanted to get at (without being too exacting about it) was that I’m frustrated by the folks who seem to close themselves off from one type of imagery by slavish devotion to a particular type of camera or a particular stylistic definition (hashtag) that gets them into some kind of “club.” I’m making good (or cool or better than yours or…) photographs because I’m shooting them with this camera than I would if I didn’t. I think many current photographers, in their quest to be relevant (or cool?) go at it backwards – “I’m going to make good images because I’m shooting with this camera” rather than “I want to make photographs that look like this, so I’m going to use this printing process.”

    So, yes… the top of the mountain might be reached with laborious darkroom processes or with a phone and Snapseed – both are legitimate images, but the social/cultural/engagement pieces are dramatically different.

    I have to say that it’s always funny to me when I see someone on Instagram telling us how cool their film camera is by shooting video of it and their shooting experience with their phone. 🙂

  4. Thanks for this, Mahn. Great insights from this fantastically quirky artist. His sense of intention for his work is palpable – make the work look the way you want it to look. I’ve embedded the video here, so it should play right in the page.

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