Evoking, conveying

E-mailing with Shawn Gust the other day, and congratulating him on his recent inclusion in Flak Photo, I mentioned another recent Flak photographer, Lane Collins, and her photograph of her grandparents, which I really love.

Copyright © Lane Collins

Shawn said that Lane’s photo reminded him of one of Justin James Reed’s photos from his Westward series.

Copyright © Justin James Reed

Very similar at first glance. And yet the expressions on the faces of the subjects communicate entirely different messages and leave me with entirely different feelings. I like both images equally well, but the more I look at them, the less alike they look.

Since my post yesterday about Taryn Simon’s work, and since raising the whole issue of the feeling evoked by an image (or the lack of feeling), I’ve been thinking a lot more about my own work and what I’m trying to convey. I had the discomfiting realization that most of my own images in my In Store series don’t evoke any strong feelings in me (pot, kettle, black). So I started trying to figure out what exactly I’m trying to convey in the project. And that’s when I realized that the difference is in conveying versus evoking. Am I trying to convey a message to the viewer? Or am I trying to evoke a feeling in the viewer? One way isn’t better than the other, and both may apply. But I need to get a better grasp on what my intention is (convey vs. evoke, message vs. feeling, what message, what feeling) if I hope to take my photography up a notch.

Nothing like critiquing someone else’s work only to discover what’s lacking in your own.