TURN AWAY THE STONE

By MICHAEL PERKINS

THINGS BEGIN TO OSSIFY AS WE AGE. Bones. Veins. Memory.

Curiosity.

Over time, photographers, no less than anyone else, can see their once-fluid sense of technique solidify, then freeze utterly into stone, as approaches that began as innovation descend into mere habit or repetition. Worse, such slowing of the creative muscles can be mistaken for a “style” or a “signature look” or anything that sounds better than, say, “stagnation”.

Every stylistic innovation holds the seeds for future paralysis.

As we teach ourselves how to achieve a particular visual result, we pass, year after year, through four distinct phases in how we view our results. These phases determine how we regard the act of creation itself going forward, and they can be generally described thus:

1.  I have done it this way once before.

2.   I have usually done it this way before.

3.   I always do it this way.

4.   Obviously, that’s the only way to do it.

The first phase is tinged with a bit of amazement: hey, it worked. The second speaks of comfort, the kind of casual ease that comes with relying on something that worked once, and hey, why mess with success? The third phase sees the beginning of a slow-down, a reliance on something that will be predictably safe, and, besides, it’s now a trademark of sorts, expected of me. The fourth and final phase involves the silencing of any further discussion. The old technique in question is now “classic”, the yardstick, beyond debate. Tradition. At this point, creativity becomes nothing more than replication, ensuring more and more of the same kind of pictures, veering us away from art and into the sameness of craft.

Everyday we see articles that defend artistic paralysis as some kind of grounded science. I found the way. I know the truth. We need to turn away from stone and toward an every expanding elasticity in how we see. Otherwise we are no longer photographers, but mere on-demand printers. And for that, no one needs a camera.