Transcendence and Transformation

don_essedi · May 27, 2010

As with Eisenstaedt, so with Winogrand. I recall in one of Lannie's threads someone posted a link to an article on ad hominem. Was it you, Fred? I'll have to look that up.

je ne regrette rien · May 27, 2010

Winogrand.

I don't think it's a matter of just listening to what he says. We have the chance to see how he behaves photographically. There is an incredible speed in his act of photographing. He appears to have decided aperture and shutter speed upfront. As far as I could observe, he is also pretty static.

That said, his photographs are - even in his genre - extremely different, as is their impact.

Film vs. Photography

Extremely different: nothing is filmed by chance. The complex the motion picture may be, everything in front of the film camera is arranged. And the director also determines the way actors behave.

The equivalent of motion pictures is studio photography.

And the fact that a motion picture can tell a story does by no means imply that everybody can actually understand it. Examples: Tarkovsky, Bergman, Pasolini.

Painting vs. Photography

As said, very different communication media. Of course painting can be documentary, but the painter mastering the technique has a complete control over his work.

The photographer has to decide the amount of control he wants to have and deal with what is beyond his control.

The type of photography contributes to the degree of control. Studio photography is one thing, photojournalism something different, portraiture again something different, as well as documentary.

Communication

Somehow I have the feeling that here we deal with communication, any type of communication (verbal, visual, auditory), as if it was linear.

It is not: every type of communication is subject to interpretation, because most of the time sensitive perception is mapped against what we are and what we experience.

In verbal communication there is interpretation and misunderstanding. Direct verbal communication is combined with non-verbal communication (body language, which we don't have here in blog threads) and influences interaction.

The same happens with photography.

Transcendence and Transformation

The photographer's purpose might well be transcendence and transformation of the subject photographed, but his viewers might be unable to understand it.

And even if the viewer understands, he might not be able to describe the communication effect and its reasons.

An example

Take <a href="../photo/6930852">this photo</a>, Fred has commented on.

A family meeting in summer at the seaside. It was made as a family snapshot. So long ago that I vaguely remember the situation.

What story does it tell? What do you know about the lunch, the two elderly people? I think nothing, except that they are having lunch. Are they alone, why are they alone, what are they thinking?

The one and only feature of this photo is that the two persons are apparently unaware that I was photographing them. Both are concentrated on their thoughts, my grandmother maybe is looking at something/someone, but I don't know any more.

This photo has a narrative capability, but each viewer, including me who took it, "sees" a different story. I know the situation, I knew the two and their habits and can imagine what was going on at the moment.

Others would not know and instinctively make up a different story.

Their own story.

Conclusion (my conclusion)

I think that there is a knowledge and communication gap between the photographer and the viewer, exactly due to the fact that each of them combines the visual perception with the background experience, culture, knowledge, etc (the non-blank slate).

This background can at the same time enlarge or limit the communication experience: I may not see because of my involvement (the forest for the trees), the viewer might not understand because he lacks knowledge and experience.

Julie H · May 27, 2010

" ... This importance given to the narrative is necessary in order to be understood in a society which, unable to resolve the contradictions of history without a long political transaction, draws support (provisionally?) from mythical (narrative) solutions.

"...The filmic begins only where language and metalanguage end. ... The filmic, then, lies precisely here, in that region where articulated language is no longer more than approximative and where another language begins (whose science, therefore, cannot be linguistics, soon discarded like a booster rocket). The third meaning -- theoretically locatable but not describable -- can now be seen as the passage from language to significance and the founding act of the filmic itself. Forced to develop in a civilization of the signified, it is not surprising that (despite the incalculable number of films in the world) the filmic should still be rare ... Nor is it surprising that the filmic can only be located after having -- analytically -- gone across the 'essential', the 'depth' and the 'complexity' of the cinematic work; all those riches which are merely those of articulated langugage, with which we constitute the work and believe we exhaust it. The filmic is not the same as the film, is as far removed from the film as the novelistic is from the novel (I can write in the novelistic without ever writing novels). "

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-- from The Third Meaning by Roland Barthes (1970)

luis_g · May 27, 2010

Is it just me, or does this seem somewhat patronizing:

"Philosophers write theses. Artists generally don't and I don't take their words and statements that way. I'm much more understanding and completely forgiving of the meaningful contradictions artists and photographers make than I would be of a philosopher making those same contradictions. Reading and seeing Winogrand in these interviews, I come away with the impression that he is speaking off the cuff and that it's somewhat counterproductive for us as listeners to build a more universal photographic thesis out of his musings and very effective evasions."

Philosophers and artists are not all-seeing, all-understanding. None of us are. There are things you do not see nor understand, yet they exist just the same. Forgiving?

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Don...yes on Eisenstaedt & Winogrand.

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I think Winogrand is right. Photographs do not have intrinsic narratives. Eisenstaedt's picture, without title or caption, becomes much more of a Rorschach test. I do think photographs riff off of existing cultural narratives, much as Fred's do, and those of psychodramatic tableaus towards the end of Pictorialism. Or religious painting. To someone without that dataset in their brains, just what is happening in those paintings (and stained-glass windows) turns into an inkblot. And an inkblot, like a UFO, elicits narratives from a viewer in the same way an irritant begets pearls in an oyster. There's a great article on this I couldn't locate this morning...it uses a photograph of an ocean liner to prove that without a caption, the photograph tells us very little. The seemingly innocous liner turns out to be the Lusitania on its fatal voyage, on its way to its destiny with a German sub. As the figurative empty vessel of the photograph of that ship fills in with captioned information, its meaning and "narrative" shifts. The image morphs before our very eyes after being taken.

The conjurer's incantation, if you will.

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Recently, I ordered these "authentic" Dia de Los Muertos Mariachi figurines through the web, from a Mexican site. by mistake, I think, I somehow messed up on the "how many" box and ordered 18 of them. Or they screwed me. So, I've been giving them out as gifts...and yesterday I noticed a little stamp on one of their legs...."Hecho en China".

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Transformation can come ex post facto, via a title or caption.

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Norma Desmond · May 27, 2010

I appreciate the disagreement and simply don't see it the way several of you do. I seem to have put at least a couple of you off, leading to accusations of ad hominem attacks and being patronizing. That's a shame. Was not my intention.

I like Barthe's description, though it is counter to my way of thinking. Talking about photographs as if they were non-narrative makes a distinction between them and other things that's important, but I don't find it to be the right distinction. I'd sooner say that films and photographs and reality all have narrative using different languages and tools and that we often mistake one language for another (why some PN critiques confuse the photograph for the photographed . . . "nice boobs" kinds of comments).

For as many titles as transform their photographs, there are titles that are ignorable and even belie what's in the photograph already. Titles may be no more determinative than are signs and symbols inside pictures. "My Grieving Uncle" is usually photographically meaningless to me if I don't see signs of grief in the photograph. Titles like that --that may tell stuff that isn't shown -- tend to confuse the photograph with the photographed. Stamping "My Grieving Uncle" on a photo usually won't change the narrative of a photo to grief if I don't see grief in the photo. Sometimes, the title will enlighten even if I can't see photographic evidence of it.

I think Winogrand's words aptly apply to his way of photographing, and not to all ways of photographing.

Some of Stan Brackage's films don't mimic "set-up" studio photography. Some rely on randomness. Many are considered non-narrative.

I think photographs are narrative. I don't think they have precise interpretations. A lot of the most interesting narrative is suggestive, not precise.

Norma Desmond · May 27, 2010

Two changes/additions: 1) Regarding Brackage, I consider his films less narrative than other films, not non-narrative. The last paragraph would suit me better had I said "I think photographs can be narrative."

Norma Desmond · May 27, 2010

"I do think photographs riff off of existing cultural narratives, much as Fred's do, and those of psychodramatic tableaus towards the end of Pictorialism. Or religious painting. To someone without that dataset in their brains, just what is happening in those paintings (and stained-glass windows) turns into an inkblot." --Luis

Much the same can be said, and is said by many contemporary theorists, of narrative texts. And I agree. Our brain datasets and our cultural narratives will often be influential or even determinative of what we get out of a narrative text as well as a photograph. So the importance of what we bring to the table (the importance of outside narratives) which you recognize related to photographs does not make photographs any different from narrative texts, which are also similarly dependent on (or at least influenced by) what cultural and personal predispositions we bring to them. Without personal datasets and cultural narratives, textual narratives would be inkblots as well. This doesn't show a way in which photographs differ from narratives. Rather, it shows a similarity.

don_essedi · May 27, 2010

"If I see a photo of a guy in formal attire, bowing to the Queen, holding his top hat in his hand, a hand that's blurred and which blur is implying a downward motion, the photographic narrative is that he is not in the immediate process of putting his hat on."

The implication of motion comes from you, not the photograph. We *learn* that it implies motion. Someone from a society unfamiliar with photographs would not "see" motion. Nobody since the Impressionists has believed motion blur exists in front of the lens.

"I come away with the impression that he is speaking off the cuff and that it's somewhat counterproductive for us as listeners to build a more universal photographic thesis out of his musings and very effective evasions."

Or perhaps the interviewer, as in the link Luis provided, has no comprehension of what GW is saying and simply has no followup, nothing to say. Not a good forum for the interviewed.

Winogrand is precise and consistent. He was one of the few photographers who were actually philosophical about photography (rather than having a "personal" philosophy of photography). GW had little to say about the sort of subjects that are common on this forum.

Norma Desmond · May 27, 2010

"The implication of motion comes from you . . . We *learn* that it implies motion." --Don

We *learn* what written language means as well, thus contemplating narrative in writing. What's your point? The implication that there's a narrative written on this page comes from me as well. There can be narrative IN the photograph just as there is IN the novel. Or, if you prefer, I can infer narrative from a photograph as I can from a novel. It's not like novels self-contain this same stuff that is only projected onto photographs.

I found Winogrand consistent. I did not find him precise (one of the many reasons I liked the interview as much as I did).

don_essedi · May 27, 2010

"We *learn* what written language means as well, thus contemplating narrative in writing. What's your point?"

Besides the narrative is in your head not the photograph? Nothing.

This is unproductive. I'll end my part with a quotation from John Szarkowski...no point in reinventing the wheel.

"The decline of narrative painting in the past century has been ascribed in large part to the rise of photography, which "relieved" the painter of the necessity of story telling. This is curious, since photography has never been successful at narrative. It has in fact seldom attempted it. The elaborate nineteenth century montages of Robinson and Rejlander, laboriously pieced together from several posed negatives, attempted to tell stories, but these works were recognized in their own time as pretentious failures. In the early days of the picture magazines the attempt was made to achieve narrative through photographic sequences, but the superficial coherence of these stories was generally achieved at the expense of photographic discovery. The heroic documentation of the American Civil War by the Brady group, and the incomparably larger photographic record of the Second World War, have this in common: neither explained, without extensive captioning, what was happening. The function of these pictures was not to make the story clear, it was to make it real [my emphasis]. The great war photographer Robert Capa expressed both the narrative poverty and the symbolic power of photography when he said, "If your pictures aren't good enough you're not close enough.""

Norma Desmond · May 27, 2010

I love the Szarkowski line Don highlighted, and agree: "The function of these pictures was not to make the story clear, it was to make it real." Szarkowski is suggesting that the narrative function of photographs is not dependent on clarity. Suggestiveness.

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Whether photographs tell narratives is not nearly as important to me as what I can show in a photograph, how I can show it, and my awareness (rather than dependence on or anticipation) of my viewers. We can have an academic debate on what the word "narrative" means and whether it formally applies to photographs and that doesn't particularly move me forward. What moves me forward is hearing Don (early on in the thread) and Luca (throughout the thread), like me to the extent I have, process the way we work alongside how we view and how other viewers view, how we think alongside how we handle a camera. I wanted to talk about transcendence, not in the abstract, but how I and others use it and see it and are touched by it . . . personally and photographically.

I do a lot of my own googling to hear what others think. More importantly, I'm working on formulating and trying to share my own thoughts and theses as I develop my own way of photographing. I am happy to read, look at, and be influenced and inspired by others. But when I can formulate and build or at least build on these ideas myself, in my own words, and relative to the work I'm doing, it has more value to me. I'm doing and saying what I want, not what I've been taught, what the current vogue of thought is, or what I can google and transcribe. I'm presumptuous and patronizing if that allows me to be self-confident, independent, and free of givens and assumptions, even those asserted by experts and fellows I respect. As I work these things out for myself, and share them and show them in photographs, I'd feel stifled and lost were I mired and steeped in history and the proven thoughts of others while lacking the imagination and creativity to take my own risks and put my own thinking and photographs on the line.

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Luca, the narrative I see in your photograph is two elderly people sitting at a table with food and plates. That's the jumping off point. Some stuff is less clear and imprecise, and that jumping off point is suggestive. Beyond that, they seem more passive than active, more contemplative than frivolous. The gesture of the man holding his hand to his mouth adds narrative and is more suggestive and even symbolic (a nod to Szarkowski) than were his hand not included and not an issue. My head starts taking over. The woman appears to have more of a stare going on than the man, whose eyes seem more relaxed. What this means is anyone's guess and that's where viewers' interpretations will come in. And likely, there are those who would describe what I've described differently. That's fine.

The lighting provides an element of transcendence. It impacts the narrative but, I assume, will be felt and interpreted differently by different viewers. The high key aspect and glow and wash of the lighting makes a statement, to me, more so than were the lighting more common. It has impact. Were this a less transcendently-handled photograph, I probably wouldn't be as drawn in to care about the people. Something in your handling of it makes me want to seek and to feel/know.

Norma Desmond · May 27, 2010

Further thought on transcendence: I am drawn to the people in Luca's photo both for who they are as people, especially to Luca, and for their being vehicles for Luca's photographic expression.

Julie H · May 27, 2010

Fred, you said:

"As I work these things out for myself, and share them and show them in photographs, I'd feel stifled and lost were I mired and steeped in history and the proven thoughts of others while lacking the imagination and creativity to take my own risks and put my own thinking and photographs on the line."

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For that, I want you to know that I am extremely grateful. I frequently disagree with what you write, but your passionate relentless bulldogish persistence, and intelligence is a tremendous accelerant to my own thought processes. For me, disagreement is the best (necessary!) prompt to discovery. Thank you.

fate_faith_change_chains · May 27, 2010

Of course the narrative is all in our heads, which counts for pretty much everything out there in existence. We write the universe and reality ourselves as much as we would like to assume reading it perfectly clear, as an unraveling objective narrative. It may show us a stone cold how, but leaving still plenty of room for the why. Same with photographs, Winogrands or anyone's. The photograph not only showing how things look like but also instigating why things look like, in relation to a narrative through the photograph - by translating the photographs indifference into something human - be it "good" or "bad". Hmmm, like the universe...

inoneeye · May 27, 2010

"It is important to see what is invisible to others. Perhaps the look of hope or the look of sadness." RF.

Photographs are indeed mute. But they are symbolic. They have no voice but if good they speak to me. They can tell no narrative of connected moments in physical time but they can suggest and convey. I am not an indifferent photographer even if sometimes detached. As a photographer I have some means to suggest if I choose. I do not have to anticipate that the on-looker will share my viewpoint.

What drives me forward is the searching, the journey (passively or actively) for the next one. When found it is likely to transcend. and if really good it may suggest a human revelation or in very rare cases substantially offer something that comes close to a truth, in my head of course.

je ne regrette rien · May 27, 2010

Fred,

I appreciate very much how you put your perception into words.

Actually the situation was much, much more dynamic than the photo shows. Most of my grandparents' four children were there, along with quite a number of their ten grandchildren.

The expression of the two is quite typical. My grandfather - from Naples, a southerner - was an important judge and a reflective attitude was quite frequent for him. My grandmother - half German and half Austrian, and coming from Northern Italy - was the real "manager" of the situation, except that for happy youngsters as we were, it was far more important to stay on the beach than meeting precise lunch times, and that must have disrupted her plans a bit. Elderly people like to keep their habits, as I'm sure you know.

In that sense the narrative of the photo is quite limited, I should post the whole series and even then the viewer would miss parts of the essence. But this is obvious, given the lack of knowledge I have. That's what John A(curso) calls "the loop".

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As to my use of photography, you're right. It's deliberately passive. I record, document. My learning process is aimed at improving my capability of capturing what strikes me, without manipulating it - apart from very little adjustments. I definitely need black and white and will succeed in finding the colour film which suits my needs.

My recording and documentation almost always includes people, and their emotions. It is very difficult that an inanimate subject - even the ones photographed by me - would strike me particularly.

I would like to get along unnoticed, as happened in the photo we commented, because it's then that people are themselves. I know this, and my aim - can I say, it - is the essence of people.

In that sense transcendence and transformation is not my purpose, of course it can be other author's purpose.

Most likely Garry Winogrand was not aiming at transformation. He was documenting, even if the visual impact of his photos I consider variable.

I agree that you succeed in transcending and transforming when you photograph. I would dare to say that in your photos there are significant pieces of yourself. It's very clear to me.

inoneeye · May 27, 2010

Hey Luca, your last comment to Fred inspired me to add the next line of Frank's quote "Also, it is always the instantaneous reaction to oneself that produces a photograph."

Norma Desmond · May 27, 2010

Julie, ;)))

Phylo, "The photograph not only showing how things look like but also . . ." Yes. A jumping off point. Perhaps I will find the limitations of photos someday. Not yet.

Josh, I'm glad Frank wasn't hesitant to give a name (hope, sadness) to what he saw, whether he saw it in the photo or in his head. That he sees "hope" and isn't afraid to say it is more significant to me than whether he's admitting some sense of narrative in saying it. I appreciate your personalizing Frank's ideas by drawing a distinction between detached and indifferent. Going back to my documentary work at the farm community, I cared about those photos and the subjects of the photos greatly. I was far from indifferent. Yet, I tried to remain more detached than I normally am in my photographing.

Luca, I just want to make sure I'm clear that the narrative I'm talking about is the one in your photo (or in my head as a result of your photo), not the one occurring in the real world when the photo was made. I am compelled by what the photo shows, not the narrative at the time of shooting. The narrative of the photo, for me, is not the extent to which it tells the story going on when it was taken. It is the story it tells now, when I'm viewing it.

I appreciate your passivity. I think letting things unfold and speak is a fascinating approach. It's interesting that you talk about needing black and white. I've always considered black and white transcendent in depicting a world of color. It provides quite a bit of abstraction. So does high key lighting and exposure, which your photo employs.

Interestingly, I find I can often capture people being themselves better when I am noticed and engaged. In my own experience, people in relationship (to me) are often more themselves and more interesting than people in candid or unrefined moments and isolated from me. I find more that's essential and meaningful by connecting rather than through objective distance though, as I said, I employ detachment at times. (Sontag talks about the voyeuristic side of photography. I loved reading that.) Having done several portraits of the same person on various occasions, I'm not big on "essence" as a concept. I have two or three portraits of the same person, each of which captures a very different, and very genuine and essential, side of the person. I'm looking more for a genuine aspect of the person than their essence, which I think is a little too universal and elusive a concept for me to grab onto.

By the way, I consider "essence" and even my own less universal approach a transcendent matter. It seems to be something beyond the surface of the person. It is intangible. The only way I can relate to the capture of an essence or an essential side of someone is to transform the visual, even by visual means, into something that goes beyond the visible or penetrates beyond what is being literally seen.

don_essedi · May 27, 2010

je ne regrette rien · May 28, 2010

Fred,

your giving another perspective is very much appreciated.

I never thought of black and white being transcendent, but I agree with you, it probably is.

It's very particular for me, because I know that there is something instinctive in me about the medium I use. There is no rational explanation, but when I watch around to photograph, my eye - and probably my brain - knows if a black and white or a colour film is loaded. Image perception happens consequently. As I see it, the visual message of the two media is completely different, absolutely different.

My black and white images are conceived black and white, and my colour scenes are conceived in colour.

Maybe a more subtle way of transforming/transcending I had not thought of.

As to voyeurism, if we consider it as the pleasure (whatever pleasure) from viewing, a photographer is a voyeur most of the times. :-)

Julie H · May 28, 2010

I think Szarkowski made a fundamental mistake when he used narrative and story-telling interchangeably. They are not the same thing. A story has a beginning and an end; narrative, especially non-fiction narrative, is a description of a happening, whether or not it has a beginning or end. Most snapshots (especially camera-phone sent-immediately-to-friends pictures) are narrative.

For the purpose of discussion, let's try sorting narrative pictures from those that are not -- to see what narrative pictures are like. I claim that a picture that strongly points to (seems to want you to see/know) who, what, when, where is narrative. A picture that "wants" to have communion with you; that wants/needs to "plug in" with/to you; that "wants" you to conceptualize the people iin the picture; that is about separate, "others" who can/do have some meaning. Think of playing a card game or a board game; the picture is the other players in the game and it requires that you play "with" them. Out of this interaction, there will be knowable/probable/imaginable con-sequences. That the picture is *about* consequences. You are prompted to think, "Given what this [what's in the picture] does to you/makes you think/feel ... then ... "

Compare that to a picture that, rather than playing "with" or conceptualizing about (I am here, they are there), you go into; it's a space, it envelopes you, you are taken in, you don't (have to) engage any "others". Go in rather than play with. Like a playground or a hall of mirrors. No other players, just you in/inside (think Lee Friedlander's pictures or, really, most (but not all) of art photography). In this case, no con-sequences [one thing after another]; rather an altered state of being.

[Aside to Josh: this quote from Barthes: "... the Real knows only distances, the Symbolic knows only masks; the image alone (the image-repertoire) is close."]

luis_g · May 28, 2010

Julie - "I think Szarkowski made a fundamental mistake when he used narrative and story-telling interchangeably. They are not the same thing. A story has a beginning and an end; narrative, especially non-fiction narrative, is a description of a happening, whether or not it has a beginning or end. Most snapshots (especially camera-phone sent-immediately-to-friends pictures) are narrative."

They may not be identical, but they are deeply related. Stories (in many media) can and have been made as loops, with no beginning or end. Or non-linear/hypertextual stories.

I do not see camera phone pics as being narrative in nature. They are almost always accompanied by text, which they serve as illustrations for, or the text furnishes the (literal) narrative captions. Separate the two and the 'narrative' is gone.

I recently sent two phone snaps to a friend that I took of her and and a friend at a gallery last Saturday. To someone who wasn't there, these pictures might be read in a wide variety of ways, and many of those readings would be disconnected from the reality of the moment. There's a large painting behind the two women, but where are they? In my living room? The lobby of a hotel? Gallery? There's no way to know. They seem intimately affectionate from their pose. Are they good friends, relatives, lovers? Did they pose themselves? Choose the background? Or did I? All that is, as the character Roy Batty laments in Blade Runner, "lost in time, like tears...in rain."

While this may seem like a total loss, it also creates vacuous lacunae, which tease, invite and inspire interpretation -- and the creation of a plausible narrative(s) by the viewer. I guess I am inching towards the idea of some photographs being stronger narrative magnets, or able to catalyze narratives, while still not having any of their own, like viruses that borrow DNA from a host in order to replicate.

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A few definitions for "narrative":

<li>a message that tells the particulars of an act or occurrence or course of events; presented in writing or drama or cinema or as a radio or television program; "his narrative was interesting"; "Disney's stories entertain adults as well as children" </li>

<li>consisting of or characterized by the telling of a story; "narrative poetry" <a href="http://www.google.com/url?q=http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn%3Fs%3Dnarrative&ei=2a7_S7yEJcGB8gbo_qzODQ&sa=X&oi=define&ct=&cd=1&ved=0CBMQpAMoAA&usg=AFQjCNH8KRlmn3VBsMrnDFAK4cehjnIjiQ">wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn</a></li>

<li>A narrative is a story that is created in a constructive format (as a work of writing, speech, poetry, prose, pictures, song, motion pictures, video games, theatre or dance) that describes a sequence of fictional or non-fictional events. ... <a href="http://www.google.com/url?q=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narrative&ei=2a7_S7yEJcGB8gbo_qzODQ&sa=X&oi=define&ct=&cd=1&ved=0CBQQpAMoAQ&usg=AFQjCNGEP2dY1iESM6_yB98KF7efIBfnAg">en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narrative</a></li>

<li>The systematic recitation of an event or series of events; That which is narrated; Telling a story; Being overly talkative; garrulous <a href="http://www.google.com/url?q=http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/narrative&ei=2a7_S7yEJcGB8gbo_qzODQ&sa=X&oi=define&ct=&cd=1&ved=0CBUQpAMoAg&usg=AFQjCNFw_ZwAQWDL0bv1owLFiZKOhaOhWg">en.wiktionary.org/wiki/narrative</a></li>

<li>narratively - In a narrative manner: in the form of a story; In terms of narrative <a href="http://www.google.com/url?q=http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/narratively&ei=2a7_S7yEJcGB8gbo_qzODQ&sa=X&oi=define&ct=&cd=1&ved=0CBYQpAMoAw&usg=AFQjCNGsrtI3V3RLrLoddSXgameoy8XwQw">en.wiktionary.org/wiki/narratively</a></li>

<li>A Verse or prose accounting of an event or sequence of events, real or invented. The term is also used as an adjective in the sense "method of narration. ... <a href="http://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.gale.cengage.com/free_resources/glossary/glossary_no.htm&ei=2a7_S7yEJcGB8gbo_qzODQ&sa=X&oi=define&ct=&cd=1&ved=0CBcQpAMoBA&usg=AFQjCNEtZvuMx20n0YJ7ODJBRc3xzHUnaA">www.gale.cengage.com/free_resources/glossary/glossary_no.htm</a></li>

<li>poetry that tells a story <a href="http://www.google.com/url?q=http://sarahbeaubien.com/category/vocabulary/&ei=2a7_S7yEJcGB8gbo_qzODQ&sa=X&oi=define&ct=&cd=1&ved=0CBgQpAMoBQ&usg=AFQjCNFs4gMJ6vGvmxkcPtwW35j5q0P4Fg">sarahbeaubien.com/category/vocabulary/</a></li>

<li>Telling a story. Ballads, epics, and lays are different kinds of narrative poems. <a href="http://www.google.com/url?q=http://steelerooster.wordpress.com/glossary-of-poetry-terms/&ei=2a7_S7yEJcGB8gbo_qzODQ&sa=X&oi=define&ct=&cd=1&ved=0CBkQpAMoBg&usg=AFQjCNFo-FX02xsdwxVUh54lrjDxOwionA">steelerooster.wordpress.com/glossary-of-poetry-terms/</a></li>

<li>How the plot or story is told. In a media text, narrative is the coherent sequencing of events across time and space. <a href="http://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.medialit.org/reading_room/article565.html&ei=2a7_S7yEJcGB8gbo_qzODQ&sa=X&oi=define&ct=&cd=1&ved=0CBoQpAMoBw&usg=AFQjCNGPNjkMMDHWNRkffigNuv9deBWSBQ">www.medialit.org/reading_room/article565.html</a></li>

<li>choreographic structure that follows a specific story line to convey specific information through the story. <a href="http://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.ket.org/artstoolkit/dance/glossary.htm&ei=2a7_S7yEJcGB8gbo_qzODQ&sa=X&oi=define&ct=&cd=1&ved=0CBsQpAMoCA&usg=AFQjCNEZcb2G2lX6hzOUOYq9MnIfRN0mDg">www.ket.org/artstoolkit/dance/glossary.htm</a></li>

<li>a story or narrated account <a href="http://www.google.com/url?q=http://cmsweb1.loudoun.k12.va.us/5272071714341570/lib/5272071714341570/List_of_Literary_Terms.doc&ei=2a7_S7yEJcGB8gbo_qzODQ&sa=X&oi=define&ct=&cd=1&ved=0CBwQpAMoCQ&usg=AFQjCNEPJ-GSSFFhBSY92UddqAPbextVlw">cmsweb1.loudoun.k12.va.us/5272071714341570/lib/5272071714341570/List_of_Literary_Terms.doc</a></li>

<li>presentation of a series of events in a purposeful sequence to tell a story, either fictional or factual <a href="http://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.be.wednet.edu/Curriculum/WriGlossaryK12.htm&ei=2a7_S7yEJcGB8gbo_qzODQ&sa=X&oi=define&ct=&cd=1&ved=0CB0QpAMoCg&usg=AFQjCNE2xe4c8oHqas6ikEwl_cf148Xg4Q">www.be.wednet.edu/Curriculum/WriGlossaryK12.htm</a></li>

<li>in story form. <a href="http://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.oed.com/learning/ks4/notes.html&ei=2a7_S7yEJcGB8gbo_qzODQ&sa=X&oi=define&ct=&cd=1&ved=0CB4QpAMoCw&usg=AFQjCNHyfW3kcMaiOxkNl_Q-6LPFsvIr5A">www.oed.com/learning/ks4/notes.html</a></li>

<li>The narration of an event or story, stressing details of plot, incident, and action. Along with dramatic and lyric verse, it is one of the three main groups of poetry Sidelight: A narrative poem contains more detail than a ballad and is not intended to be sung. ... <a href="http://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.poeticbyway.com/gl-n.html&ei=2a7_S7yEJcGB8gbo_qzODQ&sa=X&oi=define&ct=&cd=1&ved=0CB8QpAMoDA&usg=AFQjCNFMYimrZk69P8hQSsSvK5cecejzIA">www.poeticbyway.com/gl-n.html</a></li>

<li>a framework of events arranged in some kind of order (eg, temporal, causal), involving a set of "characters" and relationships between those characters. Narratives can be descriptive and/or explanatory. <a href="http://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.americanenvironics.com/methodology/glossary.shtml&ei=2a7_S7yEJcGB8gbo_qzODQ&sa=X&oi=define&ct=&cd=1&ved=0CCAQpAMoDQ&usg=AFQjCNFOA3jfyZMK5yNNHnFxAM9P6mV6Xg">www.americanenvironics.com/methodology/glossary.shtml</a></li>

</ul>

A few for "story":

<li>narrative: a message that tells the particulars of an act or occurrence or course of events; presented in writing or drama or cinema or as a radio ...</li>

<li>a piece of fiction that narrates a chain of related events; "he writes stories for the magazines" </li>

<li>floor: a structure consisting of a room or set of rooms at a single position along a vertical scale; "what level is the office on?" </li>

<li>history: a record or narrative description of past events; "a history of France"; "he gave an inaccurate account of the plot to kill the president"; "the story of exposure to lead" </li>

<li>report: a short account of the news; "the report of his speech"; "the story was on the 11 o'clock news"; "the account of his speech that was given on the evening news made the governor furious" </li>

<li>fib: a trivial lie; "he told a fib about eating his spinach"; "how can I stop my child from telling stories?" <a href="http://www.google.com/url?q=http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn%3Fs%3Dstory&ei=X7H_S7G5CIT58Aaf84z8DQ&sa=X&oi=define&ct=&cd=1&ved=0CBYQpAMoAA&usg=AFQjCNEpa0Q-PQsMOGNhzLTZVgPlbFwGjQ">wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn</a></li>

</ul>

Each appears frequently, and at the core of definitions of the other.

I am already tweaked, interested in Julie's (re) definitions, and quite curious as to where this will lead. So far it seems to be butting up to Szarkowski's Windows and Mirrors (yes, I am keenly aware that they coexist in every picture), with the window aspect corresponding to "narrative", and the Mirror corresponding to er..."altered-state" (which I would call "inner state"), but from what I know of Julie, I expect the unexpected.

Norma Desmond · May 28, 2010

Julie, I appreciate your distinction between these two aspects of photographs. I say it that way because I think it is about aspects rather than types and I think both are found in many single photographs. I, myself, wouldn't distinguish between narrative photographs and art photographs because I think there are so many narrative art photographs and so many photographs that fit the two descriptions you've given.

Take Frank's <a href="http://caraphillips.files.wordpress.com/2007/12/h2_199251623.jpg">Rodeo, New York City, 1955</a>, from The Americans. It acts on me the way you describe, both narratively and regarding space and envelopment. There's a main character, the supporting characters of the trucks (some won't see them as characters, that doesn't make much difference), the cowboy's hand gestures, even the guy in the background looking back in the scene. But those same trucks add to the story (the narrative, if we're going with your distinction) and also draw me into the space, move my eye and join with the perspective to lead me back through the scene. The lamppost in the distance puts the icing on that more contemplative envelopment.

Narratives can provide "an altered state of being." They do in books, in movies, in Shakespeare's plays, and in good narrative photographs.

A lot of snapshots (that I own, that I see) are about the real people who are shown in the photograph. I generally think more in terms of "Grandma" than I do in terms of "photograph." I think OUTSIDE the photograph more than inside it. "Art" pictures that contain narratives and people in them may surely lead me to think about the real people themselves, but they tend also to transcend those people and I am in touch with the photographic people, the people INSIDE the photograph, as characters in the photographic narrative before me, not at a distance from me in the real world. A snapshot will often evoke the time . . . "Ahh, yes, I remember when Grandma turned 80." An art photograph with people in it is often more timeless (not always), though many recreate an era quite well (and can still be timeless).

I'm not sure if you're suggesting that narrative pictures need to or tend to have people (others) in them. If so, I offer a counterexample. Evans's <a href="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3125/2856102274_df8671fe06.jpg">Negro Barbershop Interior, Atlanta, 1936</a> has, for me, a strong narrative while, again, also enveloping me in its space. There's a sense in which it's me inside the barbershop and a strong sense in which I'm not alone. Maybe that's not a great example because other people may be implied sitting in those chairs. So, Evans's <a href="http://www.tfaoi.com/cm/4cm/4cm296.jpg">Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, 1936</a>, with no people really even implied, also tells a story (or at least is narrative) and invites me into its space.

Norma Desmond · May 28, 2010

Wow, impressive googling, Luis. ;))))

Julie H · May 28, 2010

Phooey, Luis. I fart in your general direction.

I already gave yesterday's long Barthes quote about how the visual is beyond the verbal. Okay, I'll back up and preface my previous post with something about narrative being the wrong word, but what might be a similar or parallel concept in the visual, given the way the visual works (versus the constraints and the liberations of verbal text).

In your phone-camera examples, whether or not I know exact names, dates and places, I believe I (a stranger) see a *particular type* of person, date and place.

Fred, I'm sorry that I did no specifically say so, but I by no means whatsoever meant to oppose narrative to art photography. There is tons of fantastic narrative-ish (damn you Luis) art photography. I just threw that in there on the fly, thinking of proportions or tendencies. Sorry for the confusion (and I agree that Frank is an interesting intersection).

No, I don't think narrative pictures have any need for people. Only the game-ish-ness of looking for a plot; a "then what" ness.

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