It strikes me as ironic that, in this hyper-modern world of ours, one of the great stories we tell ourselves is that we are entitled—even obliged—to live in ways that reveal our one true self, to find our voice and speak it truly, to pursue our vision whatever the cost; yet whenever I scroll through my social media accounts, I find myself overwhelmed by clichés. As Vincent Price observes, although people claim to know what they like, in fact, they like what they know. His observation takes on added meaning in the age of social media when liking means clicking a heart icon to boost the popularity of a post. Social media is structured to turn us into “like whores” and, as I have learned first hand, the quest for hearts is addictive.
True to Price’s observation, it turns out that my most liked posts happen to be my most clichéd efforts. I suspect this is not only because people are drawn to those of my photographs that most closely conform to their (cliché-filtered) expectations, but also because social media platforms build in incentives for me to post those photographs I think will satisfy those expectations. People like what they know, and I pander to that preference.
Cliché has its place. After all, a cliché is simply the repetition of something that, in its day, was true to someone’s vision. Students of the craft gaze at an old photograph by an acknowledged master, Henri Cartier-Bresson, for example, or Paul Strand, and ask themselves what makes it a great photograph. They then try to replicate that in their own work. It is part of the learning process. The trick is to recognize it as such and then, when one is ready, to strike out on one’s own.
Sometimes a cliché happens by accident. We see a visual opportunity and take it, only to discover afterwards that others before us have seized the same opportunity. A few years ago, I was crossing the old iron bridge on Bathurst Street in Toronto and noticed how, further to the east, the CN Tower was framed by the bridge’s girders. Old and new. Foreground and background. Subject framed within the image. Perfect, I thought, and I made an image only to find similar images cropping up from time to time in my Instagram feed. It turns out that my photographic vision, at least in this instance, is not terribly unique; many other students of the craft have been conditioned to see in precisely the same way I see. Nevertheless, when I posted my image, it was well liked.
Not long ago, I crossed the same bridge and asked myself what I might do differently. My answer: try a similar shot from underneath the bridge. As luck would have it, there was a half-frozen puddle that provided a reflective surface for additional interest. Even if I’m the first person ever to have made this image, it is eminently replicable (all you need to do is go under the bridge on a rainy day), and so is as likely to become as cliché as anything else. For the time being, the image is the product of my true vision, and mine alone, but inevitably it will ascend to the pantheon of cliché as do all images, for like all truth the truth of my vision is provisional. It is not my entitlement, but a momentary privilege.