Doubt

jtk · August 29, 2010

Whoops! Goldberg! To avoid reaaaaaly misbegotten Variations, avoid klavier (I've been checking CDs out of my library, just copied one and mis-spelled on its label). No matter, I'll shredder-post-process anyway. Sometimes a shredder is the ultimate musical instrument.

jtk · August 29, 2010

Sorry to provide another link, but I think Samuel Beckett and Waiting for Godot are especially relevant here, to the question of "doubt."

Although it's reasonable to say that film and stage setting of Waiting are interesting, always distinctive, and perhaps contributory, they're not particularly significant...the doubt (or question and significance) remains.

<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Beckett">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Beckett</a>

As someone who photographs mostly to make B&W inkjet prints, and who sees dozens of approaches to that craft every couple of months from other photographers ( half of whom are my betters technically), I think selection of paper and technique can be done well with each image in many equivalent ways, making the relative importance of physical "character" questionable. Nonetheless, I do have my own preferences :-)

AJHingel · August 29, 2010

Fred and John how do you come from what you now are discussing together and to the main question of Antonio: How doubt affects your photography. I would have expected that such questions would be a main dish of et least yours Fred. Or did I miss something?

aplumpton · August 29, 2010

I thought of several things in relation to Antonio's OT in regard to photography, but finally came down to the common denominator of all - that doubt is a part of one's life, with doubt in photography being a simple sub-set of the former. To doubt is to show a degree of intelligence. Positive and necessary.

jtk · August 29, 2010

Anders, doubt may be a symptom that warns of the underlying disease of excessive certainty. Symptoms can be blessings... not the disease itself, they're alerts, warnings.

Here's where I may (may) differ with Arthur: living with doubt (a symptom) would be like living with a tooth ache rather than dealing with it.

Maybe you want specifics? OK...I noticed a few months ago that I was hesitant about laboring to continue something: Symptom.

The disease? I'd slipped into defining my photography too consistently in a particular way. Call that laziness. The approach typically works for me, but...

Cured? Not yet, but I'm shaking things up a little. For a print exchange I shot a self portrait, shaving. For the next one I waded into my files and found something graphic that I'd kept for some reason...I usually find graphics cheap shots and usually avoid printing old stuff. Each may have helped.

fyi Fred and I agree about many ideas that we express very differently. Let's see what he says about this.

Anders...does this symptom/disease/attempt-to-cure metaphor make any sense?

aplumpton · August 29, 2010

"Here's where I may (may) differ with Arthur: living with doubt (a symptom) would be like living with a tooth ache rather than dealing with it."

Not really, I think, John. The doubt is not a perpetual condition, but simply the occasional signals of incomprehension or questioning that allows us to face the issues and resolve them as best we can. Without doubt, we might be satisfied with everything around us.

jtk · August 29, 2010

Arthur, I think we just agreed about the symptomatic potential in doubt.

Norma Desmond · August 29, 2010

Anders, yes I think you missed something. Antonio, the OP, brought up his disappointment at not being able to photograph what he thought was essential about the ancient city and buildings he comes across. He posted a photo. I responded to that. I am certainly not going to tell him how to photograph what he wants to photograph, but I thought discussing what I think is the implausibility of accessing the so-called essential building or city might be suggestive for his own continuing photographic pursuits.

I doubt that portraits of mine "capture" a so-called essence. An essence, to me, suggests something fixed and certain, something that must be that way and always will be. My photographs are not substitutes for the people who are their subjects. They are photographs. They show what is on, or what may come to, the surface. A lot of humanity, a lot of expression, a lot of what is significant, is right there on the surface . . . in the glint of an eye, the turn of a lip, the gesture of a hand, the pose of a body, the turn of a head, the texture of skin.

Doubt, to me, is a matter of approach, not a matter that I can specifically translate in or into a photograph. I addressed doubt as regards my approach to photograph making in my first post on this thread on August 28 at 10:48 am. As a matter of fact, I summarized my second paragraph with this statement and I was fairly specific and direct: "When I achieve a fluidity with an approach to my subjects or a style of post-processing I've been working on, I look for a thorn, a nudge, some question or desire gnawing at me or unfulfilled, a quirk, a doubt. That's the direction in which I turn." Several posts later, you echoed that, although a lot more generally, by saying "I do not doubt that I can improve my photography if I made more efforts and listened more to peers in the field."

So, what is it you want from me?

AJHingel · August 30, 2010

Don't worry Fred, I'm not interested in anything more specific from you. I'm interested in the subject matter of the thread: Doubt.

I think John's metaphor of "symptom/disease/attempt-to-cure" is a good bests for discussion. However Antonio's disappointment with what he achieves photographing a subject matter like an old city is for me not doubt. He would have doubt about himself (symptom) if he believes that he will never be able to. He would have the "decease" if he stopped trying.

We that have lived our whole life in cities like the one Antonio refers to would continuously fight "modernizations" that would destroy the "essence" of the places (ex the motorway project in the centre of Paris of the seventies) but we all have to live the fact that modern city life in ancient cities means change. None of us would survive living in a museum or a Disneyland-sur-Seine. This has of course nothing to do with doubt of a photographer. Not to be realistic about the subject would be a "decease".

I have throughout at least 30 years tried to shoot what I feel is the essence of the city of Paris. I have very few photos, if any, that I feel do justice to the place. Not having achieved it is not doubt. Not believing that I wiil achieve it, is. I'm still working on it.

Norma Desmond · August 30, 2010

"I have throughout at least 30 years tried to shoot what I feel is the essence of the city of Paris." --Anders

I prefer your pictures to your description of what you're doing or trying to do. Your photos show me that you are in touch with places and moments, with the life of the cities you shoot. You shoot honest and genuine photographs of those places, not essences.

This has everything to do with doubt. Doubt is embracing the uncertainty that is non-essence. You do that in your photographs. Your thinking is something different.

dan_south · August 30, 2010

I had more doubts when I shot exclusively with film. Would the shot come out? Did I expose properly? Was my composition effective? Did I forget to lock down one of the view camera's movements and would that make a difference? Would the light give the look that I was trying to accomplish?

With digital the doubts are all but gone. Instant feedback gives me about 80 percent certainty that my shot did or didn't stink. There are still surprises, but it's not like the days when I used to throw away entire rolls of 220 film because I'd convinced myself that shooting some subject at a ludicrous angle in dreadful light was the right thing to do at the time. Those lessons STUNG - especially when I committed the blunder far from home and had to wait weeks to see the actual carnage laid out in gory detail on my light table - but they will never, ever be forgotten.

aplumpton · August 30, 2010

Anders,

How to capture the essence of Paris? I don't know, really (my doubt), but I think it has to involve very simple images, like some of your more graphic images of the old and new buildings at the Louvre, or your atmospheric shots of the Ile St-Denis, early or late in the day, or Parisians going about their business. You have a good eye for architecture and Paris abounds in that, but perhaps there is just too much architecture in Paris, in close spaces. I have my doubts also about colour film or colour digital images being able to express deeper feelings about the architecture of Paris, unless it is able to show more muted tones that convey some of the organic and timeless beauty of the city rather than the in your face multicoloured details. The singular tones of the Hauffman avenues and buildings might be an approach, perhaps under rain or with a compressed palette. New York presents similar problems with so much going on in a small space, it becomes information overload. It is also so easy to provide endless views of the Eiffel tower or the Statue of Liberty. The cities are much more than that.

Have you tried going to the places where the Parisians congregate for work or pleasure? You have some good shots of people, often as complements to architectural views. What about rue Montorgeuil or other streets in that area of the 2é Arrondissement that are closed to vehicles. So much life there. I spent a week in that area and felt little need to go to all the popular sights of the city, as I could feel Paris's warm breath around me within those few but very animated city blocks. What are the objects and habits that are unique to Paris or France? The street cleaners early in the morning, the students rushing about La Sorbonne, the politicians and their staff at the Senate or Elysée, the children playing in the Jardins du Luxembourg, the Parisian reading his paper and drinking his espresso? Perhaps cliché, perhaps the doubt that it is not the real Paris? But those activities, as much as chic storefronts and international names may be of good interest?

I fully understand your doubt about photographing such a complex city as Paris. I doubt I could do it justice, but I would want to find the places that are less popular, less photographed, like the rows of bicycles or motorbikes that are squashed into every available inch (sorry, centimetre) of the busy thoroughfares, the Police wagons that circulate in groups, the boulangerie, the long lines waiting to get into the museums, the little children being taken home from day care on foot by parents in office clothes returning from work. Anyway, this is no doubt of limited use as I have probably much greater doubts about my ability to capture the real essence of a place than you do. Bonne photographie!

Norma Desmond · August 30, 2010

Arthur's post has further convinced me of something I was thinking last night.

When I used to say I want to capture the essence, what I really meant was I want to create a masterpiece. I think it's why so many people who do portraits (as I was doing early on) are obsessed with tight close-ups of eyes. Because they've been told that in the eyes lie the soul and in the soul is the essence. They're going for the whole ball game. The total and complete being. The big picture. Sharpen the eyes a little more and you've got it.

Arthur's suggestion to shoot the city in black and white brought that all back. Because that is art. Black and white photographs. Photographic masterpieces are made in black and white. So go for it. Never mind what you're doing. Never mind how you see. Find the rows of bikes, because that's never been done before! [This paragraph to be read with dripping sarcasm.]

I think the search for "essence" is a self-conscious one. It's a desire to make a "good" photograph. How about thinking small? Might that be more real? When I first started doing portraits, I approached them from the point of view of making them seem important. That meant a certain kind of repeated lighting, close-ups with emphasis on the eyes, a bit of mystery, a hand on a curtain by the window. In fact, all so-called "essences" started to look alike! I got some good portraits and learned some valuable things, don't get me wrong. Then I started noticing what was less important, and I think my work turned a corner. And I'm just as likely to do it in color as in black and white. Because I'm not as concerned with extracting out the essence. I'm concerned with getting to know a little bit about someone at a moment in time.

AJHingel · August 30, 2010

I prefer your pictures to your description of what you're doing or trying to do

</blockquote>

Fred you cannot chose to your liking my photos or my writings. They are one and the same, if the question is on my photography. Apart from I shoot and think in French and strive to describe it here in English. That you don't see the essence of Paris (whatever that is) in my photos either shows that you cannot see it or that I have not managed to shoot it.

However my photography is not the question in this thread. Doubt is.

When you write that

Doubt is embracing the uncertainty that is non-essence

</blockquote>

it goes beyond my head. Sorry!

fate_faith_change_chains · August 30, 2010

The fleeting essence of Paris was ( and will always be ) photographed by Atget, along with the work as a whole being the quintessence of photography. It seems like doubt is mostly an attachment to any possibly outcome or answer already held. Detachment then brings certainty without a doubt, which needs not be a lack of curiosity or asking questions.

aplumpton · August 30, 2010

I understand Anders having doubts about how to photograph a city like Paris. It is not easy. I love the city and the chance to communicate with the Parisians, but I have taken only photos to date there that are pretty much cliché, what most photographers shoot when there, the popular sights. Although I do not master architectural photography as well as Anders, I think that is an important aspect of the place. When I mentioned the rows of bikes and especially motos, which is very related to the city life (outside of the tourist sites), I was thinking of what defines Paris life for Parisians like it doesn't define it in New York or Toronto or Montréal.

My own doubt is that, despite my fluency in and a love of the French language, and affinity with the French people, I may not bring to the project the right credentials. While I even prefer the news and provocative talk programs on French TV we get here versus much of our own stuff of the same ilk (which however interesting is often too condescending to the interviewees), I am a North American and see Paris through those eyes and mind. Can I reject my North American preconceptions and photograph with the required freedom of spirit? Only partially, I think. As a North European (I think), Anders is probably more in tune with the life there.

Black and white is useful to extract the essence in some scenes. it can be quite powerful as a medium in portraiture, in extracting the essential, although colour is not an impediment in portraiture as it sometimes can be in busy street scenes, where a kaleidoscope of colours can sometimes obfuscate or even obscure the message (something which we can contrast to even larger scale natural scenes, where the variation in colour tones (like green) is often more important than the variation of the number of colours). Colour, I believe, needs to be used in a parsimonious way in city scenes. When we look at a photograph, all of the colours hit us immediately, unlike our normal seeing method of scanning parts of a wider scene and seeing only parts of it at any instant.

On the subject of the quest for masterpieces, as Fred mentions, I think it is one thing we should absolutely always shoot for, with the exception of our informal or less objective photography. Having doubts about achieving that in specific cases (faced with specific obstacles of understanding or of realisation in any one image) is not anormal. What I have few doubts about, though, is my passion and clarity of aim in seeking that illusive perfection.

Norma Desmond · August 30, 2010

"Doubt is embracing the uncertainty that is non-essence" --Fred

Plato demanded essences. His entire philosophy depended not on each chair but on the IDEA of chairness, the ESSENCE of what it is to be a chair. Today, many philosophers find that that what it is to be a chair is more living and flowing than Plato imagined, not fixed. There is nothing that all chairs partake of that makes them chairs. You can't sit in all of them, they don't all have legs, etc., etc., and so forth. Their is no essence of a chair. There is its context and our perspective on it.

This makes for less certainty and more doubt. If there is no essence of Paris, if there are many Parises, many views of Paris, many contexts in which Paris can be seen, if the Paris seen through the dirty windows of a modern taxi is every bit as real and true as the Paris seen by the lady wearing a ball gown going to opera back in the 1800s, then we, ourselves have to come up with something to shoot and a perspective from which to shoot it. There is no perspectiveless Paris. An essence suggests that there IS a Paris without a particular perspective and that we could access it. We have to recognize that what Paris is will always be contextual and will change with time. We can't fix what it is, whether in our minds or with our cameras.

Again, many have embraced (think they'd be dead without embracing) doubt. The idea of doubt as put forth over and over again here suggests an embraced incompleteness. And then comes the search for the essence of things. What could be more complete and less doubtful than such an essence?

jtk · August 30, 2010

Paris has no "essence," of course, but like most of us I like to think about Hausmann (not his dictator-service, of course), motor scooters, bistros...nostalgia.

Alan Furst (Alan Furst, wonderful espionage novelist <a href="http://alanfurst.net/index.htm">http://alanfurst.net/index.htm</a> ) commented in an interview that, looking down a Paris street in the wee hours he saw a feeble "bar" sign, worrying that it might be retro rather than authentic).

Experiences that may be missed by visitors of only a few days include RER's cross-section of humanity (mostly admirable, like NY subway), the hideous war-zone slums, the occupation of les Halles area, when stores are about to close, by bussed-in hundreds of police, who walk fearfully in groups of five. And the packs of thugs who justify those cops. And of course there's La Défense, an epitome of French bipolar thinking.

Norma Desmond · August 30, 2010

"On the subject of the quest for masterpieces, as Fred mentions, I think it is one thing we should absolutely always shoot for" --Arthur

I just want to be clear, because Arthur referenced me, that I was saying that for me the quest for masterpieces is a waste of time. As much of a photographic waste of time for me as the search for essences or perfection.

fate_faith_change_chains · August 30, 2010

There's <a href="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41K154fyqnL.jpg">Eggleston's</a> Paris, <a href="http://www.librabooksandart.com/bookimages/nr.130.jpg">Brassai's</a> Paris, <a href="http://www.manhattanrarebooks-art.com/images/photography/Atget%20Vols%201000.jpg">Atget's</a> Paris, <a href="../photodb/folder?folder_id=935652">Anders'</a> Paris...While all transitory as a place ( like NYC, etc... ) it has its own fixed semiology, which underscores its essence('s).

fate_faith_change_chains · August 30, 2010

Consider the skyline of NYC without the Twin Towers, but they're still there, somewhere. This also on a microscopic scale in the streets of Paris or whenever where ever. Perhaps that's the *essence of essence*, its dependency on memory.

aplumpton · August 30, 2010

John,

you have again come up with a phrase, "bipolar thinking", to challenge our imagination. So I Googled "bipolar thinking - definition, and came up only with the medical disease. I guess you mean that "La Défense" is in that category? Can you explain? On the contrary, I see "La Défense" (where a friend works) as a mark of modern France, of post war rebuilding, and of the successful parts of the economy. Some very good architectural photography, semi-abstract photography and street photography possibilities as well. It's in my own list.

If there is such a thing as bipolar thinking, and if I understand your term, it may be related to a very singular and mediatic way of seeing life in France as slums, riots and racial confrontation. Of course, its much more than that, just as Katrina does not speak for the lack of success of community support in all of America (not at all, I believe).

Norma Desmond · August 30, 2010

Phylo, with transitory, essenc(es), and memory, you've got my attention. All of these seem worth considering in the context of taking a picture of Paris.

antoniobassiphotography · August 30, 2010

Guys, the discussion is gettin' extremely interesting. I'll be gone for a few days for work and won't be able to be with you. I'll try to catch up later. Keep going!

aplumpton · August 30, 2010

Ferd,

you are, like I am admitting to John above, not so easy to follow at times, although more transparent with glib sarcasm that kind of shuts the door on other opinions, rather than benefitting from the pleasure of pursuing them.

I am observing that, but not criticising your approach, as I appreciate your style and perhaps your need to confront opinions (as you have previously said) in order for you to confirm whether you are on the track or not (or some such thing). It doesn't always allow subtle back and forths, to push forward different ideas to advantage, but if it is useful, I would say "go for it." Again I would stress that it is "neither here nor there" to me (I too relish strong opinions).

But I am a bit perplexed when you say that yo are not seeking to produce a masterpiece (or, synonomously, the quest of something of mastery skill):

"When I used to say I want to capture the essence, what I really meant was I want to create a masterpiece".

I guess I should interpret the term "used to"? Whatever, I personally don't think there is anything wrong in seeking perfection, whether in arts, in vocation, or in some profession. We probably never attain it, but the desire to acieve, including our doubts in that regard, doesn't hurt in allowing us to progress further.

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