Frank Gohlke on writing: "another mystery, just like photography"
Tuesday, March 23, 2010 at 12:49PM 
The following is an edited transcript from the video of Frank Gohlke's talk at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, October 25, 2009. Gohlke will be speaking and reading from his book, Thoughts on Landscape: Collected Writings and Interviews, today, March 23, 2010, at the Center for Creative Photography in Tucson, Arizona. And don't miss the recent, in-depth review of the book at Design Observer.
"I thought I might say something about what got me to take up the pen after starting photography. Taking up the pen for me was a very fraught action. I had stopped my study of English Literature because I couldn't write papers and the program I was in was all writing papers. You know, if they had given me an exam or something that would have been fine, I could study for it, I just couldn't write anything. So, photography was kind of rescue.
"I don't think it was primarily because I couldn't figure out what else I was going to do—although that did play into it—it was that suddenly I could think. And I enjoyed thinking. I enjoyed reading and I enjoyed thinking about books too, but I was totally blocked, the words just wouldn't come out. With photography I could think and it was immediate. Either it was an interesting thought, or it wasn't, but the thinking itself was instantaneous, more or less.
"Several years later I was asked to write something and I did everything I could to escape, but I was being prompted by some pretty heavy authorities. So I just sat down and did it. And it was just as painful as it ever was, but I could do it, I actually got the piece out. Over the years I did this more and more, and suddenly, at some point—probably about fifteen years ago—I realized, 'Oh, I like this. I like this process.' It's very different from photography, and that's great because as wonderful as photography is, when you're doing it for forty years there's a certain degree of boredom that sets in. Writing seemed a perfect compliment because it was not instantaneous, because it was something that I could begin, and shape, and be surprised by in the same way that photographs surprised me. The surprises were of a very different order and no less controllable by me, but emergent rather than immediately existent.
"So, now, I wouldn't claim to be a writer, but I like to write. Of course when I re-read what I've written I'm mostly aware of how short it falls of what I consider great writing, but it's there and I don't disown the thoughts. Sometimes the way I express them is less elegant or accurate that I would like, but there it is. And now I've got a book of writing. A pretty storage experience, I can tell you, having been driven from graduate school by a total sit-down strike of my inner writing-implement. I now have a book, and it's got lots of pages. I mean, I look at it and I think where the hell did all those come from? When did I have time to do all this? So, you know, it's another mystery, just like photography." --Frank Gohlke
Frank Gohlke, photography 
