Some inspirational thoughts on photography.

Paul Graham and Gerry Badger

In conversation at www.bjp-online.com

I love this statement by Paul Graham.

“PG – I’m a firm believer in working in the world as-it-is, and arriving at your ideas through that. It has to be a balance between the conscious mind struggling to rationalise, to make sense of it all, and the world itself, which doesn’t give a flying fig for your ideas concerning it. Too much of the former, and you end up with dry didactic work, illustrating an idea with no life. Too much of the latter and you end up with random snapshots that have no redeeming interest or substance. You gotta seek out the sweet spot.”

Which echoes what he had to say in this piece originally published under the title The Unreasonable Apple:  “But… what of those who work today with equal commitment and sincerity, using straight photography in the cacophonous present?”

Available at: http://www.paulgrahamarchive.com/writings_by.html or http://www.americansuburbx.com/2010/03/theory-paul-graham-unreasonable-apple.html

I am just thinking out loud on my blog today, about making images in the real world and taking/making images in the world as it is. To do this one must go out into the world and make images and keep going out and making more images and force oneself though the doubt and frustration that ones finds when you find that you have been making images that remind one of photographs that already exist. That I think is also one of the things that Winogrand tried to do, to go beyond what already existed and I think it was one of the reasons people have trouble with his latter work, as he was trying to work thorough something about making images in the world as it is. This is something that I thing Paul Graham has managed to do, which is why I like his work.