Photography Has No Hips: Silly Rule Number 19

A bio of sorts -

I packed the trophies gently (not) into a dumpster and retired at fifty in order to spend a year in the wilderness - a year of solitude. It was a goal I set for myself when I was sixteen. I figured that age would nicely separate the first half of my existence from the second. An intermission of sorts.

Life is as diverse as I ever imagined. Am more interested in the connections between things than the things themselves, although some things are pretty nice in their own right. Becoming a child again is trickier than I thought. Living in the country - flyover country, happily, among singing birds and happy crickets with Lovely Rita, two dogs, and a wraparound porch. Quadraphonic peace.

For music, I like the sounds of a puppy's tail wagging, wind through the trees, and a beautiful woman's sigh.

Here's a random question: What the heck was all that back there?

DISCLAIMERS

(Eleven so far, and we're still just now backing out of the driveway. Had seven before I even got the garage door open.)

I have been lovingly advised by helpful friends, wishing only the best for me, I'm sure, that when lecturing around the country, perhaps I should preface my remarks with a few disclaimers, "you know, so as not to step on any toes."
It started simply enough with an offer to buy me a drink, a gentle hand on my shoulder, and "just a couple of tiny little suggestions, mind you."
As time went on, the suggestion list grew. Finally, I had to skip the lecture altogether just to leave time for questions and answers.
Fortunately, blogs have no concept of time, and I can stick these new disclaimers off to the side. I'll probably add more as situations and your helpful and loving suggestions warrant.

1. There are many reasons for snapping pix, or taking pictures, or making photographs, or creating images, or however you wish to phrase it. My goal here is not to denigrate any of those fine functions, or all the others, but rather to guide those who have finally come to The Brick Wall, and help them through it. (Those aren't bricks, by the way.)

2. I will not condemn the amateur. In this blog I will use the word "amateur" (from the French, to love) to refer to those who are photographers for the love of it instead of coming at it with other motivations such as commercial interests. To refer to those lacking skill as amateurs would put us all in that category.

3. My opinions are not necessarily those of any organizations or sponsors I've been associated with in the past or present.

4. My mother did not teach me any of this stuff.

5. This blog should never be thought of as a substitute for the instruction manual for a piece of equipment.

6. This is not a primer for beginning photographers. I have no intention whatsoever of ever discussing equipment except in an incidental way.

7. People who have failed to read their manuals should not be referred to as amateurs. They shall be called ignorant. Ignorance can be remedied. Stupid can't.

8. Ignorance is not an insult. It is merely a description of a temporary, and relative condition, the duration of which being determined by the energy and ambition of those afflicted. And we all are.

9. This blog will not allow name-calling or hurled insults. That's not why I will never call anyone stupid, though. I avoid it for the same reason I don't try to teach pigs to sing or a slab of granite to do the backstroke.

10. Picture vs. photograph vs. image vs. pic.
Call them whatever you like. When I use the term picture, "some circles" think it's demeaning. I think "some circles" are too full of self-importance and become self-aggrandizing. I know of photographers and painters alike who referred to their works, whether photographs or paintings, as "pictures." Some of these pictures are now worth millions.

11. This will not be the place to help people love photography. That should be a given. For me, that will be my point of departure. On the contrary, I intend to take you to the point that I took it to - a frightening place, a level conducive to primal shudders and wide-eyed fear, a level so deep that you will never be able to come back out the same way you went in, a new world, a new reality, a world where you will be scared as hell.

Saturday, March 28, 2009

Silly Rule Number 19

Silly rule # 19:
Heads can be shown in profile, or in a 3/4 turn. Nothing in between.
My response:
Are you kidding me? Where do these requirements get started? Certainly they don't come from the masterpieces in museums that everyone bows to.
My guess is that memes are involved. Memes, to save time for you two people who are interested enough to look it up, was a word invented by Richard Dawkins in 1976, and refers to the contagious imitation of ideas. It's an oversimplification, but I have to move on.
There are an infinite number of positions for the head in a portrait. To limit it to a couple, besides full frontal is an atrocity. It would be like limiting all words to one or two syllables. What? Screw that!
Where a head ends up in a photograph often depends on the moment. If the moment is more important, and it often is, then let it be. Judge the moment and not the turn of the head. What an arbitrary and silly way to see things!

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Fred Hinegardner

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Saturday, March 28, 2009

Silly Rule Number 19

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