Deep

It's an old story of a young man putting down a book he has finished reading, saying to himself "I can write better than that", proceeding to write, and eventually becoming a published writer world famous.  Many artists in all disciplines of art have gone to glory the same way.  That said, this is not the path you would follow if all you considered was the highest art, Rembrandt, Artur Rubinstein or Proust.  Seeing, hearing, reading the works of the masters can sometimes only discourage one from proceeding.  One can never measure up. No, I couldn't do better than that.  A different motivation must be found.

It isn't very difficult to create or  fake meaning in film and in photography.  Do you remember the shots of fog, rain, long shadows, vast empty prairies, and then the dramatic musical score, and how they all affected your emotions in a dark cinema? Filmmaking is a collaborative art, and the film director works with partners, script writers, directors of photography, composers, to assist him in creating moving pictures that carry or suggest some meaning.  But other than what was said in the dialogues, what was the meaning, what did the film tell us if anything?

I've been aware of these tricks and techniques for a long time, and perhaps it was  this knowledge that steered me  into photography and filmmaking.  But when in my wanderings I see interesting scenes and in a matter of seconds or sometimes minutes I press  the shutter of my still camera, and later edit the photos in a computer program the same way as I would correct them in a darkroom, no more than that, no Photoshop tricks, I don't know, I can't tell what if anything they convey and mean. Let the viewer decide.  What do the Richard Avedon portraits mean?  Or the million dollar Andreas Gursky photographs?  Is photography then a viewer's medium? The photographer suggests (or perhaps fakes), and the viewer makes up the meaning?

Since this is written word, let's return to it.  I have ideas for several short stories, and doubts about writing them down as I read in my spare time not the penny dreadfuls, not the airport bookstore literature, not Harry Potter, but top shelf literary works by acclaimed writers, writer's writers and other masters.  No, I couldn't do better than any of them, I'm thinking, as I struggle with my ideas searching for deeper meaning in them, and falling short unable to reach the profound insights and depth that these writers I read can so casually toss about.