Transcendence and Transformation

inoneeye · May 19, 2010

Julie "It's the conjuring. The wonder. The act." Wonderful point Julie. and I think it does go to the quick of Fred's inquiry. If I want to be a magician I'd choose to look behind the curtain. Illusion. As a viewer I would even, perhaps experience more intimacy and awe of the magic. if the performance allowed me to transcend my knowledge. Having that knowledge will hopefully make me a better magician/photographer.

Norma Desmond · May 20, 2010

"They pulled this photograph out of a hat . . . "

Ah yes, if only it were that easy! I'm kinda with Josh here: "having knowledge will make me a better magician/photographer."

What we've been discussing throughout this thread does seem to have already incorporated the photographer and how the photographer sees, the performance.

In a magic act, the rabbit is not what I care about. The magic act itself is the performance and the rabbit is interchangeable with other objects that could be made to disappear and reappear (though the rabbit has become iconic and has meaning within that iconography). Photography is to some degree a performance from the perspective of both photographer and viewer. But the rabbit is analogous neither to the photograph nor to the subject of the photograph. When I look at a photograph, though my mind and imagination may go to the photographer, the process, and to my own associations, a crucial part of the experience is my looking at and seeing the photograph. I wouldn't want to miss it. It matters. I want to hang it on my wall or keep it in my wallet or make it my screen saver. And the subject matters. Sure, in an abstracted approach to photographs, subjects may be interchangeable (or we may say they are) when we talk about the importance of light, of perspective, of texture or timbre. But in a very real way, and in addition to the performance angle, the subject is what I care about. I have intimate relationships with my subjects, both as photographer and as viewer. I wouldn't exchange them for the world. I may look at Weston's photo and see his performance, see what he wanted to show me, see Weston's conjuring. Weston would likely understand all that but I'll bet he wanted me to look at and see the pepper, too. And regardless of what he might want, his photograph allows me to (makes me) see the pepper. I've said before that transcendence does not necessarily discount the thing that is transcended. The pepper in the photograph goes beyond itself but does not dismiss itself.

There are, indeed, analogies between music and photography and performance is a significant aspect in each. There are also differences. In music, the performance is the thing. A recording of that performance is just that, a recording of it. A photograph is not a recording of a performance per se. A photograph is the creation that results from the "performance."

Wouter Willemse · May 21, 2010

Isn't it a bit of both. Julie's point does hold a lot of validity, as does the remark that knowledge helps. While I usually tend to think thoroughly, letting go and following "instinct" (by lack of better word for me now) sometimes is just better. A bit less thoughts, and a bit more faith in getting things right "spontaneously" (*).

Not pure magic, though. But some of the more thoughtless made photos I made turned out a great deal better than those I considered more. That said, the amount of photos I make myself that please me has increased with gaining knowledge... But those actual photos are often enough still relatively thoughtlessly made.

(*) The instinct and the spontaneousness are heavily conditioned by the knowledge. Unlucky choice of words by lack of knowing any better ones. Maybe.

Norma Desmond · May 21, 2010

"The instinct and the spontaneousness are heavily conditioned by the knowledge."

Wouter, good point. That's definitely what I was driving at. I'm certainly not suggesting that I am "in knowledge mode" or necessarily "in thinking mode" when I'm shooting, processing, or in the moment, but gaining knowledge at whatever point will, as you suggest, affect my instincts and my "groove", should I get into one at any stage in the photographic process. I can store lots of knowledge often in the hopes of letting go of it (again, without dismissing it). Honestly, there are times when I am guided by thoughts and my mind as much or more than instinct, and I don't hesitate to go with that either. For me, it's not a matter of whether knowledge or the letting go of knowledge is better. It's allowing the supportive relationship of the two as well as the ebb and flow of tension between them to unfold.

The more significant point (perhaps a misunderstanding) I hope Julie will clarify is the "rabbit" stuff. Since I don't find the rabbit analogous to something photographic, I'm left unsure of what she doesn't give a s*** about.

Julie H · May 22, 2010

A picture is a conjuring. The [whole] picture creates its content, not the other way around.

fate_faith_change_chains · May 22, 2010

The content, everything inside the frame of the picture, is conjuring, but which doesn't have to make the picture, meaning that the viewer can re-create as much the content as the picture is being one instant creation ( of content ).

Norma Desmond · May 22, 2010

Phylo, yes, and I think that's where a lot of the transcending comes in.

Julie, for me a picture is more than a conjuring. Since my subjects often mean a lot to me and others as people, a picture is significantly a referring as well as a conjuring. (Non-human subjects are also of great import.) The picture is (sometimes and in important ways) about the real flesh and blood person as much as it's about the picture of the person. Yes. I like to think and do think my pictures create content . . . to an extent. But the subject plays an important role in that. The content also makes the picture. Julie, for me it is the way you describe it and the other way around.

If the pictures from Abu Ghraib were merely a conjuring, we indeed wouldn't give much of s***. There's a reason we do. It's because those pictures are not just magic. Every picture I take (and I haven't really done strict abstracts and they might be a bit of an exception) is documentary to at least some extent.

Photography keeps me, as I am elsewhere, somewhere between being an idealist and a realist. The picture no more creates its content than the mind creates the world.*

*Must beware of dualisms as well.

Please don't mistake my perspective here for in any way belittling or making light of the role of the conjurer or conjuring. But I respect my subjects and raw materials too much to think it's all a magic act.

Julie H · May 22, 2010

For me, the pictures of Abu Ghraib (and any effective picture) are what the picture made or makes of the content. What it did/does with its [whole] content.

I have no particular knowledge or clear memory of any of the people or things or places in the pictures of Abu Ghraib. What I do have are overwhelming impressions, memories, affects of suffering and humiliation and (our) shame that were generated (in me) by what the pictures did to me. By what they made *out of* the content.

Conversely, if I'm a lousy conjurer, I could, in a state of helpless love, make a thousand pictures of somebody I know by heart, that, in the print, had no effect on me at all.

Norma Desmond · May 22, 2010

"if I'm a lousy conjurer, I could, in a state of helpless love, make a thousand pictures of somebody I know by heart, that, in the print, had no effect on me at all."

I agree. But this does not lead to your conclusion that the picture creates its content. I've said on many occasions that the most meaningful scene can be turned into a lousy photograph and that we, as photographers, shouldn't confuse our feelings at the time for the feelings we may or may not imbue a photograph with. None of this, though, means that it's a one-way street and that it's only true that the picture creates its content. I can be the greatest conjurer in the world, making the picture speak volumes more than the content itself would have. That doesn't mean the content doesn't leave its mark and isn't a significant part of the process of creation.

Re: Abu Ghraib. I obviously see it very differently. It's not about just my impressions or the photographer's memories or impressions (though that's certainly a part of it). For me, it's primarily about what those human beings suffered and what those other human beings perpetrated, whether I know or remember them individually or not.

Norma Desmond · May 22, 2010

Further question, re-asked: Julie, regarding the Abu Ghraib photographs specifically, which thing is like the rabbit in your analogy? Which thing don't you give a s*** about?

Julie H · May 22, 2010

The only thing I give a s*** about is the conjuring. I don't give a s*** about anything else. How could I?

The conjuring is the picture. The picture is the conjuring.

Norma Desmond · May 22, 2010

"The only thing I give a s*** about is the conjuring. I don't give a s*** about anything else. How could I?"

You could give a s*** about the people whose pictures were taken or even about the people who took the pictures. I could think of a hundred things more significant to me regarding the Abu Ghraib photos than conjuring.

As for the "how could I?", I wouldn't presume to tell you how to empathize with the subject of a picture. We each do that, or don't, in our own ways.

I still am not hearing the answer to a significant question. What is the rabbit in those Abu Ghraib pictures?

Norma Desmond · May 22, 2010

Afterthought (or second thoughts): I don't want to distract us by continuing to wonder about the rabbit analogy. The more significant question to me is whether I, or you Julie, care about the people who and the matters that are represented in those photos. I do.

To bring it back to transcendence: Can I (as photographer, as viewer) transcend even this conjuring? Does the photo, in fact, go beyond the conjuring? Again, for me, it often does . . . significantly. As a matter of fact, sometimes the conjuring leads me back to a new vision/understanding of the subject (and of myself). The conjuring can be a means as well as an end and that back and forth is reciprocal.

inoneeye · May 22, 2010

Fred "Can I (as photographer, as viewer) transcend even this conjuring? Does the photo, in fact, go beyond the conjuring?"

"I may look at Weston's [pepper] photo and see his performance, see what he wanted to show me, see Weston's conjuring."

Fred is there a difference in performance and conjuring? I think so, in this discussion. I tend to think of conjuring (outside of a magic performance) as a suggestion of some degree of mystery and/or transcendence experienced by the viewer. The sum of the parts are adding up to more that makes me think or feel something special. eyeopening, unique, surprising...that's me. Other times I could use either term in the same sentence but here they carry different weight for me.

so to your question "Can I (as photographer, as viewer) transcend even this conjuring? Does the photo, in fact, go beyond the conjuring?" I think that when a work transcends conjuring it sets our awareness of the act/performance aside. Yet it heightens, amplifies our response to the performance. It communicates to me beyond any question of how it was accomplished until I choose to go there. But of course it could not exist without the performance. The performance with light is key or the doorway that we are invited to transcendence. A still performance in the case of photography (making live performance analogies problematic) It also could not exist without the subject that the photographer/camera records.

"[Weston] ... wanted me to look at and see the pepper, too. And regardless of what he might want, his photograph allows me to (makes me) see the pepper."Fred. me too

A photo (#30) that rocked my world. Exceptional conjuring. imo - The pepper was the inspiration for the photograph. The light was for the pepper, the performance showed the pepper in all its sensual glory. Does the photo transcend, for me it always has ... from the first viewing. But what is it transcending? Isn't a reference point needed? The pepper. For others maybe just the ordinary is the grounding reference. I think it is the pepper tho, not just a common vegetable or common whatever. The light, the background and processing was for a pepper, that pepper was the chosen subject and the magic relied on it. And when someone asks me' whats the big deal, it's only a pepper. I am in total agreement it is only a common pepper except I respond to the performance the conjuring the magic and to how the final product added up to open my eyes wide.

Norma Desmond · May 22, 2010

Josh, I do think there's a difference between performance and conjuring and I agree that conjuring has its own sense of mystique and transcendence. (Many performances and many photographs fall flat and don't have the magic.) Then, on top of the conjuring, I think you're suggesting and I agree, there's another layer of transcendence: transcendence of the conjuring itself. You say: "It communicates to me beyond any question of how it was accomplished until I choose to go there." Yes. Though I love knowledge and I love to be in touch with how something was done, etc., if I am too focused on that stuff at certain times, it can get in the way. Being in touch with the performance can actually serve to distract me, at certain times. It is often at those times when the photograph is beyond the performance (the process that made it) . . . when it is precisely NOT the performance . . . that I am the most in touch with what I care about. It is at those times, to me, more visual and emotional, and more immediate, than it is representative of an act or acts.

The way you talk about the pepper . . . great! What you call a reference point I might also refer to as the ground that's transcended. That's what I meant, but you make it much more clear, when I said: "The pepper in the photograph goes beyond itself but does not dismiss itself."

Perhaps I would emphasize something here. The pepper, as you say is, indeed, the inspiration for the Weston photograph. Significantly, it's also the visible subject of the photograph. It's more tangibly present than if it were just an inspiration. My mother, for example, has been the inspiration for several photographs I've taken, yet she doesn't appear in them. The photographs she does appear in give her a different kind of photographic significance.

don_essedi · May 23, 2010

Julie appears to be perplexed by 'transformation' and 'transcendence', and so am I.

I can respond to this:

"Why do you photograph something in addition to or instead of sending others to see it "in person" themselves?"

Setting aside the immediately transient (and also Winogrand's "The photograph is not the photographed"), even enduring things do not endure forever. I cannot send you to see this

http://www.photo.net/photo/10958190

because it will not occur again. Not the specifics, the "this" -- those people on that spot at that time (the transient), but the shop and those who shopped and worked there, which endured from 1917 until a few months ago, is closed. A few years ago in this forum, I think, I posted a colorful shot of the alley near my house. You can't see what was photographed that day today, either. This winter's snow collapsed one garage and the tree beside it.

I draw the distinction between art and documentary. For the documentarian time is omnipresent. Things change. Photography enters history with documentary. Documentary requires context, art does not. Context is critical for documentary. Weston's pepper is transcendent for a number of reasons, one being the absence of context.

Unless the art photographer employs a painterly or abstract style that alters the 'optical plausibility', a tension exists in a photograph between those qualities that make for transcendence -- the Platonic Pepper -- and the bare fact that a real pepper was required to be before his lens and that pepper was not Platonic, but subject to change, ie time.

inoneeye · May 23, 2010

Don "Weston's pepper is transcendent for a number of reasons, one being the absence of context." I agree that Weston chose to minimize context in regards to time stamping or added references. Still I would not hesitate to use the photo as an establishing or closing shot for my hypothetical documentary on 'the pepper'. Stepping back I think that Weston has captured well some physical surface characteristics of a pepper. The documentary would of course supply a context. But I think the photo can stand alone without further context to inform me as to the surface characteristics of a pepper. Or context could be present and still transcend the capture. The departure from remaining a simple record begins with Weston for me. I feel his passion. The person standing next to me may not feel it and what they may see is a record of a pepper without color. Had Weston chosen to give a time stamp or location, etc to the photo I suspect he still would have transcended the pepper, the photograph, the moment, the ordinary. I think we all could choose a photograph that we felt significantly surpassed the ordinary that had clarity of context.

don_essedi · May 23, 2010

One of the problems with mentioning documentary in this forum is its association with making a forensic record. Documentary has a history, practice, theory unrelated to forensic recording. History implies narrative, for example. Weston's pepper is also a forensic record.

inoneeye · May 23, 2010

Don, tell me more about the 'context' you are referring to so I can understand.

inoneeye · May 23, 2010

connected events...? like the 'Times Square kiss'?

don_essedi · May 23, 2010

Josh, an example would be what differentiates a street portrait from a street scene. Tightly composed, the portrait might eliminate all context so that our knowledge that it was shot on the street would be based on what the photographer says. Even if the street is evident, it would not matter whether it was shot in Terre Haute or Atlanta. Eggleston when asked why he did not shoot more portraits replied that he preferred showing people doing things, ie in context. The saying 'If you didn't get the shot you weren't close enough' may be true for news photography, but for documentary sometimes you didn't pull back far enough to show the context.

The above for individual photographs. Obviously, in a 'project' there will be many photos, which may include portraits. For me, 'documentary' is about change, history, narrative, and time, rather than a forensic recording of a 'main subject'.

inoneeye · May 23, 2010

Thanks Don. I think we are on the same page. My comments are not restricted to a 'forensic record'. I do agree that part of the magic of this pepper is the tight framing. I also think that a documentary photograph (meeting any requirements) can transcend the subject, photograph or message.

don_essedi · May 23, 2010

"I also think that a documentary photograph (meeting any requirements) can transcend the subject, photograph or message."

If you can link to an example or two of the kind of documentary that "we are on the same page" about that is transcendent, and your reasons, I'd be grateful. It would help me to understand this thread.

inoneeye · May 23, 2010

We already seem to agree that Weston's pepper is also a forensic record and that it transcends ... Why not then a stand alone documentary photograph or a series.

I could/would not to take your suggestion and presume to show you what transcends a photograph for you. It's subjective imo. not an absolute or universal.

A photo that rises above the ordinary that I normally encounter, to the extent that I would suggest that it transcends the subject, content, etc., is just as likely to leave you flat.

I would use the same words you used to loosely define documentary. "we are on the same page" does not mean we read the words in parallel and have the same interpretation and reaction. I suggested 'Times Square kiss' as a starter to get a deeper feel for your guidelines for a documentary photograph. because, I do not know what you are perplexed by. The source of your confusion.?

Norma Desmond · May 23, 2010

"Julie appears to be perplexed by 'transformation' and 'transcendence', and so am I." --Don

Don, I don't understand your perplexity. Julie doesn't seem perplexed.

You've pretty much echoed what I've said about it:

"I've said before that transcendence does not necessarily discount the thing that is transcended." --Fred

"The pepper in the photograph goes beyond itself but does not dismiss itself." --Fred

" . . . a tension exists in a photograph between those qualities that make for transcendence . . . and the bare fact that a real pepper was required to be before his lens . . . " --Don

You've explained transcendence well related to the pepper. Where is your misunderstanding or what is your question about what I've been saying?

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