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Response to Regard for Photographic History

from Jeff Spirer (jeff@spirer.com)
What camera did you use?

I use a Zero 2000. It is available in the US from Pinhole Resource, who use one of my photos (no people in it) to sell the camera. My favorite of the images I have created with this camera is here, although that is also a non-people image.

i think that you view the photographic process as something to be utilized as a tool with which you can create an image as a thing which represents a symbol of a larger subject:

Wayne, this is completely true. It's all about symbolism to me, although it is rooted in a rather surrealistic view of the creative process.

. tom surely doesn't have "thousands" of similar photographs.

I'm not sure about this, although I can in no way speak for Tom. My encounters with people who view photography as primarily an artistic outlet (as opposed to primarily a recording process) leads me to believe that they go back to the same subjects over and over and over. The image I reference above (the one I stated as a favorite of the pinhole work) resulted from repeated stoppings at roadside shrines created by people (typically from Mexico or Central America) for loved ones at the places they died alongside the road, usually in car accidents. I have many of these photographs, I had to go back over and over until I was able to connect the camera to the mind, or maybe just figure out why they affected me and translate that into a photograph.

, if you care to embark upon a brief trip that may make both of us think about where we are going with our cameras

We all have our own reasons for doing what we do with photography, and as long as we are thinking about it rather than going dogmatic, I think it will benefit us all.

(posted 8617 days ago)

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