Doubt

Norma Desmond · August 30, 2010

Arthur, I have given up both the search for essences and for creating masterpieces. I don't want to make "good" photos. I want to make expressive ones, ones that nudge me and a viewer. So many masterpieces only become so at a later date because they don't utilize the clichés, iconography, and universalism that has been previously recognized and accepted. If one sets out to create a masterpiece that necessarily means one is buying into what is already established as worthy of the title, which can be stifling to self-expression if given too much weight.

"Making a good photograph" is a distraction. I don't master my tools in order to make masterpieces. I master them in order to be fluent. Then I am as likely to use that fluency towards imperfection and messiness as I am towards perfection. "Masterpiece" is a judgment which others will or won't make. I may make a photo merely in order to get rid of an ache. "Good"ness will often not apply.

As I said way above, there's a difference between opinions and ingrained habits. I usually use sarcasm, and try to shut the door, on what I perceive to be accepted habitual thinking, not opinions. When you perceive me as being sarcastic or shutting a door, assume it is not an opinion that I am rejecting, but something I think has become habitualized and passively accepted. When I do that, if you think I'm wrong, tell me so in substance. Address more than style and feel free to even ignore the style.

aplumpton · August 30, 2010

Fred,

I think you should look at communication in a more all embracing or continual sense and not worry about what you perceive as habitual in parts of it. What pervades our little forum, and I am probably as guilty as anyone, is the tendency to jump on this phrase or that expression and forget the whole or the intent, indeed not even think about, what the other is saying. Much of the communication, mine and including yours, is also not always new or fresh to each of us, and pursuing ideas that may be expressed initially in a form you consider merely habituel may not be so habitual once developed. Judging from a seemingly superior position is sure to brake any discussion. Some persons have trouble expressing themselves, might say something very evident but merit an ear nonetheless. It's something like the sportsman warming up. The pearl is but a small part of the oyster, the gold vein but an infinitely small part of the orebody which has to be somewhat wearily sifted through to get to the nugget. Do you not feel sometimes that we are often speaking only to ourselves? I believe we need to move a bit more closely to debating practice, in which the other's opinions cannot be neglected, for fear of losing the thread.

As they habitually say, just my few cents worth.

Norma Desmond · August 30, 2010

I'm not talking about habitual ways of expressing things. I'm talking about habitual ways of thinking and doing things. I'm very used to the habitual expressions of people here and most often find them endearing. But I think concepts like "essence" are often (not always) embraced without much questioning -- I think the same is true of perfection -- God, essence, and perfection have a lot in common.

The fact that both doubt and perfection are embraced here quite readily and without much evidence of or at least relating of investigation of that relationship, is disconcerting. It's not how that's being expressed that I'm questioning. Have I been any more dogmatic than the oft-repeated sentiment in this thread that "I'm dead when I stop doubting" and, by the way "I'm also searching for perfection"?

Norma Desmond · August 30, 2010

I think Phylo has considered essence in relationship to semiotics, transition, and possible plurality. Discussing it from such a standpoint might deepen its meaning and even suggest the relationship between photographs and such an understanding of "essence." How might a photo transcend context? How might we photograph the memory of Paris? How might we suggest what seems to stay relatively the same and what seems to change? Do we ask these questions or do we go blindly in search of import?

Wouter Willemse · August 30, 2010

In essence, I doubt whether there are any essences, let alone perfection.

Sorry, couldn't resist that one.

The idea of masterpiece and perfection, it seems too singular, too much 'one universal thing'. Instinctively, to me, such things seem to miss dimensions. It's too unilateral, too final - and as such contradicting doubt. As said, this is more an instinct reaction than one I can very wel substantiate. But I wanted to share the thought nonetheless.

So, for what it's worth, I am not searching for perfection. Perfection is boring. I do not believe in the essence of anything. I'm just one of many observers, filling in the larger picture from my mind, background and knowledge. Not extremely unique, but not something universally shared either. Anything that could "approach perfection" for me, could be inbelievably flawed for others.

Taking those concepts back to doubt and photography. Why take the second photo, if you did not doubt the first one would be complete (perfect?) enough? If the first one catches the essence, there is no need for a second photo. We'd all be done.

It is doubt, and its more active brother curiosity, makes us think, consider, see alternatives and options. That makes us investigative enough to keep trying and keep creating. To me, the quest for perfection and the Idea are nice academic discussions, but not very applicable to what I'm actually doing. Even worse, extend perfection and the essence to its maximum: it's when we know all the answers to all questions... and then what are we going to do to keep ourselves at least a bit entertained?

AJHingel · August 30, 2010

To be as concrete as possible I can tentatively describe my working hypothesis of whether I have touched something near the essence of a city like Paris or any other city with a "soul" is that:

either I manage to shoot a small partial view of something in the city that all that know the slightest about the city immediately can recognize as PARIS - an image that brings to the viewer the smells, the noise; the feeling and the love of the city, with it;

or, I manage to shoot one of the most known landmarks like the Eiffel tower or the boulevards in a novel manner and the viewer immediately see something else or more than the physical thing and structure.

I don't understand why a geographical place like a city cannot have en "essence" or a "soul" that communicates to people living in the place or even just passing by, like any actively observant visitor. Personally I feel such "souls" of places and especially of cities or forests and they inspirer me in my photography - or I don't feel it and the camera stays in the bag.

aplumpton · August 30, 2010

Wouter,

Alas, perfection and the search to build a a "Valhalla" is a national (Canadian) disease, which I know afflicts my Japanese friends, and probably many of those south of our border. In our work, perfection is not a question, it's an objective, even the mission. If the boss is slow to require it, then the client does. Somewhat inescapable. Yes, play is another and necessary thing, and there we can forget the quest for perfection. So, photography for most of us can be either play, as we choose, or it can be objective driven (on different levels of intensity, "bien sur").

"Personally I feel such "souls" of places and especially of cities or forests and they inspire me in my photography" (Anders)

A very compatible thought. Thanks.

Norma Desmond · August 30, 2010

Anders, I appreciate your giving meanings to what you referred to as "essence." From there, we can perhaps build photographically. I think reminding of or stimulating senses of smell and touch, sound, noise, attachment to the city can be accomplished photographically. The question becomes: How? How do we communicate such recognition in such a way as not simply to represent it. Postcards make sights and cities recognizable and bring up memories. What do you do, photographically speaking, to go beyond that? Are there examples in your portfolio that you might point to and say specifically what elements in the photo try to accomplish what it is you're after? Thanks.

luis_g · August 30, 2010

Wouter, I tend to think of "perfection" as reserved for the Gods, if there's any, but everyone I've known and whose work I've seen or read has experienced at least moments that were either perfect, or damned close to perfect. I've had more than my share of those moments, too, and not just in a Whitmanesque sense. Some were spectacular, others subtle, almost unnoticeable. Then I ask myself what is perfection? Maybe it is what we expect it to be, or as rare as we imagine it. Maybe every moment is unfolding in absolute perfection, but we are too rational to see it. Maybe the whole idea is another delusion that inspires many.

_________________________________________

Fred, if there's one essence, and we capture it, isn't that like scoring a goal? Photography ceases to be an art, and becomes a game.

__________________________________________

Anders - "...we all have to live the fact that modern city life in ancient cities means change"

And if that is so, do you think that the essence, if there is one, stays immutable? Could what some call essence possibly be a dialog between the photographer and the photographed? Something living, in the sense that you return after a year or two, and neither you nor the city or the forest are the same. Maybe soul is something that is not possessed, but shared.

__________________________________________

Phylo - Yes, it's like Havana, Cuba. Everyone who's anyone in photography has been to Cuba and photographed the decrepit city, the bridesmaid of unwed dreams, and everyone returns with their own private Havana/Cuba. Each work is like a facet on a diamond. The light it takes in can only be released through another facet. The light that streams from it came from another.

AJHingel · August 30, 2010

Fred asked

How might we photograph the memory of Paris?

</blockquote>

The memory I would not dare approaching but it's history yes.

If I shoot a scene from Avenue Trudaine in the 9th Arrondissement, between Gare du Nord and Boulevard Nay (Pigalle) some Parisians would remember it's recent violent history because of the shooting of three policemen almost twenty years ago by the French terrorist group Action Directe. I know it, so I cannot walk in the street or shoot the place without that in mind. I smell the gun powder in some sort. However, I need to say it, write it, in capital letters for making the story by my photos.

History on the other hand is part of any search for the essence or soul of the city. The structure of the ancient <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Plan_de_Paris_Lutece2_BNF07710745.png">Gallo-Roman city of Lutetia</a> is still there under your feet when you walk in the city of Paris, hidden in the streets and structure of the city (Rue Saint-Jacques for example). The royal castle, Louvre, of the 12th century is very much there although rebuild repeatably throughout its violent history. The city of the French revolution of the 18th century is engraved in stones and places throughout the city. The commune uprising of the 19th century is hidden in many small streets and squares together with the places of execution of the communards. The streets of the student movements in the Latin quarter of the 1960s are still without paving setts and military police are still stationed nearby in case etc etc.

All cities have a history. One cannot shoot photos of the essence of a city without an in-depth knowledge of the place in history and it's habits/ways of living ("moeurs"). Some cities carry their history for everyone to see it or discover it, other cities have hidden it or destroyed it deliberately - or have had it destroyed by war. To stay in France, visit the city of Rouen (West of Paris) for example, destroyed by bombing of the Allied air-forces in 1944. It took some twenty years to rebuild something that looked like an ancient city again.

Norma Desmond · August 30, 2010

Luis, yes and yes, like scoring a goal and like a game.

By the way, it's too appropriate not to reproduce here. Does anyone hear sarcasm in Dylan's voice?

Oh, the streets of Rome are filled with rubble Ancient footprints are everywhere You can almost think that you’re seein’ double On a cold, dark night on the Spanish Stairs Got to hurry on back to my hotel room Where I’ve got me a date with Botticelli’s niece She promised that she’d be right there with me When I paint my masterpiece

Oh, the hours I’ve spent inside the Coliseum Dodging lions and wastin’ time Oh, those mighty kings of the jungle, I could hardly stand to see ’em Yes, it sure has been a long, hard climb Train wheels runnin’ through the back of my memory When I ran on the hilltop following a pack of wild geese Someday, everything is gonna be smooth like a rhapsody When I paint my masterpiece

Sailin’ round the world in a dirty gondola Oh, to be back in the land of Coca-Cola!

I left Rome and landed in Brussels On a plane ride so bumpy that I almost cried Clergymen in uniform and young girls pullin’ muscles Everyone was there to greet me when I stepped inside Newspapermen eating candy Had to be held down by big police Someday, everything is gonna be diff’rent When I paint my masterpiece

_________________________________________

"Got to hurry on back to my hotel room

Where I’ve got me a date with Botticelli’s niece"

Do we think these two lines show reverence for the essence of art or of Italy? I don't. Yet the song thrills me. And it captures something significant.

AJHingel · August 30, 2010

Luis wrote

do you think that the essence, if there is one, stays immutable?

</blockquote>

I surely do not think it is immutable. It changes over time together with my capacity of perceiving it.

However, one question is about the quality of the "essence" - that I would rather call "soul" - What is it?

Another question is whether a city has it or does not have it.

I can only observe this great difference between cities the "have soul" (Paris, Rome, Tokyo, Hong Kong) and cities that do not have "soul" (Brussels for example) - as experienced by me with great impact on my photography because I shoot very little or nothing at all in cities where I cannot catch the essence/soul.

I think this feeling of the presence of an essence or soul of a city can be compared to what has been discussed many times here in this forum. The experience of catching the character of portrayed people.

Wouter Willemse · August 30, 2010

Luis, sure, I have one such recollection, but it is private. Perfect, for me, or you, or Anders, etc. What I read in earlier posts, maybe incorrectly, was a shared, more universal (or indeed divine?) perfection. One a personal level, agree that it is doable. But how to actually reach it, is another question, to me it was like a moment of bliss - more luck than wisdom in getting it.

Arthur, I'm not saying one should not strive for it. To strive for perfection is not admitting the goal is reachable. But I prefer the somewhat more realistic 'to improve'. My job (service and support related) teaches me often enough that business perfection can be perceived as utter junk by customers, and vice versa.

jtk · August 30, 2010

<a href="http://www.vrmag.org/issue14/MODERN_PARIS_LA_DEFENSE_VIRTUAL_PANORAMAS_BY_LAURENT_THION.html">http://www.vrmag.org/issue14/MODERN_PARIS_LA_DEFENSE_VIRTUAL_PANORAMAS_BY_LAURENT_THION.html</a>

Fred, I don't think the 1958-conceived La Defense is worthy of the City. Who cares? I'm a New Mexican.

Paris has demolished herself in the past and with any luck will do a little of that again with La Defense (and of course, Les Halles), but only after it does something creative and positive about its nightmare, hi-rise, lawless warrens of substantially lost-hope Francophone and neo-Francophone North Africans. Sarkozy's approach to his "Gypsy problem" may suggest "modernity" similar to the way La Defense once did (authority! power!), if modernity points to the future. And it may remind some of what Paris did to its Jews during the German occupaton (see my earlier Alan Furst link for a lite version).

btw I didn't have the courage to photograph those warrens when I got lost in them, but I did photograph Paris cops on in-line skates, carrying off an arrestee in Les Halles. Bad photo, amusing memory.

aplumpton · August 30, 2010

Doubting whether there is an (or many) essence (s) of Paris seems to deny its character. Photographing Paris to capture it is perhaps another thing. The character is not only masde of visual symbols.

I am convinced Paris needs to be lived in to fully understand it, and possibly for a good time. Anders described the soul of Paris and its history. While there are few visible remains of the presence of the Parisi tribe that inhabited before the Romans (on the Ile de France), it is a city that maintains a close link to its past. Vercingetorix successfully fought off Caesar’s invasion but eventually lost and was transported to and sacrificed in Rome. Not much relationship perhaps to the present, but if you stay in the 14th Arrondissement (near the HCB museum) you can walk his street and another, Alesia, the place of his losing battle. Everyone knows all about him of course.

But the Parisian memory is not just long term, it encompasses very much the resistant fighters of WW2 and many streets are named after individuals, often where they were shot. Not far from Vercingetorix is the museum of General Leclerc and the history of the resistance. Hard to visit the latter without being very moved by their audacity, also to be moved by the refusal of the occupying German general to leave Paris in ruins. The two major cemeteries, Montparnasse and Pierre Lachaise, poles apart, deep on either side of the Seine, bury millions and the French (and others) visit them often, as they are the resting places of so many artists, composers, philosophers, politicians and popular artists.

Every street has its part of the history and life iof Paris, with some, as in Montmartre the sites where most of the 20,000 Communards died in the 1870 revolt. One Medieval street, Menilmontant street in the 20th Arr. was too distant to be touched by Haussmann's 19th century road rebuilding (which nonetheless left some of Medieval Paris behind the boulevard buildings) and occupies its place of Medieval times, still a street of a less than highly affluent community, where, after Montmartre and Montparnasse, the artists now congregate. Stepping by chance into a simple church there is rewarded with the unexpected presence of an amazing abstract wooden sculpture, running from floor level to the top of the vaulted roof. Elsewhere, on the Ile de France, the elegance of Louis's IX's 13th century Sainte Chapelle, is overpowering, but you can informally wander in off the street most evenings and for about 25 Euros listen to the "Archets de Paris" play Purcell, Vivaldi, Fauré or Rameau. In the tourist region, near St-Michel, the identity is maintained by the nearby Medieval Museum, and by the Sorbonne (with the written notes of the Trial of an intelligent Jeanne d'Arc) and close by, Louis XIVs Académie des Sciences and Académie Francaise. The soul has not been fully forfeited to tourism.

The history of change over the centuries is tempestuous and one observes it everywhere. Almost every street. It is part of the being of many Parisians. You walk everywhere (it is truly a walking city) in the 10 or so more central arrondissements, even at night, and with little or no threat or feeling of danger. The music and songs of Charles Trenet, Jacques Brel, Mousstaki, Léo Ferré and others of the popular music revival started by Edith Piaff with a participation of Félix Leclerc, a troubadour, is still remembered and played and expanded greatly with contemporary singer-composers, is palpable. As in London, requesting information or directions is met with great politeness and even curiosity. It is hard not to love such a city, or rather, its people and their customs.

John, every city has its bad side or contrioversial architecture (you and Prince Charles have probably similar thoughts about moderrn architecture and La Defense, which is built much outside the old city). The racial problems pale compare to some places and recent immigrants or their progeny make up a large part of Sarkozy's government, which also includes some politicians from the Socialist party.

Norma Desmond · August 30, 2010

John, your comment about La Defense should have been addressed to Arthur, who was discussing it with you.

jtk · August 30, 2010

Fred and Arthur leave similar, but crossing tracks :-)

Norma Desmond · August 30, 2010

Or perhaps you don't read well or don't pay attention to what you're doing. You address the wrong person quite frequently, and it's not just Arthur and me. You've done it with Luis and several others. But feel free to characterize us as you like. It's amusing. Your version of "beauty."

jtk · August 30, 2010

Arthur, the romantic in you missed little, save mention of the City's arguably most important music, the jazz invented by Django Reinhardt and his Hot Club of Paris (largely Louis Armstrong-inspired). Django was of course a Manouch Gypsy from Belgium.

And there's the less commonly expressed reason for the beautiful, wide intersections in Hausmann's Paris : enfilade (cannon) as crowd control.

Here's a readable and generally affectionate Paris history:

<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Seven-Ages-Paris-Alistair-Horne/dp/0679454810">http://www.amazon.com/Seven-Ages-Paris-Alistair-Horne/dp/0679454810</a>

jtk · August 30, 2010

Sorry about my careless reading.

jtk · August 30, 2010

Sorry about my careless attributions. I do pay more attention to the writing than the writer, and like some others I fail to cite things as well as I might.

Here's a link to someone else's performance of Fred's Bob Dylan lyrics.

<a href="

Norma Desmond · August 30, 2010

Terrible performance. The only saving graces are Bobby's tank top and short shorts.

jtk · August 30, 2010

...but I think Dylan has more to say as an artist (there, I said it!) than about artistry (Create My Masterpiece). Because he created masterpieces from the git go, and I think he knew it.

<a href="

luis_g · August 31, 2010

Arthur - "Doubting whether there is an (or many) essence (s) of Paris seems to deny its character."

I was merely exploring the idea of essence, whether it's local or non-local, a synonym for "soul", how tied is it to an observer, etc. No one is denying Paris anything. Essence is something Anders likens to soul, if I am reading him right. Some cities (and forests) have it, some don't. Many people think the entire planet has soul. Does it have an essence? Could it be photographed? Would that mean every place, even small nameless towns, have soul, even if many can't see it.

Arthur made the point of familiarity, history and understanding with regards to essence. Anders included history. If one can't express doubt in a post with that title...where can we?

AJHingel · August 31, 2010

Fred wrote

Are there examples in your portfolio that you might point to and say specifically what elements in the photo try to accomplish what it is you're after?

</blockquote>

In my eyes none of the photos I shoot and even more less the ones I upload are conceived as postcards. They may be viewed as such by viewers, however I believe in some kind of complacency between the photographer and the viewer to share pictures showing "essence" of places. Personally, and in grave risk of being contradicted, I would believe I go beyond postcards and approach hopefully together with some others something that could be "essence" by photos like the two shown below.<div></div>

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