"Not Older...Just Better!"

I was listening to a pod cast by Brooks Jensen the other day where he talked about turning fifty years old. He said he was depressed, feeling old, etc., and decided to review some information he had gathered as a young person about the age of certain famous photographers when they published their most famous works. What I found so amazing was the ages involved were all what we might consider ‘old’….in fact some of the best works of people like Ansel Adams and Alfred Stieglitz were done in their 60’s, 70’s, and beyond! Cool!
Then I asked myself why? What about being older seems to foster the ability to capture images that express so much in such a timeless way? And here’s what I think….maybe just a bunch of baloney, or maybe not….
There are basically two ways to photograph something. We can photograph for our own purpose (whatever that may be), or we can photograph something for what it is. Let me explain. When we photograph for ‘us’ we have a specific goal in mind. It might be to complete a contract…say a wedding job or sports event. It might be a subject we think could bring us to the forefront on the critique forums and heap the praise of our peers on our heads. It might be something we could hang on the wall and watch people swoon as they view our ‘work’, and so on. In any case we let the end result dictate what we do as we take the photograph because the end result is the reason for the photograph.
When we photograph something for what it is we photograph it for its own sake. The reason for the photograph has nothing to do with ‘us’ per se. Rather we are there to use what skills we have to capture ‘it’…and we do that if for no other reason than because ‘it’ deserves to be captured. One interesting thing about doing this sort of photography is that it can happen serendipitously….i.e. the war photojournalist who is snapping away and suddenly realizes he has a photo of Marines on Iwo Jima raising the American flag. But more often than not these photographs are the exception…not the rule. They may only account for one photograph out of thousands.
So how does a photographer see something for what it really is? I think to really see it I have to bring it into my consciousness…my psyche…let it roll around…and somehow let all that ‘I’ am tell me what ‘it’ really is! And that I think is the point…that what ‘I’ am determines what I see. I am what I am….which is all that makes me unique and individual. It is all the experiences of my life…lived each moment…the highs and lows…the hurts and pleasures…everything that has brought me to this particular place and time.
So…..(the pay off!)… how could a person with little or no life experience ‘see’ something with the same degree of discernment and clarity as one who has lived longer (and thus experienced more)? Is it possible that as we age we use the depth of our selves to discern things more deeply…more completely? (Yes yes…I know….there are young people who do amazing work….but really those who do so repeatedly seem to be exceptions…and once again not the rule). So I guess my theory is that if the objective of one’s work is to take a photograph of a particular ‘something’ for it’s intrinsic value…then that intrinsic value is best seen and appreciated by one whose years allow the full depth of that ‘something’ to show through. One who can do so does a great service for the rest of us as viewers of photographic work.
There! I said it….and I can’t wait to get older because my photographs should just get better!