Michael: Update #2/Crusade, pt 1

This post is mostly for talking about Crusade For Your Art, but first off some other miscellany:

-Still developing my home pictures.  It dawned on me that these will, at least in part, make up my senior show submission and that I specifically told my family "I don't care about commencement, but I do want you to come to my senior show."  Maybe I'll have to give them some fair warning...

-Thinking of getting some new business cards made prior to the SPE convention.  In the past I've gone with Vistaprint and found them to be fine.  What has been your experience with business cards?  Considered the square format at all?


Crusade For Your Art, "Making the Work":
This first part of the book is a simple overview of the fine art photographer’s background conceptual process: stuff we probably already have done or just assume we do, so it doesn’t hurt to have a refresher and remind yourself what you’re about.

That said there’s an area I agree with and another I don’t agree with so much. A number of times she makes the point that we ought to know who has or currently does work in a manner similar to ours. I have found this to be exceptionally critical. By becoming aware of what others have done you get the benefits of seeing their progress and where they’ve been and thereby where else there is yet to go. It’s also rather reassuring and fortifying to have the evidence that others see the same way you do (you’re not alone!) and have been successful in adapting series from these particular inclinations.  Kindred spirits and role models!

But the part that left me uncertain was the way that a fine art photographer’s work was framed, namely that it is a story that reaches the viewer emotionally, which the photographer is tied to emotionally as well.  Is it always a story, what about being just a document or a map?  Is it always an emotional tie -rather than cerebral or philosophical?  Maybe I’m overreacting, for these are fairly broad terms, but I don’t think there need to be conceptional parameters in place like this; just felt a bit limiting.  However, I would agree that we don’t ever really escape emotions nor diverge from the story of humanity or that of our lives, whether they are explicitly depicted or not.