click photo to enlargeI recently lamented the reluctance of some artists and photographers to talk about the how and why of image making. When I wrote those words I must have been suffering from amnesia. Either that or I'd forgotten what I'd written in an earlier post about some explanatory texts that accompanied a group of art works that I'd been to see. They combined verbosity, pretentiousness and opaqueness in a way that almost made this viewer overlook any good qualities that the pieces exhibited.
I suppose what I really want is artists to write something intelligible and intelligent about why they do what they do, and why they do it in the way that they do. However, I'm fast coming to the conclusion that only a few are capable of this seemingly straightforward task, and so in retrospect, it's probably better that the majority say nothing. There is, after all, a lot to be said for letting the artwork speak for itself and for the viewer to come to a determination about it uninfluenced by the artist's utterances.
Today's photograph is a self-portrait in an installation by Machiko Agano at an exhibition that I visited recently at The Hub in Sleaford, Lincolnshire.
photograph & text (c) T. Boughen
Camera: Lumix LX3
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 5.1mm (24mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f2
Shutter Speed: 1/30
ISO: 125
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On
