I agree about the deeper connection that’s required.

Just liking something is fine, but *really* liking it, is perhaps what we need in order to purchase. I love Michael McVeigh’s art – all his paintings for instance, but some of them reach out more than others. That deeper connection you talk about. It’s intangible and makes no sense sometimes. For instance, I bought the painting of Berwick upon Tweed, yet I have no connection with the town in reality. I don’t know people from there, nor do I have any past memories of the place either. So the purchase was done because I felt something for the art, rather than the place depicted in it.

I felt some ‘resonance’ with the image and had to have it, even though I can’t put my finger on exactly what it was that attracted me to the work.

So I’m wondering if this ‘deeper connection’ is more a ‘deeper liking’. Some works are more likeable than others. Perhaps I’m splitting hairs here, but I’m interested to know why some things seem nice (but not nice enough to buy), and others are really nice (and make us want to own them).

I agree with Duncan’s comments though that often we need a deeper connection to something to want to surround ourselves with it rather than it just being visually stimulating but meaningless.

And perhaps this is what you’re getting at above with regards to giving the artist “satisfaction”. Because there is a connection and you’re sharing your appreciation more directly with them you get a good feeling from it also. I don’t want to be just some random punter that goes into an art gallery (certainly not spending 100s or 1000s!) to get something just because “I like it”. I like a lot of things and if I took that approach I’d be skint and have nowhere to put them all or time to look at them all.

So perhaps we need a deeper connection more than “that’s beautiful” to genuinely engage and move us. Certainly I look at a lot of beautiful work on 500px, flickr, etc but don’t often come away feeling moved by it – I want more of the story, a connection with the place or the person. Or maybe the work isn’t genuinely beautiful, just visually stimulating. I don’t know.

(as an aside, a question I always have for my friends that suggest I sell my images is “would you spend £300 on it” – and I don’t get many biting my hand off! Not a problem you’re familiar with I’m sure! :D)

Re: narcissism. Absolutely. Sometimes I think there’s something wrong with me… :(

I liked your post very much as it mirrors my own thoughts on the matter.

I’ve been considering buying some of my fiends work – as I’ve seen some nice images from them, and it would be encouraging for my own sanity to look at other people’s work, rather than my own.

I do wonder if most photographers have a deeply rooted narcism when it comes to enjoying other people’s work?

I certainly like to buy art, though my disposable income isn’t such that I have a massive collection of expensive pieces. Interestingly these are mostly purchased when on holiday when perhaps the purse strings are a bit looser and the art you buy has a special emotional connection to that trip. But I wonder if I should be buying more for apprecation of the work itself, rather than a holiday impulse buy. Food for thought…

One of the most telling comments you make is with respect to not buying photographs: “That’s a real shame isn’t it?”. I never, ever buy photographs. How crazy is that?! I’ve started buying photo books and have your book, Rax’s, Joe Cornish to name a few but even these are very ocassional. And I would never buy a print for my wall.

I hope/like to think this has something to do with “I’m a photographer, if I’m going to hang pictures on the wall then they should be mine” and true enough most walls of my house are covered in my pictures. But I also wonder if there’s something darker and deeper that doesn’t want the “competition” on the walls, or worse yet that I myself don’t value photographs in the same way as other art. Shudder.

Certainly if we as learned admirers of photographs don’t buy photographs, it’s hypocritical in the extreme to expect the general public to shell out for one of our works. But then, if only artists buy other artist’s work then we’re just “begging Peter to pay Paul” and the creative community is unsustainable. Argh!

I think the answer might be to think less and buy more art! :D

Glad you agree.

I feel I’ve had a chance to look back at myself from a fresh angle.

As you say – it’s good to endorse what you enjoy, and paying the artist for their work is one of the best ways of doing this. That’s why I don’t like music piracy for instance.

For a long time, I wondered what the ‘role’ was of my own photography. I didn’t think that what I did was of much importance, in the scheme of things, but over the years, I’ve had people write to me, email me, or say it face to face: that they’ve been given a lot of inspiration in their lives by what I do.

It seems that some of us are here on this planet to be mechanical engineers, others are doctors, while some of us are ‘artists’. Artists hold a function just as important as any other trade – to inspire and enrich people’s lives in ways that bridge building or computer programming can’t (they touch us and benefit us in a different way), but I never really believed until recently that art was just as valid.

So I’m wondering if my painting purchase tonight is symbolic in a way for me. Perhaps it’s given me a chance to accept the validity of the role of an artist. Perhaps it’s allowed me to endorse someone else, and feel validated in doing so.

But I just think that I did it, because I loved the painting. And that’s maybe all I need to know after all :-)

Mike