Why So Many Photographers Hardly Ever Read Fiction – Idea Stimulators
posted by Ian Summers on February 2nd, 2009
Note: This entry was originally published in 2004. It received many comments in its email only version. What say you?
Why They Do Not
The following excuses are quoted from interviews with photographers.
1. I don’t have time. (Instead of waiting until your spouse calls you to bed and expresses concern that you are married to your computer or television, bring a book to bed and read yourself to sleep. Pleasant dreams.)
2. What am I going to get out of it? (Hmmmmm!)
3. I am dyslexic. (Some of the most visually creative people I know are dyslexic. There are many websites which deal with adult dyslexia. Books on tape — there are many today — are an alternative.)
4. It’s a waste of time. I’d rather watch television. (Hear an interview on hot and cool media with the philosopher Marshall McLuhan given in 1965. He was the author of The Medium is the Message. In hot media like television everything is provided for you. In cool (hip) media like reading fiction, all of our sensory tools are exercised. Jump forward some 45 years to the present. How does the personal computer exercise our senses?)
5. My first priority is to stay on top of the new technology. (My first priority as an artist is to grow creatively. I have taught myself technology on a need to know basis. Technology represents tools to make creating easier, more economical, and introduces some new ways to render, among other things. It doesn’t replace ideas. Fiction stimulates the imagination and involves all the senses. Many of us hide out in technology. And yes indeed, we need to keep current. It is demanded of us.)
6. I am a visually oriented person. I prefer to look at photography books. I get most my best ideas by looking at other people’s pictures. (Reading fiction helps us to see things in our mind’s eye which is where most concepts live and develop. I believe that ideas are developed upon ideas. I believe that photographers ideas will develop when they step outside of their medium for sources.)
7. I am practical. I don’t have time for fantasy. (The ability to create depends upon the imagination. The imagination is exercised by the abilities to fantasize.)
8. I am more interested in the truth. (All photographs are lies.)
9. I am looking for role models. If I had the time, I’d read biographies of other photographers. (Read biographies and biographical fiction about all kinds of artists. To understand Louis Daguerre, read The Mercury Visions of Louis Daguerre. This is fiction based upon history.)
10. Reading fiction is irrelevant and distractive. I should be placing all my free time into marketing, or… (Which is more important, compiling a mailing list and sending an email that is unlikely to be opened, or creating a promotional concept that will exercise the imaginations of the recipient?)
11. I only read self-help books. I actually read nine of them this year. (An occasional self-help book may help motivate you. Make sure that you leave time to put what you have learned into action.)
Why They Should
Unless you are photographing a process or how to do something, you are probably interested in evoking emotions and challenging the eye and mind. Fiction’s aim is to give the reader an emotional and intellectual experience.
Fiction invites the photographer to see the world differently and to grow creatively.
For example, here is an observation on the ways portrait photographers may approach their work. The photographer may see the subject through his or her eyes and respond to what they see or he or she may attempt to photograph the subject without interference from himself or herself.
The best fiction writing reveals to the reader a story of characters and their experiences in such a realistic and convincing way that the reader’s consciousness is absorbed into the story. Rather than reading about characters, the reader is standing among them, looking at the world from their eyes, seeing what they see, feeling what they feel, doing what they do.
Reading fiction encourages the reader to see the world differently. What if you were to make a picture seen through the eyes of another person; not the subject or the photographer?
Imagine yourself seated in a bar with Sean Penn. You have been hired by a magazine to photograph Penn in a natural environment. You might photograph Penn and show your reaction to him. You might photograph Penn by asking him to show you something about himself. Or you might photograph Penn through the eyes of the couple that just noticed the two of you from the other side of the bar. And there are many other options. As you let the story unfold you might become one of the other imaginary characters.
Fiction promotes dreaming and helps to make dreams real. Great fiction is like the best dreams or worst nightmares. When we are reading we do not think about what it feels like to be kissed; we are kissed.
Fiction helps you to lie convincingly. All photographs must be a lie because a photograph is not the event or the subject. At best, fiction is a lie that tells the truth. And this is so with the best photography.
Most photographers fancy themselves as storytellers. Reading fiction will show you an infinite way of approaching the art of telling stories. Unlike the novelist, the photographer’s images rarely have a beginning, a middle and an end. They tell enough of the story for the viewer to imagine what came before and what will come later. Reading stories helps you know what makes up a good story. In order to encourage this kind of participation from your viewers, you need to find that anticipatory moment in the story. Find that moment in the next novel that you read.
Some photographers are natural storytellers. In some cases, it is not the message of the story that makes it great, it is the experience of telling it. And for a reader, it is the experience of reading it. If you are not enjoying the telling of your story, then you have reason to be concerned that your viewers will not enjoy looking at it.
Fiction allows you to instantly travel through time and place. There is no limit. It often invites travel to what may be another world for you. For example you could experience Manhattan from new perspectives as Pete Hamill introduces you to a character that arrives in NY on a slave ship in the 1600’s and is offered eternal life as long as he never leaves the island in his award-winning novel Forever. Or you could be transported to Ireland in Edward Rutherford’s Princes of Ireland.
How different would the world become if you were alive for the past 500 years? How would you tell that story?
Fiction helps readers to relax and to get off-line. When was the last time you curled up with a good book? We generally move too fast to allow ideas to incubate. The best ideas come to us when we relax. Sometimes just the words themselves are like music if we slow down long enough to listen.
Reading relieves stress. Fiction helps us get our minds off ourselves. Some therapists recommend reading fiction as a way to overcome anxiety, depression, isolation and the like.
Reading fiction stimulates the right side of the brain and helps turn off the inner critic. It allows us to stretch the possibilities.
Reading fiction encourages the reader to suspend disbelief. For example, a good fantasy novel, such as the Lord of the Rings, invites us to accept a world with Hobbits, wizards, dragons, talking trees, and the like. In order to enjoy the trilogy, the reader must believe in what he or she is reading. In fiction, characters can do anything the author wishes. Back to Forever, no one is truly immortal, are they?
Fiction gives us permission to allow tears to roll down our cheeks. It invites the full gamut of emotions from sad to glad. It can keep you at the edge of your seat. It can terrify. It can build suspense. It can give you ideas for ways to evoke emotions in your own art.
Reading is usually a solitary pursuit that nourishes your soul. It allows you to be alone with your thoughts and stimulates a sense of self. When you feel fulfilled it is possible to give. Think of your art as a gift to the world.
Reading fiction is mental exercise. We all know exercising is good for us.
Don’t feel guilty about creating time to read.
Turn off the TV.
Reading fiction is good for you!
The New York Times List of the Best 25 Books of the Last 25 Year.
Still interested in How-To Books? Read this!
Tags: creating, excuses not to read, Idea Stimulator, ideas, passions, reading, reading fiction, storytelling
