Polish

[Norma Desmond]

<p>Exclusion, what's not there, is so much a part of what I photograph. What's in my periphery, and not in the frame, has such an impact on how I frame and how I see what I frame that I can't imagine it's not being there, in the photo.</p>

<p>[Arthur, I see that our last few posts overlapped each other. It makes the continuity a little tough and I appreciate what you said in response to Luis. It clarifies your thoughts nicely.]</p>

[aplumpton]

<p>"Why do we go there?" Fred, I believe that music, literature and the visual arts, as communication, are important to us in considering the between the lines messages in each, and while their potential to do so may be different, the presence of similitudes and differences can inform and inspire us in serious photography (OK, you may drop the word serious if you feel it to be pretentious).</p>

<p>Some may think that the crescendos and repeats at the end of a 19th century symphony are too much polish (like, Photoshopped colour enhancement, or, in my opinion at least, the formulic shadows above Heifitz, when something softer might have been interesting) or there is too much space between parts of the music (...or the music is conducted too slowly), or 30 pages of Proust describing a particular and ostensibly minor event. I think that the use of these approaches are not foreign to photography. For me shadows are not always shadows, or burnt out highlight spaces what they might have been if alternatively recorded with detail, but rather negative spaces (like musical pauses, or possibly even multiple repeats) that can enhance the art (as Schiller says when he speaks of form over content) by their form. Differences in artistic media and communication can teach us as much as the similitudes.</p>

<p>I regret if I am several posts behind and not in real time. This high velocity forum is a good example of the need for iteration in dotting the i's.</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p>Arthur, when it's done by metaphor, simile, even analogy, I can understand it. When literal translations are attempted from pictures to words, I find it most often missing the point.</p>

[aplumpton]

<p>Agreed.</p>

<p>Perhaps a feeling sensed by the viewer from an image, and not connected directly to its apparent message, can be considered a non-lilteral effect? </p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p>Yes. And to take it further, maybe there is no apparent <em>message</em>, only an <em>appearance</em>.</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p>I'm still not clear on this idea of polish or what, if anything, is objectionable about it. I'm a little concerned that polish is being associated with control, contrived, and is being rejected out of an undue deference to candidness and a rigid understanding of spontaneity.</p>

<p>Many of my own photographs and many of the photographs I love don't start with a diamond at all. Something -- often nothing -- is polished into a diamond from the very beginning. The very conception of the photo is often a process of polishing. It's not like I take what's given me (a diamond of a situation, a real world occurrence that I stumble upon) and then make a photograph out of it. I give myself photographs. I make situations happen. So I've always got the polishing rag in hand. I rarely go out searching for diamonds. To me, the best photographic jewels are hand-sewn, not found elements or gems.</p>

<p>I've said before that spontaneity can occur even in the most set up and contrived, the most fabricated and even the most self conscious moments. Spontaneity, to me, is about openness to possibilities, not closed-ness to control or artificiality. There's nothing wrong with candidness (when it works), but there's nothing inherently right about it either.</p>

<p>I don't think <em>polish</em> is a problem. I think disingenuousness is and perhaps a lack of authenticity. These can occur with polishing or without. When I first started shooting, I tended to want to make everything orderly, and I often imposed a false sense of order and cleanliness on things. The problem there was the <em>falseness</em>, not the order or cleanliness. I was afraid of accidents. I was afraid of the moment. I was afraid of myself, to an extent. I still am sometimes, but I'm not afraid to put that into some of my photographs now. I used to be.</p>

[aplumpton]

<p>"No apparent <em>message</em>, only an <em>appearance." </em></p>

<p>For me, they are often one and the same.</p>

<p>Staged, contrived, spontaneous, accidental, sendipitous, post-exposure, and/or polished, it really doesn't matter, as it is only the result that counts. Photography is but a two dimensional assemblage of forms and what appears as light and dark on a paper or screen. The viewer normally doesn't care how you got there, as long as it touches him or her in some way. And that is often very subjective and not necessarily similar to the photographer's own intentions or perceptions in regard to the subject matter.</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p><em>"The viewer normally doesn't care how you got there"</em></p>

<p>But the viewer often <em>sees</em> contrived, not caring how you got there. It's been stated by many viewers in this thread. I think Julie sees polish in the photo itself and that bothers her, never mind thinking about the process of the photographer (and I'm not sure how much the process and the product can be separated). You see contrived and control (at least that's what I've heard you saying) in some of Steichen's work. I don't think you're concerned with Steichen's process as much as you don't like seeing it in the finished product. What I'm suggesting is that it may not be the polish, the control, the contrivedness of what you're seeing but rather a falseness that you're in touch with that's bothering you. It might very well have been even more polished, but differently, and it would have touched you in a way that suited you more.</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p>Arthur, I think we (I) talk about process not because I think the viewer cares about process per se but because I think process leads to what the viewer sees. We go back and forth in this forum between talking as photographers and talking as viewers (sometimes as both) and it's awkward sometimes, true. But, just because viewers might not care about how it got there, it did get there, and it got there because of a process. So, discussing process is different from discussing product, but they are intimately related.</p>

[fate_faith_change_chains]

<p>Ideally, I want the process - my process - to be invisible. I want the viewer to see the image through my strokes, not my strokes laid upon or on the image. A balancing act.</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p>Phylo, I know what you're saying, but I'm not sure how that would relate, for example, to someone like <a href="../photodb/member-photos?user_id=3936461">Billy's</a> work. I see his strokes laid all over his images and yet I still think the viewer sees the image and the strokes in a very genuine and authentic way. (I'm thinking of scratched negatives, borders, reminders of the process of making a photograph.)</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p>Would it be fair to say that if you want your strokes to show then it's good if they show and if you don't, then it's good if they don't? Although we've already establish that plenty shows that we may not have total control over.</p>

[fate_faith_change_chains]

<p>I'm not necessarily talking about a stroke literally being placed on the image. Either way, I do see Billy's images <em>through</em> his strokes, not because of his strokes. <br /> They form a symbiosis.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>Would it be fair to say that if you want your strokes to show then it's good if they show and if you don't, then it's good if they don't?</p>

</blockquote>

<p>But the image is the stroke. So of course it's always good that the image is <em>being shown</em>. I want my image to be shown through my strokes/process. I don't only want you to see or concentrate on that, <em>ah, he shot that with grainy 35mm.</em> I want you to see c, : ). Not a + b = c.<br>

Or, I want you to taste the meal, not the ingredients, but the meal through the ingredients.</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p>Phylo, I know it wasn't literal. But I think some photographers (me, sometimes) do want their strokes, their process itself, to be seen. I sometimes want the "because of Fred's strokes" to be evident. I don't think there's a right or wrong here, at all. May just be different goals, different visions, different desires . . . different . . . ahem . . . strokes. (Sorry!)</p>

[fate_faith_change_chains]

<p>Hmmm. I don't know...I just stumbled upon Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata played on acoustic guitar. And it is, besides the music itself, all about the instrument too, which is a "stroke". So...<br />

/> On the other hand, we were talking about photography, not music..!<br /> ( I don't hear the music anymore by the way, or Beethoven, I only hear 'a guy playing the music on a guitar,' as good as the guitarplaying is, I hear too much guitar )</p>

[aplumpton]

<p>Showing strokes or not showing strokes is part of the product, which the viewer relates to, or not. I often hear the question of some gallery visitors about the dark skies I create in some of my B&W prints. The viewer doesn't know for sure that the photographer did it, but he cannot relate the rendition to something naturally observed, and thus suspects some form of transformation (process) or tries to revoncile the image as some sort of night picture. The same is true for unexpected angles or balances of light and dark that I sometimes apply, consciously or not (I love what the unconscious act tells me by feedback). In the final analysis, the image is passed by, or not (happily), by the visitor, and it is likely the overall perception of the product itself that he is conscious of (unless the strokes were exaggerated). I like it when the photographer's techniques or strokes do not get in the way of the viewer and that they remain just a part of some unknown recipe, the knowledge of which is not necessary for the taste.</p>

<p>We hear the groans of the professional tennis player (Nadal, for one) as he serves or returns, or the hum of Glenn Gould at his piano, but what we really appreciate is the actual tennis playout or the music itself in the manner that it sounds to us. Some too evident displays of strokes are more like fetishes. The broad strokes of Cezanne were not to display his process but to represent how he perceived his subject matter. A visit to some art galleries in our city and the viewing of the art fetishes of some less than memorable artists (saturated colours, glowing skies, etc.), is often a sad event and usually requires a cleansing that is wrought by a quick visit to the museum...</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p>Phylo, "so . . . " is as good a conclusion as any for the time being. Thanks!</p>

<p>_______________________________</p>

<p>"No apparent <em>message</em>, only an <em>appearance." </em>--Fred<br>

"For me, they are often one and the same." --Arthur</p>

<p>Arthur, I think that's a significant and oft-referred to difference between us, which I welcome.</p>

[luis_g]

<p>The degree of opacity in (or through) the strokes is yet another parameter for photographers to use as they wish.</p>

 

[fate_faith_change_chains]

<p>Luis, since you asked me too, what do you think about Steichen's <em>Rodin, Le Penseur</em>, in terms of <em>polish </em>/ or lack thereof ?</p>

[luis_g]

<p>My take is that the polish here is along more conceptual lines, made visible by the three figures which form a triangle, and the implicit but unseen one on the near side of the silhouetted figures of thwe sculptor and statue: The Viewer, forming a square. We end up with the artist as creator, artist as viewer, and viewer as viewer.</p>

[fate_faith_change_chains]

<blockquote>

<p>We end up with the artist as creator, artist as viewer, and viewer as viewer.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Yes, and the <em>viewer as viewer</em>, which becomes a creator too, through the act of viewing ?!<br>

Perhaps the *Greatest Works of Art* become invisible, leaving only the experiencer or observer, confronted with theirselves, their <em>selves</em>.<br>

In an effective ( not necessarily "good" ) painting, piece of music, photograph, film,... the observer = the observed.</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p>Is it possible to state in a sentence or to devise a formula or a generalization or a particular quality or set of characteristics or result -- whether about the observer or the observed or the creator or the created or any combination of the above -- for what makes an effective or a good or a likable or a successful or an interesting or a compelling or a moving or a long-lasting or a WOW or a deep or a fabulous photo? I think not. I think there is NO common denominator.</p>

[aplumpton]

 

 

<p>"<em>No apparent message, only an appearance." --Fred</em><br /><em>"For me, they are often one and the same." --Arthur</em><br>

<em>"Arthur, I think that's a significant and oft-referred to difference between us, which I welcome."</em></p>

<p>Fred, think of what appearance is. It is not only some unseen part of the image that "appears", but the viewer who receives from the image how it appears to him.</p>

<p>That is a communication, or in other words, a message. Remember that I suggested that a message does not have to be literal, but can be something that is felt.</p>

<p>(How enjoyable it might be to sit with 4 or 5 regular posters at a coffee table of a terrace on the Grand-Allée, or in old San Francisco, or on Blvd St-Michel near the Sorbonne, and debate these points with more panache and clarity than cyberspace allows. Such places are also propitious for making great photographs of life, which could be done from time to time to paliate some of the necessary dryness of some of the discussions.) </p>

 

 

 

[fate_faith_change_chains]

<blockquote>

<p>I think there is NO common denominator.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>I think there is. There <em>must</em> be. Whether reachable or not. Why or what would be the point to begin with it ( an idea, a photograph,...), if there is no end to end it with. To shoot for "the everything", and everything inbetween ?<br>

Paradoxically, I don't think there is no end because it's open-ended, but because it's a circle.</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p>You may have your end, or no end, and I may have mine, or none, and they may have nothing speakable in common. Why we should have the same end, I'm not so sure. I do follow you, Phylo, around and around and around, and I think we probably land pretty close to each other . . . or, so far apart that it's really close after all.</p>