how does a photograph differ from film or music?

... part of my answer includes the idea that a photograph captures an instant IN

an instant (otherwise it's less photography than printmaking), whereas creating

a film or musical performance obviously takes time.

 

What's your thinking? For example, do you think they're different from one

another or part of some continuum?

If we take the forms apart from the ideas they convey, they differ. But how, I am not sure.

 

Eager to see insightful answers here, as I wrote music for years before switching to photography I ponder the same thing. Then again, sometimes I also found myself asking: why do I care?

Photography, painting, sculpture, drawing, printmaking are art. Music, cinema, theatre and dance are performance. That is the difference. It doesn't matter how long it took to create, but whether the whole piece may be seen at one time. The word art is also used in a broader sense which includes all of the above.

I have to differ with you on this. While some shots (such as PJ-ish and snapshot type captures) are clearly of the frozen-moment variety, many are not. I will take two examples. Please ignore the craptastic quality of these two images, as they were taken under less than ideal circumstances. Never the less, here are two images from this past weekend, taken just minutes apart.

<Br><br>

 <a href="http://www.photo.net/photo/6459484&size=lg"><b>This one</b></a> is an "in an instant" flavor, no question.

<br><br>

 <a href="http://www.photo.net/photo/6455479"><b>This one</b></a> is more of a composition.

<br><br>

Anyone who has ever done more than just take snapshots at a party will know that some images represent a period of contemplation, and clearly are inspired by and intend to convey a narrative or mood within a larger context. For that matter, anyone who has ever worked with <i>any</i> slightly complex form of expression (music, prose, etc) will know when they're seeing a photograph that's more of an aria than a soundbite. Of course, mine are more like out-of-tune whistling, but that's another subject!

<br><br>

To the extent that the audience knows they're looking at a <i>work</i>, part of their mind understands that they're seeing (just as with a film) the output of a labor that took time. And a compelling image often conveys a sense of what came before and may come after the moment of the exposure. Because I find almost no difference, in that sense, between a still images and (for example) five seconds of film/video, I opt for the continuum model.

<br><br>

As for Ray's question about why he might care: I think that if a photographer can keep in mind the utility and rhetorical power of an image that DOES invoke the context in which it was produced or which does launch the mind into a narrative, then it makes for better work.

I think Matt covered it quite well from the point of view of the creator. Thanks for some

great insights.

 

From the perspective of viewer or listener, I think a similar case can be made. We tend, as

do estheticians, to think of music as an art form existing in time. Obviously it does in a

different manner than a photo does. But, more static than a piece of music or dance

though it may be, a photo takes time to digest and actually does go through changes over

time, or at least the viewer-photograph relationship goes through changes. With a good

photo, more is revealed as one looks at it.

 

As Matt suggested, if we want to make more than snapshots, we will consider not only the

time it takes to make a photograph, but the time it takes a perceptive and engaged viewer

to digest a photograph.

 

That's why, to a great extent, PN's critique forum is precisely NOT the way to exhibit or

view photographs. It is designed for the instantaneous WOW factor to rule.

Placing a group of photos into a gallery, though, seems to me to turn the art into

performance. The art of the photographer evolving over time. Or perhaps that's just

semantics.

I think a Photographer working on a Photo story can be like a composer working on a piece of music. You try and take the viewer (listener) on a ride ,with a opening photograph,which leads to the main photos that tell the meat of the story. Small vignettes (detail shots) adds to the over all telling of the story and a ending shot that wraps the story up. A good piece of classical music does the same thing, takes you in with a overture, you have a couple of movements of story telling in melody and a big finish at the end. I think both can take your spirit on a emotional journey.W. Gene Smith's Minamata and most of his Life photo stories did this very well.

Good ideas, my question about singular photographs has been taken in a better direction.

 

I particularly like Michael's mention of the Minamata essay in this context and Jim's hanging-photos-as-performance. As well, I think a photo gallery experience is something like a sculpture experience, due to the walking-around factor.

 

fwiw (+/- $.05): The tiresome old Greeks held that performance (poetry, dance, music) were the only arts, whereas sculpture was decoration.

 

Some classical and jazz musicians have held that recordings were not music because they were not performances and were not transient. In digital photography perhaps that could be simulated by chimping with erasure. Not a bad idea. :-)

I think the creative setting deserves some attention here. Commercial filmmaking seems to me to be a project-based team enterprise that combines the efforts of many people from many disciplines. Collaboration and compromise would be creative bywords for this kind of thing, and responsibility and power would be business bywords influencing the efforts of everyone being paid for their work. Just look at the credits at the end of a typical movie for an idea of how large and complex these productions really are. Some people involved in these projects have things in common with individuals making photographs, but certainly not all of them.

 

Performance in music is the equivalent of viewing a finished photograph. The performance is required to convert the music from its notational format to an auditory form a person can experience properly. Performance in photography or any other visual art is accomplished simply by viewing the art itself. (I will acknowledge the fact that some visual pieces are stored in ways that require them to be played to be seen, but mechanical projection or reproduction of some sort does not seem to me to reach the same level of activity as performance does in music and the other performing arts.)

 

I think the issue then is to compare the creative perspective and methods used in composing music with the things a person does to make a photograph. Unfortunately this is where my ability to move the discussion along ends. I am not a musician and have never composed anything in my life. This lack of musical ability may actually impair my photography in some ways (?), but I can honestly say that no one has ever suggested that I should study music to make better pictures!

 

Musical composition mystifies me. My wife and I agree that the imagination and auditory vision needed to compose for an orchestra are special. Could Beethoven actually play all of the instruments himself needed to perform his "5th Symphony?" In the end, music and photography are not the same thing I think.

Matt, I tentatively differ with your assertion that your "composition" is not an instant. If you'd assembled it as a collage or via Photoshop, I'd question its identity as "photograph," just as I would if Chuck Close had painted it photo-realistically. In other words, I think "instant" remains the essence of both of your examples.

John: In the set shot of the pheasant and its bane, it would be pretty hard to miss the deliberate placement of the bird's iradescent breast feathers along side the color-tinted metal of the lock, or the bird's neck angle next to the curves of the stock. While it was a quick job (things were happening!), I don't think that anyone can look at any photograph that was clearly <i>planned</i> (however badly), and not "see" it being done - not imagine someone saying, "let's see if we can find some bird/shotgun symmetry, here." Or, more simply, "Ooh! Look at those shiny colors! Let's put them next to each other." Only the most obtuse could look at a portrait and not imagine the act of shooting the portrait, or of watching it be done. Likewise with a stunning landscape piece taken from a precarious perch... who could look at it, and not also contemplate the hike to that spot? All of the prerequisites for the shot are part OF the shot, and to the extent that it requires effort and thought on the part of the photographer, it's that whole effort that's being shared. And I think that most people get that, whether or not they articulate it. Nothing that we experiece is understood in terms of it taking only 1/400th of a second, and I don't think that we perceive a scene captured in that fraction of a second as only <i>occurring</i> in that sliver of time.

<br><br>

In the case of my first sample shot, sure - the pheasant is in front of that hunter, in that way - wings just so - for only 1/800th. But what are we <i>seeing</i>? We're seeing a big, cackling rooster exploding from the thickets under the pressure of an unseen bird dog, and a hunter - experienced as he is - gaping a bit at the spectacle and having to gather his wits and reflexes. It's an instant in literal terms, but I don't think we process it that way at all. And of course, you have to consider the audience... some might be fixated on the poor pheasant's immenent demise or their notions of barbarism, and others - before the bird even hits the ground - are thinking of their favorite marinade. The instant of the exposure is a catalyst for a mental narrative that may, or may not coincide with what happened surrounding the moment it was taken.

<br><br>

The more I think about it, the less able I am to recall <i>ever</i> looking at a photograph without contemplating the circumstances in which it was made, and the events surrounding it... whether dictated - or reacted - to by the photographer. A good photographer's skill is in guiding my contemplation of that narrative, or of launching me into something delightfully <i>self</i>-guided. Even when we talk of a captured <i>social</i> moment (the walk down the aisle, say), the image's audience is thinking not of the time during which the shutter was open, but of the time their daughter/sister/best friend realized she was actually married. Without that larger narrative, such a photo is nothing. And <i>with</i> that larger narrative, the image is far more than the instant of the exposure, per se.

So, Matt, would you consider Chuck Close a photographer?

 

http://www.chuckclose.coe.uh.edu/

 

Our perceptions are instantaneous as well as extended. That's one of the miracles. 1/400th is a slow exposure for us, and a decade seems fast.

John: Chuck Close as photographer? No, not in the context of this conversation (or, perhaps, at all). More of a red herring, actually!

"...combines the efforts of many people from many disciplines."

 

Especially the entity providing the Completion Guarantee - without which no one else will be doing much on the film...

 

 

"..IN an instant..."

 

You'll have to define this further. Is the instant relative to the movement of a glacier or the plot advancement in a soap opera? Or, is it relative to the life of a hydrogen atom on the surface of the sun?

 

Some photographers have setup cameras that record a scene for days, while others are interested in what happens within time spans as short as 0.000001 of a second. Edward Weston's exposures were often measured in hours.

 

So, what is the "instant" you're referencing? How does this differentiate anything from printmaking?

 

If the instant (in your definition of photography) is the separator between photography and printmaking - how do you reconcile those photographers that have worked on interpreting an image over a number of years before they finally resolve the image to their satisfaction?

 

Your idea of what constitutes a photograph - and the "instant" requirement - are not part of the process for many, many people who make images that fall into the category of "photograph."

 

There is no time limit on making an image...only self imposed limitations.

I don't think a photo has to tell a story, sometimes it can rest just on the beauty for the form, like Bach's fugue. Aaron Copland actually critized in his "What To Listen For In Music" those less sophisticated listerns who have to find a story in a piece of music.

 

So is photography, an piece of fine art abstract photo doesn't have to be narrative -- the concept rests in forms, shapes and colors. Jsut my two cents.

 

btw, I disagree with Bruce Cahn -- I believe music is art, even it has to be performed; a negative has to be developed and printed too. Aha, Ansel Adams famous quote comes to mind. :D

Ray: I don't think Copland's "Fanfare For The Common Man" or "Appalachian Spring" (for example) would work without pushing some narrative buttons in his audience. Doesn't mean there is "a story" to that music, or should be - but such things work because they resonate with experiences or aspirations, and none of those things are contemplated as some frozen moment in time. You're right that simple appreciation of a form is a viable consideration here... but since John is talking in temporal terms, it seems appropriate to focus on such photographic subjects, techniques, and approaches as lend themselves to that sort of examination. A form, for its own sake, is off on a bit of an island of its own, I think. At least within the realm of John's topic. In that sense, we can't talk about "photography" any more than we can talk about "painting." The subjects are too broad to consider every possible use of those media in one philosophic converstational niche.

Matt, note that I didn't say "photography," I said "a photograph." Apples, oranges.

 

I think Chuck Close's paintings are photographs according to your terms and many of the very broad definitions of "photograph" that are advanced here, particularly the elaborately worked-over Photoshop creations we see on Photo.net...I think he's as much a photographer as Photoshoppers are.

 

Working with art director and a food stylist, I've taken days to produce perfect studio shots of food. And those were, in the end, instants: steam and bubbles rising, frosty glasses, fresh greenery, bleeding-red meat etc: instants, not the least because my 2800WS strobes exposed for 1/400th...

A memory of an image can last much longer than an instant, as can a sound. Both can create a mood or a feel in a person when remembering. Is one better than another? I couldn't say. Is one as good as another? I'd say yes.

Neurologically they're all received differently fwiw. Might suggest the importance of viewer's interpretation (post processing). That's tricky...for the photographer to anticipate the viewer/auditor's own post processsing....

...for the photographer to anticipate the viewer/auditor's own post processsing....

 

Exactly what you should be attempting to learn...iff...your interest lays, even partially, on the view of others or their response. For example...images for advertising.

Music without words is an abstraction; while a song can tell a story, you need to understand the language it is being sung in for it not to remain an abstraction.

 

Film lies between music and photography as it often relies heavily on language or imagery or both. While film sometimes explicitly uses music, language itself has a musical quality to it.

 

Photography's greatest appeal to me is that it supersedes language and its very immotility can become its greatest virtue.

I should imagine photographs have more appeal for deaf people than music. And music and words have more appeal for blind people than deaf people. And film with sound - a combination of the two - can have appeal for both deaf and blind people. The majority of us have both vision and hearing and perhaps it is easy to take it for granted. I wonder if a person who has never heard the sounds that are going on in a photograph (i.e the sound of the cars, birds, paper rustling, voices or whatever) has a different experience when they view a photograph to someone who can hear the distractions. Conversely, when someone who cannot see listens to a piece of music or a song, do they have a different experience to someone who sees the distractions? If you can't hear anything when you watch a film, do you see more in the film? If you can't see the film, do you hear more?

 

For a seeing hearing person I think a photograph stimulates more than just the visual senses. It might only be snap that captures that one instant in time, but you can't view it, I don't think, without building some idea in your mind of the sounds, of what went immediately before or immediately after it. It's like reading one sentence in a book that is describing that one moment - you can't help but construct the rest of it in your head. If you pick up a book you have never read, open it to a random page, and read just one sentence, your mind will try and put that in some context. With film, every single frame can be like that one sentence - like that one photograph - but you are fed the next sentence, you are fed the sounds - but your mind will still try and work out what comes next. With a piece of music you can pause it at any time - your mind will try and figure the next note. With a song, your mind will try and figure the next word. So basically, around each picture, or word in a book, or frame in a film, or note in a song, although these are all "instants in time" your mind will try and make sense of them - to work out how they fit in - what's next......

 

Of course, with film or music or song or words in a book, the mind has an easier job of working out what comes next as it has prior knowledge of what happenned up to that moment.

 

And then of course, not all photographs tell a story and perhaps trying to imagine what comes next is pointless. A typical traditional head and shoulders portrait - you might build an impression of what the person is like, but is it really trying to tell a story? Is there anything to come next anyway? Is it perhaps no more than the image of what that person looked like at that instant in time for the sake of memory?

Anthony: "Photography's greatest appeal to me is that it supersedes language and its very immotility can become its greatest virtue."

 

I don't know if that's it's "greatest appeal," but worth considering. By contrast, squabbles about meaning of words and phrases indicate that language wants to be absolutely immotile...I think there's more openness in discussion of images, has more of a musical feel...

 

Also, maybe slicing finer by shooting B&W leads to more "immotility" (love that word)...maybe lack of color activity adds somehow to that factor ...

 

Pete: "A typical traditional head and shoulders portrait - you might build an impression of what the person is like, but is it really trying to tell a story? Is there anything to come next anyway? Is it perhaps no more than the image of what that person looked like at that instant in time for the sake of memory?"

 

The thread about Giuliani's portrait illuminates Pete's question.

There is a lot to think about in this thread. For my own part, I'm finding it easier to think of ways they are similar than different. I'm thinking about that, too.

How they differ is two different modes of communication. What they have in common is the vastly different ways of expressing the same thing and how just a few of those expressions becomes a hit.