The general rule in photography is to avoid confusion. Too many elements in the shot make it sloppy, unexciting, impossible to interpret.
I have followed this rule for years.
It has something to do with the teleological mania of the human brain. We love to believe that there is, somewhere, a bandole of the skein, a beginning or an end from which it is possible to 'clear the thread,' the logical sequence of elements.
One day in February I found myself on a steep, stony shore, on a road leading to a lighthouse. On either side of the road an endless sequence of clumps of grass, which I later discovered to be a variety of the very strong 'Pampas Grass,' now endemic in Europe. This plant never gives up, popping up wherever there is the slightest chance to live, grow, multiply. A force of nature. So powerful that it generates ... confusion. A living, thriving confusion.
I wondered if it was possible to photograph 'what is'. Something opposite to the teleological mania. I approached the leaves. An inextricable mass of grass strands moved by the wind unpredictably, sometimes violently. It seemed impossible. And I had the rule of confusion well in mind.
Then I gave it a try.
I sank the camera in the middle of a bush, oriented against the light and with a macro lens. I shot in sequence as soon as I heard the 'beep' of autofocus, without looking in the viewfinder or the digital screen. Just like that, randomly. Not teleologically.
Then, in the studio, I found a series of shots of green confusion. Disaster. Yet my vision was still there, somewhere.
So I worked in B&W, then again in color. And finally I realized. I had to cut the image into square format. It was the shape of the image that was diverting the teleological mania of the brain to apply to the confusion of life force. And so I cut.
