I am a photographer.
At least, that’s what I tell people.
I take photographs. Lots of them. I photograph plants, landscapes, buildings, interesting objects, strange things I happen to notice, and occasionally things that probably weren’t nearly as interesting as I thought they were when I photographed them.
What I don’t do is talk about my photographs. I have absolutely nothing to say about them. This puts me at a slight disadvantage in the photography world, where photographers are apparently expected to have thoughts. Deep thoughts. Meaningful thoughts. Thoughts about light, composition, emotion, memory, place, time, texture, visual storytelling and the human condition.
I have none of those. I took a picture because I liked the way it looked. That’s pretty much the beginning, middle and end of the story. Someone might ask,
“What inspired you to make this image?” I have no idea. It looked interesting.
“What were you trying to communicate?” Nothing in particular.
“How does this photograph reflect your artistic vision?” I’m still looking for my artistic vision. Have you seen it?
This is why I want a photography website that contains almost no words.
I don’t want to write a blog about photography because I don’t have anything to blog about. I don’t want to write lengthy descriptions of my images because the descriptions would probably be shorter than the photographs’ filenames. I don’t want an artist statement because I’m not entirely convinced I am an artist. And I definitely don’t want to explain what a photograph “means.” It means there was a camera involved. That’s about as far as I can take it.
My ideal website would therefore be extremely simple. A photograph appears. You look at it. Another photograph appears. You look at that one too. Perhaps there could be a little arrow. Click. Next photograph. Click. Previous photograph.
That’s it. No explanation. No essay. No inspirational quotation. No discussion of my creative process. No paragraph beginning with, “As a photographer, I have always been fascinated by…” I have never been fascinated enough to finish that sentence.
Unfortunately, building a website like this has turned out to be considerably more complicated than taking the photographs. Every photography website seems to want information. Title? Fine. I’ll call it “Photo 1.” Description? “Photo.” Caption? “Photo.” Categories? “Photographs.” Tags? “Photo.” Artist statement? No. Absolutely not. The website keeps insisting that photographs need context. I disagree. The photograph has context. It’s surrounded by a website. What more does it want?
I have tried various website designs over the years, always looking for the perfect solution. I have built galleries, portfolios and minimalist sites. I’ve experimented with themes that promised to put the photography first. Some of them did. Then they asked me to write something. We were immediately back to square one.
The irony is that I can spend hours designing the perfect environment for photographs I have no intention of discussing. I can adjust the spacing between images. I can change the size of thumbnails. I can move menus around. I can debate whether photographs should be displayed in three columns or four. I can obsess over fonts that nobody will read. I can redesign the entire homepage because the photographs aren’t sitting exactly where I want them.
But ask me to write 300 words about one of those photographs and suddenly I have an urgent need to do something else. Perhaps clean the garage. I have even considered putting a disclaimer on the website:
WARNING: PHOTOGRAPHER HAS NOTHING TO SAY ABOUT THESE PHOTOGRAPHS.
At least that would establish expectations. Visitors would know what they were getting. No stories. No explanations. No behind-the-scenes revelations. No discussion of what the photograph represents. Just pictures.
I realize this may not be the traditional approach to photography websites. Most photographers seem eager to tell you where they took a photograph, what camera they used, what lens they used, what the weather was doing, what they were thinking, how they felt, what they had for breakfast and how the experience changed their understanding of existence. I admire these people. I simply don’t understand them.
If someone asks what camera I used, I’ll tell them. If someone asks what lens I used, I’ll tell them. If someone asks what the photograph means, I may have to leave the room. Because sometimes a photograph doesn’t mean anything. Sometimes it just looks nice. And perhaps that’s enough. Maybe the purpose of a photography website doesn’t have to be to explain photographs. Maybe it can simply be a place to see them. A quiet little corner of the Internet where the pictures are allowed to speak for themselves.
Of course, there’s one problem. If the photographs are supposed to speak for themselves, I still have to build the website. And after thirty years of building photography websites, I’ve discovered something rather unfortunate: I’m much better at designing a place for photographs than I am at actually putting photographs in it.
So perhaps I have finally found the perfect solution. A completely wordless photography website. No writing. No explanations. No commentary. No blog. Just photographs. And, if I can manage to stop redesigning the thing long enough to finish it, there might even be some photographs on it. That would be a nice change. Because after all these years, I finally know exactly what I want my photography website to say. Nothing. And frankly, it’s the most honest thing I’ve ever written.