Are You Pursuing Answers or Establishing Questions?

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<p>The real creative question is: How can I best create or recreate the reality of my poetic occasion and subject -- by pursuing an answer or by establishing the questions? By solving the problem or by representing the depths of its mystery?</p>

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<p><em>-- poet David Baker talking about writing poetry</em></p>

<p>Apply that quote to photography, where your "poetic occasion" is the occasion when/why you take a picture.</p>

<p>When your picture is supposed to show what "This <em>is</em> . . . " or say "This makes me feel <em>this</em> way," then it's an <strong>answer</strong>.</p>

<p>For example, W. Eugene Smith: "My photographs at best hold only a small strength, but through them I would suggest and criticise and illuminate and try to give compassionate understanding."</p>

<p>On the other hand, where you took a picture to ask, "What <em>is</em> this?" or "What does this mean?" then it's a <strong>question</strong>.</p>

<p>For example, Garry Winogrand: "I photograph to see what things look like photographed." (It's debatable whether that's a question or an answer. How do you take it?)</p>

<p>Which are you doing when you take a picture, any picture -- a portrait, a street photo, an abstract, a landscape, a snapshot of your dog, your children, flowers, sunsets ... anything at all? Are you thinking 'this is what this is' or are you thinking 'what is this, really?'</p>

<p>Answer or question? Both?</p>

<p>(I don't think you can claim neither -- else why would you take the picture at all?)</p>

<p>"I don't think you can claim neither -- else why would you take the picture at all?"<br>

Sorry Julie but I completely disagree with this comment; photography is photography and poetry is poetry (although they can blend and one can certainly have aspects of the other). I think you overlook the fact that many photographers, including me, take photographs out of nothing other than curiousity to see what they would look like or because they think what they are seeing would make a nice image. cb :-)</p>

<p>In photography<br>

As in making love<br>

analysis is<br>

Best left for later</p>

<p>I am not sure, until I've thought it through, whether I agree that it's not possible to "claim neither", Julie ... I shall have to pupate (!!!) around the idea for a while.<br>

To Charles, though...<br>

(1) Taking photographs "out of curiosity to see what they would look like" is surely posing a question?<br>

(2) Less obviously, isn't taking photographs "because they think what they are seeing would make a nice image" also posing a question: "will this make a nice image?"<br>

(3) On the assertion that "photography is photography and poetry is poetry" I am firmly with Julie, but don't you also undermine your disageement by conceding that "they can blend and one can certainly have aspects of the other"? I agree, they certainly can (I would say <em>do</em> , personally, but...) and therefore how can they be so definitely separated as your comment suggests?</p>

<p>To William Kahn, who posted as I was framing mine:<br>

Now or later,without it where would the philosophy strand be?</p>

<p>Felix-my comment with regard to poetry and photography could probably have been better expressed. A photographer may come upon a scene where some or all of the elements are already there for a possible photograph and he/she takes the picture to see if in fact it does translate into a useable image. I'm not a poet but I don't think that they find a bunch of words lying around and think, "hey I wonder if I can string those together and make a poem out of it?". My point was that I think it quite possible to create a photograph without the same forethought required by a poem. I am always bemused by people who always think that the photographer must have had something of signifigance in mind when they pressed the shutter button. Re (3) poetry and photography differ but that doesn't prevent them from overlapping so no, I don't think I undermined myself. cb</p>

<p>Many things are properly described as "poetic." Paintings, dance moves, musical performances, and certainly that small amount of photography that transcends "pretty," "snapshot," and "rendition."</p>

<p>"Poetic" or "poetry" or "poem" seem to me to describe something that evokes something from memory, but something ephemeral, not immediately grasped. There may be something poetic in grass that's bursting through a crack in the sidewalk.</p>

<p>Smith's "Tomoko in her bath" evokes Michaelangelo's "Pieta" for many, some without being able to name the connection. I doubt Smith consciously made the connection at the time...it seems so emotionally loaded that he might have had a hard time just framing the image. Michaelangelo surely made his poetic connection to what he knew about Jesus and Mary, which itself came from poetic writing (the Gospels in Latin).<br /><a href="http://www.afterimagegallery.com/smithprints.htm">http://www.afterimagegallery.com/smithprints.htm</a><br /><a href="http://www.stpetersbasilica.org/Altars/Pieta/Pieta.htm">http://www.stpetersbasilica.org/Altars/Pieta/Pieta.htm</a></p>

<p>I don't think significant photography is ever accomplished "without forethought," not even Winogrand's. He walked in certain kinds of environments, knowing from experience that certain kinds of things would attract his attention. He had the forethought not to wander in many other environments and the forethought to carry a camera, expecting to make photographs. With forethought, he selected images for printing and prints for display... selection is central to photography.</p>

<p>Poets seem to know they'll find something when they look...poetry isn't just a matter of assembling patterns of words. Gertrude Stein said poets noticed and gave significance to details that others didn't...details like grass growing from cracks in sidewalks. Winogrand was a lot like Gertrude Stein.</p>

<p>My photos don't ask questions or suggest answers... I'm at the edges of poetic challenges but don't know if I'm accomplishing poetry.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>Charles, in looking at your own pictures, I think there's more than curiousity there. You've taken a lot of time to choose and compose. What? Why?</p>

<p>William. Okay. <em>(*looking at my watch for five minutes*)</em> Now it's later. Please answer the question.</p>

<p>Felix, I will be waiting, impatiently for your conclusions. I hope this is the accelerated pupation schedule, not the one where I'm still waiting six months later (there are quite a few still in the oven -- don't think I've forgotten about them). I shall keep my own answer secret until I hear yours.</p>

<p>John, thank you for the thoughtful description and elaboration on connections between poetry and photography. I thnk that poets are very much like photographers in that they are receptive. They are looking; they are sensitized; they are receptive as in they are prepared to open up and receive.</p>

<p>If your photographs are neither questions nor answers, then what are they? What are you doing? Why did you look, why did you stop, why did you fiddle the controls, why did you move just a little this way and that? Or, conversely, why did you look and stop . . . and then not take a picture?</p>

<p>I am interested in the motivation <em>as you are taking the picture</em>; not after and not as viewer of other people's pictures.</p>

<p>I think it is all for intertainment basically, plus some business on the side.</p>

<p>Julie, <br />All I seem to care about currently are portraits. I'm not thinking of anything beyond the technical and the relationships. I'm actively engaging subjects (who look directly into my lens) and helping them be as open as possible. It's more like an intense, brief love affair than like making a photograph. I'm good at that with people like myself: grown up, broadly educated, curious, created comfortable lives for themselves. We spend a lot of time and clicks getting past frozen faces, big smiles etc. The good photo seems to take fifteen minutes and perhaps 30 exposures. Plain background. I'm hoping soon to start with local Hispanic roots people who aren't likely to be as comfortable with Mr. White Guy as my current subjects. I have an idea for an opener (the easily understood reason I want to photograph them). I do know some things about them, as a culture, that may let this work. Or it may not...and on to the next.</p>

<p>But...in a nutshell, my photographs are gifts in which I'm also a participant. </p>

<p>JH> Felix, I will be waiting, impatiently for your conclusions.<br>

OK ... I hear HMV and obey! :-)<br>

On consideration it seems that you are, at the most fundamental level, right: one cannot take a photograph and not either ask or answer a question. One may be unaware of the framing and/or response to the question, but not avoid their existence.<br>

In fact ... there may well be, and often are, multiple questions ... but I'm not going there, for now at least.<br>

If the photographer is a conscious being, then the bottom line is that s/he cannot help answering at least the one question: "what do I notice, photographically?". That doesn't seem to me at all a trivial question, though it may not strike everyone the same way.<br>

Even (taking an extreme case) if the photographer were a robot, deliberately designed to photograph in a truly random way, the results would still answer the question "what was before the robot, at the moments when photographs were exposed?"<br>

I'm not sure whether that's the level you were thinking of, though? If not, then my answer may change with the level – in particular, the level of <em> conscious</em> mentation involved in the framing or answering of the question.<br>

Shifting to your main question ("Which are you doing when you take a picture, any picture ... [answering] 'this is what this is' or ... [asking] 'what is this, really?'") and responding purely for myself: I am usually doing both, in plural ways at different intensities, in different proportions on different occasions. I think...<br>

I hesitate over your word "motivation", though. I might be more comfortable with something like ... oh ... impetus, or impulse, maybe</p>

 

<p>John,</p>

<p>It's been a long time since I've done any portraits, but it seems to me that your description is more about exploration than conclusion or more question than answer</p>

<p>It's impossible for me to know whether what you finally zero in on when you make your pictures is some truth about the person or whether, instead, you are framing the "depths of the mystery" of that particular being.</p>

<p>Felix,</p>

<p><em>(*adding motivation to the long list of Felix-ations*)</em></p>

<p>Answer implies a preceding question, so in every case there was a question somewhere. The difference is whether or not you feel the need to resolve that question in order to make a picture. Or, I should say, would <em>like</em> to have resolved that question.</p>

<p>Which leads me, as promised, to my answer, now that you've given yours. I prefer (and wish that it could be always the case) that my pictures are answers, not questions. But small answers. Very small answers. Very, very, <em>very</em> small; local, particular, personal. I like to whittle and pare and polish until it's clean, if that makes any sense.</p>

<p>But, but . . . I take many pictures that are questions. Because questions are everywhere; because uncertainty compels attention ("<em>is </em>that a sabre-tooth tiger in the bushes, or not?"); because I can't figure out the answer. Though I take these pictures, I don't like them. I futz about with them after the fact, trying to turn them into answers, but that doesn't work.</p>

<p>Julie: in specific response to the end of yours ... I, by contrast, would probaby prefer that my photographs were predominantly questions but, but ... in reality I probably produce more answers.</p>

<p>Felix,</p>

<p>Well, thank goodness you've come to your senses and are once again the opposite of me -- which is as it should be, after all.</p>

<p>".... it seems to me that your description is more about exploration than conclusion or more question than answer....whether what you finally zero in on when you make your pictures is some truth about the person or whether, instead, you are framing the "depths of the mystery" of that particular being."<strong> - Julie H</strong><br /><strong></strong><br /><strong>Julie,</strong> for my own purposes I can't accept your "question" vs "answer" perspective.</p>

<p>It's not that I disagree, it's just that I don't find it relevant to what I'm doing.</p>

<p>Perhaps you're right...maybe I'm "framing depths of mystery"...<strong> everything important seems that way specifically because it hints at mysteries...art is different from decoration only then.</strong> : <a href="../philosophy-of-photography-forum/00SrEW">http://www.photo.net/philosophy-of-photography-forum/00SrEW</a></p>

<p>For me, questions often have answers and a good answer will often bring up more questions. Good photographs may participate in both. Rather than thinking of my photographs as simply posing or answering questions, I might prefer to think of them as discussions.</p>

<p>I often think our "interpretations" of others' photographs are too specific . . . because viewers tend to seek answers where the photographer didn't pose the kind of question that requires one. A photographic question, indeed even a philosophical one, may be seeking the kind of truth that is expressed not with a proposition deemed to be "p" or "q" but rather with an emotional response. That's truth on a different plane from "is this an accurate representation of reality?" that so many seem to concern themselves with when it comes to photography. </p>

<p>The best way to answer your question, Julie, may be to say that photography renders some questions meaningless. Which is not to say yours is a silly question. It's a good one. For me, it leads to a question like, "Are feelings questions or answers?" because a good photograph will often awaken feelings.</p>

<p>It seems to me that what John is talking about is not seeking some truth about a particular person, the subject of his photograph. It seems he is forming a relationship. The photograph is both a stimulus to and a result of that relationship.</p>

<p>Exploration is, sometimes, the answer as well as the question. Like John, I don't see the question/answer dichotomy as necessarily pertinent to photography per se, though I respect the fact that it will be significant for some.</p>

<p>While I can see that it's not <em>necessary</em> (as opposed to not "pertinent" or not "relevant") to think about the question/answer dichotomy (none of philosophy is, really), I do think that it is a genuine divide in intent.</p>

<p>A question is a beginning; the formulation of a 'quest'. The tensioning of the bow, the pointing of the arrow before its release.</p>

<p>An answer is a conclusion, and ending, the arrow stopped.</p>

<p>Here is more from David Baker, this from just before the previous quote at the top of this thread:</p>

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<p>I hope to infuse a kind of speculative dis-ease into the simple linear imagination. I want to trouble our thinking, to make it self-aware, at odds with our more typical analytic pardigms. Too often we read -- if we read at all -- with laziness, inattention, satisfied by the cliched and familiar, soothed by the conventional, the facile: the sloth of the typical newspaper, the despicable formula of the popular novel, the mere condescension of most daily discourse. We want answers without understanding the questions; we want clarity, pure and simple, without dealing with the more natural disorders.</p>

<p>I want a poem that resists the tyranny of order, of easy clarity, of sinigle-mindedness. Consider the possible rhetorical paradigms of the hallucination, the dream, and all the circular, associative working of memory. These are the mind's most accurate and natural methods in its search for meaning. To give voice and appropriate form to these less orderly, these messier, conditions is to attempt to depict the mind in its fundamental environs.</p>

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<p>At the end of Baker's essay, there is this:</p>

 

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<p>But whose job is it to explain?</p>

<p>Deconstruction and its murderous pretense that "the author is dead" notwithstanding, I wrote this poem. I planned it, constructed it, changed it, loved it, fought it, thought and thought about it. I am its author. But who holds the responsibility for this poem's interpretation and meaning? I am the author, but who is the authority? Not me. I gave that to you.</p>

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<p>I don't agree with Baker -- which is why I find his position interesting to think about. (I enjoy disagreement.)</p>

<p>Fred – I agree with much that you say, but in the interests of discussion I'll concentrate on one of the differences.<br>

While photography (or anything else) may make certain questions (and, for that matter, answers) meaningless <em>for a particular observer or viewpoint</em> , I can't see that it can be said to do so in general.<br>

Questions can <em>be</em> meaningless, but if they hold any validity to start with then it cannot be removed by a particular medium ... though it may cease to be conceded by particular hearers.</p>

<p>Julie/Felix--</p>

<p>I didn't say that photography makes questions in general meaningless. I said it makes SOME questions meaningless. And, yes, I mean for me, not everyone. In this case, for me, it makes the question "Does photography pose questions or answer them" meaningless. Because, for me, photography isn't so linear. I agree with what Baker is saying, at least in this later quote Julie supplied, to a large extent. In moving away from single-mindedness and toward dream and hallucination (which is where I believe much about art lies), he seems to be in a similar place to me. The simplicity with which he draws the dichotomy between question and answer in the first quote is rejected in his more complex explanation later. For me, photography, as Baker claims in the second quote, is messier than a simple dichotomy between asking or answering questions. For me, Julie, it is not pertinent because it's not the kind of paradigm that I apply to painting, music, or photography of the type I endeavor to do. It's more, for me, than not necessary. It simply doesn't apply. It's a different language and the question/answer split doesn't translate. It's like trying to translate verbatim an idiomatic expression. It simply doesn't work for me. With regard to most photographs that I love, the question and answer are one. They absorb each other.</p>

<p>Fred: I'm sorry, I worded mine badly. I meant that I don't see how photography (or whatever) can <em>in a general sense</em> make <em>a particular question</em> meaningless.<br>

I do agree that it can make that particular question meaningless <em>for a particular person</em> , but not for everyone.</p>

<p>There are only two kinds of people in the world; those that divide the world into two kinds of people, and those that don't.</p>

<p>Isn't the "question vs answer" dicotomy the same kind of statement? As everyone knows, all duality is falsely imagined.</p>

<p>Larry: "As everyone knows" ?</p>

<p>Well ..... maybe not everyone. But I'm not alone.</p>

<p>Is a coin made of two sides, a head and a tail, or is a head and tail really just two sides of one thing? I think there are many complex philosophical discussions that, in the end, argue that kind of question, and I think this is one. The original quote assumes a duality that doesn't exist.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>Julie, I'm afraid I have to side with the rest of the nay-sayers here. I just don't see a clear cut dichotomy bewteen "question" and "answer" in either poetry or photography. For instance, one of your "answer" examples, "This makes me feel <em>this</em> way" can logically be followed by one of your "question" examples, "What does this mean?" in the same breath, as part of the same emotional response.</p>

<p>In any case, it's certainly not something I consider evern briefly when shooting. What draws me to a particular scene is a strong visceral reaction, or a sense of <em>deja vu</em>, or perhaps a combination of the two. If I stop to consder the meaning of what I'm doing, I'lll never get the damn shot. That's the point I was trying to make in my first post.</p>

<p>Of course, there have been times when I've looked at a negative or a scan later and wondered what in the world I <em>was</em> thinking.......</p>

<p>it's an "observation"...no questions, no answers</p>