Sontag's error

[jtk]

It's anti-intellectual to argue that someones ideas are "errors" because that person isn't an initiate...is a mere outsider who lacks some authoritarian's approved frame of reference. According to that line of, Sartre couldn't address Islam.

 

Sontag never needed to show nobody no stinkin' badges.

[Norma Desmond]

What about when you argue that someone's ideas in the forums are less valid when they

don't have a portfolio on view?

 

I'm not arguing that Sontag isn't an initiate, I'm arguing that she's myopic. I think she's smart

enough to know that she could have widened her frame her reference, and I think she chose

not to because she had an agenda. That's different than a person being naturally limited by

culture of station in life.

[Norma Desmond]

Should be "frame <i>of</i> reference" and "limited by culture <i>or</i> station in life."

[fate_faith_change_chains]

" I think photographers would be better off reading Sartre than Sontag."

 

Over-thinking and over-analyzing seperates the body from the mind. A seperation that

photography can't quite deal with if it want's to stay true to it's nature I think.

Photography/ a photograph 'needs' both body and mind in one place.

[Norma Desmond]

I think Sartre would have been a fool to discuss Islam in a narrowly agendized fashion. It

would undercut his political chops. He wouldn't need to have been Islamic himself (an

initiate) to write compelling essays or books on the subject. I think less of Sontag's claims

about photography because they don't show more of a penchant for a broader view of the

subject.

 

That may make me anti-intellectual in your eyes, John. In the words of a diva, "I Will Survive."

[Norma Desmond]

Phylo, I think the mind-body distinction is an anachronism. The mind is physical. It has

nowhere else to go. The mind is a functional aspect of the brain, which is in your head (the

one on your shoulders, not the one that's a figment of metaphysicians' imaginations).

[JDMvW]

I think Sontag helped to make photographers a little more aware that their actions have a social context and is not merely a neutral recording of "reality." It's been long enough now that Sontag, too, deserves the courtesy of being considered in terms of the situation at the time she was writing.

Unlike science, philosophy rarely can detect "error", most often it merely registers differences of opinion.

[kristina_kraft]

Fred, why I feel superior? I feel superior only in the time of photographing them. That feeling rather comes spontaneously. In a way that I have a chance and feeling of how to peer with my camera into their personal space. At first most of them have an emotional blockade. I must say it doesn't hamper my connection to them. Because I speak the language of emotions. From that level I can recognize how someone breath. It' s a kind of natural talent to be able to recognize the mood of others on emotional level. People like to hide their feelings, but I like to unveil them, so that emotional stream may easily flow in between. I don't matter if someone gets angry on me, smiling on me, or anything else. People breath differently, but in the end we all have the same pattern that connects us.

The research or this peering is a kind of (cold) scientifically. Because no matter what happened between me and subject, I always go forward, move on. In the end people know how to appreciate you, or itself. They have a trust in you subconsciously.

 

But I prefer the most to photograph people that I know, because I can capture their different mood, feelings, and expressions. But capturing strangers are challenging and playful in its own way. So many faces reveal so many expressions and feelings. It is real beauty out there.

[jtk]

Fred, I didn't say YOU were anti-intellectual, I said your ARGUMENT was. What's the point of writing if the philosophizers can't read?

 

Your use of "error" was a pronunciamento (look it up).

 

Therefore it was mere noise.

 

Now you've abandoned "error" and are market-testing "broader" versus "narrowly agendized."

 

But...what's her agenda? And where can I sign up? I loooove conspiracies!

 

Please Fred, Sontag was an intellectual explorer! Exploration appears to be OK for you, and we know it was for Sartre, so why not for her?

 

Happily, someone will always complain that Sontag gores their favorite ox...that will ensure her place in history. She'll continue to be read, long after we're gone, and long after Sartre's forgotten... she was, after all, the better writer and a beauty, all of whose myriad eyes pointed in the same direction :-)

 

http://images.google.com/images?q=sartre&ie=UTF-8&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&sa=N&tab=wi

[Norma Desmond]

JDM, I take your point about considering Sontag within her milieu. A lot of the philosophy

I've read takes on others' errors. Wittgenstein thought Descartes offered a lot but was

ultimately erroneous, particularly in his use of dreams to undercut sensible certainty. He

also thought Plato was erroneous with respect to definitions, which Wittgenstein thought

were fluid as opposed to fixed. Philosophers are often sarcastic and downright nasty

(which I'm not suggesting we follow in this forum), hardly reticent to alert their audiences

to what they think are the errors of others. When Searle argues with Rorty about whether

Truth is a matter of correspondence or coherence, it's civil but heated and both think

there's more at stake than just their opinions.

 

Kristina, Thanks for elaborating. It's funny, when I do portraits and shoot other people, I

feel, and consciously allow myself to be, as vulnerable as I suspect they do. That seems to

work for me in the establishment of a connection. At the same time, since I hold the

camera (the gun!), there is a different dynamic at play with respect to each of us. And I

haven't yet done portraits professionally.

[jtk]

This is my rifle, this is my gun, this is for shooting, this is for fun.

 

USMC

[kristina_kraft]

Thanks Fred.

Yes, you said wright - "there is a different dynamic at play with respect to each of us."

 

I don't see camera as a gun, though it could be a cold weapon. But as I said, camera is my tool only to peer people. In a nature, my camera is just a camera.

 

Why is your camera a gun?

[steve_sharf1]

Hi Fred: I didn't read everything here(I skimmed most of it)but I did read this comment of yours regarding your photographs:

 

"They LOOK AT more than they SEE."

 

 

That"s something I didn't think I'd hear from you. Your points of last week in this forum("is there any art in point and shoot?-Dan Ellis Mar 21") seem to take issue with the above comment. Has Sontag changed your views? Have I? Or am I making an incorrect assumption?

 

Steve

[jtk]

Did Sartre use "erreur" to describe the ideas of others? I don't know.

 

Fred, you must know the answer...it'd help justify the arcane academic use of "error" in your Topic line...

[Norma Desmond]

Oops! A few misunderstandings and instances of bad communication on my part here. I

hope I can clear them up.

<p><p>

Kristina, I was being facetious with my use of the word "gun" along with camera. I was

referencing (I thought humorously, but obviously not effectively) Sontag's use of the term

"gun" to describe the camera, thinking I was making a joke. I DON'T SEE MY CAMERA AS A

GUN! (Well, maybe a very tiny bit metaphorically, along the lines that sometimes the

camera has felt invasive to me.) Mostly my camera sees as Sartre describes seeing, by

making a connection and helping to reveal my subjectivity and the subjectivity of the

person I'm photographing.

<p><p>

Steve, I was unclear. I was suggesting that the camera is so often used (by most people

unconsciously) in a way that LOOKS AT more than SEES. I try my best NOT to do that, NOT

to objectify, NOT to distance myself from my subjects. Honestly (and maybe not so

humbly), I was thinking of the mass of current-day camera users (some perhaps wishing

to be artists). A lot of photos LOOK AT and don't SEE terribly much and objectify without

connecting much. They seem to be taken without much expressive intention. Most often, I

don't respond to them personally. I hope it DOES NOT describe my photos. I didn't mean it

to. :)

<p><p>

John, I was playing off what I thought was the catchy title of a book I read recently:

<p><p>

<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Descartes-Error-Emotion-Reason-

Human/dp/0380726475">DESCARTES' ERROR by Antonio Damasio</a>

<p><p>

I started this thread with an interest in sharing ideas about which description of seeing

characterized our experiences with our cameras and photos, assuming some would feel

one way or the other, some would feel inclined toward neither and some toward both. My

juices get to flowing when I hear about others' experiences with and relationship to their

photography. I was surprised, given my expectations for reading Sontag, at some of the

things she said and the ideas she presented. I respect Sontag's intellectual exploration.

That doesn't mean I don't feel OK being critical of some of her assumptions and some of

her conclusions and even the basic tone of her argument/description. But I want to talk

about photography, not about critique or error. I take responsibility for some of the

derailment of my original intention.

[kristina_kraft]

Fred, yes I know you were being facetious and that you were joking. I can recognize that without your tone of the voice.

 

You said quite wright about how people mostly uses their cameras. I like that term - Looks at more than sees. For some the camera is just a fashion detail, as a cell phones too.

[steve_sharf1]

Fred: I don't believe that you are straying from your original intentions at all. It is a very good discussion and I find it interesting. It is a fundamental issue of much of Sontag's argument. I agree with much of what she has to say. And, I still maintain that: People "see". Cameras do not. Again, and I'm sorry to belabor my past points from earlier threads, but I use the term "see" with respect to the process of addressing "concept". A camera cannot conceptualize, nor can a photograph. A camera deals solely with image "aspect". Painting deals with image "aspect" and "concept". Jazz deals with "concept", as does sculpture.

 

The problem I see (as well as many artists, philosophers, etc.)in these discussions, is the assumption of many photographers that they can somehow transport a concept of something into a camera and resulting photograph. Therefore they are "artists". I have difficulties with that belief, certainly in respect to most of photography, and Sontag certainly had issues with this assumption as well.

[Norma Desmond]

Steve--

 

Thanks.

 

The straying I was referring to was the tangent on the word "error."

 

When I say a photo sees I do so only metaphorically. I agree. People see.

 

Try as I have, I don't understand your point about "concept" and why transporting the

concept of something to light sensitive paper or pixels is different from transporting a

concept to a piece of canvas.

 

I don't understand what you're posing as the relationship between "seeing" and "concept."

"Seeing" seems an activity of the senses, "concept" of the understanding, each -- to an

extent -- dependent upon the other. And I'm not a biologist, so I have limited claim to

understanding the science involved here.

 

I do understand that photography is distinct from painting, but to me that difference is

about process, not results or intent. I think I understand your point about the raw

materials the camera uses as its basis for capturing what it captures and the way a brush

captures what it captures. I don't understand the subsequent move of suggestion that one

deals with concept and one doesn't.

 

Constructing a canvas to create a painting and deconstructing a block of marble to create

a sculpture are enormously different processes. And moving one's body along with music

is a different process yet again. What a drastic difference is there in the art of dance,

where one uses their own body as the instrument!

 

I think process is fascinating and the artist's relationship to his tools and process may be

an integral part of how he approaches his art. But I don't think art per se is about a

particular process. I think art is about stuff like emotion, expression, symbolism, and

significance. (Perhaps I'd include Plato's representation and Aristotle's catharsis, but with

qualification.)

 

I don't get why a painting would be more likely to be considered art than a photo. I do

think there are probably more photos that are not art than paintings that are not art, but

that's likely because there are way many more photos than paintings.

 

Is the brush a friend and the camera an enemy? Is the brush a ploughshare and the

camera a sword? I don't see it.

[knutskjaerven]

Why do you talk about Sontag's error?

 

You use, imo, the wrong words for the wrong setting. You can talk about errors in a, let's

say, strict logical argument, but hardly in a interpretation of what photography is or ought

to be.

 

Sontag may have changes opinion in later texts, but that does not say that her former

interpretation was an error. I rather have it as two aspects of the same issue. If it at all

was the same issue.

 

Interpretation you judge on the validity of the argument.

 

Cheers

[Norma Desmond]

Knut--

 

I explained to John and then to Steve that my use of the word "error" was somewhat

unintentional, used casually as a homage to a book I had just read called "Descartes's

Error." You are right about a stricter understanding of the term. I made a case, I think valid

enough, for my use of the term "error" above also, but am not interested in defending it

because I consider it beside the point. The point of the thread was to discuss different

ways of approaching photography and seeing as suggested by the two quotes. I'm thankful

that such great contributions were made to that aspect of my original post. Aside from my

unfortunate use of the word "error," how do you feel about the two descriptions in the

original post as it relates to your own photography?

[steve_sharf1]

Fred: The argument is simple, but as photographers many of us will not allow ourselves to come to terms with, or address this simple fact: A camera cannot comprehend. Correct? If we agree on that then the next step is to now realize that, even though you may pre-visualize and plan out your image as a photographer(which are subjective decisions),lets say you are shooting a flower, you cannot subsequently transmit that concept of "a flower" into the camera. (You must familiarize yourself with the term concept for the sake of this argument. Concept is an abstract idea based on experience.)Cameras record light waves. They record the external world. They do so objectively. They cannot record image concept. As photographers we must "shop" to find something that approaches our concept, however the camera will not record the actual concept. It cannot.

 

We have an idea to photograph a flower and plan it all out, but in the end the camera lens records the external light waves onto film or a sensor. The result is an image that deals with "aspect" or the appearance or quality of the flower.

 

We have an idea to paint a flower. Our eye receives the image, the aspect of the flower, onto our retinas however the message is sent to our brain and our brain interprets the image "conceptually". It is impossible for our brains to avoid doing so. We see not just a flower, but a flower that represents many abstract things based on our experience with flowers. Maybe a particular flower stimulates me in such a way that I immediately associate that particular flower with a particular event; maybe a twenty-fifth anniversary. The result is a painting that reflects these idiosyncrasies. No two paintings will identically resemble each other, or, will come close to the likeness that can be produced by the photographic rendering. They will not resemble one another due to the conceptual process that "interferes" with likeness. This, to many, is what makes painting so interesting. The fact that you can delve into the very personal conceptual interpretation of a flower, for example, that is absent, or stifled by the photographic process.

[Allen Herbert]

disagreeable to me. Why do you keep saying "Fred" when quoting Susan?

 

Fred, I was imaging a part of the essential essence of a Sontag thesis...just trying to make it a bit more pertinent to readers by using a Forum Personality.

 

No offence was intended...

 

 

Indeed, I thought I was most complementary to you as an example of an idiom of contemplated ideology.

[Norma Desmond]

Steve, I don't think the camera records objectively. It records based on settings,

perspective, and a host of other decisions that the photographer makes. If I choose to

move my camera slightly and at a slow shutter speed, I will not get an "objective"

recording of the flower. Objective implies it's out there. The blur I achieve is not out there.

It's not something objectively residing in the flower. I will get a particular image of the

flower. There is no such isolated thing as the external objective world. It is an anachronism

left over from Cartesian dualism. There is no aspect and no appearance of an object that is

free from a perspective. A camera doesn't capture any more truth or reality or objectivity

than a painting does. It captures a particular perspective and it does that at a totally

unique moment in time. No two pictures of the flower are the same. That the differences

may be subtle and hard to assess between two photos of the same flower vs. two

paintings of the same flower doesn't persuade me of much. Moments change, lighting

changes, perspective can never be exactly the same, the glint in an eye is not the same

from one second to the next.

 

I agree with some of the differences in process and that the image from the camera may

go through a step that the image in a painting doesn't go through. Yours and Susan's

conclusions from that just don't hold any water for me, because I think you're both

involved in this strange notion of a fixed external reality vs. an internal subjective reality

that I don't think appropriately describes the world in the 21st century. The argument is

not at all simple because notions of objectivity, subjectivity, and reality are being

understood differently all the time yet we still seem stuck in a language that hasn't caught

up with our more complex conceptions of these things.

 

When I photograph, my "concept" often takes shape in conjunction with my subject, my

camera, my mood, the lighting, how cute the guy is who I'm photographing, etc. It's not as

cut and dry as Susan's "shopping" analogy. As if I form an image and seek to duplicate it

with my tools. My preconception and my tools often inform each other in a sort of

symbiotic relationship. It's fluid, not fixed. The finished product takes shape, it's not

necessarily the fulfillment of some specific thing I'm looking for. I imagine some painters

work this way too. And sometimes I work differently.

[Norma Desmond]

Allen, Not to worry :)

[Allen Herbert]

how cute the guy is who I'm photographing, etc.

 

I don't know, Fred. The paramount concerns of the flesh, rather than the essence of the individual..

 

The flesh takes precedent.

 

Allen, Not to worry.

 

 

Thanks, Fred,