Minor White, neither some funky musical chord nor a new character for Clue, was indeed a very well known photographer…though I will not pretend I knew that even a few months ago. However, I was immediately caught by a quote of his: “I photograph things for what they are and for what else they are.”
So true. How many times have we just shot and later realized we caught more than we initially thought? Or how many times have we realized there was more to a photo than met the eye, when it had that extra something? It seems Minor White just took this realization and made it a purposeful pursuit in his photography, to not only take the photo seen on the surface, but to attempt to capture that which is beyond the superficial layer of the photo.
His Wikipedia page said, “He is remembered largely for his ideas about the spiritual in photography.” Not that I am trying to have a deep thoughts competition, but that statement just sounds so Western. What I mean is, the West tends to divide up their worldview into spiritual and secular, whereas in the East, that division is not made. Their worldview has everything thrown into one big lump, one master category called life.
I think that every time we take a photo, this mixture of the superficial image and the underlying reality is always present. Some photos may be more clearly one or the other, and for some photos we may not even care about one or the other, but they are still present.
That is why some portraits are just a picture of somebody, perhaps the stereotypical family shot, and then, some portraits are a deep and intimately personal look inside a person. And also this is why some art is flat, boring, and does not seem to have any purpose or message, and some art is so unassuming, yet says so much.
Those are just a couple of my thoughts. It’s a great quote: “I photograph things for what they are and for what else they are.”
