In my January 21 posting, “My Compositing Guidelines”, I listed five descriptions or limits on how I work. Here is a sixth guideline, which is perhaps the most important of all:
6. No jokes.
Why? First, because I don’t want to be thought of as a cartoonist. I want to make art. Once people associate you with spoofs and light fun, it’s hard to ever be taken seriously.
Second, because it is my hope that realistic (as opposed to fantasy) photographic composites will develop into an accepted category of fine art. If the field is overwhelmingly associated with humor, or worse yet, with lies, this is not going to happen. Unfortunately, that is the case right now. Do a Google search on Photoshop+Jokes and you’ll get 614,000 results. Look for non-fantasy photo-realistic composites and you’ll be a long time finding anything that is really good and that is also not a joke.
I feel a huge temptation to make jokes. They almost always get an immediate and positive response (assuming they are not offensive) and they are ridiculously easy for me to do. Just like most of life’s temptations, instant gratification can be followed by a lot of long term regret. Wasted time; wasted talent; damage to ones reputation; damage to the whole field of compositing …
I do make jokes once in a while. If you go back far enough in this blog, you’ll find the Infidelity image, which is a joke. I can protest weakly that it’s well executed and a pretty image, but it’s still a joke (and I had a lot of fun making it).
For new compositors; for Photoshop beginners, joke-making can be a great way to motivate yourself into practicing more, and experimenting with new directions. But once you get “out of school”, I hope you will stop. Get serious. Make something of enduring beauty.
-Julie
