Power dynamics between photographer and model.

<p>[WARNING: Links definitely not safe for work]</p>

<p>This is something I've thought about for decades. With a pro model, perhaps there is more of an established social protocol and transparency about the interaction, but with amateurs, it seems all bets are off. In photographic art, we tend to see models of a lower socio-economic level involved. Street photography is a good example. For every image of an upper-class/ten percenter you see, there are tens of thousands of members of the underclass.</p>

<p>I recently spoke at length with Scot Sothern...</p>

<p>[Links not safe for work, underage kids, best viewed in private]</p>

<p>http://www.americansuburbx.com/2010/03/scot-southern-lowlife.html</p>

<p>...about this, and he was very consciously aware and open about it. He has and is working through the power differentials in his work. The way he went about doing the work in <em>Lowlife</em> was immersive, <em>risky</em> and participatory, even if he was in many ways an outsider. An aside: Scot's a gentle, friendly, very noir, (like a character out of a book) street-wise and kind realist/humanist. His prints in person are different and better than the book.</p>

<p>When I am photographing artists, the power on one side is in my direction, in the sense that they are eager for the publicity (and hoping for a review). They're eager to please, and I have to be careful not to inadvertently project demand characteristics unto them, something subjects seem subconsciously ultra-sensitive to. On the other side, a lot of artists/models know what they want to project, and do so in a canned manner. It's not a question of resistance of any kind, just different points of view. When money enters the equation with an amateur model, it seems to complicate the situation. With students or beginners, one sees more peers as models. With pros, that happens much less.</p>

<p>I also saw Barbara De Genevieve's work...</p>

<p>http://www.degenevieve.com/artwork.html</p>

<p>...the series with the black Chicago men whom she offers $100 + a meal +hotel room +Clothes in exchange for a nude modeling session. The men look very passive, submissive & coy. Almost like teen girls would. In person, she seems very conscious of the power issue, although she downplayed it in these portraits. I was impressed with how thoroughly she has worked out the many philosophical issues surrounding pornography.</p>

<p>I was wondering if any of the members think about these issues, how they view them at the moment, strategies to rebalance power, if any, and how they affect the outcome. </p>

<p> </p>

<p>I don't know, with over 20 years of working with models professionally--not always professional models--and more shooting people I meet on the street/road, I don't think there is anything one can expect or do but develop a style that works for you. I mean just look at someone like Bruce Gilden, his style is pretty radical and yet he still can get people to work with him--and sometimes it is just his attitude that "provokes" his shot.</p>

<p>Each time you shoot someone, and the method you employ, changes the dynamics between you and the model. Paying someone money, what is a lot to them, changes the dynamics--which would appear to be the case with DeGenevieve's work above. On the other hand, I think Philip diCorcia's series "Hustlers" (I think that is the one) took on a different dynamic as he just paid the young men the "going rate" for their services to make a photograph and in an interview I heard, I think he experienced something a bit different than she did--maybe similar to Sothern's, but diCorcia never mentioned "participating" in anything, he just set up a shot, left his assistant at the set--on the street or in a room--and he went and got the subject, shot them and they were off but they were often "in a hurry" to get back to the street--one exposure and they often thought that was supposed to be it. I think diCorcia was interested in them being themselves and offering more money might have changed the dynamic from that which would be natural in their routine transactions.</p>

<p>When you work professionally, you hire either a good casting person or you have a "go see" session where you evaluate the person in front of the camera. Often, they still don't work and you might have to send them home, or if you have several models, you downplay the difficult one. Shooting celebrities can be difficult as often you don't get the time or their interest in what you want to do-and so many "control" shoots these days.</p>

<p>I think the thing that is often missing though, when we look at these bodies of work by other photographers, is just how many did they have to work with to get what they are willing to present. You don't see, or generally hear about, the sessions that just didn't work out or how many of those they experienced to get the ones that did. Sometimes even one of your favorite people just doesn't work out as a photograph. The idea is just that you keep working and eventually you see what you ended up with, refine, and keep working until you have what you were after. Even professionally, not all sessions are good for your portfolio, they either don't add anything to your body of work or they really weren't anything exceptional due to the project's circumstances--they served the need the images was contracted for.</p>

<p>I photograph my peers. Like Larry Clark did. Makes it easy and simple. I don't pay anyone.</p>

<p>How is this any different from the power dynamics of any/all other social interactions (see Erving Goffman)? Unless you're asking about how the resulting photographs implicate the viewer of any pictures that are made?</p>

<p>John A - DiCorcia was more distanced than Sothern, and not paying nearly as much as De Genevieve. Both he and De Genevieve were more directorial than Sothern. As to the keeper rate, while it's interesting, the shown results are what matters. Sothern worked on <em>Lowlife </em>for a long, long time as opposed to DiCorcia or De Genevieve.<br>

_____________________________________________________________</p>

<p>Jeff Spirer - Sothern considers himself somewhat a peer of his subjects, which is debatable, but it begs the point that bringing up the camera alters the power differential -- not just with peer strangers, or friends, but with families as well. The latter Larry Clark did not photograph peers with such subjects as teen lust.<br>

____________________________________________________________</p>

<p> </p>

<p>Luis, you mention the canned manner in which a subject can approach being photographed. I experience that a lot and sometimes it's just that persona that can seep into the photograph creating a wonderful result. I find there's a way of going with the canned-ness that can produce very authentic results. As you say, it doesn't have to be a question of resistance. One hears a lot of photographers talking about needing to make their subjects comfortable. Though I understand that, discomfort can make a compelling photograph.</p>

<p>Actors as subjects are fascinating to me. I've photographed a few actors and dancers. There is often a wonderful combination of ability to project emotion, to understand stage exaggeration, the importance of the translation or transformation into the visual. Actors often come with a strong sense of presence, poise, and an understanding of how gesture and pose can express and communicate. At the same time, the actors and dancers I've worked with seem very empathetic with me as a photographer, wanting to participate in my own creative efforts and process. Even while being able to adeptly project, they are also able to be molded and malleable.</p>

<p>I like the challenge of participating in this shared dynamic with almost anyone. I haven't yet run across anyone I wouldn't want to photograph though, as John suggests, there are successful and unsuccessful shoots. </p>

<p>__________________________</p>

<p>The difference I see between the photographic interaction and other social interactions is due to the resulting photograph which stills (and therefore transforms) a moment. Making someone's portrait or including them in a photo is a re-presentation, though often not what I would consider a representation. I don't necessarily leave such a tangible legacy behind from other interactions I have.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>Sothern considers himself somewhat a peer of his subjects</p>

</blockquote>

<p><br /><br>

He's not a peer if he's paying. And I doubt he was in jail hanging out with his camera.<br>

<br /></p>

<blockquote>

<p>Clark did not photograph peers with such subjects as teen lust.</p>

</blockquote>

<p><br /><br>

He did with Tulsa. Which is where I start and stop.</p>

<p>I think the power relationship can take on many iterations and work really well. Like Hitchcock, there are times I think of my subjects as cattle, there for my use. Other times, I feel as though I am being used and even over-powered by a subject. It's the tension and dynamics of the various kinds of relationships with my subjects that will hopefully keep the photos alive. It's what moment I capture and how the moment looks photographed that gives me, as a photographer, a sense of responsibility. I know I can flatter (intentionally or by circumstance) a subject and I know I can reveal secrets and sometimes harsh truths. I don't take that kind of power lightly. But I also don't always have to try to control it or equalize it, though I can and I might at times.</p>

<p>Also, who has the power at the time of shooting doesn't necessarily translate <em>verbatim</em> to the photo. In the photo below, Andy was in a moment of vulnerability, and was not "on" for the camera, so one could say I had more of the power in taking this shot. I seized upon a moment and caught Andy unawares. Yet Andy's being, Andy's strong image, Andy's very vulnerability carries so much power in this image.</p>

<p> </p><div></div>

<p><strong>Jeff Spirer - "</strong>He's not a peer if he's paying. And I doubt he was in jail hanging out with his camera."</p>

<p>I guess it depends on whether one sees "peer" as an absolute kind of term or a relative one. I was thinking of this when I said "<em>somewhat of a peer". </em></p>

<p><strong>Jeff Spirer - "</strong>(On Larry Clark) He did with Tulsa. Which is where I start and stop."</p>

<p>I see.</p>

<p>Jeff, any thoughts on power while photographing peers?<br>

_______________________________________________________</p>

<p>I agree that almost any power differential can result in strong imagery, depending on how one works with it. Just to be clear, I'm not so interested in the idea that there's an optimum ratio in general, or even for a single picture, but more in the dynamics and possibilities. I did look at my commercial models as "cattle" sometimes, but outside of that, I never have. More along the lines of a collaboration, except its nature varies wildly. Some models, without any instruction or introduction, seem to divine what I'm up to, sometimes anticipating my directions, more rarely pushing me further, sometimes in direct synergy, others by challenging me. </p>

<p><strong>Fred - "</strong>It's the tension and dynamics..."</p>

<p>Yes, that's the main focus of my post.</p>

<p>An apparently uncooperative, disinterested, contrarian, obnoxious or even combative model can result in great and often unexpected pictures. Gender alters the power landscape, too. </p>

<p>"As to the keeper rate, while it's interesting, the shown results are what matters."</p>

<p>Actually Luis, I think you missed my point. The point about it is that the dynamics within a shoot are not going to be the same from one session to the next. Those dynamics are interpersonal and environmental as well as situational. So, when someone is interfacing with a model, there can be no expectation other than a sort of chaos that one hopes to either tame or tap into--success can be the ability to do at least one of these things while failure is not necessarily the inability to do so. That is the thought there that goes back to your original question, my comment was not about the "keeper" rate. But, of course, one only shows the results that worked.</p>

<p>I don't know that it matters how long one engages with their subject in these sorts of series, the end is when the work is done and that is a personal decision. I do think that most of the time it is either a longer period or very intense working in a shorter time frame. I don't remember, if I even knew, how long DiCorcia worked on that project but his interest wasn't to get to know these people or react with them more deeply than his intent--in a sense he wanted to keep it at the "john" level. I don't know Sothern or his methodology but I also think worrying about it is probably not productive. There are a lot of different ways of working and each is going to end up exploring, or representing, something different even if the subject is the same. The point is, maybe an additional part of my suggestion about how many didn't work, is that it takes a commitment, not a Saturday afternoon going out with the camera.</p>

<p>"there are times I think of my subjects as cattle, there for my use"</p>

<p>I never think that, I respect them as a part of humanity, revealing themselves in the great picture...the picture of "us".</p>

<p>Good. I celebrate our differences in that respect.</p>

<p>Posed, candid, aspects of humanity revealing themselves on the cold slab of photography.</p><div></div>

<p>Proud to be is the feeling I get from this photo.</p>

<p>I wonder if a certain amount of pretense or political correctness doesn't lead to more likelihood of uncontrolled or unconscious exploitation. I find, for myself, that not being in denial about using people and accepting or even embracing what I consider the photographic fact of using people sometimes as means helps me be authentic in my depictions of people. Refusing to accept some amount of reality that we, as humans, can and do use other people, to me, makes it more likely that we won't achieve the kind of respect we'd like to give ourselves credit for. I think the best way to assess all this is to look at the pictures.</p>

<p>Consider the great humans-become-a-flower scenes of Busby Berkeley musicals or some of the synchronized swimming scenes in Esther Williams movies. Those are explorations of light and design as much as if not more than a study of humanity. And yet there is nothing dishonest or inhumane about these films.</p>

<p>Sometimes, long curly hair catching backlight is as significant to a photo (even a very humanistic and respectful one) as a conscious or overt concern with the humanity of the person whose hair dynamically and expressively catches the light.</p>

>>> I was wondering if any of the members think about these issues, how they view them at the moment, strategies to

rebalance power, if any, and how they affect the outcome.

 

The thought has crossed my mind, but my street portraiture, after hundreds of engagements of strangers I've met on the

street, has never been about who's holding the power of the encounter - it's a collaboration. Nor has

it been about money, though some subjects ask about being paid (I don't do that).

 

>>> In photographic art, we tend to see models of a lower socio-economic level involved.

 

We? Are you speaking for all viewer/photographers? In any event, when I'm out shooting I don't view

subjects as being of a lower socio-economic class. Or being of any class. They're just people. Who I almost always

consider friends after an encounter.

 

Using models as cattle? I'm sure that works for some. Not for me though.

 

Allen, that's a revealing portrait. I like the context. So many times that element is oddly lacking in environmental

portraiture.

<p>'Actually Luis, I think you missed my point. The point about it is that the dynamics within a shoot are not going to be the same from one session to the next.'</p>

<p><strong>John A. - </strong>I did misread you. I agree with you up to the point where you misunderstand me to think that I am worrying about anything. I am not. <br>

_____________________________________________________</p>

<p>Welcome, Brad. "The thought has crossed my mind" It's crossed mine too, and this is what this post is about.</p>

<p>Like you, it " has never been about who's holding the power of the encounter " nor has it been for me. It may seem impossible to hold a thought about one's work, or in this case, photography in general (and including commentary about my own personal experience <em><strong>ex post</strong> facto)</em> without that being <em>worry or</em> <em>dominating</em> the work in real time, but believe me, it is possible, and not just for me. In real time, I work in a very smooth, flowing manner, without any kind of inner verbal dialogue running through my head (I've stated this many times in this forum) and minimal directions. What I have described here comes later or before, but not during.</p>

<p><strong>Brad - "</strong> In any event, when I'm out shooting I don't view subjects as being of a lower socio-economic class. Or being of any class. They're just people. Who I almost always consider friends after an encounter. "</p>

<p>I believe what you say. They must be happening randomly, I suppose. No one here has expressed animosity for their models or suggested it except you. Underclass photographs are incredibly common, particularly in SP, and they have a very well documented history. This is the prime street photography cliche'. I concede the 'gotcha' on the Royal "we", but I stand by what I said otherwise.</p>

<p><strong>Brad - "</strong>Allen, that's a revealing portrait"</p>

<p>Interesting...how so? Exactly what revelations did you get out of it, Brad?</p>

<p>________________________________________________________</p>

 

>>> It may seem impossible to hold a thought about one's work, or in this case, photography in general (and including commentary about my own personal experience ex post facto) without that being worry or dominating the work in real time, but believe me, it is possible, and not just for me.

 

Really? Now that's a revelation! Who is speaking of something being impossible or even unlikely - other than you bringing it up?

 

 

 

>>> I suppose. No one here has expressed animosity for their models or suggested it except you.

 

Animosity? Nice twist, and was somewhat expected. I'll leave it to you, and the others you speak for, to

focus and define sp in terms of class, and how that relates to who and how you photograph.

<p>@Brad: "They're just people."</p>

<p>That's interesting and important to consider. I understand it on the level of equality or at least equal treatment, also acceptance. But I don't necessarily think people are just people because I think it's important to embrace what makes people diverse from each other even while we embrace their likenesses and equality as people. Jews are just people, but when Vishniac shot them he did it with an awareness of their Jewishness, not a condescension, but an awareness. He showed their Jewish circumstance and culture as part of treating them as people. They weren't just people to him. They were, significantly, <em>Jewish</em> people who were just people as well.</p>

<p>When I shoot gay people, sure I believe they're just people but I am very aware of their being gay and what that means, politically, sexually, culturally and, of course, personally. If I am shooting a family that lives on Nob Hill and am including context, then I am aware of their surroundings and wealth and may well want to make that wealth or opulence part of the picture. Likewise with folks of a lower economic class. They are just people to me, sure. But their lower economic status may well be relevant. Their trappings will differ in many ways from the trappings of the family on Nob Hill.</p>

<p>Dorothea Lange certainly gave her Migrant Mother and children a humane and human treatment. But she was obviously aware of the poverty and hardships she was documenting. I sense she viewed them honestly and as individuals, just as people and also as poor people and hungry people and somewhat desperate people.</p>

<p>Maybe this quote of Lange captures the spirit of personhood and equality that Brad is conveying and also captures the uniqueness, individuality, and reality of circumstance that Luis is referring to when he talks about lower socio-economic level:</p>

<blockquote>

<p><em>"I saw and approached the hungry and desperate mother, as if drawn by a magnet. I do not remember how I explained my presence or my camera to her, but I do remember she asked me no questions. I made five exposures, working closer and closer from the same direction. I did not ask her name or her history. She told me her age, that she was thirty-two. She said that they had been living on frozen vegetables from the surrounding fields, and birds that the children killed. She had just sold the tires from her car to buy food. There she sat in that lean-to tent with her children huddled around her, and seemed to know that my pictures might help her, and so she helped me. There was a sort of equality about it."</em></p>

</blockquote>

<p>Now, there may well be an equality about it and I understand what Lange is saying from the perspective of the dynamics and from her perspective as photographer. At the same time, there's clearly an inequality in that Lange gets to pick herself up and move on. The Migrant Mother doesn't have the same opportunity. Lange, I sense, knew that difference, that inequality, was part of the reason Lange was there with her camera.</p>

Fred, I agree with you and am certainly aware of work by Vishniac and Lange. I know that's your focus, and that's great. But singling out a group of people is not

something I'm interested in pursuing. If there was a group I identified with or there was an aspect that I was interested in and wanted to explore, that might be different

<p>Luis, I don't think I suggested YOU were worrying about anything...I just made a comment/observation that wasn't addressed at anyone specifically, more just a thought...But then, if it makes you feel better, so be it...</p>

<p>John A, that's good to know. I do feel better understanding what you meant. </p>

<p> </p>

<p>The Lange quote is indeed in synch with what I've been attempting to address in parts of this thread mostly with my initial linked photographers, both of whom I had the pleasure of speaking with, one at length. I usually prefer to use non PN member examples for obvious reasons.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>I've quoted part of this before in this forum, but here is a longer extract from James Agee's <em>Let Us Now Praise Famous Men</em> (with Walker Evans, photographing share-croppers in the deep South):</p>

 

<blockquote>

<p>"… I remember so well the first night I spent under one of these roofs:</p>

<p>We knew you already, a little, some of you, most of you:</p>

<p>… Down in front of the courthouse Walker had picked up talk with you, Fred, Fred Ricketts (it was easy enough to do, you talk so much; you are so insecure, before the eyes of any human being); and there you were, when I came out of the courthouse, the two of you sitting at the base of that pedestal wherefrom a brave stone soldier, frowning, blows the silence of a stone bugle searching into the North; and we sat and talked; or rather, you did the talking, and the loudest laughing at your own hyperboles, stripping to the roots of the lips your shattered teeth, and your vermilion gums; and watching me with fear from behind the glittering of laughter in your eyes, a fear that was saying, ‘o lord god please for once, just for once, don’t let this man laugh at me up his sleeve, or do me any meanness or harm’ (I think you never got over this; I suppose you never will); while Walker under the smoke screen of our talking made a dozen pictures of you using the angle finder (you never caught on … ): and then two men came out and stood shyly, a little away; they were you, George, and you, Mr. Woods, Bud; you both stood there a little off side, shy, and taciturn, George, watching us out of your yellow eyes, and you, Woods, quietly modeling the quid between your molars and your cheek; and this was the first we saw of you.</p>

<p>… and we drove you out home: out to your home, Ricketts, the furthest along that branch road: and there you showed us your droughted corn, for you could not get it out of your head that we were Government men, who could help you: and there on the side porch of the house Walker made pictures, with the big camera; and we sat around and talked, eating the small sweet peaches that had been heating on a piece of tin in the sun, and drinking the warm and fever-tasting water from the cistern sunk beneath the porch; and we kept you from your dinners an hour at least; and I was very sorry and ashamed of that then, and am the same at all times since to think of it.</p>

<p>… [for Walker Evans' camera] the Woods and the Gudgers, all … stand there on the porch as you were in the average sorrow of your working dirt, and get your pictures made; and to you [here Agee is addressing Mrs. Ricketts] it was as if you and your children and your husband and these others were stood there naked in front of the cold absorption of the camera in all your shame and pitiableness to be pried into and laughed at; and your eyes were wild with fury and shame and fear, and the tendons of your little neck were tight the whole time, and one hand continually twitched and tore in the rotted folds of your skirt </p>

<p>[<em>para break added to make this easier to read</em>] and Walker setting up the terrible structure of the tripod crested by the square heavy head, dangerous as that of a hunchback, of the [view] camera; stooping beneath the cloak and cloud of wicked cloth, and twisting buttons and at least you could do, and you did it, you washed the faces of your children swiftly and violently with rainwater, so that their faces were suddenly luminous stuck out of the holes of their clothes, the slightly dampened hair swept clean of the clear and blessed foreheads of these flowers;</p>

<p>[<em>para break added to make this easier to read</em>] and your two daughters, standing there in the crowding porch, yielding and leaning their heads profound against the pulling and entanglements, each let down their black hair in haste and combed and rearranged it (but Walker made a picture of this; you didn’t know; you thought he was still testing around; there you all are … )… and we, the men meanwhile, Woods and George and I (Fred was in the lineup, talking over and over about being in the funny papers and about breaking the camera with his face, and laughing and laughing and laughing),</p>

<p>[<em>para break added to make this easier to read</em>] we were sitting at the roots of a tree talking slowly and eating one small peach after another and watching, while I was spreading so much quiet and casualness as I could; but all this while it was you I was particularly watching, Mrs. Ricketts; you can have no idea with what care for you, what need to let you know, oh, not to fear us, not to fear; not to hate us, that we are your friends, that however it must seem it is all right, it is truly and all the way all right: so, continually, I was watching for your eyes, and whenever they turned upon me, trying through my own and through a friendly and tender smiling (which sickens me to disgust to think of) to store into your eyes some knowledge of this, some warmth, some reassurance, that might at least a little relax you, that might conceivably bring you to warmth, to any ease or hope of smiling; but your eyes upon me, time after time, held nothing but the same terror …"</p>

</blockquote>

<p>As a contrast to Agee, here is David MacDougall's description of shooting a documentary about a boy's school in India:</p>

 

<blockquote>

<p>"… Filmmaking provides a strange and intensive mode of access to the world, both more immersed and more detached. Initially, the children I filmed were curious about my camera, but they gradually accepted it as part of me, and it continued to justify my presence. The camera symbolized my work and absorbed most of my attention, leaving them with greater freedom to pursue their own interests. Unlike their teachers, I was not required to judge them, nor to make institutional demands upon them. I never asked them to perform for me, with the result that they were not distracted from their usual activities or performances for each other. At the same time, they collaborated with me implicitly in many ways, trying to show me what was important in their lives.</p>

<p>[<em>break added for readability</em>] Unlike many adults, they rarely questioned the justice of their own existence. The longer I stayed with them, and the more I filmed them, the more confidence they seemed to have that I saw them as comprehensively as they saw themselves. Although this was far from true, it made them willing and sometimes eager, for me to film them in situations that would otherwise embarrass them. If they sometimes puzzled over why I should take so much trouble, they were pragmatic about my presence. It was an easy sort of relationship for them to have with an adult, unlike most of their other relationships that entailed more complex obligations."</p>

</blockquote>

<p>And, just for fun, this is from one of Dai Vaughan's essays about documentary film:</p>

 

<blockquote>

<p>" … There’s a moment in <em>La Dolce Vita</em> which can easily slip by unnoticed. It’s a chaotic scene where Anita Ekberg is being interviewed by the press. She plays an American star who doesn’t speak Italian; so there’s a constant cross-talk of translation. One of the questions is “Is Italian neorealism alive or dead?” — and an off-camera voice is heard to say, in English, “Say alive.”"</p>

</blockquote>