Photography
as I talk and write about
Why do I photograph?
There is always that cliché answer for it: I have to
photograph.The fact actually is that I do not have to.
Photography is about seeing the world around you. How you spot details and patterns, movement and light.
That is not just technical but above all a matter of sensitivity. It is a way to make sense of matters and
happenings. It is as if I need to see so toreason for my existence. Often there is an intense lonely feeling
and yet you cannot live without people. Peter HØeg wrote '...it is not fundamentally possible to be alone.
Fundamentally , man has to be with other people. If man becomes totally, totally alone, then he is lost.'
Photography is a ritual to understand oneself. The more you know about others the more you know about your
place among them. You simply live photography. That is why I photograph.
Just a thought after some lectures. There is yet much to put down about frustration and inspiration.
Certainly art can be a means for communicating with others. So, aesthetic values should primarily be private (if self-expression is crucial) to begin with. Art can serve well as an autodidactic means, enriching oneself, reaching out from within. Internal communication is also a kind of communication. The otherwise, starting out first for a theory or purpose, not from the self, seems an integration and submission to the institution, a practice in which subjectivity towards the reality comes almost as default. Again, this is not to say that aesthetics and functionality cannot coexist. What is pivotal is the direction from which art work originate. There should be a balance between the institutional grip and self-government. An artist is not a brainless factory worker and should not become one.
Like other artistic practices, photography has been exploited for different purposes. Incorporation with Saussurean thought (and language theory) has undermined the aesthetic significance of photography, rendering it to a secondary status. A theory based on the incorporation takes photography primarily for its (social and cultural) functionality, for instance representations, framing and reprocessing meanings. Thus it reduces the significance of the artist. But regardless, aesthetics, creativity and individuality still hold an essence in the art. Art is as much for oneself as for the collective. A point of view disregarding or flavouring either side makes it unfaithful towards the art. Obviously a balance and priority has to be set and staged. Photography is situated in the middle of a two-way alley, depending from which end one approaches the practice, its nature varies.
Elliot Yeung © MMII