Gesture

[Norma Desmond]

<p>Don--</p>

<p>I think we agree, at least to an extent, about the photographer as viewer.</p>

<p>We were writing at the same time so I didn't see what you had written just above me. And I don't think you should be slagged for your approach. I would start by asking if you recognize a difference in viewing a photo of the vase vs. viewing the vase itself. I mean, there are those who really don't care about photographs but are interested only in going out into the world and experiencing it first hand (sometimes that's just not possible). And I don't see why photographs can't simply substitute for first-hand viewing sometimes. I get to see photographs of China. For me, though, there's always been something about the "artificiality" of a photograph that has a unique draw. I expect that I am seeing a mediated view of the subject, which has already, to the extent you're speaking of, been made into an object. For me that can sometimes be the twist that's the hook . . . the subject becomes the object . . . but then becomes subject again. The subject for the photographer becomes, by becoming his object, the subject of the photograph. Yes, there can be a transformation.</p>

[nicolerenee]

<p>Fred, I guess my word choice may have been a little strong.</p>

[don_e]

<p>" I would start by asking if you recognize a difference in viewing a photo of the vase vs. viewing the vase itself."</p>

<p>I recognize the differences of one vase and another. This vase, not that vase. Is it a vase bought today at WalMart? The work of a master craftsman? The vase you are surprised to hear from your Mom that you gave it to her for her birthday when you were seven? A vase of unknown provenance bought at a garage sale on impuse (or the apprehension of "Wu")? Is it chipped and used suggesting history, or pristine? This vase, not that vase or any other vase. This is what I mean when I write the subject gestures to the photographer, makes itself known to the photographer, and if I am sensitive to it, feel it beckoning me to photograph it -- think of those Looney Tunes in which a bottle of scent is uncorked and ectoplasmic hands reach out to caress Daffy's cheek, drawing him, floating through the air, to it. Whether it makes itself known to me depends on how receptive I am to such influence. I might instead see it as a study in light and shadow, placing the highlights and giving careful thought to the backdrop in order to accentuate its dimensionality, or I might fill it with flowers and in Photoshop clone in Barbie faces and title it Audrey Jr. But I prefer to let the vase speak for itself.</p>

<p> </p>

[inoneeye]

<p>Don. "If the photographer is so caught up in his intention to communicate to the viewer through the photograph, the subject is merely an object of use for the purpose, a container to be filled with meaning, message, or significance, and the photo becomes a proxy for the photographer himself." <br /> sometimes (when time allows) this is the process and of course other times "I'd rather the subject speak for itself." This is the approach many great photographers have taken exclusively. Yet if their work is easily distinguishable from the pack then chances are they made significant gestures within that framework. I think it is also important to keep in mind that gesturing is like sign language, it can become natural and spontaneous and have a distinctive quality to it. When you are communicating to your viewer, even viewer as self, you don't need to consider every nuanced meaning. It is only when we slow down to ponder to consider the subject at hand that we refine our 'message'. In doing so we may benefit the next time we go into the field on switch on the auto pilot.<br /> Don i can see no justifiable reason for anyone being taken aback by your approach. As many do, I often take the same approach in my own images. I often go into gut response mode, with minimal premeditation beyond what is needed to try to be in the right place at the right time. There is no viewer other than my own eyes. But that does not necessarily exclude the gestures i might make. I might wait until the background compliments the subject walking by. Or choose a perspective, framing, camera orientation, etc, that dwarfs the little lost girl. This may happen in less than a moment, it has to or the image will be lost. This is very a spontaneous exclamation done with the gut. If i wanted to intentionally create a photo with a message about abandonment or feeling alone, lost and i have time to consider I will choose my gestures with intent and develop them into a paragraph.</p>

<p>Arthur, I for one cannot help you out with an unambiguous definition. I have trouble putting a great many words into a neat, tight definition. The best i can do is tell you how i am using it in my work. For me it is a system of expressive non verbal language. It is learned and intuitive.<br /> Sometimes, when i think about it i feel it is like those who are able to speak in different languages and have the benefit of a understanding something with a perspective from other vantage points.</p>

[luis_g]

<p> I agree that real actual viewers might not exist. They certainly don't exist until the image is displayed. The photographer can imagine a viewer, or become one, I agree, but that happens mostly ex post facto, rarely in real time. At the time the exposures are made, there is only the photographer and the subject (unless you're doing ad or other kinds of commercial work, and that's another thread).</p>

<p> What the picture depicts is not the subject itself, or what they had to say, of course, but the echoes of light from it, a subset of the photographer's perception of it through a given process.</p>

<p>I did not mean to slag you for it. Everyone is entitled to their ideas, and we're here to exchange them. I was just trying to understand your position.</p>

<p> The subject is often unaware of, or not performing for, the photographer, just going about their business. The photographer can only see that part of the entire 'real' subject that he is prepared to see, and then only that part that can be discerned at that timespace location. The rest he is blind to.</p>

<p>[Don E]"I'd rather the subject speak for itself."</p>

<p> Okay, finally I see where you are coming from. You're a classic "straight" photographer, with DNA related to the Neue Sachlichkeit (New Objectivism) spawned by, among other things, the photographs of Karl Blossfeldt, and exemplified perhaps best by August Sander.</p>

<p>http://www.laurencemillergallery.com/blossfeldt.htm</p>

<p>http://www.masters-of-fine-art-photography.com/02/artphotogallery/photographers/august_sander_01.html</p>

<p>The apparent Bayesian logic of perception is filling the subject up with what we already know, even if we're not aware of it. Speaking sequentially, yes, I can see your point, and understand it as an approach, though I reject the more absolutist version of that philosophy.</p>

<p> In closing, here's two quotes, all from Stephen Shore, that trace back to the origins of this thread and are hopefully germane to the thread:</p>

<p>" My book does not deal with the content of the pictures, it deals with what might be called the visual grammar of photography. That is not separate from what you’re asking, the projection of personality. I think personality expresses itself in these choices that a photographer makes, because of the choices the tools present. But a photographer’s vision is expressed though these tools, as well as through the choice of subject matter." </p>

<p>" As I’m looking at you, facial expressions are passing by in the time that we’re sitting here, I know that I can take a picture now, or a second later, a half second earlier, and have a different meaning. People could make different judgments, even though those judgments are really not about you, they’re about this image of you." </p>

<p> </p>

[don_e]

<p>I understood everything up through "classic "straight" photographer" 8-)<br /> One photographer might take a cracked and chipped vase and turn that part away from the camera because he wants to photograph tonality and depth, and the cracks would break up the smooth transistions. Another photographer might turn the cracks and chips towards the camera because he sees the lines of the cracks and the shape and textures of the chips as a satisfying composition. Both in my estimation are not really photographing the vase. They are utilizing the vase to make a photo of something else.</p>

<p> </p>

[jtk]

<p>"I keep sensing that you're trying to strip the photographer of some power by actually making the viewer part of the gesture. I like to think of the photographer as a responsible agent. ...Fred</p>

<p>The photographer certainly IS "a responsible agent." I like your metaphor, and I think you're supporting my point...</p>

<p>I don't agree that a photograph ever involves one "gesture" ("the gesture")..it is, I maintain, that triangle of involvement about which you previously agreed...and if it's not 360deg there actually is no photographic gesture..the photographer, about whose "power" you're concerned, has failed...he isn't a "responsible agent" if he can't carry his gestural load on to another viewer.</p>

<p>Yes, he photographer can, in a pinch, be "the viewer" but perhaps you agree that the photograph we never complete is simply the fish that got away: Uncought, a failed gesture.</p>

<p>If we've captured enough to have Photoshop fun at 3AM (the witching hour you mentioned), surely it'll convey something to somebody else if it's still fun in daylight. If it can't, maybe it's not even a gesture....</p>

[don_e]

<p>"Okay, finally I see where you are coming from. You're a classic "straight" photographer, with DNA related to the Neue Sachlichkeit (New Objectivism) spawned by, among other things, the photographs of Karl Blossfeldt, and exemplified perhaps best by August Sander."</p>

<p>Let me correct the misperception. I don't consider myself a straight photographer and am not familiar with Neue Sachlichkeit, Blossfeldt and Sander. In a forum on photography where philosophy is equated to art, the non-artist photographer, the documentarian, is a fifth wheel, I know. If this forum had been labeled more accurately as the Art of Photography Forum, I might never have read it. If there is an appropriate school or movement I can be associated with it is, oddly I know, the avant garde of the 1920s, especially Soviet documentary film makers. Beyond their gush of revolutionary hyperbole, their work and writing gives me something to chew on. Something I cannot say for Group f/64. My influences are documentary filmmakers, not art photographers.</p>

<p> </p>

[jtk]

<p>Don's right about the confusion of art with philosophy.</p>

<p>Philosophy typically functions in isolation, parsing and making circular arguments. Art, as most evidently understand it, only exists socially.</p>

<p>August Sander was a documentarian. Irving Penn's earliest (British laborers) was similar. Both were doing photography with minimal conventional "art" intent...Sander was exploring ethnic worktype theories and Penn was reportedly influenced more by graphic design than by "art"...and graphic design is rarely confused with philosophy.</p>

<p>Many of us find f/64 less interesting than Soviet (or Dustbowl) documentary work... f/64 was attractive especially to Northern Californians (and Seattle region), who do still live in scenic splendor. Most were raised in comfort, even wealth. The California Crafts Revival (and its "cottage architecture", a'la Green & Green and Monterey/Carmel) was part of the same subcultural zeitgeist. It wasn't as natural for them to be documentarians as decorators... though most were Leftists and did eventually do a little documentary work as well.</p>

[Allen Herbert]

<p >^Gesture is less than composition and more than composition. Gesture is more in that it will move; influence the emotional reaction to your image and body of work. It is less in that it is one element of your composition. It is an effective compositional tool for communicating emotions in a 2 dimensional otherwise stagnant moment. Photography is obviously a non verbal medium. The significance of gesture in non verbal communication is paramount to how well you can communicate and read others. ^</p>

<p ></p>

<p >Succinctly put.</p>

<p ></p>

<p >I suppose it’s about what you are trying to achieve consciously or unconsciously .If a subject is aware of a cam, they react to both the cam, and the Photographers body language.</p>

<p > </p>

<p > A natural Photograph is when the subject is not aware of either. </p>

 

[fate_faith_change_chains]

>' My influences are documentary filmmakers, not art photographers'.< Speaking of documentary's well worth watching, just yesterday I saw the 2005 Werner Herzog documentary ' Grizzly Man ' about Timothy Treadwell who spent

some 13 years of summers with bears before one day one bear bear didn't appreciated his gestures anymore, at least not as a form of

communication. The film is full with gestures. Wild, fixed and untamed gestures of nature vs those of man's socially conditioned gestures

that where urging to break free in this Timothy Treadwell figure. Borderline crazy maybe, troubled, suicidal,too anti-social, and a too naive interaction

with those bears I believe, wich he had too pay for sooner or later, and sadly also the woman that was with him the day that his gestures

where misunderstood, simply taken for food. But also love, boldness, an ideal, a vision, strong ideas carried out into strong action, and a fixed presence in the

landscape almost as present as that of the bears that lived in it. The gesture that I sensed in him so powerful, in a genuine way more about

art than any art itself or what any artist can hope to gesture for in art. Making a sculpture, a painting, a photograph,...so lame.

[don_e]

<p>"A natural Photograph is when the subject is not aware of either."</p>

<p>I disagree. The moment between the recognition of the camera and the photographer, and the moment of reaction to them. A person cannot complete a thought, and therefore react, in 1/500 of a second, but the camera and photographer can. Without it, eye-contact is not possible in an exposure and be "natural".</p>

<p> </p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p><!--StartFragment-->Don--<br /> <br /> "Both in my estimation are not really photographing the vase."<br /> <br /> Can you give an example of really photographing the vase.<br /> <br /> I, too, think I understand what you mean by allowing the subject to speak to you. I often find that my photos of subjects don't speak to me and wouldn't speak to others in the same way that the subject did unless I make some sort of gesture (or at least do something) to capture photographically that voice.<br /> <br /> When the vase speaks to you, why do you take a picture of it? How do you -- or do you -- preserve or convey what it's saying? </p>

<p>As I read through the photo pages of PN, I am aware of the vast number of people who are genuinely touched by the subjects of their photos, and I suspect most are, indeed, genuinely touched. Nevertheless, a significantly smaller number of PN photos are touching. It's great to be spoken to by a subject, but then what? Choices, conscious or otherwise, moment, stance, . . .</p>

<p>John--</p>

<p>"that triangle of involvement about which you previously agreed"</p>

<p>We all reserve the right to allow our perspective to change in these forums as we read others' words and think more fully about what was said previously. I'm not dismissing your idea of the "triangular" gesture -- which I do find poignant -- by any means, just having a second look and wondering about emphasis. I am with you on the point but still fleshing it all out for myself. </p>

<p>As for "incomplete" photos that other viewers never get to see, I'm not so sure. I have a couple of really compelling male nudes that were done with the understanding that I wouldn't show them to anyone. They are significant photographs for me. I learned from them and am moved by them. I guess that could all be just a wank, since you'll never see them, but it doesn't feel like it and they don't feel as though they've failed. They feel like valid and finished, important photographs, gesturing including, that no one is likely to see. The only failure is my not being able to convince the guys to let them see the light of day.</p>

<p>"Philosophy typically functions in isolation, parsing and making circular arguments."</p>

<p>Wrong. Socrates? Isolation? Popper, Russell, and Wittgenstein? Isolation? Sartre, Beauvoir, and the Cafe Flor? Duh!</p>

<p>Take one of the greats -- Descartes, Hume, Kant -- or a lesser-known philosopher -- Peirce, Dennett, Parfit -- and specify the circular argument you're referring to.</p>

[jtk]

<p>Fred, "poignant" is a human experience, unavoidable if that human has a heart. Poetry does poignance. Theatre and song do it. </p>

<p>Logical is something computers do perfectly. Over and done. Garbage in (undefinable words), garbage out (circular talk...valuable only for its poignance.</p>

<p>Circular is something we do a lot here (and did as sophomores, when we didn't have dates). I think you and I know where we're "at," and that's poignant, not logical. Poignance trumps logical.</p>

<p>Poignance has value. Logic is typically dispensed with in favor of poignance. As we all know, unless we're insurance actuaries.</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p>John . . . moving words. Thanks.</p>

<p>Still, though, I'm trying to get you to stop doing this: "Philosophy typically functions in isolation, parsing and making circular arguments."</p>

<p>That's why I challenged you to do this: "Take one of the greats -- Descartes, Hume, Kant -- or a lesser-known philosopher -- Peirce, Dennett, Parfit -- and specify the circular argument you're referring to."</p>

<p>You couldn't, or at least didn't or wouldn't. I suspect it's evidence that sometimes we blow smoke up each others' a**es.</p>

<p>It's also why I pointed to several historical instances (and we can point to this very forum) where Philosophy was and is not done in isolation. I've spent enough times in many Philosophy seminars to know how much gets accomplished in group back-and-forth dialogue and how significant a part of Philosophy dialogue is.</p>

<p>It's not a problem that you don't like Philosophy or don't find it useful or poignant (I happen to, and I actually think logic can be quite poignant, as Mathematics can be). It is a problem when you make claims about isolation and circular arguments that you can't back up.</p>

[luis_g]

<p>[Don E]"In a forum on photography where philosophy is equated to art, the non-artist photographer, the documentarian, is a fifth wheel, I know."</p>

<p>No, not equated, not mutually exclusive, either.</p>

<p>[Don E] "If there is an appropriate school or movement I can be associated with it is, oddly I know, the avant garde of the 1920s, especially Soviet documentary film makers.</p>

<p>No, not oddly at all. New Objectivism was certainly of the same time, present in the very films you mention, and German film makers borrowed techniques from the _very_ Russian films you are talking about. G. W. Pabst's silent film Die Liebe der Jeanne Ney (1927) would be the prime example. There was direct crossover. New Objectivism was Anti-expressionist, disregarding or less expressive of internal states, supposedly more objective and so standing outside the object to observe and record, which sounds a lot like what you have stated here.</p>

<p> Let's return to the vase. It arrives at your studio in a carefully packed box for documentation. It is already one of a kind. There are either no chips on it, or randomly spaced chips. Take your choice. The Museum wanting the photodocument has a low budget due to the ongoing recession, so you get one 8x10 frame. What do you do? Which 180 degree view represents the 'real' vase? Are you suggesting that a random view (disregarding yourself the most) is the most 'real'? Another photographer photographed it the year before. Is his picture of the vase. You know nothing about his method or philosophy. Is his version more or less real than yours? How can you tell?</p>

<p> The idea that FSA documentary photographers were "disregarding" the photographer is untrue. Evans clearly made that distinction with the famous comment: "The term should be <em>documentary style</em> . You see, a document has use, whereas art is really useless. Therefore art is never a document, although it can adopt that style".</p>

<p> [ The open near-Talibanic contempt for art hereabouts is staggering, btw.]</p>

<p> Documentarians often disregard their origins. Grierson coined the term "Documentary" in 1922. He sounds a lot like Don E here: "‘We believe that the materials and the stories thus taken from the raw can be finer (more real in the philosophic sense) than the acted article. Spontaneous gesture has a special value on the screen."</p>

<p> Grierson coined the term after Flaherty's film "Moana". The thing is that Flaherty gleefully staged scenes, interrupted hunts, altered the rhythms of the community to make his films, notably "Nanook". As Flaherty remarked:<br>

“Sometimes you have to lie. One often has to distort a thing to catch its true spirit.”</p>

<p> A lot of people today misunderstand how the f/64 work was viewed at the time. This is covered well in Robert Hirsch's _Seizing the Light_, for those that are interested. It has little to do with decoration, everything to do with the Depression. The West and the great dam projects were seen as the economic salvation of the USA and symbols of hope. Hirsch describes them being seen as "pictorial testimony of inspiration and redemptive power"<cite id="CITEREFHirsch2000" >. </cite><br>

As to the "comfort and wealth" of Group 64 members:<br>

By the time Ansel Adams was 9, his parents were nearly wiped out economically after the 1907 Panic.</p>

<p>Weston was born to a working-class family, initially worked as a surveyor and door-to-door family photographer. Where are those pictures?</p>

<p>Imogen Cunningham's father struggled financially to pay for her Art schooling.</p>

<p>Sonya Noskowiak's father was a gardener, hardly wealthy, and unmfortable enough to repeatedly move in search of work. She went to SF to enroll in secretarial school, not the pursuit of a rich dilettante by any means.</p>

<p>Henry Swift never quit his day job as a stockbroker.</p>

<p>Willard Van Dyke's family had money.</p>

<p> Marxists, yes. Trust fund dilettantes, hardly.</p>

<p> </p>

[don_e]

<p>""Both in my estimation are not really photographing the vase."<br /> Can you give an example of really photographing the vase."</p>

<p>Another photographer might have other ways, but context is something I need, so I'd want the vase in situ as I had come across it. I think if I saw a cheap common cracked and chipped vase in the cellar of an old house and being used to hold crusty paintbrushes, or given good shelf space on a mantel in the best room, I'd be moved to shoot. In context, the vase would suggest history or narrative and that it has significance to someone, and I would feel it as presence or "liveness". It would seem more than the sum of its parts, having not only tonality and depth or linear composition and textures, but a life. That's how I would really photograph the vase.</p>

<p> </p>

[don_e]

<p>"No, not oddly at all. New Objectivism...disregarding or less expressive of internal states, supposedly more objective and so standing outside the object to observe and record, which sounds a lot like what you have stated here."</p>

<p>I see this as a strawman, because you have a need to pin a label on me. I looked it up in Wikipedia (under New Objectivity) and skimmed the article. That's all I know about it. You may not find it odd that I'm influenced by the avant garde, but I do, and it is odd. Who would know better, you or me? So they were influenced by the Soviet avante garde filmmakers. So are the Maysles Brothers and Fred Wiseman, and the French New Wave, and lots of people. Someone else might have chosen one of those other to labels me. Why not just accept I've my own voice? It'd be lots easier.</p>

<p>I mean, what am I supposed to do? Slap my forehead and say "You know? You're right. I'm a New Objectivist. What was I thinking"?</p>

<p>"What do you do? Which 180 degree view represents the 'real' vase? "</p>

<p>I have no idea.</p>

<p>"The idea that FSA documentary photographers were "disregarding" the photographer is untrue."</p>

<p>Probably. Whose idea is it?</p>

<p>"Grierson"</p>

<p>John Grierson? Wow.</p>

<p>"[ The open near-Talibanic contempt for art hereabouts is staggering, btw.]"</p>

<p>Yes, it is.</p>

<p>I'm getting lost in your stream of consciousness, though. You've thrown out a lot of names and referenced various relationships. I'm not finding much of a match to anything I've written here, no matter your claims to the contrary...Grierson? And now Flaherty. Oh, for Christ's sake, Luis. And now, Hirsch and Cunningham and Noskowiak. There's probably more, too.</p>

<p>Well, I hope you've got that out of your system. Do you know Kelly Flanigan? I'd like to be a fly on the wall if you two got together and had a 'conversation'.</p>

<p> </p>

[luis_g]

<p> Don, I don't need to pin any label on you, nor expect you to slap your head, or react in any particular way, if at all, and I think I know myself better than you know me on that. I was merely trying to understand you, to put it simply, in an historical context.</p>

<p> The references to documentarians were to show that "documentary" is not a homogeneous thing by any means, nor were its seminal practitioners above manipulation.</p>

<p> The F/64 refs had nothing to do with you, they were wrt something John Kelly wrote. I should have prefaced that by addressing it to him. I can see where that generated confusion. Sorry.</p>

<p> I tend to think in relationships and stories. Chains, not isolated loops. I can't get it out of my system because it IS my system, and I feel no need to apologize for it. I don't think that makes me unique nor suspect.</p>

<p>When I look at philosophy, I see a web of knowing, not discrete, sterile, disconnected, isolated bubbles.</p>

<p>Likewise, when I read this: " Why not just accept I've my own voice?"</p>

<p> I do, but like all human voices, my own included, that voice, while individual, is not without precedents, nor entirely unique, and it is those connections that allow us to understand it better and see where and how you fit philosophically and historically.</p>

<p> </p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p>Don--</p>

<p>You described the context. Would you sit or stand with your camera? Would your shadow fall on the vase? Would the background be soft or more in focus? Would the edge of the wall behind the vase be vertical or askew? How far would you stand from the vase?</p>

[Julie H]

<p>It seems to me that what Don wants is to see what things look like when he's not looking at them -- when they are not contaminated by desire.</p>

<p>(Yes, I am aware that philosophers would have a field day with that; heck, I could have a field day with that. Nevertheless, it's an interesting concept ... if that's what Don is after.)</p>

<p>-Julie</p>

[aplumpton]

<p><strong>GESTURE: </strong><br /> "Significant movement of limb or body; use of such movements as expression of feeling or rhetorical device; (<em>and in the transferred sense:) </em>step or move calculated to evoke response from another or to convey (esp. friendly) intention. "</p>

<ul>

<li>(from Concise Oxford Dictionary, 5th Edition)</li>

</ul>

<p>This is the <strong>clearest definition</strong> of gesture that I have read to date. Perhaps Jay Maisel or a photo workshop leader could be clearer as to a definition appropriate to the act of photographing. Maisel has said that his photographs are based on <strong>light and gesture. </strong>Interesting. It is a little puzzling however, how the body movements of the photographer will influence his mind's view of an image (to be recorded) of an <strong>inanimate</strong> object, like (in his photo of) the St. Louis Arch? <br /> <br /> The use of <strong>gesture</strong>, that is the "use of such movements (by the photographer) as expression of feeling or rhetorical device" can indeed be useful in photographing a human or animal subject, in order to provoke a response from or interact otherwise with the latter. The gestures of the subject photographed can obviously also be important. <br /> <br /> Is there any other definition or application of the word, or approach, known apparently as gesture? It would be useful to <strong>un-muddy</strong> the philosophical discussion, especially to other photographers, like myself, who have only recently come upon this concept.</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p> </p>

<p >"It is a little puzzling however, how the body movements of the photographer will influence his mind's view of an image."</p>

<p >It can be, but is not limited to, the body movements of the photographer or the subject. Think of it <i>like</i> you would think of the wave of a hand, but not <i>as</i> the wave of a hand. I think of it in terms of intended effects. It is something like body language, but it is not equal to body language.</p>

<p ><b>GESTURE:</b></p>

<p >any action, courtesy, communication, etc., intended for effect or as a formality; considered expression; demonstration: <i>a gesture of friendship</i>.</p>

<p >(Random House 2009 Dictionary)</p>

<p ><b>Feb 25, 2009; 01:56 a.m.:</b></p>

<p > </p>

<p >"gesture" as in "lending me that money when I was down on my luck was a nice gesture."</p>

 

[don_e]

<p>Luis: "I do, but like all human voices, my own included, that voice, while individual, is not without precedents, nor entirely unique, and it is those connections that allow us to understand it better and see where and how you fit philosophically and historically."</p>

<p>A problem for the self-taught in forums like this is that they don't know what word, phrase, or reference will bring out the ta-from-hell that sometimes lurks in the soul of those with a formal education.<br /> ***<br /> Fred: "You described the context. Would you sit or stand with your camera? Would your shadow fall on the vase? Would the background be soft or more in focus? Would the edge of the wall behind the vase be vertical or askew? How far would you stand from the vase? "?</p>

<p>Why do you ask? It would depend on how it is situated. Since these are what-if-examples, there's no vase in situ for me to check and see. Unlike making a studio portrait of a vase, I may not have the freedom to choose from so many options. But I'd likely not consider oof (this is about context) or any softness; wouldn't want my shadow in the frame; how far away would depend on the fl of the lens and how the vase is situated (this is about context).</p>

<p>***</p>

<p>"Yes, I am aware that philosophers would have a field day with that; heck, I could have a field day with that. Nevertheless, it's an interesting concept ... if that's what Don is after."</p>

<p>Julie, Luis; Luis, Julie</p>

<p>***</p>

<p>Don E: "After three years on this forum I'm used to being slagged for this approach, so no one should think I might be offended if they feel the need to unload about it.:</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p>"Why do you ask? (this is about context)."</p>

<p>Don--</p>

<p>I knew these were hypotheticals and they were asked rhetorically at this point. The reason I asked was because I believe it's about more than context. It is most certainly about context. And it is also about you photographing the vase, since that's what you're doing, photographing the vase. In order to photograph the vase, you will be making choices. </p>

<p>"how far away would depend on the fl of the lens and how the vase is situated"</p>

<p>It would depend on one more thing: What you wanted the photo to look like (or what your gut, based on years of experience and some instantaneous inclinations, tells you you want the photo to look like). There would be no mathematical formula like: the fl of the lens is this and the vase is situated thus so I <i>must</i> stand here period or I <i>can only</i> stand here period. There is, to me, the fl of the lens is this and the vase is situated thus so, if I stand here the photo will look like <i>x</i>. I'm not saying you or I will consciously and deliberately go through that latter part of the process, but that process is in play because, indeed, if you stood somewhere else you'd get a different perfectly good real photograph. But you got the one you got not just because the vase was in a certain context but also because you stood in a certain place and position.</p>