Writings by Bill Arnold

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Bill Arnold : A Statement About Portraiture Elsa: I am cleaning my studio and finding clippings, now yellowed, that I have been saving for years. Some I can't bear to part w/. This one by Bill Arnold was on p. 38 of an unnamed magazine. It is accompanied by an image of Ralph Gibson, John Collier and Robert Frank in a restaurant perhaps. I have always liked what it said. Once I made xerox copies and handed them out to friends. At each annual reorganization, I would reread the page and say to myself, well, this page I will keep a little longer. It still says something to me. And I have never FOLDED it.

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Portraits are one of the kinds of pictures I make. When I am making a portrait of someone I am always very involved with them, and at the same time, a part of me is quite separate from them. Usually, I don't look through the camera because I believe the posture of holding the camera to my face is limiting to me and distracting to the other person. Instead, I let the camera float in my hand. Sometimes it is at my chest or my shoulder, other times at arm's length above me or beside me. By allowing my hand to change the position of the camera I believe I use all my senses to photograph and not only my vision.

The camera I use has a clear viewfinder. Everything in the viewfinder is always in focus. Just as everything I see through my eyes is always in focus. Since the viewfinder does not need to be focused, the only other reason to look through it is to see what the camera is seeing (framing). However, when I'm riding a bike, I do not look to see where the front wheel is pointed. I have learned to use the same skill when photographing.

Most cameras have viewfinders which need to be focused. These cameras imply that you must know what to focus on. You focus on what is important, worthy of a picture. You know what is important before you focus and so the art of photography often becomes the process of illustrating what is already known or believed.

For me the process of making a picture is the process and the pleasure of looking for something. I don't know what it is I am looking for. The pictures are "finds" I have made while I've been looking.

I had a teacher in San Francisco John Collier, who said that to make a portrait you must synchronize with the other person's metabolism so that you can feel when they are about to be clear and focused. At that instant you must meet them with the shutter open.

Most of the time I open the shutter too early or too late. But sometimes I open it at an instant in which we recognize something very familiar, something we can make a story about and take along with us.

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