As a new photographer, working with models can be frustrating. You put your little ad on Facebook and … nothing. What is your job?
Photography is an act of cooperation. This collaboration happens between a photographer and the subject they shoot. All photographers work collaboratively in some sense. Well, even the lone landscape photographer doesn’t work with anyone else, because if you look at the images, there’s a dialogue between the photos you create and the viewer. So that way, there’s a partnership. Or, for example, with the equipment you use. Someone else made it and you’re using it, so it’s a collaboration too.
These relationships are usually hierarchically privileged. For example, a photographer is often said to have a more privileged position in creating what the final photo looks like than the subject.
Michel Foucault was a French philosopher who coined the term “seeing” through his thought experiment (which later became an actual experiment) called the panopticon. Its basic gist is that look and look have attraction and privilege for the beholder or viewer. The subject of a photographic work is looked at and is the recipient of the gaze. Neglecting, however, the relationship between the photographer and the subject with one of the co-collaborators changes this relationship from one in which the viewer looks at the subject to one in which the subject looks at the subject. view rights can be extended.
This is all well and good to think about, but what are you going to do with this? How do you really apply any of this to your own photography? There are two things you can apply them to your next project.
First, I believe it’s important to have open and honest communication with the people you work directly with. This could include hair, makeup, and models, but could also be people who frame your pictures or print your work if that’s what you’re into. Your image may be your vision and you can have a big say in the final decision, but it’s equally important to have the people who are working with you actually working with you (instead of you). left alone and no one else knew what was going on). If no one knows what they’re doing or why, they can’t help you.
The second thing is to have an open and honest negotiation about your project. If people know what’s going on through communication, they can help negotiate a better final image. If you were thinking one thing and someone else thought and you didn’t think about it, suddenly, the picture is a little better. This really happens to be able to make an informed choice.
Photography is a dialogue. Photography is a conversation. It’s not quite the final image you create, but rather what you need to get there and then what that image says to your audience or viewers. By considering this conversational aspect of photography as you create your images, you may be better able to grapple with the whole process rather than just focusing on the outcome. I mean, after all, it’s the process that leads to the result.
