Creating/taking photographs with themes/references

falcon7 · December 13, 2010

As someone with a background in literature (English teacher/professor and writer) and the visual arts (film, painting, photography), I think the former may have influenced some of my photography in that I will make references or correspondences to suggest meanings outside the image. Giving a literary analogy is probably easier for me, so I'll just give a couple. For example, in a short story I wrote that occurs on the spring (vernal) equinox, the main character drives a Dodge Aries (plus there are other casual descriptions that are meant to add to the spring/equinox theme) -- now I didn't spend time thinking of some arcane reference, it just came out that way. Another example: In a play I wrote with 3 characters -- a homeless person and two social workers, one character says 'Where 2 or 3 are gathered, there shall I be' which is a reference to the new testament. And the play revolves around doing acts of kindness. Again, I didn't try to be clever, just came out that way. So, my question is basically does anyone find themselves taking images that have equivalent visual references or references to other works of art? Not that it's required to appreciate the image, but maybe you find yourself just doing it to try to add another dimension to it?

johncrosley · December 13, 2010

Alan G,

I find myself doing that quite frequently - and when I do it's usually something noted in the huge number of comments under my photos where occasionally literary and other references abound.

It doesn't happen every day, and nothing like 'Aries' for the vernal equinox, but in 1500+ photos, if you browse, them, I am sure you'll come across more than a few, but set aside some time. You may very well find something that pleases you.

Though you sound leagues above me in the 'reference department'.

john

John (Crosley)

AJHingel · December 14, 2010

I don't think I shoot many photos without a heavy reference to what I have read or written over time or films and art works that are buried in my memory.

I'm sure we read or write to very different degrees, but we all walk through life with our eyes wide open - hopefully, that is! Seeing things, that catch our attention, whether it is specific events and situations, specific light or colors, specific places produces memories that permit (forces us) to make references and referents all the time - and some times make our shoot a photo. This is surely the case for all of us whether it is consciously or unconsciously done or whether it is intentional or unintentional. That is how our brains work. You can choose not to shoot a photo because of these ongoing referents, but you can also choose to shoot because of them.

I have just come back from a longer travel to the Far East. The hundred of photos I shot were mostly "illustrations" of my accumulated knowledge of the places I visited (history, philosophy, art, novels, press, people). I shoot when I see things I "recognize" or because they are novel to what I previously have "seen". This is why the viewers of such photos by definition are heavily under-prepared to see and benefit from such shots unless they share the same background and knowledge. It is the deeper "meaning" or explanation of the photos. Some of the information is transmitted through the photo, but mostly, I'm convinced, other referents are made by the viewers. A good photo is when both these processes work in pair.

Julie H · December 14, 2010

Alan, John and Anders,

In your photographs -- in the visual as opposed to the verbal -- do you find that your references or themes work against that theme or reference, or do they work with that reference or theme?

It seems to me that commercial photography and other types of propaganda-ish imagery often/usually aggressively, deliberately, work to reference, theme or type. They aim to scrub out the thing itself and point to a product or an ideology.

Artistic or personally creative imagery, on the other hand, seems to me to often work -- interestingly, fruitfully, where done well -- against its knowingly/intentionally pointed-to reference or theme. Artistic or personal imagery seems to me to exult in exploding out of or from behind the mask or the costume or the form. The thing-itself is made more vivid by exceeding preconceptions and being what it is and what that form or mask or reference is not. That process of recognizing similarity and then/therefore having new or increased or accentuated appreciatiion for dissimilarity can be effective.

AJHingel · December 14, 2010

Julie, there is an interesting concept in sociological and social psychological theory of "role-distance" which I always have had in mind when I observe and shoot social life. People, groups of people, but also structures like architecture, play with the role they are supposed to play, or know they are expected to play, by taking distance from that or those roles. By doing that, they of course confirm their roles but in the same time question them and bring critical element to the fore.

To answer your question on whether my photos work against the theme or reference or work with the theme or reference, I would therefore answer: They do both. Only repeating the theme or reference has maybe a function because of its documentary strength, but fairly boring and straight forward in my eyes. It becomes only interesting if one succeeds in adding this "distance" in the form often of irony or inherent critic to the reference, by looking at extremes for example, that photography becomes interesting.

In that sense very little I do in the field is non-contextual - even those photos that are titled: "for the pleasure of the eye only".

luis_g · December 14, 2010

For me, it is easy to lapse into a numbingly comfortable zone with referents which can only be subsequently escaped through reforms. My way of pre-empting that is to neither focus on the 'with' or 'against' aspects but to dance, play and riff off of it. And, of course, no referent exists in isolation. This is a helpful ideation, one that prevents conceptual hardening (a kind of personal dogmatism), extending the referent itself.

I do not always shoot to a conscious, predetermined theme, either. It's one of the biggest cliche's and marketing tools of art in our age. Prefabbed provenance, if you will.

AJHingel · December 14, 2010

If I understand you right Luis, you are a born-yesterday type of person, never learned anything, never experienced anything, no memory, no words. A blank piece of paper that happens to be able to know how to shoot photos and now as a flash can write about it. Really ? - or are you dreaming ? I would rather believe it is all wishful thinking.

sjmurray · December 14, 2010

Actually, to be honest, I have never put much thought into visual references in my photographs, at least, not intentionally or consciously. I am very intense and exacting about what I am photographing, particularly the composition. And when I'm photographing a person I am trying to get at some "energy." These efforts alone seem to occupy all my attention. I trust the viewers of my photographs will find themes and referents I never suspected that come from their own personal lives.

luis_g · December 14, 2010

Anders, I assume that it was this that evoked your comment? "I do not always shoot to a conscious, predetermined theme, either. It's one of the biggest cliche's and marketing tools of art in our age. Prefabbed provenance, if you will."

[Or did you also have objections to the rest of my post?]

Anders, and I need to be very careful here, you clearly misunderstand me. I stand by every word I wrote, but when you say my ideas are "wishful thinking" or that I am "dreaming" (i.e., delusional), a friendly, respectful and collegial follow-up discussion about ideas is unlikely, if not impossible. I respect you and your ideas, even when I disagree wholeheartedly with them.

Most of my post was addressing Julie's, and how I personally interact with referents.

[Personal Note: I do not suffer from anteroamnesia either, thank you.]

The really neat thing about Alan G's post, in my opinion, is his intuitive, fluid way of thinking in his writing and his photography, and that he does not adhere rigidly to a predetermined theme, but that it pours out of him.

AJHingel · December 15, 2010

Luis ans Steve, I think actually that we, as seen so often before, are discussing at different levels.

There is a great difference between "shooting intentionally according to a theme" and "shooting within the context of a referent being your accumulated stock of knowledge and experience".

The first is easy to identify because of the intentional dimension. You decide to shoot bird-shots or bikini-girls, sunsets or high-noon shots, portraits or still-life shots or whatever attracts you or make a living. You decide. You produce a series of thematic shots. Or you decide not to go for it and shoot what ever comes up following the moods of the day.

The second, which I was referring to, is much more difficult to describe in any details. My reaction to Luis (too direct and harsh, sorry!) was based on this second.

I simple cannot conceive anyone being able to put aside who they are and what they have learned or experienced and look at the world as someone arriving from another planet. We surely see things in the real world that call attention because of referents (accords / disaccords) and never independently of them. That you can intentionally "exploit" such personal referents and take "distance" from them, is one way of working (mine, as mentioned). You can also adhere and nurture them and consider them as your personal photographs eye (mine too, surely). But, you cannot escape such referents.

Of course, I accept, you can chose not to bother and just go on with your normal business, but then we are out of what Julie, as far as I understand, posed as question

Julie H · December 15, 2010

I want to give a rather extensive trio of quotes from an essay by Pierre Borhan on Joel-Peter Witkin ... because I think Witkin is an obvious example of a photographer who uses reference:

"... for Witkin, whose photographic trances certainly represent his most intense moments in life, immersions into the history of art also stem from the need that photography has -- and the need that he has -- to have a histoical basis, to take part in the history of forms by influencing it, and to have this participation be recognized. He integrates it into culture, which sustains creation and thus perpetuates itself. He doesn't want to show that photography can be born from photography -- everyone knows life in a closed world is impoverished -- but that photography is rich enough for him to refer to and dramatically transfigure reality -- and he does not hesitate to do so! He is convinced that one memory of an image is worth as much as another, and that it does not weaken the content of meaning of a new image into which it has been incorporated; the strength of the images results from the osmosis of its components."

[ ... ]

"... The intellectual and artistic links -- communions of soul, partnerships or allusions -- that Witkin establishes with some of his colleagues, painters and photographers, are not about the desire to examine their work under a late 20th century perspective in order to, in one way or other, update it. The links are the result of his own way of living in an undated time, not limited to the present, with people who are not only his contemporaries and facts of himself, but also symbolically eternal beings."

"... Great artists, who are neither uneducated nor inexperienced, choose their heritage. They are not so much the rival of their predecessors, as they are the rival of the world they want to represent, or the rival fo life and death, which they confront in a mad man's fight. Their works, which are born of necessity, have a long-lasting hold: they have the power to haunt."

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I disagree with almost all of that quote. I disagree with some of it vehemently, violently; for example, where Borhan says of Witkin, "He doesn't want to show that photography can be born from photography -- everyone knows life in a closed world is impoverished ..." I think photography CAN/IS born from photography. Certainly it's not divorced from the rest of art, but neither should it suffer from painting-envy. I think it is Witkin who might be accused of working in a "closed world." And the "rival" "confront" "fight" bit in the final quote is polar opposite to what I think of as the photographer's communion with the world.

On the other hand, I rather like "the strength of the images results from the osmosis of its components" and think that that is probably something like what Anders is talking about.

To conclude, I think that overt references to named historical, narrative or mythical characters or events in still photography can and too often does degenerate into the equivalent of what, in Hollywood movies is "gratuitous." Stuff that is there for no other reason than a cheap thrill. Gratuitous violence, gratuitous sex, gratuitous reference.

falcon7 · December 15, 2010

As the O.P., (as they say), I don't want to give the impression I just posted and ran. I'm truly happy to have gotten these thoughtful responses--so thoughtful that I want to consider them before responding, which I am hesitant to do now--being too groggy. I was on the site this morning to check out information about polarizers--a theme that doesn't take quite as much mental effort.

luis_g · December 15, 2010

Anders - "There is a great difference between "shooting intentionally according to a theme" and "shooting within the context of a referent being your accumulated stock of knowledge and experience".

This takes us right back to the issue of intuition. Alan's own explanation of how referents are used in his work is fairly intuitive. Anders' is far more intentional. I sometimes work intentionally with referents (of several kinds) , but sometimes not. There is a stepless gradient from very intentional to subconscious, and each has its strengths and weaknesses.

The subconscious is not the same thing as a complete disassociation from self. We bludgeoned this idea to death several times in Anders' "Intuition". Let's just say we can stay on this planet for now. Unlike Anders, I am not so sure I know what the limits of the human potential are, what can and cannot be escaped (and just because I can or can't do it, doesn't mean everyone else can or cannot) but think there are a multiplicity of approaches to dealing with referents. Julie's post mentioned two general ones in the form of a dichotomy. The main of my post was concerned with this.

I am sorry that I wrote those last few lines because the reaction they evoked eclipsed the rest of my post, which was about using and subverting (therefore perhaps not escaping, but remaining wet and slippery in the relationship) the plasticity and rigidity of referents creatively.

sjmurray · December 15, 2010

Anders: "I simple cannot conceive anyone being able to put aside who they are and what they have learned or experienced and look at the world as someone arriving from another planet."

This is certainly not what I meant when I stated I do not intentionally think about references while taking photographs. I fully agree that everything you do is "within the context of a referent being your accumulated stock of knowledge and experience." I simply "trust my unconscious" to guide my hand in the background, so to speak, while I concentrate on my conscious efforts at composition, etc. I also want to bring up the notion again, that the people viewing a photograph bring with them an ample supply of "accumulated stock of knowledge and experience" of their own from which they will discover their own references. I'm always amazed at what others come up with when looking at one of my photos. When a person looks at one of your photos, it will elicit emotions, memories, and ideas that will often go way beyond anything you were intending when taking the photograph. That's the beauty of it.

AJHingel · December 16, 2010

Julie, I would not personally be so distance-taking as you, concerning the texts on Witkin in the quotes you present above. Not withstanding Witkin as an artist, I would for example believe that the following formulations is a very just formulation on what many of us are doing in photography.

"the need that he has -- to have a historical basis, to take part in the history of forms by influencing it, and to have this participation be recognized"

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I'm too modest to believe that I personally participate in the "history of forms" but surely I work on that level, as I also see you working on that level in many of your compositions.

I also clearly adhere to the following:

"photography is rich enough for him to refer to and dramatically transfigure reality"

"The links are the result of his own way of living in an undated time, not limited to the present, with people who are not only his contemporaries and facts of himself, but also symbolically eternal beings."

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This is somewhat what I tried to express by my use of the term the "context" of (my) photography. I my eyes what I shoot is always in dialogue with how I have learned to understand reality through knowledge, experiences and participating in social life. People, forms, light, textures etc play their role in that dialogue.

Julie, on the other hand, I fully agree with you that "overt references" to anything in photography risk to become a pastiche of a Hollywood film and is surely never worth recommending. The references we are referring to are, hopefully, much more subtile. The result is of course that most viewers would not even discover them. They are their for those that understand and share the reference in question. It is easy here to refer to other artistic expresions, and especially painting, but also to most writings and films of some quality that all have the same stock of second and third level "reading" of what they, on the surface, present. Good photography has surly the same levels of "reading" if it does not limit itself to presenting reality on its surface: a sunset, a dove, a man, a pet, a wall - you name it.

Luis goes, with some right, back to the question of "intuition". I'm not sure you are right however when you refer to my photography as something more "intentional". I'm very conscious of the referents of most of what I do, but mostly I do it without any formulated intention. I agree however that there are multiple approaches to photography (seems to me to be obvious and does not need to be re-stated) but "coming from another planet" is not among the approaches available, in my mind.

This is in line with what Steve writes above although also composition is somewhat hidden inside my head and body and is seldomly a very conscious and fully intentional act. Rules of third and diagonal rules come out, without me flowing a rulebook, so to say.

Concerning the viewer, surely I agree with Steve, viewer make their own references and we photographers better learn to accept it. Nothing much to do about it. Some of us seem to satisfy ourselves by playing the role of facilitating whatever references viewers happen to have. The more the better. Others, and I consider myself among them, try to guide potential viewers towards specific types and forms of references or directly to specific references without, hopefully, falling in the Hollywood-trap mentioned by Julie.

If I, it happens, wish by my photography to show that the world is beautiful and people are good, I would fail miserably if viewers of my photography makes "references" to violence, ugliness and despair. Let's face it we are all some kind of manipulators. Our photography has messages and try to impose interpretations to our images, provoking specific references. If the viewer has tears in his/her eyes, the photography might have some of the blame.

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Julie H · December 17, 2010

Anders said, "Some of us seem to satisfy ourselves by playing the role of facilitating whatever references viewers happen to have. The more the better. Others, and I consider myself among them, try to guide potential viewers towards specific types and forms of references or directly to specific references ..."

I think that's the key to what Alan G. was asking in his OP: he's interested in the overt, the deliberate, the intentional as opposed to the (necessarily) omnipresent permeation of meaning with history.

As an example of the blurring of this distinction, consider Alfred Stieglitz's portrait, Georgia Engelhard (1921). [ <a href="http://www.hermitagemuseum.org/html_En/04/b2003/hm4_1_014_4.html">link </a>] For me, the odd way that her arms are flung wide brings to mind a whole raft of associations with the presentation of women in art right back to classical Greek art -- and up to showgirls in their closing finale ("ta-da!"). Throw in the loose flowing white clothing, the urn/pot on the left side, the nearly classical position of the feet. Yet ... she's wearing ... shorts! And that quizzical stare (looking at 50-year-old Alfred ... "Ummmmm.... No. I don't think so ....") This is not the other Georgia, naked and orgasmic.

Add to the above the framing of the door -- which frame (suggesting painting?) she is denying or barring; her totally un-classical non-quite-adult body; the strength of her the grip of her right hand ... I can go on and on. The hints or whiffs of other art seem to me to fill this picture. Did Stieglitz do this on purpose? No question he could have. But also no question, I have no way of knowing, short of some written confession from him, that he did.

[Doesn't the plant on the upper left make you think of Gauguin and his women ... ? I'lll stop now ... ]

Exposed link to the (terrible reproduction of the) picture for email notification users:

<a href="http://www.hermitagemuseum.org/html_En/04/b2003/hm4_1_014_4.html">http://www.hermitagemuseum.org/html_En/04/b2003/hm4_1_014_4.html</a>

Julie H · December 17, 2010

I have to add -- even though it's going to confuse the topic because it's about *meaning* and not (via) *reference* which are easily (naturally!) confused -- that what is in the "frame" (the glass of the door) that the girl is barring, blocking, keeping "us" from entering, is just ingenious, wonderful; it visually fulfills the portrait. Where we would expect to find domesticity (home, family, etc.) we instead see the wilderness. I love it.

luis_g · December 17, 2010

Anders (to me) "I'm not sure you are right however when you refer to my photography as something more "intentional".

Julie - "I think that's the key to what Alan G. was asking in his OP: he's interested in the overt, the deliberate, the intentional as opposed to the (necessarily) omnipresent permeation of meaning with history."

In Alan's post we have: "I didn't spend time thinking of some arcane reference, it just came out that way."

and...

"Again, I didn't try to be clever, just came out that way."

Which would suggest intuition & spontaneity. Then at the end of the post: "...maybe you find yourself just doing it to try to add another dimension to it?"

Anders goes further, making a distinction between what Steve said in the form of "Some of us seem to satisfy ourselves by playing the role of facilitating whatever references viewers happen to have. The more the better." and... "Others, and I consider myself among them, try to guide the viewers towards specific types and forms of references or directly to specific references."

I read or as per Anders, mis-read, that as intent.

Anders - " Let's face it we are all some kind of manipulators. Our photography has messages and try to impose interpretations to our images, provoking specific references."

Not all art and/or artists are reductionists who make art into puzzles with specific solutions. This idea harkens back to the early days of Modernism. Perhaps some or even most photography, but not all (our) photography is doing that.

Julie came up with an interesting picture to add to this discussion. It is a portrait of Stieglitz's beloved young niece Georgia Engelhard, taken during one of her summit visits to the Lake George estate, where she was affectionately known as "Georgia Minor" and "Georgia Two". She accompanied Georgia O'Keefe in her painting

http://www.gpgallery.com/works/view/616/80/0/0/0/0/0/0/1/1

and did some painting of her own, in which the O'Keefe influence can be seen,

http://www.gpgallery.com/works/view/616/80/0/0/0/0/0/0/1/1

some of which were exhibited in a one-woman (or girl, she was ten at the time) at 291. She later gave up painting for photography and went on to become a well-known, if not famous, early woman mountain climber (of the Canadian Rockies, where a peak is named after her)/photographer and also a landscape photographer. But back to this picture. First thing to keep in mind is that Stieglitz was 57 years old when he made this picture, and Engelhard was 15, and quite athletic/fit.

I would like to add to Julie's fine reading of this image. What I see is a teenager at the threshold of a door to a house (or cottage, etc). She still has her left hand on the doorknob, and her right is holding on to the doorframe. She has paused at the threshold, and could just as easily return to the domesticity of the house or walk out of it into the world. And we can see a hint of what lies ahead, because that world is mirrored in the glass of the window behind her. The treetops reflected in the window looks like a wing or smoke blazing behind her. This Georgia is a Modern woman: Confident, wild, strong, young and poised to do what she, in effect, did do: Go out into the world and do what few people did. I see, as Julie did, some of the Pictorialist references that Stieglitz included, consciously or not, in the frame, and that Engelhard is about to leave them behind -- as is Stieglitz, who was also on a threshold, that of Modernism.

AJHingel · December 17, 2010

I love the way Julie and Luis so brilliantly and complementary are analyzing the photo of Stieglitz. Beautiful writings on an extraordinary portrait. Thanks!

Just one word on Luis's input to the question of intentional/intuitive and manipulations. Luis writes:

Not all art and/or artists are reductionists who make art into puzzles with specific solutions. This idea harkens back to the early days of Modernism. Perhaps some or even most photography, but not all (our) photography is doing that.

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Apart from the fact that the verb "harken" was not up till now part of my limited English vocabulary (Thanks Luis), I don't know why artistic manipulations should be "reductionist" as neither Luis nor I suggest that all (our) photography is that, but most, and only to a certain degree, of course.

I don't see neither why "early modernism" was especially marked by such manipulative "intentions". Much work of the impressionists was made to invent new ways of "seeing" for the artist - and for the viewers, that mostly rejected it throughout many years. For me, most contemporary art on the other hand is highly and very intentionally manipulative, but uses often fairly little refinement in it's messages. Much art, works on the level of aw and reactions from the viewer of chock, disgust, rejection, uncomfort.

luis_g · December 17, 2010

First, a correction. Where it reads: "...during one of her summit visits...", that should read: "during one of her summer visits". I had been reading so much about Engelhard's mountaneering that I inserted a summit. THough I imagine that visiting Uncle Alfred and Aunt Georgia #1 at Lake George might have been something like a summit meeting!

Second, I inserted the URL for Georgia Minor's painting twice...geez. Sorry. These PoP posts require reviewing before sending.

_________________

I use the word reductionist, if one creates a work of art with tight specificities for its audience. Once psychoanalysis crept in, some Modernist Art, and not all of it, acquired a puzzle-like quality in having one correct solution, with many potential approximations. This notion is somewhat rare in Post-Modernism, which is less specific and rigid in its messages (and these are vast generalizations, of course), which accepts and encourages a range of multiple interpretations, all valid.

"For me, most contemporary art on the other hand is highly and very intentionally manipulative, but uses often fairly little refinement in it's messages. Much art, works on the level of aw(e) and reactions from the viewer of shock, disgust, rejection, uncomfort."

Anders, when you say little refinement, do you mean crude/elemental, or generic? Or both? Do you see contemporary art as simpler or lesser than that which preceded it? Do you see it as less conceptual?

AJHingel · December 18, 2010

Anders, when you say little refinement, do you mean crude/elemental, or generic? Or both? Do you see contemporary art as simpler or lesser than that which preceded it? Do you see it as less conceptual?

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AH! Luis, That's a big one !

As you surely know contemporary art has been denoted as "only conceptual". Risking an eye, one could say that for modern art (say, impressionism for simplicity), the visible reality is profound and is in itself showing the invisible which can be put to the fore by artistic transformation, whereas in contemporary art, reality is flat and is shown and used as it stands to be seen with the intention of communicating ideas.

However, contemporary art were even in <a href="http://www.altx.com/vizarts/conceptual.html"> Dewitt's formulations</a>, who was maybe the first to formulated an answer to your question, a multifaceted artistic movement that puts the irrational on the agenda whereas the rational had marked modern art, according to him.

When I took the risk to call conceptual art "less profound" it is almost an insult and can maybe only be justified by referring to the more extreme examples like<a href="http://www.productionmyarts.com/blog/wp-content/damien-hirst-et-son-pari.jpg"> Damien</a> <a href="http://listicles.thelmagazine.com/wp-content/upload/damien-hirst-virgin-mother-111.jpg">Hirst</a> - and yet it is difficult to defend, apart from referring to the "understanding" of what reality represents, as formulated above. Anyway as you know conceptual art has been <a href="arthttp://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/aa/Stuckists_Death_of_Conceptual_Art_demo_%283%29.jpg">declared dead</a> several times...

I think it is interesting to confront modern and contemporary art because it highlights some of the problems we have in situating photography among the arts. Photography is almost by definition a means that represent reality as it is seen (by the photographic eye and as reproduced by the camera). If we use such a medium for expressing ourselves, we are profoundly, up to our neck, in contemporary art. If we then pretend that our "project" has to do with showing the invisible by the visible, we are way back in modern art. We might have to live with being, by definition, an anachronism, but one that that moves between what "has been" and "what is" - and in one shot! This is surely contemporary and irrational.

Julie H · December 18, 2010

Anders,

I'm looking forward to Luis's response to your post, but I'd like to make one comment to this sentence of yours, "Photography is almost by definition a means that represent reality as it is seen (by the photographic eye and as reproduced by the camera)."

I believe that photography, or a photograph, is about the entire process of acts which lead to what ends up on the print. By this I mean the getting-there, the being-there, the twiddling, the repositioning, the waiting, etc. -- all encompassed in that first "being there." And I claim -- I insist -- that this is IN the photograph. It's looked for, expected, savored, doubted, questioned, valued, etc. by viewers. Photographs represent a process of acts that viewers intuit and incorporate into their perception of the piece of paper on which they see the end result.

I think I am safe in making a general statement that the great majority of viewers have no awareness of the "largeness" of what they find and expect to find in a photograph. They, unreflexively, assume that they are viewing an extra-real kind of painting, which does not encompass the same kind "being-there" into itself. This lack of awareness may be at the root of many of the arguments against manipulation -- it's not reality that's been tampered with, it's the fullness of the embodied acts of "being-there." In other words, it's not the stuff, it's the acts that verify are validate the fullness of the content.

Anyway, [this post is much longer than I meant it to be ... *sigh*] what I'm getting around to is that conceptual art, and much of modern art, ignoring whether or not I like it and thinking about it purely as reference photography, is, I think a useful and probably necessary exploration of this expansion of what is or is not *in* a picture. I believe that photographs expand that *in* to include the acts of their creation.

[And if you're wondering how this works with my own slice-and-dice pictures, I am playing with multiple "being-there's"; mixing my mental or multiple "being-theres" with the camera's. I know, I know; you're sorry you asked ... ]

AJHingel · December 18, 2010

Julie, I very much agree with you. I would however rather talk about "profoundness" than "largeness", when describing photography as you so well formulate it.

fate_faith_change_chains · December 18, 2010

View from a window with reflection of Niepce's View from the Window at Le Gras on computerscreen. A photography, now and then... <div>

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luis_g · December 19, 2010

Anders -"only conceptual" seems to me an absolutist oversimplification.

Anders - "Risking an eye, one could say that for modern art (say, impressionism for simplicity), the visible reality is profound and is in itself showing the invisible which can be put to the fore by artistic transformation, whereas in contemporary art, reality is flat and is shown and used as it stands to be seen with the intention of communicating ideas."

This sets up the "if-then" at the end of your post. In Post-Modernism (which, I know, many have argued is over since 2001) reality is not simply "flat" and concerned with the intention of communicating ideas. What we think of as reality *is* a communicated idea, a construct of the powerful, using language as the means of achieving it. The 'invisible' of Modernism assumed that at the bottom lay the Truth. For Post-Modernists there are truths, not just one Truth. In a way, Modernism deposed the old Judeo-Christian ideology (and ensuing politics) as archaic, yet retained most of the same hierarchical power structure and linguistic tropes that ensured domination of a culture. Post-Modernism attempted to depose or at least attacked all that, and reacted against the undelivered naive promises of Modernism.

[Funny, I ran into one of De Witt's sentences in an art magazine just two days ago.]

Anders- "If we use such a medium for expressing ourselves, we are profoundly, up to our neck, in contemporary art. If we then pretend that our "project" has to do with showing the invisible by the visible, we are way back in modern art. We might have to live with being, by definition, an anachronism, but one that that moves between what "has been" and "what is" - and in one shot! This is surely contemporary and irrational."

...and this potential (and delightful) bilocation (nothing odd -- or irrational -- in quantum physics) is collapsed by our intentions, or how we look at it. In a way, couldn't this be also said of any other medium that has survived Modernism and Post Modernism?

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