The idea of photography as a documentary medium did not interest Mr. Heinecken in the least. He once said: "Many pictures turn out to be limp translations of the known world instead of vital objects which create an intrinsic world of their own. There is a vast difference between taking a picture and making a photograph."
Robert Heinecken
Robert Heinecken
Sheldon's struggles remind me of a famous conversation between the minor British writer Stephen Spender and the great poet T.S. Eliot. The young Spender told Eliot that he had always wanted to be a poet. Eliot's reply was that he'd never understood this thing of wanting "to be a poet"; all he understood was having some poems he wanted to write.
“The good painter has to paint two principal things… man and the intentionality of his mind… the first is easy and the second difficult.”
Leonardo Da Vinci- “Treatise on Painting” .
Leonardo Da Vinci- “Treatise on Painting” .
Intention is the core of all conscious life. It is our intentions that create karma, our intentions that help others, our intentions that lead us away from the delusions of individuality toward the immutable verities of enlightened awareness. Conscious intention colors and moves everything.
-Master Hsing Yun, "Describing the Indescribable"
-Master Hsing Yun, "Describing the Indescribable"
Garry Winogrand died of cancer at age 56 in 1984 and left over 2,500 rolls of undeveloped film, 6,500 rolls of processed film, 3,000 rolls of contact sheets that evidently hadn't been looked at--a total of 12,000 rolls, or 432,000 photos Winogrand took but never saw.
A leaf was riven from a tree,
“I mean to fall to earth,” said he.
The west wind, rising, made him veer.
“Eastward,” said he, “I now shall steer.”
The east wind rose with greater force.
Said he: “’Twere wise to change my course.”
With equal power they contend.
He said: “My judgement I suspend.”
Down died the winds; the leaf, elate,
Cried: “I’ve decided to fall straight.”
Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary (1911)
“I mean to fall to earth,” said he.
The west wind, rising, made him veer.
“Eastward,” said he, “I now shall steer.”
The east wind rose with greater force.
Said he: “’Twere wise to change my course.”
With equal power they contend.
He said: “My judgement I suspend.”
Down died the winds; the leaf, elate,
Cried: “I’ve decided to fall straight.”
Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary (1911)
Samuel Beckett’s response to people who wanted to analyze
“Waiting For Godot”
“[O]n 17th February 1952 … an abridged version of the play was performed in the studio of the Club d’Essai de la Radio and was broadcast on [French] radio … [A]lthough he sent a polite note that Roger Blin read out, Beckett himself did not turn up.”[87] Part of his introduction reads:
I don’t know who Godot is. I don’t even know (above all don’t know) if he exists. And I don’t know if they believe in him or not – those two who are waiting for him. The other two who pass by towards the end of each of the two acts, that must be to break up the monotony. All I knew I showed. It’s not much, but it’s enough for me, by a wide margin. I’ll even say that I would have been satisfied with less. As for wanting to find in all that a broader, loftier meaning to carry away from the performance, along with the program and the Eskimo pie, I cannot see the point of it. But it must be possible … Estragon, Vladimir, Pozzo, Lucky, their time and their space, I was able to know them a little, but far from the need to understand. Maybe they owe you explanations. Let them supply it. Without me. They and I are through with each other.
“[O]n 17th February 1952 … an abridged version of the play was performed in the studio of the Club d’Essai de la Radio and was broadcast on [French] radio … [A]lthough he sent a polite note that Roger Blin read out, Beckett himself did not turn up.”[87] Part of his introduction reads:
I don’t know who Godot is. I don’t even know (above all don’t know) if he exists. And I don’t know if they believe in him or not – those two who are waiting for him. The other two who pass by towards the end of each of the two acts, that must be to break up the monotony. All I knew I showed. It’s not much, but it’s enough for me, by a wide margin. I’ll even say that I would have been satisfied with less. As for wanting to find in all that a broader, loftier meaning to carry away from the performance, along with the program and the Eskimo pie, I cannot see the point of it. But it must be possible … Estragon, Vladimir, Pozzo, Lucky, their time and their space, I was able to know them a little, but far from the need to understand. Maybe they owe you explanations. Let them supply it. Without me. They and I are through with each other.
Albert Einstein:
"Imagination is more important than knowledge."
"Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new."
"The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed."
"Imagination is more important than knowledge."
"Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new."
"The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed."
Buddha:
All that we are is the result of what we have thought. The mind is everything. What we think we become.
An idea that is developed and put into action is more important than an idea that exists only as an idea.
Ennui has made more gamblers than avarice, more drunkards than thirst, and perhaps as many suicides as despair.
All that we are is the result of what we have thought. The mind is everything. What we think we become.
An idea that is developed and put into action is more important than an idea that exists only as an idea.
Ennui has made more gamblers than avarice, more drunkards than thirst, and perhaps as many suicides as despair.
Sally Mann’s response to Academic Criticism:
It's so odd to live as I do right now -- sitting on the same deck of the same cabin where Hayhook was taken. There is no electricity, no running water, no telephone. Not even a cell phone will work where we are.
So, I come in from time to time, driving across the 450 acres, as pristine as any land in your imagination, and I plug into my electronic life: faxes, e-mail, telephones, and so forth. When I did so yesterday, I came across your letter [inquiring about the use of pictures from Immediate Family] and Noelle's article.
Over the years I've learned not to talk about my work, taking to heart the Robert Doisneau quote that goes something like this: "If you make pictures, don't speak, don't write, don't analyze yourself and don't answer any questions." I would amend that by adding, "And don't read any critical comments, either." People always seem to freight the work so heavily with meanings that were not in any way intended or even subconscious.
So when I ignored my own advice and read Noelle's piece, I did so initially with indignation: What is all this talk about oppressed peoples? Conquered tribes?? Torture victims??? If my children didn't have better things to do, I'm sure they'd love to rebut all the bullshit that comes pouring out of academia about my work . . . But, still, Noelle's piece was better than some, and she did make some interesting points. At least she didn't see repressed memories of incest as my artistic motivation.
It's not like these kids had to keep some shred of personal dignity squirreled away from their prying Mom's camera lens. They were -- and are still -- active participants in the art-making that goes on all around them. Art is in every aspect of our everyday life -- in the gardens we have designed around the house, in what we put on our walls, in the pumpkins we cut for Halloween. And any parent knows that you can't force a child to make art; they have to cooperate, they have to want to be part of the process. When we made these pictures, the kids knew exactly what to do to make an image work: how to look, how to project degrees of intensity or defiance or plaintive, woebegone, Dorthea-Lange dejection. I didn't pry these pictures from them -- they gave them to me. Remember that and the images take on a wholly different meaning -- no deep psychological manipulations or machinations, just the straight-forward, everyday telling of a story.
I am reminded of when Eudora Welty came to Hollins. The back of the class was filling up with these guys in beards, academic types. As she read this short story in which one female character presents another with a marble cake, you could see one of the beards getting all excited. He started waving his hand as soon as she stopped reading and said, "Miz Welty, how did you come up with that powerful symbol of the marble cake, with the feminine and masculine and the Freudian and the Jungian all mixed together like that?" -- his doctoral thesis probably hanging on this. And Welty, this wonderful little old lady, just looked at him for a really long time from the lectern. Finally she said, "Well, you see, it's a recipe that's been in my family for some time."
I guess I'm a little like that.
It's so odd to live as I do right now -- sitting on the same deck of the same cabin where Hayhook was taken. There is no electricity, no running water, no telephone. Not even a cell phone will work where we are.
So, I come in from time to time, driving across the 450 acres, as pristine as any land in your imagination, and I plug into my electronic life: faxes, e-mail, telephones, and so forth. When I did so yesterday, I came across your letter [inquiring about the use of pictures from Immediate Family] and Noelle's article.
Over the years I've learned not to talk about my work, taking to heart the Robert Doisneau quote that goes something like this: "If you make pictures, don't speak, don't write, don't analyze yourself and don't answer any questions." I would amend that by adding, "And don't read any critical comments, either." People always seem to freight the work so heavily with meanings that were not in any way intended or even subconscious.
So when I ignored my own advice and read Noelle's piece, I did so initially with indignation: What is all this talk about oppressed peoples? Conquered tribes?? Torture victims??? If my children didn't have better things to do, I'm sure they'd love to rebut all the bullshit that comes pouring out of academia about my work . . . But, still, Noelle's piece was better than some, and she did make some interesting points. At least she didn't see repressed memories of incest as my artistic motivation.
It's not like these kids had to keep some shred of personal dignity squirreled away from their prying Mom's camera lens. They were -- and are still -- active participants in the art-making that goes on all around them. Art is in every aspect of our everyday life -- in the gardens we have designed around the house, in what we put on our walls, in the pumpkins we cut for Halloween. And any parent knows that you can't force a child to make art; they have to cooperate, they have to want to be part of the process. When we made these pictures, the kids knew exactly what to do to make an image work: how to look, how to project degrees of intensity or defiance or plaintive, woebegone, Dorthea-Lange dejection. I didn't pry these pictures from them -- they gave them to me. Remember that and the images take on a wholly different meaning -- no deep psychological manipulations or machinations, just the straight-forward, everyday telling of a story.
I am reminded of when Eudora Welty came to Hollins. The back of the class was filling up with these guys in beards, academic types. As she read this short story in which one female character presents another with a marble cake, you could see one of the beards getting all excited. He started waving his hand as soon as she stopped reading and said, "Miz Welty, how did you come up with that powerful symbol of the marble cake, with the feminine and masculine and the Freudian and the Jungian all mixed together like that?" -- his doctoral thesis probably hanging on this. And Welty, this wonderful little old lady, just looked at him for a really long time from the lectern. Finally she said, "Well, you see, it's a recipe that's been in my family for some time."
I guess I'm a little like that.
There is no such thing as inaccuracy in a photograph. All photographs are accurate. None of them is the truth.
Richard Avedon
Richard Avedon
“The visible world is the invisible organization of energy.”
-Physicist Heinz Pagels
-Physicist Heinz Pagels
“A man of genius makes no mistakes. His errors are volitional and are the portals of discovery.”
James Joyce, Ulysses
James Joyce, Ulysses
“Who looks outside dreams; who looks inside, awakes”.
-Carl Jung
-Carl Jung
“Photography is a lie from start to finish.”
Edouard Steichein
Edouard Steichein
“All artists should have their lips sewn shut.”
Edward Abbey
Edward Abbey