Image Makers, Image Takers

From the reading, taken from the text Image Makers Image Takers, I gained a further understanding of the artists’ missions and the process others go through to create their art. Although I found all of them stunning, enjoying Stephen Shore’s use of color and light, Rineke Dijkstra’s repetitious subject positioning/stance, and David LaChapelle’s humorous, yet stunning color images, the artist I most related with and enjoyed was Mary Ellen Mark.
The first interests I had in photography developed from photographing the world around me, including family, friends, and strange figures. As I have gotten older, the images from National Geographic have become some of my favorite for their raw ability to insight emotion. Mark not only captures images in a documentary fashion, but she does it in a way that appeals to my interests, technically, as a photographer. The artist mentions that she feels that film suits her best, as if she is not done with the hypnotic nature of the developing process and the concentration it asks for. I have always been taught never to crop an image/negative. In her interview, Mark discusses her long running mission to never crop the negative, never allowing her students this ability as well. Mary Mark chooses people to photograph that are interesting due to their faults and differences, something I would enjoy exploring. As she discusses the girl in Turin, she explains that taking these photos of others “disabilities” or “faults” does not make her feel guilty, it makes her look closely, explaining that it is the viewers’ embarrassment and guilt that is projected onto the image, thus making it something taboo. Finally, when asked about her preference for color or black and white, Mark sides on the side of traditional B & W photos, stating “…the abstraction of the black-and-white emphasiz[es] the spirituality of the subject.” I have never been able to understand why, I, an individual naturally drawn to bright colors, would have such an affection for black-and-white photography. This quote has inspired some thoughts of why it may interest me so, opening a window of exploration further into the subject.
This reading was, overall, educational for its various perspectives on photography as a medium. Seeing photographers workings with color, black and white, digital, and film, we are given a number of options for study and interpretation. What I found most interesting, when considering the reading as a whole, was the common agreement that one cannot develop a way of seeing, but that it is natural to the individual, and can be developed and encouraged if it already exists. This notion draws to mind, not question, but curiosity of my own photographic eye, and where it may lead me or how it may develop in the year to come.