Transcendence and Transformation

Norma Desmond · May 23, 2010

Josh, I agree with you that context could have been provided for the pepper and the pepper could still transcend itself. The kiss that takes place in the photo of the Times Square photo is very much that kiss (at that time) but also transcends that kiss. It becomes a symbol . . . about the end of the war . . . . It maintains its "kiss-ness" but it becomes our kiss, our jubilation, and then some.

Don, I think often the distinction between documentary and art is clear, as clear as differentiating genres. But, despite such distinctions, there are documentary aspects to art photographs and artistic (and transcendent) aspects to documentary photographs. Documentary work may very well transcend its context and time in significant ways, even while depending on that context and time . . . Dorothea Lange. Most art photographs that I can think of have some documentary character . . . this thing was there, it happened, this narrative occurred, in this context, and . . . using that, I will create . . .

don_essedi · May 24, 2010

"Where is your misunderstanding or what is your question about what I've been saying?" also, "Don, I think often the distinction between documentary and art is clear"

Fred, I didn't address transcendence directly, but your question about directing the potential viewer to the photograph or the photographed. I referred quickly to two issues, then to the simple fact that the photographed may no longer exist.

The distinction between documentary and art is less an issue for me than are the transcendent and what it is that is transcended. To say what is transcended is the photograph or the subject, I do not understand. What is transcended, as I understand the term, is change, time, history, narrative. To answer half your question, as a photographer I do not want to transform or transcend the subject. As a viewer...I'm still thinking about it.

Norma Desmond · May 24, 2010

If there is some difference between a pepper (whether the context for the pepper -- time, history, narrative -- is there or not) and a photograph of a pepper, the pepper is transformed and transcended to that extent.

If a viewer recognizes that my portrait of X is not X and that some of what the viewer is seeing is what the viewer is projecting onto X because of what she's seeing in the photo (e.g., the way I chose to capture the lighting, the perspective I shot from) and because of what I, with my photographic tools, have projected onto X, then the subject of my portrait has been transcended to some extent. People may want to look at a given portrait and say "X is menacing" when what may be the case is that "X has been photographed with a menacing look" or the viewer is experiencing a "menacing feeling" looking at this photo. So what the viewer experiences often transcends the subject itself. The "menacing" can be the photographic going beyond of transcendence. The "menacing" can detach itself from X to an extent.

At the same time it's a picture of X and X is significant, though transcended.

Qualities of light, of texture, of photographic capture may transform what that subject "is." I am standing with a friend as I take a picture of a scene. When I show him the picture, he tells me he can't believe what I was seeing (or at least how I was seeing). He didn't see that. My photograph (photographic eye?) transformed the scene and made it a photograph of the scene . . . a different experience of that scene. Time, history, and narrative might be transformed (or transcended). Or not. I might have maintained the sense of time, history, and narrative and transformed how the scene looks . . . and feels.

When I say the pepper is transcended I mean I go back and forth between caring about or even recognizing that it's this pepper. Partially, I am struck just by light, shape, texture, and a little bit of what you recognized as Platonic pepper-ness. I can forget about this pepper. The tension is there, though, because I also know it's this pepper and look at this pepper and respond to this pepper.

Norma Desmond · May 24, 2010

Second thought: "If a viewer recognizes that my portrait of X is not X . . ."

The viewer doesn't have to recognize that this is what may be happening. She just has to experience it.

Norma Desmond · May 24, 2010

"as a photographer I do not want to transform or transcend the subject." --Don

I understand that. It is your way of photographing. I respect it.

"As a viewer...I'm still thinking about it." --Don

Are you saying (in combining the two statements above) that because you don't photograph that way, you can't understand, from the perspective of a photographer, how a subject could be photographically transcended?

"To say what is transcended is the photograph or the subject, I do not understand." --Don

The pepper is a pepper. And then, as the pepper is transcended, the pepperness may matter less. How the picture moves me matters, how the light falls matters, the abstracted qualities of texture, shape, reflectivity matter. The photograph of the pepper matters and transcends the (real) pepper. The photograph is something other than the pepper. The photograph transcends the pepper, but NOT COMPLETELY. The tension -- which I thought you were recognizing, as Josh seems to and I do -- exists between knowing it's a pepper with all that means to me in "real" life and knowing it's a picture of a pepper and how that picture is a transformation. The picture doesn't just represent the pepper. It creates something new. A new object. A picture of a pepper.

I wouldn't eat the photograph . . . probably.

don_essedi · May 24, 2010

""as a photographer I do not want to transform or transcend the subject." --Don

I understand that. It is your way of photographing. I respect it."

I want to, but that doesn't mean I can or that it is possible. I also want to fly like Superman, but I can't and it is not possible. A photograph documents a moment at shutter-speed. Where are change, time, history, narrative (those things that are transcended) in it? Most documentary theory I've read are about moving, not still, pictures for very good reasons. It is possible that the absence of those things encourages transcendence (transcendence is more, or other than, their absence).

""As a viewer...I'm still thinking about it." --Don

"Are you saying (in combining the two statements above) that because you don't photograph that way, you can't understand, from the perspective of a photographer, how a subject could be photographically transcended?""

It is true, like the proverbial cobbler, I stick to my last and am not well informed about many areas of photography. From my perspective, photographs are too easily transcendable; it is their nature. So, the problem for me is not how to photographically transcend the subject, but to express it so that it is seen in its time in history, in change, and in narrative. Difficult, at least for me, in a single photograph, better seen in a set of photos. Such a thing might be seen as transformation or transcendence, and I am not against that interpretation. It points to how complex the issue is in the photography I like and attempt to do.

Norma Desmond · May 24, 2010

" 'as a photographer I do not want to transform or transcend the subject.' --Don 'I understand that. It is your way of photographing. I respect it.'

'I want to, but that doesn't mean I can or that it is possible.' "

I guess I'm really not following you, Don. In the first line, you've said you don't want to transcend the subject and in the third line, you begin by saying you want to. (Is one a typo?)

"To say what is transcended is the photograph or the subject, I do not understand."

"photographs are too easily transcendable"

You're saying photographs are easily transcendable but you've said you didn't understand what I meant by transcending a photograph. I don't get it.

Here's my thinking: You seem to understand me. You appear to know what it means to transcend the photograph or the subject of the photograph. You don't want to do that. You want to express the subject's context. You want to make it as real as possible. You want to provide its history, change, and narrative in the photograph, keeping yourself out of it as much as possible.

Eisenstadt's V-J Day in Times Square is such a good example. It does just what you're talking about. It's a great documentary shot, providing, context, time, dress that tells the era and says "sailors", obvious celebration, most will know it's Times Square without being told, etc. I look at it and am transported to the moment, in context. But I can also look at it and abstract the joy. My first kiss. Never mind kiss. Just joy. The human emotion of joy is expressed in that photo even to someone who's never heard of World War II and doesn't know people were glad it was over. So it is a full-fledged historically located documentary shot and it is transcendent.

By the way, doing a good job of creating a transcending photograph is no easier than doing a good job of historically locating a documentary subject.

don_essedi · May 24, 2010

"I guess I'm really not following you, Don. In the first line, you've said you don't want to transcend the subject and in the third line, you begin by saying you want to. (Is one a typo?)"

The third line is 'I want to, but that doesn't mean I can or that it is possible."? It seems plain enough. Because I desire something doesn't mean I can attain it, or even if it is attainable at all.

"You're saying photographs are easily transcendable but you've said you didn't understand what I meant by transcending a photograph. I don't get it."

You've explained what you mean in your post of May 24, 2010; 11:36 a.m.

don_essedi · May 24, 2010

I see what might be confusing, Fred. The "I want to" in the third line refers to the 'wanting' in the first. What I want to do is to not transform or transcend.

Norma Desmond · May 24, 2010

"It seems plain enough. Because I desire something doesn't mean I can attain it, or even if it is attainable at all."

Well, that is, indeed, plain. And, yes, all along I've understood the difference between desire and attainment, but that's not what I asked about.

I asked you to explain why, in the first sentence, you said you don't want to transcend the subject and in the third line you say you do want to. That contradiction is about what you want to do, your desire, in each case. Whether you or anyone can attain it is a different matter, but still there was a contradiction in terms of your wants/desires. You said you don't want to transcend the subject and then you said you do.

Do you want to transcend the subject or don't you?

Norma Desmond · May 24, 2010

We wrote simultaneously.

Do you think the Times Square kiss photo can't possibly transcend its historical context?

Norma Desmond · May 24, 2010

And, can you explain how these two statements of yours cohere . . .

"Weston's pepper is transcendent for a number of reasons, one being the absence of context."

"but that doesn't mean I can or that it is possible [to transcend]"

How can you question whether it's possible for a photographer to transcend the subject and recognize the transcendence of Weston's pepper at the same time?

don_essedi · May 24, 2010

"And, can you explain how these two statements of yours cohere . . ."

Fred, you want to debate someone who says that transcending the subject or the photograph is not possible. I am not that person. Why you think I am -- I don't know.

"but that doesn't mean I can or that it is possible [to transcend]"

You left out the 'not' between (your words above) "to transcend".

One more time:

***

""as a photographer I do not want to transform or transcend the subject." --Don

Fred: I understand that. It is your way of photographing. I respect it."

Don: I want to, but that doesn't mean I can or that it is possible.

***

What I want and what may not be possible is to *not* transform or transcend.

Norma Desmond · May 24, 2010

"Fred, you want to debate someone"

I don't want to debate. I offered the topic because I wanted to discuss it substantively. But it's become incoherent . . . very not plain. I'll move on now. Thanks.

don_essedi · May 24, 2010

Since you wrote my statements don't "cohere", I assume you mean I am the cause of this thread becoming "incoherent". I explained the sentence that you misconstrued and offered a clarification -- twice. You will not accept it. I doubt 'incoherency' motivates you leaving the thread. But no skin off my nose that you do.

inoneeye · May 25, 2010

Unfortunately this seems it will go into the archive as a missed opportunity. Once I finally realized where Don was coming from/going, well in to his participation, it occurred to me that the reverse engineering approach could be quite enlightening. The idea that all photographs transcend the subject or photograph is perhaps not part of the thought process that I or some others were coming from...? But I do find it stimulates new avenues for me to to consider. Even if only to help assess/shape my own ideas of transcendence in photography. It is only when I allow that all photos transcend subject (for me, hypothetical for the moment) can I find difficulty achieving non-transcendent photos of any genre including documentary.

je ne regrette rien · May 25, 2010

Fred,

getting late into threads requires catching up, as usual.

Just one initial remark: we should consider the medium: we talk about visual representation, and doing that with a camera is a particular form of visual representation.

The fact that the author chooses a camera for the visual representation is determining. It's a camera and not a canvas, or a sheet of paper, or a copper plate, or a silk pane.

According to Garry Winogrand: a "photography is a lie" and "there is no photo which has a narrative capability". I tend to agree.

Maybe they are less a lie than a painting, but placing a frame arbitrarily around a scene is a way of manipulating its representation.

The mere fact that we choose a camera for visual representation is determining the outcome. This is the first mediating effect. And then there are the more or less conscious choices of the author, including/excluding, the moment of release, anything.

And then transcendence combines the photographer's transcendence, the photo's transcendence and the viewer's transcendence.

Norma Desmond · May 25, 2010

"there is no photo which has a narrative capability"

Luca, I'd want to know the context of this, if you have a citation, because the context might explain it and allow it to make sense. Standing alone as it does, to me it's patently false. Photographs have great narrative capabilities. As a matter of fact, I see the two Winogrand statements as a contradiction. How can something that's not narrative lie? To me, lying would imply some sort of narrative.

I agree that choice of a camera and framing are two very determining things. I also agree that photographs can lie, though I'm not sure they have to. It's a good idea, when viewing documentary work, to be aware of possible biases and prejudices of the documentarian. Even if not biased or prejudiced, it's hard to imagine a photograph taken without a perspective, and that perspective can have influence narratively. (See, there's that narrative.) In lying, I think photographs can tell deeper truths. (If not being a reliable representation of a scene is the lie -- perhaps adding photographic and emotional dimension -- the photographer may accomplish something emotionally that goes deeper than what the scene presented to the naked eye.)

Norma Desmond · May 25, 2010

One addition: I think paintings and photographs, if they lie, can each lie to a greater or lesser extent. I don't think by virtue of being different mediums one lies more than the other. One can create a documentary-like painting or even a forensic painting (or drawing) that is more "accurate" (less a lie) than many photographs.

don_essedi · May 25, 2010

Josh: "Once I finally realized where Don was coming from/going, well in to his participation, it occurred to me that the reverse engineering approach could be quite enlightening. The idea that all photographs transcend the subject or photograph is perhaps not part of the thought process that I or some others were coming from...?"

I think that idea, unaddressed as it is, is an issue here.

I'm responding to the OP on desireableness or "wanting": "Must a photographer...transcend or transform the subject/s of a photograph? Is there necessarily or desirably a subject of a photograph?" My not wanting to 'transcend' is based on my experience recently during a review, how I composed the frames, what got into the 'keeper' pile and what got remaindered, how I post-processed especially cropping. I noted my tendency to go for the general or universal (transcendent) at the expense of the specific and local -- as if I photographed a VJ Day parade but cropped out the evidence that it was a local parade in an attempt to communicate more universally. Considering my subject is very specific and very local, it is personal sabotage of the work, no matter I get a nice universal out of it.

It seems I am predisposed to see the transcendent even when I think I am looking for the specific and local. Yes, the local can also be universal; that's a fact, but the issue is wanting or desire and how that affects the taking, selecting and processing. I wrote that it may not be possible to take a non-transcendent photo** , that the nature of the photograph is a matrix for the transcendental.

The "reverse engineering approach" got me to see a fatal flaw in my work, one that might eventually have led to abandoning the project out of boredom, frustration -- whatever excuse. I am also free from the predisoposition to take "good" photos. They don't need to be dewy-eyed evocative, profoundly unsettling, or cut your heart out. I can relax. The monkey is off my back.

**I mean the kinds of photographs we take and the kinds of photographs we look at. Forensic photos in archeology and geology textbooks are about as non-transcendent as can be imagined being extreme examples of local and specific.

Norma Desmond · May 25, 2010

In my last documentary shoot, a series for a special needs community in New Hampshire, I was aware of the tension between transcendence and non-transcendence. I wanted many of those photos to be, to whatever degree I could make them, non-transcendent. Any universality I might achieve would be through the very particular. I wanted to "keep it real" to the extent I could. I posted a bunch of them to a folder in my PN gallery and comments I got from many regulars to my portfolio showed that most people seemed to expect and seemed to like best the most transcendent of the lot, the art photos, the ones with an air of mystery. The ones I felt the best about and the ones most liked by the people who head the community were the more nuts and bolts, sort of hands-on photos. As viewers, we view within a context and a documentary context is a different one from an art context, though there is much overlap. Documentaries hang in galleries and art photos can document extremely well.

There are two extremes and a continuum between the extremes, as I see it. The first leans much more toward transcendence than the second. The more non-transcendent photos in my series are a tough call, though, because good expression has a transcendent quality and I want even my documentary shots to have human expressions in them. Those expressions add to the narrative, the story, the context, the particular . . . but expressions also seem to go beyond their particular subjects. I suppose I could create a more expressionless photo and lose some of that expressive transcendence, but I don't think it would be as good a photo or as good a documentary photo.

je ne regrette rien · May 25, 2010

Fred,

It's a documentary on YouTube where Garry Winogrand makes this statement.

I will look it up for you as soon as possible.

As Winogrand put it, and I got it it's probably true.

don_essedi · May 25, 2010

That's the 1982 interview with Bill Moyers.

"The fact that photographs — they’re mute, they don’t have any narrative ability at all. You know what something looks like, but you don’t know what’s happening, you don’t know whether the hat’s being held or is it being put on her head or taken off her head. From the photograph, you don’t know that. A piece of time and space is well described. But not what is happening. I think that there isn’t a photograph in the world that has any narrative ability. Any of ‘em. They do not tell stories - they show you what something looks like. To a camera. The minute you relate this thing to what was photographed — it’s a lie. It’s two-dimensional. It’s the illusion of literal description. The thing has to be complete in the frame, whether you have the narrative information or not. It has to be complete in the frame. It’s a picture problem. It’s part of what makes things interesting."

However, "lie" or not, humans cannot help but to tell stories, to find the narrative, "illusion" or not. in what they see.

Norma Desmond · May 26, 2010

Thanks for providing the context, Don. It makes more sense given what he's saying overall, though I still wouldn't have formulated it the way he does.

I can relate to his description of the photograph as "the illusion of literal description." What rings false to me is his implied suggestion that "narrative" is literal. Sure, if we, as viewers, think we know exactly what's happening, whether the hat is being put on or taken off, we might be kidding ourselves. (That being said, a good photograph, in telling a story and supplying narrative, can surely suggest visually whether the hat is being put on or taken off. A good photographer -- who wants to -- will capture just the gesture and expression that will suggest some intent on the part of the subject.) But even if we don't know the "literal" translation of a photo, narrative can be more or less suggested.

[i think the best "interpretations" of photos are ones that talk suggestively rather than specifically and literally.]

To me, the photograph that's been referenced several times in this thread, the Times Square kiss, has a significant narrative aspect. It suggests (even if it may not literally tell) a story or stories. Adams's photographs of Yosemite seem less narrative to me (though a narrative could easily be built up around them). I see them more as nature studies, still lifes.

I think narrative is about what the viewer does and I also think the photographer controls greatly whether or not a photo will be taken as narrative. The photographer certainly can't completely control the narrative the viewer will experience, but he can greatly control how strong a sense of narrative (whatever that narrative may be interpreted to be) a photograph will have.

Winogrand is having a significant insight about photographs "showing what something looks like . . . to a camera." I try to be very aware of that at various times during the process of photographing and viewing. In the service of that point, he's probably gone a bit too far in minimizing the narrative capabilities of photographs. I notice many artists tend to do that. They over-describe and often come up with poignant statements to make a significant point which, upon further inspection, are flawed (or simply missing something or not addressing something significant) with regard to the bigger picture.

inoneeye · May 26, 2010

"[i think the best "interpretations" of photos are ones that talk suggestively rather than specifically and literally.]" The photos that consistently appeal most to me are also suggestive. and inspire my interpretation of a/the narrative. For me an unbound open ended narrative can be very effective as a viewer. In accomplishing that the photographer transcends not only the reality of the captured moment/narrative but when really well done they take me to a place that the physical moment alone could not achieve. Often timeless. If I had been standing along side the photographer I likely would not have experienced a transcendent scene. His/her expression has shown me a way inward or revealed a unique interpretation that moves me beyond common or normal limits. A lie or truth found at either end, it no longer matters to me.

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