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What Photography Means
By Martin Elkort
Remarks given during the opening of Martin Elkort's one-man show
at the Barry Singer Gallery, Petaluma California in February
of 2006
I’d like to take a few minutes to talk about what makes a
photographer get up day after day and go out into the world to take
pictures as well as what makes the world (museums, galleries, collectors
and casual viewers) respond to these photographs.
Photography is a paradox. On one side of our metaphorical
photographic coin is the reality of the image, or what we perceive
to be the reality. Who can deny that the lampposts of Paris
looked exactly like the ones in Eugene Atget’s photographs? A
lamppost is a lamppost is a lamppost. As time passes they evolve
from gas to electric to mercury vapor, but they are still lampposts,
just as they were in Atget’s day. Except that, as time
passes, Atget’s lampposts acquire the patina of history, just
as his vintage photographs do. His photographs thrill us to
this day because now they are not only art, but they have become
a time machine to transport our imaginations into the past—the
same past inhabited by Voltaire, the very same streets trod by Dumas
and the patriots of the Revolution, riding in chains to the guillotine. Did
Eugene Atget imagine that is what his photographs would come to represent
as he schlepped his heavy view camera and tripod and his plate holders
through the deserted streets of his beloved city. Perhaps!
The other side of the metaphorical photographic
coin is the photo as untruth, a manipulated image, a lie. Susan Sontag wrote
about this side of the paradox in her book, “On Photography.” A
photograph is a slice, a laboratory cross-section cut from the inner/outer
movie of our lives, which is most often taken out of context. Diane
Arbus’ photograph of a young boy holding a toy hand grenade
is terrifying in its implications of a twisted mind. But upon
examining the contact sheet, we see that the other images are all
of an apparently normal little boy, rather pleasant, playing. Has
Arbus served the cause of truth or did she take an odd, accidental
pose and use that to represent her inner perception of the outer
reality?Or what about the photographer who crops his
pictures, tones them, textures them and otherwise manipulates them
in the lens and later in the darkroom—is he or she serving
the truth or foisting a lie upon us? With due respect for his
undoubted genius, was Ansel Adams manipulating the truth when he
took a light blue sky and turned it jet black with a red filter? Certainly
it made for a better picture—a masterpiece by an undoubted
master. But was it the truth?
For me, what unites these two sides of the
coin is the underlying need behind the photographers quest. We
take pictures to record history. We take pictures to capture
an aesthetic that we find pleasing, a sunset or a pretty flower.But
what underlies all of these is a need to reveal a truth –to
extract from the minutes of our lives an awareness, an understanding
of something that is greater than ourselves. When
we look at a picture of a pretty flower, when the photographer
is successful, he or she helps us see the perfection in nature,
the inexpressible beauty that was created by something we cannot
name. When we
look at a picture of a screaming child who has just been hit by Napalm,
we see the truth of war, lives torn asunder by excruciating pain
and fear. Maybe the viewer will become an advocate for peace
and attempt to change our world in the ways that he or she knows
how. Isn’t this what life is all about, what makes
it worth living? We all need more than bread for a complete
life. We need meaning and truth and a connection to the world
beyond our own bodies.
For me that connection comes with a camera. The
simple answer to why I take pictures is that it makes me happy, gives
me a deep and lasting satisfaction, and engages all my skills, training
and the innate talent I possess. The Declaration of Independence
says we have certain rights, among them: life, liberty, and the pursuit
of happiness. And I surely am pursuing happiness with my camera. When
I take pictures of children, I’m not trying to capture their
cuteness or emerging beauty. I seek to capture the essence
of childhood; I see the child as a chrysalis of a future adult. In
their childhood innocence they are unaware of danger but filled with
the curiosity of discovery and, like me, the photographer, they also
pursue happiness. In their case, the pursuit is unconscious. In
my case it is with the full knowledge that it is the pursuit itself,
and not the reward, which engages my senses and intellect.
But the deeper reason I take photographs
is I am on a search for my own truth. Voltaire’s hero, Candide, goes through
life seeking and telling truth to all who ask. So I suppose
I am a Candide-ian, a candid cameraman, also seeking the truth, but
with a camera. In my photographs, I try to simplify a complex
visual world. I try to find in a moment its essence, very much
like the poet does with words. But while my photographs appear
simple, they are the product of my lifelong training as an artist
and my love of a story. I see life as a series of meshed, ongoing
stories, all happening at once, a cacophony of existence, glorious
and ignoble, repeated and interconnected. Like a magician doing
card tricks, the images flash by in an endless array. It is
my task to isolate that one moment, to capture that essence
when I snap the shutter. When I succeed, I have created
something that reaches beyond the paper it was printed on, something
greater than the sum of its parts. I have created art. |
