Photography as testimony of existence.

<p>In a different forum, I was exchanging some thoughts with John Kelly and, as we were talking about destroying old photos, I wrote:</p>

<blockquote>

<p>I have always trouble destroying photographs, it makes me feel weird, almost like I am destroying a part of existence. Photography testifies the existence of its subjects.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Just today, I was reorganizing my prints archive and I had to pick quite a few photographs for the trash. That weird feeling came back: I was destroying the only evidence of the existence of the subjects or pieces of time that were captured in those prints. If I see things this way, every photograph in the world is important and valuable.<br>

This could also be one of the reasons why I like to use film, because I need to have something tangible in my hands after I take the shot; I need to have the negative film as <em>material evidence</em> of a piece of time that is gone so quickly that never even existed. Only by holding the celluloid between my fingers I know that that piece of time actually existed.<br>

How do you relate to these ideas?</p>

<p>Antonio, I'd been reading your exchange in that other thread and the genuine expressions you and John were making. It was moving to read and I could relate to a lot of it. I think testament is one aspect and likely pertains to a particular type of photo, at least for me.</p>

<p>I also see a lot of photos as future-oriented, signaling possibilities. Photos vary in how tied they are to their subjects. (Sometimes the photo itself is the subject.) Because so many photos -- even ones that are very much about their subject -- transcend that subject as well, they often point me toward something else.</p>

<p>My memories of people and places now passed, stories that family and friends share of them, fleeting images in my own mind, are testaments as well. I don't always need or even want something tangible to remember and connect in that way.</p>

<p><strong>Fred</strong><br>

I think that <em>the evidence of existence</em> is the only thing we can confidently describe photography with. It is the only evident and clear description of why photography is so unique. Art? Can be done with photography and with many other media... Communication? Sure, but that also can be done with infinite other media. </p>

<blockquote>

<p>I don't always need or even want something tangible to remember and connect in that way.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>The photo uploaded here was taken by me when I was 6 or 7. I found it today in a bunch of old prints and it brought back so many memories, that were stored in such remote places of my mind that I didn't even have the sense of their existence anymore. Memories are not enough.</p>

<p><strong>Fred</strong><br>

I think that <em>the evidence of existence</em> is the only thing we can confidently describe photography with. It is the only evident and clear description of why photography is so unique. Art? Can be done with photography and with many other media... Communication? Sure, but that also can be done with infinite other media. </p>

<blockquote>

<p>I don't always need or even want something tangible to remember and connect in that way.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>The photo uploaded here was taken by me when I was 6 or 7. I found it today in a bunch of old prints and it brought back so many memories, that were stored in such remote places of my mind that I didn't even have the sense of their existence anymore. Memories are not enough.</p><div></div>

<p>Antonio, I'd hate to think that there is only one phrase we can confidently describe photography with.</p>

<p>When my own mom was passing I elected not to take photos and I'm glad I didn't. I prefer to have the images in my mind, which have now mingled with other images and the lapse of time, both diluting the original image and enriching it. The memories are enough for me and sometimes more than enough.</p>

<p>Like you, I come across photos from long ago that move me deeply.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>I'll only note that I'm not sure why we want evidence of our existence. It seems to me that subsequent generations might want it, but I'm not sure why I would. I think I'm aware that I exist, and I don't think the photos I made twenty years ago do more than elaborate on that. </p>

<p>What I'm saying here is that I'm interested in what you have to say about evidence and the only way I understand that currently has to do with the remote possibility that somebody in 2050 will care. </p>

<p>I do enjoy the evidence of my mother's photography as a 19year old (Kodak Bantam Special, Elwood enlarger, Agfa/Anscochrome developed at home etc) and I enjoy my collection of somebody else's family's photos, so I have to buy into the idea that their existence matters to me...but I'm not sure my own matters at any given moment.</p>

<p>Antonio, I ponder this a lot lately. As I am older and have the financial means to travel and see more, I come across scenery that I simply can't bring myself to capture on film (or digital). It isn't that I don't want to set up my camera--my system of quick release everything, makes it a non issue. It is just that I have such a spiritual connection to the subject that I a) don't want to share it, because I don't think anyone else will get it, b) there is no camera equipment that can capture the nuances of smell, breeze, sounds, etc.</p>

<p>For me, I am not traveling through time, but rather still, while time and the universe sails by me, and I'm okay not sharing it or capturing a moment.</p>

<p>...just a note: it's not important to me that someone else will, as Michael Axel says interestingly, "get it." What's important to me is that something happens between what I've offered and what someone else gets. I don't imagine anyone can read my mind, what I hope is that I stimulate their own experience. This gets back to my poorly formed idea of "generosity," which has something to do with giving without expectation of response (but with a little hope for that :-)</p>

<p><strong>John</strong></p>

<blockquote>

<p>I'll only note that I'm not sure why we want evidence of our existence.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Well, here we go into a mined field... Let's say first of all that our worst fear is that there is nothing after death, that's why we need God and that's why we need <em>evidence</em> (the Apostles needed it...) We are aware that we exist but we don't keep in touch with our past; as far as I am concerned, my recent past feels like a dream. The present feels like water coming out of the earth and going back down, where the only moment you can see it, feel it and drink it is when it springs out before it disappears deep in the ground. I have memories of my past but they are not even close to the emotional power a photograph can trigger. <strong>Fred</strong> is right when he says <em>I elected not to take photos and I'm glad I didn't</em>; it's a choice.<br>

<strong>Fred</strong><br>

We spend so much time here on this forum trying to figure out what photography really is. I think I came to the point that I believe the only reason for photography to exist is to prove that its subjects existed, that something existed. I know I'm getting too much out of photography and more into philosophy but this is the POP forum, right? Of course there is art, communication and all but if we get to the bottom of it, the only certain fact for me is the testimony of existence. This is so unique and powerful, nothing else can do that. Only the most distant stars do that: when you look up and you see something that doesn't exist anymore you look at the time. Photography captures History.<br>

<strong>Michael</strong><br>

I agree with you, I also prefer to enjoy certain sensations on my skin rather than wasting my time behind a camera and missing the whole point. But you talk about <em>present</em>, I talk about <em>past</em>.</p>

<p>Michael captures extremely well what I believe, that not everything should be put into the "box called evidence". The visual scene or event that moves us spiritually, intellectually or emotionally should remain as such. Often, nothing else is needed. In fact, anything else may seriously modify the impression by providing but a slice of it (the fraction of a second of the photograph, for instance). The Royal Ballet's "La Noce" (A peasant wedding) of Stravinsky did that for me about 40 years ago, as a youth in London. It was partly the scene, the colours, the music, the expression - everything came together beautifully (the fact even that it was a peasant wedding in Russia had not so much to do with it, much like the plot of many operas) and left an indelible mark that memory can only complement. I need no images of what passed then.</p>

<p>Antonio, I think the second aspect is that the photograph, while not lying, is but a micro or minute element of the evidence, or testimony of existence, that is portrayed. It is thus played out in just that manner. The evidence is NOT full evidence. It is simply a vignette or an impression of what happened (photography as art is different in its communication, but that is another subject), forensic still life photography excluded</p>

<p>I cannot destroy old negatives or old photos of others, even unrecognised ones. Like writing, they represent something of some time, and perhaps of more importance to others than to me. Can you destroy a musical composition that you don't appreciate or don't understand? It took years until Bruno Walter discovered the unrecognised works of Mahler. There is a responsibility of the person who is looking at something that has been left by another.</p>

<p>For my own work, on the other hand, I can unhesitatingly delete electronic images or even negatives or slides. They are mine and subject to my own desire.</p>

<p>Finally, I find old photos of unrecognised persons to be like old gravestones where the family has long left the region or has not kept up the monument. They are precious because they were put there as a memory of the person. While at the Savannah cemetery in 2009, I witnessed an old gravestone, virtually ineligible, being carefully remove by specialists sent by the now remote family, carefully buried some distance over the top of the grave, and replaced above by a fine new gravestone that would perpetuate (the evidence) the original one.</p>

<p>When I first received my first Photoshop Elements I took a faded old picture of the mother and father of my cousin's wife and made it more recognisable than it had been. Nothing but an hour or two of tonal and light modification (light curves adjustment) of a copy. Simple, but it was appreciated. That evidence was kept alive for those that needed it.</p>

<p>Antonio, isn't is possible that photographs can create their subjects?</p>

<p><em>"Let's say first of all that our worst fear is that there is nothing after death, that's why we need God and that's why we need evidence (the Apostles needed it...)"</em></p>

<p>Antonio I don't think there's universal agreement on "our worst fear" or on the God concept. However it may be that the God concept accounts for that fear among those who experience it.</p>

<p>My worst fear is (I think) that I'm not making adequate use of the time I have. That whips me along. There's no reward or punishment at the end, all that counts is whatever's in between.</p>

<p>When people were dying all around during the front edge of the "AIDS crisis" (80s San Francisco) I heard repeatedly that fear was about pain and the shortness of lives, the unlikely ability to achieve potential....not with whatever was around the corner. I happen to be straight, but we all discussed these issues...that is to say, we (San Franciscans) learned a lot together.</p>

<p> </p>

<p><strong>Arthur</strong><br>

The link below is a scan of some proofs done by a relative of mine, where you can see my dad teaching me how to shoot with an air rifle. As Arthur says, this is not the full evidence but just a vignette of what happened. True, but I believe what's most important is that it shows that <em>I was there doing that</em>. I totally forgot about that moment of existence and that is equal to it not having existed at all; this sheet of negatives proves to me and to the world that I was there with my dad shooting with an air rifle and he was there with me.</p><div></div>

<p>I'm with John on the God and "nothing after death" stuff. Not much of a concern to me either.</p>

<p><strong>John, Fred</strong><br>

I said to John we were going into a mine field and I am not going there, since it is not even subject of discussion. Now that I read that post I don't really know why I put in that phrase... What interests me is what followed the God paragraph.</p>

<p>Antonio, what if you're pinning your existence on a lie? You said if you didn't remember something it didn't exist but if you then see a picture of it it does. What if your dad had played around with those photos, say like Man Ray did, and they were only a fabrication? What if the photos only represent a single perspective? What of your existence then?</p>

<p>[Tongue in cheek.] If Descartes had had a camera, things would have been so much more simple for him. <em>I see myself in a photo, therefore I am.</em></p>

<p>If snapshots weren't taken of you until you were a week old, did you exist for the first week of your life?</p>

<p>And, Antonio, I'm not just making light of this because what you're saying actually has spurred me to consider just how "existential" a photo can be. I'm thinking that the stories I heard from my parents, aunts and uncles, and grandparents about my brother and me and all my close cousins are so much more alive and richer than photos I've seen of us as newborns, infants, toddlers, and kids. Those stories give me much more "life" than the snaps in the albums (though I love looking at those albums -- especially with those left who can add the stories and set the scenes).</p>

<p><strong>Fred</strong><br>

That's the power of photography, good or bad. Like a scene of a soldier with a gun looking at an unarmed kid. The meaning of the scene depends on what's written underneath. I thought about Descartes ;-)<br>

Of course we have memories that are so much more powerful than just a photograph but there are parts of our life that are lost in obscurity for some reason. For example, I remember moments from when I was 4 but don't remember huge part of my life when I was 16. The memory of it is still in our brain but it doesn't come out unless it's triggered by an image or a sound or a smell. In the case of photography, this power of awakening is stronger than anything else and it is, in my opinion, the real "essence" of photography. I'm not completely positive that I have found the essence of photography but this is the road I am walking right now and I have to see where it will take me.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>Antonio, isn't is possible that photographs can create their subjects?</p>

</blockquote>

<p>What do you mean?</p>

<p>I mean that a photograph doesn't have to be a photograph <em>of</em> its subject or <em>about</em> its subject. The photograph itself may create a new subject, a photographic one, one that is not the same as the real-world object, person, or scene which the photo may <em>use</em> to create something new. The act of photographing is a powerful one. It can transform what it points at and doesn't always copy it. The photograph itself, rather than its contents, can become the subject.</p>

<p>I don't find "essence" a useful idea, but I applaud your search! ;)))</p>

<p>I want to suggest that all you guys share some photos that show events or people you have no memory of. This is another scan of more film proofs where I appear and that I have no memory of. They don't trigger any memory but they do testimony that I was there and that time existed even if it doesn't exist in my memory.</p><div></div>

<p>http://www.abc.net.au/news/video/2010/11/18/3069470.htm</p>

<p>That's Christopher Hitchens, the ultimate voice of the English language (IMO). He's currently dying quickly of a particular cancer. He's widely loved as well as reviled by his former allies. He's an athiest (he says) but he seems to me more of an agnostic. Obviously, those sorts of questions are relevant to existentialists (I guess that's me) and to people who (also like me) are getting tired of expending energy on battles that'll never be won. In other words, I wouldn't say anyone, least of all Antonio, was living life as a lie. I know also that Fred didn't "mean" that as aggressively as it sounds.</p>

<p>It seems to me that the "meaning" of anything exists only in questions. If my life has a meaning that has to do with questions I've stimulated in others. I hope my photos do some of that and I find that the photos of certain (many) others do as well.. The common non-question photos of which I'm aware are architectural/graphic studies, sunsets, and uninvolved "street." Even fashion poses questions, raises doubts. Raising doubts.... </p>

 

<p>John, I just re-read what I wrote and it didn't sound aggressive to me. I wasn't suggesting that Antonio was "living a lie." I asked him what if <em>the photo</em> was lying? What if he was pinning his existence on a photo that did not tell the truth or had been manipulated in some way? How would that effect his belief that the photo is a testament to something, especially his existence.</p>

<p>Antonio, by your response, I assume you weren't offended. But if you think what I said was aggressive, let me know.</p>

<p>John, I really do hope you'll stop characterizing my posts. Thanks in advance.</p>

<p>That photos can lie (perhaps distort is a much safer assertion) is very well documented. If we have an alternative testament of existence, or an excellent memory of an event photographed, we can be reasonably sure (within the limits of the importance or not of the event) that the photo is not lying.</p>

<p>Because they are just "instant sized vignettes" they do not tell the whole story. Important to ignore, then? Not necessarily. The photos of Antonio as a child with his obviously very caring father are a great source of evidence of his youth and in particular of his relationship with his father. Even a vignette can capture a feeling or reality. I would treasure them.</p>

<p>God? Life after death or not? How did those considerations come into play here. Did my mention of the old gravestone type evidence and analogy with the old unknown photograph raise that? Curious.</p>

<p>Antonio, that's an interesting idea. I'll have to worry at it a bit. I'm so used to images of myself from the past that I'm not sure I can say I don't "remember" the circumstances. Maybe they've all acquired the impression of "memory" without my own recollection of the original circumstances. My parents were both "into" photography, so I actually do think of my childhood in terms of the surviving photos...I think.</p>

<p>I do have photos from my grandparent's generation and even there I think I've sorted out what was going on at a beyond-circumstances level.</p>