Ephemeral-do we really know what it means in Photography?

         Ephemeral baby gator?                  by Sarah Brown
This was captured with a DSLR with no altering workflow. The large aquarium tank glass created the mirroring effect of the gator. 

Ephemeral seems like a buzz word the photographic world. Is this a fad?a misconception?  misuse of meaning? Ephemeral in short means something temporary or fleeting. In the photography culture, the word ephemeral is misunderstood. Photographic work can be ephemeral, but what work isn't fleeting and impermanent? If we examine this idea of the subject of the photograph, nothing is permanent. Imagine the puns if we were all in the wet darkroom still?  The greek meaning, according to wikipedia, suggests ephemeral is lasting only one day, but I am going to take some liberties with this meaning. Flowers may last only a day and the Rancho de Toas Church has lasted for decades, but who is the authority to say the flowers and the church show their ephemeral character differently? When I think of ephemeral photographic work, I think of Debbie Fleming Caffrey, Andrea Modica, Jennifer Schlesinger Hanson, David Scheinbaum, Thomas Joshua Cooper. They capture moments that are constantly changing (or disappearing) and using wet darkroom processes to print. Ironically, the photographers using wet darkroom processes are becoming artifacts themselves. Toss in a computer and workflow and the very premise of ephemeral work is compromised because an exact copy is saved. Ready to be retrieved and printed upon demand. Where is the fleeting impermanence? A wet darkroom print is never the exact same every time. (Of course, this could ensue a different discussion all together with the new methods of preservation/conservation of digital born materials.)

Don't get me wrong. I am as curious about Susan Burnstine's cameras as I am about her workflow and printing. Yet, I find myself asking are her landscapes dream like because of the fuzzy blur created by her choice of lens? Who dreams in blurred landscapes? Craft and process obviously contribute a great deal to Burnstine's work. I enjoy her work because of the way she uses a camera as tool and avoids pixel destruction. Her print is evidence of her artistry with her camera. Personally, the blur seems to imply that our reality is one dimensional. I think that viewers can handle the reality without the blur. What happened to challenging the viewer? I am of the Minor White/Dr R. Zakia/George DeWolfe school of Contemplative Photography; photographs need no words to express and share emotions or meanings, which may have blurring. I have chosen to blur areas or backgrounds to emphasis something or conceal, but suggest at the same time. Sometimes, the shutter would be on a slow setting. Yet, the process steps would not short change the print. The presence within the image is enough to elicit a viewer's attention and reaction. On a side note, this one of my reasons for appreciating the intimate independent experience each of us has when viewing art of any medium. Art is personal. Maybe this is where the conceptual understanding of a photographic print goes askew. Too often, we forget that a photograph exhibited on a wall (or space of any kind) is a final product of a long process. In painting, we can see the brush strokes translate into effort and evidence of time. A photograph begins within the photographer and is created through a myriad of steps that rarely a viewer witnesses. Somewhere within the creating, regardless of shutter speed or development process, a photographic print represents a moment in time that the photographer interprets. Whether sharp or blurry, these moments are always artifacts of our past. This is why I love photography as I do-I am a history geek, through and through.