How big a role does nostalgia play in your photos?

<p>I'm not up to Derrida this morning, but here's Willie Nelson:</p>

 

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<p>Old worn-out saddles, and 'old worn-out memories,<br /> With no one and no place to stay.</p>

 

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<p>--Lannie</p>

<p>If the Paterlini music makes me feel nostalgic, it's the Paterlini music that makes me feel nostalgic. That tells me nothing about photographs. If the sepia toned, blurry, dark pictures make me feel nostalgic, it's probably the sepia toned, blurry, dark qualities that are doing the work, not subject of the photograph.</p>

<p>In her PBS Art 21 segment, Sally Mann is seen making pictures of her dogs' rawhide chew toys using her large-format wet plate collodion process and <em>those</em> pictures look nostalgic [frame from the video of her in the darkroom, <a href="http://www.art21.org/files/imagecache/full_image/images/art21-mann-place-043.jpg">seen here</a>]. I suspect that is in spite of and not because of what's <em>in</em> the pictures (rawhide dogs' chew bones). Unless you are a dog.</p>

<p>Derrida and "kenosis" - the "last jew", as he like to call himself. Julie it is too passive and time consuming for me and much too religious.</p>

<p>Come on, Julie, give us some Kirkegaard : "<strong><em>Life can only be understood backwards</em></strong>" for example, if that can be linked to our problem with nostalgia, or is "understanding" still a four letter word here on Photonet ? </p>

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<p>"Or do you only want to make photographs that are about photography?"</p>

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<p>I guess I have one that qualifies. Be very careful, though. Photo.net has declared that this one is a nude:</p>

<p><a href="/photo/10786770"><strong>[LINK]</strong></a><br>

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--Lannie<strong><br /></strong></p>

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<p>"Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards" is the Kierkegaard quote (Phil), or in the original Danish version: <em>Livet forstås baglæns, men må leves forlæns.</em><br>

<br /> <br /> Right Phil, if you wish it all. Nostalgia and photography is probably related to the part I quoted and not the part you added.</p>

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<p>Antipoetic is the thing<br>

flowers mostly in the spring<br>

and when it dies it lives again<br>

first the egg and then the hen</p>

<p>Or is this merely an unreason<br>

flowerless the which we beg<br>

antipoetic mocks the season<br>

first the hen and then the egg <br>

— <em>William Carlos Williams</em></p>

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<p>Sandy, people can be nostalgic of certain aspects of life in bad times too.<br />If you talk to people that have lived through times of wars (Second World War) or dictatorships (Franco) you will often hear about stories on greater feeling of solidarity and togetherness among people, the joy of simple things and basic food. Many older people talk of longing back to those times despite the horror of war and prosecutions. "Good times" is a very complex issue - "longing back" too. You have former prisoners "longing back" to prison too of some reason or another.</p>

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Really good point Anders. Let me ask this, is it nostalgic if one uses nostalgia in a photograph as a critique of present times? Also, when thinking of a utopian future, how is that different than looking for a utopian past? If I understand nostalgia it means editing out and basically denying all the crap in some past time, and only focusing on that which one sees as ideal. Is it really that much different than looking at the future in which you present the ideal only?

 

 

<p>I don't think it's about any particular idea of utopia so much as it is a despair at the <em>absence</em> of utopia.</p>

 

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<p>Life is an immobile, locked,<br>

Three-handed struggle between<br>

Your wants, the world's for you, and (worse)<br>

The unbeatable slow machine<br>

That brings what you'll get. Blocked,<br>

They strain round a hollow stasis<br>

Of havings-to, fear, faces.<br>

Days sift down it constantly. Years.<br>

— <em>Philip Larkin</em></p>

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<p>I agree, Barry, that the longing back very often concerns special event and partial elements of a specific period and by doing that one can hope and dream of, and eventually work for, a future in that image. Photography can here play a central role of nurturing that future visually. I think we all do that in one way or another, consciously or by reflex, by shooting what our eyes sees as worthwhile among the infinite possible frames around us. We create a visual world of our attraction, with build in nostalgia, ruptures and harmonies and dreams of future change and continuity. </p>