A Visceral Photograph?

This semester I am enrolled in Experimental Photography at Long Beach City College, taught by Brian Doan, and I think it's going to be a wild ride. Brian, who is Vietnamese, speaks with a thick accent that I find very hard to understand; however, he is extremely passionate about photography. Initially I considered dropping the class, because I didn't think it would be the most beneficial use of my time. But my intuition has overcome what perhaps is my common sense, so I've decided to not only take his class but give my all to it. We'll see. The first assignment is to make a pin-hole camera to create a conceptual photograph. Before we made our first exposure project Brian meets with each student in the class to discuss their concept. After seeing some examples of pin-hole photographs that Brian showed the class I opted on doing figurative studies. I decided I would do nudes of my wife in our dining room, and I would shoot it with a black background. I think the minute long exposures combined with the affects of the pinhole would make for an interesting photograph. It would be a challenge, but I thought I came up with an idea that made for a provocative and perhaps beautiful photograph.

I was quite confident that Brian would willingly accept my idea. I was wrong. Brain's first question was what does this concept have to do with you? In short my idea was intellectual, not visceral, and that's what Brian wanted. He's asking us to go beyond what we think.

Most of my photographic ideas have evolved from just picking up the camera and taking pictures. The concept derived from the photograph. Rarely have my photographs derived from a concept. That's why I hesitate to call myself an artist. I feel that artists create everything from a concept generating bug deep within their innards that only they have. Or perhaps it's a muscle that everyone to some degree has, one that I haven't fully developed? And maybe, that's exactly Brian's motivation for giving us this project for our first assignment.