As I stated in a post earlier this week, I am embarking on a project where I will assign one word to a local artist (VA, DC, or MD). I'll then ask them to write 100-500 words on that word and also submit one or two images to accompany the writing. It is my hope that this project allows all of us to understand the various approaches to art making that our regional artists participate in.
In the first of what hopefully turns into a long series of posts, I'm pleased to share the writing of Charles Neenan. Neenan is a photographer based in Oak Hill, Virginia, and his assigned word was "tradition."
Nuclear San Francisco
Digital Photograph
2004
Charles Neenan: Tradition
When I hear the word tradition I think of Tevye in The Fiddler on the Roof. When asked why certain things were done in a very specific way, he responded, “tradition.” It was the only explanation offered, and to him it was the only possible answer.
For the most part Twentieth Century photography was done in a very specific way. Tradition dictated media. Tradition dictated presentation. Tradition dictated art (photographs were meant to be pure and unadulterated, never changed and only moderately enhanced by burning or dodging, cropping and enlarging.) Technology only enhanced the status quo. Tradition was limiting art by its restrictive sameness of scope. Breathtaking scenery will always be breathtaking scenery. Pretty flowers will always be pretty flowers. So why change? Just make the same images sharper with deeper color or purer black and white.
Change is how we grow, intellectually. My work escapes tradition by looking at the potential to send a message, evoke awe, or to create a surreal world with an added dimension for thinking. I try to capture light, not just for illumination of subject matter, but light in and of itself, light’s sources, and light’s vagaries.
My work is multi-layered, sometimes with many subtle changes of changes of changes...evolutionary. I try to touch the soul, to stun, to make the viewer think.
I start with a concept and a mental visualization of possibilities. I then mentally convolute the subject into something that has the potential to intrigue me. If the concept falls flat during this process, I drop it before I even shoot the first frame. Once I think there is something of substance, I then shoot up to 150 frames, looking for the best image to use as my base. Color and contrast are my friends. To me, visceral feelings are best evoked with lines and colors that flow. Light is the best subject matter.
To me tradition is the antithesis of my work. There are so many technically brilliant photographers that can capture the beauty of a lily or sunset in the high plains desert. They have an eye for what is pretty and beautiful, and I enjoy their work. But...artists need to take what others see to the next level and beyond in order to truly affect the inner-self. Beyond tradition.
Evolution 002
Digital Photograph
2004
The Tradition of the Anti-Tradition
From the Gospel according to St. James.
I am very familiar with Mr. Neenan’s work and consider him to be a friend and fellow photographer. I would also like to point out that “Nuclear San Francisco” is currently on exhibition at the League of Reston Artists/Reston Photographic Society Annual Judged Photography Exhibition at the Jo Ann Rose Gallery in Reston. I say that because I am absolutely captivated by this non-traditional take on a traditional travelogue photograph of the Golden Gate Bridge and because this image really needs to be seen in person to be fully appreciated; more about that later.
Although Mr. Neenan and I work at opposite ends of the spectrum with our photographic processes, (I suppose that’s one of the understatements of the year in the world of fine art photography!) I very much intuitively relate to his technically challenging sensibility of turning photographic traditions upside down through a photographic process that I have yet, and indeed, refuse to embrace. He and I don’t worship at the same church, but we do pray to the same God, in other words.
Mr. Neenan’s work places me in a certain moral quandary. Let me explain: His process is multi-layered. As I understand him, he builds his images using both digital and non-digital images. However he does it, the final product strikes me as being profoundly unique and not quite digital or non-digital. I have told him before that I feel like so many of the digital images I have seen seem to have the Adobe Photoshop ™ trademark all over them. It’s as if most digital photographers have run their course with all their manuals and are content to keep exploring the same tired tricks, schemes and colors palettes made available through whatever version of the program they have loaded on their computers because they can’t afford or refuse to upgrade to the newest version with the latest gizmos…as if upgrading to the latest software version would significantly improve some their visions anyway.
Mr. Neenan’s work challenges me because it forces me to resolve in my own mind whether or not it’s even a legitimate question to ask him a question such as the following: “How do you do it?” What I mean by that is this: it theoretically shouldn’t matter how he does it. In a world where all things are even, the process doesn’t, or shouldn’t, matter. However, within the digital kingdom, it seems as though it does matter because that digital imprint, or watermark, if you will, is so indelibly stamped on so much of digital photography, at least in my opinion. It’s an unavoidable question because, if you’re sensitive enough to the digital process, you are all too aware of its presence when you see it.
From my point of view, to not question a suspect digital image on process would almost be irresponsible. I find this to be particularly and especially true when looking at digital news photographs, for example. Traditionally, if a question arose concerning the validity of a news photograph, the debate could be settled by bringing forth the original negative. An independent analysis of the original negative could prove or disprove whether or not an image might have been distorted or manipulated by the photographer, or the newspaper editor. Not so in the digital world. What would you bring forth as evidence? The image in question burned on a CD by the photographer trying to save his career from implosion because it turns out it’s a false image designed and manufactured to further an editorial point of view of the photographer, or the paper? There are some really astounding controversies about this matter that have surfaced in the media during the last few years and careers have been destroyed and prestigious photojournalism awards rescinded.
Of course, Mr. Neenan is not trying to win a Pulitzer Prize for news photography with his present body of work. But the point of my wanting to know more about a particular photographic process is important when the concern for process, and indeed, the near religious celebration of the digital process, reaches to such a high level of awareness in the viewer, as well as the curator and artist and other art knowledgeable and art aware people. This hyper-awareness and cult-of-personality focus on the process of digital photography is just one of the many concerns that I have about digital photography.
In my opinion, and I’m not really sure who to blame for this, corporations or artists, at a very quick point in the timeline of the evolving life of digital photography, the process became too conscious of itself. Digital photography mediates itself in ways that are reductive and replicative. For example, take digital images that can be captured by certain cell phones. As soon as you’ve seen one, you quickly realize you’ve seen them all. Again, they carry a certain digital imprint that can not be escaped by the photographer using the cell phone camera. The technology of the digital cell phone cameras, again, leaves a certain unmistakable digital imprint and, in effect, that imprint delimits the ability of the photographer to break outside of that technological limitation.
Of course, the typical pattern of adoration and exploitation of such digital innovations as cell phone cameras reaches near comic levels of modern art surrealism: before we knew it, digital images captured by cell phones were being curated online and in museums. It’s as if it’s impossible to step out of the mediated and replicative structure of digital photography to achieve a non-traditional digital image. As soon as a technologically innovative way to capture digital images is released to the market place, there’s already in place a mediated curatorial response to replicate it through the traditional, or even non-traditional, hierarchical systems of art appraisal. And that’s the central question in my mind: What are the traditions of digital photography and how do you break those traditions if you desire to do so? Enter Mr. Neenan…
Like many when confronted by images produced by an unidentifiable source, I find it very difficult to honestly admit that I don’t want to know how they were made. When I look at “Nuclear San Francisco”, for example, I have to admit that I do want to know how Mr. Neenan made this image. Without knowing him and without knowing how he achieves his images, however, I would be forced to make certain assumptions. Many of my assumptions would, as a criminal trial attorney might say, “assume facts not entered into evidence”. My assumptions would be predicated on certain traditional understandings of the processes of photography, including digital photography.
For example, one of the really interesting things about “Nuclear San Francisco” is the printed black key line that surrounds the image. Again, you really have to see the work in person in the frame to appreciate the absolutely breath taking beauty of this piece. The key line is a very old and time honored traditional element of film photography. Incorporated as it is into this work brings a traditional context to the piece that further enhances its unique non-traditional quality.
When I look at Mr. Neenan’s work in person, I really have to bite my tongue to avoid going down that path of wanting to know or ask: “How do you do it?” How it’s done is less interesting to me in his case than what it is. Indeed, I’m almost reluctant to want to know how it’s done. “Too much info is too much to know to say no to,” as my grandfather in Mississippi used to say. Mr. Neenan’s photographic work has a very traditional soul and heart that is magical poetic photographic beauty achieved in a mysterious non-traditional photographic way. His images contain what is so lacking in so much of the endless stream of programmatic digital photography I have seen: humanity.
Sincerely,
James W. Bailey
Posted by: James W. Bailey | Wednesday, October 06, 2004 at 04:37 PM