I really appreciated that the commentary on both of these documentaries was directly from the photographer, instead of from some other narrator or observer of the work. I think that hearing a photographer talk about their own work is important, and I'd like to see more of these documentaries.
What struck me as most interesting about Nan Goldin from the documentary was hearing her approach to photography. She mentioned that her camera functions partly as her memory because she realized early on that what she saw on TV had no connection to real life. So, she wanted to take pictures in order to keep a record of real life. It seems that she is really playing with the notion that photography reveals truth and translates reality. But when I think about the nature of photography, I think about how manipulative it can be, and how a photograph can often distort reality so much that it becomes much more than a mere documentation of a situation in a specific place. So, clearly, there are very different ways of looking at photographs. But I think that what Nan Goldin does with her images is enlightening in this regard. She touches on the idea that we as the viewer are going to project our own interpretations of what she decides to show us, despite the fact that a lot of her photographs embody a strong sense of her story and her very personal life. She photographs inside of an incredibly underground community of people associated with any variety of constant transitions between genders. So, these images become narrative of some sort of reality. Either way, I can appreciate Goldin's work even though I am interested in completely different matters. She clearly photographs her obsessions with the community in which she lives, and with gender and sexuality and any kind of transition between genders. She also mentioned that a lot of her work focuses on a central theme of the condition of being human, and the pain and how difficult is really is to survive. What really stuck with me after watching the documentary was her story about her life as a photographer before, during, and after her battle with drugs and her struggle through rehab. The fact that she photographed her face after rehab in order to see what she looked like without drugs really drives home the fact that she uses her camera as a way to see.
Daido Moriyama approached photography in a completely different way. Both photographers photographed their immediate surroundings. For Goldin, it was her home, her neighborhood, and the places that she and her friends spent the most time. For Moriyama, it was the city, in which he roamed around aimlessly and photographed anything and everything. Both of them often took pictures based on the idea of capturing a completely real and natural moment by chance instead of planning it out. However, Moriyama's process for shooting was more based on a random encounter while out "hitting the streets." He even expressed that many of his favorite images resulted from "accidental shots," captured mistakenly while advancing film. His approach is a lot like my own way of photographing by going on a journey to figure out the surroundings and using the camera as a tool on this journey. I found it quite interesting and definitely surprising to find that Moriyama used a cheap compact "point and shoot" camera. Initially, it made me think that I shouldn't take him as seriously as I would to any other serious photographer. But his explanation of why he used that camera allowed me to open my mind and think more about the effect that a camera's presence can have on a person being photographed. He stated that by using a small, more common and casual looking camera, he found that people are far less intimidated by his presence while he is taking pictures on the streets. I think that, while his images may seem more random and scattered than Goldin's photographs, they both take a fairly similar approach to the idea that photography can capture reality in a way that conveys a sense of natural truth.
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