Pixeldiary
My good friend Johan Doumont has recently started a blog. It’s at pixeldiary.blogspot.com. As its title suggests it’s a photographic diary. It is Johan’s ambition to every day post a picture made on the day itself. A gargantuan undertaking that requireq strict discipline and stamina.
The diary format has, in the past, been taken up by other photographers. Years ago, when it was first published by National Geographic, I was awed by Jim Brandenburg’s 90-day epic in the winterly forests of his native north Michigan (subsequently published as "Chased by the Light"). I know of Frank Horvat as another photographer who has engaged in this kind of enterprise. The blog-culture has of course given great impetus to diary-style photographic efforts. I think Marko Hehl’s Rangefinder Virus-blog comes very close, although he doesn’t post a picture every day.
The diary concept coheres very well with Johan’s photographic temperament. He has always been a proponent of weaving photography into the fabric of daily life. His Pixeldiary merely provides a continued alibi to have his camera with him at all times of the day.
Nevertheless, as he hasn’t set himself an end date, I’m curious to see how long Johan is going to keep it up. I also wonder how long I would be able to submit myself to the rigour of producing at least one reasonably good photo every day.
Although photography is probably as much an obsession for me as it is for Johan, my photographic imagination works differently. For me the vehicle of choice is a project, not a diary. A project grows around a fairly well delineated conceptual core, at the cross-section of three dimensions: a negative format, a geography and an extraneous element. For example, the European Capitals project was defined by the geography of the expanded EU, a panoramic format and a choice to focus on capital cities. I like to nurture several of these projects – at various stages of development – at any given point in time.
The project-discipline is, I feel, different from the diary-discipline. It’s about oscillating between discrete nodes, rather than to submerse oneself into a continuum. I agree that it is important to be doing photography every day, but unlike Harry Callahan I don’t think it is necessary to be taking pictures every day. I am, perhaps, more the Annie Leibowitz-type, of whom Susan Sontag (her life companion in the last years of Sontag’s life) thought she didn’t take enough pictures.
Project or diary: it doesn’t matter too much. The important thing is to have some kind of discipline to structure one’s photographic activities. There are too many photographers that are driven by external events rather than their own volition or imagination. The result is then an anecdotal, incoherent body of work.
Meanwhile it is great fun to take a peek every day at Johan's photodiary.
The diary format has, in the past, been taken up by other photographers. Years ago, when it was first published by National Geographic, I was awed by Jim Brandenburg’s 90-day epic in the winterly forests of his native north Michigan (subsequently published as "Chased by the Light"). I know of Frank Horvat as another photographer who has engaged in this kind of enterprise. The blog-culture has of course given great impetus to diary-style photographic efforts. I think Marko Hehl’s Rangefinder Virus-blog comes very close, although he doesn’t post a picture every day.
The diary concept coheres very well with Johan’s photographic temperament. He has always been a proponent of weaving photography into the fabric of daily life. His Pixeldiary merely provides a continued alibi to have his camera with him at all times of the day.
Nevertheless, as he hasn’t set himself an end date, I’m curious to see how long Johan is going to keep it up. I also wonder how long I would be able to submit myself to the rigour of producing at least one reasonably good photo every day.
Although photography is probably as much an obsession for me as it is for Johan, my photographic imagination works differently. For me the vehicle of choice is a project, not a diary. A project grows around a fairly well delineated conceptual core, at the cross-section of three dimensions: a negative format, a geography and an extraneous element. For example, the European Capitals project was defined by the geography of the expanded EU, a panoramic format and a choice to focus on capital cities. I like to nurture several of these projects – at various stages of development – at any given point in time.
The project-discipline is, I feel, different from the diary-discipline. It’s about oscillating between discrete nodes, rather than to submerse oneself into a continuum. I agree that it is important to be doing photography every day, but unlike Harry Callahan I don’t think it is necessary to be taking pictures every day. I am, perhaps, more the Annie Leibowitz-type, of whom Susan Sontag (her life companion in the last years of Sontag’s life) thought she didn’t take enough pictures.
Project or diary: it doesn’t matter too much. The important thing is to have some kind of discipline to structure one’s photographic activities. There are too many photographers that are driven by external events rather than their own volition or imagination. The result is then an anecdotal, incoherent body of work.
Meanwhile it is great fun to take a peek every day at Johan's photodiary.
posted by Philippe at
3:42 PM
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