Storytelling

Let’s talk about story. All images should tell a story, even snapshots. The thing about art is that the story isn’t always obvious by just looking at an image. Because I’m not only talking about the story embedded within the piece itself, but also the story of the artist. Some viewers don’t want to know the why or how, and I understand that. In many ways, once a piece of art leaves the artists hands it’s no longer theirs. It belongs to whomever sees it next, and what they bring to it will be their own story, tied to their own history. But regardless, what the artist’s intention was can provide a rich insight into a deeper meaning and understanding. 

I once read a rare interview of JD Salinger, author of The Catcher in the Rye. The interviewer asked him about the meaning of this and that, and Salinger’s response was: Read the book. The answers to all your questions are there. If I could answer them better in an interview, I would have written that. For years, I really liked this, thought it wonderfully poetic and a kind of middle finger to critics who just don’t get it. I don’t think that anymore. Sometimes art can be so esoteric, so wrapped in metaphor, that to leave it to its own explanation does a disservice both to your audience and to the artist. 

You may look at the picture above and think “That’s a nice image.” If I left you there, maybe that’s all it would ever be…but let me tell you a story.

We moved to Oregon in the Spring of 2016. We moved to be closer to nature, to community, to ourselves. But we financially struggled, and for 24 months I would drive 1000 miles every month for work. Up and down the Highway 97 corridor I drove, sometimes in deep snow, sometimes in intense heat, sometimes in storms. I didn’t hate it; in the West the long expanses between towns puts you in a rhythm, and you get used to it. You can get used to almost anything.

Then both my parents died in rapid succession, and this drive took on another feeling: emptiness. It turned into an expression of my failure as an artist, holding on to a past for the sake of a paycheck. So I decided to stop going. On the last drive home, not more than two weeks since giving my pop his last shower, I pulled off on a long dirt road deep in the high desert and drove, and drove, and drove. I went until I was surrounded by storm and rain and sagebrush.

I got out of the car and stood at the edge of this expanse and screamed. I wish I could say it was a barbaric yawp in the tradition of Walt Whitman, but it was not. It was a scream of pain and sorrow and emptiness. I shot one image, this image, and stood while the rain poured on me, drenching me to the skin. I don’t know if there’s metaphor in this or not. I don’t really care. All I know is this is what I am: a landscape photographer. It’s all I ever wanted to be.

Photography, almost more than any other medium, requires the artist's insight. At its rawest, photography is the replication of reality. Sure it’s stretched, manipulated and sometimes abstracted, but even my prints with stark subjects on beds of extended exposure present some form of reality. The mountain in the print looks like a mountain. Therein lies the need for the artist to step in and say here is what was happening, here was my brain, my thoughts, my intention, my pain…my ecstasy. 

I think if the artist can’t, or won’t, supply that, it does a disservice to their time, experience and ultimately their honesty. I truly feel art is about honesty. Yes, honesty in the work and its portrayal of something, but almost more importantly the honesty of the artist themself. To not hide behind ego is a scary thing, but it’s oh so liberating.