Required Reading

"Walker Evans, Rhetoric, and Photography"

by Daniel A. Lindley, Jr.

originally published in "Exposure magazine" (Society of Photographic

Education), I found it in "Reading Into Photography, Selected Essays

1959-80, edited by Barlow, Armitage, & Tydeman, University of New

Mexico Press ISBN 0-8263-0647-0.

The essay is nominally about Walker Evans but touches upon most of

the cogent, universal aspects of photography, if it has any claims or

aspirations to be considered an art form (the essay answers that

question in the affirmative -- and sets out the conditions).

Unfortunately there does not appear to be an online copy of the essay

available, but I'll keep hunting...

<B>Excerpts from "Walker Evans, Rhetoric and Photography:"</B>

<P>(quotes from the original, 16-page essay)</P>

<P>But let us look more closely at a way of defining the "points of difference" between the photographer and his audience. Consider the photographer as the central character, or "hero," and consider the world as a drama, or a novel, or an epic: some narrative structure containing a series of actions. What stance may the hero take toward the world? The hero in literature is defined by his actions, or by being acted upon. The photographer seldom, if ever, acts in this way. But he must, like the hero, adopt a stance toward the world. Any photographer is at once both participant and observer because it is necessary to be where the subject is in order to make a photograph of it and being there must inevitably lead to at least a minimal kind of participation. Once there, the photographer must decide whether to try to observe as one of the other participants would do, or as an omniscient being might, or through the eyes of some editor, or through the "collective" eye of an organization, such as Time, Inc., or the FSA, Or he may try to find a stance uniquely his own.</P>

<P>If the photographer consciously works at creating a reality entirely of his own making, then he is working as a mythic hero; that is, as a god. Such hubris seems to me forgivable. The idea of creating a world is also what makes connections between photography and meditation attractive, as in some of the photographs and most of the later writing of Minor White. </P>

<P>The strongest conventional idea about photography is that it shows us things found by the photographer, not made by him. The difference between "I found this" and "I created this" is a difference between man and god, where photography is concerned.</P>

<P>[Northrup] Frye moves next from myth to romance;

<BLOCKQUOTE>"If superior in degree to other men and to his environment, the hero is the typical hero of romance, whose actions are marvelous but who is himself identified as a hurniin being. The hero of romance moves in a world where the ordinary laws of nature are slightly suspended . . . enchanted weapons, talking animals, terrifying ogres and witches, and talismans of miraculous power violate no rule improbability once the postulates of romance have been established".</BLOCKQUOTE></P>

<P>Here we are not faced with the issue of changing or creating a world; rather, what this hero does is to somehow remove himself, through magic, some little distance from actuality. things take on allegorical meanings. These meanings are not created by the photographer; rather they are seen by him in the objects, and the objects thereby become endowed with magical properties. As a result, they have the potential of becoming more important to us than we might have expected. Overall, though, it is not a common mode for photographers to work in: it tends toward the sentimental, on the one hand, and the bizarre, on the other.</P>

<P>In the <I>low mimetic mode</I>, the hero is superior neither to other men nor to his environment: [Frye:] "The hero is one of us: we respond to a sense of his common humanity, and demand from the poet the same canons of probability that we lind in our own experience". Two ideas should be emphasized here: one. that if the photographer operates in this mode, he automatically makes it impossible for himself to establish any point of difference, any imbalance, between his view of the world and that of his audience. He will produce post cards. The other is that the mere making of a photograph cannot establish any sense of imbalance if the photographer's vision stays in the low mimetic mode. </P>

<P>In the <I>ironic mode</I>, "the hero is inferior in power or intelligence to ourselves". Such a mode accounts, perhaps, for those occassional strong photographs that are made truly by accident. Efforts to build dignity into the snapshot are sometimes designed to get around having to admit that snaphots done by "Senior" photographers are in fact ironic in the sense here suggested.</P>

<P>To return to the <I>high mimetic mode</I>: we have said that this mode is reflected in an ability to see. More particularly, it is revealed in an ability to see those things which, for most people, tend to remain below the level of conscious awareness, but not so far below as to be inaccessible. The dramatic parallel lies in the growth of the tragic hero's awareness of self The act of becoming aware is, ultimately, nothing less than an affirmation of existence. Statements, or images, which are already familiar do not have tlie power to do this. The power of photographs in the high mimetic mode is derived from a sense of continual movement from a state of inchoate but powerful intuition to a state of a definitive, concrete image.</P>

<b>Where to find it?</b><br />

<P>The book is unfortunately out of print. However there are several used/good condition copies available through amazon.com, for about US$8.<p>

<p>And I would be surprised not to see it on the library shelf of any college offering decent courses in art, art history and/or photography. Many of the 19 other essays also provide worthwhile insights into photographic history and practice -- though none are as well-written (it may be worth noting that Lindley was a professor of English).</P>

Thought-provoking stuff Brainbubba. It'd be interesting in tracking down the conditions for a photo to be considered a work of art. I do like a challenge.

<p>

<i>Consider the photographer as the central character, or "hero," and consider the world as a drama, or a novel, or an epic: some narrative structure containing a series of actions</i>

<p>

This is a bit weird though. And melodramatic. But it does provide an insight into why so many street photographers consider themselves modern day equivalents of Wyatt Earp.

<p>

Thanks for posting.

Stuart,

I posted about as much as I dared without being seen to infringe copyright, in order to give some taste of his central thesis. I omitted many discussions of photographers (and their specific photographs) cited in the text, that provide some necessary context.

"Any photographer is at once both participant and observer"

There's an intersting tension there between the photographer as anthropologist (participant observer) and the idea (developed later in the passege) of photographer as heroic creator of worlds.

Thanks for posting that, I'm going to try to track down the book.

What a great excerpt. Thanks for sharing. I particularly like the three distinctions for

creative expression. I guess the definition of Ironic here doesn't look too favorably on the

whole "young British aritists" phenomenon.

Evans distinctions reminded me of some writings by Carl Jung regarding art and the

unconscious. It's all about powerful genre breaking contact with that intuitive or

unconscious energy made into visual or artistic form.