WORKS ON DIGITAL PAPER

Sleeping Man

It struck me early in my career that I would not make a good photographer, that is, a photojournalist, or as the real life photographer of many foreign excursions I recently met preferred, no, insisted, a documentary photographer. I am too sensitive, too empathetic to the plight of the photographed. Not in their sitz im leben, their existential circumstance, rather their simply being photographed, an indignity or dignity perhaps not of their choosing. This, I presume afflicts many photographers and perhaps can turn photography into such a creative endeavor. We are drawn in by the photography we see most often, the photojournalistic kind, with the sympathetic eye on the human condition and its visceral depiction of the human bone structure. Yet we are repulsed by the task of getting our comfort acclimated to the rigors of the voyeur. So, many photographers turn to elaborate schemes of sui generis fancy, or the plucking of subject matter only within the photographer's own intimate circle, or settling the lens on the seemingly indifferent natural world. Anything, really, to get away from snatching photographs of strangers on a city street or a fetid refugee camp or a dusty, inhospitable gas station.
When was it that being an artist, a creator, ascended as the surest path to self-fulfillment? At some point it was decided that the life of the bohemian genius, the creative savant, was the life to live. This was translated into celebrity, as the work of artists is consumed in a special way. The celebrity preyed upon salesmanship, as all art does on a certain level, and the salesmanship turned itself over into whole industries dedicated to fostering a generation of artists, selling themselves and their ideas to others in artful ways. But there, in that notion, is a great ignoramus, sitting in a small room eating pre-shelled peanuts out of a bag, forgetting everyone in between who have a fine time opting not to paint pictures or write books. Having a fine time that is, if they didn't have to worry about their health.