Additional Portfolios
People, Light and the Illusion of Photography
Why I Photograph
As a student, I heard Garry Winogrand respond to the question of why he takes pictures with his famous quote, “I photograph to see what the world looks like in photographs.” Unfortunately, no one (including me) asked him the critical follow up question, "Why do you want to see what the world looks like in photographs?" I have come to understand that the answer to the second question, for me (and perhaps Winogrand as well), concerns trying to understand the unique complexities and contradictions that inform the way photography transforms the three-dimensional world into a two-dimensional image.
All photographs appear to present a literal, optical rendering of a situation, although some seem to have significance greater than the content they capture; but without captions they can be ambiguous, mysterious, serendipitous and surreal—a complex tableau with a deeper meaning that may, or may not, be specific to the subject matter itself. These are the kinds of photographs I’m looking for.
Even for masters of “street photography,” the success rate for making quality images can be infinitesimally small. Robert Frank’s seminal book, The Americans, contained 83 photographs culled from 28,000 negatives (0.003%). When Garry Winogrand died at age 54, he had exposed over 20,000 rolls of film (720,000 images).
With these obstacles in mind, I try to keep my own artistic practice simple: I endeavor to photograph by reacting to the world with a spontaneous, open mind, and then carefully look at the images. Through countless repetitions of this cycle, I learn how choices made before and during the photographic process affect the outcome. The goal is to create something that precisely describes, but also transcends, the subject itself. Nicholas Blair
(Image: San Francisco, 1977)