Yixuan Liu
English 201
Zack Depiero
July.27 2015
Why Audience and Purpose in Photography?
“Do you think a photographer needs a philosophy to take pictures?” I asked Olivia Parker during the end of the interview. When photographers and writers are doing their job, they tend to have their own purpose to relate every specific information in order to complete an idea. For writer, this is a complicated and time consuming process to carefully thinking so that the final writing evokes reader’s emotional response. So do photographers. Visual works are producing for people to think. In this case, after all writing is done and all pictures are framed, it is time for their targeted audience to review their works to decide the masterpiece. But, it’s having a clear purpose and targeted audience do help you in producing masterpiece? In my opinion, having your targeted audience and a clear purpose to work may effectively benefit the thinking process, idea building, and accomplishing job in photography and writing field. Whether or not you are clear about who you are communicating with, audience would experience the first order and second order thinking in a second.
Thanks to Chuck Place and Olivia Parker who kindly offering me the opportunity to interview them. They are two totally different style photographers who I like in the still life and tabletop photography. Their words strongly support this paper.
Chuck Place’s photography is more about pictures of tasty food and beautiful restaurants, with some food culture and travel photos. Clearly, Chuck thinks about his purpose and audience when producing his work- presenting a good-looking food picture to attract clients to work with him and, to make customers want to serve that food. Because of that, Chuck is popular with food photography in Santa Barbara as well as other photographic fields worldwide.
On the other side, the experience of talking with Olivia makes me feel art is everything for her. With a bachelor of History of Art, Olivia has deeply been influenced with every piece of artwork in the past and even from different culture. Being as a Still Life Fine Art photographer, her photography is more likely towards to the aesthetic world which makes people think . She is living in her own world for 35 years that her ideas are so strong, no one declines on her. Art communicates with people differently, this is how Olivia insists on making art for decades and decades.
Every choices we made were either being all-around thinking or spontaneous.There are two thinking processes that function in two completely different ways to make people think. According to Elbow, first order thinking is a fast, non strive for conscious or control and a relax vigilance. However, second order thinking is a slow, thoughtful and a controlled thinking process. In this case, that means when we are reading an article or looking at a picture, we are are thinking and consciously relates the story to ourselves. Or, we just quickly glance through without picking up the main idea. In the photography and writing condition, whether or not you have a clear targeted audience and purpose, the reader may experience one of these thinking processes.
Effectively understanding the purpose and audience of each of the assignments, Chuck produces specific work for publications and clients that allow the reader to think without effort- they want the food to be in front of them. This is one of the reasons how he had made several publications about tourist books and thousands of food related pictures. Chuck claims that [he] also blogs to keep people updated about who [he is] and what [does he does]. According to <Crafting Messages for Electronic Media>, “identify an audience that is broad enough to justify the efforts and narrow enough to have common interests. Therefore, audience [will] relate to their fresh approach and often build closer emotion bonds with the blogger as a result” (Ch7). Chuck also expresses that, I tried to keep my blogs easy to understand. I put my experience of eating the food that I just photographed and how I was being treated in the restaurant. I think this not only builds a reputation of the restaurant but also my pictures. In this case, Chuck uses his own writing skills to help people further understand the fact behind the pictures- allowing the audience to think in first order thinking without conscious. For example, Chuck explains in his blog about a recent shot in a restaurant, “as far as I’m concerned, however, a good meal is much more than fuel for our bodies. It’s relaxing, it’s interesting and it’s an adventure. The cost is actually reasonable when you consider that you are sampling a particular chef’s creative expression” (Granada Bistro). A simple journal of a shooting experience may evoke the desire of having the food from his audience.
However, different from Chuck Place, Olivia is a vicarious watcher who is carefully observing her surrounding environment for a potential purpose. She is always ready to be inspired by letting her brain go free. One thing that Olivia does to help her think and create is by drawing. She has been taking painting and drawing classes; due to her childhood, her nanny always took her to museum and gallery. All the paints in her memory built up a visual world to support her fine art and still life photography, so she just scratches her ideas out. “I am just letting my thoughts fly” she explains. Then I carefully asked, “does this mean you are not intend to have your work communicate with people or to express your thoughts?”
“At first I thought that good work had to communicate my exact ideas to an audience. Wrong. I now know that every piece of art will communicate with each person in its audience in a different way. Each one of us has an accumulated frame of reference that I call a circle of meaning”, she paused and said, “My circle and your circle are not likely to overlap perfectly. Both of us will have private knowledge that remains outside the common area of overlap, as well as the overlapped area where communication takes place”, Olivia elaborates her thoughtful thinking on her essay as well as telling me her belief. I strongly agree with her standpoint that folk looks at pictures differently. Actually, people may have a totally different interpretation of today’s news, a newly released movie and even a worldwide policy. Carrying all conscious, specific and directed thinking, Olivia embraces her belief into making Fine Art Photography where her works are being established in galleries for people to stop, observe, and think- this is also where second order thinking takes place. Even Olivia does not have a targeted audience, she has more freedom to make art which could have different meanings to different kinds of people. To her, it is a very interesting purpose to just hear people with opposite opinions on a single picture that she created. Does not having a targeted audience matters to Olivia? The answer is already stated.
As I mentioned before, Chuck spent most of his time dealing with clients but Olivia is dealing with galleries- two completely different thinking and writing process is involved. Chuck proclaims that “Photography is not only about taking picture, there is a significant part takes place in marketing when you could sell your work in a better price- writing a treatment”. Writing a treatment to explain your intention in the creation of the photo with regard to concept and communication. It involves details of what you will create the image, and more importantly, why you are creating this image. You also need to include the concept description and purpose in the treatment along with detail of the emotional response you want to achieve from the audience. A treatment is where audience, purpose, first order thinking and second order thinking all occur both in reading and writing. This is a strong relationship between having a clear picture of what you are doing and how well it will be. In this way, Chuck makes his own photography business goes smoothly and successfully as he clearly understand who he is presenting to and why is it significant to present. _____Add Reading materials about Purpose_______
In Fine Art Still Life Photography, when Olivia is producing her work, it is a different way than any other photographers who work with Art directors or clients and they already have their own ideas and shot list. Olivia notes, “while we are working on visual images occurs in the realm of visual thinking and it can’t necessarily be translated into the verbal. I tend to switch back and forth between a visual-intuitive mode and an editorial-verbal mode”. By this means, Olivia would walk around in her stored room and poked around her collected objects. She would pick up one thing and then observed, first order thinking about how could [I] make this dull thing active. And then, second order thinking went to make a scratch, talked to herself , think about possible ways to make it alive. Further, she would think verbally and visually back and forth to get the essential idea. For Olivia, writing will be used after she has done with her work- to note down the idea and feeling that she had when produced this series of work. Then how is Olivia tells story with her pictures? I believe when Olivia is producing her works, there is a conceptual idea behind every series of her art. Olivia deeply understands how she is as an artists and how to express communication through her art. She is outstanding.
As an artist, Olivia Parker always believes that the more you work, the more likely you will develop your own way of thinking, and own way of styling. So, keep photographing. Same philosophy applies to writing. Even if you tend to write or photographs without having a potential audience, there is chance that your works will communicate with the reader in their own way- involving the second order thinking. Or, like Chuck Place, understanding the importance of purpose and audience will decide the quality of your work.
Citation
Interview with Chuck Place and Olivia Parker
Chuck Place Photograohy Website: http://chuckplacephotography.com
Chuck Place Blog Website: https://chuckplacephotography.wordpress.com
Olivia Essay Website: http://oliviaparker.com/blog/?page_id=9
Elbow, Peter. Embracing Contraries: Explorations in Learning and Teaching. New York: Oxford U Oress, 1986.
Ch 7 - Crafting Messages for Electronic Media
Granada Bistro, San Luis Obispo
No comments:
Post a Comment