The Wisdom of Martin Scorsese

I have been a serious reader all my life, a serious traveler, a family man, an adventurer, and so on. All these things find their way, in some fashion or another, into the images I make. If the writer's adage is, write about what you know, then the photographer's motto might be something along the lines of make images that reveal your inner life. Consider the notion that all of life's experiences accumulate, are stored in some fashion or another in our psyche, our being, body, and mind. As creative individuals we draw upon these experiences, whether we are conscious of it or not, to make our creative statements, our photographs. 

I've been thinking along these lines for some time, but I recently studied a collection of quotes by the director Martin Scorsese that underscored this idea.

"I don’t make films with a particular audience in mind, I make them because I have to make them." 

I have been taking pictures for close to fifty years now. Somewhere along the line I dropped the pretense of making images that I thought would appeal to a specific audience and committed myself to making images first and foremost for my own satisfaction. One broad example of this is that recently, within the past few years, I gave up making color photographs. I grew up with the black and white images of Life and Look magazines. Monochromatic images are part of my DNA (that is, embedded in my psyche). To give myself over to black and white wholeheartedly was liberating. As Scorsese says, I make them because I have to make them.

"Cinema is a matter of what’s in the frame and what’s out."

Hemingway said a similar thing, "Nothing is ever lost no matter how it seems at the time and what is left out will always show and make the strength of what is left in." When we compose an image we are simultaneously consciously and unconsciously making a creative and artistic decision. To make and resolve those decisions we draw upon our reserves of experience, what we have seen, what we have felt, where we have traveled, the dreams we have entertained, and so on. As creative individuals it is impossible to get out of our own way. What we leave out of the frame is a decision that informs what we leave in. Nothing is ever lost.

"The most personal is the most creative."

To reveal one's inner life seems at the heart of the creative act. I am convinced that the more self-aware the artist, the greater the creative achievement. To read, to meditate, to travel, to journal, however you study yourself, you will find it the same path you will use to create. 

I could go on, but will wrap up with one last Scorsese quote:

"A film should be an experience, not a piece of entertainment."

The great photographs of my life have all been experiences. My long desire is to make an image or two that likewise will provide an experience. That is a high aspiration and I have no idea what that would look like, where I would turn to make such a statement, or frankly, if it is even within my meager creative powers. To aspire, however, is a noble effort and as my mother used to say, if your motives are in the right place, you're probably off to a good start.

Thanks for reading. Please forward this post to anyone you think might appreciate it. You can find me on Glass Photo or on my web page, Doug Bruns Photography.