The truth about marinating your photos

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Article Dedication

In honor of

Leonard Freed & Peter Marlow

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“Winogrand almost never developed his film immediately. He said he deliberately waited a year or two in order to lose the memory of the take. “If I was in a good mood when I was shooting one day, then developed the film right away,” he told a class, “I might choose a picture because I remember how good I felt when I took it.” Better, he maintained to let the film “age,” the better to grade slides or contact sheets objectively.“

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/photo/essays/vanRiper/030131.htm

Well, boys and girls…it is bullshit.

Winogrand had a big ego. If you look at some of the Winogrand interviews you will see a lot of pretension in his thinking. Winogrand just couldn’t admit the was chronically behind, so he made excuses. That is the real reason for ‘marinating’ his photos.

People like Eric Kim that just regurgitates what he reads in books latches onto this marinating idea and blindly accepts it as gospel. They propagate the wrong ways to their devotees that don’t know anything and pretty soon marinating your photos becomes the thing to do.

John Szarkowski on Winogrand…

“To expose film is not quite to photograph, and the photographer who does not consider his finished pictures is like a pianist who plays only on a silent keyboard. In the absence of proof, mistakes multiply, craft becomes theory, and good thinking passes for art. As Winogrand fell farther behind in the criticism of his own work his technique deteriorated. The last few thousand rolls are plagued with technical failures—optical, chemical, and physical flaws—in one hundred permutations. The most remarkable of these errors is his failure to hold the camera steady at the moment of exposure. Even in bright sunlight, with fast shutter speeds, the negatives are often not sharp. It is as though the making of an exposure had become merely a gesture of acknowledgment that what lay before the camera might make a photograph, if one had the desire and the energy to focus one’s attention.”

This sums up the aging your photos a la’ Winogrand / Eric Kim issue pretty well.

Now…I’m 2 to 3 years behind myself, but I won’t bullshit you, I shoot so much I don’t have time to even look at it. I don’t like it, but that is how it is. And I’m very, very choosy what I shoot too, but I just have too many projects.

Here is a list of artists’ books I’ve finished or am working on…

https://danielteolijr.wordpress.com/2016/03/07/artists-books-by-daniel-d-teoli-jr-2/

Plus I have tons more pix I’ve shot for other non-book projects.

Photogs ‘age’ their work is because they are hoping their bad photos will somehow magically look better later on. They can’t admit to themselves they have nothing good. So they put the photo away and hope it will appeal to them more down the road.

“The best photo strikes the eye as the right chord strikes the ear.” ~ Marc Riboud

Generally speaking, there should be no question when we have a great shot. The iconic photo never needs to age to look good. You don’t have to keep trying to sell yourself on it, hoping it looks better over time. The great photo jumps right out at you.

One of the few times marinating has worked was in the case of Vivian Maier. Some of her snapshots look a whole lot better when they have nostalgia value added by aging them. That is how it goes with this process. You take any old nothing photo, age it 75 or 100 years and now it is a masterpiece.

http://amhistory.si.edu/ourstory/i/photos/curry_lg.jpg

Here is another case where marinating a photo worked out. But, this was due to technology taking 40 years to catch up with recreating a poorly crafted photo I shot when I was 19.

Generally speaking, you should NEVER marinate your photos – learn from your mistakes ASAP. No one is saying your photos can’t evolve and get updated as your taste and skills change. But, if you got nothing good, accept it and move on. Of course, this is all a personal thing. There are no photo police out there, so we can all do as we like.

A photographer is defined from their body of work…be careful what goes into it.

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...and the ignorant, at least in the area of producing tons of garbage., body of work, culling, curator, daniel d. teoli jr, deciding 'what is and is not trash' comes under the auspices of 'personal opinion.', decisive moment, editing, Emmet Gowin is a good example of how a body of work can change with time and be spread out., human complication, I guess he was a god, infrared, infrared flash, infrared photograph, Koudelka, On the photo forums people always ask about editing and how many of one's photos gets trashed on average. There is no set figure, Ozu Yasujirō, presenting photography to curators and museums, robert frank, social documentary photography, street photography, street portrait, Teoli, the americans, the great Japanese director, The photographer's body of work tells the world that their great shot was not a fluke...the photographer is able to produce iconic work year after year., To expose film is not quite to photograph, To expose film is not quite to photograph and the photographer who does not consider his finished pictures is like a pianist who plays only on a silent keyboard., When we dig deeper into their portfolio we can see that the one great shot was the exception and not the rule. They may not have another great work in their entire body of work. That tells me that the, winogrand, would repeatedly film the same scenes over and over even though nothing seemed wrong with earlier takes. He would say even a blind man can hit the bullseye if he shoots enough arrows., young photogs coming up latch on to Winogrand like he was some kind of photo god. Well

Taken in part from my forthcoming artists’ book:

Presenting Photography to Curators and Museums

A photographer is defined from their body of work. This body of work can be focused or eclectic, it can be composed of single images or projects. But, it should all be the best the photographer can produce as their body of work is their legacy.

Now, we all grow and change over time with what we like to shoot. Nothing wrong with that. Emmet Gowin is a good example of how a body of work can change with time and be spread out. He has many areas he worked in from family to aerial photography, but they all seem to  fit together nicely in his own style.

Some photogs may wish to include some garbage in their legacy. This is a perosnal decision. The garbage may be important to them to memorialize a certain phase, project or issue the photog was going through in their life. Personally I produce loads of trash, but I try to delete my garbage ASAP. I don’t need a lot of crap cluttering up my body of work. I don’t have the time to keep sifting through it hoping it looks better over time as it ‘marinates.’

Cartier-Bresson sums it up…

“Yes…Yes…Yes…photography is like that and there’s no maybes. All the maybes go to the trash. There is a tremendous enjoyment in saying yes, even if it is for something you hate. It is an affirmation…Yes!”

Cartier-Bresson was a ruthless editor. When he first started out he would cut individual negs out of a strip and trash the rest. He didn’t want anyone seeing his rejects. The drawback of this method is that our trash may yield a hidden gem in the future. But you have to balance this hoarding tendency of keeping everything with only keeping the better work – one can’t have it both ways.

https://danielteolijr.wordpress.com/2015/06/01/if-your-serious-about-getting-ahead-only-have-your-best-work-connected-with-your-name/

Winogrand was the opposite of Bresson. He had a ton of trash he left behind. In his later life he had a driver cart him around the Miracle Mile district in L.A. as he blasted from the car window at anything that moved on the street.  Due to his notoriety, a lot of his trash has become collectable art. Of course deciding ‘what is and is not trash’ comes under the auspices of ‘personal opinion.’ Whenever the conversation of opinion comes up, I must defer to an earlier post I made…

https://danielteolijr.wordpress.com/2015/05/10/opinions-are-like-assholes-everyones-got-one/

In a very lengthy, almost life-story-ish critic of Winogrand, John Szarkowski summed up the issue…

“To expose film is not quite to photograph, and the photographer who does not consider his finished pictures is like a pianist who plays only on a silent keyboard. In the absence of proof, mistakes multiply, craft becomes theory, and good thinking passes for art. As Winogrand fell farther behind in the criticism of his own work his technique deteriorated. The last few thousand rolls are plagued with technical failures—optical, chemical, and physical flaws—in one hundred permutations.

The most remarkable of these errors is his failure to hold the camera steady at the moment of exposure. Even in bright sunlight, with fast shutter speeds, the negatives are often not sharp. It is as though the making of an exposure had become merely a gesture of acknowledgment that what lay before the camera might make a photograph, if one had the desire and the energy to focus one’s attention.”

On the photo forums people always ask about editing and how many of one’s photos gets trashed on average. There is no set figure. On some shoots I may not have anything worthwhile and it is all trash. On other shoots maybe I will keep 5% or 10%.

Infrared flash photo

Here is a tidbit about the Robert Frank’s editining process on his Americans project.

“During his trip, Frank shot 767 rolls of film yielding about 27,000 images. He edited that down to about 1,000 work prints, spread them across the floor of his studio and tacked them to the walls for a final edit. Out of a year and a half of work, Frank chose just 83 images.”

http://www.npr.org/2009/02/13/100688154/americans-the-book-that-changed-photography

I wish Frank would come out with another ‘Americans’ composed of 150 or so of the rejects from the pile of 1000 work prints. He could call it The Rejected Americans.

Take a look at how the much beloved Winogrand edited for comparison to Frank. Winogrand produced absolute crap and called it his first rate stuff.

http://photohostsnapshots.tumblr.com/image/123327010893

http://photohostsnapshots.tumblr.com/image/123326924403

http://photohostsnapshots.tumblr.com/image/123326876938

…and the ignorant, young photogs coming up latch on to Winogrand like he was some kind of photo god. Well, I guess he was a god, at least in the area of producing tons of garbage.

In my own work I have changed over the years a great deal. When I started out in the 70’s I was strictly a black and white snob – if it wasn’t BW I looked down on it.

 

In the 80’s and 90’s I branched out into color and shot very little BW. (These are scans from old 3.5 x 5 prints. The original prints and negs were lost in a flood.)

In the 2000’s I made the switch to digital.

Nowadays…I use anything I please to freeze time and work seamlessly between them all.  But, one thing is in common with the majority of my work – as a social documentary photog – people are my landscape.

Infrared flash from my latest artists’ book Piercing Darkness

The photographer’s body of work tells the world that their great shot was not a fluke…the  photographer is able to produce iconic work year after year. We have all seen a  photographer online that had a nice shot or two. When we dig deeper into their portfolio we can see that the one great shot was the exception and not the rule. They may not have another great work in their entire body of work. That tells me that there was more luck that skill involved in bringing home that great shot.

Ozu Yasujirō, the great Japanese director, would repeatedly film the same scenes over and over even though nothing seemed wrong with earlier takes.  He would say even a blind man can hit the bullseye if he shoots enough arrows.

Another take on Ozu can come from Josef Koudleka’s philosophy.

“What interests me is taking photographs to the maximum – the maximum that exists in a situation and the maximum that I myself can produce from it.” Koudelka goes on to say he will re-shoot a project repeatedly “to reassure me I have in fact achieved the maximum.”

Further reading:

https://danielteolijr.wordpress.com/2015/05/25/the-reality-of-being-an-artist/

https://danielteolijr.wordpress.com/2015/05/09/the-importance-of-naming-your-digital-files/