Assignment No. 2

<p>While in solitary confinement at San Quentin Prison, to complete <a href="http://www.tbwbooks.com/collections/single-titles/products/assignment-no-2">Assignment No. 2</a>*, inmate Michael Nelson wrote a comparative response to two photos, one by Hiroshi Sugimoto and the other by Richard Misrach.</p>

<p>He winds up his handwritten work with the following:<br>

.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>" ... the two photographs both remind me that no matter where I'm at in the world, what time of day or year it is, or how much money I have, there will always be someone(s) who has or can relate with the way that I am currently feeling; the emotions that I experience, good and bad, is shared by others. The photographs of the two picture screens were captured at different times and within different spaces, and are visually different, yet both share the same story and both relay to me the same message: that no one person is every really alone, in their experiences and with their feelings." — <em>Michael Nelson</em></p>

</blockquote>

<p>.<br>

That paragraph left me in a warm and fuzzy rosy glow of good feeling about photography for longer than it should have. Because it is dead wrong.</p>

<p>If I show any two people a photograph of <em>anything</em>, and ask them how it makes them feel, they will argue; they will argue about what they feel, they will argue about the emotions it provokes. Nelson's "shared by others" just doesn't happen.</p>

<p>I know that. Yet, when shooting, in the past, today, and, I'm sure, tomorrow, I also <em>know</em> that Nelson is right. When in the act of shooting, I believe, without any doubt (aka <em>know</em>) that "is shared by others" is simply true. This in spite of the fact that all of the post-shooting evidence proves that idea wrong.</p>

<p>I know what Nelson says is true and I also know that it's not true.</p>

<p>Is this the case for you, too? Does it make any difference, and if not, why not?</p>

<p>[*The assignments were part of the Prison University Project at San Quentin Prison. "Michael Nelson is serving 25 to life for a first-degree murder he committed when he was 15. He is now 32." You can see the two photos <a href="http://www.tbwbooks.com/collections/single-titles/products/assignment-no-2">here</a>.]</p>

<p>I don't typically worry about communicating at the moment when I am taking the picture. I take the picture to capture a moment in<em> my</em> life, quite apart from others' lives.</p>

<p>The same goes for post processing: I do it for myself, to capture or to express something. Only if and when I decide to post or print for display do I start thinking about what the photo might be or seem to be for others--what it might <em>mean</em> for someone besides myself.</p>

<p>There are exceptions to the above statements, but they are, I believe, generally true.</p>

<p><a href="/photo/18250720&size=lg">HERE</a> is one that I took for myself alone, perhaps because the woman interested me as a subject. In processing, I tried to capture the mood more generally, and so I perhaps began transitioning to how it might look to others. At what point precisely did I start thinking about how the photo might look to others besides myself? I am not sure.</p>

<p>--Lannie</p>

<p>Taking photos for me, that is, fulfills both an experiential and expressive function.</p>

<p>Expressing what to whom? Well, I don't worry about that, don't even think about it, when taking one of my typical photos. Again, there are exceptions, but what I am saying is generally true for me.</p>

<p>Thinking back to what I said above in my first post: at what point precisely did I start thinking about the mood that I was capturing (or might be capturing)? I am not sure about that, either.</p>

<p>I obviously don't know my own mind when I am shooting. I think that I do. Maybe I do not. I am going to try to be more aware of that in the future, unless thinking about my thinking begins to interfere with how I am seeing.</p>

<p>At what point does taking a photo start fulfilling a communicative function? I am not sure. I am sure that it can vary.</p>

<p>--Lannie</p>

<p>Nelson sees the pictures as witnessing a dying art; he contrasts the "passionate anger" of Sugimoto's to Misrach's "feeling of defeat." (I'm snipping from a much longer, and, IMO, very good description off Nelson's responses.)</p>

<p>I am a huge fan of Misrach but not so much Sugimoto. but Nelson makes some really interesting observations about Sugimoto that give me much food for thought and reassessment.</p>

<p>I'm interested in how well this solitary-confinement communing (his and mine) works versus the real world arguing we do where we don't get to assume agreement/connection.</p>

<p>I tend to agree with Lannie on this matter. Whatever I do in connection with the process of photography ultimately is to fulfill my own purposes. In all honesty, I cannot account for how people will respond emotionally to one of my images.</p>

<p>And, by the way <strong>Admin,</strong> what was the purpose of moving this to the Philosophy of Photography forum, especially since Landrum Kelly can't respond any further?</p>

<p>Michael, this forum is fine. I started to post it here but couldn't decide if it was 'philosophical' enough. I'm happy for it to have been moved -- I like this forum. :)</p>

<p>I am sorry that Lannie isn't able to post further, but at least he got to give some of his thoughts before the move.</p>

<p>Is Michael Nelson getting warm and fuzzy because two photographers each took a photo of the a similar subject and where those two photos then conveyed to viewers similar feeling tones? That is, is he emoting because two photographers in different parts of the world felt the same way about a subject and effectively conveyed those similar feelings? And then by extension, Michael feels that since two such photographers aren't alone in their feelings about a subject, no one else is every truly alone with their feelings either? If so then it seems Michael Nelson is creating a homily for himself about his life circumstance of being isolated and confined.</p>

<p>I kinda think Michael Nelson isn't arguing that his own emotional response to the photographs as a viewer shows unity of reactions across viewers. He instead may be arguing that the unity of mind existing between two photographers is emotionally meaningful to him as a viewer, emotionally meaningful because if the two photographers aren't alone in their perceptions, their treatment of a subject being so similar, then neither is he, Michael Nelson alone and isolated.</p>

<p>Solitary confinement can be a metaphor for what Julie describes in the OP: "...[viewers of the same photograph] will argue; they will argue about what they feel, they will argue about the emotions it provokes. Nelson's "shared by others" just doesn't happen." <br /> <br /> On the one hand "shared by others" feelings help reduce our sense of isolation and, on the other hand, arguing can exacerbate our sense of isolation. Nelson's circumstances are confinement and isolation. So I think that Nelson's interpretation of the photographs begins with the photographs representing 'significant spaces' (worth looking at) and then he conjures. We conjure as viewers. What we come up with tells us and others about ourselves.</p>

<i>Nelson sees the pictures as witnessing a dying art; he contrasts the "passionate anger" of Sugimoto's to Misrach's

"feeling of defeat." </i>

<p>

I'm confused. Is the dying art photography? And if so, can it be dying if it invokes feelings of anger and defeat?

<p>Lannie and Michael, I don't think Michael is talking about 'communicating.' I don't equate emotions and feelings in common to be about communicating. I think maybe Charles is circling this same difference as well, but I'm not entirely sure ...</p>

<p>Marshall McCluhan has written that "Objects are unobservable. Only relationships among objects are observable." Relationships, relating, is not immediately to do with communication; it is about finding, making, discovering, exploring, feeling connections and shared-ness. What would ensue 'because of' those relationships would then progress into efforts at 'communication,' but that's 'reaction,' or subsequent to that first condition of relational development or positioning.</p>

<p>Phil, I'm resisting the very great temptation to go off on our own comparison of the Sugimoto/Misrach pictures -- much as I would love to do that. It's a big, fat, juicy temptation ... the two pictures are <em>rich</em>.</p>

<p> </p>

<blockquote>

<p>Marshall McCluhan has written that "Objects are unobservable. Only relationships among objects are observable."</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Except for a banana peal laying on a white floor ripe to be slipped on. There, an object by itself that communicates by observing it.</p>

<p>Didn't say it was a kitchen floor, just a white field much like a black field in this famous photo...</p>

<p>http://www.sothebys.com/content/dam/stb/lots/N09/N09129/054N09129_5VYNS.jpg</p>

<p>There are pictures of one object in a clear background as if floating in space. It still communicates something. It's still observable.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>yet both share the same story and both relay to me the same message: that no one person is every really alone, in their experiences and with their feelings." — <em>Michael Nelson</em></p>

</blockquote>

<p><em><br /></em>This is purely Michael Nelson's experience. For instance, for me, both pictures are rather uninteresting and mundane, saying practically nothing. Julie feels they are "rich," demonstrating how different we can all be when it comes to art. </p>

<p>The key part of what Steve quotes is "in their experiences and with their feelings."</p>

<p>Steve, <em>when you are making your own pictures</em> are you thinking "I know this will be uninteresting and mundane to many people" ... ?</p>

<p>Is disagreement the purpose of art? </p>

<blockquote>

<p>"A photograph - and art in general - is only as limited as the perspective we choose to take on it."</p>

</blockquote>

<p>But does it not entail a sense of or belief in an engagement with another person or other people? And beyond that, a desire for convergence? I say the last because people argue so aggressively, so vehemently for the validity of their own response to art -- what are they trying to do? Why does it matter and what were/are they expecting?</p>

<p>I'm also a little bit curious about the almost unanimous belief that we are all inevitably 'influenced' everywhere and all the time [see <a href="/philosophy-of-photography-forum/00dpKH">this thread</a>]. Does 'influence' not include emotions, relations and feelings?</p>

<p>While, as described in <a href="/philosophy-of-photography-forum/00dpKH">the linked thread</a>, I know that I can shoot sometimes outside of influence, shooting that way is (1) <em>very</em> hard to do and (2) the resulting pictures are essentially meaningless to anybody but me (and to me as well when not in that state of mind). It is the challenge of compositing to 'knit' them into my own ideas of meaningfulness. So I doubt that what I do is what anybody claiming to shoot without awareness of what other's feel or think is the one and the same thing. If it is, I salute you for doing effortlessly what I do only with great difficulty.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>There's no point in communicating something that's exclusively ours, if the goal is for others to understand or relate to what we're trying to communicate. So we take what's uniquely ours and craft it into something that's also universal.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Shooting interiors under available light of my own apartment built in the mid '80's was something I thought exclusively my own thing no one would get. At least for now, maybe.</p>

<p>I've never felt settled in any of the more than 16 or so buildings I've lived since the day I set out on my own in the late '70's. Most of the modern designs and floor plans of apartments and houses in the past 35 years look extremely homogeneous and sterile especially those in big cities during the '80's Texas oil boom. I hated living in them because they just didn't have that warm, homey, lived in look as those built in the '40's. But I couldn't envision an alternative. I never stayed in them long enough to be motivated to hang pictures.</p>

<p>Now I'm living and settled in one of those modern apartments now considered old by today's standards with no new IKEA styled modern furniture, just thrift store hand me downs. For some reason the feel of it is not the same as I felt back in the '80's but it's not what I expected or could've imagined as the alternative back then. It's different and because of that it seems special and looks that way.</p>

<p>Is it the home I've always wanted in my '20's? No. But back then I didn't know what I wanted anyway. Where I live now the looks are a result of things coming together and is what it is mainly from new technology of daylight balanced lights, old carpet, weird looking mixed styles of tile flooring, popcorn textured ceiling (I've always hated but not now), fiber glass mobile home styled bathtub and a circular floor plan of narrow halls and efficiently placed closets. I still don't want to live in a brand new home or apartment. Couldn't afford it anyway.</p>

<p>So what I'm seeing is my generation's look/style of antique, old homes that don't look as one would expect old to look going by how we defined how homes looked from the 1940's into the '70's. It's differently aged modern and it's quite eerie looking. Almost a parallel universe style of aged modern.</p>

<p>How do I communicate that in a photo so others get it?</p>

<p>The only answer I could come up with is to just shoot it and make it as accurate looking as possible (no fancy stylized color effect or creative lighting placement) because this "new" old look has not been photographed and I'm betting many don't know how that would look or look different when photographed.</p>

<p>Would they get that that is what is being communicated?</p><div></div>

<p>Julie said:</p>

<blockquote>

<p>Steve, <em>when you are making your own pictures</em> are you thinking "I know this will be uninteresting and mundane to many people" ... ?</p>

</blockquote>

<p><br />Well, yes. I am aware that some of my photos will be regarded as mundane and cliched by some people, and other people will have the opposite response that "its too abstract" or it doesn't follow the "rule of thirds." Many of the portraits I've done are way too informal for some people's tastes, but for me that is what makes them alive. Truthfully, for me many of the post modern, conceptual photographers make no connection with me. And, there are a lot of people with cameras that are trying hard to be "artistic" and sometimes do something that impacts me and otherwise don't quite make it. Its complicated because we are all in a different place with this medium. Nevertheless, I love a quote by Ken Robinson (TED talk on How Schools Kill Creativity): "if you are not prepared to be wrong, you will never do anything original." Hence, I applaud anyone who "is prepared to be wrong" and is not afraid to be original, even if the audience may be small. <em>Sorry about the stream of consciousness here!</em> </p>

<p>Steve, I agree with what you wrote above, but I think it's not about what I'm after, here.</p>

<p>'Wrong' is a later word. It just confirms that you <em>didn't</em> think you were wrong before. Or if you did know you were wrong before and did it anyway, you were simply lying. Further, "uninteresting and mundane" isn't about 'wrong' or right. There is photography, good photography, that is intentionally and effectively uninteresting and mundane.</p>

<p>Read Tim's post, above yours. What do you sense that he's doing? Don't you recognize a familiar feeling, that mental moving around like a person spinning the dial on the radio trying to find a channel, a connection? When you are shooting, when you have the camera to your eye and your subject there, ready, why don't you press the button? What are you waiting for? What will be the feeling of 'now!' that makes you 'take' the picture? Aren't you doing what Tim describes himself doing, above? <em>Feeling for a connection</em> of some kind? With who? With what, when?</p>

<p>Compare Tim's description, above, to the way Lannie shoots; or at least to what, by his own description in many threads, I take to be Lannie's way of shooting. It seems to me to be more like the instinctive reaction one makes to catch something that is falling. <em>Of course</em> you put out your hand to catch it! <em>Of course</em> you press the shutter when you saw this or that ... But I still see connection in that "of course." Why is it "of course"? Isn't the discovery of that "of course!" an even more primal (if unoriginal) connection than a more considered, particular connection such as Tim's effort?</p>

<blockquote>

<p>There is photography, good photography, that is intentionally and effectively uninteresting and mundane.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Julie, you believe this and many do, but I’m not in that camp. For me, there is no “effectively uninteresting and mundane.” To make that jump is an intellectual process that I am not interested in doing. <br>

Reading Tim’s description above I get what he is trying to do, which he explains quite well. But, it is even unclear to him if a viewer would understand this simply looking at one of his photographs. I applaud him for attempting a creative way of expressing himself and his ideas. It’s different from what my “process” is when taking pictures, but that’s OK.<br>

My own creative process is more typical of improvisation. We now know that during improvisation the frontal cortex, where our usual thinking and planning is done, is “dimmed” in a process called “Hypofrontality.” This allows deeper parts of the brain to interact to come up with entirely new and un-predicted ideas. Some artists even feel as if the new ideas are coming from “outside” of themselves, which would make sense with what we now know about the brain. Very fascinating. Its nice when the result is interesting to other people! Perhaps this is what you are referring to describing Lannie’s “of course,” “an even more primal connection.”<br>

When I look at other people’s work, I want to sense that “hypofrontality” even though that sounds crazy. Maybe I’m just imaging it. If something seems too planned, thought about, intentional, I lose interest. I want to sense the improvisation, the energy of the deep brain processes emerging into consciousness in that moment of pressing the shutter. It still has to have some organization though, not just random noise. Some people do like that too, however. I especially like strong geometry that stimulates my visual cortex. But that’s just me and what I like. As you point out, there are much larger criteria used by other people and institutions.<br>

I think all humans are born with a creative capacity. It is necessary for survival if you really think about it. I would expect there would be a wide variety of creative expressions that vary tremendously between individuals, providing different appeal to different people. “Different strokes for different folks.”</p>

<p>Nowadays with every scene I see that compels me to photograph it I ask myself, if my life had taken a different path socially and/or economically, would it have still lead me to photographing that scene.</p>

<p>My answer to that question on over 1000 shots has always been a resounding no. </p>

<p>In that sense photography has become a sort of mystical and a bit metaphysical journey that is directly connected to the decisions I've made in the past I had no idea at the time would affect my choices on what I'ld be photographing today by just living in the now and appreciating it and celebrating it by photographing it.</p>

<p>20 years ago I would've never thought of photographing a bathroom of a 30 year old apartment I would be living in and have it look the way it does in this thread. There's something of a reassuring mysticism about life in general being able to realize that through photography.</p>

<p>If I had led a life more similar to a lot of folks, the subjects it would've led me to photograph would most likely look similar in style and subject matter. In a way it's a photographic philosophy in its purist sense and I believe explains why my images look so different from other photographers both amateur and professional.</p>

<p>I look at photos of renovated apartment rooms posted on AirBnB and none look like the one I posted previously with regards to color, composition, contrast and subject matter. Why is that? Different motivation? It's certainly a mystery to me.</p>

<p>Not saying one has to be poor and suffer in life to come up with photos that look different from everyone elses, but my take is the road less traveled is most likely going to present scenes that would've never entered the photographer's mind if they hadn't gone down that path.</p>

<p>Steve, a photograph doesn't come from the mind -- it comes from the camera. While I can understand hypofrontality in one's <em>response</em> to a photograph or what you're looking at while shooting, it can't be what makes the picture. You know that, I'm just emphasizing it because choosing to pay attention to that reaction and choosing which shot to make because of it is a deliberate intellectual process, IMO.</p>

<p>I don't think improvisation is un-intellectual at all. I think it's intensely intellectual -- I sense it in Tim's description; I don't sense it in Lannie's self-descriptions. The putting our one's hand to catch a falling object kind of photography is knee-jerk, the opposite of improvisation. That kind of unthinking response is what the war criminal is claiming when he says he was "just following orders." By contrast, improvisation is the perfect prison escape: <em>intensely</em> intellectual because, within impossible constraints, it nevertheless, finds a way to get free.</p>

<p>Unless you make an effort to see differently, or to "follow" the improviser, no matter how difficult it may be, you won't get to where he got to.</p>

<p>Trying to think of work I think shows improvisation and that we can use as a visual in this discussion, maybe that of Mark Cohen -- his <em><a href="http://www.photoeye.com/bookstore/citation.cfm?catalog=DS237&i=&i2=">Dark Knees</a></em>?</p>

<p>*Tim has posted while I was writing this, and, with a quick scan of what he wrote, I think it ties in with what I'm trying to get at.</p>

<p>Checked out your link to Mark Cohen's Dark Knees, Julie and even though as he indicates he was stuck in Wilkes-Barre in Pennsylvania for 50 years he still managed to come up with images that look nothing like mine or anyone elses. <br>

<br>

Most of Cohen's image samples in the linked page look like random spur of the moment candid's which my digital camera doesn't do such a good job without flash especially shooting people. He uses flash which I refuse to use due to how it made my early attempts at photography with film look like my aunt shot them.<br>

<br>

Decisions, decisions. What a difference they make.<br /></p>