How do I get the viewer to experience what I am experiencing when I take the photo?

Landrum Kelly · August 1, 2010

I honestly don't see how that would help answer your question. It's too abstract an exercise . . .

</blockquote>

I know that it is not perfect, Fred, but I would love to see the comparisons--with "case studies," shall we say.

The answer to the theoretical question is not going to yield so easily, of course.

--Lannie

Landrum Kelly · August 1, 2010

I would think the more helpful thing to do would be to discuss specific photographic ways to express specific things (emotions, ideas, feelings, energies, etc.).

</blockquote>

Yes, you are right. That would be better. I yet think that this kind of discussion could benefit from discussion of real photos, in any case.

--Lannie

aplumpton · August 1, 2010

Both exercises, that of Lannie and that of Fred, each have their upsides and downsides. I think. With that of Lannie, I would suggest that it might be much better to not mention what you think, show the image and see how close you came to illiciting the same reaction in someone else.

In the case of Fred's proposal, the ideas of others may be too far removed from your own to have any value in aiding you in your own specific approach to seeing something in a unique way. We all know only too well when we do not come close to evoking our own feelings or intentions in our images. Knowing how someone else might handle the same subject becomes rather like the thematic photo competition in Shutterbug or Black and White Photography (British). I think that the suggestion of Lannie, modified with the non-disclosure aspect, would help the photographer and keep it close to what was intended in the OT, which is a personal approach and how close we come to achieving that.

For what it's worth in enacting Lannie's suggestion, the following two images were composed with a different idea than the titles gratuitously placed on them in my portfolio (therefore, no need to look there), but were consequent upon specific feelings when they were exposed.

I do feel that the image exercise could be a bit tangential in nature when placed in the normally discussive P of P forum, but the question posed by Lannie is nonetheless important from a philosophical viewpoint.<div></div>

aplumpton · August 1, 2010

And trial image 2<div>

00WyyX-265307784.jpg.8dc5514578151fbf1cf7d287b3eda618.jpg

</div>

Norma Desmond · August 1, 2010

Arthur, it didn't seem to me Lannie's question was about the "personal" approach at all. He seemed to be questioning how to communicate something to others, not just how to express his personal feelings. We learn language from others. We each use language slightly differently, but it has a lot of public consistency as well. Language and its usage can be taught and it can be discussed in very specific ways. Photographs use a visual language, which can be shared, if we let it. It's this notion of art and photography being "personal", I think, that limits so many from actually expressing themselves, since so much of expression is public, not private. We are disappointed that we're not communicating what we want and then we refuse to share universally-understood expressive methods and contrivances. The worst thing to happen to art, again in my own opinion, is the tendency to impose "subjectivity" on it. It's not. It's shared. We can and should, in my opinion, talk about what a diagonal signifies in a certain context, what a right angle signifies, why shooting homeless people sitting on the street from a standing position is often exploitive, why a certain kind of blur accomplishes something different than another kind of blur. No, it's not so personal at all. At least for me.

Norma Desmond · August 1, 2010

To clarify: I'm not suggesting we each tell Lannie what to express or how to express it. I'm suggesting he tell us what he wants to express and we help him to figure out how to express it. I wouldn't be telling Lannie to have shot this with a blur here or there, or a warming color temperature here or there. But if he told me he wanted a warm, romantic feeling and had shot it with great crispness and mostly blue/green tones, I might ask him if he'd thought about sharpness and temperature and where he might take that. I'm suggesting we might address specific photographic means of expression and what they can accomplish, without telling someone what to do. What would a different perspective have elicited from most viewers? What feeling might a different lens have provided? What would moving the camera slightly have accomplished? This, for me, is about learning from each other, not substituting for each other.

Landrum Kelly · August 1, 2010

Arthur, those are great shots, and your entire portfolio is wonderful.

Even so, I am not getting any particular "feeling" or emotion from these kinds of shots. Abstract shots are like that, I think.

--Lannie

Landrum Kelly · August 1, 2010

Here is a good one for potential discussion, I think, with or without input from the photographer:

http://www.photo.net/photo/10730256

I mean by that that the kind of shot that is most likely to evoke emotion for me has some element of mystery (or even fantasy) in it--or at least the majority do.

Here is another by the same photographer:

http://www.photo.net/photo/7063397

--Lannie

Spearhead · August 1, 2010

What I would love to have people do on this thread is to upload different photos of various genres and tell what emotion(s) they felt at the time they took it

</blockquote>

I shot this last night. I shot three punk bands. Despite the prominent sign that states there is no moshing (also no stage diving), a pit opened up for each band. As a result, what I felt at the time was mostly pain and fear for my equipment. I was elbowed, smashed against the stage until my ribs felt like they would crack, soaked down my back with so much beer my underwear were soggy when I got home, and generally just pushed around. Do the photos show it?

Cute Lepers

More Cute Lepers</center>

Of course they don't show it. Why would I want to show fear for my equipment (despite being insured) in a photo? Would anyone want to see that? Or would they want to see some shots of the band?

This seems pretty simple.

Landrum Kelly · August 1, 2010

Your point is well taken, Jeff.

I shot some of the most mystical-looking shots of a creek once with colored leaves floating down the creek in the rain. It was beautiful. I shot them under an umbrella that covered me and the camera and the tripod. I was also on a bridge with trucks roaring by and throwing up a lot of water from time to time.

I was cold, wet, and miserable. The photos were beautiful.

Maybe it was less about the feelings that I was having than about the vision that I had in my head, and that I wanted to come through in the photos. To some extent the latter was achieved, I think.

--Lannie

Landrum Kelly · August 1, 2010

Fred, here is a powerful photo made by you. Care to comment?

http://www.photo.net/photo/5721411

Your emotions?

Your vision?

Something else that you were trying to share or would like to share?

--Lannie

Norma Desmond · August 1, 2010

Nope.

Landrum Kelly · August 1, 2010

How can I possibly create an image that conveys the mood, emotion, beauty, or whatever it is that I perceive or feel (or even intuit) at the time that I take the photo? (Emphasis added later.)

</blockquote>

That was how I explained the question at the outset. I suppose that the "experiment" that I am asking for with uploaded photos or links could be modified accordingly.

--Lannie

fate_faith_change_chains · August 1, 2010

What does disappoint me quite frequently is my inability to convey through the photo my own experience, especially whenever the light or the subject or something else hits me so powerfully that I simply stop and say, "I must get a picture of this!" Too many times the result is not at all what I thought that I saw, much less felt.

</blockquote>

Unlike the notes coming out of a music instrument, photographs aren't continuous with the reality they're made in, let alone with the reality felt or experienced at the moment they were made. They are a photocopy of reality, removed from it in that sense. I don't think this inability to convey what was experienced is yours, but photography's. Methods and techniques to improve ones ability to convey exactly what was felt and experienced at time of capture is simply adding more steps to the process ( in a way of course the techniques and such are the process ), rendering it even less continuous, less of what was actually felt or experienced at time of capture and what motivated the "I must get a picture of this!" in the first place. But photography's disconnect with reality in this regard is also its perfect strenght I think, the "not getting what you thought that you saw" but something else, something layering that what you "saw", and not quite equaling or mirroring it precisely.

aplumpton · August 1, 2010

Wow, I am sensing very mixed signals. Fred, I very much like your approach. You say it isn't impersonal, but I don't perceive that at all. The ways you talk about your approach (former threads), which you are not afraid to do, are indeed quite personal, and I respect that. But to say photography for you is not subjective, that's a bit of a shock to my perceptions of your work. But I am happy to learn. Lannie, you posed a methodology of presenting images for discussion of what may have been in the photographer's mind, which I thought better to leave open to the viewer for his response (i.e., not to pre-condition their response) but to date nobody has discussed the one's I put up, and Jeff did his own analysis on his images (which is fine. QED.). Perhaps we are not ready here for open discussion, but prefer, for whatever reasons, to keep discussion on a non personal level (i.e., theories, comparisons with the masters, standard or "catalogued" photographic approaches, etc.).

Fair enough. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, no cost, I guess. There is still a lot of other things to be discussed on a non-personal level, without discussing personal approaches (notwithstanding the personal nature of the OT question). On that level, I like what Phylo said in his last post about photography's disconnect with reality as being its perfect strength and about not getting what you saw and not getting a mirror image of what you saw. I think that that is what I sometimes very consciously try to create, but at other times simply receive the unanticipated result as some sort of a bonus.

luis_g · August 1, 2010

Lannie, if you and the viewer were standing at the scene, looking at the same thing, you'd not have identical experiences. The idea of you transmitting and a viewer receiving exactly what you felt is unlikely to happen with a photograph.

A telegram or short message on a Post-It might serve one better for that task, the literal transmission of a message.

There's what was ping-ponging photons into your lens, what you felt, the print or screen, then what the viewer gets/feels/infers. All of these are different things, and that's one of the great terrors and marvels about the medium. Besides, no one sees every potential meaning/feeling/idea in an image. Not even its maker. This, in my opinion, is to the good.

jtk · August 1, 2010

"The worst thing to happen to art, again in my own opinion, is the tendency to impose "subjectivity" on it. It's not. It's shared." - Fred G

Yes, of course. That imposition was completed decades ago. Past tense.

Fred, your work is exquisitely communicative, universal seeming, conveying something about one perceptive person's experience in our shared world...universal, not at all subjective. Instead it's skilfully conveyed using universal facial expressions, poses, and lighting along with awareness of important moments.

If someone doesn't "get it" that is their personal deficiency... a lack of experience or psycho-social problem...not your "subjectivity."

Landrum Kelly · August 1, 2010

Just after I asked the original question, I offered the following explication of its possible meaning in my opening paragraph:

How can I possibly create an image that conveys the mood, emotion, beauty, or whatever it is that I perceive or feel (or even intuit) at the time that I take the photo? (Emphasis added later.)

</blockquote>

I say "possible meaning" of the original question because "meaning" moves around in philosophical discourse as much as emotions, moods, and intuitions do in photography--and for many of the same reasons that Luis pointed out above:

There's what was ping-ponging photons into your lens, what you felt, the print or screen, then what the viewer gets/feels/infers. All of these are different things, and that's one of the great terrors and marvels about the medium.

</blockquote>

Thank you for that, Luis, One of the reasons that meaning moves around in philosophy is that the reader or listener in a philosophical exchange brings his or her own conceptual framework, emotional baggage, on-going scholarly agenda, and much else to the discussion. It is a wonder that persons can discuss philosophy at all.

In philosophy, then, the difficulty lies in conveying one's intended meaning to those who are readers or listeners.

Perhaps we can for the moment scrap my wording of the original question and its explication (above) and reduce the question to this:

How does the photographer convey his or her intended meaning to the potential viewer?

In philosophy, we hope to get exchanges of opinion, but we presume that our meaning must be understood with every statement before we can possibly be having a true conversation. Is there any analog with photography? The general presumption in esthetic theory is that there is no single meaning being sent with the photograph or painting, and that there is an even greater multiplicity of meanings being received by the viewer(s).

Even so, many photographs are exchanged with a high degree of mutual understanding as to the significance and thus meaning of the photo--or at least one meaning (possibly the primary intended meaning) of the photo. Perhaps this is more nearly true of snaps, such as the photo that says (without words) "Look how old and white-headed Uncle John has become since our last family reunion." A lot would depend on context, of course, not to mention who is viewing the picture. We say that "a picture is worth a thousand words," and yet we often feel the need for more verbal exchange when we do feel that our point is not being communicated effectively.

Thus would I submit to all of you that esthetic theory is tolerant and even expansive about the meaning of a photo precisely because of the limitations of the medium of expression that comes to us as a single frame conveyed in one direction, with no other communication. Movies without words are possible, but "talkies" quickly replaced silent films. People like to know what the point of the story is in a movie. Pictures can only carry us so far. That is true for movies. How much more true it is for a single frame, without any words or further exchange between sender and receiver.

At this point one might want to interrupt and say that "Most photography is not about sending messages!" That is all well and good, and yet something inside me does at times (as I mentioned much earlier) make me want to say, "Look at this!" In other words, sometimes it is about sending messages, and sometimes the intended message is rather specific in its significance to the sender. That many possible interpretations are possible does not negate the fact that sometimes the sender (photographer) has a rather specific message or meaning that he or she wants the receiver (viewer) to latch onto. Even more to the point, very often there is communication. Very often the viewer does get the point.

It is rather like comedy in theater. A playwright wants the audience to laugh or cry in a given scene, and sometimes the outburst of laughter is so immediate and spontaneous that we are justifiably amazed that so many people can get the point simultaneously--and so quickly. Of course, there is always still the poor schmuck who is sitting there saying, "I don't get it." (I find myself filling that role all too frequently, whether at the theater or in a conversation where a joke is being told.)

So, what do we say when the point is rather specific and when most viewers do get the photographers point? We can still say that there is a multiplicity of meanings, etc., etc., but the reality is that the photographer possibly had one meaning in mind and the viewer got that meaning, that message. In such a case, photography has actually served as a medium of communication and not merely as a medium of expression.

In the same way that de Saussure spoke of the "linguistic sign," perhaps one may speak of an "(a)esthetic sign" in a work of art. Rachmaninoff said that every piece of music should make a point. That was his dogma, and it worked for him. His second symphony's "finale" does indeed "resolve" (in the climactic ending of the fourth movement) the many themes that have been building throughout the entire symphony. For the longest, there are threads of melodies, but they seem to wander around a great deal. At the end, however, they finally pull together and there is the monumental cascade of French horns and other instruments that gives a sort of emotive and esthetic relief to the tension that has been building throughout the entire work. The result is positively orgasmic. I can also say that the horns sound like a herd of elephants. Upon either description, it is dramatic and breath-taking.

Music is art, of course, whatever else it may be. Photography is as well, in spite of attempts to deconstruct "art."

Sometimes, that is, a photo is just a photo, but sometimes the photo makes a point, has a meaning, and the point of making it, processing it, and displaying it is to convey that point, that "message" or "meaning," to someone else. Sometimes, that is, the photographer sends a message, and sometimes the viewer "gets" it.

Those are the photographs that interest me the most here, for the purposes of this discussion.

--Lannie

Landrum Kelly · August 1, 2010

John, I was not responding directly to your post, but it seems that in some ways we are on the same wavelength. Let me know how we are not. I know that you have been writing extensively on your other thread, but regrettably I have not had time to venture more than a quick glance, given the various things that I have had to do today while still trying to follow this single thread.

--Lannie

Landrum Kelly · August 1, 2010

I meant to say (in my long post above) that IT IS ABOUT MEANING, even though emotion is often evoked by the successful communication of that meaning.

This is a change in focus since I began the thread before noon today. My own thinking has evolved as the thread has unfolded.

--Lannie

dan_south · August 2, 2010

<h1> How do I get the viewer to experience what I am experiencing when I take the photo?</h1>

</blockquote>

I don't think that can be done. If it's a landscape or cityscape, you could probably give the viewer some sense of what it's like to be at that location under similar conditions.

But to have them feel what you felt when you experienced when you took the photo. You'd have to put a camera in their hand and teach them everything you know about photography. And you couldn't tell them where to stand. They would have to experience selecting the location and the composition on their own.

Taking a photograph is more than just pushing a shutter button. It's a chase that begins with a feeling, a drive. It evolves into a search that's modified by considering and rejecting countless options until a viewpoint is selected. Exposure is calculated. The effects of motion are considered. The moment is selected. All because of what's in your heart and your mind. How can you expect anyone else to experience those things. That moment is yours and yours alone. They can experience the place and the situation, but not the making of the photograph, unless they're making a copy, a nice experience unto itself, but not exactly the same thing as bringing a fresh new image into the world from a birth within the depths of your own soul.

Norma Desmond · August 2, 2010

<div>

00Wz6p-265409584.jpg.3b76d953e3c11bff8c0cad64f4d70288.jpg

</div>

Norma Desmond · August 2, 2010

Lannie, a change of heart, though I still won't play the "guess the expression" game. Just my thoughts about the photo of mine you linked to above. I've posted the actual image here for reference, on the left above, along with a second image for comparison, on the right, above.

Though I won't tell you what, specifically, I intended to express in either of them, I thought it might be helpful to tell you what types of things in the photographs lead to expressiveness and what, in my own process of shooting, helped me access an expressive approach.

The one you linked to -- Daniel, on the left -- is not a powerful photo. I've had it hidden in a not-for-public consumption folder for some time now. It lacks in expression. It's an early photo and I've placed it next to a similar type of portrait, of Mark, that was done around the same time and which is still a favorite of mine, one that's much more expressive and powerful.

The setup for Daniel, the photo you chose, was a decent one. My handling of Daniel himself is nowhere. It's stilted, lifeless, and I think it objectifies him in a negative way. He looks like a bare chest on display, presented and not engaged. There are no dynamics with Daniel. Mark, on the other hand, gestures with the simple mid-peal of his orange, relating visually to the orange sitting behind him on the pedestal. A significant element of expression is the somewhat quirky, unassuming, genuine yet ambiguous look on his face, the engagement of his eyes, light that draws me to those eyes. Daniel, on the other hand, is perhaps deep in thought, but nothing that challenges me to think about what's going on with him. Passive. Distant. Not mysterious or beguiling. Just absent. The backlighting on Mark's head helps animate his face. That is expressive. THAT BACKLIGHTING is a photographic translation of what I was feeling. I needn't put it to words. The most animated thing about Daniel are the ashtrays that seem to dwarf his own presence. Daniel's bare chest is obvious and has no photographic reasoning behind it. It is for show. Mark's bare chest is more connectedly part of his attire, even his personality.

Honestly, the difficulty I had with Daniel, sitting among the period chairs, was my own. Since I found him attractive, didn't know him well, and felt uncomfortable with what to do with my feelings, I remained photographically distant, hesitant, and unsure of myself. With Mark, whom I found compelling and fascinating to look at and be with but for whom I felt no similar attraction, I could engage, be intimate and less fearful, and draw out. (Today, I would know how to channel my discomfort with Daniel. Back then, I did not.) Mark and I and the situation connected. Mark's surroundings spoke to me and speak in the photo. Daniel, on the other hand, is out-shown, as I said, by ashtrays.

Though Daniel's surroundings are somewhat clever and cute, having a sense of design which would still attract me as a background for a portrait, Mark's background is utilized in the photo as a compelling anomaly. What in the world is he doing dressed like that in this formal room, complete with detritus way in the back. What is the light coming into the back room? Is that a Santa hat on the chair? Daniel, on the other hand, has no particular narrative or visual relationship with his surroundings. I just used these chairs as a setup for a photograph. There's no internal relationship that makes the surroundings more visually compelling than a quick "cute." Notice how Daniel is statically centered from foreground to background. Compare that to how Mark's placement up front in a much longer shot connects you to him.

I proactively told Mark to start peeling his orange which helped get him to engage and be active. I thought to tell Mark to put his other orange down on the pedestal. I got involved in the shot. With Daniel, I was more passive and docile, as is Daniel in the photograph. You reap what you sow.

Daniel, very significantly, is looked down upon from above, and he is still, not animated. Then look at Mark's casual, offhand stance within the formality of the room. THAT RELATIONSHIP between Mark and the room expresses photographically what I was feeling. For Mark, I made the active gesture of getting down in front of him to shoot him from below, affecting greatly the perspective and his relationship to the room and its high walls. Daniel is given no chance at perspective relative to his space. His space has been closed in. Daniel seems merely pointed to. Mark's portrait allows room for the eyes and the imagination to wander, especially toward the back and even in the open space in which he stands. When I look at Daniel, I feel like my imagination simply wants to take a seat on one of the chairs and have a smoke.

I won't be surprised if some disagree and some prefer the photo of Daniel. That won't change the fact that expression is not a purely subjective matter. I leave each of us to figure out why that's the case. Why can we have different opinions of and reactions to photographs and artworks yet at the same time share in some degree of the expressiveness? How does that work? (I'd like that to remain a rhetorical question for the moment while we continue to ponder how, specifically, in photographic nuts-and-bolts terms like blur and light and angle, we put expression into a photo.)

steve m smith · August 2, 2010

I don't think there is a definitive answer. Every piece of photography, painting, sculpture, music, etc. will create different feelings in the viewer/listener dependant upon their own thoughts and experiences and feelings and mood at the time.

Matt Laur · August 2, 2010

Fred's point about visual language is key, here. While I might be able to listen to a poet read her work, and from her tone, urgency, or other clues perhaps get some sense of what it's about ... what if she's reading it to me in Swahili (which I do not understand)? The cultural gulf is simply enormous - for suburban American me - and I could be wildly mis-interpreting what's been rolled up in that poetic bundle of communication. If the poet and the audience don't share the culture and language needed to clarify the emotions (or even the facts) of what's been conveyed, then the quest for "co-experiencing" the scene is at an early end. Exactly the same thing applies to that bundle of communication that is a photograph. Unless the audience has a great deal in common with the photographer, the odds of contextually accurate, emotionally relevent communication diminish very quickly. That doesn't mean the viewer will have less of an experience or reaction, but that's not the same as reaching for Lannie's purported goal. Forget photographs, Landrum. How can any form of communication do what you're asking of it? Without a common culture that shares the idioms, vocabulary, and rythms between the artist and the audience, much intended nuance can or must be lost. Or worse, be completely misunderstood. This is why niche genre photography - say, work by a photographer who's along with a yacht racing crew - might come quite close to Lannie's objective when seen by knowledgable enthusiasts of that sport, but might come across as merely exotic or pretty (or crazy, or scary, or ... who knows?) to a wider audience. Without the accompanying Rosetta Stone of context-providing written material, the photograph by itself shouldn't be expected to do the heavy lifting of universally conveying the photographer's personal experience while shooting. Lannie, you must have already known the fundamental truth of that.

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