Polish

<p>Arthur, I don't know if you want to get into here or perhaps we could have another thread about it at some point. Whichever you prefer. I think all of this is helping shed light on Julie's concerns, which seem varied in this thread, so it might be helpful. What do you mean by deterministic?</p>

<p>I understand determinism as the counterpart of freedom. An action is determined by other actions. Some of our actions are determined by previous actions done to us, cause and effect. Some of our actions are determined by genetics, cultural influence. Freedom somehow escapes this determinism. Sartre thought we were free. Many contemporaries feel we are not, that everything is determined and freedom is a myth we operate by. I don't want to get into that can of worms. But I don't understand how staging or setting something up or planning a shot somehow is evidence of determinism or undermines freedom. Can you explain your use of deterministic? Thanks.</p>

<p>Not in direct response to any of the latest posts in particular but I always liked this quote :</p>

<p> </p>

<blockquote>

<p><em>I think nearly every artist continually wants to reach the edge of nothingness - the point were you can't go any farther.</em><br /> - Harry Callahan</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Perhaps every viewer too.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>Does it all have to be so hyperbolic? Can we ever just kind of get off on a photo? Maybe call it appreciation? Maybe say it nudged us somewhere? I sometimes really like to think small.</p>

<p>Fred,</p>

<p>I grant you have reason to question the word I use. Maybe I am constructing my transatlantic "Franglais" (French-English) maritime grave with my words, but my understanding of the French word "determinisme", the closest word I can find to "deterministic"(-ique), defines (reference Le Robert dictionary) a philosophical doctrine whereby events (and I presume phenomena) are related to and determined by the chain of events that precede. With perhaps some freedom I use the term "deterministic" in the art connection as the act of conceiving some object by a planned and staged approach (namely, a "chain of events" leading to the final result).</p>

<p>In English, I have no access either a definition of "deterministic", which I use, but the somewhat similar word "determinism" relates, as you rightly said, to a theory that human action is not free but is determined by motives regarded as external forces acting on the will.</p>

<p>Wow, quite a difference. The English definition of "determinism" is unlike the French word, but it is the French one that approximates to my (albeit possibly invented) word "deterministic" and to its application in regard to a planned photographic approach.</p>

<p>Julie,</p>

<p>You always fill our cup to the top, so it takes a while to think about all you've written. The Wyeth approach as mentioned in your blog also requires time to digest. My first reaction is to the Mayerowitz example. Is it not possible that any polish that goes into his approach and his images, and what makes them special, already is in his head, is part of his way of seeing things and thus overlays (rather underlies) his work? I don't have Colville's thoughts to communicate here, but I seem to remember from an exhibition document and his sketches that they are of many levels when he paints, although perhaps less spiritual in nature and perhaps a bit less in touch with his subjects and more mathematical than Wyeth's (but, as often in art, I may be way off in that analysis).</p>

<p>Another stab: I believe that both you and Fred and Phylo, and perhaps some others who appear here, photograph in a more spiritual manner (using spiritual in the secular sense).</p>

<blockquote>

<p>Does it all have to be so hyperbolic? Can we ever just kind of get off on a photo? Maybe call it appreciation? Maybe say it nudged us somewhere? <strong>I sometimes really like to think small</strong>.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>The quote - <em>the edge of nothingness, the point were you can't go any farther - </em>doesn't exclude any of that.</p>

<p>Phylo, perhaps it doesn't exclude that and I don't know Callahan enough to know what he had in mind. I can only go by the words I read, which are out of context of course. But when those words talk about what artists <em>continually</em> want, which is at "the edge of nothingness, the point where you can't go any farther," that sounds pretty extreme and grandiose to me. We may be reading it differently. I was also influenced in my comments by Julie's use of the words "purity" when talking about polish and her use of "perfect" in referring to Meyerowitz's light, as well as her process being "<em>entirely</em> unliteral and non-verbal." The Callahan quote in conjunction with some of Julie's thoughts do seem somewhat intentionally extreme or hyperbolic. I'm open to others feeling that way about art, at all times, continually and entirely. I'm just offering a different take.</p>

<p>[i don't the artists continually want to go to the point where s/he can't go farther. Often, there is much farther to go, even on very specific points. Sometimes the artist purposely stops short of that point where s/he couldn't go farther. Sometimes not.]</p>

<p>In the very end, isn't "the polishing debate" about a combination of attitude, intention, purpose, experience and technique?<br>

Photography is one of the ways to express oneself: you have to have some sort of personal inclination towards the means. It's the choice to express oneself through images rather than sculpture, painting, music, writing, etc.<br>

Since photography is a visual communication means, it is basically founded on viewing, perceiving and reproducing by means of the photographic technique.<br>

I see two broad alternatives here:</p>

<ol>

<li>polishing can be the "<em>final act</em>" of a random activity, where a more or less casual process of seeing and photographing produces some output. The photographer sees this output and decides that it needs polishing to give it some individuality, something that will make the visual output stand out among scenes and things each of us can see everywhere everyday. In this case the shutter is pressed without the awareness of what the following steps of the creative process are going to be;</li>

<li>polishing is consciously embedded in the specific visual representation process the photographer is working on: it is not the "final act", but completely embedded in a consistent and continuous creative process which aims at a precise and conscious result. In this case, the shutter is pressed being aware that afterwards there will be a polishing phase which will be absolutely essential to the final results.</li>

</ol>

<p>Of course there are potentially infinite nuances between the two approaches.<br>

To go back to the reference in the initial post: in case 1) the author looks at his output and realises: "oh, it's a turd, it needs some polishing". In case 2) the author has the clear objective to start from a turd and to introduce a "polishing phase" which will make the turd what he/she intends it should be.</p>

<p>Luca, almost magically, as I was trying to organize my thoughts for this post, your's came in and I find in it such a good and useful connection, I'm going to come back to your 1. and 2. at the end of this post.</p>

<p>First, however, I want to thank Arthur very much for, knowingly or not, helping me a great deal when he asked, "Is it not possible that any polish that goes into his approach and his images, and what makes them special, already is in his head, is part of his way of seeing things and thus overlays (rather underlies) his work?"</p>

<p>This morning I'm thnking about two things: first, "belonging." What belongs "to" a picture (not so much "in" as "to"). Belongs, belongs; is at home there, should be there, is needed there, is, of course! there, is not so much key as integral; like the parts that make a body; they're not parts any more.</p>

<p>Second, "holds." What holds? What determines what "belongs" and what doesn't? What's the core, what's the center, or what's the source of the bonds that hold, the gravity that makes the "belonging" claim on this and not that? I would suggest that it's a dance. The photographer sees, he sorts, he sees, he sorts; he has a concept, what he's looking at has its own "concept" (nature, form, dynamics), each gives and gets in the creative process. See Arthur with his "Weary" picture, trying to find what belongs while at the same time having a strong sense of what "holds" and needs to be respected (perhaps he realized that his body was part of this particular dance and he needed a surrogate *in* the picture; maybe, maybe not).</p>

<p>See Andrew Wyeth beginnning, "Then I went up onto the hill where the pines are. I sat for a couple of hours and kept thinking about the kitchen down there with Anna Kuerner in it. And from the hill I saw Karl leaving to go to a farm sale in New Holland. Then, very quickly and penetratingly, because the presence of the kitchen got to me, I started to make some drawing notations from memory showing Anna in the corner with the dog curled up on the cushion next to her." And yet, in the end both Anna and the dog are not in the picture that he made. Ultimately, they did not belong to that which "held." The dog came and went twice -- such are the seductions of picture making. One sees something (many things!) that are fascinating and cool and interesting and you know how to photograph them and they're THERE -- but if they don't belong they have to go.</p>

<p>Meyerowitz, I am guessing, knew that the light (as an expression of? or simply the source of?) was what would "hold"; what would determine what belonged and what did not. His pictures give us the light; they leave out what does not belong to pictures of that light. I would suggest that Steichen, in the OP photo, had [the picture's title] "Tragedy" in his head, but that's not what belongs to that picture. He's not listening to his eyes; not dancing with his partner.</p>

<p>Fred said, "How we feel about what we do only carries us so far" after my last post. I think that's what happens when one doesn't listen to what "holds" at the core of what one is building on. Like Wyeth trying to force the dog into the picture; putting it in, taking it out, putting it back, then finally taking it out. He listened to what "held." That holding was his own idea; he's trying to find what that idea "looks like," what belongs to that idea.</p>

<p>Which brings me to part of Luca's 1. "The photographer sees this output and decides that it needs polishing to give it some individuality, something that will make the visual output stand out among scenes and things each of us can see everywhere everyday. In this case the shutter is pressed without the awareness of what the following steps of the creative process are going to be;" I think that surely happens, not just by accident but because good photographers, in my opinion, can work, as I think Arthur did with "Weary" without fully understanding what's going on -- they can do what Wyeth did at warp speed, though, at least for me, it's scary as hell to not have enough time for the dust to settle while in the midst of the genesis of a good picture.</p>

<p>Luca's second, "polishing is consciously embedded in the specific visual representation process the photographer is working on: it is not the "final act", but completely embedded in a consistent and continuous creative process which aims at a precise and conscious result. In this case, the shutter is pressed being aware that afterwards there will be a polishing phase which will be absolutely essential to the final results." makes me much happier (see Meyerowitz and his 8x10 camera and awareness of the capabilities of the color printing processes of that time).</p>

<p>The extent to which everything that is in a picture belongs to that picture seems to me to be central to my reaction to that picture. The extent to which there was/is a core that "holds" seems to me to be central to its turd quotient. If there is no core, if I have no sense that the stuff in the picture belongs to the picture, I'm looking at doo-doo.</p>

<p>Julie: Nail, meet head.</p>

<p><em>"Fred said, 'How we feel about what we do only carries us so far' after my last post. I think that's what happens when one doesn't listen to what "holds" at the core of what one is building on."</em></p>

<p>Could be.</p>

<p>Or . . . this could be why so many people think they're artists who are actually turd-makers. And this could be why so many photographs are so bad. Because people think it's all about how they feel. And it's not. Because it's also about what a photograph looks like. How many times have I heard so-called photographers talking about the incredible feeling they had when taking the pic or when working on the pic and what we're all looking at is a turd? But I suppose then some will simply want to judge that they didn't <em>really</em> have that super-dooper-magical-turd-into-diamond-special feeling that only great artists have. Never mind those who make art who didn't even set out to make it and didn't have any particular feeling about what they were doing.</p>

<p>One can listen to what "holds" all they want and still get a lousy picture if they're a lousy picture-maker. I'm quite sure Steichen listened to (or thought he listened to -- are we now not only going to judge Steichen's picture but his feelings when making it?) what "held" for him when making the above photo. If it's a lousy pic or has too much "turdness," it might have been some lack of vision or craft that made it so, not some lack of feeling on his part. Or, it was just a simple matter of Julie and others not liking it. How amazing if it turned out to be the latter!</p>

<p>And what if it's not about belonging or holding to a core? What if it's about wanting, desiring that element to be in there. Talk about determinism! Big difference between a photographer who says "it belongs in there, it must be there" and one who says "I want it there." Neither is necessarily the better way and even both don't exhaust the possibilities.</p>

<p>Too many artists have purposely played with elements that really don't belong for Julie's theory to "hold" water. I know, I know, if those elements didn't belong but they put them in there anyway, they really did belong after all. There are too many significant works of art and even art movements that have undermined the notion of this need for a core and for belonging and have, instead, relied on randomness and even nihilism.</p>

<p>Jackson Pollock would be turning over in his grave.</p>

<p><strong>Fred's mention of Jackson Pollock </strong>is amusing and may lead to another kind of point: Pollack said nothing important related to his paintings (few significant painters bother).</p>

<p>I think the only things that mattered to the way his paintings were and are appreciated were the fact that a particular person made them, the zeitgeist (of mid century NY), and the way certain people responded (a certain circle elevated him). The fact that he's immortalized in elder critical thinking about "art" makes his work little more than a historic footnote (that is, many of his peers have had much more impact subsequently, and will into the future...because, I think, his work was the absolute terminus of a particular aimless path).</p>

<p>My own thoughts go a bit further with this, related to photography: I think so little photography is of any consequence that the mass of it is directly comparable to one of Pollack's paintings: Colorful, perhaps decorative, hilariously over-valued when someone asserts that photography as a whole is "art".</p>

<p>As well, when someone (eg Julie) is "looking at" they are not necessarily seeing. They certainly aren't seeing when they are "interpreting."</p>

<p>There are many facets of crafting and creating images, many approaches, and many potholes. In between the turd and the diamond are many situations and I think it is sometimes counter-productive to try to put down any rules.</p>

<p>I don't see much future in polishing something that has little initial value to the photographer, that is a turd (whether that polishing is in the mind prior to making the photograph, in the acts we can undertake in making the image, or after pressing the shutter). Some things are possible, some are unlikely so. I remember working on new process development for marginal resources and virtually impossible to treat industrial rejects. Some approaches were possible, others not. The reflection was often "you can't make a silk purse from a sow's ear", an admittedly antiquated but not inapt expression of a former period, like that other outdated exclamation "humbug", that I heard amongst the much older community when working and studying for a short time in England.</p>

<p>We have been talking about extremes, of the turd and the diamond. If polishing is of value for us and for the well-known photographers and artists of the past, it likely is manifested as a quite subtle action or decision in the making of an image. It might require much reflection, as for Andrew Wyeth in conceiving his kitchen painting, or it might be spontaneous. A lot of commentaries on the subject of polish have been postulated as the commentator's viewpoint, and quickly debated by another. This is good, but like the returns on a tennis court, they stay within those confines and are only settled, but briefly, when one return is not returned. Sometimes we have to play outside the court or instead seek a new (higher) court. Polishing a turd to try to make a diamond is not of center court interest, although refining a volley to better its effect may be. Too much polish on the ball often takes it over the line. But what line?</p>

<p>In other words, I don't think we can qualitatively state or establish where, why and how polish occurs, just like that equally subjective decision of what is a fine photograph and what is not. It just happens, and as John says, it is probably a function of the spirit of the times and the place, the zeitgeist. Call in the elves.... (sorry, I can't help a wee bit of saracasm at this juncture)</p>

<p>Part of what I'm asserting is that the merit/worth/significance of a photograph or painting may or may not be appreciated by us as individuals (to the extent that we actually are individuals) or can be appreciated over time, by observing their seeming influence on others. And impact doesn't require much analysis, it's a visual thing (assuming the observers are visual people).</p>

<p><em>"...refining a volley to better its effect ... Too much polish on the ball often takes it over the line. But what line?"</em> ... <strong>Arthur P</strong><br>

Excellent metaphor, concise :-)</p>

<p>John, if merit/worth/significance and impact are not subjective and individual values, what are they, and who (which visual persons?)/what defines them (and whether a photograph meets their minimum levels or requirements)?</p>

<p>Ignore this, if it just leads to another can of worms.</p>

<p>Arthur, no outside system defines anything of importance. Words are defined but words aren't ideas, they're mere stand-ins.</p>

<p>Your metaphor comes closer to addressing significant issues than any definition could. We have metaphors for good and evil but we don't have definitions...for example. All attempts at such definitions become circular, like definitions of art.</p>

<p>i also look at your msg ...ya its excillent</p>