A friend of mine, an art-lover, explained it to me this way: "I can look at a painting, and in addition to enjoying the picture itself, I can look at the technique behind it; the brushstrokes, the layers of paint added, and so forth. I understand it. But I don't understand photography."
My initial response to Tom's question was to make a parallel between what he understood about painting and the technique behind photography. Sure, I can look at an Ansel Adams photograph and appreciate the composition, the mood, the light and shadow-- but as a photographer I can also appreciate the tremendous amount of experience and technique that he employed to create his images. But a viewer who doesn't "do" photographs isn't going to see that side. Is that viewer missing out on something? In my opinion, not at all. The technique doesn't matter unless the content is there. In Adams' writing, he makes the point that "There's nothing worse than a clear picture of a fuzzy concept."
So that leaves the emotional impact of a photograph, and perhaps a bit of knowledge of color theory and composition, both of which a painting fan might have. But even without the theory side of it, it really comes down to viewer's opinion. What makes it good for you?
That's all good, but after the conversation ended, I wondered whether I could have been clearer in my explanation. It felt like a copout. But it raised some hard-to-explain personal questions about my feelings. And I feel like I could better understand my own feelings about photographs if I wrote them down.
So, I'm going to take an image I like and attempt to explain why I like it based on both a personal and technical level. I'll start with Annie Leibovitz's 1980 portrait of Pete Townshend.
I am not a big fan of Leibovitz's work. To be fair, I've only seen a few dozen of her images. None have really grabbed me to the point that I felt compelled to explore more of her work. To me, her recent work feels sterile, her early work sloppy. Her employer at the time this photograph was taken, Rolling Stone, is a magazine for morons (Frank Zappa's quote about rock journalism comes to mind here; I feel he was accurate.)
Let's start with the image: Pete Townshend, guitarist and songwriter for The Who, rests his head in his hand while gazing ambivalently at the camera. He doesn't seem to care about the stream of blood running down his hand. His expression can be seen as tired, slightly bored, and possibly annoyed by the experience.
From an analytical angle, this is really all about color: Look at the way the yellow background closely matches his face, making his blue eyes a focal point. Notice how his fuchsia shirt contrasts with the yellow, too. And of course, the red blood. The yellow is the softest color present, so she used a lot of it, as the other colors are more vibrant and a little goes a long way with them. I believe this is an example of a nearly triadic color scheme: three colors (yellow, fuchsia, and blue) evenly spaced around the color wheel, with a single primary color added.
Just for fun, I desaturated the photo:
Not quite as effective.
Composition effectively subverts a really boring, standard pose with the bloodied hand and bored expression. His nose is prominent here, and its angle is echoed with his hand. Not much else to say on that. I like tilted head, and the diagonal line one could draw from shoulder to shoulder. She breaks up the frame nicely.
Some quick background: Townshend's guitar windmills and frantic guitar-bashing often left his hands bloodied. It was part of The Who's act. This image works on a literal level: here is a portrait of a working musician just after finishing a show.
But the bloodied hands are also a metaphor: much of Townshend's writing is especially personal to his life. Townshend's work also has a strong undercurrent of angst: he tends to "open his veins" in his writing and let the listener watch him bleed. So, this image also works as a portrait of the person behind the stage show. He's bleeding for you... but he seems almost bored doing so.
This is where the photograph gets interesting to me: Why would Townshend, one who tends to come across as angst-ridden and a bit "tortured" seem nearly bored by his own bleeding? Looking at this picture, I get the feeling that he could be saying "Pete Townshend isn't the man on stage with loud guitar. That's a performance I give" Which raises the question: do we know people as well as we think we do? It questions the fantasies of fame, the cynicism of the business of art, and how well we think we know one another.
I mentioned I wasn't a big fan of Leibovitz. Why would I choose this photograph to write about? Because it has personal meaning to me. I first saw this photograph when I was 8 years old. It was the first photograph I'd ever seen that approached Art in that the look on the subject's face was entirely at odds with what was going on in the rest of the picture. It wasn't a "real" photograph-- so it must have a different intent from those images I was accustomed to (family slides, photos, or the news). And while at 40, I think it's a bit over the top and obvious, it still has enough going on in it to make it a worthwhile submission.
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