JAGAT FOTOGRAFI

Finding Your Own Voice in Your Photographic Practice

2011-07-11T23:55:00.000+07:00

NOTE: The following article is a reflective answer to a question I've been asking about my photographic practice. I wrote it as an introduction to Suka Suka, an eclectic photo blog of mine which I recently lauched (see the side bar link). The question is:

What kind of photographs will you be making if you had no audience in mind?

_____

There aren't many things that I can say as convincingly as this: "Photography is my passion."

I have been taking pictures since I had my first camera, when I was twelve years old. The fascination with the visual world and the passion to explore it felt so strongly then. It still does today. I'm still taking pictures as 'ferociously' as - if not more than - I was back then.

After all these years, my understanding of the visual world has of course evolved. The curiosity-driven and carefree approach of the beginning years of my love affair with photography have since then been interspersed with serious efforts in understanding it. I began to let the technical nooks and crannies of photography take hold of me. They even at one time had taken the best part of my relationship with photography. My knowledge and skills improved significantly. But I was also beginning to get estranged from the carefree exploratory spirit I once had. My approach to photography became stifled with technical concerns.

I became restless and questioning. I could make technically fine photographs, but I was not happy. They looked good but didn't feel as good. I gave birth to them, with my eyes and hands, but they looked like orphans. I missed the technically imperfect pictures that I made with joy and felt right.

Then I began to explore some more. Taking pictures that I like, some. Taking assignments from others, some. Doing ideal projects so that I could find meanings in my photographic practice, some.

Over the course of doing these things, I began to realize that it was in making the instinctual pictures - pictures that I mentally, emotionally, and spiritually had connection with - that I found joy with. And it was pictures that I made in this way that felt right. They spoke 'me'. There's me in them.

I was ecstatic in this realization. I had eventually rediscovered 'the voice', my photographic voice, that I had forgotten and silenced in the name of technical perfection!

The right pictures that I make are varied in subject matters, diverse in their technical considerations, and may or may not be of interest to others. In these concerns, they are eclectic. But they do have one thing in common: they were made instinctually, often at the spur of the moment in response to a visual stimuli. It is this kind of pictures that I share with you here.

SUKA SUKA is an Indonesian word that means more or less 'the way one likes it'. It is the name I have chosen for this photo blog of mine.

X-Pro

2011-02-16T22:11:00.000+07:00

What can be happening when photographers meet?

X-pro!

I honestly think that's what's going to happen when photographers meet.

Some of you may of course know what X-pro is. It's the short form of cross processing, i.e. the procedure by which - back in the age of film photography - a piece of film is deliberately processed in a chemical solution which is not intended to be used for that particular type of film. The result is, well, interesting! There are these suprisingly 'unrealistic colors', high contrast, and so on and so forth as you can see in this series of photographs I took at a photographers' gathering I attended yesterday.

X-pro can now of course be simulated in digital processing (what's not these days?). Nearly all digital photography processing softwares I know of have this facility/capability. In Photoshop, you can manipulate the contrast and brightness, hue and saturation, and the curve editor to get this effect. In other programs like the PhotoScape, this facility is available in the form of a filter that can be applied with a click of a button.

Technical questions aside, what X-processing do you see in the subject of these photographs?

Photographs from A Rainy Day on The Beach

2010-12-26T01:02:00.000+07:00

Unlike with any other places, the beach is a place where one - a photographer especially - would expect to find the sun and a clear blue sky. Unfortunately, the beach is just part of the earth, and like any other places on it and under the sky, it can also be cloudy and rainy, or even stormy.

So, what would you do if you had come to the beach, all gears packed and ready for the sun, sand, and surf, but found that the place was wet and cloudy?

Here's what I would do:

A photograph taken on the beach during a rainy day (or any day where the sky is overcast for that matter) would produce a near monochromatic image. The soft and even light would even make the picture flat and uninteresting. If this situation discourages you, you might just pack up and go or wait till the weather gets better.

But wait!

The complement of (or cure for?) monochrome is colors. That's it! Colors would break the monotony and the flatness of the situation.

And here's what I did on my recent excursion to a beach with some colleagues when I found that it was rainy and cloudy. I kept walking with my umbrella and camera, snapping whatever I could find interesting photographically all the while scouting for the badly needed colors to make my photographs work.

Then out of nowhere (I was lucky enough here), these girls in bright color clothings carrying bright-colored umbrellas were coming into my view finder. Two were chasing each other playfully. Others were just standing at the edge of the water contemplatively looking at the dark horizon.

"Perfect!" I said. And before I knew it, I had been snapping like crazy trying to follow their moves all the while trying to pay attention to the lines, the perspective, and proportion.

Note: I took all the photographs here with my Canon PowerShot A490 point and shoot digital pocket camera. I only made minor adjustments with a photo editing software for level, contrast, vignetting effects, and resizing.

Medina

2010-07-16T11:57:00.004+07:00

It's been a while since I last posted in this blog. My apology.

I continue taking and making pictures, of course. After all, that's about one of the things that keeps me ticking. Some of those pictures are good, some bad, some taken seriously, some only lightly at the gut's urge of the moment. Some I proudly share with you here and here. But there are countless others that I keep for myself, sitting in the dark corners of my harddisks.

Today I decided to share some photographs that I have - for the past three months or so - kept for myself. I took them in Medina on our Umrah pilgrimage.

Instead of taking the usual pictures of the beautiful Islamic architectures or documenting what were doing or the places we visited, I decided to observe and make pictures of the ordinary, the stuff that many call the street photography.

Here is the first installment from the city of Medina, the first city we visited on our umrah after Jeddah, the port of entry.

Speaking Photograph

2010-02-04T04:01:00.001+07:00

We all know that saying (or cliche?) that a photograph speaks a thousand words. Does it really speak though? Can a photograph speak on its own? If it does, how?

More on this in the next posts.

By the way, I originally posted this photo - and three others I previously posted - on my other blog Bandung Streets [Photography].

_________________________

Karena sudah terlalu sering kita dengar, pernyataan ini menjadi klisye: "A photograph speaks a thousand words." Betulkah foto bisa berbicara sendiri? Bagaimana caranya?

Kita akan cara jawaban atas pertanyaan ini pada posting selanjutnya.

Foto ini - dan tiga foto lain sebelum ini - semula saya publikasikan di blog fotografi saya Bandung Streets [Photography].

The Photograph as Document

2010-01-28T23:59:00.004+07:00

To document is to record. Documentary photography, therefore, can be defined as the practice of photography that is based on the idea that the photograph is a record.

As a record, the photograph gets its authority from, among others, what is called the pro-photographic event (the event was there; it happened) effect and I was there (the photographer) effect. Furthermore, it also gets its authority from the sense of authenticiy it derives from what is called the indexical effect of conjectures of cirumstance. A photograph, in other words, is a "meeting place" or rendesvous of things such as the subject matter, framing, light, characteristics of the lens, the chemical and/or digital processing, etc.

Summarized from Wells, Liz (ed.) (2004) Photography: A Critical Introduction (3rd Ed.), London: Routledge, pp. 17 - 18.

Rainography

2010-01-16T14:53:00.004+07:00

Rainography is obviously a play of words. There is no such a word in the English language. And no dictionaries have had an entry of it yet. I made it up.

Combining the words rain and photography, the new word carries with it the meanings of the constituent words. Its meaning may therefore be construed as photography of the rain. In the study of linguistics, the blending (or combining) of words or morphemes like this is called portmanteau, a word which - etymologically - is derived from the French words "porter" (to carry) and "manteau" (mantle).

Speaking of verbal and morphological blending, let's also remember that a photograph may in itself be considered as a blending of various signs. Hence, it is a text. And like any other texts, it is a locus where a host of other previously existing texts interact with one another in the process of producing this new text (intertextuality). As a text, a photograph can also be read and interpretted.

Painting with Light

2010-01-09T19:12:00.002+07:00

Photography after all is writing or painting with light. The camera is your brush, the digital sensor and/or the film are your canvas, and the light is your medium. Just like painting, what you want to do with them is up to you. Just as there are many painting syles, so there are photography.

Explore!

2010-01-02T17:32:00.004+07:00

Here is what a dictionary says about 'explore':
(1) to investigate, study, or analyze;
(2) to travel over (new territory) for adventure or discovery;
(3) to examine especially for diagnostic purposes.

And when I said that this blog was going to explore and understand photography, those definitions were what I had in mind. I wanted to investigate it, study it, analyze it, and examine it. But more than that, I wanted to travel and discover the new photographic territories and have an adventure in and with it.

Photographic Metonymy

2009-12-26T21:55:00.002+07:00

All photographs are metonymy [of the things they represent] and should be seen and treated as such.

The Streets

2009-12-22T12:43:00.003+07:00

In its candidness, street photography is an uninhibited impression of the every day life as it is unfolding in public places. Yes, I said "uninhibited" - the very word that I think accutely describes the approach that the photographer takes, the setting, and the subject's unaltered state of being.

Photography Is Cheap

2009-12-19T11:19:00.007+07:00

Photography is cheap. In technical terms at least, anything about it is replicable. So, unless it is dedicated to something larger and more essential than itself, it is bound to become just another modern triviality.

No Title - NT

2009-12-05T21:59:00.004+07:00

Sometimes it's best to leave a photograph without a title and let the audience be free to interpret it as they wish just as sometimes we - photographers - do not have the explicit reason why we take that photograph other than because we like it and strongly feel about it.

Lure of the Mannequins

2009-11-28T00:09:00.002+07:00

Mannequins are lifeless figures, we all know. But they are almost always perfect: from head to toe, they are shaped to match the images of perfection. They are like magnets in our own minds about what we want to be - pulling us to the border of the underworld where consciouness is put to the back seat and primordial emotions are taking control: spend, spend, spend ...

Echoes

2009-11-22T11:43:00.003+07:00

Echoe is a familiar word to many of us. You know, it's like what happens when you shout to a solid wall and hear your own voice being repeated.

I was told that the word came from the Greek mythology. Echoe was the name of a talkative oread (mountain nymph) who loved her own voice very much. She was punished by Hera - Seuz' wife - for preventing her from catching her husband's love affairs with the other nymphs by taking away her voice. From then on Echo could only foolishly repeat another's shouted words.

What does it have to to with these photos?

For one, it's their titles: Echo 1 and Echo 2.

The rest is not my right to say. Let them speak for themselves.

A Daily Dose of Excitement

2009-11-19T15:40:00.002+07:00

What do they say about photographers?

They can't live a day without taking pictures. They need it like they need the air they breathe.

To me, it's more like a daily dose of excitement that keeps me ticking. It gives me the relief from boredom that I sometimes feel.

Peanut World: Photo Hunting Reconsidered

2009-11-15T10:03:00.009+07:00

If you are not a full time photographer, chances are that there are times when you just feel that you don't have the time to really go out and hunt for and make photographs. But think again. Photographs are everywhere for you to pick up at will. All you need to do is change your paradigm about a photograph and the way you think about it.

All things can be photographed. Good or bad is the next question. But good or bad are also categorical. There are general criteria for good photographs (although many would not care to think about the bad ones). And even then, these filters don't apply across the board. What's good in one may not be that good in another. Three things, I think, play a very significant role: genre, taste, and cultural setting.

I'll safe the lengthy discussion of those somewhat more complicated arguments for later time. For now, let's get back to the basic premise: anything can be photographed. And that anything is anywhere as long as there is light, for photography is impossible without light. And as I said earlier, all you need to do is change your attitude. Once that happens, you can start exploring - using whatever you have and know about photograph-making.

Snapshooting may be the first step. Let it go. Release your creative energy. Kick out all inhibitions about going happy and shooting at will. Photography is cheap now that the digital technology has made it possible to take and discard photographs without much financial consequences. Once you get heated up and the creative energy is overflowing, start paying attention to details, elements, light, and what's possible under the circumstances. That - in my experience - is when satisfying photographs (I'm not talking about good here) begin to come your way.

All those "procedures" can take place anywhere and anytime. The "Peanut World" above was made at the peak of boredome at the workplace. It was a short round of snapshooting before I began to focus and "saw" and "picked" satisfying photographs.

©Eki Akhwan 2009
PS. I did nothing to edit the photograph, except turning it into black and white and resizing it. The 16:9 ratio format is camera-original.

Blue-Dotted Tap

2009-10-15T00:25:00.003+07:00

Sometimes we pass an object too many times before it attracts our attention.

Ordinary objects do not in themselves have the "mouth" to shout and tout themselves to us. But they do speak in their own ways and frequencies. So, it's us who have to adjust our "ears" to their language and frequencies.

This kind of fine-tuning is not a one shot thing. It's a process. It's continuous. It never does take place automatically. There has to be a deliberate attempt to make our "ears" capable of catching their whispers, their voices, however muted they are.

I know it's strange to talk about photography in auditory terms. But change the word "mouth" with light or sight, and "ears" with eyes or vision, then you have all you need to do with image-making.

Hodge-podge

2009-10-09T15:57:00.003+07:00

You might want to smirk (smugly smile) at this photo: a color snapshot of a mixture of things that seems unrelated except for the fact that they are up in the sky, billboards of some sort, and a jumble of cables and poles.

Yes, it's obviously not that kind of photos that you'd see in an art gallery (at least not one that I've ever seen) or one that has won a photo contest; it's not even a photo of human interests or of a beautiful scene that's so pleasant to look at in an instant. But I like it, if only for the sheer joy it gave me in making it.

It was a spontaneous flow that moves from they eye to my heart and senses and fingers and that split-second time that it took to freeze it in this frame. It probably feels like Cartier-Bresson's decisive moment, only that it is not about an unfolding event whose minutiae elements of motion are so crucial to follow, of which only one is the maker of the decision of whether it is a successful or fail picture (hence the decisive moment). It's just IT, and I like it.

The unrully lines, the rigid geometry of the rectangles and squares, the colors ... Without realizing it in the first place, I might have sensed a harmony in this seemingly hodgy-podgy scene. I was walking, pointing my camera at some other things on the street when I looked up and spontaneously moved my arms and finger to freeze what I saw, forgetting the other things I was so intent on finding and capturing just seconds before.

101 - Path of Interests

2009-09-15T20:44:00.001+07:00

Election # 02

2009-09-06T01:25:00.002+07:00

Polling station witnesses at the recent presidential election.

Election # 01

2009-08-21T23:56:00.002+07:00

Photographic Representation and Interpretation

2009-08-05T18:54:00.009+07:00

Contrary to the commonly-held popular belief (or common sense, if you like), a photograph is NOT a representation of objects or scenes, no matter how faithful the images on it may seem. It is an interpretation (or a set of interpretations) of objects and scenes.

The process of interpretation in the production of a photograph is complex and involves different phases that begin even long before a photographer pushes his camera button.

First, let's not forget that a photographer is never born in a cultural vacuum. That is to say that he/she has undergone a long process of cultural programming before he/she even knows how to take a picture. This so called cultural programming includes - but not limited to - the way he/she sees, orders or maps, and values things in his/her mind. Seen in this perspective, a photographic composition is thus never just a mechanical question of formulaic exactness. A lot of subtle and soft-programmed elements are involved and can be traced back in it.

Second, aside from the soft or cultural proramming, a photographer also operates on the knowledge-based level of consciousness when making a photograph. This includes the use of his/her overt and mechanical knowledge of composition, of light, of geometric elements, of subject choice, et cetera that are important in making a photograph.

Like any empirical knowledge, photograph-making know-how may be learned and copied across cultural milieux and as such may - on the surface at least - look neutral, that is regardless of who the person behind the camera is, the "mechanical traces" (that denote knowledge of compositional formulae, etc.) are there and may be universally used to judge and determine the goodness (i.e. qualitative values) of a photograph. But this neutral or neutralizing element never operates alone and out of contexts. The soft and cultural traces will always be imbued and embedded there. It is at this point, I think, that the aesthetic quality of a photograph are often disputed. What looks good to one may not be pleasing to another because different beholders have different sets of expectations.

Of course, we must also be cautious about making straight and rigid claims when it comes to the effect of soft or cultural programming on the production of a photograph. Although more difficult than that of overt knowlege, soft or cultural programming can also be acquired or instilled. Experiences with different and diverse cultural milieux are an important factor that can make one fluently conversant in different cultures and feel equally comfortable with expressing and appreciating different styles of aesthetic expressions.

Written by
Eki Qushay Akhwan
5 August, 2009

Note:
Representation here is defined as "something that stands in for something else"; whereas interpretation is "an attempt or set of attempts to communicate or make sense of things (ideas, objects, scenes, etc.).

Photo Exploration # 35: Space Within Space # 2

2009-06-09T13:57:00.003+07:00

I believe that the more elevated goal of photography is and should be to discover, reveal, and see what the ordinary eyes and mind-eye miss.

In photography, recording and reproducing images are not enough simply because such things can easily fall within the realm of what I call "the mechanical optic" or the mechanical vision".

Discovering, revealing, and seeing what the ordinary eyes and mind-eye miss require more than just glancing or moving your vision superficially across fields and subjects; more than that, you need to penetrate into the very soul that moves your awareness and sense of geometric interplay that provides meanings and dynamic representations of experiential realities.

Such a penetration cannot be achieved mechanically - either by the gears you control or by rigid and schematic attitudes and approaches towards the fields and subjects. Rather, it should and can only be achieved by opening yourself widely to any possibilities and embracing them like you would when you hear a moving set of musical tunes that move you to spontaneously dance without questioning what, why, and how such things could transpire.

Ultimate enjoyment of revealing, discovering, and seeing the unseen comes from within with the externalities functioning only as a trigger that invites you to move in and be involved and emerged in the promising visual experiences that are presenting themselves at the right time and space.

Eki Qushay Akhwan
09 June, 2009

Photo Exploration # 34: Space Within Space

2009-05-05T14:22:00.002+07:00

Space, they say, does not have the boundaries; it's three-dimensional, and the very thing that makes it possible for objects and events to exist. Can that thing we see in the mirror be considered space?

If space is boundless, then it must be. But is the space within the mirror three-dimensional? Is it possible for objects and events to exist - to take place - within it?

Then, there is of course the question of the photograph itself. Is it space? If we stick to the physicist's definition of linear space, it can't be. It has boundaries, the frames. And it's only two-dimensional. However, the photographic "space" does make objects and events exist or can be created to exist.

Let's also consider space's fourth dimension that forms a continuum with time and hence is called spacetime. Now you have the very thing - contentious as it might be - that defines our perception of the universe.

Welcome to space within space.