Stimulus

[don_essedi]

<p>I'm fascinated by the 'entanglement' of the photographed, the photograph, and the photographer. Rather than approach it from outside, I play the the photographer and become entangled. My sense of it, so far, is that entanglement is a true, or perhaps 'real', illusion. Photography is my way of doing philosophy. I take up my camera to find out what happens next.</p>

<p>Photography is also my way of illustrating or documenting the geology of the high desert, and the changing appearance of the people and the city where I live.</p>

<p> </p>

[jtk]

<p>Don, I wish we could see more photos related to your "entanglement." I have no doubt they would enhance what you've said.</p>

[don_essedi]

<p>"Don, I wish we could see more photos related to your "entanglement." I have no doubt they would enhance what you've said."</p>

<p>Since photographs are entangled, one cannot photograph entanglement. Lots of discussions here are about the entanglement, for example the relations between the photographer and subject expressed in the photograph. The commonplace sense that the photograph of Aunt Mary is somehow Aunt Mary 20 years ago, or the sense that 'if I had been there, this (what the photograph is "of") is what I would have seen'. The sense that the photograph is "of" something. The viewer's looking into the virtual depth of the photograph to see things. The absence of awareness of the photograph in its own right.</p>

<p>Since the beginning of photography the power of photographic description is convincingly the capture of the real or reality. We know it is an illusion, but can hardly talk about photography from outside the illusion; it is like trying to discuss time without metaphors of space.</p>

<p> </p>

[Wouter Willemse]

<p>John, Arthur,<br>

I'll quote John, but I feel he is raising the same question as Arthur, who (thanks to the paging feature) is now more difficult to quote:</p>

<blockquote>

<p>..not simply wandering and assuming that whatever he clicks is a photograph.<br>

...Isn't there a difference between "exposure" and "photograph?</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Of course there is. Of course wandering around and just clicking is something else. To read my words in that way, is a bit too simple. We've all come across each other in previous discussions, and I usually bring along the experience of what others said earlier. I figured my previous remarks in other threads would fill those gaps here. Seems they didn't.<br>

Of course there is more ambition than just click. What I described earlier is not a "brain-dead just being there pushing buttons".</p>

<p>Nonetheless, my stimulus is in letting the world come to me / my lens. Watching it intently, more aware, sharper, see stories unfold, to see objects, light and textures and how they interact. Photography is, for me, a way of watching better and seeing more. I'm not trying to manipulate what I see into something else, knowing that how I see it is already manupulation enough. I do not build the scene, I just try to frame it in a way that does most justice to it in my own view. So, what I saw is what you get. A very hands-off approach. In this, I find a lot of rest and relaxation, and being a hobbyist, that's why I do it.<br>

Hence, in the creative sense, the stimulus is all external, but obviously nothing happens without an internal wish to go out and see it happen.</p>

[jtk]

<p>Wouter, fyi I wasn't referring to anything you said..didn't recall your post.</p>

<p>I don't agree that it's possible to be as passive as you seem to suggest. Maybe I'm misreading you.</p>

<p>As well, there is no such thing as "external" related to photographic stimulae. Stimulae, to lead you to any sort of response ("click"), requires active involvement of your own personal resources...including your personal perceptual abilities and habits. You don't perceive anything that isn't unique to Wouter. All of your photos are heavily modified, whether or not you intend to do that.</p>

<p>The practice of za Zen seeks to enable passive perception (I think that's a fair summary ... someone here may correct me). It always fails to enable passive perception because we are always actively engaged in self-deception (the veil of maya). It's a paradox.</p>

<p> </p>

[aplumpton]

<p><strong>Fred,</strong></p>

<p>What you have said is exactly what I had in mind in setting out the question in the OP. Thanks. I appreciate your motivations and your forthrightness is stating them.</p>

<p>Although somewhat less detailed, the comments of Wouter and Don give an inkling into what they feel important in terms of stimulae and motivation in making photographs. Elsewhere, I don't think our discussion should get too tangled up in words like "a" photographer or "the" photographer, or theoretical psychology, but simply try to share some of the processes we use as photographers, and reflect on why we do so, and why others do so differently. While I occasionally operate as Wouter suggests, I am more often not adverse at all to "manipulating" what I see by what I imagine, which I don't think is uncommon in many creative pursuits. My manipulation has more to do with decomposing and reconstructing what I see than in, say, heavily Photoshopping an image. The fact that we photograph differently in that sense attests to the fact that we are motivated in different ways.</p>

[jtk]

<p><em>" I don't think our discussion should get too tangled up in words like "a" photographer or "the" photographer, or theoretical psychology, but simply try to share some of the processes we use as photographers, and reflect on why we do so, and why others do so differently." ...Arthur P</em></p>

<p>Arthur, it is of course standard to reconceive Original Questions, but it seems oddly authoritarian a to rule out huge realms of common knowledge : everyone who's had the most minimal psych course has considered some of the the implications of behaviorism vs free will, and can see that you've directly pushed definitively behaviorist buttons by co-opting stimulus and response. Those aren't "theoretical" matters, they're demonstrable...behaviorism quickly led to one of the most substantially demonstrated realm of scientific knowledge, comparable to Mendelian genetics.</p>

<p>You now seem to have agreed that there is no such thing as "the" photographer (as in your OT). Each photographer is "a" photographer...or even "many photographers" per me, or my observation about Fred. I wish you'd post a lot more of your own photos...I suspect you can share implications and ideas that are more substantial than the words we all kick so carelessly . We all can do that, if we're any kind/s of "photographer."</p>

<p><strong>Arthur: </strong>What about you? Are you "the photographer," "a photographer," or "myriad photographers" (like me)?</p>

[jtk]

<p>...or, to approach your former Original Question from one of your original perspectives, are you wondering if others distinguish "communication" motivations, such as those you and I claim for ourselves, from the motivations they may have? (maybe I'm bigger on "sharing" than "communication').</p>

<p>We've all noticed that some of our peers are reluctant to talk about what they're doing photographically. Fred's been very open, I've tried. Some hide in their childhoods rather than describing anything current (has to do with age...I do that sometimes). Others admit being entirely solopsistic, photographing for their own solo jollies. Others assert universal truths about "beauty." Others use these discussions to quote authorities. <strong>Would responses along any of these lines approximate the sorts of ideas you are seeking?</strong></p>

[aplumpton]

<p>"We've all noticed that some of our peers are reluctant to talk about what they're doing photographically." (John)</p>

<p>Possibly that is true, or possibly some of us are not sure what motivates us, that we are searching for that answer as much as we are searching for that great image, or possibly their motivations are in a flux and unsettled, or possibly that others might consider their stimulae or motivations trite, or perhaps déja vu. It is hard to analyse oneself, as we are always pointing our lens at others.</p>

[aplumpton]

<p>Ooops, I guess I must have pushed that behaviorist button again (sic)!</p>

[sjmurray]

<p>My motivation over the years has been, I think, to capture images that I find "visually interesting." This does not mean "beautiful." This can range from people to objects. Just this week I photographed a fallen tree from a storm, and shadows made by my lawn grass on the patio (both in my folder). Why? They were visually interesting. I felt strongly about getting these images into the camera as well. I can enjoy the images myself later, and share them with others too (communication). "Fitting" something that is three dimensional into a rectangular, two dimensional format is an enjoyable challenge as well. Perhaps that is part of it. So we have the challenge of the task, the capture of something interesting, and the possibility to share it with others. That's enough motivation for me.</p>

[Wouter Willemse]

<p>John, time differences count against me since the discussion has moved on, but to reply your 5:13PM post;<br>

I fully agree with what you state there, I did not mean to imply a passive approach, but rather a difference between staging the photo or see the photo stage itself. Ultimately, the framing, the timing and the decision to click or not click are active decisions, and involve me and my view. In that sense already tried to indicate that the photo is already manipulated enough by me, due to the decisions taken. I think we're on the same page there.</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p>I think John is talking about <em>commitment</em>. If he's not, I think it's significant to this thread.</p>

<p>I understand the view that says I don't want to or can't talk too much about my photos because words just don't capture what the pictures do. At the same time, while I think "interpreting" one's photos (assigning meanings to images) is of limited use, I think looking at one's motivations can be of great value in growing as a photographer. It takes making a commitment to one's work.</p>

<p>When I was new at photographing, I didn't really understand my own motivations well and didn't want to express them out loud. It's taking a risk. The risk is that my photos won't fulfill my motivations for making them. The more confidence I have, the more I'm willing to take that risk. Now, when someone thinks my motivations aren't fulfilled in a photo, I can have a couple of different responses. 1) "We simply see this photo differently." 2) "Ahh, it doesn't read the way I was hoping it would. Thanks. The photo is not that successful." Confidence allows me to answer either way depending on the photo and the comment. Either standing by the commitment I made in making the photo or realizing that I didn't commit enough for it to be seen in the photo are very solid positions to take and help me continue to grow.</p>

<p>We might have a philosophical discussion where we talk in general about what photographs accomplish. Generic or umbrella terms like "communication", "expression", "showing", "representing" might come up. But using a word like "communication" or "interesting" to describe one's own photographs leaves me wanting. My response is "communication of what?" and "interesting in what way?" As my teachers did all through school, I would challenge the writer who uses such words in describing their own work to probe a little deeper. Words like "sensuality" are much pointed and descriptive. <em>[i could relate to that paragraph well, Arthur.]</em></p>

<p>Know thyself.</p>

[jtk]

<p><strong>Wouter</strong>, yes...we're still on the same page/s!</p>

<p><strong>Steve M</strong>, your reflection on "interesting" is charming and to an ultimate sort of photographic point. We all see many interesting things, <em>ignoring or missing what would interest someone else</em>. Your written expression of openness or simplicity-of-attitude (something like that) allows you to be interested in something as visually quiet-seeming as that broken limb ...it's evident in virtually all of your direct, open-expressioned portraits (contrasted with the intentionally "posed" that's admired by many "portrait photographers"). Your reference to <strong>Jock Sturges</strong> rings bells in context of your photos. He seems to me to have maintained a similar openness and simplicity-of-attitude, even in his most "controversial" images. (His work somehow skates around the edges of "consummatory" ... see below).</p>

<p><strong>Fred,</strong> of course you're right: "communication" is a bigger umbrella than "sensuality." And I think you'd admit that it allows more room for discussion, more angles and insights. Sensuality is a more focused term, distinctly when not directly related to <em>"consummatory drive"</em> (another psychological term, universally known to freshman psych students: hunger, thirst, and lust, perhaps most interestingly the hard-wired, nearly impossible to resist blood lust behavior (killing) cycle observed in tigers and the like). The sensuality, so well shared in many of your nudes, is specifically sexual, not simply sensual. As importantly, it's communicative: you comment at least weekly on that particular aspect of "yourself," which you evidently believe you "know" (per the closing admonition in your post immediately above).</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p><strong>John</strong>, yes. I think the sexual aspect of sensuality is important to my work.</p>

<p>I think, as you say, "communicative" is a word that allows for discussion and is a beginning to something. I have, in fact, said that I use photographs both communicatively and expressively and I know I've said a little more than that, often too much for your taste ;))) Like I said, when I talk about it or hear it used, it raises the question "communicate what?" What I was saying is that I think <em>what</em> I communicate is more important than <em>that</em> I communicate. When I try to articulate what I am expressing or communicating in various photos rather than as a general statement, I find it helps my work grow.</p>

<p>An example: Early on, I did a photo of a guy named Stuart standing in front of his baby picture which hung on his bedroom wall. When I made a print of it (one of the first prints I had made) someone told me that it read much differently than the screen image I had shown him. This friend asked what I was after in terms of the relationship between Stuart and his baby picture. After I told him he said that the screen image accomplished it more than the print which, at first, I really thought was an accurate reflection of the screen image. It forced me to look at it further and I realized that the print was not "communicating" what I wanted out of the photograph. The print was certainly communicating (it was doing the work of the umbrella). It just wasn't communicating what I wanted to express about Stuart, about aging, about our relationships to the kids we once were. Communicating, in that case, was not enough for me.</p>

<p>Yes, I <em>evidently</em> believe (<em>believe</em>, you say?) I know myself. Which means I also have a lot to learn. One reason to more specifically articulate my motivations is to learn.</p>

[aplumpton]

<p>John and Fred,</p>

<p>Like John, I used "communication" to describe one of my motivating parameters, but I agree entirely that it is too much of an all-embracing statement to reveal more than a general intent. What specifically I wish to communicate is much more important for me to acknowledge as a photographer and, as Fred mentions, a key to developing my photographic experience and growth in the medium. At the moment, it is a reflection on the presence of and tenuous existence of man, which I am feeling and interpreting through his constructions. Inevitably, that presence is challenged by the greater force of nature and this is part of my image-making process. Thus, old buildings and vestiges of past inhabitation are part of that project. On another plane, I interpret some human and natural subjects with my own sensual viewpoint, not necessarily sexual but in some ways related to that most natural physical and mental desire. This is not as conscious an activity as that of my stimulus to depict the presense and impermanence of man, but it acts somewhat like other ideas of fantasy or inherent feelings that are there and may come out in my work. The innocence and the potential of growth of children are also a motivating force. I do not succeed often in depicting the beauty of that "open page" that exists before them, but it is one of the things that continues to fascinate me and which I would like to develop in some way.</p>

<p>There are other motivating elements (I often wish I could photograph some images from my dreams, as they are sometimes clearly more intriguing than so-called reality), but I have to think more about those other stimulae, while digesting some of the ideas put forth in this thread by you, and by Don, Steve, Phylo and others .</p>

 

[Norma Desmond]

<p><strong>Arthur</strong>, thanks for that. Honestly, when I originally posted the challenge to the word "communication" I was going to ask you specifically about your <a href="../photo/8083615">photograph of the chair</a>, which I commented on several months ago. That photograph seems to be after something in particular and seems to illustrate at least a significant part of what you've now just talked about. When I wrote my response to it, I didn't know of this project of yours and, now putting it in that context, I am able to access another take on it and put it into a place within your body of work that seems even more significant, though I obviously already got a lot out of it.</p>

[luis_g]

<p>Oops.</p>

[jtk]

<p>Related to the <em>specifics</em> of communication (per Arthur and Fred), I'd like to note that scientists don't address questions they cannot define. Defining the question is step one in scientific method. Philosophers begin with the same limitation. <strong>Photographers, who may inexplicably also want to be philosophers, are handicapped because they typically begin with unformulated, or even entirely visual issues.</strong> That results directly in "word salad," a term psychiatrists use sometimes to describe a pathological symptom (eg of brain damage or senility).</p>

<p>Photographers often resort to word salad to describe their goals and work. That's always been typical all sorts of "artists" who, for their own reasons, address their non-verbal "art" from pretended objective perspectives.</p>

<p>An alternative to word salad is honesty...<em>honesty as evaluated </em>by people other than ourselves. That may be why Minor White students (there I go again) were assigned to show a photograph to total strangers on the street, noting their responses: A scary and perhaps disappointing confrontation with honesty.</p>

<p>Honesty seems to me to lead to simple verbage. Prolix prose (see Catch 22) and legalistic writing sometimes suggest....</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p>If I'm going to judge, I judge photographers by their photos and people by their actions. In these forums, I'm less inclined to judge people by the style of their writing. I can follow and understand most anything people here write and when I don't I ask them to clarify without assessing the quality of their writing. John, to be fair, you have commented both positively and negatively on the way I've expressed myself, been very derogatory and very complimentary at alternating times. I don't care and I wish you'd stop it. It's out of place. Address the substance of what we say not how articulately (in your limited view) we say it. Assume we all know what Prolix is by now. You've used it as a sledge hammer over and over and over and . . . This is not a writing seminar. It's a photography forum. Using White to instruct us on how to write is a transparent abuse of "photography" to make an off-topic point.</p>

[jtk]

<p>Fred, I'd be happy to accept any authority granted to you by Photo.net. Until then...</p>

<p>I think clear writing is a courtesy at the very least. Unclear, indirect writing sometimes seems an attempt to replace ideas with verbal conflations. </p>

<p>Because some posts seem incoherent rambles, and others seem to cancel out their own initially worthwhile ideas via unclear writing, I think it should be seen as helpful when someone expresses confusion...at least asking questions.</p>

<p>Reviewing posts you will notice, I think, that I use many times more question marks than others, such as you, do. <strong>That's because some of us, who hint at initially important-to-me ideas, bury those ideas in prolixity (wham!). </strong><br>

<strong> </strong><br>

I find it interesting that people for whom English is not even a secondary langage often manage to write with more clarity than do native Anglophones. I think that may have to do with courtesy.</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p><strong>John</strong>, I made a personal request of you. I have no authority nor did I claim any, from photo.net. You can choose to honor my request, at least when it comes to analyses of my own writing, or not. I understand that when I ask things of people, they can accept or deny that request. I have no "authority." I just rely on the dynamics of my relationships to guide the two parties in how they treat each other and what requests are granted and which are denied. I propose we not discuss it further (again, a request, not a demand with any authority), so as not to derail Arthur's substantial thread. </p>

[aplumpton]

<p>Fred,</p>

<p>I can only repeat what I said after your very insightful interpretation of the chair photo. "You have a great eye, not only for your own pictures, but for seeing into those of others." I gained a lot from your interpretation. I admit that I did not have all those impressions in mind when I made the photo (but I did learn much about how you, as a very sensitive viewer, can see things that many miss), which was one in a series we (a sculptor and painter as well) were making as a project for the island gallery season a few years ago. One of the challenges was to use a very particular and unique traditional island chair as one of our three subjects (island suspension bridge, island chairs, local roof designs and colors). The chair actually is not a true island one but from a mountain community about 70 miles away, although it's rectangular lines are typical also of the island square back chairs.</p>

<p>In retrospect, my approach was somewhat subconscious, I think. I did see the tension in my purposefull very wide angle distortion, plunging view, the mystery of the window frame shadows and my desire to leave something out of the frame, in addition to my subsequent painting out of some still visible wood floor details in the background.</p>

<p>It all just seemed to speak of a discontinuous life (experience) for the chair - sometimes in the centre of a family life - sometimes rejected to the attic or to a back corner in an antique barn (where we found it, with its prior 4 levels of color paint-over, which spoke to its age). Yes, it does fit into my project on the presence of man and his impermanence, and maybe I should so incorporate it into that on-going project. Many thanks for making me think about it again!</p>

<p> </p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p><strong>Arthur</strong>, I think the critique section of the site has the potential to be a great way to communicate about our photographs and to learn from each other in a hands-on way. Thanks.</p>

[Wouter Willemse]

<p>Time difference keep on making me go back a page...<br>

Fred,<br>

I think in between you said something very significant to many:</p>

<blockquote>

<p>When I was new at photographing, I didn't really understand my own motivations well and didn't want to express them out loud. It's taking a risk.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Yes, to me, this ticks many checkboxes... and quite possibly part of what may seem rambling posts do boil down to this. I know I cannot pinpoint my motivations all that well, and even if I could, it indeed feels like taking a risk. I'd impose something onto my photos that may not be there (yet/at all).<br>

Not that taking risks is a problem, nor putting up a bar and making yourself jump over it, but the more serious I take photography, the more its complexity also bites. Getting proficient technically while developing a creative feel, and finding a personal touch in it, it is not the easiest (then, neither is any other creative aspiration). So, being unable to clearly state motivations maybe just indicates there is still some ground to find beneath the feet - rather than not really having motivations.<br>

Commitment, hence, to me indeed seems quite related.</p>

<p>Now, to those who are developed enough to define their motivations more precise, do you see it back in your work? Not only the really good photos, but also in the half-succeeded experiments, in the 'ooops' moments? Do you visually find back what motivated you? It's really a blank question, no sarcasm or cynical implications.</p>