Music and Photography?

I have always felt that tears represented something deeply felt. Aside from onions and dust or wind.

I would use tears are a descriptive tool. It is not joy that the tear(s) represent... tears are a sign of heightened emotion or response. intensity. The context always guides me. Sad, happy, anger, fearful, pain, nostalgic, laughter, ... .

Without the context a tear means nothing more than salt water. A tear as an isolated 'symbol' only has a specific meaning to the user.

An ambiguous tear, tantalizing. It would create a question mark for me, generally a good thing. But I suspect there is a place for my mind to go. Lack of descriptive content leaves it open ended more than usual, rare even for an abstract in that The technique is often suggestive. Then the tear might become a quantifier for me. A floating question mark.

Tears of joy I struggle to think of a nicer thought.

 

Tears of sorrow I struggle to think of a nicer thought.

Us.

"But the more open-ended and ambiguous the image is (like The Shadow's example is rather ambiguous), the more the tear will collapse back into that what it universally symbolizes, rather than shown to be indexical of a certain circumstance (like the birth of a child or something as random as a gust of cold wind). " Phil.

 

Universal symbols and the ambiguous are not joined together as you seem to imply. Too simple a thought cloaked in a rectorate of ambiguity and prose.

 

Back to the future, or simple understanding, words in different context, have different meanings. Add colloquial English and once again the words can take on a whole different meaning.

 

To play word games, is a lack of understanding of words, and where they can take you; little perception and understanding is the thought that comes to mind.

Obvious though, Phil. What are you trying to say other than it will soon be Christmas.

 

Pray do tell..

 

Point me in a direction...

Phil, Phil, you tried very hard to give a word a specific meaning. Really, it was a about a pride thing. Yes, it was.

 

Hey, don't feel bad. We all still love you.

 

And post more of your work don't be selfish or shy.

;))

 

Mostly mates sometimes with a bit of a scowl.

I'm the bloke not to confuse anyone one;))

Fred the Shadow is still working on...Love Phil thing.

 

He will eventually get there in time.

How about "common"?

(like The Shadow's example is rather ambiguous)

not for me personally Phil.. The content of the photo I find very leading.

Still the success of that photo is in it's ambiguity imo. So I can understand why there may be many interpretations including sorrow. To suggest that there is a universal at play because of the ambiguity doesn't connect for me.

If you were to suggest viewing the tear in isolation, as in free of context truly making it ambiguous, abstracted then I would have a completely different take. In fact for me as you begin to crop in on the tear there is a point that it reads as a squinting physiological response to the environment (I suspect even more pronounced in 'straight' color) but still there is some context.....

Remove all context, or circumstance (like the birth of a child) an abstract. And if isolated but I still recognized it as a tear I wouldn't attach a specific emotion without the technique taking me there. A tear means sorrow for me only when content driven... for me sorrow requires content. The same way it may mean tears of joy with a smiling face attached. A tear accentuates, intensifies the moment.

But what a more ambiguous context (as opposed to a context that's illustrative) allows for is for the tear as a symbol to fold back into its universal token, namely 'sorrow', and as a gut level response.

 

Well, first, if I see a teardrop in a photo, my gut response would be shaped by everything that surrounds the teardrop, not just the tear itself. If there’s ambiguity in the context, I would think the photographer has more to show than is revealed and that would motivate me to take a deeper look at the work than reverting back to the original gut response.

why it’s important to nuance - even if there might be an overlap - between feelings describing images and images describing feelings.

Yeah ok. I think it is easily discerned which is being discussed at any given moment.

 

 

The universal is at play because of the tear being a universal symbol, not because of the ambiguity. But what a more ambiguous context (as opposed to a context that's illustrative) allows for is for the tear as a symbol to fold back into its universal token, namely 'sorrow', and as a gut level response.

That was very clear.

My gut response to a tear in an image is more along the lines of empathy sometimes compassion not tear as a token of a single emotion. Tears are much more nuanced in my life experience and as a creative tool. Maybe in part because i am as likely to tear for other reasons as I am for some misfortune.

I do recognize that the most common usage in imagery is to capture someone who is sad and with tears accentuate the depth of their sorrow.

By the way, inoneeye, did you lend your account/voice to The Shadow, you sound like him.

I'll bite. Of course not. Why is that Phil?

 

There are a lot of insights about the feelings of photographers in the context of their own work or photography in general and very little insights about the mechanism of looking at images when done by the average viewer who isn't spending their time endlessly critiquing and analyzing images like what we're all doing here.

I don't speak for the average viewer unless my opinion is solicited. I do ask my average viewer wife for her take on photos of mine and others. I don't think i have a good handle on other viewers opinions. I stick to my own. I was very surprised to hear her answer to the question I posed tonight in this context. Unprompted she said that tears don't symbolize anything for her they just show an deep emotional response. Not what I expected.

We do know each other no deception there... it's come up many times here on PN.

Just remember he is the one that writes much better and would probably gag trying to write like me. I am the one who is less stubborn and competetive I sometimes cringe at what he says in these forums.

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Me neither. But as photographers, we do speak to the average (non-critic) viewer through our pictures.

Yes we do. but I seldom go there ( try to figure them out) anymore except in very round about ways.

It’s self-evident that what you as the viewer would look at and respond to is the whole of the photo. This initial response to and scanning of an entire image by the brain happens in milliseconds. It's there when the recognition or not of an element in the photo as being a (universal) symbol for…kicks in.

 

Thats fine.

 

If there’s ambiguity in the context, I would think the photographer has more to show than is revealed and that would motivate me to take a deeper look at the work rather than reverting back to the original gut response.

 

My major counterpoint was this though.

When I read this ...

If there’s ambiguity in the context, I would think the photographer has more to show than is revealed and that would motivate me to take a deeper look at the work than reverting back to the original gut response.

... I can just as easily read “photographer” as “photograph”, and hopefully that helps avoid any “feelings don’t describe photographs, photographs describe feelings” dilemma.

 

Supriyo could just as easily have said “if there’s ambiguity in the context, I would think the photograph has more to show than is revealed and that would motivate me to take a deeper look at the work than reverting back to the original gut response.”

In any case, Supriyo’s idea of “taking a deeper look at the work than reverting back to the original gut response” is a quick chance to get back to music for a second. Though a photo is a stilled moment (and so much more than that), it takes TIME to digest a photo. The process Supriyo describes reminds me a little of the classic sonata form employed by the likes of Haydn and Mozart, which begins with an exposition, moves to a development, and ends with a recapitulation, which is an altered restatement of the exposition or the original thematic ideas of the piece. Now, in Supriyo’s or any viewer’s case, the development may or may not lead to a recapitulation, but the point is one’s appreciation and understanding, indeed one’s viewing, of a photo isn’t static. It’s progressive and rhythmic.

We are being naive if we think that viewers are looking at and registering the meaning of an image

Supriyo was talking about his viewing experience and I was responding to that.

If a photograph has more to show than what it reveals, then clearly it doesn’t do a good job at showing and communicating what it is that it has to reveal. And that’s not synonymous with ambiguity, it's synonymous with miscommunication.

IMO, that’s plain wrong. It’s a demand for kitsch and cliche, for easy listening elevator music.

In any case, Supriyo’s idea of “taking a deeper look at the work than reverting back to the original gut response” is a quick chance to get back to music for a second. Though a photo is a stilled moment (and so much more than that), it takes TIME to digest a photo. The process Supriyo describes reminds me a little of the classic sonata form employed by the likes of Haydn and Mozart, which begins with an exposition, moves to a development, and ends with a recapitulation, which is an altered restatement of the exposition or the original thematic ideas of the piece. Now, in Supriyo’s or any viewer’s case, the development may or may not lead to a recapitulation, but the point is one’s appreciation and understanding, indeed one’s viewing, of a photo isn’t static. It’s progressive and rhythmic.

 

+1

 

Shadow, you made very elegant parallel between "reading" image and sections of musical composition. I would add that, closer the image to abstract end of the spectrum longer the development.