Greatness
Friday, 21 March 2008
There's an interesting thread over at Photonet posing the question .... Is it wrong to see your own photography as great?
I've long been of the opinion, that the only person that really matters when it comes to taking photographs is yourself as the photographer. I quickly learnt that what I liked wasn't necessary the same as everyone elses preference. Using this rational I suppose its quite possible to see ones own photography as great, however it's probably not going to go down too well if you go out and proclaim yourself to be a great photographer, you risk at best being thought of as arrogant and at worst being corrected.
Having recently listened to interviews with Henri Cartier-Bresson and Garry Winogrand, photographers we might call great, they tend to be surprised at the reaction of the public to their work and clearly don't regard themselves as great. If we ask ourselves what motivated the great photographer, then I suspect apart from the need to earn some money, it was probably more of a deeper routed passion to express themselves using image and not the desire for notoriety.
In my opinion "greatness" is a word to be used by others. As photographers we are far too emotionally attached to provide anything but a subjective opinion. While we might strive for perfection and be pleased with the result we are not able to judge our own work objectively and dispassionately.
Greatness for me also has a timelessness about it. In it's true sense it needs to stand the test of time, it is not a word that can be used off the cuff when viewing recent work. For a photograph to be truly great then it needs to be able to be viewed in 5, 10, 20, 50 years and the current day audience still feel it is brilliant. Perhaps this is why so many artists don't become great until they're dead.
Finally, does it matter anyway? Like the true greats we should not be driven by the wish to be great but by our passion and pleasure to see how something looks photographed.
Posted by Gordon at 07:05
very well put, I totally agree.