Men women and children dressed to the nines. Or the eights. Families proudly walking down city streets in suits, jackets and no one without a hat. It was much more my father's time than mine. And yet, something about it drew me in. Each photograph had a story behind it. A conversation, a passing glance. But none of it was there. The story was a blank as the large areas of white surrounding the photographs. There was no context and it drove me crazy. I wanted stories, I wanted to know what was going on.
Mr. Littwiller noticed the book and said, "Ah, I thought you'd like that one." I had no idea why. At least not until I was long done with RIT and had been put through the ringer by Mr. Litwiller's old friend Gunther Cartwright.
Though those years at RIT I always focused on what the images in that book never had. A story. I wanted to tell the stories. I worked so hard at making the images match the words I wanted to say. That is to say, I was miserable. The happiest I was making photographs was when I said, "To hell with the story. I want to take photographs I am proud to put up. Photographs where people ask me to explain what is happening, not photographs where I have to explain everything to get them to see the image."
The photographs that capture my imagination are not the ones which tell a story, but the ones which begin to tell a story. The ones which make people wonder and feel the need to do a little digging on their own.
A photograph of a man jumping from a boat to the dock with a mooring line makes us gasp a bit. Does he make it? Does he go in the water? But I find myself asking: What made him take the jump? Who's on the boat? How many times has he made the jump before? What's he going to do later? In five minutes of thinking I can fill in, in my imagination the guy's entire life's story. And then i wonder what's this guy to the photographer? Was he hoping for a splash?
I guess I've come around to thinking that telling stories is not nearly as much fun as trying to get other people to make them up.
