Face

[Norma Desmond]

<p>Julie, the inter-"face" between us is too odd for me to continue. Your face keeps transforming into the faces of others and I find it impossible to hold the conversation with you, yourself. I don't want to have one with your "sources" (having not read them myself so as not to do them justice) so I'll drop it here.</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p>By the way, in the isolated quote above, Kozloff severely underestimates and misreads portraiture. He doesn't seem to know how to look at a photograph and also seems to have misplaced expectations. In fact, he's the one, in this quote at least, who isn't inquisitive about the particular photographs he's looking at. Rather, he seems to have a preconceived notion of what "the one before the camera" is, as if there is some singular answer to that question or some one particular static identity that the photographer is "supposed" to be "capturing." Who does he think was before Leibowitz's camera, or Mapplethorpe's or Moholy-Nagy's? He's looking for some "real" person, some one-dimensional self, something definite and defined, who is merely a figment or projection of his imagination.</p>

[charleswood]

<p>The article "Appearance and Reality" describes a film where a man makes an old woman weep who apparently did not want to weep in public. Called in the article a shocking moment. How would one present such a moment in still photography? I know, a clown crying. Just kidding! But was the film such a cliche? Was it yet another performance by a famous woman and not the woman's reality at all? If yet another performance, how could all that be captured in still photograhy? Too many layers for still? Yes, for me it is too many confusing layers.</p>

[Julie H]

<p>Fred, I have always and will always rely heavily on sources. I am the student, not the teacher.</p>

<p>Here is more from the same Kozloff piece -- which is from a review in <em>Aperture</em> 160 (Summer 2000) of a show, <em>The Ghost in the Shell: Photography and the Human Soul</em>, 1850-2000,” at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art:</p>

 

<blockquote>

<p>"[the show's curator] Sobieszek says : "I am concerned . . . with the very real corporeality . . . of the human face, the mechanics by which our contenances articulate the inexpressible nature of the human spirit, and how this spirit has been and continues to be visually expressed through or represented by the camera arts."</p>

<p>This is a worthwhile objective, but it ran constantly against the grain of the most resistent material -- imagery with an institutional rationale that expressly ignores, or with an artistic license that depreciates, the human spirit.</p>

<p>... When ego comes to the fore, it tends to isolate the face in its own internal drama, or even to resonate with a certain loneliness. When a photograph emphasizes the worldly placement of the sitter, on the other hand, the face's performance impresses us as comfortable -- the comfort of implied association -- and gains in readability. Yet what excites us about portraiture is that, at the moment of exposure, regardless of what scripts have been prepared, all bets are off.</p>

<p>... [in post-modern portraiture] Either we have an indefinite and chaotic array of physical signs, or a gallery of denatured "meanings," looking for a sign.</p>

<p>... [On the other hand] in the best portraits, so in this one [Paul Strand's <em>Blind</em>], the stimulus arises out of a generosity extended toward others, even if it must recognize their pain.</p>

<p>... [For example] ... we perceive loneliness in portraiture as a state with which we can emphathize. For it signifies that very recognizable and human condition of being <em>among</em> our fellows, but not with them. How often the feeling of it comes to us in a face shaded with regret or introspection. You can see it in Roy DeCarava's <em>Billie Holliday</em>, as well as in the melancholy of Alfred Stieglitz's portraits, Albert. S Southworth's daguerreotypes have it, too. There's something tender about the light in these umbrageous pictures, a hovering or modulated tone in which the characterization subsides. Yet, when we engage with these sitters, our tentative distance from them seems reduced, as if their self-reflectiveness had been drawn out to merge with our own.</p>

<p>Far from being marginal, this perception is common in the experience of portraiture. Without doubt, the characterization of loneliness is an artifice, contrived in different ratios by both the sitter and the portraitist. At the same time, the appeal of loneliness plays upon a social sentiment, a viewer's solidarity with those who, higher or lower in worldly station, compose themselves before the lens for largely unknown and absent publics. An artist's vision is possibly at stake on these occasions, but so is the subject's dignity. And as the suspense of their encounter manifests itself, the open sense of the picture radiating with subtle possiblities, the sitters become part of our thought.</p>

</blockquote>

[Norma Desmond]

<p>Students can learn to think for themselves.</p>

<p>But, Julie, as you wish. Others may get things out of the quotes. It's me. I prefer a dialogue.</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p>My perspective . . . a repeated pattern.</p>

<p>A narrow, specific, and usually direct or opinionated quote is posted. Responses to those specific ideas come in from PN members. Then another quote is supplied by the same (or similar) author which widens the original concept or, often, directly refutes the gist of the original quote. The responses that had come in to the first quote, therefore, often are rendered moot because only now, crucial further information is revealed that would likely have changed the initial responses. We have moved from talking about the initial specific ideas to a specific author's wider and ever widening remarks, but only revealed slowly. It's a very different experience from reading the source's full and well-thought-out and articulated ideas as a whole to begin with. Presented this way, the target and the point is always moving and never can be fully grasped because what are very specific ideas in the first quotes become obviously bigger but also incomplete ideas in short order. It doesn't feel like it's intended as such, by any means, but it winds up being manipulative and disingenuous, often unfair to the original sources, whose ideas become more of a messy maze than a coherent mass.</p>

<p>Again, Julie, this is just how it hits me, personally. If it suits you, I'm sure you will continue. I may be the only mate you lose here which probably is no big loss indeed.</p>

[luis_g]

<p><strong>Fred - "</strong>Others may get things out of the quotes. It's me. I prefer a dialogue."</p>

<p>On this forum, I get things out of both, sometimes even out of the monologues, and like the idea of leapfrogging (no, not on an A-B basis) between quotes and dialogue isn't a bad thing. If a post has an approach I'm not interested in, I leave it alone.</p>

<p>Kozloff, who isn't a bad photographer, btw, raises some interesting points. In a way, it seems like we're dealing with projections as much as we are the physical, living skin, and on both sides of the camera. The face(s) the sitter(s) projects can be inhaled by the lens. What the photographer projects can only be <em>reflected </em>back through the lens (unless it's a self-portrait). Call it a sum, subtraction, multiplication or division, whatever reaches the sensor or film is an interaction, even if minimal on one side.</p>

<p>A tiny number of photographers, and not just portraitists, are aware and fast enough to capture fleeting, subconscious micro-expressions. </p>

<p>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microexpression</p>

<p>These are almost like a marginal sub-category of the G-face.</p>

<p><strong>MK - "</strong>Far from being marginal, this perception is common in the experience of portraiture. Without doubt, the characterization of loneliness is an artifice, contrived in different ratios by both the sitter and the portraitist."</p>

<p>I'm not so sure that it is an artifice, and think of that as relational, not a discrete quality, but the different ratio idea is more or less what I was referring to as an equation a few posts above.</p>

<p> </p>

[luis_g]

<p>Oops, I didn't realize Fred had posted while I was typing. I agree that there are shortcomings to the quote thing, including the widening gyre & ensuing dissipation/supercession effect, though it has positives also, as the discussion drifts and evolves, refines and dissolves, but...this is not a formal setting. It will rarely, if ever, have the structure or elegance of one, and is at the whim of a variety of poster's styles of expression, not to mention cultural backgrounds, which is as intended (I think).</p>

<p>I hope Julie will continue in her own way, and Fred in his. </p>

<p> </p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p>Luis, certainly a lot of what you say is reasonable and rational. I will point out that what you say, however, though it sounds rational and, dare I say, adult, is not altogether true. You don't always leave alone posts that have an approach you're not interested in. Reference the many well-deserved harsh responses you've had for one particular acerbic serial poster. It's really just that what annoys you and what you speak up about is different from what annoys others and what they may speak out about.</p>

<p>Beyond that, though you make a good point about each of us having varying styles and cultural backgrounds, etc. that also only takes us so far, I think. It's not unlike dialogues we have about each others' photos in the critique section (and I know this is a philosophy forum and not a critique forum and there are differences). Presentation is eminently important to photographers, as is style. And, even though photographers have different cultural backgrounds, and those should be taken into account, still style and presentation are criticizable even while keeping those differences in mind. Though I think <em>ad hominem</em> attacks absolutely should be avoided (and most of us have been guilty of one or two), I think questions and even criticisms of style and presentation of ideas should not necessarily be avoided. The presentation of ideas, at least as far as I'm concerned, is significant to the ideas themselves and, I think, fair game to address in an open and honest forum. I think where we run afoul of each other is much more in attitude and disrespectfulness (again, I've certainly been a culprit here) and not in an honest analysis or questioning of how ideas or questions are presented and seen through.</p>

<p>Criticism of presentation and style here in the forums can become a distraction and is probably well done at a minimum, but when it's affecting the ability to understand and communicate, I think it deserves to be addressed and, if done efficiently, can improve our interactions, just like critiques as well as photos can be improved upon by talking about each.</p>

[Julie H]

<p>Luis said, "In a way, it seems like we're dealing with projections as much as we are the physical, living skin, and on both sides of the camera. The face(s) the sitter(s) projects can be inhaled by the lens. What the photographer projects can only be <em>reflected </em>back through the lens (unless it's a self-portrait). Call it a sum, subtraction, multiplication or division, whatever reaches the sensor or film is an interaction, even if minimal on one side."</p>

<p>Put on your seatbelt, Luis. You've triggered blast-off (and I'm so glad you're there because I'm pretty sure you'll get what I mean, no matter how loony).</p>

<p>Have you ever seen those explanations of space-time that describe how matter distorts it as if it's a weight on a rubber surface, where the rubber surface represents space-time? I'm thinking of the subject of a portrait as that weight; it's there bending my visual space-time. It affects, distorts, to a greater or lesser degree <em>everything</em>. Because it's there, everything is changed. That change, that distortion *is* the portrait. In other words, the way that it changes my whole surround. (I think that it's the business of a portrait to "translate" into the visual what is not visual -- and, equally important, to remove or neutralize that which is visible which will be misleading in the absence of the non-visual surround.)</p>

<p>But ... I, you, the viewer, the photographer, all of us along with the subject(s) have weight as well. We distort, we bend space/time (and a few dozen more meaningful dimensions, if you ask me), so we've got binary orbit -- and, oh, look, it's the three-body problem!</p>

<p>Erm ... *cough* where was I? Somewhere in all that, I can *feel* what a good portrait is like or does. It bends me when I'm near it. As opposed to other kinds of pictures that feel more like a push or a pull; an impact, an interaction, but not a sort of permanent state/orbit. (Which is how it seems to me Charles Woods' crying woman would affect me, for example.)</p>

<p>Okay, that ends my looniness -- for the moment.</p>

[luis_g]

<p><strong>Fred - "</strong>You don't always leave alone posts that have an approach you're not interested in."</p>

<p>True, but I'm trying harder to do as I say. I've left more than a few alone recently since a blinding flash (looked like an old Ascor) zapped me on the road to Emmaus.</p>

<p>Addressing style issues in posting is, IMO, part & parcel of a forum like this. I'm in agreement with it, but was simultaneously lamenting the idea of Fred sitting one out.</p>

<p>_______________________________<br /> <strong>Julie: "</strong><em> </em> That change, that distortion *is* the portrait. In other words, the way that it changes my whole surround. (I think that it's the business of a portrait to "translate" into the visual what is not visual -- and, equally important, to remove or neutralize that which is visible which will be misleading in the absence of the non-visual surround.)"</p>

<p>I guess I talk/am loony because I get it. In fact, it is right along the lines of what I was thinking earlier, though within a Relativity Physics framework. And that distortion is sizzling, undulating and shifting moment-by-moment.</p>

<p>One of the things said earlier, I forget who said it, (Kozloff?) the thing about environmental inclusions in portraiture, reminded me of some of Fred's portraits, where the setting plays a perceptible, if not significant, part in the gestalt of the image.</p>

<p> </p>

[Julie H]

<p>Luis, note that those environmental effects are the polar opposites of G-face. In G-face, the outer defines or distorts our perception of the person; here it is the person who distorts the surround. And, what, really is this environmental effect ("distortion) that a viewer might feel?<br>

　<br>

Here's the problem with my rosy picture of the delicious distortion of devine depiction. There is a non-parallelism in portrait photography that does not exist in un-peopled pictures. The picture/viewer pair is potently reversed from the photographer/subject pair. See if you can spot the difference:</p>

<p>I (playing the part of "viewer," happily ensconced, by myself with a book of lovely photographic portraits) open the book (I could be in a museum or a gallery, but then I'd have to shave my legs, first which disagreeable task would contaminate our experiment). I can, with minimal effort, reduce my own G-face (who/what/where) so that "I" am to a low hum -- in order to be as receptive as possible to the effect of the pictures therein. I am therefore able to be, as I said in my post above, "bent" by the pictures. In the binary orbit of myself (viewer) and picture, the picture has almost all of the weight, therefore I get this lovely "bending" effect. "Oh, what wonderful portraits!" I exclaim.</p>

<p>Now, compare that to the following:</p>

<p>Two people in settled binary orbit, comfortably having normal everyday interactions. G-face in good order, each party knows who/what/where he is relative to the other, they've reached stable orbit that is probably not too far from equal or at least such that neither overwhelms the other and neither ignores the other. Then one of them pulls out a camera.</p>

<p>Red alert! Orbit collapse! Camera-person has the death star -- or the magic wand of fortune, depending on the calculations of the un-camera-ed person. MAX G-face! MAX G-face! Spread all tail-feathers! Bring out the good silver! Shave your legs! This guy can either break your G-face or make you a star! Whatever you do, don't take your eyes off him/her! In this camera/subject pair, the camera-ed person massively outweighs the un-camera-ed person. No matter what the camera-ed person does and no matter whether the un-camera-ed person fears or loves the camera, the orbit has been severely distorted. A picture is going to inevitably get subject G-face efforts to counter or coopt a massive external distortion.</p>

<p>So, returning to our trusty hairy-legged viewer, it would seem that she is quite possibly getting affected, distorted, not only (or even mostly) because the picture is a wonderful portrayal but because she's getting the orbital response to a weight that she doesn't have. It's as if the sun was orbiting the moon, not the other way around. The moon would be surprised ... (then, of course, the sun would fling it out of the galaxy and I have my sensation of being "bent" ... ). Is the effect of good portraits on a viewer simply due to a discombobulated out-of-context G-face exposition?</p>

<p>I got into thinking about this when reading a footnote in Kozloff's own book <em>The Theatre of the Face: Portrait Photography Since 1900</em> (2007). I'm going to assume that you know of Thomas Ruff's deadpan portraits (I know that Luis does; by "you" I mean ... you.):</p>

 

<blockquote>

<p>"19. That Ruff's posing regimen was repressive is easily seen when compared with an exhibition called 'Girls on Film,' Carpenter Centre for the Visual Arts, Harvard University, 2005. It was a show consisting of images retrieved from discarded Hollywood film leaders of the 1950s. Young women posed with colour bars to function as guides used by technicians in processing labs to achieve an even colour balance from one reel to another. There could be no question of anyone looking at them for themselves, as human beings. They knew it, but they couldn't help smiling!"</p>

</blockquote>

<p>　</p>

[aplumpton]

<p><em>« Face…….something that is diffusely located in the flow of events in the encounter »</em><br>

<em> </em><br>

<em> </em><br>

<em>« Face…..becomes manifest only when these events are read and interpreted for the appraisals expressed in them."</em><br>

<em> </em><br>

<em> </em><br>

I admit to coming to this late and not yet having read the responses to the OP, but in considering the OP (through the above snippets from the essay quoted) I wonder how important can be something that underlies the photographer’s theme or approach, or the event described by the subject matter, but which becomes manifest only when the events are interpreted by the viewer, that is, when the theme or the objectives of the photograph are more fully analysed and understood. </p>

<p>This may or may not require symbols or other visual elements other then the chosen subject matter of the image and how it is approached. Face might acquire practical importance if, like a musician’s style in playing, it is noted during the performance or appreciation of the music, rather than after the fact. A photographer’s face or the face of the event or manner in which the subject matter is being presented, would seem to me to be of importance if recognised not after the fact (as mentioned in the second mini-quotation above), but during the appreciation (creation or, laterally, the viewing).</p>

 

[sjmurray]

<p>Julie said:</p>

<blockquote>

<p>I seem to feel, paradoxically, that the better the photographer, the more composed, crafted (better, more effective), the more I feel that it is the photographer's "objective" that I am witnessing, not that of the subject. In other words, I seem to feel that, almost by definition, if the "condition" has been so effectively employed to make a good picture, then the (good) photographer must have hi-jacked the "condtion" that he found in his subject to serve his/her own end. On the other hand, the worse the photograph, the less composed, the less crafted it is, the more likely I am to feel that I am witnessing the "objective" of the subject shown, and not that of the photographer.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>This observation touches on my previous post about "a brief interruption in the space time continuum," in which I said my favorite types of portrait were when the photographer only very "lightly" and briefly imposes on the subject, just long enough to catch an exchanged glance, as opposed to the studio or highly set up photos of say, Annie Liebovitz. I feel there is less "highjacking" going on in the "brief interruption" approach, and hence, a more "authentic" portrait, resulting in more information about the subject and less about the photographer. Unlike Julie, I don't feel that the "worst" photographs: less crafted, etc., are more objective. If that were true, I would just close my eyes and randomly photograph blindly. Even in that case, you don't then know how the subject is responding to that maneuver and would that in fact taint the whole interaction.</p>

[luis_g]

<p><strong>Julie: "</strong>Luis, note that those environmental effects are the polar opposites of G-face. In G-face, the outer defines or distorts our perception of the person; here it is the person who distorts the surround. And, what, really is this environmental effect ("distortion) that a viewer might feel?"</p>

<p>Here I'm going to be contrarian re: G-Face Theory because the environment, while subject to the sitter's (to continue in the Relativity analog) field distortions, also affects the sitter's Face & has some influence on the way the viewer perceives G-Face.</p>

<p><strong>JH - "</strong>I could be in a museum or a gallery, but then I'd have to shave my legs, first which disagreeable task would contaminate our experiment."</p>

<p>[Personal Note] Trust me, it's not required, and not just in European museums/galleries. When I was heavy into road cycling, I used to shave my legs. While my girlfriends loved it, I ran into trouble more than once.<em> </em></p>

<p>I'm not so sure I want to dowshift my G-Face when viewing a book in order to let the pics have their way with me. I think this butts up again with Fred's dualist comment. Why can't I be fully me when engaging a book or print at a museum/gallery?</p>

<p><strong>JH - "</strong>Red alert! Orbit collapse! Camera-person has the death star -- or the magic wand of fortune, depending on the calculations of the un-camera-ed person. MAX G-face! MAX G-face! Spread all tail-feathers! Bring out the good silver! Shave your legs! This guy can either break your G-face or make you a star! Whatever you do, don't take your eyes off him/her! In this camera/subject pair, the camera-ed person massively outweighs the un-camera-ed person."</p>

<p> The opposite is also true. The right sitter can hold the 'death star' (such drama!) as well and outweigh the bejeezus out of the photographer -- and camera, specially if there's a contract with the publicist. Plus, ahem, forgive me for saying this, but er...this is edging towards the Dietrich diatribe, isn't it?</p>

<p>I agree that whipping out the Holga changes everything, but...the distortion goes both ways. The photographer's G-Face is going to also shift. And, worse, this is not a fixed relationship between heavenly bodies, but more of a tug of war, ever shifting on a moment-by-moment basis.</p>

<p> Hmmm...my own take on Ruff's portraits vs the 'Girls on Film' is that Ruff's subjects were mostly his own friends, or friends of friends who volulnteered to sit, and the portraits, IMO, are not so much repressive as they are clinical (and to a degree pseudoscientific, in the sense of elimination of variables) in the style of the Bechers and perhaps more so the Botanical Studies of Blossfeldt who preceded the Bechers and was studied in depth at the Dusseldorf School.</p>

<p>Ruff:</p>

<p>http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://projects.vanartgallery.bc.ca/publications/75years/exhibitions/images/renders/VAG-88.51.1.jpg&imgrefurl=http://misssafeera.wordpress.com/2010/12/03/thomas-ruff/&h=499&w=374&sz=26&tbnid=aXcuDqzPBdPvZM:&tbnh=130&tbnw=97&prev=/images%3Fq%3DThomas%2BRuff%2Bportraits&zoom=1&q=Thomas+Ruff+portraits&hl=en&usg=__cs2RpSUKbQFN68TQ0AFYfbLgdwM=&sa=X&ei=1ugYTfPWN8L38Abiy7XDDg&ved=0CB4Q9QEwAg</p>

<p>Blossfeldt</p>

<p>http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://artblart.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/karl_blossfeldt_06.jpg%3Fw%3D400%26h%3D497&imgrefurl=http://artblart.wordpress.com/2009/03/28/exhibition-plant-studies-by-karl-blossfeldt-and-related-works-at-die-photographische-sammlungsk-stiftung-kultur-cologne/&h=497&w=400&sz=27&tbnid=f7xsPiAxE2gh2M:&tbnh=250&tbnw=201&prev=/images%3Fq%3DBlossfeldt%2Bplant%2Bphotographs&zoom=1&q=Blossfeldt+plant+photographs&hl=en&usg=__N5d8GqPlaqCrypBoAB2YI8bpsiw=&sa=X&ei=7ugYTcXxGIT78Ab55qT6DQ&ved=0CB0Q9QEwAA</p>

<p> In the case of the show at the Carpenter Center, we're talking about a very different dynamic. Inasmuch as I respect Kozloff, I think he has this one backwards. These models, often generically known as "Shirleys" or "China Dolls" were hopeful, wanna-be starlets or office workers working for peanuts, if anything. They are depicted in stereotypes, which to me is infinitely more oppressive than what Ruff was doing. Their smile is nothing more than a response to power and demand characteristics. Do you think the guys behind the camera were sitting there with deadpan faces? </p>

<p>http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/2005/07.21/00-girls.html</p>

<p> </p>

[fate_faith_change_chains]

<blockquote>

<p>Two people in settled binary orbit, comfortably having normal everyday interactions. G-face in good order, each party knows who/what/where he is relative to the other, they've reached stable orbit that is probably not too far from equal or at least such that neither overwhelms the other and neither ignores the other. Then one of them pulls out a camera....<br /> No matter what the camera-ed person does and no matter whether the un-camera-ed person fears or loves the camera, the orbit has been severely distorted. A picture is going to inevitably get subject G-face efforts to counter or coopt a massive external distortion.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>What if the camera was hidden and the subject unaware of the camera's recording. There's still the photographer operating the camera, but there's no context of a photographer or camera to make a 'distortion', there's only the viewer of the resulting photograph doing so.<br /><a href="http://www.artnet.com/magazine/features/sullivan/sullivan4-10-11.asp"> L'autre</a> :</p>

<blockquote>

<p>" We see the same thing in the essay Baudrillard has written on the photographer Luc Delahaye, who takes – following, it must be said, the example of the American photographer Walker Evans in the 1930s – photographs of people sitting across from him in trains with a hidden camera. Of course, the uncanny thing about the photographs is that, given the efforts of each of the subjects to maintain their own private space within the carriage, they do not look at the photographer who sits so close to them, while the photographer for his part also does not look (only his camera does).<br /> The subjects’ mouths are slack, their eyes unfocussed, their features not “made up” for public consumption. Baudrillard in his text quotes a passage from a short story, “The Adventure of a Photographer”, by Italo Calvino, in order to capture something of this feeling of looking upon others while they are not aware of you: “To catch Bice in the street where she did not know he was watching her, to keep her within the range of hidden lenses, to photograph her as she was in the absence of his gaze, any gaze ... It was an invisible Bice that he wanted to possess, a Bice absolutely alone, a Bice whose presence presupposed the absence of him and of everybody else”.<br /> <br /> But this indifference – as in <em>Suite vénetienne</em> – is soon overtaken by something else. For in a second reading of the work, these faces are no longer simply there before us in their passivity and unawareness, entirely revealed before our gaze, but are withdrawn, appear to hide something, contain a secret somewhere within them. As Baudrillard writes, it is not so much here a question of “what remains of the Other when the photographer isn’t there as what remains of the Other when the Other isn’t there”.<br /> <br /> Thus, as in the game of <em>Suite vénetienne</em>, it is not merely a matter of the projection of the subject onto the object, but of the object onto the subject. We attempt to put ourselves in the place of the Other, to see ourselves from their position, to understand them as somehow possessing the secret of our destiny, having something to tell us about who we are. Here begins, according to Baudrillard, the whole “moral anthropology” of contemporary photography, in which we try to read meaning into these faces, to force signification onto them. And this is all part of a whole contemporary scene of a generalised and weakened “seduction”. As Baudrillard writes: “There’s the same reversal everywhere, expressing a fatigue on the part of the subject, a weariness of being oneself and asserting oneself. And also the secret confused demand that the Other should think us, that the objects of the world should think us”.<br /> <br /> For, as Baudrillard goes on to suggest, this “reversal” is in fact the new version of our encounter with the Other, which takes the form not of “Reply to my question!” but “Tell me what question I am to ask you!” But this is not a real encounter with the Other in its otherness or indifference, for it is an otherness from the beginning only determined by us, understood as a reflection of us. We already take this “Other” into account and play on it, put ourselves in its position and observe ourselves from it. Again, as Baudrillard asks: “Given the minimal degree of desire, destiny and will we have attained today, we no longer ask the Other to be like us. We ask him only to be Other, to have a minimal glimmer of otherness, to attempt to be – at least for me – an object of desire (and, in the case of cinema or photography, a technical object of desire)” "<br>

( <a href="http://www.ubishops.ca/baudrillardstudies/vol2_1/butler.htm">http://www.ubishops.ca/baudrillardstudies/vol2_1/butler.htm</a> )</p>

</blockquote>

[albert_richardson1]

<p>Happy New Year everyone!</p>

<p>Don Quixote has always had a certain appeal for me. He is the quintessential anti-hero who gets the idea that a thing ought to exist and then he sets out to find it - make it up if necessary just to make sure it's there. Of course the humor, and to some the pathos, of the piece is his tenacity for preserving his own self-deception. Don Quixote is a man chasing the shadow of Truth he thinks he can see in a windmill.</p>

<p>I suppose it's pointless to try to explore the actual capabilities of the equipment used for photography to find out how it might be used to get beneath the surface layer of the objects that serve as its subjects. But this seems to be exactly what might help JH the most. </p>

<p>Through the smoke, fog and BS there seems to be a legitimate question here, namely, "How is it possible for a person to reach the Truth about a person who is the subject of a photograph?" I don't mean that we need some sort of subject penetrating technology for our pictures, but rather a picture that shows the person as she would be alive in front of the viewer. </p>

<p>My previous response suggested that it would not be worth the effort to try an answer. In Julie's defense, the fact is that people are pulled into a mystery. Even huge maze like puzzles are fair game for some. JH seems discontent with only the shadow of Truth. She seems to think that there ought to be more. Yes there should - but that is absurd.</p>

[Julie H]

<p>Albert,</p>

<p>True! Very true ... I can't think when was the last time I did something that *wasn't* absurd. Maybe buying dental floss last month?</p>

<p>Phylo, awesome quote. I love it and I'm still thinking about it. You're circling closer ... Here's the thing. I don't think I want people who don't know they're being photographed. If they're in public, I think they have their plastic in-public face on; the one that doesn't bother people or attract attention and runs on auto-pilot. I also don't want dead people, sleeping people, people in comas, people drunk out of their mind. Also (as portraits) no people engrossed in sports or life-threatening activities. (Dern, I'll have to forego Luis-on-a-bicycle with his beautiful legs.)</p>

<p>Here's a description that I like of what a good, absurd portrait might do for me. This is Barthes talking about the movies:</p>

<blockquote>

<p>"… The film image (including the sound) is what? A <em>lure</em>. I am confined with the image as if I were held in that famous dual relation which establishes the image-repertoire. The image is there, in front of me, for me: coalescent (its signified and its signifier melted together), analogical, total, pregnant; it is a perfect lure: I fling myself upon it like an animal upon the scrap of “lifelike” rag held out to him … In the movie theater, however far away I am sitting, I press my nose against the screen’s mirror, against that “other” image-repertoire with which I narcissistically identify myself (it is said that the spectators who choose to sit as close to the screen as possible are children and movie buffs); the image captivates me, captures me: I am <em>glued</em> to the representation, and it is this glue which established the <em>naturalness</em> (the pseudo-nature) of the filmed scene (a glue prepared with all the ingredients of “technique”); the Real knows only distances, the Symbolic knows only masks; the image alone (the image-repertoire) is <em>close</em> …"</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Did you get that, Albert? "I fling myself upon it like an animal"! Do you understand "<em>close</em>"?<br />

</p>

[albert_richardson1]

<p>Yes I do get it. No matter how convincing a mirage is, or how passionate you feel about it, it gives you no water to live on.</p>

[charleswood]

<blockquote>....it gives you no water to live on.</blockquote>

<p>Ouch. Ouch.</p>

<p>I don't believe there is much water there in the shadow of truth, though for all of us the water found there is enough on which to live for at least a while. We all struggle awkwardly with the more.</p>

[luis_g]

<p><strong>Albert - "</strong>Through the smoke, fog and BS there seems to be a legitimate question here, namely, "How is it possible for a person to reach the Truth about a person who is the subject of a photograph?" I don't mean that we need some sort of subject penetrating technology for our pictures, but rather a picture that shows the person as she would be alive in front of the viewer."</p>

<p>I disagree. There's lots of legitimate questions here besides the one Albert poses. Not everyone would agree with the idea that there is one "the Truth" about each sitter to be had, or that it is to reproduce a visual facsimile of what "the viewer" sees when said person is standing in front of them.<br>

_______________________</p>

<p>A few pictures that come to mind with this thread:</p>

<p>"Street Faces", candid, without the "distortion"...</p>

<p>http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.jameslomax.com/images/683.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.jameslomax.com/words/501/philip-lorca-di-corcia&usg=__oieQHuMJaqk2Estxu1Yk-Vcyi_E=&h=300&w=300&sz=19&hl=en&start=9&zoom=1&tbnid=C2HCEbI0Em1oKM:&tbnh=96&tbnw=108&prev=/images%3Fq%3DPhilip%2BLorca%2BDicorcia%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DX%26biw%3D800%26bih%3D404%26tbs%3Disch:10%2C552&um=1&itbs=1&iact=hc&vpx=108&vpy=53&dur=127&hovh=225&hovw=225&tx=129&ty=183&ei=roMZTbuKFYH48Aax3YDIBA&oei=V4MZTYvmFYOB8gag6-3VDQ&esq=11&page=3&ndsp=11&ved=1t:429,r:0,s:9&biw=800&bih=404</p>

<p>http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://krystiandata.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/di_corcia.jpg&imgrefurl=http://krystiandata.wordpress.com/category/uncategorized/&usg=__ujxic8fNIcTCXNM2D1uZ-8ZdA3k=&h=400&w=499&sz=37&hl=en&start=8&zoom=1&tbnid=Ie55zLJZHMP3uM:&tbnh=104&tbnw=130&prev=/images%3Fq%3DPhilip%2BLorca%2BDicorcia%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DX%26biw%3D800%26bih%3D404%26tbs%3Disch:10%2C5520%2C552&um=1&itbs=1&ei=roMZTbuKFYH48Aax3YDIBA&biw=800&bih=404</p>

<p>http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://numerof.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/10/Philip-Lorca_diCorcia.jpg&imgrefurl=http://u2.interference.com/f287/photographers-union-thread-196567-8.html&usg=__qihqGj9HsPt6B6QdHsfR_G3ezOQ=&h=306&w=480&sz=49&hl=en&start=26&zoom=1&tbnid=aARVVLcT5_RstM:&tbnh=82&tbnw=129&prev=/images%3Fq%3DPhilip%2BLorca%2BDicorcia%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DX%26biw%3D800%26bih%3D404%26tbs%3Disch:10%2C1179&um=1&itbs=1&ei=1oQZTbD0E8GB8gaK97j_DQ&biw=800&bih=404</p>

<p>http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.notempire.com/images/uploads/Cheerleader115.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.notcot.org/post/1514/&usg=__RQAdQNYTHQ2CZ4uQ0Tsu3CrTKiM=&h=250&w=250&sz=66&hl=en&start=40&zoom=1&tbnid=dJIgV1KcJfwipM:&tbnh=118&tbnw=118&prev=/images%3Fq%3DPhilip%2BLorca%2BDicorcia%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DX%26biw%3D800%26bih%3D404%26tbs%3Disch:10%2C18020%2C1802&um=1&itbs=1&iact=hc&vpx=435&vpy=78&dur=2832&hovh=200&hovw=200&tx=101&ty=168&ei=PYUZTbKkH4G88gaD75T0DQ&oei=V4MZTYvmFYOB8gag6-3VDQ&esq=6&page=7&ndsp=8&ved=1t:429,r:6,s:40&biw=800&bih=404</p>

<p>http://wlrnunderthesun.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/elevatorjustright.jpg</p>

<p> </p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p>Like so many topics, that of portraits is probably best not articulated in either/or terms. I don't think it's a good idea to suggest that (good) portraits are either true to the person-subject or not, that the guy/gal behind the camera "outweighs" the subject of the portrait, etc.</p>

<p>I often purposely choose to work with subjects who intimidate me and who I think wield a whole lot of photographic power. Often, I feel/am outweighed. More often, I feel like a portrait shoot is a dance where the lead changes hands often. These are not descriptions of just the process. They are descriptions of the resulting photos.</p>

<p>Person-subjects are complex and so portraits are not simply true or close or not. Portraits often lean and don't have to topple these scales. Some are close, some seem close but aren't, some are far but have great truth to them. A good portrait may feel like it brings the soul of the subject close to the viewer. A good portrait, on the other hand, may bring one single aspect of the subject close to the viewer. A good portrait can be held to the surface, be about the surface. A good portrait may look beyond or beneath the masks. A good portrait may simply explore the mask/s a person wears. Masks can have an aspect of genuineness. We genuinely adopt them, intentionally and not intentionally. Some masks are disingenous or deceptive. Deception is real. Portraits can capture and/or express such mask-ish deception. Good portraits themselves can sometimes deceive.</p>

<p>Viewer desires, expectations, demands, and especially romanticization sometimes stand in counterpoint to viewer openness and willingness and can even prevent the viewer from seeing.</p>

[albert_richardson1]

<p>In her first response to the comments she read, Julie says:</p>

<blockquote>

<p>I seem to feel, paradoxically, that the better the photographer, the more composed, crafted (better, more effective), the more I feel that it is the photographer's "objective" that I am witnessing, not that of the subject. In other words, I seem to feel that, almost by definition, if the "condition" has been so effectively employed to make a good picture, then the (good) photographer must have hi-jacked the "condtion" that he found in his subject to serve his/her own end. On the other hand, the worse the photograph, the less composed, the less crafted it is, the more likely I am to feel that I am witnessing the "objective" of the subject shown, and not that of the photographer.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Julie is concerned that the processes of photography will distort the nature to be found in the subject. This interference prevents the subject from communicating her true nature to the viewer. Julie wants to know the subject as much as possible as if she had met her face to face. She prefers candor. The notion that some truth or meaning lies in wait somewhere in the appearance of the subject before an image is made is powerfully compelling to her.</p>

<p>I don't agree with her. People are multi-dimensional. Personal encounters are always incomplete in one way or another. There is always some mystery left behind. Even so, a conversation with a living person is in much more satisfying than a picture of someone I have never met and don't know. Photographs are not living things. The mystery to be found in them is even more profound because they cannot verbalize their stories to let you know them better. They almost never tell you the things you would want to know.</p>

<p>A picture of a girl made by Steve Murray is at the bottom of my screen now. She is a stranger to me. I have seen thousands of pictures of girls in all sorts of poses and contexts, but none of this helps me know the girl in his picture. I see what the photographer decided she should look like, but I don't know who she is. She's just there. Luis' examples show the same thing. Subjects that are just there - sans explanation or story.</p>

<p>I know of no way to go from subject appearance to personhood without information. In fact, when I look at a picture I don't expect to form some sort of personal relationship with the subject. Even the subjects I would want to know such as the ancestors in the old family album I have are out of my reach. I have come to take this for granted. This in itself explains the context and trust of my remarks to Julie. IMO she is looking for something inside a picture that does not exist.</p>

[Julie H]

<p>Albert,</p>

<p>I am getting a lot out of your point of view, but I'm wondering (though I don't really mind) why you keep using me to impersonate your opposition. I have not, anywhere in this thread, used the words "truth" or "reality." I can completely understand how, if this is a subject that you've thought about before (it seems that you have) that you would have jumped to well-worn conclusions about what I was going to say -- but this thread was never about (from my point of view) truth and/or reality. It's about exploring what's in a (good) portrait).</p>

<p>I feel that the Goffman quotes, in a very handy, useful way, allow me to sort out from a person's presentation, the instrumental. If it turns out that Goffman's presentation is all that we are, that we are entirely instrumental, widgets in the social machinary, I think that would be intersting to know. Goffman's descriptions act, for me, sort of like a stain on a microscopic slide; his descriptions make certain parts clearly visible so I can look at them or ignore them -- and see what is *not* them. What is left over after the instrumental is subtracted.</p>

<p>I "get" something out of all kinds of responses to what I'm posting as I "finger" my ideas and hold them up to the light in this public forum. As I've already said, I find your position interesting and a useful variant (and I hope you'll keep working that territory).</p>

<p>For example, where, in his last post, Steve Murray said, "Unlike Julie, I don't feel that the "worst" photographs: less crafted, etc., are more objective," made me revisit my own previous statement about that. (First I'll note that Goffman's "objective" means "goal", not objective as opposed to subjective; it's confusing ...). What I was thinking about and didn't state very clearly was that good pictures aren't accidental; they're crafted -- which necessarily demands a crafter. This reminded me of the arguments of intelligent design -- that the intricate object implies/demands a maker. Steve's post made me wonder, might an intricate photograph, like nature, arrive out of a natural necessity -- out of the "demands" of the concurrent processes, sort of settling into their response to each other? That the job of the photographer is not (just) craft, but a honed and accelerated sensitivity to the "evolution" of the conditions (in this case another person) -- thus making craft subservant to the event? In other words, crafting (intelligent design) is not primary; being honed, sensitized, having an accelerated response to be where/what is needed to make the portrait (evolution) is primary. Or could be. Thus are the workings of this demented mind.</p>

<p>I'm here handling the idea of portraiture. I put down what I'm thinking. I think about what you all write about your own thinkings. I enjoy myself ... I hope I'm not driving you crazy in the process.</p>

<p>Phylo, the next to last sentence in your quote really dings me, "We already take this "Other" into account and play on it, put ourselves in its position and observe ourselves from it." There lies the <em><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mise_en_abyme">mise en abyme</a></em>.</p>

<p>Luis, I'm pondering your examples. I especially like and am taken with and am pondering the second and especially the third ones. There are things going on there that ... work on me.</p>

[DickArnold]

I did PR photos for a hospital in my studio. I tried to make the pictures come alive. I tried to do something like " would you like this doctor enough to let her or him operate on you". Anyway, I got a call from the hospital that they were sending this psychiatrist over for her PR pictures. Of course I had the responsibility to set the scene with main, fill, hair and background lights. I was taught by the late Monte Zucker how to place these lights to produce a warm and soft effect. However, I believe this is just a setting for what I could evoke from the subject in terms of a human expression. As Julie terms it a g-face. Never heard the term before here. Anyway she shows up. I was quite surpristed as she walked through the door. She was stunningly self-assured and statuesque in a bright red suit and exquisitely made-up and coiffed. After introductions she sat down and I gave her a few prompts about positioning her shoulders. I was using a medium format camera with a prism finder so I had a good view of her face. She was helping me by setting her own facial pose. Involuntarily and without my thinking I told her she looked far too damned sensual for what the hospital expected me give them and I took the picture. That I guess was a g-face. I quickly shot a second picture. It turned all I got her wide open mouth, tonsils and teeth as she was convulsed with laughter. That was a g-face I guess. We broke into conversation and I took about thirty g-faces that day as we talked as I walked away from the camera with a remote and took pictures while she ignored the camera and talked to me. She got a lot of extra pictures, the hospital got their two. To my regret I never saw her or met her again. But we got a bunch of expressive images. I set the scene and she provided the soul. I wish I could do that every time but some people take themselves too seriously to give up their g faces. I think.