As a photography instructor, my very first question to students in the Intro Photography course is always “What is Photography?”. No one ever gets the answer I am looking for. Photography, when defined, is light-writing. Aspiring photographers need to understand that what they are doing is writing a story with images written by light to convey will relate to the viewer in a specific way. Ann was one of those students who fully understand this concept.

A snapshot will tell a short story of a few words, who or what, etc.. A picture will tell a story of more words, and include some creativity or artistry worth more words. But a photograph tells a story that is much more; it speaks a thousand words to the viewer, and when joined with other similar images, speaks volumes. Photography has to start in the mind’s eye of the photographer. The more creative the mind of the writer, the more interesting the story will be to the viewer (reader).

I am very proud Ann and her works, and am really happy she is stirring the minds of others interested in visual stories. Subject matter and story lines differ, but the concept of a quality story is always the same.

I am a photographer. I am an artist. See? Everybody wins! I don’t care about the camera or the process. They are just tools I use. To me, that means I envision something, and I use the camera to do something about it. I know how I want it to look and I use the other media to create it if needed – to perfect it. I try to make humble attempts to take something you cannot hear, touch, or feel and make it so. In essence, I sense the images like a dog with a bone. I gnaw at them and use different tools until they speak to me and hopefully to you. I think I can be best described as a photographic artist.

In the series, I used the mask and the wolf to represent fear and our ability to overcome it. After all, fear is our biggest enemy and what I believe holds us captive in every aspect of life. From child rearing, relationships, health, finance, security, even photography! The list is endless. Learning how to become fearless is what set me free to experience joy in the mist of the muck of life. I can continue to tell you what I had in mind when I created this work but that is not what I believe is important. Rather, what is it that you see? How do they make you feel? Do they make you think?

I so enjoyed all the references made to the great illustrators, writers and photographers. It tells me that I may be on the right track. I am of the belief that everything has been done before. It is how it can be done in a different way that I am after. I think the commonality lies in our search to describe in tangible terms something we feel.

I am particularly interested in Jeff’s comment related to the concerto format. Point well taken and am intrigued to perfect the project with this in mind. I know little of music structure but your comments have inspired me to learn more and incorporate this concept in my work. After all music makes us feel.

I am the epitome of “emerging”. David’s mission found its mark. I have only been working in fine art seriously for a little over a year. I may be a newbie but I am I am no spring chicken either. I have had another life and career as a nurse before fine art photography found me. I am raising 4 teenage boys, have 3 dogs and 2 cats. I am not all about my work and create it only because I feel compelled to do so and it pleases me. I am FREE to accept gladly all forms of criticism and advice and ideas! I mostly like the connections and dialog that it has provoked and friends I have made who share the same passion for photography I do. For me that is the most rewarding reason for my work.

Paul, feel free to punctuate away. I stink at it!
And to Panos..Let Lola, the dawg, potty please…

AKAKY IRL; Not much, is it?

AKAKY: Nope.

AKAKY IRL: Sort of like being Miss Zucchini Festival of 1987.

AKAKY: That’s about the size of it.

Anyway, I liked it.

But I tend to like all the essays here. I am a lousy critic.

I’ve been thinking this since the first time I saw the essay, Michael just wrote it down much better than I could have.

I love that this got published here, and congrats to Ann for that, but it just doesn’t speak to me. That’s not really a criticism of the set, but may be a criticism of me.

Regarding what’s presented on burn, although I obviously don’t like every single thing that’s ever been published, I’ve rarely been critical of the fact that anything has actually been published — with the very rare exception of some work I thought overly propagandistic or plagiarized. And I’m not starting now. I enjoy the magazine. But I can’t help note there seems, at least to me, a small trend towards more art directed work of late, and a larger trend towards slicker, more accomplished photographers. It’s been awhile since we’ve seen anything of questionable technical quality. Although I was appalled by the old out-of-focus cat in the center of the frame pic when it appeared, I now find that kind of thing has a nostalgic charm.

I agree with Herve on this. This essay seemed to me a conceptualization of early Heidegger’s idea of Being-toward-death, and I can’t find in the essay the artist’s own explanation through her statement, despite the symbolism she explains. If the idea was to convey a specific meaning to the work (the one set forth in the artist’s statement), for me at least, the work failed.

Initially I was aware of how imponderable and difficult this essay was to “read”, because not only do the motifs repeat themselves, but there is very little if any change in the tempo between chapters. Normally in a concerto, there is one, but not the other. In a concerto, there is usually the solo instrument; here there is an equal balance between the wolf and the woman. For the most part, the camera is the same distance away from the subjects. Everything here gets equal billing, repeatedly, with very little change.

In the concerto construction there are general rules of structure. They can be reworked; there needn’t be three movements; the tempos don’t always have to change; sometimes the orchestra actually becomes the soloist. But even though the guidelines can be tailored to taste, the listener’s interest is held by the use of dynamic divergence between these guidelines. Some, at the very least one, of the guidelines have to be adhered to in order to carry the viewer/listener into the story. There has to be some sort of dissimilarity. But Ann does none of that. It is as if she broke every story-telling device known, or rejected them all.

So, in order to give us a photo-essay we can understand, we are read to by Ann herself in her artist statement. Almost frame by frame, we are led; even the chapters are outlined. For some of us this is a no-no; this has been discussed plenty. But, when Herve wrote “one may find it hard to stick to Ann’s own sense of what she senses and puts in it, and rather tempted to fly with it with our own associations”, it is made clear to me. By filling the essay with layer after layer of “similars”, to the point where a full explanation is required, Ann collapses the story structure into some sort of singularity in which we lose ourselves, forcing or freeing us to develop our own associations, or interpretations. Developing our own illumination.

Thanks, Ann. Thanks, Herve.

let us not also forget, and Jock Sturges himself told me this , that when the FBI raided his studio, it made him famous….quadrupled his prints prices….they did not get his good work…and his lovely wife and daughters applauded all the way to the bank!!

and Sally Mann!! same thing…when she was denounced by the Governor of Virginia for her “pornography” of children (her own children) she also took this to the bank….

neither of these fine fine artists tried to create this “publicity” but both smile ruefully when talking about it….and both talked to each other and gave each other support when it was happening…

what you want Paul is a bit of controversy, without actually ending up behind bars!! :)

cheers, david

I do agree with marcin, it is very much akin to illustration, and after all, this is not at all a pejorative statement. Though totally unrelated in subject and obsessions, I am also reminded of J.P. Witkin (who must be nearing the exhaustion of his stays of execution if i follow Panos….).
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The imagery being quite, to be short, archetypal (medievalism, animal symbolism, masks, suffused virginality, etc…), one may find it hard to stick to Ann’s own sense of what she senses and puts in it, and rather tempted to fly with it with our own associations.

I find it wonderful that the extent of essays featured on BURN go from this to the superb and “only photographed” imagery of Kyunghee, and all that is in between.