Public People

<p>[<em>In this thread, I'm interested in public people -- people you don't know at all. And I'm then interested in the grey area between public and private -- when people just begin to recognize, know, one another. How that transition is handled, or "looks." I'm not interested, here, in people that you already know well, people with whom you are at ease, with whom you are "yourself."</em>]</p>

<p>Is this you? [<strong><a href="http://www.photoeye.com/_cache/fd0588e6bc5fcff6400711bc9cc2c027.jpg">LINK</a></strong>]*</p>

<p>Is this you? [<strong><a href="http://www.photoeye.com/_cache/57984262069f31c9dea1e989e3adf1b7.jpg">LINK</a></strong>]*</p>

<p>To my eye, what I see in those linked pictures are the fronts of people's heads, not faces (if a face is something from which one expects of and reads as expressive). They have parked their anatomy and left. Do you do that? When in public, do you make yourself into a "piece" that is moved and played? Is what is shown and done a mask, a place-holder? Is there anything wrong with that or is it not only okay, but comfortably, efficiently, naturally, what is needed where the "play," the move, the placement is all that (can) matter to people who don't know you and will never know you?</p>

<p>If so, when photographing in public, do you accept this and go for the "play," the interaction, the dynamics, rather than personal expression (which in this scenario is irrelevant *unless* it is a deliberate manipulation of the mask as part of the "play")? Or do you, like, for example in Strand's famous picture "Blind" try to catch people out, find glimpses of the personal/private?</p>

<p>Or are you interested in that gray area where the public grades into the personal? That indeterminate area of awkwardness. Borrowing from a magazine review of a play ["The Realistic Joneses" by Will Eno], " 'In one scene, ... two neighbors run into each other at a supermarket. Their fumbling conversation is like an inept game of catch. They grasp vainly at language that might bridge the gap between them.' And later in the review, "... Eno explains, '[Awkwardness] is a sort of tipping point. Things are going to get better or they're going to get worse.' In his hands, awkwardness feels not just uncomfortable but dramatically vital."</p>

<p>This awkwardness, this re-inhabiting of one's body from that of the public "piece" would be the indecisive moments that Eno, rightly, IMO, pinpoints as "dramatically vital" if one is interested in exploring (photographing) that grey areas between public and private.</p>

<p>What's your take on yourself when in public as compared to when in private, and on the people that you see and photograph in public?</p>

<p>[*the linked photos are from Michael Schmidt's books <em><a href="http://www.photoeye.com/bookstore/citation.cfm?catalog=IB184&i=9783941825086&i2=">Tokyo Compression</a></em> and <em><a href="http://www.photoeye.com/bookstore/citation.cfm?catalog=IB375&i=9783941825413&i2=">Tokyo Compression Three</a></em>]</p>

<p><em>They have parked their anatomy and left.</em></p>

<p>Those photos happen to capture moments when the house is empty, as it were. It has little to do with the people themselves and much more to do with the moment and manner in which the photographer has portrayed them.</p>

<p><em>When in public, do you make yourself into a "piece" that is moved and played?</em></p>

<p>They didn't make themselves into a "piece" that is moved and played as much as the photographer did.</p>

<p><em>Is what is shown and done a mask, a place-holder?</em></p>

<p>What is shown is more an object, not a mask. A mask is not a place-holder and would have character. The people in those pictures don't. They are flesh and color and reflection and wetness. Their faces are being used more than their persons are being conveyed or expressed.</p>

<p><em>Is there anything wrong with that?</em></p>

<p>No, they are interesting photos. Though they are clearly faces, the abstraction devices used help convey them in a somewhat removed way.</p>

<p><em>What's your take on . . . the people that you see and photograph in public?</em></p>

<p>There are all degrees of what could be captured in a photo, depending on what the people are doing and what I photograph. Two lovers can be sharing a private moment in a public park, necking. I can see that as the most intimate and real of moments or see it akin to artifical Hollywood schmaltz. And I can photograph it as either. I can photograph public people as an insider, even if I don't know them, or as an outsider. I can empathize or not. And lots of area in between any of the extremes. I can think, and often do, that every face we put on is a mask and that can get in my way or open up many doors.</p>

<p>I can see flesh if I want, and body. Light revealing it and reflecting off it. I can see symbolic expressions and I can adopt iconic perspectives to influence what a face will mean or I can photograph with less intent and let a face reveal what it will.</p>

<p>But I'd caution that shooting a face with more animation than the faces presented in the links, with more engagement to the camera or to someone else, in what might appear a more humanistic way, could still only get us a glimpse of a mask. And there's nothing non-lifelike or non-humanistic about that.</p>

<p>Well the pictures look like they were taken on a Tokyo subway with the people resting against the door in a crowded car on their way home, trying to get a few moments of rest. I've done that my self in NYC subways for years. I've also fallen asleep sitting and suddenly waking with a start with my head on the shoulder of the person sitting next to me. "Sorry" sir or ma'am who usually return a forced smile of understanding annoyance.</p>

<p><a href="http://images.nymag.com/news/features/marilyn070514_1_560.jpg">Marilyn</a>.</p>

<p>I personally do not enjoy taking "candid" photos of people. It can be done, and done well, but my style is to get eye contact, recognition, when photographing someone, whether a stranger or not. I want a connection, however brief. That's just me.</p>

>>> In this thread, I'm interested in public people -- people you don't know at all. And I'm then interested

in the grey area between public and private -- when people just begin to recognize, know, one another.

How that transition is handled, or "looks." I'm not interested, here, in people that you already know well,

people with whom you are at ease, with whom you are "yourself."

 

<P>

 

I rarely photograph people I know. But I shoot a lot of "public" people on the street that I don't know; i.e.

strangers. I don't think much about it. It's just something I've been doing a long time and thrive on it. Some are candid

(meaning not posed, but with possible subject awareness). Some are portraits where I'll move a subject to a spot with

better context and light. It's all good.<P>

 

Here's a candid photo I made of a couple, quickly raising the camera to make the photo, with two different reactions.

<P>

 

<center>

<img src= "http://www.citysnaps.net/2014%20Photos/Couple.jpg"><BR>

<i>

San Francisco • ©Brad Evans 2014

</i>

<P>

.<P>

</center>

<p>Brad, (1) I like your picture; (2) I think it is a portrait of an event, not a portrait of the people who are a constituent part of (playing a role in) that event. I have no feeling that I know what those two people are like apart from the particular event in which they are shown. And that is just fine with me.</p>

<p>Public = social = history. In the progression of events, it generally disrupts coherence to introduce perpendicular thickness of detail to constituent parts (which is what portraiture would do) -- beyond what is engaged in, directly relevant to, the particular ongoing events being shown.</p>

<p>An awareness of this works in reverse, from participant <em>to</em> viewer in that they (the people who are in public) know what and how to present a coherent, included-in, conforming player of his/her social part/role.</p>

<p>It seems to me that the public space has expanded -- and the personal diminished -- since the time when, for example, Helen Levitt made her street portraits of people, especially children, who look to be as relaxed as if in their own backyards. Which, since they seem to all have known each other from birth, is not far from the truth. In small rural communities such as where I live, the same applied.</p>

<p>It's interesting to look at August Sander's in-role, uniformed portraits as well as Irving Penn's <em>Small Trades</em>, which show close "portraits" of people in public costume but outside of any supporting event(s), thereby getting into that grey area where I think the Avedon linked picture of Marilyn is also "located." Sander, Penn, and Avedon show people with one foot in role and the other with all the wilder particularities of their individual personalities showing through.</p>

<p>Julie -- I have to confess that I don't really grasp any of the questions.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>When in public, do you make yourself into a "piece" that is moved and played?</p>

</blockquote>

<p>I'm not aware of making myself into anything in a public space. Moved by whom? Played by whom? To what end? If I am photographing in a public space, I suppose there are some things I attempt to make myself into, depending upon the situation: Unobtrusive, non-descript, seemingly unaware (of the people I am photographing), non-threatening. Rarely, but in some street situations, I want to give an aura of potentially threatening, "not to be f****d with". And then there's friendly and engaging when I want to approach someone to photograph them, or just engage them in conversation. But I suspect that none of this is what you are referring to. Those are more masks, perhaps, but even masks have some roots in reality. Then again, even within the confines of my own mind, I am not always one thing or another. Over time, I probably have a mathematical average of character tendencies which could be plotted on a chart, the median being the most likely, average, "me".</p>

<p>I like some of the comments you quoted from the review of Eno's play. The gray area of awkwardness that can bridge (or widen) the gulf between the public and private of two individuals is interesting, but I see it as a more suitable exploration for a novel, play, or short story than it is for a photograph. No matter what might appear to be going on in a photograph, the photograph accrues to itself its own reality. Drives me nuts when people get anal retentive about arguing that a photograph does not represent reality. No, not in the way that they are arguing against, but in and of itself it IS a reality. Not that this has anything whatsoever to do with what you are talking about! Sorry for the digressive rant.</p>

<p>I'm also not sure what you mean by "they have parked their anatomy and left" in regard to your linked Tokyo train photos. That they are engaged in a private world/reverie and as such are unconscious of their bodies in that moment? (I take it similarly to what Fred said about "the house is empty".)</p>

<p>So now I've meandered, ranted, and possibly obfuscated the intent of your discussion. Not intentionally, of course. Just flailing about, trying to understand what you're getting at.</p>

<p>The couple in Brad's photo intrigue me. The man appears friendly and engaging, apparently moving toward the camera. The woman appears skeptical and her body language suggests an attempt to pull the man in a different direction, away from the camera. Again, that may or may not have been the "reality" of the situation but it makes for a very interesting tableau here. Subtle, yet strong. Gives you something to read and reflect on, rather than relying on some visual joke or gimmick of light.</p>

<p>I hope I have not wandered too much, or obfuscated your intended discussion, Julie. I'm just flailing about, trying to interpret it.</p><div></div>

<p>Examples:</p>

<p><strong>Public people</strong> (all, not just the central figure): <strong><a href="http://www.masters-of-photography.com/images/full/winogrand/winogrand_american_legion.jpg">LINK<</a></strong> <<< Garry Winogrand, <em>American Legion Convention</em></p>

<p><strong>Private people</strong>: <strong><a href="http://sallymann.com/wp-content/gallery/family-pictures/Sally_Mann_Family_Pictures_08.jpg">LINK</a></strong> <<< Sally Mann from <em>Immediate Family</em></p>

<p>From Christian Schüle's essay in <em>Tokyo Compression Three</em>:</p>

<p>.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>"Nowhere is the individual as conscious of his loneliness in the crowd as in a packed underground train. The pain of this insight furrows the skin of his face."</p>

<p>[ ... ]</p>

<p>"The effort of silence, the trust in closed eyes, the mastery of the unrooted body -- all underground travelers have, in the course of their journey, a higher aim, which is the aim of all people in the general administration of the global economy: protection from one another. The protective textile mask, the hand over the mouth, the head turned away in avoidance, the search for the smallest spaces free of others -- protective mechanisms are self-preservation strategies in the hostile outside world. Implemented in everyday life, they shield the individual both from the mobile crowd and from the invasion of pathogens -- the two greatest threats to man in times of peace. The late modern individual's war is a war for space in the crowd -- and a war for physical integrity, which can only be won by protective rigidity: brief hibernation-like meditation."</p>

<p>[ ... ]</p>

<p>[description of a 'subway dream'] "<em>Although it is unseemly, I sometimes try to touch someone's arm or hip. They are just brief moments, when I latch onto and feel the other person. I'm ashamed of this need, but I can't help it. For years now, through my journey on the metro I've been buying the possibility of feeling that I belong to a community. Above ground, we strive away from one another like incarnate quanta of a centrifugal force. We are isolated, and we are told we are a people, when all we do is populate a space together by chance. Below ground, we shouldn't be linked at all and yet we are. This proximity between repulsion and attraction is as disturbing and fascinating as that between trust and rampage</em>."</p>

</blockquote>

<p>.</p>

<p>That last certainly applies to photographers-in-public.</p>

<p>Reference Steve's 'digressive rant' (patting him sympathetically on the arm; 'yes, dear'), here is a quote from George Santayana that I hope will mystify Steve (I like to mystify Steve):</p>

<p>.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>"Masks are arrested expressions and admirable echoes of feeling, at once faithful, discreet, and superlative. Living things in contact with the air must acquire a cuticle, and it is not urged against cuticles that they are not hearts; yet some philosophers seem to be angry with images for not being things, and with words for not being feelings. Words and images are like shells, no less integral parts of nature than are the substances they cover, but better addressed to the eye and more open to observation. I would not say that substance exists for the sake of appearance, or faces for the sake of masks, or the passions for the sake of poetry and virtue. Nothing arises in nature for the sake of anything else; all these phases and products are involved equally in the round of existence. ... "</p>

</blockquote>

<p>.</p>

<p>... "it is not urged against cuticles that they are not hearts" ... "better addressed to the eye" ...<br /></p>

<blockquote>here is a quote from George Santayana that I hope will mystify Steve (I like to mystify Steve):</blockquote>

<p>And you are one of my favorite people to be mystified by, Julie! No matter the seriousness or depth of some of your posts and quotations, I always sense an impish grin behind them. </p>

 

<blockquote>

<p>the mastery of the unrooted body... protection from one another... The late modern individual's war is a war for space in the crowd -- and a war for physical integrity, which can only be won by protective rigidity: brief hibernation-like meditation."</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Okay. Much clearer now. And very nicely expressed. I absolutely can relate, and yet, and yet I find this a bit dark. Relating it to my own experience, there is always a certain fear and anxiety when venturing out (or underground) into a dense urban environment. But it can also be invigorating and inspiring if I embrace it as an adventure. But, to be fair, that is when I enter that world with my camera. If I did it day in and day out as a 9-5 grind, Schule's description would be nearer the mark.</p>

 

<blockquote>

<p>... "it is not urged against cuticles that they are not hearts" ... "better addressed to the eye" ...</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Indeed! And...</p>

 

<blockquote>

<p>Words and images are like shells, no less integral parts of nature than are the substances they cover</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Your pat on the arm, and Santayana's quote, have comforted me nicely. (I would like to write a poem that begins with the line "it is not urged against cuticles that they are not hearts". It sounds very Delmore Schwartzian to me. Or Wallace Stevens-like perhaps.)</p>

<p> </p>

<p><a href="

<blockquote>Fred G.

 

<p><a href="

rel="nofollow" target="_blank">LINK</a></p>

 

</blockquote>

 

<p>;-)</p>

 

<p align="center">Poem beginning with a line from Santayana</p>

<p><em>It is not urged against cuticles that they are not hearts</em><br>

which venture forth in search of toenail clippings lost.<br>

You and I seek no forgiveness for the masks we leave behind<br>

like breadcrumbs leading back to where our rootless bodies wait<br>

in crowded isolation.</p>

<p>Blindly, our private desires stretch forth public tentacles<br>

to probe the lacunae of history:<br>

Theirs. Mine. Yours. The yet unwritten and<br>

the lost.</p>

<p>Gutter angels leer from street corners<br>

on the periphery of our vision.<br>

Unrecognized. Mistaken for passing demons<br>

of no consequence, we hurry past<br>

lest consequence occur.</p>

<p>They mind not, nor do we mind<br>

the blurring of the line between now and<br>

forever,<br>

between mask and flesh<br>

root and rootlessness.<br>

Too late we see there is no line,<br>

only an eternal quest for the face we wore<br>

before our mothers were born.</p>

 

<p><a href="http://unrealnature.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/envelope.jpg">link</a></p>

<p><em>Julie "From Christian Schüle's essay in <em>Tokyo Compression Three</em>:"</em></p>

<blockquote>

<p>Although it is unseemly, I sometimes try to touch someone's arm or hip. They are just brief moments, when I latch onto and feel the other person. I'm ashamed of this need, but I can't help it.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>So he 'sometimes tries' to touch the arm or hip of a stranger. Then he writes that he not only tries, but does actually touch strangers for 'just brief moments' when he 'feels' the other person. So which part of a stranger's body do you touch, Christian, an arm? A hip? Some other body part? He writes that he knows such touching is 'unseemly'. He writes he is ashamed of the need to touch. The need is nothing to feel ashamed about. The behavior is something to feel ashamed about. He seems to not be able to properly aim his shame at the behavior as opposed to the need. He writes that he can't help 'it'. Can't help what, having the need, or can't help acting out by touching strangers god knows where given his dissimulations.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>Charles W -- <em>So he 'sometimes tries' to touch the arm or hip of a stranger. Then he writes that he not only tries, but does actually touch strangers for 'just brief moments' when he 'feels' the other person. So which part of a stranger's body do you touch, Christian, an arm? A hip? Some other body part? He writes that he knows such touching is 'unseemly'. He writes he is ashamed of the need to touch. The need is nothing to feel ashamed about. The behavior is something to feel ashamed about. He seems to not be able to properly aim his shame at the behavior as opposed to the need. He writes that he can't help 'it'. Can't help what, having the need, or can't help acting out by touching strangers god knows where given his dissimulations.</em></p>

</blockquote>

<p>Interesting. I saw Schule's comment as being about simple human contact, a reaching out in a completely non-sexual, non-threatening way. A way of making a connection with strangers that may not resonate with me, but which I do not automatically ascribe to perversion. I think your interpretation, your extrapolation Charles, goes well beyond what Schule stated, and puts a rather twisted and sinister spin on it. Of all the things that have been talked about in this thread, this is what you cherry pick to write about? And in a manner that is far more suitable to the old Off Topic forum than the POP forum. I'm really not trying to pick on you, Charles, but I am a bit stunned that you derive all of that from his statement. Then again, maybe I am too naïve and trusting and Schule is really a twisted pervert who yearns to grope strangers.</p>

<p>My take is that Schüle wasn't necessarily projecting desires or behavior that's been attributed to him and that, even if he were, I wouldn't necessarily see it as twisted and perverted.</p>

<p>In another thread, we're discussing Mapplethorpe, whose behaviors many would see as twisted and perverted. It's precisely this kind of stuff that often gets played out by photographers and artists willing to dare themselves and others. There are unspoken realities of thoughts and behavior, sexual and otherwise, that do exist and can be dealt with in a number of ways, art being one of them. My guess is that many so-called perverted thoughts and behaviors are actually benign compared to the thoughts and behaviors that many supposedly "non-perverted" people engage in, but probably can't even admit to themselves (and certainly not to others) on any sort of conscious level.</p>

<p>I applaud any artist willing to talk about and show the more "unseemly" side of himself or herself. Yes, some behaviors cross the line and no artist becomes immune to judgment (or punishment) just because he's honest about behavior considered hurtful or criminal.</p>

<p>I didn't think of Schule's thoughts as either benign or perverted. Just honest and real. He, himself, called them unseemly which suggests to me they were violative on some conscious level. That can be more than benign and less than perverted, a gray area worth thinking about and photographing, for sure.</p>

<p>This is honest human feeling and thought, something all too lacking in so much pablum we get used to seeing these days that pretends to be "art."</p>

<p>Interestingly, if these feelings are in him, they don't show in any of the pictures linked in the OP. Perhaps these feelings were only a springboard to him. The photos don't express any of the sort of tension, seemliness, or wanting to touch that Schüle goes on to talk about. Still interesting photos, IMO.</p>

<p>Overall Schüle was couching a confession to groping in the broader context a non-groper's legitimate need for simple human contact, or so I say based on my word for word analysis of his three sentences. He wrote, for example, "I latch onto and feel the other person." Excuse me? Christian, did you say you "latch" onto people and "feel" them? Excuse me? I think I'm reacting to exactly what he wrote, think that I'm not at all going beyond his written statement of how he behaves in certain public places. And from his account of his 'sometimes' behavior, we can see how me tries to rationalize it to us as coming from his need for contact while at the same time he isn't placing before us in his text any consideration of whether the person he latched onto wanted that complex form of human contact from him or not. He doesn't describe how a felt and latched onto person reacted to his touching them.</p>

<p>And Julie remarked of Schüle's entire excerpt "That last certainly applies to photographers-in-public."</p>

<p>I would argue "that last" doesn't apply to photographers in public, that photographers participate in community without engaging other people in the physical way that Schüle says the he does 'sometimes'. Yes he says he 'yearns' to touch strangers without asking them if he may or may not touch them; but he also says quite explicitly that he <em>does</em> touch them on the arm, on the hip, without asking, because in a confined place underground, <em>he can</em>. It is a stunning confession, that by Schüle. </p>

<p>I blame Julie. ;-)</p>

<p>Fred the linked photos in the OP aren't Schüle's, per Julie "the linked photos are from Michael Schmidt's books..." They are interesting photographs. They are of people with lives who in one part of their lives endure crowded modes of transportation and look odd while doing so.</p>

<p>Schüle also wrote per Julie: "The late modern individual's war is a war for space in the crowd -- and a war for physical integrity, which can only be won by protective rigidity: brief hibernation-like meditation."" It's hard to reconcile his awareness of the importance to people of their physical integrity in public spaces with his other excerpt, prefaced by Julie as a 'subway dream', where he arguable speaks to his violating that space, in reality or fantasy, violating the physical integrity of another person.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>Here's a photo of mine that Brad's reminded me of. In mine the male is also unguarded as he scratches his itchy back in sandy soil. The female in mine is looking at the camera uninvitingly to say the least. The third coyote is a son, about to be ramped up by his parents to perform a territorial display. Another photo of mine is of the female, mate to the male, who is guarded in her pose and I'll say more of these two photos and the general topic after I get these two of mine uploaded.</p><div></div>

<p>2nd one of mine</p><div></div>

<p>OK, got it. Schüle's essay appears in Schmidt's book of photos. It still doesn't describe what the photos linked express to me. I haven't seen the rest of the book, which might give the essay more photographic thrust and more of a relationship to the images. </p>

<p>So my take is that in our spaces we are aware of where that space is, the boundaries, and like the coyotes, physically occupy that space by physically communicating those boundaries. Unlike the coyote, we also create mental space for ourselves when physical distance isn't possible. Or so I've read, and that idea is useful to me.</p>

<p>In my second photo, the female is standing her ground. I didn't realize she was guarding physical space. I got closer and she gave me space. But as I continued on into the brush slightly, she reappeared and charged me. So I left. Later in the photograph, cropped out above, I much later saw her swollen breasts. I didn't realize she had a reason to guard that particular space, an entry way into what I later discovered was her den area. There are spaces I guard from public view that are as important to me as was her litter important to her. Even when settled with others sharing somewhat our private space, much about us remains a mystery. There is no reason to not be guarded, its natural, is my take on it, and we don't always get to know why another guards one thing and not others.</p>

<p>And when we take our private space out into public places: I'm glad people are guarded because there are so many people out there that would they be unguarded the amount of information to process just to get four oranges from the store would be overwhelming. We need to be strangers to each other mostly, in those public spaces.</p>

<p>Schüle is right, I think. One can be ashamed of just about anything and most of us probably are. Then it is all bundled up and burried under the heavy reinforced concreet slab of being ashamed of being ashaimed, then fenced off with denial, avoidance and redflagged by habitual lack of communication skills.</p>

<p>Some even say it has been pushed up and moulded into a kind of continuously revolving guilt [syndrome] which in turn became a driving force of social progress in western civilization. One can naturally try to number them all with vengence, so to say, but conformity is useful thing too, so as aesthetic appeal.</p>

<p>So, I would thing it is all hinged on personal emotional setup, weather and things like that.</p>

<p>Ilia wrote: "One can be ashamed of just about anything ... " Or at least abashed or bemused or ... interested in.. what one finds in a dream -- which is what Schüle was describing (a 'subway dream').</p>