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

Julie H · August 4, 2010

As I have this book in front of me from posting to another thread, I'll throw in a little Minor White in this one:

"White described how students approached "expressive" photography on three fronts: "subjective, "objective," and "equivalents" ... White found that "the self-revelation which the students ... unexpectedly explored" when executing these "expressive" photography assignments "came from the unconscious rather than the conscious. Consequently psychoanalytic implications arose which threatened to lead into therapy rather than esthetics." In order to circumvent this, White put to use the "psychoanalytic approach to photographic expression" that he had learned from art historian Meyer Schapiro at Columbia, coupled with his years of studying Stieglitz's theory of "equivalents." White wrote that "expressive photography" meant "photographing in such a way that the artist revealed himself chiefly to himself and possibly a few friends." "Creative" photography would "produce emotions in people generally" and was the goal of the advanced student."

</blockquote>

Norma Desmond · August 4, 2010

Creative / Expressive. Word play. An academic, not a photographer's, tool.

Norma Desmond · August 4, 2010

Let me explain why I find the implication of White's quote in the context of this thread misleading. It's because one would think "expressive" has been used in the way White is dumping on it, but it hasn't. Perhaps Lannie started out thinking there could be a one-to-one correspondence between his feelings and the feelings of his viewers but we've moved to a more nuanced place by now, a hundred or so posts later. My own description of two photos didn't name feelings and didn't name a feeling of mine . . . by design. It named ways that expression can be put into photographs. My discussion of Adams and Arbus didn't suggest that viewers were accessing Adams's and Arbus's specific feelings. It did suggest a consistency of evocation at a certain level of feeling. Because artists, while not necessarily representing their own feelings in a work, express Feeling (not feelings) not as personal but as known. As a matter of fact, the very first line in my initial response to Lannie was: "I attempt to express things with photographs, not necessarily my emotions or moods at the time."

(BTW, I was glad to be able to describe this difference in my own words and relative to my own photos and relative to the craft of making photographs and to specific photographic elements.)

Perhaps White would substitute the word "create" for the word "express" in my sentence. He'd be choosing a different word because of an academic lexicon he had created to teach students a distinction. But he'd get the spirit of what I was saying, which is pretty similar to his own.

OK. OK. Enough of me. Let's have a couple of quotes from an academic.

Suzanne Langer, from Feeling and Form:

The tonal structures we call "music" bear a close logical similarity to the forms of human feeling—forms of growth and attenuation, flowing and stowing, conflict and resolution, speed, arrest, terrific excitement, calm, or subtle activation and dreamy lapses—not joy and sorrow perhaps, but the poignancy of either and both—the greatness and brevity and eternal passing of everything vitally felt. Such is the pattern, or logical form, of sentience; and the pattern of music is that same form worked out in pure, measured sound and silence. Music is a tonal analogue of emotive life.

</blockquote>

ANALOGUE, not representation. When I talked about Adams and Arbus, I made a careful distinction between these levels of expression: the difference between what we experience that generally will be shared (the "poignancy" Langer talks about: things like tension and resolution) and what I called "the individually divergent further assessments" of that poignancy (which Langer refers to as things like "joy" and "sorrow", which WON'T necessarily be shared).

Few will deny that a Chopin nocturne ends with musical resolution. But they will vary on whether the music fills them with joy, sorrow, melancholy, or boredom.

jtk · August 4, 2010

Julie, thanks for White's instructive dichotomy: he made an obvious point...it works to distinguish responses of intimates from strangers. He clearly wasn't playing a word game.

See Julie's context on Fred's "craft" thread.

The photographer and her/his closest friends inevitably share more with each other (life experience, education, interests) than with strangers and random gallery goers (White's "people generally"). Who would argue that? It leads directly to his standard show-your-work-to-strangers-on-the-street assignment...which was scary as hell for many, and very instructive.

White's lessons were photographic, not semantic. He used words to allude, to hint at, to assemble descriptions of concepts (or to write poetry).

He clearly didn't think his words were the same as concepts any more than he thought his photographs were the same (whereas "Equivalent" is a very different idea...Stieglitz's clouds were"equivalent" to his photographs of clouds, not to words). Here, we often confuse labels ("conceptual," "portrait") with the phenomena they are intended to identify, divert into eccentrically-defined, terminally-semantic squabbles.

Attributing too much weighty anxiety to White's simple dichotomy would inevitably feed the "language of photography" idea ...that sort of analytic thinking is required in "art appreciation" courses, but dumbs-down photography. It is crucial to recognize the symbolism religious painters intentionally included in their works, but if we think that way today about photographs we may wind up in "deconstruction" swamps, losing track of the images.

If one considers that dichotomy in Jungian terms (my superficial understanding of Jung), both "expressive" and "creative" may miss the boat. I think a Jungian would look for universal, or at least tribal, clues. That might dumb-down responses to the work with yet another type of analysis :-)

Norma Desmond · August 4, 2010

John, you're right. White did make an instructive dichotomy. And they were, as you say, photographic and not semantic points. My calling it word play was not accurate or helpful. I just felt the point had already been made (though the same word distinction had not). It seems that because White is White and now he's been quoted, we have some sort of revelation. But, for me, the revelation had already come in the thread, through the course of the discussion.

Landrum Kelly · August 4, 2010

Perhaps Lannie started out thinking there could be a one-to-one correspondence between his feelings and the feelings of his viewers. . . .

</blockquote>

No. This is well-traveled territory, Fred, and we have covered it elsewhere many times. The viewer always brings himself or herself to the viewing, and that means that the impact is going to vary for various viewers (not to mention the original photographer), no matter how good the photo is or what the subject is.

Those persons who are generally on the "same wavelength" might have very similar external responses, but the qualitative similarities or differences in their psychological states upon viewing are surely totally unverifiable.

I am reminded of J.L. Austin's "No one can feel my pain." Nor were the analytic philosophers the first to make the claim of some degree of psychological privacy. I cannot even be sure that someone else experiences green the way I do, much less experiences the same thing where joy or pain or revulsion are the emotions which are evoked or induced, etc.

There is always the possibility of total indifference. Some persons are not moved by anything, although I generally try to avoid such persons.

--Lannie

Norma Desmond · August 4, 2010

Lannie, I meant that you asked the question: "How do I get the viewer to experience what I am experiencing?" That's all I meant by one-to-one correspondence. I know you know that a viewer will bring himself or herself to the table as well.

Landrum Kelly · August 4, 2010

Consequently psychoanalytic implications arose which threatened to lead into therapy rather than esthetics.

</blockquote>

Thanks for that quote from Minor White, Julie. That general idea came around on one (or more) of our (in)famous threads about nudes. About the only thing that I was able to say was that we should stop psychoanalyzing each other through the public medium of a forum on Photo.net. I have never doubted that our photography is a kind of self-revelation. I admit, however, that saying "That's sick!" about another person's photo is a very personal kind of criticism--but one that we sometimes are going to make, perhaps have to make.

I don't try to stay inside a safe zone with regard to what I shoot, but I do with regard to what I post.

I wonder to what extent we can psychoanalyze ourselves through study of our own work in comparison to that of others.

Imagine the following solipsistic conversation: "I must be deviant."

What does one do if oneself replies in the affirmative? The conversation would be interesting to listen in on, I'm sure.

I will stop the one-sentence paragraphing now, at least for a while. I feel like I am talking to myself, and I am not sure that I want to hear what the other guy has to say.

--Lannie

Norma Desmond · August 4, 2010

I don't know about psychoanalyzing, but I certainly learned something from pictures like the one I did of Daniel and many "street" portraits I did early on while lurking in shadows and behind trees. It didn't feel good and I stopped.

Now, of course I still do things that challenge myself and still do things and make photographs that don't necessarily "feel good" but I've matured to where I understand various levels of "feeling good" and what I want out of the photographic experience.

Lannie, because of your mention of Freud in response to me above, I'm concerned (maybe overly sensitive and surely obsessive -- LOL) that you think I may have been psychoanalyzing you with my comment about noticing the similarity of expression in some of the photos you've linked to in threads. That wasn't what I was doing. I was noticing the kinds of expressive poses, gestures, and setups I thought you liked. It was about expressive taste. Most subjects, male or female, house or train tracks, seemed to come from a straightforward, eye-level perspective, cleanly presented. Daniel and several of the female nudes I was thinking of (most of John Peri's stuff) were what I would consider objectified and distanced views. (Not distanced in that both John Peri and I got close to our subjects and would profess to care about our subjects, yet we treated them similarly in an objectified manner in our photographs. Distanced in that both my shot of Daniel and most of John Peri's work shows an emotional distance from the subjects, a lack of engagement, pose without humanity, gesture for effect rather than expression.) I meant nothing gender specific or sexual by my comment.

By the way, I'd pit Wittgenstein's "there is no private language" over Austin's "no one can feel my pain" any day. But that's a matter to be taken up elsewhere!

Landrum Kelly · August 4, 2010

Fred, I never thought that you were being personal. It didn't cross my mind.

Your comment about Wittgenstein and Austin piques my philosophical interest. Cannot both be right? That would be a heavy thread for Photo.net, but it would be a darned interesting one. Thanks for opening my mind on that one.

I'm still back over here arguing with myself about how deviant I might be. I think that I prefer "weird." "Quirky" is even better. Could I interest you in some old railroad car shots? How about a series on the prostitutes plying their trade openly on Long St. in little old Salisbury? (I'm talking about marketing shots only.) If only I had the courage. . . .

--Lannie

Landrum Kelly · August 5, 2010

One thing that I would like to convey to the viewer is a sense of "being there." That is not the goal of every photo, but it is the goal of most of my landscape and sky shots, such as this one (not to say that this one succeeds):

http://www.photo.net/photo/11380356&size=md

I think that the only possible way such a goal could be fully realized would be to print large and then have the viewer stand fairly close to the print, free of glare and other distractions. I would like for the viewer to have such a strong sense of being at the place where the photo was made that he or she would feel that it might be possible to actually step into the photograph.

All of that is not so much about sharing of emotional experiences as it would be about sharing or conveying a vision.

I think that, if I could start this thread over, I would make that clear at the outset in the question:

How do I get the viewer to share my vision?

</blockquote>

Well, it is too late now. We got off on the tangent about the sharing of emotion, and that is where the thread stayed. Most people prefer portrait work, where pathos and empathy (and even some kind of emotional intimacy) might be the goal.

In the very different genre of landscape (and seascape and skyscape) photography, it is quite likely that the goal of the photographer would have to be different. In such cases, about the best that one could convey of an emotional nature would be some sense of the awe and majesty of Nature.

--Lannie

Norma Desmond · August 5, 2010

Two things I find are key in helping a viewer key into a vision and a subject are depth and texture. Although a photo can surely explore flatness (much the way Rousseau did in his paintings), and some photos do well with a flat, graphic, even woodcut-like look, unless it is committed to, flatness will have a hard time convincing the viewer.

In more traditional landscape photos, at least some sense of texture in the dark areas and/or dynamic contrasts to the light areas provide a viewer some potential for involvement. It sounds like you're not just wanting the viewer to look but to get involved in the photo. Is there something in particular making you unsure about the success of your photo?

luis_g · August 5, 2010

One doesn't need to furnish a replica if the scene. The human eye and what it's connected to do not require literal realism, a good suggestion will do, and that has the advantage of getting the viewer to participate in and customize the enterprise, instead of having it the photographer's way.

While it is the current cliche', trend and signifier of an art print to be XXXL, and it's something not discussed here, print size should not be an automatic default any more than any other photographic choice. A very large print can easily wall the viewer out (which is not the same as saying they all do).

Look at Kenna's extraordinary landscape prints, specially in person, if you ever get the chance. They are 8x8 inches.

http://www.google.com/images?hl=en&q=Michael+Kenna+prints&um=1&ie=UTF-8&source=univ&ei=3bdaTN3zIsP48AaF-sH6AQ&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&ct=title&resnum=6&ved=0CEwQsAQwBQ&biw=792&bih=396

luis_g · August 5, 2010

Lannie, what I am saying is that instead of providing a literal semblance of the scene, with the title "You are there", another way is to invite, seduce, etc. the viewer into wanting to be there. Then, he will inject himself into the scene, and nothing will keep him out.

Landrum Kelly · August 5, 2010

Very good points, Luis. Thank you. I enjoyed the links.

Fred, I wasn't talking about the picture I just posted and linked above, which just happens to be the last one I put up. It was a special night and getting quite dark, but the clouds were still bright. It is hard to capture that image and present it in a way that holds anyone's attention--without doing total violence to my memory of what I saw. Sometimes what I saw is very important to me, and I want to share it as I saw it, without trying to boost the levels or saturation or using any of the usual tricks. (I already boosted levels and saturation more than I wanted to.) Here is the original, but with a crop at the bottom (and resized, of course):

http://www.photo.net/photo/11380856

Heck, maybe the totally unmanipulated one (the latter one) is actually better here in its own subtle way.

My larger points were not, however, about this particular shot but about landscapes/skyscapes in general.

--Lannie

Norma Desmond · August 5, 2010

"My larger points were not, however, about this particular shot but about landscapes/skyscapes in general."

As were mine.

I understand what you're saying about post processing. So exposure will be a key, as well as perspective and composition.

I read what Luis is saying as important. I also find that sometimes I can convey the little picture with more success than the big one.

jtk · August 6, 2010

Fred and Luis...are you referring to XXXL prints or are you referring to BIG imagery? Big emotion, big concept, big affectation?

Norma Desmond · August 6, 2010

John, I didn't refer to XXXL prints or to Luis's mention of it here.

Norma Desmond · August 6, 2010

When I said I thought what Luis was saying was important (especially in the context of this thread), I was referring to:

"[W]hat I am saying is that instead of providing a literal semblance of the scene, with the title "You are there", another way is to invite, seduce, etc. the viewer" --Luis

Be it known that I understand, even though in this instance Luis talks eloquently about inviting and seducing the viewer, he's not suggesting that one creates photographs for the viewer. He's made clear elsewhere that photographers act and think for themselves as well.

Landrum Kelly · August 6, 2010

This is actually the one that impelled me to think about size, since it relates to my goal (at times) of wanting to convey to the viewer is a sense of "being there":

http://www.photo.net/photo/11374570&size=lg

I have taken down the sky shot that I posted above because I did not like it. What I said by way of reference to that photo applies even more to this one, I think:

I think that the only possible way such a goal [of giving the viewer a sense of being there] could be fully realized would be to print large and then have the viewer stand fairly close to the print, free of glare and other distractions. I would like for the viewer to have such a strong sense of being at the place where the photo was made that he or she would feel that it might bepossible to actually step into the photograph.

</blockquote>

Now, it might well be that this impulse of mine to want to be able to step into the photo (or have another viewer do so) applies generally to documentary shots or to landscape shots. I will have to give that some thought. I am not sure. I can only say that I do find myself finding shots occasionally (mine or those made by others) that do make me feel like walking into the photo, and I like that feeling. I do not get that sense with small images. I do not know why.

The posted photo is quite boring and mediocre, of course, and it only has meaning for me because I was there that day. Even so, as I said, I do have that feeling for fine photos made by others as well--at least at times.

For what it's worth, the photo posted in this post was made with my first digital camera (the 5 MP Olympus E-20) that I bought back in early 2002--and which I still have and even shoot once in a while. Printing at a large size would not be desirable with this file, in any case, even if I deemed it worthy of printing, which I do not. Had it been made with the 5D II, and were the sky and season different, perhaps I would have a different opinion. A large, high resolution file would be necessary to carry off the sense of realism

Perhaps this idea fits Luis's idea of making a replica. I am not sure that is always such a bad thing, especially if one is shooting a documentary shot or a nature shot that one wants to capture as close to the real thing as possible.

--Lannie

Landrum Kelly · August 6, 2010

Well, I should have known that I would run out of time on editing. Sorry for all the typos and grammatical non sequiturs.

--Lannie

luis_g · August 7, 2010

John - "Fred and Luis...are you referring to XXXL prints or are you referring to BIG imagery? Big emotion, big concept, big affectation?"

I was referring to physically large prints, not high-drama/epic imagery.

__________________________

Lannie- "Perhaps this idea fits Luis's idea of making a replica. I am not sure that is always such a bad thing, especially if one is shooting a documentary shot or a nature shot that one wants to capture as close to the real thing as possible."

It's not a bad thing, or a good one, for that matter. Just another quality one can use to aid/ abet/convey their vision. Photography does that realism thing well -- within its limits to transform. One can create a plausible verisimilitude of a scene, but of course, the viewer can't walk into it. He can only imagine doing so, which makes it for me more of a question of the imagination than about the literal idea. The viewer has to want to step into the image. An exhibited large (several feet) print breaks down into subsets of itself if viewed much closer than normal viewing distance. I find myself looking at this little leaf here, or rock there, but the gestalt of the thing is lost. It becomes a less-than-intimate experience, in the sense that although there may be other viewers standing close to me, none of us are experiencing the whole print. If one stands back, then it comes together again -- and effectively smaller. The wallpaper/decorative effect of such a thing in a less-than-palatial home space is considerable, though. I've seen huge, ultra-expensive prints hung in hallways (because the owners had run out of space), spread out on a floor and in fairly small studios and condos. For me, and I know the experience varies for others, it is somewhat overwhelming to see these things in small spaces. Viewing a smaller print is an intimate experience, in the sense that one has to get physically close to it, and if there is another viewer present, physically close to them. The entire print easily occupies the central, sharp part of one's visual field. It doesn't wall off the viewer. One pours themselves into the image, like a silk ribbon through a keyhole. Again, this is not a question of better-than, but more of a question, like all the other myriad questions that face us. I am not suggesting that one has to make all these decisions consciously, or make them anew with every work.

[ I am not, in any way, trying to make the point that all prints should be small, medium, large or any size in particular. It should be whatever you want it to be.]

Prints to walk into can be considered different from prints to escape into, but there are similarities. We see the latter in almost every inhabited small space, be it a waiting or exam room, small hotel room, cubicle, etc. They are almost always landscapes, the kind of place you'd rather be than where you are. Placid landscapes, and most are not really replicas, and are generally fairly small prints (usually in a small space). As a viewer, the experience is like that moment when reading a book, or at the beginning of a movie, when you willingly suspend disbelief.

Norma Desmond · August 7, 2010

Other qualities of the photograph usually will dictate my relationship to it as a viewer. Size can enhance (or detract from) what's there. An Avedon exhibit here back in the late 70s (Oakland Museum) stays with me for its abundance of large prints. They worked for many reasons, not just their largeness. They were portraits, not landscapes or documentary (though Avedon has a documentary aspect). Had Avedon not presented significant portraits and prints of those portraits, the bigness wouldn't have worked.

I think even some of the best straightforward documentary work stimulates my imagination (a nod to Luis for his thoughts on that) and invites me, through metaphor, to want to consider its subjects/content. Even a literal rendering of a place can have a metaphorical touch that asks something of a viewer's imagination.

I was documenting a farming community recently and have several shots of the barn and people doing various chores in and around it. I included a fairly simple picture of a barn cat, from a low perspective, with just enough hint of where it was shot. Anyone whose been around a barn much will feel some kind of familiarity with a barn cat and I think there's something transporting about that photo, a photo that wouldn't work for me on its own precisely because of the cliché that makes it work in context of the rest of the shots. Metaphor doesn't have to happen through artsiness, but imagination seems to help. I don't know that anyone knows, by looking at the photos, how I felt at the time. Maybe they know a little bit how they could have felt were they there at the time. (That thinking comes from John's "if" in the other thread.) Maybe a photograph can provide an inviting conditional . . .

jtk · August 7, 2010

"Maybe a photograph can provide an inviting conditional . . ."

It can be didactic (nothing wrong with that) or it can be like a fishing fly, floating, maybe being snapped up... more likely, of course, it can be nothing.

Norma Desmond · August 7, 2010

It does often seem like "nothing" is the only thing embraceable. ;)))

http://www.mojvideo.com/video-the-grateful-dead-me-and-bobby-mcgee-1972/c201f369c7f8ba61dba6

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