Compartmentalisation

<p><em>"... the written music to you has no value as a creation (which can be read), like Bach's scores.." </em>--- Arthur P</p>

<p><strong>Arthur</strong>, that's a twist worthy of Fox TV or King James :-) Mistranslation at best.</p>

<p>I didn't even hint that written music or unread books "have no value as creation." They are one kind of phenomenon, different from the phenomena in the minds of their authors...just as are the phenomena in the minds of players using scores or readers in their armchairs...and just as are the recordings of Richter and Gould .</p>

<p>BTW, because I attend a lot of live music I know that "singing" like Gould's is very common among instrumentalists..it's uncommon in recordings because the technicians and producers avoid it through ignorance, marketing prejudices, or technical limitations.</p>

<p>Gould happened to be a better technician than many studio recordists, having better technology at his disposal, fewer prejudices and constraints, and better piano-recording skills.</p>

<p><strong>Fred</strong>, I commend to you last night's Charlie Rose interview with Christopher Hitchens (already on <a href="http://www.charlierose.com">www.charlierose.com</a>) as well as other Rose interviews with him, as well as recently on <a href="http://www.fora.tv">www.fora.tv</a> and MSNBC. Politics aside, Hitchens addresses some of the core, non-photographic issues that I think we both care about.</p>

<p>"I don't know what would be comparable in the making of photographs to a written and followed score." (Fred, in agreeing with John's analogy between classical music (-performance) and photography)</p>

<p>No Fred, that is a non-issue in my mind, unless you wish to place the score in the head of the photographer (in his brain cells and and written into his memory, at the moment of, or perhaps even before the photographic creation). Photographic works and paintings are not performances of some pre-existing score like music, but intended works or spontaneous creations that occur once, uniquely, although they may be reproduced mechanically or electronically, with or (often) without added creative efforts.</p>

<p>All this discussion between music and the visual arts has very nicely avoided the issue of the OT of paradigms (one aspect of compartmentalisation) in photographic approaches and viewing. I am a bit tired of pushing that question and hoping for responses to it, so will take a short rest (to finish up a late report). I will happily wander back when the question turns up some thought provoking replies.</p>

<p>Arthur, that's why I said "I don't know what would be comparable" in photography to a written score. I liked John's analogy and can relate to it, but was also suggesting a variance between photography and music when it comes to the written score, in that I don't think photographs have something comparable.</p>

<p>Although, on further thought, perhaps something comparable would be when a master printer prints for a photographer who doesn't do his own printing. The viewer is being brought the photographer's vision (composer's piece of music) via the printer (musical performer). I'm sure this analogy, as most, breaks down at some point as well.</p>

 

<p>John, thanks. I'll try to catch the Hitchens. He's one of my favorite people to listen to, mellifluous no matter what he's talking about. He recently spoke at a memorial for Daniel Pearl that was on YouTube. A fascinating look at worldwide anti-semitism with a special homage to Mel Gibson!</p>

<p>Arthur, when you return I hope you will (perhaps again..I missed) provide examples of the "paradigms" you have in mind.</p>

<p>You seem (to me) to have associated "paradigms" with "compartmentalisation" and seem to see them as walls, constricting factors...perhaps you will explain how you experience that. Earlier you denied this was similar to "writers block," but you didn't explain how it was different so were unconvincing.</p>

<p>btw music is distinctly not "performances of some pre-existing score" except in the minds of the most constricted classical players. Even the average-good are not automatons. And of course, there's jazz.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>John,</p>

<p>I thought I was clear, but if not, here are the relevant lines again from the OT:</p>

<p>"Do we also tend to compartmentalise our manners of photographing, to just repeating the same approaches we have grown with? Is our aesthetic and objectives compartmentalised, hermetic? How free a photographer and thinker are you?"</p>

<p>This doesn't imply anything about an equivalent of "writer's block", but more about not shaking our approach paradigms and exploring new approaches, of "getting out of the box" (or compartment, if you will). It requires some honest appraisal of what and why we photograph, individually.</p>

<p>The ball is in your court, or that of others interested to respond to that. I will, too, when I see interest shown.</p>

<p>"Ta ra" for now, Arthur</p>

<p><em>"Photographic works and paintings are...spontaneous creations that occur once, uniquely, although they may be reproduced mechanically or electronically, with or (often) without added creative efforts." </em>--- Arthur P (with my hopefully-not-distorting excision..JK)</p>

<p>1) very little famous/fine photography has ever been finished before that "added creative" stuff (as provided in music by people like Richter and Gould) that you are diminishing. Digicam snapshots are digicam snapshots and will always be recognized as hints-at-best. Salvador Dali's pre-mortem-contrived, post-mortem knock-offs come to mind.</p>

<p>2) Paintings, unless dashed off by Japanese brush painter types, are rarely if ever "spontaneous" ...they typically entail preliminary sketches and iterations (unless knocked-off for tourists)...they often take weeks or months, are often painted-over again and again. Paintings are typically light-years from "spontaneous." In any case, "spontaneous" is a fantasy...it supposes zero previous experience..."the lights are on but nobody's home."</p>

<p>Arthur, without examples or descriptions of your personal experience I do not think you can be "clear" about this sort of topic. </p>

<p>Of course you do not intend to "imply" a creative block, but you very distinctly hint at that with your "compartmentalisation" diagnosis. </p>

<p>That you find nobody addressing your concern should not be blamed on them...it seems aversion to their struggles to understand.</p>

<p>John,</p>

<p>I regret that you are not able to take sincere statements for what they are.</p>

<p>You seem to keep aggressively wanting to shut down the discussion through one of your objections or side issues (like your idea of my writer's block) or another, rather than simply contributing to it.</p>

<p>The OT, again reiterated above, and to which you have not responded to, was very clear. I was not giving personal experience (I first asked that of others, and what is wrong with that. I've given personal experience and discussed personal viewpoints on many occasions) but seeking the ideas and personal perceptions of others on the matter. Apparently you don't want to contribute anything to it, and worse, are simply attempting to sabotage any attempt to get it going. </p>

<p>That lack of any interest and minimal respect on your part yields but one result : Good night. </p>

 

<p>Compartmentalization is isolating certain thoughts and actions from a more organic whole. If one has a moral code and justifies breaking it in a specific instance by some rationale outside of that moral code, one has compartmentalized.</p>

<p>I prefer to concentrate and focus, not compartmentalize. I have concentrated on portraits and particularly on portraits of middle-aged men. That concentration can also transcend itself -- and I try consciously to do this -- when I universalize this more specific part of the world by treating these men as human rather than mascots. Were I to compartmentalize, I might isolate what I was concentrating on from the bigger picture.</p>

<p>A dangling thread is not compartmentalization. It is often a temporary break in a longer discussion. When we let a thread rest it doesn't suggest we've completed it. These topics and themes repeat and develop over series of threads. The interrelatedness of threads is like a photographer's body of work, often more significant than individual photographs. Treating each photograph as an isolated entity separated from the body of work could be a form of compartmentalization.</p>

<p>My concentration on middle-aged male portraits is not the act of ignoring landscapes, not a conscious act of avoidance. If I don't mention something in a post, that is not an active rejection. It is concentrating on what I am talking about and not qualifying it by covering all other possibilities. I am not ignoring those possibilities. I simply didn't address them. It's what I do with landscapes and what I do with threads that seem simply to have run their course . . . for now.</p>

<p>Thank you Fred. I think you've answered most of my questions.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>Do we also tend to compartmentalise our manners of photographing, to just repeating the same approaches we have grown with? Is our aesthetic and objectives compartmentalised, hermetic? How free a photographer and thinker are you?"</p>

</blockquote>

<p>To photograph and make photographs is to compartmentalize, perhaps more than any other form of *expression*, so I don't know how much it would matter whether or not we tend to compartmentalize our manner of compartmentalizing. It seems inherent in the quest of seeking and seeing.<br /> I'm free to the extent that I want to be influenced by what and how others before me have sought and seen and expressed, this wanting is of creative potential. Of course I can never be free from me, or from my own photographs, even if I can learn to outgrow old ones by making new ones, they'll still be me, mutations from / of my reality.<br /> I don't understand your use of <em>hermetic</em> here, if a work's aesthetic is indeed hermetic - suggesting freedom from an outside influence - than why question the freedom and independence in its creator's thinking ?!</p>

<p>Phylo, good questions. <br>

I think the enemies of "freedom" include inaction...even evil can be free, certainly "creative". I've not read Sartre well, and not in a long time, but he struggles with this. <br>

I don't see how any of this relates to "compartmentalisation," as Fred has explained the concept...<br>

Writers write, painters paint, photographers photograph. The catch is that we can inadvertantly over-define ourselves by such simplistic labels. HCB, after photographer, took on new labels.</p>