Through the lens…

One of the things that most fascinates me about both photography and writing is that in choosing what to include and what to ignore, what to turn your camera towards and away from, what story to tell and what to keep untold, we create a frame for seeing the world that is both honest and false at the same time. And this is because we communicate our perspective subjectively – we see what is true for us, and then we share that “truth” in our art the way we best know how – through the creation of story, of image, of movement, of structure and form.

Being able to appreciate the presence of the frame is, for me, the first step to thinking critically about art.

Once we recognise that the art we are engaging with has been shaped by the subjective choices of the artist, then I think we gain a deeper understanding of the various meanings that then become available to us. And perhaps this is easiest to see when we are reading a story written in the first person – we see the story through the narrator and as such, share their view of their world as well as their blindness. What is then available and not available through the perspective of the narrator then becomes a key device in the way the story reveals itself chapter by chapter. That which was unseen and unknown becomes that which is seen, that which is known. The hidden motivations, the twists of fate, the secrets whispered from the graves, the contents of the sealed envelope, the true nature of things.

With a photograph, however, we are labouring under the expectation of realism. We feel cheated if the image has been edited, as though the choices taken in post-production to alter, add, delete, colour, crop have duped us, somehow, into believing something is one way when it is actually another. As though we are content with the misrepresentation of photography as a lesser artform – in large part due to its inherently democratic nature – which is “merely” charged with communicating a truthful picture (with accuracy and sharp detailed focus) of the world.

But all photographs begin in the eye of the individual would-be photographer, then in the direction they point the camera, then in the zoom function as they crop and compose the shot, and then in the click of the shutter as the image is captured to be worked up in a darkroom or digital lab at a later date. In other words, it begins with the choices that frame what is revealed and what is kept hidden.

A photograph is no more capable of bearing the weight of “real” representation than a novel, a poem, a ballet, a song. Each is a creation which has resulted from a series of choices.

It is holding this awareness, I believe, that supports the practice of conscious crafting. Owning responsibility for the subjectivity of our framing, choosing the stories we want to tell and how we want to tell them, refining the practice of our own creative process. When we bring this level of intention to our creativity, we enter into an encounter with what it means to craft our artistic vision, what it means to craft the stories we are most drawn to tell, what it means to craft our presence in relating to self and other.

It all begins with looking through the lens and seeing the frame.