via www.photographersgallery.com
That's Ernst Haas. This is me.
But owing to a statement of observation attributed to Haas, I use a phenomenon I call the Pang-Thang. I have also referred to it as the Universal Sunset BECAUSE SO MANY PEOPLE EXPERIENCE THIS THING WHEN VIEWING SUNSETS.
Paraphrasing what Ernst Haas said, it is something like this: "When I see beauty . . . it pangs. [I assumed he meant as in "pains" sort of. Or that it causes a "pang" of feeling. Of emotion.] "When it pangs most, I shoot."
I felt that if no one ever saw my culled images, then they would think that all of my images were pretty good.
You really can't view too many sunsets can you. Some people enjoy sunsets more than others. I dare say that if you view a nice sunset with someone--you will share a stronger common bond with that person. Some call it romance.
Some people apparently feel it more than others. Now that I am of an age that a testosterone-driven identity is not so vital for me--I'll admit that I have teared-up many times while viewing sunsets.
My photography is not much like Ernst Haas' work. I love his work, and he may have been an influence on me--but probably not that much. I did find an identifying soul in his words as pertaining to his art. He said things about his work that I understood instantly from a common artistic experience. I got him. His words expressed early-on ideals and concepts that I too knew, but that I was unable as an uneducated and undeveloped young person unable to express.
Haas is one of those people whom I admired to the extent that I was a little envious that I had not "said that". I have never been much prone to hero-worship. Owing to a sizable chip on my shoulder as a kid and as a young adult I was unable to outwardly acknowledge that any photographer was really good since I feared that that might imply that I was not at least potentially just as good as. In truth most photographers of any merit were my superiors in many if not most ways.
I did have a powerful penchant for "knowing what I liked" in art outside of any attempt to quantitatively analyze the why behind the appeal. I also had an unusual ability to remember stuff. Not just facts and trivia, but images and notions. I probably didn't even know that I had any such ability. In this way most of us take for granted those qualities that make us unique. We all have them. But since they come so easily to us we often inaccurately consider them commonplace.
I did have a powerful penchant for "knowing what I liked" in art outside of any attempt to quantitatively analyze the why behind the appeal.
I have always been very spontaneous about taking pictures. In the absence of any formal art instruction and with very little conscious artistic formulas to follow when it came to composition and posing and other parts of making images that passed my own bar, I unconsciously developed my own formulas. I didn't write them down or overtly think about them much as they were being developed. I just repeated the ever increasing numbers of ways that created the images that I liked. It is the nature of experience.
I have often spoken of being able to see in photographs. This is not a concept unique to me, but it was still original as far as I was concerned. It was not something that I copied from someone else. It evolved from my belief in allowing the odds to favor me by taking way more images than I would ultimately want or need or use. I would then weed out the ones that did not suit me. I felt that if no one ever saw my culled images, then they would think that all of my images were pretty good.
It's still a valid commercial concept in self-promotion as a businessman photographer. As one of my early no-mentor mentors once said of me, "I was mostly a good con". Maybe. Or maybe I was just a better businessman and marketer than I was a photographer.
At this juncture I don't care. By now I am a good enough photographer to suit most people, if only occasionally myself. I am better than average. That's really all it takes. The same fellow photographer also criticized me as being too spontaneous.
I did not mean to be too spontaneous. I merely didn't know any other way to be--being vacant of those above said formulas.
Over time, I discovered what procedures worked for me in producing better than average photographs that appealed to me at least. Fortunately these images also seemed to appeal to enough other people that I was eventually accepted as a critically good enough photographer.
Meanwhile, I was largely trying to make a living by taking photographs of anything that I could make profitable. The paying consumer is--in spite of what the artist's artists may tell you--is probably a fair test of real art.
My images have become far more artsy-fartsy in the last couple of decades simply because I have not been trying to get paid. Oddly, and likely because of my earlier-developed formulas that were confined to those that produced consumer-pleasing images--my now-evolved art made to please only myself--tends to also please others. This is just a fortunate accident.
Since those early days I have also learned a lot of generally accepted principles of art. I began this process as an abstract of what I'd already learned unconsciously when I was confronted with the need to teach others what I had learned.
In other words, I didn't really know what I'd learned, or care, or think much about it--until I was invited to teach others how to do what I did.
Meanwhile, I was largely trying to make a living by taking photographs of anything that I could make profitable. The paying consumer is--in spite of what the artist's artists may tell you--is probably a fair test of real art.
So it was during this process that I realized that one thing that Ernst Haas--a greatly loved and celebrated "real photographer"--one that I liked--had so-easily and yet so brilliantly said about his own work REALLY WAS BOTH BRILLIANT AND EASY. And it also really did apply to me. It was, is, in a nutshell--THE WAY I HAVE ALWAYS WORKED.
Paraphrasing what Ernst Haas said, it is something like this:
"When I see beauty . . . it pangs. [I assumed he meant as in
"pains" sort of. Or that it causes a "pang" of feeling. Of emotion.]"
"When it pangs most, I shoot."
There. There it was and I understood it completely. At the time, this one concept, which I had discovered independently--confirmed to me that I WAS an artist maybe after-all.
Such a simple little adage. That's why I feel that Ernst Haas was brilliant. It's as important to me as E=MC2 is to a physicist. And this is what I do.
I see. I arrange. I segment. I compose. I FEEL. I do it all by feel. I feel those pangs and when they pang most I take the pictures. It usually takes place at incredibly fast lightning speeds. But it happens.
It is so poignant to me now that it almost gives me a nervous breakdown to drive down my back-roads scenic highway on a pretty fall day. I am only joking a little. I really can be overwhelmed by the emotion of seeing beauty. It can happen while viewing a strongly composed structure--a bridge reflecting a certain way in pooled water standing beneath it. It can be triggered by seeing a magnificently conformed horse. Or a majestic mountain. And yes, I beautiful woman. Or man or couple or child or baby--for that matter. It may have something to do with sex--but if it does it is so subtly integrated into the whole emotional reaction thing that it is not overtly sexual at all. But sex is probably center stage to what those primeval yearnings that cause non-sexual things to PANG US EMOTIONALLY.
Another concept that I've encounted in the past fifteen or so years that makes a lot of sense in explaning this whole beauty-panging idea--is known as Devine Proportion. If this piques your interest, quite a lot of information can be found on the subjuct. Just do a search of Divine Proportion for a more complete explanation and formulary of mathmatical quantification of this concept. It rings very true to me.
But the basic idea is exemplified by mathmetically measuring and quantifying the shape of those faces which are almost universally regarded as beautiful. It turns out that such faces and bodies as that of Angelina Jolie fit the Divine Proportion formula. The formula also works for pleasing architecture from bridges to buildings and cars and fashions. It is fascinating to say the least.
Most of us recognize this formula without any conscious analysis. As I reflect upon this concept as I write, I realize that it is evident in a skittish stray cat that took up residence in my shop to birth a litter of kittens. I tagged the cat with the name Angel-Face. She is so pretty in what I recognize as the Divine Proportion way that I have tried to tame her up a bit--so far in vain-- because I want to take pictures of her. She is so feline. So female. So young and pretty looking. I'll try to get a picture to post of her in this post. I'm not saying that it makes me cry to look at this cat--but I do feel enough of the pang-thang that I know if I take pictures of her in a way that conveys what I am seeing--others will feel it too.
She is so feline. So female. So young and pretty looking. I'll try to get a picture to post of her in this post. I'm not saying that it makes me cry to look at this cat--but I do feel enough of the pang-thang that I know if I take pictures of her in a way that conveys what I am seeing--others will feel it too.