Simon Griffee
Design consulting, art direction, photography.

The Very Act of Seeing

Published 2010 June 12

“Photography is at its best when it deals with the very act of seeing in itself and not with recollections in tranquility or dilettantism of design.”

“Most of us come at the world with a set of preconceived notions. whether from church, school, past experience (and neuroses.), or the media. These constitute a mental set, a Weltanschauung which explains-and sometimes explains away-reality. But reality comes without adjectives, it just is. The photographer’s problem is to come to see the real world as It really is, like the boy hero of ”The Emperor’s New Clothes." In some ways, all photographers must become cavemen. Or aliens. Or children."

“Writing about a visual medium tends to make the simple complex. If you want to make photographs, all you do is point the camera at whatever you wish, click the shutter whenever you want. If you want to judge a good photograph, ask yourself: Is life Iike that? The answer must be yes and no, but mostly yes.”

Charles Harbutt