Telling trivia from truth.

[Landrum Kelly]

<p>There is the disturbing suggestion here and there throughout this thread that one's vision is somehow deficient if one does not recognize the greatness of Eggleston's photo of the red ceiling.</p>

<p>The photo is not bad, but to have it become a (much less "the") litmus test of one's photographic vision is ludicrous.</p>

<p>--Lannie</p>

[luis_g]

<p><strong>Lannie - "</strong>There is the disturbing suggestion here and there throughout this thread that one's vision is somehow deficient if one does not recognize the greatness of Eggleston's photo of the red ceiling.</p>

 

<p>The photo is not bad, but to have it become a (much less "the") litmus test of one's photographic vision is ludicrous."</p>

<p>Who suggested that? For the record, I never thought, said or implied such a thing. Nor is it one of my favorite Egglestons. Litmus test? I thought it was cited as an example of a photograph of a banal subject.</p>

 

[Landrum Kelly]

<p>I am not talking about you, Luis, but certain disturbing implications have been there in certain comments. It is true that the photo was first mentioned as an example of a photograph of a banal subject, but some seemed to want to use the discussion of it as a vehicle for suggesting much more than that.</p>

<p>If I were going to use an Eggleston photo as a vehicle for discussing how it is that we cultivate photographic vision, I would personally have used one of his others--ones which are more powerful for me. I am still puzzled that he found it so powerful. I am not sure that that makes my vision deficient, as has been strongly suggested.</p>

<p>There has been a strong elitist, insider tone that I find quite off-putting. as if some here were claiming to see more than others. That gets very old after a while.</p>

<p>--Lannie</p>

[Landrum Kelly]

<blockquote>

<p>Little art has come about by just going out/or in there shooting.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Anders, I am certainly not one to want to criticize analysis. If I were of that sort, then I would not be one of the denizens who inhabit this forum.</p>

<p>I do wonder, however, how much some very great photographers engaged in the kind of discourse found here or in art criticism anywhere. I really have no idea. I do think that, at a minimum, great photographers would have had to have shot and viewed--and also analyzed--many photos, whether their own or those of others.</p>

<p>If I had to choose so starkly, I would choose photographic experience over being literate in art or photographic criticism. Fortunately, I do not have to choose so starkly.</p>

<p>How does one cultivate photographic vision? That is a very good question. I imagine that one does it best of all by taking photographs, if one single activity had to be chosen above all others.</p>

<p>For all I know, taking photos might indeed be sufficient, if combined with critical self-awareness of one's work and one's technique. The vision? Well, there is vision, and then there is vision. . . .</p>

<p>--Lannie</p>

[Julie H]

<p>I can talk <em>and</em> take pictures. Amazing.</p>

<p>We say so we won't have to say. We talk so we won't have to talk. The presence and nature of the unsaid is learned by [first] saying it.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>"There are technical "tribal languages" whose sayings hover near ordinary speech, but in which there are highly determined meanings that are heard only by the initiate and not by the ordinary listener. The unsaid can be missed in unlearned listening."</p>

<p>" ... [The initiate learns] to hear the echoing and reverberating horizonal significance of the unsaid."<br>

-- <em>Don Ihde</em>, Listening and Voice (2007)</p>

</blockquote>

[AJHingel]

<p>Landrum, yes I know you are not that type of person and yet you expressed yourself like it when mentioning your tiredness ... Going out shooting can never replace the intellectual effort of understanding and learning. It is part of it. Therefor any suggestion that we have to choose is not that relevant.</p>

<p>Some great photographers institutionalized the problem by not involving themselves in discussion on the relative quality of their photos by becoming integrated in structures such as Magnum or magazines like Life that chose for them. Other photographers, fewer, have chosen to express their views openly on the relative merits of photos shot by themselves rot others. I think there is not one way forward but individual ways, fitting to the interest and capabilities of each one of us.</p>

<p>What to do for developing our capability of seeing?<br>

Vast question with no one dimensional answer available. Simple answers are simply not useful. One way of doing this is to chose your parents and close family well and grow up in a milieu that "sees" things around. Most artistic milieus are that type. If that is not available as choice, surely good teachers and mentors are important. For most of us what is important is to challenge our "eyes" by seeing what others have seen. Studying, seeing, visual arts in all it's expressions and variety is therefor one way. My visits the last days to the yearly FIAC contemporary art fair in Paris is such an exercise that can challenge any current ways of seeing art - and understanding current artistic expressions. Going regularly to museums to see and become closely acquintant to the history of art is another way forward. Reading what others have written on art and the mode of seeing. Reading what others have written about the specific strength and weaknesses of photography as mode of seeing in artistic terms is yet another. Shooting photos is surely also a way forward. All of it, and yet more, is necessary for developing the eye and one' capacity of seeing in my eyes (sic!)</p>

<p> </p>

[luis_g]

<p><strong>Lannie - "</strong>I do wonder, however, how much some very great photographers engaged in the kind of discourse found here or in art criticism anywhere."</p>

<p>Some, quite a bit, some very little. There are many books about photographers on photography, where you can find out for yourself. Many working in journalistic, commercial or documentary traditions weren't subject to art criticism until those lines blurred in earnest. Artists were.</p>

<p><strong>LK - "</strong>How does one cultivate photographic vision?"</p>

<p>There is no single answer to that question, particularly because there is no one kind of photographic vision (not to mention kinds of work or ways to actualize it). No road map, no recipe, no path. There are many ways, and any number of them might work for each of us. Generally, develop ourselves. This can't really be done by decimating the plastic on big purchases, etc, which is why one never sees much written on this. The emphasis on photography (as seen right on this site) is on things that can be advertised/bought. As Barbara Kruger inserted in one of her pictures, "I Shop, Therefore I Am."</p>

<p><strong>LK - </strong>"For all I know, taking photos might indeed be sufficient, if combined with critical self-awareness of one's work and one's technique."</p>

<p>That may work perfectly well for you. Or not.</p>

<p><strong>LK - "</strong>The vision? Well, there is vision, and then there is vision. . . ."</p>

<p>Waaait....are you saying some are seeing more than others? :-)</p>

[Landrum Kelly]

<blockquote>

<p>Waaait....are you saying some are seeing more than others? :-)</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Yes, oh, yes, Luis. I am just not sure what "makes" <em>qua</em> creates a great photographer, but you and Anders have given me food for thought.</p>

<p>I would like to know more about Weston's or Adams' artistic upbringings, for example. What about Van Gogh, for that matter, to cross into another medium?</p>

<p>I would also like to know what role genetics plays in having "the eye." I think that it can be learned to a great extent, but some obviously never learn it, and others seem to have a natural knack for, say, framing or finding the perfect crop, among many other manifestations of having "the eye."</p>

<p>--Lannie</p>

[jtk]

<p><strong>Lannie</strong>, fwiw I think very few "great photographers" have ever paid much attention to the work of others except in jealousy (Weston/Stieglitz for example). </p>

<p>I think "greatness" has to do with <strong>commitment and individuality </strong>rather than popularity and critical recognition, which is the reason many have been essayists or photojournalists (Magnum). The sheep/popularity factor explains how "great" correlates with academic or critic/gallery recognition. For example, Szarkowski, unlike AD Coleman, addressed "connoiseurs" rather than photographers. Conniseurs value the thoughts of critics like him as primary criteria, rather than the personal response to significance more likely from active photographers. Some of the gallery-popular simply devise and work a formula that critics can be paid to write about (eg Mapplethorpe). Many of the "greats" have never had recognition of that sort (know the work of Craig Varjabedian, Michael Berman, or Paul Fusco?)</p>

[AJHingel]

<p>Lanie, Van Gogh family ?? Theologists, rich higher middle class ("Bourgeoisie") and art dealers...</p>

[luis_g]

<p>"(know the work of Craig Varjabedian, Michael Berman, or Paul Fusco?)"</p>

<p>Yes.</p>

<p>[stepping on the ping-pong ball in spite of Masterly baiting. *Crunch*]</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p><em>"Masterly baiting."</em> A very visual turn of phrase!<br>

________________________________________<br>

I am able to read because I learned my alphabet, memorized vocabulary words, practiced spelling. I improved my reading by writing and reading a lot.</p>

<p>At one time, I could play classical piano at least proficiently because I took piano lessons, learned to read music, listened to all the records I could get my hands on as a kid, was shown different ways of holding my fingers on the keys, and was told to mimic the human voice.</p>

<p>Photography is no different. Someone may take great pictures without much learning or practice. Most can't. The vast majority can't. Many who think they can can't. Many will take lots of pictures for years on end and never take one that's significant and never even get any better. Quantity usually does not breed quality. Learning doesn't stifle creativity if one knows how to learn, is taught well, and is not blowing hot air when talking about it.</p>

<p>Group interaction and discussion and respect for influence and homage to one's peers has been tried successfully by many (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algonquin_Round_Table">Algonquin Round Table</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dada">Dada in Zurich</a>, <a href="http://www.greencine.com/static/primers/fnwave1.jsp">French New Wave Cinema</a>) and avoided by others.</p>

[aplumpton]

<p>How do you tell a significant image from a more banal one?</p>

<p>Speaking of one's credentials (cognoscente, prior successes, training in this and in other fields of creative expression) provides for me but a fragmentary answer to that question. Yet some general answers and approaches to distinguishing quality in a work can be seen here amongst some of the more directed responses to date to this question.</p>

<p>If the interest exists for the elaboration or understanding amongst us of some values that determine why specific images are significant (in terms of their communication, aesthetics, etc.), this discussion could possibly evolve further than it has, either here or in another future OP. There are two ways we can approach that:</p>

<p>By providing and discussing specific examples (the WHY), as sought in the present OP;</p>

<p>or,</p>

<p>by discussing one's personal values or approach in photography and the creation of images, without recourse to a critique of known significant works that demonstrate those values.</p>

<p>For those interested in the latter, the value of the approach as opposed to the WHY of significant images, Fred's recent OP on Value is a very appropriate venue. I hope that both concepts or questions will receive "full disclosure". as they say.</p>

[luis_g]

<p><strong>Arthur - "</strong>How do you tell a significant image from a more banal one?"</p>

<p>From the detection end: An unusual image is, by definition, a rare anomaly or aberration, and not necessarily because of originality. One has to at least be familiar with the banal -- and what lies above it -- in order to understand what rises above that category, and where it fits.</p>

<p>From the production end: You cannot follow any prescriptions or treasure maps that will take you to doing first-class work, though some things can't hurt.</p>

<p>About the values one already has: If they haven't propelled you to that happy (significant?) place yet...maybe the list needs some additions and deletions.</p>

<p> </p>

[fate_faith_change_chains]

<blockquote>

<p><strong>Arthur - "</strong>How do you tell a significant image from a more banal one?"</p>

</blockquote>

<p>More significantly, how do you tell when a banal image is significant, or when a significant one is banal ? </p>

<p>( By giving up 'significance' )</p>

[aplumpton]

<p><em>"About the values one already has: If they haven't propelled you to that happy (significant?) place yet...maybe the list needs some additions and deletions."</em></p>

<p>And to that Luis I think you should add...."or photographic experience and practice". A photographer may have the right values but has not yet been successful in making them manifest in his work.</p>

<p>Phylo: Definitely no. That's nonsense.</p>

<p>Significance is just the adjective. Write "supreme" or "outstanding" if you prefer.</p>

[luis_g]

<p><strong>Phylo - </strong>Since I also had trouble with the word 'significance' as Fred introduced it here, could you possibly expand a little on your statement: "By giving up 'significance'"?</p>

<p>_____________________</p>

<p><strong><br /></strong><br>

[Luis]<em>"About the values one already has: If they haven't propelled you to that happy (significant?) place yet...maybe the list needs some additions and deletions."</em><br>

<strong>Arthur - "</strong>And to that Luis I think you should add...."or photographic experience and practice".</p>

<p>That was so very obvious that I took it for granted everyone knew it.</p>

<p><strong>Arthur - "</strong>A photographer may have the right values but has not yet been successful in making them manifest in his work."</p>

<p>There really are no 'right' or wrong values. When I look at current art, I am seeing far more manifested intelligence, wit, etc than values. Step outside of that into documentary, journalism, propaganda, etc, and values become more of a priority.</p>

<p> </p>

[fate_faith_change_chains]

<blockquote>

<p><strong>Phylo - </strong>Since I also had trouble with the word 'significance' as Fred introduced it here, could you possibly expand a little on your statement: "By giving up 'significance'"?</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Arthur asked "How do you tell a significant image from a more banal one ?"</p>

<p>Let me ask : How do you tell a significant subject from a more banal one ?</p>

<p>Answering my own question, does it really matter, when a banal subject too can render a significant image, and vice versa.</p>

<p>By 'giving up significance', we might no longer go looking for it in the subject photographed, for the photograph to be rendered significant for us or not, and start looking at <em>the image in the photograph</em>.</p>

<p>Which because of photography's nature ( the photograph <=> the subject photographed ) is not an easy task, unless maybe one stops searching for significance as something inherent in what the camera was pointed at, because the camera was pointed at it.<br /> ---------<br /> Mmmm, come to think of it, essentially all photographs, are just that, equal in their being a photograph, one not any more or less significant than the next.</p>

<p>Again coming back to Arthur's question of "How do you tell a significant image from a more banal one ?"<br /> How about : How does the image <> subject tells us whether it's significant or banal, instead of we telling ourselves ?</p>

[aplumpton]

<p>Phylo and Luis, I admit to perhaps not giving enough time and thought to this recent discussion (or perhaps the limitation is more inherent in myself....), but if I understand Phylo we should be more concerned with what the image tells us, which can be reduced to the subject itself, which I think he feels has its own life, rather than the composition of that, as was perceived and created by the photographer.</p>

<p>Are we talking of two separate yet interrelated identities, namely what the photographer's (or artist's) creation tells us, and on the other hand, what the subject photographed tells us? Does that really eliminate the question of a banal versus a significant (or outstanding) image? Perhaps not (my understatement, if you wish).</p>

<p>The floating scale of perceived value between a banal and a significant image is that created by the viewer, or viewers (Mr. or Mrs. Everybody, the cognoscente, critics, society...), as he, she or they find new things to consider in each of these initially categorised (or not) images. </p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p>My introduction to significance came about 40 years ago, reading Suzanne Langer. I've started several threads on the subject where I've quoted from Langer extensively in order to communicate that I use "significance" very differently than to mean "importance." Langer uses music to describe what she means because it is the most non-verbal and non-subject oriented of the arts, but she also transfers these thoughts to the other arts. I don't agree with everything she says, though she has great insights and I appreciate her nuancing of the subject. Regardless of that, this is one of her descriptions of significance, keeping in mind that the root of the word is "sign." It should clarify why I use the word, though others may use it differently in these forums. It also speaks to Phylo's orientation toward subject and photograph.</p>

<p>[Like a lot of philosophy, Langer builds in this excerpt. She describes some views in order to make clear her progression, so it's important not to get hung up on individual statements which could be misleading out of the greater context. She often presents a view (which might be mistakenly taken as hers) only to follow it up with a question and important refinement.]</p>

<p> </p>

<blockquote>

<p>There is an aesthetic based on liking and disliking, a hunt for a sensationist definition of beauty, and a conception of art as the satisfaction of taste . . . it seems to be an essentially barren adventure.</p>

<p>Another kind of reaction to music, however, is more strking, and seems more significant: that is the emotional response it is commonly supposed to evoke.</p>

<p>This inquiry took for granted what Charles Avison, a British musicologist and organist, said in 1775: ". . . We are by turns elated with joy, or sunk in pleasing sorrow, rouzed to courage, or quelled by grateful terrors, melted into pity, tenderness, and love, or transported to the regions of bliss, in an extacy of diving praise."</p>

<p>The terms "pleasing sorrow" and "grateful terrors" present something of a puzzle. If music really grieves or frightens us, why do we listen to it? "The sorrows and terrors of music," Avison explained, "are not our own, but are sympathetically felt by us."</p>

<p>But if we are moved by sympathy, with whom are we sympathizing? The obvious answer is: the musician's. He who produces the music is pouring out the real feelings of his heart.</p>

<p>In this form the doctrine has come down to our day, and is widely accepted my musicians and philosophers alike. . . . We find the belief very widely disseminated that music is an emotional catharsis, that its essence is self-expression.</p>

<p>Yet the belief that music is essentially a form of self-expression meets with paradox in very short order. Sheer self expression requires no artistic form. A lynching-party howling round the gallows-tree, a woman wringing her hands over a sick child, a lover who has just rescued his sweetheart in an accident and stands trembling, sweating, and perhaps laughing or crying with emotion, is giving vent to intense feelings; but such scenes are not occasions for music or composing. Not even a theme, "translating an impression of keenest sorrow," is apt to come to a man, a woman, or a mob in a moment when passionate self-expression is needed. <em>The laws of emotional catharsis are natural laws, not artistic.</em></p>

<p>Music is not "self-expression"; it is exposition of feelings which may be attributed to persons on the stage or fictitious characters in a ballad. In pure instrumental music without dramatic action, there may be a high emotional import which is not referred to any subject, and the glib assurance of some program writers that this is the composer's protest against life, cry of despair, vision of his beloved, or what not, is a perfectly unjustified fancy for if music is really a language of emotion, it expresses primarily the composer's knowledge of human feeling, not how or when that knowledge was acquired.</p>

<p>From Wagner I take what may be the most explicit rendering of the principle: "What music expresses, is eternal, infinite and ideal; it does not express the passion, love, or longing of such-and-such an individual on such-and-such an occasion, but passion, love or longing in itself, and this it presents in that unlimited variety of motivations, which is the exclusive and particular characterstic of music."</p>

<p>Despite the romantic phraseology, this passage states quite clearly that music is not self-expression, but formulation and representation of emotions, moods, mental tensions and resolutions—a "logical picture" of sentient, responsive life, a source of insight, not a plea for sympathy. Feelings revealed in music are essentially not "the passion, love or longing of such-and-such an individual," inviting us to put ourselves in that individual's place, but are presented directly to our understanding, that we may grasp, realize, comprehend these feelings, without pretending to have them or imputing them to anyone else. Its subject-matter is the same as that of "self-expression," and its symbols may even be borrowed, upon occasion, from the realm of expressive symptoms; yet the borrowed suggestive elements are formalized, and the subject-matter "distanced" in an artistic perspective.</p>

<p>The notion of "psychical distance" as the hallmark of every artistic "projection" of experience does not make the emotive contents typical, general, impersonal, or static; but it makes them conceivable, so that we can evisage and understand them without verbal helps, and without the scaffolding of an occasion wherein they figure. A comoposer not only indicates, but articulates subtle complexes of feeling that language cannot even name, let alone set forth; he knows the forms of emotion and can handle them, <em>compose</em> them. We do not compose our exclamations and jitters.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>She goes a little too far for me in claiming so strongly that music is not self-expression but I think there's a lot to be gained from her understanding of the lack of a necessary one-to-one correlation between the emotions of an artist and the emotional content of the artwork.</p>

[aplumpton]

<p>How can an artist create feelings of "passion, love or longing in itself" (Her Wagner example, prossibly based on the many instances of these in the Ring of the Nibelungen) without knowing these feelings and thereby composing what he knows? There is not normally I would think an arms length manner of composing a photograph or music in which emotions are displayed. Agreed that the Langer defintion of self-expression is somewhat unique and limited in definition (to only the raw feeling with impulse that she gives examples of, and not artistic self-expression), and it is likely true that the photographs or music do not rely on such specific feelings of the originator, at least not instantaneously, at the moment of composition, but they may influence the course of the composer's experience and later desire to portray more generic feelings of passion or love or longing (or fear, or stress, or other feelings) in a work.</p>

<p>Photography, like music, can also induce feelings in the recipient and I believe this is one aspect for a criteria of whether, for a specific viewer, a photograph is special or banal. There are of course other criteria. For instrumental music to evoke feelings, decoupled from any stage drama or other visual complement, requires a composer well versed in the musical forms and elements, and the effect of the assembling of these, often in highly varying form, on what sparks a human emotional response. I often have feelings of deep emotion upon hearing some compositions. I cannot say why, or fully understand how the composer has achieved that human response. In some images of others, and in some of my own images, I feel an emotional or physical response that is also hard to describe. It does not often go very deep, but it is there. An outstanding image often incites those feelings or the imaginations of the mind in a stronger or more continuous manner. Quite apart from compositional attributes of the image, which may be perceived and enjoyed more on an aesthetic plane, these feelings received from viewing can certainly lift an image out of the trivial category.</p>

<p>Langer says little about the significance of the composition itself, that which one can read on paper, or listen to, and which relates to the beauty of the way the music is crafted, put together, and the impact of that on the listener. As a non-emotional content of an image, it is a purely visual or two dimensional composition in which the non-emotional form is the product.</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p><em>"For instrumental music to evoke feelings, decoupled from any stage drama or other visual complement, requires a composer well versed in the musical forms and elements, and the effect of the assembling of these, often in highly varying form, on what sparks a human emotional response."</em></p>

<p>Yes, Arthur, this is what Langer is getting at. I like the way you said it.</p>

<p>As far as the "arm's length manner" you mention, that happens to me sometimes. Several of my own best (I know, bad word) photos have been taken when I'm more focused on working hard than anything else. That doesn't mean that emotion is not going into them. Of course it is. But I think Langer is onto something when she talks about the mother wringing her hands over a sick child. That kind of emotion has a profound effect on the artist and goes into the photographer's work in some way, but the wringing of the hands is a different kind of emotional exclamation than is the taking of a picture. Because a photograph may have a certain amount of deliberateness behind it and is not (merely) a crying sound or heavy breathing or the trembling we feel when we are afraid, she sees a difference between the kind of emotional expression that is a scream or a cry or a trembling and the kind of expression that is the creation of a photograph or piece of music.</p>

<p>I think this is why she italicizes the word "compose." One <em>composes</em> a piece of music or composes or constructs a photograph. One does not <em>compose</em> a cry of ecstasy when having sex or a cry of hatred when burning a cross in someone's front yard.</p>

<p>You ask how one can compose what they don't know? How does one write fiction? How does one write about the loss of a child without having lost a child? Fiction. How does Annie Proulx, a woman, write about the love and sexuality of two gay men in <em>Brokeback Mountain</em>. Fiction. Significance. Maybe significance is not the kind of expressing that requires <em>the</em> experience itself.</p>

[jtk]

<p>Only a dead nervous system fails to distinguish significance.</p>

<p>Identifying significance is literally perception's first job. </p>

<p>Finding something "banal" does not relate in any way to significance.</p>

<p>Poets commonly find significance in "banal" phenomena. Some photographers are similarly perceptive.</p>