'Open Questions' at newyorker.com

There's a new column at newyorker.com called "Open Questions," and the writer is not only a photographer, but also at least occasionally a reader of TOP (and of many other online sites and forums about photography). One of the columns is about your photography...your own pictures. I think it's fair to say that; I think it will be true for most people reading this. 

Each column in the series is framed around a question. Some of the questions address the trivial ("Why Can't You Pack a Bag?"), and some concentrate on minute examinations of various vagaries of quotidian experience in the world of now. Others take a giant sidestep into the eternal, discussing the relationship of the present to the future ("Why Are We Tormented by the Future?") or the permanence or impermanence of identity ("Are Grownups Just Giant Kids?"). Some are profound. The one that begins with quotes about φ —Phi, a symbol which apparently has about forty definitions, depending on what prism it's viewed through, or the phase of the tides, or something—cruises as far above my pumkin' haid as a compact hard-edged cloud scudding by on a strong wind. As I might have mentioned before, I never graduated from college. The column gets down to a semantic distinction between gratitude, appreciation, and thankfulness, and reads, as some of the others do as well, like philosophy.

Others, however, are reader-friendly, especially the ones about parenting and family. His love for his kids shines through, which is something that always touches me. Most are dense. I spoke the other day about my friend Kim, the former disc jockey specializing in new music who has serendipitously become a virtuoso of the mixed tape. Kim once described to me that when he gets a new recording, he first puts it on in the background while he goes off to do the dishes or something. He'll only half listen to it. Then, once he has a vague, only partly conscious idea of its strategies and structures, its flow and its features, he'll return to it and give it a concentrated listen straight through, giving it his full attention. I accomplish something similar by listening to music programs over and over. It's one reason I liked vinyl—the same record could stay on my turntable for days, sometimes without even being turned over. (I recall a long-ago jazz critic who listened to the first side of the then-new Kind of Blue for weeks—he thought it was so perfect he was afraid to flip it over, fearing Side 2 wouldn't come up to the standard of Side 1.) I'd come in the room, cue up the record, and listen to the end, maybe flipping it or maybe not. Not surprisingly, I came to strongly prefer what are called semi-automatic turntables, meaning you had to start records manually but the needle lifted and the platter stopped automatically when the record was over. I doubt Kim plays anything over and over. But the "Open Questions" columns are so laden with ideas in quick succession that on first reading they send my mind zinging all over the place, such that my first reading of them is fractured and chaotic. My thoughts jump around like monkeys in the cage. This is my own deficiency. I know from long experience as a reader that I'm going to have to skim these casually first, like Kim's record playing in the background, and then go back to them and give them my full concentration in a start-to-finish read-through. For the ones I make it that far with, that is. I do regret it, but the life I have left isn't long enough for me to grok φ.

Of course the column I want to recommend to you is the one (there might be others, but I only discovered the series yesterday) about photographing. It's called "What Can You Learn From Photographing Your Life?" It's long for a column but short for an article, and thus, manageable. It addresses directly and concertedly a question I've gotten from students, parents, audiences and readers many times over many years: what's going to happen to (or what are you supposed to do with) all your photos after you yourself are gone? 

I scrolled through my own collection of photographs. I have roughly ten thousand stored in Adobe Lightroom (the program I use to edit my photos), and thousands more squirrelled away on various hard drives and cloud services. I also have boxes of prints and binders of film negatives here and there. Although I’ve been photographing seriously since my twenties, the pace of my production has increased markedly since I’ve had kids; I’m now adding a little more than two thousand pictures a year to my archive. This suggests that, by the time I’m eighty, I’ll have about a hundred thousand photos in my hoard—three times as many as are held by the Museum of Modern Art.

I have my own thoughts about the answer, naturally, and could make some suggestions, but the author's ruminations on the subject are a treat. Highly recommended! Here's the link again. See if you think I'm right when I say that the column is about your photography.

I'll have more to say about this tomorrow. So, if you're game—and you're the one who gets to say—"What Can You Learn From Photographing Your Life" could be considered your homework for tonight! (Heh. That's gotta be a new one, or an odd one, for the fractal, holographic Web and its demands for ever more atomized shards of our attentiveness.)

Mike

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Featured Comments from:

Vijay R: "Great essay and great question, thank you for the pointer. I’ll narrow down the question to scope 'photographing my life' as photographing the things that are emotionally or physically close to me, in contrast to the photographs I make when I plan a trip to a 'photography destination.' Simply put, what I learn from photographing my life are details about my subject that I might not have otherwise noticed—what makes my family members tick, or the design of my house. As my kids get older (they are high schoolers now), what I learn from looking at photographs of my life is how ephemeral things are. This is one reason I’d actually love to have photographs of my great, great, great grandfather. Knowing that someone in an old photo is a relative of mine dials up the sense of the ephemeral in a way that an old photograph of a stranger never could. And thanks for the homework!"

Herman Krieger: "I had assumed that all my negatives, etc. would eventually end up buried in a landfill or cremated, but happily, they are part of a new archive, 'Pacific Northwest Photographers Archive,' at the University of Washington Library in Seattle."

Mike replies: Herman, sincere congratulations. I am delighted for you. That is wonderful, and it makes me happy to hear it.

(For others: Herman is a retired doctor who has been documenting his community in Western Oregon during his retirement. Born in 1926, he is TOP's official Oldest Reader—you can do the arithmetic and figure out that his retirement has been longer than some people's whole careers. He is also TOP's resident punster, which you can even see in the titles of some of his pictures, but we don't hold that against him.)

psu: "While I took a darkroom class in high school and enjoyed the printing part of it I did not become seriously interested in photography until later in life after graduate school. I certainly did not start keeping track of or archiving pictures more systematically until it became possible to use computers to do it in the early 2000s. Since then I've collected about 125,000 photos, mostly digital, but with probably around 10,000 or so scanned slides and negatives from the '90s.

"A couple of years back I migrated all of these pictures from one verison of Lightroom to another. Thus I spent some time looking back on older stuff as a result. Having all of these pictures makes me grateful to have a somewhat interesting record of things, places, and people that are now gone. Simultaneously it makes me a little frustrated about the things I didn't capture that I wish I had. But oh well, that's life.

"Surprisingly, even though the film pictures are a relatively small percentage of the whole the number of interesting 'now lost' subjects in those pictures seems higher than average. But that might just be a strange reverse recency bias or nostalgia.

"I also wish I had done a better job annotating some of the pictures. As there are bits and pieces that remain a mystery, since memory is inherently fleeting and impermanent. Again, oh well."

Christer Almqvist: "I am preparing my exhibition at the Ludwigsburg Gallery which will be open during then second quarter this year. (Schloßstraße 22 in 19288 Ludwigsburg, that is halfway between Hamburg and Berlin). Stan B. quoted Robert Adams yesterday. 'Almost all photographers have incurred large expenses in the pursuit of tiny audiences, finding that the wonder they’d hoped to share is something few want to receive.' Probably right. But Adams forgot to mentioned the work involved. Never mind, I enjoy it."

Mike replies: Congratulations on the show, Christer. Please let us know how it goes.

Comments

[louis mccullagh]

I am going through my images and printing my very best (and framing them) which I then save to one folder (as srgb jpegs) so that they can be reprinted at any time in the future.

I went through my family photos and gave the best negatives to a scanning company. These scanned photos were then all saved to a folder copied to a usb stick and given to my children. I also made up a photo book of the very best family photos got it printed with a copy for each child.

I then had all the family videos and my father's cine movies all digitised and once again copied and given to my children.

The rest they can trash or keep but no pressure as they already have all the best.

[Kodachromeguy]

Photographing ones life in exquisite detail will be of interest to anthropologists or historians 200+ years from now. But your kids will be only marginally interested, and their kids not at all.

[Stan B.]

“Almost all photographers have incurred large expenses in the pursuit of tiny audiences, finding that the wonder they’d hoped to share is something few want to receive.” — Robert Adams

[William Lewis]

Been there, done that, got the t-shirt and unlike Herman, I _KNOW_ my work will not survive me. It will die with me. The negs of my film work will go into a dumpster; any usable hard drives will be formatted. Poof. End of William's work. There will be no Vivian Meyer 2.0.

And I don't care.

I am here for _now_. I get a near orgasmic experience when I pull off a really good image. I did that the other morning with my Pentax K-3 and FA 35/2. Lovely shot. You can see it here: https://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/img/wlewisiii/2025/02/09/IMGP0275.JPG

I make my images for _me_. When I show them to my friends online and at work and they enjoy them? That's an extra bonus. When I get a really rare photo that I REALLY like and I actually make a print of it and hang it on a wall some where? Double honking bonus.

I will be worm food and my images will be forgotten faster than my meat. That is the reality of art in the 21st century. So be it.

Life, the universe and everything is 42. That didn't include a camera, alas. So I guess we're just ratfucked as artists have always been, historically,

In the end, we live and then we die. What we create dies with us. That is reality. Some rare occasions, it takes a wee bit longer but eventually, it happens for everyone. Meh. I can't worry about reality. Ultimately, the sun will expand, this planet will be engulfed and in a few billion years there will be no evidence we ever existed.

Thank god for that.

[Nigel]

I partially resolved the problem of "what to do with my photography archive", when our provincial theatre asked me for the performing arts photography negatives, that I shot for them back in the day. At least my best photography, will not go to the rubbish dump, but will lie forgotten in an air conditioned basement.

Most of the rest will probably exit this world with me. I make Blurb books of my personal photography, and it is surprising how little of what we shoot is worth saving. I have a few nice books with the best pictures from the various projects I have done.

[psu]

While I took a darkroom class in high school and enjoyed the printing part of it I did not become seriously interested in photography until later in life after graduate school.

I certainly did not start keeping track of or archiving pictures more systematically until it became possible to use computers to do it in the early 2000s.

Since then I've collected about 125,000 photos, mostly digital (, but probably around 10,000 or so scanned slides and negatives from the 90s.

A couple of years back I migrated all of these pictures from one verison of Lightroom to another thus spent some time looking back on older stuff as a result.

Having all of these pictures makes me grateful to have a somewhat interesting record of things, places, and people that are now gone. Simultaneously it makes me a little frustrated about the things I didn't capture that I wish I had. But oh well that's life.

Surprisingly even though the film pictures are a relatively small percentage of the whole the number of interesting "now lost" subjects in those pictures seems higher than average. But that might just be a strange reverse recency bias or nostalgia.

I also wish I had done a better job annotating some of the pictures. As there are bits and pieces that remain a mystery, since memory is inherently fleeting and impermanent. Again, oh well.

[JimR]

Thanks for the link, it raises very interesting questions about being a photographer, and (I can't believe I'm typing this) thanks for the homework assignment, it's been quite a while since anyone has.

I've asked myself why do I take photographs often, not so much about what to do with them, and I've come to the conclusion that I do it for myself, it brings me joy.

Lately, I've been sharing more of them in print form vs social media, and perhaps the author, and others, may find sharing them as you go is a way to do something with them - we all can be gone anytime now.

[Animesh Ray]

I must not be living much of a life because I don't think I photograph my life. My father did that. He took portraits and amateur wedding photos and travel photos of our family and friends. That's because he was orphaned at the age of 12. I can't be like him even though I have tried. Yes, I have photographed my wife every so often and my kids and now my grandkids, but I lack the dedication of my father. Instead I have walked the streets since 1970 and have taken photos of people doing their own things. Most of these photos until about 2002 are now lost. Since then I have become more careful. I don't know what I learn from them except that I can still catch a moment at least 5 or 6 times out of 10 as they flit by. It is a sign that my mind still works my finger. But who knows if that is true...after all it is my mind that is perceiving what my eyes and fingers catch. Perhaps it is all a grand illusion with no meaning to anyone else. Perhaps the only thing that is important now is that I photograph.