Sunday Edition: Michael E. Gordon
PHOTOSNACK #543
Every Sunday, I contact photographers previously featured on PHOTOSNACK and ask them to send me their spontaneous thoughts, observations, reflections, or advice.
Today, I am sharing the message I received from Michael E. Gordon.
Michael E. Gordon
Equivalents was a photographic concept and body of work developed by the godfather of modern photography, Alfred Stieglitz, around 1925, based on his series of abstract cloud photographs. New York Times art critic Andy Grundberg said that Equivalents offer an "existence of a reality behind and beyond that offered by the world of appearances. They are intended to function evocatively, like music, and they express a desire to leave behind the physical world. Emotion resides solely in form, they assert, not in the specifics of time and place."
Stieglitz’s successor protégé, the great Minor White, brought the concept of equivalents to the next generation of photographers, suggesting that “one should photograph things not only for what they are but also for what else they are”. White argued that all good photographs have an “expressive-evocative quality” and that “when a photograph is a mirror of the man, and the man is a mirror of the world, then Spirit might take over.”
These are lofty ideas and ideals for contemporary photographers to consider. One could even believe that this is not something you can do with nature or natural landscapes. However, they are also useful tools that can help usher the photographer away from the mere recording of objective beauty and toward finding the spirit, soul, or “otherness” of the subjects placed before the camera. These are concepts and tools I regularly embrace to turn what “seems barren into something deeply expressive” (Tomasz Trzebiatowski).
The next time you are composing a photograph, ask yourself what you can do to photograph the subject for what else it is.
Michael E. Gordon was featured in PHOTOSNACK #515.
Sunday Editions connect you with photographers whose work you previously explored through PHOTOSNACK.
I want to reveal some authentic parts of the people behind the cameras. I don't ask them any specific questions. I ask them to share whatever comes to mind when they think about YOU, the newsletter readers. It makes their responses genuine and personal.
I hope you enjoyed today's Sunday Edition.
Until next time,
Tomasz
"all good photographs have an expressive-evocative quality”
True of all good art, perhaps one of its central elements.
I also believe that the essence of any photograph is time. Time is constantly in motion to our conscienceness. The photographer is capturing a moment in time that can never be again, essentially stopping that conscious flow of time. Composing that perfect picture must always consider time as part of the finish product.