My dear friends,
Welcome to the 4th issue of JAYPEGS! How has everyone been? This issue has come out much later than the previous ones; I wanted to share about my upcoming re-release of a project I did with a talented team last year, but found it more poignant to write about the introspections and tensions I have been dealing with photography-wise across my past few months away from home. While struggling to reconcile them and put these into words over multiple legs of my trip, I have decided to split them into 2 parts; part 1 is right below. Thanks for waiting!
The Problem
By this time of reading, I would have been blessed and lucky enough to have travelled to 16 cities across 5 countries, experiencing different cultures, meeting new people and having great food (!!!), all with my camera in tow. The question then arose as I pointed my camera at what caught my eye.
How could I capture what I saw in front of me, in a way that was meaningful and different?
A quick search online would grant anyone access to the views of the Acropolis in Athens or the vistas of Cinque Terre, and similarly everyone has seen that particular street photograph with the Eiffel tower looming in the background, or the white and blue domes that make Santorini one of the most manufactured tourist (but still beautiful) spots in the world. I was confronted by a pertinent question of time: how much of this has already been done, both beautifully and poorly? With the Metaverse spreading pictures like wildfire online, mass trending and subsequent replication of these “unique” works, it is easy enough to find eye-pleasing work that has been regurgitated by the algorithm rather than creativity. What was the point of propagating more cliches, or a making a much poorer attempt at capturing beauty and story already told or will be told by the greats?
The issue of photos taken before and conventional cliches; it is a problem that, I believe, plagues anyone’s attempts at more serious photography. While it is definitely something that extends past just photos made while travelling, I felt it all the more clearly in these instances where I saw new things (to me) that were familiar to the rest of the world. It (very dramatically) made me question the need for making photographs on this trip of a lifetime, and there were days where I struggled to sling both my cameras across my shoulders. A small thing for an amateur photographer to stress over, but shooting film + going on a long trip = broke!!!!! You’d question yourself too; I already do it often enough back in Singapore.
The words of Stephen Shore
It was when I was reading online rather than taking photos that I came along a recent piece on the great Stephen Shore by The Paris Review, adapted from his new work Modern Instances: The Craft of Photography, where he discusses his influences and inspirations for the many years in his photography career. In particular, he speaks about this phenomena in photography very relevant to my struggle, something writer T.S Elliot coined objective correlatives.
“The only way of expressing emotion in the form of art is by finding an “objective correlative”; in other words, a set of objects, a situation, a chain of events which shall be the formula of that particular emotion; such that when the external facts, which must terminate in sensory experience, are given, the emotion is immediately evoked.”
Similarly, Shore shares how photographer Alfred Stieglitz called this such images equivalents.
“Stieglitz wanted these images to be like music. Where music is sound and structure, photographs are tone and structure. But some music also has lyrics, and a photograph can have recognisable content, with all its resonance and cultural meaning, and still stand for or, perhaps, evoke a state of mind.”
It is in this case that photography is the eventual formation of cliches; it is very much inevitable process.
“Photographers find meaning in something where it hadn’t been recognised before, and then, over time, that content itself becomes a convention. And when it becomes a convention, it lacks the immediacy of the original picture...In time the original content becomes a cliché.”
In that sense, photography throughout history has been about the “redefinition of meaningful content”, content that holds “immediacy” - without the mediation of visual conventions.
Making “transcendent documents”
Shore thus suggests that, to subvert this, photographs that can be original and stand the test of time must find “new territory to function as an objective correlative.” In particular, it must be done “not new for the sake of newness”.
“...but because an artist, working within the centre of the present, experiences with spontaneity.”
It is perhaps why street photography persists, and so many pursue it; the spontaneity of the street and documenting that moment that will never happen again. Though different from the more long-form narratives that I have found myself leaning into, it no doubt tells a story as well, and I have chosen to adopt this way of thinking while on this trip (and in the future as well), along with what I already know. There need not be a separation between such “spontaneity” and the long-term development of a narrative.
A further realisation arose: if it was so easy to capture this spontaneity then everyone could do it, and the world would not be filled with so many cliches! Equivalents such as these are not plucked out of thin air, and seizing them is a result of cultivating your own voice and Art purposefully. You have to be able to draw inspiration from other images, music, writings, videos; you have to be able to speak about your work, research on the context of where you fit in, and have a basic acknowledgement regarding what has been done. Only then can you build on a scene that has been depicted multiple times, and turn away from inevitable convention or making something for, as Shore puts it, "the sake of newness"; make the picture because it "for some reason, touches them—stirs something in them.”
“This content, in this light, means something.".
That is how you face the question of time, be it with pictures telling a grand narrative or telling of the exploration across Europe a boy made before he turned 25.
Of course, not everything needs to be so seriously thought upon in that moment; should the picture stand the test of time then it becomes a “transcendent document” that reaches into the hearts of many, but there is nothing wrong if it fails to do so. My subsequent pictures might struggle to so effortlessly evoke such emotions, but continued practice and a genuine attempt with the right mindset might help shape my message in the future. I believe that such contemplation and reflection will no doubt open up more ways for you to develop your artistry, have fun and give your work its own voice.
Next up!
In this case, if I am able to ignore conventions and attempt to speak of this moment that moved me and might move others, what should my message actually be? What should I speak of that would warrant a photograph? That is the second part of the struggle I faced, which we’ll talk about more in the next issue.
These photos were from the first trip I took in late February to the amazing Spain, where I visited Barcelona and Sevilla. My negatives from Paris sit waiting to be scanned, while the 42 rolls I shot in Portugal, Italy, Greece, Northern Ireland and Scotland are on the way to the lab to be developed. I am very much looking forward to seeing how they look, so do continue to stay tuned; I might be making a small book out of it.
And!!! If you are looking for a photo-related good time this Vesak Day weekend, some of my photos will be featured in a physical exhibition at OKB’s event at Pearl Hill, celebrating 120 years of medium format film. Do drop by if you are free; there is the exhibition, vintage market, film prints exchange, photo booth, talks, workshops and even a photowalk!
Thanks once again for sticking around, and we’ll see you in the next issue soon. I promise it will not be out after another 3 months!