People want to understand. How is something put together? Under what circumstances was it made? And most of all, what does it mean? It is not only the world of politics, science and technology that ponder over such questions. In art, too, there is endless analysis.
I often marvel at it. Page-long reflections on a photographer’s oeuvre. Sometimes I don’t see the photos until I’ve read the essay. Expectations are sky high after such a text. And so the work usually disappoints. It’s just pictures, folks.
I’m probably not smart enough to understand black-and-white photographs of random bystanders or get the meaning of overtly staged scenes that are never as dirty and stinky as the real world.
Maybe I’m radically different – which I don’t believe – but I know for sure that my own photos rarely involve long moments of consideration. Nor do I think for minutes, hours or days about its theme. You see, you frame, you click. Your index finger is controlled by instinct. Contemplation is for later.
But why do I shoot what I shoot, then? Maybe that’s exactly the reason: because I want to do something other than contemplate about stuff. I just want to look at pictures, and save them with my shutter button so I can look at them again later. That’s what I do. That’s all there is.
Be frugal with words. They mislead more than they tell.