has it all been done before

[Merg Ross]

A photographer familiar to Kirk and myself, said this in 1976 when responding to the question before us: "At this time in the history of photography, everything has been done. All the novelties have been done... All we have to look for now is, as a picture, does it move my heartstrings? If it does, why should I condemn it just because it happens to look like something Weston did?" .... Minor White, shortly before his death the same year.

Minor's comments take me back to an earlier time in my life as a photographer. I first photographed at Point Lobos in the early 1950's with a view camera, accompanying Edward Weston's son Brett to the location. We made a lot of excursions there. I was in my early teens and when I turned seventeen had taken up the 8x10. One morning I was at Weston Beach with Brett, both of us with 8x10's. I asked Brett, how could I photograph at a place he and his father had so well documented, and make a photograph of any significance. His answer, I carry with me today; Brett said, "everything has been photographed, simply see it your way".

[Vaughn]

How does doing something that is personally meaningful make the question "has this been done before?" irrelevant to my audience?

Dang, I was just about to agree with Kirk, and you throw in this interesting monkeywrench!

There are several audiences. Forgiving (or not) friends and family. The General and his public. People who follow your work, perhaps for many many years. Fellow professionals (or forum members). Professionals in the field that is the subject of your images. I think relevance will vary with the audience...and how well one can communicate ones meaning. So hopefully your audience is one that appreciates meaning as well as uniquiness (sp).

I consider myself lucky. I live in an incredibly beautiful natural area with the finest groves of redwoods within an hour's drive north or south. I learned photography under the redwoods. I have studied, planted, saved, hugged, climbed over, and slept under redwoods. I sort of like them. Sixty mile per hour windstorm a couple miles in on a ridge trail with trees still 250 + feet above...listening to limbs break and begin their hundred or two hundred foot drop -- thinking, "I don't think the college 4x5 monorail was a great idea today." Rain. Wind. Sun when I wanted fog. Hiking up the middle of the creek because the trails had seen no maintenance in 6 years. Being surrounded by elk in the middle of an exposure. And no one. No one at all.

The redwoods have not been subject to deep study much -- a lot of passer-bys, some great ones. Ansel published a few photos of this area as he passed through. I love his Bull Creek Flat image. Weston had a hell of a time with his long exposures under the redwoods and only got a few good images on his trip(s) through Humboldt County. Probably the only thing I could have ever offered him advice on, since I have wasted countless sheets of film for the same reasons. And I am certainly not the only local photographer. There have been some good color photographers as well...a couple I know probably know Prairie Creek as well as I do. But few have been able to dedicate the time and deeply study of the light that makes it way through centuries of redwoods and reflects off the rain forest floor.

But with the amount of time I have spent photographing and walking under the redwoods, it has me thinking -- have I done this before? Sometimes yes and sometimes the same scene -- with a different format (I sort of look at it as enlarging the same negative to a different size print). I bring the experience of working with the same image and use it with a different format and new light. Sometimes decades later. But generally the question drives me to see more intently as I hike thru the trees.

My Yosemite work is also partially driven by "It has all been done before." What a challenge! After the fact, I have found 'my' images in the books of other more noteworthy photographers. Alas! (see Plate 46 in Listen to the Trees) Well, I still like mine better... But there is no reason for me to photograph in Yosemite Valley except to extract personal meaning or to celebrate the light, or whatever inspires me to set up the camera. Why make another image of Half Dome, unless I strive to make it my own.

[LabRat]

It's not the subject, it's what you bring to it, or what it reveals to you and the viewer...

Steve K

[N Dhananjay]

In motivational research, there is a technique called laddering which involves asking "Why is that important?" to any attribute (e.g., "making original art") that is stated to be important in a decision or activity (e.g., painting or photography). The point is that if you can answer the question (e.g. "because I want to be famous and admired"), it means the attribute or activity is only important as a means to an end - it is not motivating in and of itself. So, if you are asked 'Why do you photograph?" and you answer "To make money" - it is making money that is the actual motivation and you should look at other activities that might do this more efficiently or effectively. An actual motivation reveals itself in an inability to answer the question.

I think we can often get preoccupied with other things - fame, making a living, stroking one's ego etc. But a truly motivating activity is motivating in and of itself. That is why we get it at some level when we hear George Mallory's response to "Why do you climb the mountain?" - "Because it is there." We recognize that explaining the motivation for doing something that speaks to us deeply is not possible - in some sense, we do it to find out about ourselves and our motivations, what makes us tick.

In other words, just do it. And let other things like fame, making a living take care of themselves or attend to them independently.

Cheers, DJ

[ic-racer]

It is difficult to make identical images, so unique photography is easy. Too easy; sometimes imitation, quoting famous images and re-photography can be more of an intellectual challenge.

[rdenney]

So, I followed Sal's link to TOP and then to the definition being discussed there (I forget the actual word, but it essentially the concern expressed by the OP--the futility of making the photos others have made. A simile in that definition struck me:

"...like a mass-produced piece of furniture you happen to have assembled yourself."

But I think that assembly matters. Is it an IKEA bookshelf that required six turns of a screwdriver? That may bring satisfaction to a novice, but to me it's just work. Is it simply crafted from hardwood boards? That would bring satisfaction to me (it both tests my skills and fits my aesthetic), but would be just work to a master cabinetmaker. Part of the satisfaction is mastering techniques that serve one's intentions. I don't think the difficulty of the technique imbues any independent artistic merit (we've had that discussion before), but it greatly enhances my personal satisfaction.

The intentions are where the meaning comes in. I have passed on many photos that I knew I could execute technically because there was nothing about the scene that struck me. I don't need to put it into words--if I did I'd need to be a writer rather than a photographer. But I do need to feel something about the scene. It may be a grand feeling or a simple one, buts genome not feeling anything, I leave the camera in the case.

So what if someone else has felt the same thing? That doesn't invalidate my feelings, or the feelings of the person to whom I am communicating, who may never have felt that or who may find I give them more access to that feeling that other similar works. We sometimes think that our audience is as knowledgeable of the work of others as we are, or that they have access to it even if they know about it. And I still hear performances of music composed 400 years ago that moves me afresh, so expressions of feelings must be a bit like snowflakes.

When I purposely copy what others have done, those feelings are being translated too many times, perhaps. Adams felt something about a scene, and communicated that feeling to me in the photograph he made. I then try to convey that feeling again by making the same photo, which is the result of me purposely trying to duplicate something that I have seen. That may be useful as an exercise, but my result will probably be like butter spread over too much bread. Or a mechanical performance of a great musical composition, where the result depends wholly on the composer and gets nothing from the performer.

But when I purposely try to be innovative for the sake of innovation, the result is foolish and contrived. And I have learned that when I try to make "art" I end up with image titles that start with "yet another...".

So, I try to follow my own feelings, no matter who invented the technique I'm using, and regardless of who may have felt it before. That is a much bigger challenge than technique, and it has stymied me for long periods. Most of my photos of often-photographed places end up not looking like anyone else's, but that doesn't mean they are any good. Often, my time there isn't when the window to my feelings is even open. The great photographers have struggled with that, too, which is why we usually don't see that much of their total work output.

Rick "who struggles to feel on demand" Denney

[Peter Lewin]

The first issue is that even this thread has been done before! I couldn't think of the right terms for the search engine, but exactly this question has been asked previously on the LFPF, and the answers were very similar to those posted in this version of the thread. But that doesn't make the current responses any less valid, and in putting our thoughts together, most of us are "starting fresh." Exactly the same applies to many of our photographs, even though they too have been done before.

In his very well phrased response, Kirk used the phrase "personally meaningful" and Rick uses both the words "where the meaning comes in" and "follow my own feelings." My own favorite word in this context is "resonates," in the sense that I will make the photograph if the scene/subject "resonates with me," meaning that it causes some sort of emotional response, even if the response is as facile as "that will make a nice picture" (the feeling I usually have when viewing white clapboard buildings, since I only work in black & white ...). Another way of saying it that I make pictures for my own enjoyment, which is largely independent of whether someone else has made the same image for their own reasons. The one exception is that having a pretty good library of photo books (4 shelves worth), if I realize that something I am looking at, say the church in Taos, N.M., has been photographed by Adams, Weston, and many others, I do make an effort not to exactly duplicate the image. But that rarely happens.

I actually thought about this very subject recently when I saw a picture of an Anasazi ruin on one of the Large Format Facebook groups I belong to. The ruin is called the "Fallen Roof Ruin" in Utah. The posted image was very well done, but it reminded me very much of a similar image in John Sexton's "Places of Power," and I asked the photographer if he was familiar with Sexton's version. While the two were almost identical, his answer was "no," so his image was meaningful to him, even if I was aware "it had been done before." And doing a Google search, I found it has been "done before" by quite a few photographers. Yet, were I to be at that ruin in Utah, I too would make a similar image, because I always find Anasazi ruins "meaningful" (yup, they "resonate" with me.) And while I might also try to find an original point of view, from what I've read the ledge is small, and probably everyone ends up using "the same tripod holes." But I bet that wouldn't stop most of us from unpacking the 4x5 or 8x10 and going to work, I know it wouldn't stop me!

[Tin Can]

Everyday's a new day. Ancient ruins crumble before us.

Last night watched PBS King Herod's Herodium, which has both lasted and not.

Just knowing of it, resonates

[Ken Lee]

If a work reaches a pinnacle of inspiration, it rings the bell. If we're lucky, we get to ring the bell.



Some fortunate artists (like Monet) can ring the bell over and over.

It didn't seem to bother Monet that he repeated even himself. Just ringing the bell was enough.

[Drew Wiley]

A couple summers back, slightly below Kearsarge Pass on the Kings Canyon side, I stumbled smack onto the exact spot AA took a famous shot. Since it was a
convenient large granite slab, I set up my own tripod on what could have been his own tripod marks. The lighting was similar, and the perspective identical. Ho
hum. Then I looked over my shoulder and thought to myself, how the heck did he miss THAT?!! So my shot was indeed from the same spot, but the subject in the
opposite direction. I like my shot a lot better.