Creating Magnificent Failures
This quote just in from photographer Bruce Hershey:
Malcolm McClaren, now 59 years old and based in Paris France, believes the amateur to be a creature capable of the most magnificent failure. And with Western popular culture split into dominant, over produced mainstream and a hidden, independent subculture, remaining an amateur is, for many, the only true path to self-expression available today.
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A picture that is a magnificent failure actually breathes life and allows the culture to change. If you have perfection, there is nowhere to go. With perfection there is no communication. You have nothing to access.Quotes from Malcolm McClaren and Lessons from his British art professor with a goatee and a brown corduroy jacket in Harrow England... Early 1970's
To create a magnificent failure is to create the best kind of picture: a picture that really drives and changes things. Because when you see a picture and you say, "That's a very beautiful picture," it is instantly forgettable.
The disasters are what bring life and allow us to connect. That's the magic.
Be a flamboyant failure. That's better than any kind of benign success.
Malcolm McClaren, now 59 years old and based in Paris France, believes the amateur to be a creature capable of the most magnificent failure. And with Western popular culture split into dominant, over produced mainstream and a hidden, independent subculture, remaining an amateur is, for many, the only true path to self-expression available today.
Flickr
If you get it right too much of the time, you must be doing something wrong.
Woody Allan
Some examples of why some serious amateurs are doing fabulous work may be found on Flickr. Flickr is a huge photo blog with professional and amateur members from all over the world. It is free or has a $25 annual fee if you choose to support them. Serious amateurs rarely have an attachment to the outcome therefore they are more likely to make mistakes. Making mistakes is a necessary part of creative growth. All growth demands change. Change entails risk. And risk requires a temporary surrender of security. The most successful serious amateurs are free from judging whether this image or that image is going to end up in a portfolio or in a stock collection. They rarely concern themselves with this question, 'Is it art?' Most just like making pictures.
Go to Flickr and browse. Go to my Flickr site and find my links to photographers' blogs identified as my contacts. You will also find some examples of some of my professional clients' work. They see Flickr as a kind of photo sketchbook. Some have had to relearn how to shoot without attachments. They are exploring, discovering, creating, playing, learning about themselves in the process. Yep. Some are also making magnificent mistakes.
My Flickr Pages
Order your free copy of my E-Book entitled 1001 Quotes Questions and Pondering. Send me an email with 1001 in the subject.
Comments
what about fear of success, ian?
Posted by: the david | January 19, 2006 08:21 AM