Robert Mapplethorpe
Continuing on my months-long Robert Mapplethorpe obsession, I re-watched several video clips of him discussing his art. The one below, specifically, is where he talks about why most photographers of a particular scene are disadvantaged because they are voyeurs; how the only true way to capture something is to be a part of it....so much so the subject is completely natural when captured. It's nine minutes long, so beware.
Upon watching it, though, I was immediately connected to Linda McCartney's Sixties, in which she pretty much offers up the same advice. She says "My whole approach to my work was instinctive. My pictures came out of my friendship with the musicians. I don't think any of them ever felt they were turning up for a 'shoot' with a 'photographer.'
Linda McCartney
Her scene was musicians, sometimes on stage and other times in their private moments, which on the surface may seem quite different from Mapplethorpe's scene (the gay underground of 1970s New York) but it is not. Both photographers realize the importance of immersion--making the subjects feel so comfortable they stop posing and start living before the camera.
It's an important lesson. Of course, it's not the only lesson. Not by far. You can't become friends with fruit or flowers (which Mapplethorpe also photographed regularly). You can't hang out with buildings or landscapes. Those are lessons for another day.
My lesson is simple. I need to take my camera everywhere. Even if no shots are taken, nothing of interest arrises. The lack of instrument (on my part) relates to the idea I don't think anything of interest or beauty may happen that I'd want to document. Thinking about these two artists (and others, of course), I realize the absurdity in this statement. The most interesting and beautiful things to anyone are the items and people surrounding you. Those are the things that'll stick in your memory with or without photographic evidence.
