Are You Pursuing Answers or Establishing Questions?

maris_rusis · April 5, 2009

I guess there always has to be a contrarian and I'm it in this case. I never photograph in a way that is driven by questions or answers. If I find confusion coming on I put the camera away until it passes. Film is too expensive, fine photographs are too hard to make, to burn sensitive materials while in the throes of unresolved mental forces. An important aspect for me is the moral responsibility I bear to the viewer of my photographs. Asking people to take some time out of their lives (which they don't get over) to look at my bad photographs is no way to reward their attention. And my bad photographs don't become good photographs because I was in the grip of some motivational dilemma at the time of exposure. Instead of my analyzing my own innards I target the emotions of my audience. To borrow some cliches, if I want to traffic in "creepy drama" I'll photograph Gothic castles at night during thunder storms. If I want "cool tranquility" I'll photograph glacial streams flowing through forests of mint; and so on. My photographs have to say what I want them to say. Being clear-headed and purposeful is a good first step in the chain of consistent creativity. Statements rather than questions or answers are the way forward for me.

don_e · April 5, 2009

"Which are you doing when you take a picture... Are you thinking..."

No one can form a complete thought at 1/500th of a second.

"I don't think you can claim neither -- else why would you take the picture at all?"

It's the "when you are taking a picture" that is wrong. You mean "when you are thinking about taking a picture". I don't think either Smith or Winogrand quotations support your post.

felixg · April 6, 2009

A lot of responses seem to be missing the pint of a "philosophy of photography" forum.

The question or answer question doesn't mean "do I sit down and vocalise a debate between the two at the time of exposing each picture?"

We all have drives and assumptions and aims in our make up. Even for the least introspective of us, those come to a head, usually but not always subconsciously, at the moment (Don E's 1/500 sec) of exposure. For some photographers, they do play a more explicit and conscious part; for others they are detectable as what Fred has characterised as "a feeling"; there is a continuum of psychologies and practicalities here; but it's true of all of us.

Philosophy is not something that only occurs in that 1/500 sec ... it is something which mostly plays out in retrospect. One (among many) of its rôles is to analyse, in later tranquillity, the factors which were in play during that moment ... another (again amongst many) is to inform those factors which will be in play during future 1/500 seconds.

Another, of course, is be itself: to consider what happens in many such 1/500 second impulses, as a class, without any necessary link to practice, simply because such such consideration is valuable in itself.

We all have the perfect right to opt for "an unexamined life", and that can be just as rewarding and valid as an examined one ... but if we do make that decision, then a philosophy forum is not an obvious place to live it.

I don't agree with Julie that image making boils down to one simple question/answer duality ... but she has persuaded me that its particulate structure may well consist of large, possibly infinite n D networks of such dualities. Whether she s right, wrong, or somewhere between, is far from the point though. The concern of philosophy is to consider the idea and where it leads.

Julie H · April 6, 2009

I find it interesting that so many adults are so uncomfortable playing with conceptual ideas.

You can ask a group of kindergarteners to think about almost anything -- say for example, "Are you a snail or a kangaroo?" and they'll have a field day "trying on" the two sides of the question and thinking about which one they are more like; in what ways and why -- and, I think -- learning from this imaginary exercise.

What you will almost never find is any one of the children saying, "I'm a human being. Therefore, I am neither a snail nor a kangaroo."

Correct. But that wan't the point.

Norma Desmond · April 6, 2009

Julie--

If I must endure being likened to a child because I respond to your question in a way that you don't like, so be it. I took your question seriously and answered it within a framework that works for me. Is it really me and the rest of us that are so uncomfortable here?

Felix--

I agree with you about how Philosophy takes place and that such thoughts as Julie has proposed do not have to take place within the split second of shooting. On this point, I agree with you that Don has missed the mark. I don't see that "many" have. My answer to Julie's question was not a rejection of the question, by any means, though I do think dualities can be problematic. I come to this forum to discuss and engage ideas but, as I said to Julie, I don't feel obliged to do it on the questioner's terms if I feel the question is making assumptions that don't pertain to me. In my experience of Philosophy, analyzing how we pose questions and what assumptions underlie questions can be as enlightening if not more enlightening than what answers we give.

Julie, as I said above, the paradigm of question/answer assumed in the original proposition of this thread does not work for me. For me, it is not the language of photography. That answer does NOT mean that I disrespect your question.

Julie H · April 6, 2009

Fred,

I would have been likening you to an adult, not a child.

But I wasn't addressing you. I respect your previous explanation of how you feel about the subject as proposed.

felixg · April 6, 2009

Oh dear. Time to wrap up and bale out, I think.

Thank you, everyone - it's been stimulating.

William Kahn · April 6, 2009

Right behind you, Felix. But first.....

Photographer and poet

Striving to capture

Both light and shadow

---------

Flirting with my lens

Cardinal promised a pose

Laughed, and flew away

---------

Cogito, ergo sum.

Swell party, Julie. We must do this again sometime.

don_e · April 6, 2009

"On this point, I agree with you that Don has missed the mark."

I think not because there is no mark.

"Which are you doing when you take a picture, any picture -- a portrait, a street photo, an abstract, a landscape, a snapshot of your dog, your children, flowers, sunsets ... anything at all? Are you thinking 'this is what this is' or are you thinking 'what is this, really?'

Answer or question? Both?

(I don't think you can claim neither -- else why would you take the picture at all?)"

I am thinking about the light, about what shutter speed and aperture I've got set, how many frames (or how much of the card) are left, what is the movement of the likely subject and when to release the shutter, what am I not seeing that is there but that the camera will see, and so on -- technical things, photography things.

I am not thinking about the philosophy of photography. That occurs maybe at 3am when I cannot sleep or in the shower, or when replying in this forum.

kristina_kraft · April 6, 2009

When I photograph landscapes I want them to look more mysterious. I want to add something, some real stream of life. Photographing architecture, the feeling is the same - have to look different, have to pull the viewer inside wanting my photos to speak.

When I do portraits, at least there has to exist some minimum connection between me and the subject if it is taken on the street. But I don't take photos of strangers because I only see an empty skin. I like a lot to take the photos of people that I know, and every time I find something new in their expression. Unfortunately, It's all stored in my memory, not on slides.

The great gift is when your relations with friends evolve. It would be a great portfolio showing all these evolving among old friends, couples. But then, who would live a life? I'm the one who likes to live and that's why I don't have so much photos of my friends or of people that I know.

Julie H · April 6, 2009

Kristina,

When I do portraits, at least there has to exist some minimum connection between me and the subject if it is taken on the street. But I don't take photos of strangers because I only see an empty skin. I like a lot to take the photos of people that I know, and every time I find something new in their expression.

</blockquote>

That's good -- well said.

I too like a mysterious landscape. (Is it mysterious because I don't understand it or am I finding it to be so because that is what I believe/intend landscapes should be -- because I "want them to look mysterious"?)

Thank you for your thoughtful response.

don_e · April 6, 2009

Felix: "A lot of responses seem to be missing the pint of a "philosophy of photography" forum. The question or answer question doesn't mean "do I sit down and vocalise a debate between the two at the time of exposing each picture?"

How do you know? Do you think it is the point of a philosophy forum for posters to assume a meaning? Are you saying it is not the point of philosophical discourse to read critically and expose aporias in the logic or reasoning of a post -- to question?

vince_smith2 · April 6, 2009

For me, a photograph is always an answer, and all my photographs are answers to the same question: "What does X feel like to you?", where X can be love, hatred, sorrow, fear, etc. or combinations of complex emotions. Even if the image raises a lot of questions, my purpose for taking the photo is to share an answer. For example, an image of people fighting might raise important questions like:

"Why do people do this type of thing to each other?"

"Will it ever stop?"

"What does this behavior say about our future given our ever increasing ability to harm each other?"

Fundamentally however, a photo of people fighting is my answer to the question, "What do hatred and violence feel like to you?"

Julie H · April 6, 2009

Thanks, Vince.

It's a progression. Science, for example, stuggles to find solutions. Those solutions, once found then make clear further questions. It's a development; an uncovering, an expansion of the light of what is or can be or might be known. As is a conversation, communication, getting to know one another . . .

As do you, I find the exposing (in every sense of the word) of the answer in a way that claims or at least suggests its correctness to be very satisfying. On the other hand, formulating or constructing a good question is at least as interesting. And, of course, the questions precede and direct where and how you look for the answers.

It's a dance.

jtk · April 6, 2009

I think unresolved tension is at the heart of the photography that attracts me, just as in relationships...yang/yin...neither question nor answer.

If you consider work that's virtually perfect, such as Avedon's, there's a remaining infintessimal, unresolved factor that distinguishes "virtually" from "actually" and that infintessimal factor distinguishes it.

jtk · April 7, 2009

SOMEBODY should by now have linked birds by Julie's David Baker (who's well known by Google), so I will:

http://www.newyorker.com/fiction/poetry/2007/06/04/070604po_poem_baker

"By solving the problem or by representing the depths of its mystery?" (Baker, quoted by Julie).

Many of us (myself included) responded too quickly, assuming Julie or Baker proposed an easy pair of alternatives. We missed Baker's point. Solving a problem makes things easy, representing mystery may only start to open eyes (think Stieglitz's "Equivalents").

Visit Julie's photos to see birds.

Julie H · April 7, 2009

Yes.

Thank you John.

Norma Desmond · April 8, 2009

"Many of us (myself included) responded too quickly, assuming Julie or Baker proposed an easy pair of alternatives. We missed Baker's point. Solving a problem makes things easy, representing mystery may only start to open eyes (think Stieglitz's "Equivalents")."

We didn't miss Baker's point. At least I didn't. If you see my posts, you'll see that I understood that the second Baker quote provided a more refined assessment of the situation than the simple question/answer dichotomy provided in the first quote. But I'm afraid Julie was too busy being defensive about her post to actually engage in dialogue about my points and my understanding of Baker and the salient points of others. Though she claimed to respect my viewpoint, she didn't discuss it. What she did say is that there is a "genuine divide in intent" with regard to the question/answer issue and then went on to specify the differences between questions and answers, a specification which many of us believe is not relevant to our photographs. Baker wants to avoid linearity. That can be done by avoiding the question/answer paradigm as well as the problem-solving/mystery one. Either dichotomy is "simple-minded," to use Baker's own chastisement. I might agree that easy or unanlyzed problem-solving would be a negative for Baker (and me) but I wouldn't agree that solving a problem makes things easy. Ask any mathematician, philosopher, or indeed, any photographer who has solved a complex problem (symbolic, verbal, or visual/technical), and you'll find that not all solutions are easy by any stretch of the imagination.

albert_richardson1 · April 8, 2009

What exactly is poet David Baker talking about? He is comparing the effects of expository writing with the more flexible and suggestive methods available to him with poetry. Shall I write an essay to explain something at length or shall I write a poem to express the depths of this mystery we call 'life?'

Now we come to photography. What exactly is expository photography? Given that most objects that surround us every day are simply there, with no story to tell of their own evident, how does one make a photograph fill in the void to bring this information out? I once met a man who called this sort of thing the "facticity of the showedupness of Life!" The context of his remarks makes no difference now, but he accurately describes the ordinary daily surroundings for most of us I dare say that contain details as numerous as stars on the ground that don't say anything at all.

My house has a front door. Who made it? Who put it there? How many colors were tried before it was painted? What about the telephone pole - or is it an electric pole? Those onerous wires I zap out with PS - who put them there? what do they do? what are they made of? Photographs that document things for newspapers, the police, engineering applications and the like nearly always depend on some other oral or written explanation offered to explain to a viewer what they mean. Perhaps it is some failing of mine, but I simply don't know how to put a whole essay into a single photograph.

My point is that the photographer does not have the choice David Baker sees at all. If he documents something literally, he has no way to explain clearly what a viewer should make of the image. If he modifies the subject through a process of selection for point of view, focus or some other outright manipulation, he is using the artfulness of his craft to make sure to highlight an idea for the purpose of making it more obvious to the viewer.

Suggesting a thought to a viewer through a clever caption is not the same thing as writing a description, either. A headline is not the story. Expository writing attempts to tell the reader everything he needs to know to understand the author's point of view. Baker tells us that the author wants to provide an answer for something he wishes to explore. The implication in the excerpt Julie uses is that big questions deserve big answers. This is the comparison one makes if he considers writing an essay on a topic that rivals the 'depths of life' Baker mentions, for example.

I don't think it is necessary to ask what one thinks art is supposed to do to make a decision between making a literal image that requires an explanation one cannot give and making one that attempts to make sense to a viewer. I'm not sure than once a person gets beyond simply pushing the button on his camera, he can possibly avoid using some sort of artistic license to make pictures to please the eye.

In short, Julie raises no question at all. There is no choice for the photographer in her alternatives. The English language expressed in writing has possibilities that simply don't exist for the visual arts. In fairness, the visual artist can do things a writer cannot as well.

Julie H · April 8, 2009

Fred,

I think we can all agree that there will always be ambiguity, overlap, nuance in Q and A.

Albert,

I agree with most of what you have said, but I don't think we're talking about the same thing. You're looking at the trees while I'm talking about the forest. See if you can step back, back, back and take a wider view.

Here are some quotes by well-known photographers (I'm hoping you will therefore have some idea of who they are and what their pictures are like) that may help to loosely suggest the difference I'm trying to get at. First consider these two:

Whether it be a painting or a photograph, the picture is a symbol that brings one immediately into close touch with reality. It speaks a language learned early in the race and in the individual -- witness the ancient picture writers, and the child of today absorbed in his picture book. For us older children, the picture continues to tell a story packed into the most condensed and vital form. In fact, it is often more effective than the reality would have been, because, in the picture, the non-essential and confliciting interests have been eliminated. The picture is the language of all nationalities and all ages.

[...] the stand taken by [Victor] Hugo [is] that the great social peril is darkness and ignorance, "What then," he says, "is required? Light! Light in floods!"

The dictum, then of the social worker is "Let there be light;" and in this campaign for light we have for our advance agent the light writer -- the photograph.

-- Lewis Hine (1909)

</blockquote>

(The date following the names is when the quote was spoken or written.)

As defined by hundreds of years of practice -- I think this history is vitally important -- art is a discovery of harmony, a vision of disparities reconciled, of shape beneath confusion. Art does not deny that evil is real, but it places evil in a context that implies an affirmation, the structure of the picture, which is a metaphor for the structure of the Creation, suggests that evil is not final.

John Sloan spoke clearly about these matters: An artist, he said, "seeks to find order in the life, and to invent ways to put that sense of order in his work as a document of his understanding." An artist, in other words, "invents" from the confusion of life a simplification, a picture with more order than the literal subject apparently has, so as to suggest by analogy a wider coherence throughout life. Art is not science, and isn't content mechnaically to record just what is objectively verifiable. Art does not in fact prove anything. What it does do is record one of those brief times, such as we each have and then each forget, when we are allowed to understand that the Creation is whole.

The word home is rich with meanings, but a definition that comes close to encmpassing them all is one by the poet Lorine Neidecker: "Home," she wrote in a poem of that name, is where "no fact is isolate." In those circumstances she said, there is peace. Art has, I think, fundamentally always been about that place and condition.

-- Rober Adams (1992)

</blockquote>

Compare and contrast those to the following. (Please note that I mean this purely as an exercise, not as some sort of definitive comparative analysis) :

I suspect it is for one's self-interest that one looks at one's surroundings and one's self. This search is personally born and is indeed my reason and motive for making photographs. The camera is not merely a reflecting pool and the photographs are not exactly the mirror, mirror on the wall that speaks with a twisted tongue. Witness is borne and puzzles come together at the photographic moment which is very simple and complete. The mind-finger presses the release on the silly machine and it stops time and holds what its jaw can encompass and what the light will stain. That moment when the landscape speaks to the observer.

-- Lee Friedlander (1970)

</blockquote>

I do not necessarily visualize complete images, but rather, my intent is to sense an emotional shape or grasp some inner visitation. My wish is to partake of the "hush" experienced on first glimpse of the Unicorn in the wood. The stuff of mythology and the substance of earth's atmosphere are of the intangible. The magic brought forth by such images as the Unicorn is also available in that solid place we refer to as the real world. It is my conviction that the earth and all its manifestations contain this magic. Who has not, at certain times and in certain terrain, felt the stillness of atmosphere that places a hush on the land? And who has not been affected by that unique agitation generated by the light of the full moon? Permeating the arid deserts and attending the cyclic lappings of water at the shores of seas and lakes is the pulse and breath of earth itself. Even as I have passed through museum halls lined with the efforts of artists and craftsmen from many ages, I have felt that same thrill of vital life emanate from a truly great work of art. Achieve the mystery of stillness, and you can experience a dynamic interaction with the life force that goes far beyond intellectual thought and touches the deepest wells of existence.

-- Paul Caponigro (1983) [that's Paul the father, not John Paul, the son]

</blockquote>

These images are pictures that, for me, have a kind of perfume. They stay near like a little tune that annoys you because you whistle it all the time. You can't disentangle yourself from them. This isolated image has an evocative power that is far greater than that of the series. I can't remember who said that "to describe is to kill, to suggest is to give life." This, I think, is the key.

[ ... ] Maybe this is the reason behind these photos that haunt me and that haunt many other people as well. It is about that walk that one takes with the picture when experiencing it. I think that this is what counts. One must let the viewer extricate himself, free himself for the journey. You offer the seed, and then the viewer grows it inside himself. For a long time I thought that I had to give the entire story to my audience. I was wrong.

-- Robert Doisneau (1977)

</blockquote>

When people look at my pictures I want them to feel the way they do when they want to read a line of a poem twice.

-- Robert Frank (1951)

</blockquote>

jtk · April 8, 2009

I remain convinced that Baker's second alternative is a crucil potential (he didn't pose three alternatives, though the "question" "answer" "mystery" expressions are easily misunderstood, suggesting a third.

" By solving the problem or by representing the depths of its mystery?"

I think Julie inadvertantly allowed Baker's idea to become confused through introduction of a nearly totally irrelevant quote by Winogrand, who resorted to a narcissistic formulation rather than addressing his own work, and by Smith, whose concern is compassionate understanding"... which is not a vague concept, but refers directly and intentionally to the heart of Buddhism: failing to understand that compassionate understanding is his "mystery" we have totally and entirely missed Smith's point.

With "compassionate," Smith raises a parallel issue that seems beyond this discussion. While I respect Winogrand's work, I don't think he's capable of discussing it. Gregory Corso, the beatnik poet, may have been incoherent most of the time.

I disagree with what appears to be the essence of Richardson's thinking: that Baker's poetry (an example of which I linked but which Richardson seems not to have read) is merely an artful arrangement of words, that photography is inherently as limited in another way that he suggested, and that photography and poetry are incapable of conveying the same mysteries. I'm convinced that they can address the same mysteries, just as can painting or song.

Literal-mindedness is an easy response when we're hurrying or restricting ourselves to certain response patterns.

By contrast, mysteries require suspended judgement, or total disinterest in judgements. Scientists and many photographers are actively averse to mysteries. The photographic instant is not a judgement as photography is a process that continues from well before the exposure to well after the image is first seen by the viewer....it's not confined to the work of the photographer.

Take any photographer's work, Julie Heywood's for example: It's in my mind currently, days after I first viewed it. Her conception of those bird images, not to mention the learning and work that preceded that conception, began long before she clicked the shutter. A photograph like Julie's is no more a mere visual depiction than poem like Baker's is mere artful words, as Albert Richardson appears to believe.

don_e · April 8, 2009

"But I'm afraid Julie was too busy being defensive about her post to actually engage in dialogue about my points and my understanding..."

Well, welcome to my world. You opine to JH that I've missed the mark. Did you discuss with me? You did not. Felix opines I don't know how to post to a philosophy forum. Did he discuss with me? He did not. And JH vaguely gestures something that appears that it might be an insult directed at me (not you). Did she discuss it with me? She did not.

And what were these negative comments directed towards me based on? Who knows? But thx all.

Once upon a time I recall a general agreement here that philosophy forums should proceed 'socratically' via dialogue rather than, say, relate to each other our creative vision or whatnot.

jtk · April 8, 2009

Back to the OT...

Someone here proposed that photography and poetry both expressed "ideas."

That may be true but I doubt it... because an "idea" is a purported entity of some sort. We'd have to debate whether such entities are relevant to "art" of any sort, and I don't think there would be common agreement, particularly when people who emphasize one brain half had to talk to people emphasizing the other (engineer brain vs art brain). Does any art ever center on "ideas?" I think not: "an idea" is a shallow non-entity, perhaps an adolescent precurser for something of more value.

A poem like Baker's (cited previously), or a photograph like Smith's or Camponigro's (quoted below) deals with something far more substantial than a "fact" or a purported "idea."

"I do not necessarily visualize complete images, but rather, my intent is to sense an emotional shape or grasp some inner visitation." - Camponigro (per Julie H)

I think there's nothing in certain photography (eg Stieglitz's "Equivalents" and Julie Heyward's birds that's more substantial than that "emotional shape" or "inner visitation."

We attribute more substance to "facts," but that's only a choice, a suspension of disbelief. "Facts" are primative religions.

Julie H · April 8, 2009

John,

I think you're getting into the complexity and the detaiil of the topic -- which is fascinating in its own right, but I'd like to try to stay with the barest, most elementary bones of the comparison, if possible.

Again, to try and simplify the issue, do you ("you" meaning anybody who is reading this) remember way, way back when you got your first camera and took your first pictures? I think, with a few exceptions, that you probably thought you were making a factual record of -- your dog, your cat, your Mom, your house, a flower. But when the pictures came back (if you are a pre-digital person such as myself), they looked . . . "funny." The person, or pet, or place, didn't look the way you thought the person, or pet, or place looked. And also, there was other stuff in the picture that looked . . . "funny."

At this point, or at some point between then and now (if you are here, I'm assuming you have taken a considerable interest in photography) you could have either:

(1) embraced that "funny"-ness, that strangeness, that mystery, that unknown-ness, what-is-it? stuff; maybe even started actively searching for things that you come to recognize as "funny.'" Or:

(2) resisted it by trying to find, to wait for, to arrange to be ready to catch when . . . things in your picture look . . . not-"funny" -- when they look "right," when the thing was as you wanted/expected it to be, when you felt, exactly that "this IS" this way; where that "right"-ness is decided by you.

This is actually where I find Winogrand's "I photograph to see what things look like photographed" to be quite innocently and refreshingly honest. I think he is embracing the "funny"-ness; enjoying it; celebrating it.

cyanatic · April 8, 2009

For me...it is usually an answer. Not so much "this is what is" as "this person, building, street, event, or geometrical arrangement -- in this light -- intrigues me, or gives me a particular feeling, and I want to try to capture it."

The questions, if there are any, often come later.

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