On Inspirations

With Discover now publicly announced and ambitions placed, the time has come to address the largest weaknesses in many stills-oriented media — inspirations. Unlike Visual Anthropology for which I consider is currently a misnomer for the work under the title, inspiration as terminology is used correctly, albeit in an underwhelming manner. Whilst inspirations are the core of what will be discussed, it must be accepted that the adjacency to lineage, legacy, and the difference between those and nostalgia, is vast. If nomenclature is used by the author, it is with the intention of historically defined parameters, not contemporary colloquialisms. Whilst these are subjects broached elsewhere such as Substack, what is now needed is canonical entry regarding the term, the usage, and finally as offering of merit to shisho.

Kubrickisms

Inspirations and the term at large, is currently used correctly within the stills economy. However, it has become a crutch and a ceiling for the vast majority. Still is a homogenous and insular medium where practitioners are entirely likely to process inspiration from the mediums current needs rather than artistic principles or external mediums. Inspirations are by definition, seminal. They are not, by definition, categorical. One’s inspirations can differ from ones lineage (given or claimed), separate from the mediums legacy (figures and history), and interrogated from a place of introspection rather than nostalgia.

To define inspirations (singular —multiples within a category), we must define categorical and non-categorical. For instance the term cinematic is commonly used, whilst semantically correct it is a categorical misnomer. Cinematic is historically defined as of-cinema, colloquially as like-cinema. This is a categorical error, the former non-categorical, the latter categorical. This may at first glance seem contradictory; how can something be of-cinema and not categorically cinematic? If the category is cinema, correct. But the term is used to define technique in capture, not governance of genre. Can one be inspired by Barry Lyndon, Citizen Kane and Alien yet still maintain that of-cinema is categorical? This is now where the misnomer comes from, those who have propagated the term lack the knowledge to define what of-cinema is, not being of-cinema themselves. Therefore; the cinema they liken themselves to is nostalgic, adoptive without case or reason beyond superficial trend. Applied to cinema; irksome. Applied to Visual Anthropology?

To carry this interrogation on; can one still consider the current terminology regarding cinematic, lineage, heritage, or nostalgia correct when Stanley Kubrick’s work ranges from Barry Lyndon, A Clockwork Orange, The Shining, and 2001: A Space Odyssey; themselves seminal for cinema, yet adaptive works of novelists:

  • Barry Lyndon - Stanley Kubrick, 1975; The Luck of Barry Lyndon - William Makepeace Thackeray, 1844.

  • A Clockwork Orange - Stanley Kubrick, 1975; A Clockwork Orange - Anthony Burgess, 1962.

  • The Shining - Stanley Kubrick, 1980; The Shining - Stephen King, 1977

  • 2001: A Space Odyssey - Stanley Kubrick, 1968; primarily inspired by The Sentinel and Encounter in the Dawn - Arthur C. Clarke, 1951 and 1953 respectively.

The astute may notice the order at which I listed these works; Barry Lyndon shares a monumental one-hundred-and-thirty-one years between inspiration and adaptation, A Clockwork Orange a modest thirteen, The Shining a mere three (likely produced concurrently). 2001; A Space Odyssey is of special note as it collapses lineage; Arthur C. Clarke co-writing the script.

Stanley Kubrick is a clear example for inspirations being categorically singular if viewed as literature, non-categorical in genre; historical drama to science-fiction. Lineage collapses from inspiration to co-creation, and respect for heritage is due to the sincerity of those relationships. Nostalgia is shooting something to look like Kubrick; lineage is taking what made Kubrick a master of the craft and applying it in a contemporary superlative manner. Superlative being the key word; Avant-Garde another. Kubrick was notorious for pushing the limits of motion pictures, from the infamous ex-NASA Car Zeiss 50mm F0.7 to camera movement. Kubrick did not look at the medium and say this is cinema; he looked at the medium and saw what it could become. Kubrick was of-literature, cinema became of-Kubrick; demonstrably.

Yoshiyuki Tomino

Tomino-sensei is one of the many inspirations not only of DRobertsPhoto’s works but of the authors strategy within the medium. Director (and arguably creator) of Mobile Suit Gundam - Sotsu Sunrise, 1979. Despite being tasked with creating an animated series to sell toys to children; Tomino-sensei succeeded in delivering a full realised universe and strikingly accurate narrative of military operations, wartime struggles, and the nature of humanity; whilst famously despising the medium of animation, and the concept of giant robots. Ironically, around the same time that Tomino-sensei infused Bushido and Post-War, Post-Sakoku narratives into his space opera; George Lucas took the aesthetic of bushido and applied it to his. Lucas was inspired by Ran and Yojimbo; Tomino-sensei was lamenting Fat Man and Little Boy.

There is an internet meme regarding antagonist (to the EFSF), hero (to the many), anti-hero (for The Zeonic Republic), Char Aznable “The Red Comet” as during his introduction the Zeonic MS-06S Zaku Mark-II (designed by Kunio Okawara) an observer, states “三倍速く!! シャアが行く!” which translated in meaning and intent would be “Char has arrived, he’s three times faster [than everyone else].” However, this was translated to “The Red Comet, three times faster [than any Mobile Suit]!” indicating the red suit is what makes him faster. This is a clear bastardisation of the intent due to the Dunning-Kreuger effect. In military history the colour red is not given to any but the highest performance operatives; The Parachute Regiment, the hull of Yamato, The Red Baron Manfred von Richthofen. Red symbolises that Char is the best of the best; and dangerous. Instead it has become an in-joke amongst incels. Whilst a useful tool to sell colour-variants, it is the perfect mirror to the stills industry where yet another red — this time the dot of Leica — is seen as the attributing factor to greatness when it is a tool of the operator (Henri Cartier-Bresson). In fact the logo was not even red when Bresson made his masterworks on the M3. It is the reason that the red R of the authors Sony Alpha 7R V has intrinsic meaning; not branding, not claimed lineage, but adoption of the twentieth-centuries signal of honour. The red R is not the same as the red dot, or the red designation of Panasonic cameras, but kin to the reason Canon ringed their L lenses in crimson. Yet you can by a D-Lux, a Sofort or even a Huawei phone and get the red dot. You will notice the colour choice for the DRobertsPhoto.com logo is not incidental.

Both the recent Iron-Blooded Orphans - Tatsuyuki Nagai, 2015-2017 and Hathaway’s Flash - Sabishi Uroaki, 2020 are examples of heritage and lineage. Both titles inherit Tomino-sensei’s mandate for what Gundam should be; fatalistic, brutal, and allegorical. Be it nomenclature of the Barbatos, Vidar, or Penelope, these are less machines of war and more states of being. Each tale starts in contradictory circumstances, follows protagonists that make most villains humane, and end in fatalistic circumstances. The idea of Seppuku (honourable suicide) is concurrent, the willingness to become purified of sin through ones own final actions. Gundam ensures that the audience remains aware that no matter the circumstances, the ferryman requires his tribute of silver. It is a heritage passed through the lineage of Tomino-sensei, Nagai-san, Uroaki-san. Whist it is an aesthetic merely borrowed by Lucas, the sincerity of Star Wars lies in mimicry of Kurosawa-sensei’s style, not of Bushido intent.

Manga

Manga has a long and storied history predating still imagery by almost half a century with Manga, 1814 by Hokusai (yes, that Hokusai and the Great Wave off Kanagawa). In conversation with a peer (Chan Ho Yin, Nat Geo Hong Kong 2019 Winner) photography as a base form was discussed as a print-medium rather than a capture-medium. With digitisation the line has blurred significantly, but I am of the belief that it is exactly that. the RAW file is just the plate, the grade is just the ink. However, the carving of the woodblock directly affects the finished print and that is a mandate that has been forgotten. The lineage of photography is a relatively orphaned descendent within the family tree of image-making. Henri Cartier-Bresson is famously a painter prior to photographing and Magnum. The mistake that photographers make is studying Bresson and not who Bresson studied. In this sense the lineage has been cut, I do not see contemporary Magnum or thier derivatives as of the same school.

Of all the inspirations that are foundational to my practise, none come close to Manga in scale, depth and variety. If a single name must be chosen to represent what the medium means to me it would be Hiroaki Samura-sensei (Snegurochka of the Spring Breeze, Die Wergelder, Blade of the Immortal, Wave! Listen to Me), a master of both pencil and ink.

Nihongo Yari

Whilst I have drawn direct inspiration from the Three Great Spears of Japan, by naming my One Lens, One Year rig after Tonbogiri, made famous by Honda Tadakatsu “Samurai amongst Samurai” and the only spear of the three used on combat — the Nihongo is by far the most famous of the the three spears. The reason for this fame is largely due to its relevance to smithing and artisanal practices, hence the adjacency to the subject matter at hand. Considered a “perfect spear” and featuring an intricate carving of a dragon entwined within the blade, it is considered the last piece an artisan or smith is to replicate. Once the smith is capable of replicating the Nihongo, they are considered able to pursue their own ideas having mastered the fundamentals. I look to Genesis (Salgado TASCHEN, 2013) not as the peak of stills photography but as the Nihongo of our time. Replicating the aesthetics is merely competence, a baseline rather than a chase goal. This is what inspiration means to me, and for DRobertsPhoto. Once the Nihongo is made, the proof that I am a photographer amongst photographers, that there can be closure.