What is it?

<p>This [<a href="http://unrealnature.files.wordpress.com/2013/11/pregnantcamel.jpg"><strong>LINK</strong></a>] is a photograph of the pubic hair of a pregnant camel.</p>

<p>She (the camel) is a direct descendant of one of the camels once ridden by Lawrence of Arabia.</p>

<p>This [<strong>LINK</strong>] is an abstract image titled 'Untitled.' I'm not even going to bother to add a linked image because nobody will click on it.</p>

<p>If I tell you that I have a picture of a horse titled 'Bob'; or maybe it's titled 'Stoicism,' I would guess that a fair number of you are already ready to argue that the imaginary picture of a horse that I have not shown you doesn't look like a Bob and is not particularly stoic.</p>

<p>At what point, or to what degree does the evidentiality of photographs actually prevent us from seeing them? As a further example, in <a href="/casual-conversations-forum/00cBPf">Steve Gubin's recent thread</a> featuring <a href="http://24.media.tumblr.com/f4a0b06279bec60dfd70c8a571f79a24/tumblr_mnif24IFzM1qzg5ooo1_1280.jpg">a photograph of four girls</a>, all of the commentary seems to me to be about stuff that is not in the photograph; its only job is to be evaluated as possible evidence to support or fail to support what is not in the photograph.</p>

<p>If I said of that photograph, "reading" the girls from left to right, that there is drama in the left to right undulation through the hair; left to right from eye to eye to eye; from left to right in the increasing back and forth torso-twistings; from left to right the rising degree of vamp from the first (motherly, with bra) to the crescendo with the hair, face, and twist of the third girl (braless), to the slowing/concluding cadence of the last girl (chest fully covered); that I enjoy all the shades of blue/lavender etc. etc. — are you bored stiff? Or does everybody else also see this but feel that it's personal/private or somehow unimportant or to "arty" to confess in a public forum?</p>

<p>If a picture isn't evidence of something, are you going to look at it; or is evidence of *something* the first requirement of every photograph?</p>

<p>[Of course I'm lying about the pregnant camel. Does it matter? If I hadn't said that, would you have looked at the picture? Maybe Steve was lying, too, and the four girls are residents of a juvenile detention center, dressed up for their parole hearing. Or they're at a casting call for the new movie, <em>Clueless II</em>. Does this change the photograph? I was also lying about the imaginary photograph of the stoic horse, Bob. His name is really Clyde.]</p>

<p>Context is important. </p>

<p>In a recreational discussion of no real importance or consequence, anything goes. </p>

<p>If, however, a photo is under dispute in a court of law or subject to interpretation in such as way as to have real consequences, then every detail real or interpreted matters and will be subjected to scrutiny. </p>

<p>Where an aesthetic discussion fits somewhere between a recreational one and a forensic one is a matter to consider.</p>

<p>_________________________________________</p>

<p><em>"nobody will click on it."</em></p>

<p><em>"are you going to look at it"?</em></p>

<p>Hmmm. Already answered?</p>

<p>Since I generally discount or even ignore titles, I'd look at it regardless of what it's called.</p>

<p>_________________________________________</p>

<p>Why look at a photo?</p>

<p>Interesting question. Often, because someone I respect, know, or consider an expert has pointed me in that direction. Other times, I come across them on my own, often in galleries or books, because someone else considered them worthy of hanging or publishing.</p>

<p>Totally agree with Michael that context is important to how we experience a photo and its contents.</p>

<p>On the one hand, there's my reaction and response to a photo, which can be personal and non-literal or visceral. And on the other hand, there's how I talk about a photo in a discussion about it.</p>

<p>Michael, I agree that context is important. The problem is, it seems to me that context can swallow the picture. The photo gets glanced at, and then it's off to the races of all sorts of prompted speculation.</p>

<p>I am not saying that this is true for "other people." While I would like to claim that my finely tuned aesthetic sense lets me look at all kinds of pictures "for their own sake" this is patently untrue; like everybody else, the first thing I (try to) do is figure out "what it is," either by sight or by title/label.</p>

<p>When I tell you what the pregnant-camel-pubic-hair picture is really "of" I think you'll find (you, Michael, in particular, given what I know of your interests) that to be so interesting (it is *very* cool), that the picture-as-a-picture will more or less disappear. And that disappearance is what I am sorry about.</p>

<p>Julie, you've raised some interesting points, but isn't everything a matter of interpretation within context in our path toward some personal truth? </p>

<p>If I showed you a chair and said nothing about it allowing you to comment "as it sits", versus letting you in on the knowledge that it was <a href="https://www.google.ca/search?q=Glenn+Gould's+chair&oq=Glenn+Gould's+chair&aqs=chrome..69i57&sourceid=chrome&espv=210&es_sm=122&ie=UTF-8">Glenn Gould's chair</a> and the back story surrounding its significance as a symbol of Gould's eccentricity, wouldn't that allow a greater appreciation from the felt significance developed through that knowledge, and therefore allowing you an expanded interpretation? </p>

<p>At a broader level, a camera is just a camera, but a camera that took the picture "<a href="https://www.google.ca/search?q=Earth+Rise&oq=Earth+Rise&aqs=chrome..69i57&sourceid=chrome&espv=210&es_sm=122&ie=UTF-8">Earthrise</a>" will be in a museum.</p>

<p>An untitled picture without any explanation is often asked to stand on its own, but an elaborate explanation of it won't necessarily preclude a viewer's interpretation, rather it gives a viewer a platform from which to formulate an interpretation from following a guided path. </p>

 

<p>All good points, Michael. But the aesthetics matter ... I can think of an almost infinite number of ways that the Steve Gubin picture could have been made that would have been less -- much, much less -- effective. The *way* the picture is made/presented given to our perception makes, if not "all" the difference, surely a great deal of it, and, as photographers, awareness of this matters.</p>

<p>**********************</p>

<p>To further complicate this issue -- and as appreciation for your input -- here is what the camel-pubics picture linked in the OP is truly of. Quoting from its source:</p>

<p>.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>Dunes in the <em>Russell</em> Crater<br>

Lat: -54.3° Long: 12.9°</p>

<p>During the less windy seasons in the <em>Russell</em> crater, on the highest dune on Mars, the black sand [which is covered with white dust] is completely covered with traces marking where tornadoes have lifted the accumulated sand.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>.<br>

I am finding this photograph in the book <em>This is Mars</em> put out by Aperture. To me, every single plate is aesthetically gorgeous -- even though they are explicitly scientific and even though they were made by an <em>unmanned</em> probe. Credit is due to the editors (chooser) of the pictures Xavier Barral and Sébastien Girard, and they were chosen (and framed/cropped) *for* their aesthetic appeal, as this is intended as that kind of book.</p>

<p>Perhaps context-described is less interesting (what does the picture of Glenn Gould's chair have that is so particular and interesting that a similar non-Glenn Gould chair does not? Visually, maybe not very much if anything) than context-discovered by the viewer. Or context-avoided. If the photographer's arranged context doesn't become evident in the personal viewing process, that may not even matter.</p>

<p>Part of the pleasure of viewing an image is that the frame is the only physical constraint imposed on the viewer, which he has probably already accepted or factored in to his appreciation of the contained image, and then possibly forgotten as the novel image (that is, previously unseen) starts to engage his mind (emotional or intellectual). In looking at images, and where I have the choice, I avoid reading the title or the little text to the lower right of the print and then proceed to evaluate/appreciate the image without those references. Whether I have taken something from the viewing the image, or not, I then read that information and review the image to see if that has enabled further or different appreciation of what I saw. If I missed much because of a lack of knowledge of the context, then either the image is not persuasive enough of that or I have not really appreciated and understood what I was looking at. Or the context was of only peripheral importance to the aesthetic or emotional appreciation of the work.</p>

<p>Arthur, I think there are two levels of "what is it?" The one you are thinking about, it seems to me, is that of what stuff is doing/meaning in the frame -- but this assumes that you know what that stuff "is." There is a primary level of "what is it?" that is just about figuring out, literally, what the stuff or thing is -- so that you can get scale and orientation, etc.</p>

<p>Like you, I also prefer to consider a picture of identifiable stuff without the title or label or larger amount of load that it may be carrying. For example, I can and do admire the cleverness, aesthetics, and the success of this two page book spread [<a href="http://unrealnature.files.wordpress.com/2013/11/roomgirls.jpg"><strong>LINK</strong></a>] without reference to its larger context. How the individual pictures work on their own and then how well they mesh; working together and against each other, etc. And, for example, I very much enjoy Meatyard's pictures of people in masks even though I don't really know (or care) *why* they are wearing masks. I take them as they are given and they are wonderful.</p>

<p>However ... however ... when I cannot tell what the material of which the picture is made "is," then I am not so sanguine. Using some of Carl Chiarenza's exquisite abstracts to illustrate, see if you can get what I'm talking about:</p>

<p><strong>01 Chiarenza [<a href="http://unrealnature.files.wordpress.com/2013/11/chiarenza_03.jpg">LINK</a>]</strong> >>> <em>fantastic</em>, gorgeous, but I am uneasy because I don't know what it is<br>

<strong>02 Chiarenza [<a href="http://unrealnature.files.wordpress.com/2013/11/chiarenza_01.jpg">LINK</a>]</strong> >>> also lovely, and I am <em>much</em> happier because I can tell that it is cardboard<br>

<strong>03 Chiarenza [<a href="http://unrealnature.files.wordpress.com/2013/11/chiarenza_04.jpg">LINK</a>]</strong> >>> now I'm back to being unhappy, even though this is gorgeous ... because I can't tell what it is made "of"<br>

<strong>04 Chiarenza [<a href="http://unrealnature.files.wordpress.com/2013/11/chiarenza_02.jpg">LINK</a>]</strong> >>> ahhh ... again, I feel palpable relief because I can see that it is peeling paint<br>

<strong>05 Chiarenza [<a href="http://unrealnature.files.wordpress.com/2013/11/chiarenza_05.jpg">LINK</a>]</strong> >>> this one wobbles because I am pretty sure I know what it is -- because I know that Chiarenza likes to work with tin foil and sheet metal -- but it's not absolutely obvious that that's what this is<br>

<strong>06 Chiarenza [<a href="http://unrealnature.files.wordpress.com/2013/11/chiarenza_06.jpg">LINK</a>]</strong> >>> ditto for this one. I can guess, but I'm not "sure" and that is a little bit distracting</p>

<p>I love Chiarenza's work, including all the stuff where I don't know "what it is" but there is a visceral difference in the way I interact with the identifiable and the unidentifiable. What I find so interesting about the Mars/camel hair picture linked in the OP is that it is *both* an entirely non-abstract, scientific picture, and an abstract visual confusion of materials.</p>

<p>[the book spread picture of the girls is from Rania Matar's <a href="http://www.photoeye.com/bookstore/citation.cfm?catalog=ZE832"><em>A Girl and Her Room</em></a> (2012)]</p>

<p>Arthur, significantly Michael didn't seem to be talking about a picture of Glenn Gould's chair but rather Glenn Gould's chair itself. Michael was responding to Julie, saying that meeting something as a "what is it" is not unique to meeting it that way in photos. I had had the same thought as Michael on that, so I appreciate his making that point.</p>

<p>And, yet, I have a different take as well, both for people, things, and pictures. Having recently met more transgendered folks and even so-called questioning folks in the queer community who refuse the label "transgender", I am more and more finding myself not meeting people with a "what is it" mentality. I more and more avoid that with objects as well, and photos.</p>

<p>When I was looking for furniture quite a few years ago, I realized at a certain point I was less interested in looking for this or that piece of furniture or even caring what it was in favor of seeing the style as first and foremost. Did it fit in with the look I wanted? If so, I would find a use and a place for it.</p>

<p>I might well see "film noir" when looking at a photo well before I consider "man in dark raincoat on wet street with neon light overhead."</p>

<p>I sometimes, and this has been happening to me for decades, see tonality and shape long before I seek to identify what something is a picture of. Ofen, what something <em>is</em> slowly rather than immediately comes into focus as I'm considering other things about a photo, painting, sculpture, etc.</p>

<p>I think that a photograph is intentional in the sense that it always points beyond itself to something else. It has "ofness", even if its subject is not something readily identifiable (as is the case wit at least some abstracts). And Michael, context does play a role in this regard, i.e., the photographer's designs regarding the photograph.</p>

<p>Julie, is this where you're going when you ask " . . . is evidence of *something* the first requirement of every photograph?"</p>

 

<blockquote>

<p>"At what point, or to what degree does the evidentiality of photographs actually prevent us from seeing them? As a further example, in <a href="/casual-conversations-forum/00cBPf" rel="nofollow">Steve Gubin's recent thread</a> featuring <a href="http://24.media.tumblr.com/f4a0b06279bec60dfd70c8a571f79a24/tumblr_mnif24IFzM1qzg5ooo1_1280.jpg" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">a photograph of four girls</a>, all of the commentary seems to me to be about stuff that is not in the photograph; its only job is to be evaluated as possible evidence to support or fail to support what is not in the photograph."</p>

</blockquote>

<p>The only stuff that's ever undeniably in a photograph is a bunch of tones or colors, shaped by light. Solipsism aside, the rest is a matter of degrees of consensus about what is obvious, apparent, evident.</p>

<p>If I said of that photograph, "reading" from left to right, that it isn't about the girls at all or anything that seems obvious, apparent or evident, but rather is about lurking dread, hinted at in the ominous vee-shaped shadow and implication of a stalker or predator lurking behind a window, studying the vulnerabilities of these young women, waiting for a moment to steal away any shred of a normal life they might have enjoyed - are you bored stiff? Or just thinking that I've watched too many David Lynch movies?</p>

<p>Sometimes a photo is exactly what it appears to be and what it appears to be is only what we agree upon by consensus, or choose for ourselves despite consensus.</p>

<p>We can impute intention, we can read our own interpretations into shapes we see as signs, we can experience emotions based upon those personal interpretations, all because a photograph of a deflated bounce house may resemble, to one viewer, <a href="/photo/7269583">a map of the location of the Sunni insurgency</a>, thereby proving... whatever it is we'd like to have proven: that the conspiracy is real; that we really are more prescient, intelligent and perceptive than the drones we're forced to share air with.</p>

<p>Hannah "... but underneath it all, I'm only 13. It's kind of scary. It's a hard feeling to not know where you fit in yet."</p>

<p>So yes, it is personal and private of our own children, as fathers, brothers, uncles, friends, to see appearance and also know what's underneath "it all"; and with teen daughter or grand daughter: dread, dread, dread, and being sure they are where they said they were going to be, knowing that they won't be and running oneself ragged to find where they really are to drag their immature butts back home. Yeah we see it all right and hope that they can just work it all out with their mothers.</p>

<p>Does the photograph tell a story, or do you need to tell a story about the photograph? </p>

<p>I get the point about context etc. brought about by being told something about the image - but at what point is the story more important than the photograph, and why didn't you just write something and use the photo for an illustration? See, "<em>The Painted Word</em>" for a more comprehensive examination of this subject.</p>

<p>Steve "...why didn't you just write something and use the photo for an illustration?"</p>

<p>Or a video with narration. But video, narration, writing: communication in those alternatives may be equally or more difficult when the story in all its aspects is but partially known, perhaps the whole story only partially knowable at all. Photo images can carry a lot of information that is, broadly speaking, ah,....: non-verbal, or suggestive instead of precise; and with writing one often also resorts to images (metaphor, analogy, symbolism, etc.) to attempt communicating both emotions and ideas. Old time radio theater depended on listener imagination to create images, etc.</p>

<p><em>"at what point is the story more important than the photograph"</em></p>

<p>At the point when the story becomes more important than the photo. A context and an accompanying back story or narrative don't have to become more important than the photo, even while they can add depth to it.</p>

<p>__________________________________________________</p>

<p>While photos have significant connections to the things or people they are of, getting too swept away into the content as sole subject can be a way of avoiding what is there, which is also a photo. Note how the conversation about the photo of the girls quickly took on the shape of "my experience with teenage girls" just as the conversation about Link's photos of trains eventually became about train travels and Canadian rail passes. A good photo will send us to all kinds of places and I'm not knocking that, as long as it's accompanied by a sense of what the photo, and not just the content, is telling us, expressing to us, and making us think and feel.</p>

<p>Fred: "Note how the conversation about the photo of the girls quickly took on the shape of "my experience with teenage girls...":</p>

<p>Yeah, but more like it took on the shape of "my experience with <em>my</em> teenage girls" and if Julie says that what <em>is</em> the photo, that to discuss the photo as it <em>is</em>, we have to directly discuss the girls' sexuality, the flow of their clothing, posturing, and their body parts: that isn't going to happen: that would be a direct conversation about what is the photo that is DOA. A lot of older male protective instincts get triggered instead, mature adult contexts, and who doesn't remember going ballistic on girls about that age for the kind of stuff they pull. With a teenage boy you only have to worry about 1 **ck, with a teenage girl you have to worry about 100 **cks. Just sayin'...</p>

<p>One thing I can do to keep it all in perspective is look at the differences between one photo of teenage girls and a different photo by a different photographer of teenage girls. That helps me separate "teenage girls" from "photo of teenage girls," though on some levels they are not that separate.</p>

<p>If I immediately go to "my experience with my teenage girls" and over-personalize it (to the exclusion of other stances), I could risk missing some more universal considerations as well as missing out on what some degree of aesthetic viewing and distance can provide.</p>

<p>Oh I know, Fred, and not to belabor my point. Julie is a woman and she can say of teenage girls " left to right from eye to eye to eye; from left to right in the increasing back and forth torso-twistings; from left to right the rising degree of vamp from the first (motherly, with bra) to the crescendo with the hair, face, and twist of the third girl (braless), to the slowing/concluding cadence of the last girl (chest fully covered); that I enjoy all the shades of blue/lavender etc. etc. — are you bored stiff"</p>

<p>If those were my girls and a male friend of the family talked that way about them, like I said, women can say anything they want. But a male friend or acquaintance saying exactly that with a possible double entendre with the word 'stiff', talking about them twisting and writhing and if they have a bra on or not: I would have an extremely hard time restraining my anger from doing that male some bodily harm, that exact language. Julie can say it and it sounds fine, not offensive. But for a male saying that: there would be no friendship or contact after a male had made a comment to me like that about a teenage girl. That's some pretty primitive stuff and for that particular photo there isn't any separation available or allowable.</p>

<p><em>"for that particular photo there isn't any separation available or allowable."</em></p>

<p>I couldn't disagree more, vehemently as a matter of fact. It would depend on the male and the intonation with which he said it. I mean I guess we could ban <em>Lolita</em> as well, no? Or at least punch out the lights of the guy across from us reading it on the subway. Does not art deal with the primitive, the uncomfortable, even the profane?</p>

<p>Not to mention that it's very unfortunate that society hasn't been as protective of young boys, particularly when we've left them alone with priests.</p>

<p>Being protective of a person and a reality from another's <em>actions</em> is one thing. Being able to <em>describe</em> a photo or a situation or even a person, even in sex-related terms, is another.</p>

<p>In another thread, I reproduced a quote I just discovered from Philip Roth which might be applicable.</p>

<p><em>"I cannot and do not live in the world of discretion, not as a writer, anyway. I would prefer to, I assure you - it would make life easier. But discretion is, unfortunately, not for novelists."</em></p>

<p>I agree with all that you just said Fred, on one level. But I'm narrowly addressing what I think the reasons are for what Julie noticed. She noticed the men weren't talking about what was <em>in</em> that photo in the way that Julie described that photo's content, which is perfectly fine of her to describe the photo like that, being that Julie is a woman. She asked if we, I assume she meant the men, didn't <em>see</em> the photo; the men seemed to her to be flitting all around the rather obvious content without actually landing on it. That's just not going to happen as I see it, I've tried to explain why from my perspective.</p>

<p>I think it has a lot less to do with gender than with lack of photo viewing and describing skills.</p>

<p>It's simply easier for people to go to "my teenage girls" or "my memories of riding a train" or "poor homeless person" than it is to concentrate on a photo.</p>

<p>You could be right in your assumption about Julie's having men's reactions in mind when she described the photo in those terms (terms which I don't see in demeaning or male-oriented ways as you do), but I wouldn't make that assumption. </p>

<p>Well, this conversation took a weird turn since I last read it. How did we get from abstract impressions, to references to b*dy p*rts with *sterisks, and threats of violence against guys who might dare to analyze photos the way a gal might? You don't usually see this sort of thing outside of the Canon vs. Nikon wars.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>I didn't think I was coming off as being contentious and I'm certain that if I'm read sympathetically, my meanings are clear and from common experience.</p>

<p>Lex, why not stick to the subject of the thread instead of characterizing it and questioning the terms being used? Nothing weird is going on here, other than a peer giving his strong views about the terms of a photo. Though I disagree with Charles, he seems to me to be expressing himself sincerely and trying to address Julie's question honestly. The thread is about how we look at pictures and how and why we describe them in certain ways. I don't see that anything said is not simply worth addressing philosophically rather than characterizing as "war"like and weird. This isn't the Off Topic forum, where such accusations were common and where such characterizations of other members and their ideas got the forum closed. It's a philosophy discussion and I think Charles has, if passionately, stuck to the spirit of a good philosophical discussion. I take his words to be thinking out loud why Julie's description might not be adopted by many people. As I said, I think there are many reasons why others wouldn't describe it as Julie has, not least of which is many of our own unique ways of looking at and describing pictures, but more importantly because people don't normally look at photos carefully beyond subject identification and then personal experience of that subject, no matter how it's shot or presented. But, certainly, considering older males' possibly hesitant reactions to describing teenage girls a certain way and avoiding certain ways of looking at photos of them would not be something so far-fetched, even if I don't find a compelling case for its application here.</p>

<p>Love ya Fred.</p>