Buildwas Abbey Ruin, Shropshire, England, 2007

… we sleep the sleep of children, pleased by symbol and incantation.*

Yesterday, as I often do at my leisure, I perused a social media photography group. My surfing stopped at a post by a leader of photography workshops who lamented that “While searching for worthy photographic subjects we often stop ourselves at nouns: a barn, a tree, a truck, a person, a river.”

Such an approach, he said, is “too documentary” [emphasis mine]. His workshops challenge attendees “to see beyond the noun … to focus on the adjectives that define the nouns: strong, big, delicate, weathered, flowing.”

The “creative voice,” is to be found by “defining something; not documenting something. Dig deep.”

I don’t think the photographer, Don Toothaker, was arguing against documentary photography per se (he “liked” my comment that now wraps up this post) and his suggestions could form the basis of an interesting exercise. At the same time, I think that trying too hard to be “relevant” or “deep” can lead to the opposite.

Too often, conceptual photography tries to force us to see what, really, is not there. It hits us over the head with platitudes, theatre, or politics. Secret incantations from the hallowed halls of academia demand fealty in exchange for access to arcane knowledge.

It demands we read an accompanying 5,000 word jargon-laden essay to convince us of its depth.

It covers the numinous with the intangible, the archetypal with the impermanent.**

This is not an argument against symbol or metaphor — all art would be meaningless without context — but this post would run over 5,000 words, examining our tribes’ animating mythologies.

What I’m arguing for is to allow the “isness” of things to exist independently. To give credit to the viewer. I’m arguing for the sanctity of surfaces; for the photographer to honour the landscape, not to define but to allow “the noun” to speak for itself. To STFU and shoot.

Listen. Can you hear what the noun is saying?

Don’t underestimate the power of the noun. The noun is the container of the nameless. Brevity is short for the infinite.

* From a poem I wrote in my late teens after witnessing a Catholic wedding ceremony
**The irony of such a statement in the context of discussing manufactured representations of reality is not lost on the author.