Performance

[Norma Desmond]

<p>Dan, please cleanse yourself of that vision!</p>

<p>Julie, thanks. Nice description. It gives me insights into your methods and, as with several others here, seems to coordinate with the photos of yours that I've seen. A puzzle has a pre-determined way of being put together correctly, a rightness built into the structure. A strong sense of craft, for me, is apparent in your description, an "in-touchness" between the way you craft your photos and the way your photos look. It also makes me think about the photographers for whom the process might be more like dismantling a puzzle. The jigsaw puzzle is like a mathematical equation that comes with a right answer that one must find, a methodical-ness. I feel that strong sense of <em>drive</em> in many of your descriptions. Of course, for others, the vocabulary wouldn't involve the drive toward a solution or a "rightness."</p>

[jtk]

<p>A few days ago on NPR I heard an interview with one of America's greatest playwrights. I don't think many here are into theatre, which is one of the reasons the word "performance" is tossed around so carelessly, some even resorting to reducto ad Websters and "performance art".</p>

<p>In any case, the playwright was Edward Albee, creator of the gut wrenching (and wonderful) "Who's Afraid of Virgina Woolf" and the virtually psychedelic "Tiny Alice." </p>

<p>When Tiny Alice was performed (!) in San Francisco in 1966 it turned our world of hippies and artists and rabid politicos inside out, we flipped out and stood in line for the "rush" (the last minute cheap or free seats). Absolutely crazed enthusiasm swept the city. Anyhow, Albee in this NPR interview made the point that what counted was the work, not the identity of the artist. Maybe he wrote, rather than performing with a typewriter?</p>

<p>He was interviewed because he'd just upset a hugely important subset of NYC theatre enthusiasts by stating that he wasn't a "gay playwright" any more than Arthur Miller ("Death of a Salesman") was a "straight playwright." I don't think that 1966 (67?) audience in San Francisco was more than 20% gay because that was about the ratio in my own circle of acquaintance. We were all sympathetic with each other, as I recall. I happen to be straight, so first thought of Tiny Alice from that perspective. But my gay friends saw it as a reflection of something in their lives.</p>

<p>I doubt anybody thought about the author...who would have cared about him anyway, since they were transfixed by the art and respected it for what it was. I doubt Albee thought much about himself either...he claims to think about his work, which is not him after all. </p>

[Allen Herbert]

<p>"compared photographing to dancing, especially photographing live subject"<br /> <br />Épaulement Shouldering could possibly describe Fred's movements from his narrative.<br /> <br />Of course the subject could been encapsulated by these movements resulting in expression and movement creating an imaginative interlude seldom imagined. Indeed, there could be a joining of photographer and subject in a dance of mutual twining and creative expression.</p>

<p>This has been done before on the theatrical stage when the audience has been invited to become part of the performance. For instance in a Greek Old Comedy a relationship between the audience itself is presumed to be playing a role.</p>

<p>Another thought...</p>

<p><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/theatreblog/2007/aug/15/interactivetheatreisalltherage">http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/theatreblog/2007/aug/15/interactivetheatreisalltherage</a></p>

[Allen Herbert]

<p>If Fred gave his subject a big hug, an intimacy, the participant would also live an emotional experience, which would be a conduit to the photograph.</p>

[fate_faith_change_chains]

<blockquote>

<p>One of the reasons I want to talk about the performance aspect of making a photograph is for us to share things about our process and see how that process matters to the photographs that result.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Photographs can be flat and one-dimensional, they mostly are, even with lots of process going on. The performance part, while potentially just as transformative ( both in the negative and positive sense ) to the image as the process, is less specified than the process. I view the process more as a series of controlable steps, from A to B to...The process makes the image or photograph concrete. Performance seems to exist on different planes and levels, adding interdimensionality to this concrete'ness of the photograph.<br /> Process may be the make-up, while performance is what you do ( become / lose ) underneath it. Performance expands and contracts, while the make-up stays.</p>

[inoneeye]

<p>Fred - "[To be clear, there are two aspects I'm asking about: Do you experience a sense of performance when making a photo? Do you experience a sense of performance when viewing a photo and do you think others might?]"</p>

<p>I am often aware of My performing while shooting. It changes with the environment of my location. Sometimes i don't give it any thought whatsoever. When on stage with musicians I am balancing my desire to be respectful of the musicians and Their audience. I also have a style that I employ that wants to be upclose with extreme angles to the players. To accomplish that i use a persona that tries to become one of them. I am hyper aware of the audience when i begin. At best I will begin to tune them out without losing the adapted persona and 'performing' what I consider to be required of me.<br /> I do not use the same persona when street shooting. In fact I have different 'street' personas to use. One is being 'invisible'. another is being social, friendly. and sometimes even overtly mysterious. All performances in a more literal sense if literal means a viewing audience while I shoot. and significantly changing the product/ images i get. As usual a continuum of possibilities. sometimes automatic and others very thoughtful decisions.<br /> Then I would like to acknowledge the performance (my actions & involvement) in assembling and presentation of the parts of a photograph. A process very much including post for me. I often use rhythms and punctuation, nuance, highlights, motion, space, layers...yada or 'brushstrokes' of light,dark and color, reflection and relationships. metaphoric 'Brushstrokes' at work - as Fred suggested. Writers do it, film makers, painters, architects,<br>

choreographers, sculptors, etc why not photographers. I perform the actions that create the product & the viewer takes the finished performance and off they go or not. The viewer may even continue the performance by participating in the experience. Isn't that nice when it happens.</p>

<p>Finally I noted that Fred also mentioned exhibits and books ie collections. As an avid book collector of many years I am especially fond of book collections that go beyond random collections and imo clearly feel like a performance. Often there are many single photographs that are weak as standalone images but integral and powerful as a part of the performance. editing & Presentation can go along way in enhancing an interactive quality.</p>

[inoneeye]

<p>Phylo - "Performance seems to exist on different planes and levels, adding interdimensionality to this concrete'ness of the photograph."<br>

Nicely reasoned & said- Phylo.</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p>Phylo and Josh, your two posts together really help clarify some things for me. Phylo, I think you make a helpful distinction between process and performance. And, Josh, I think you make a good distinction between action and performance. Honestly, when I started the thread, I was thinking of "performance" as having a significant "oomph" factor to it making it more than just action. Since I do deal with theatricality a lot, there was a bit of metaphorical lights, curtains, and stage in my idea of it. I didn't expect others to experience their performances in such a theatrical way. But I also didn't want it to lose whatever extra stuff it had that a simple action does not. </p>

<p>I agree with you, Phylo, that the process has a concreteness and the performance is more inter-dimensional. So the brushstrokes Josh and I talk about may well belong more to the process though I would want to leave room for overlap.</p>

<p>Josh, I'm surprised I had never thought of persona from my own point of view. I tend to think of my subjects' personas rather than my own. But this notion of performance is tied up with <em>role</em>. You talk about adapted persona, which seems important to what I'm getting at. It is not just an action, like walking down the street. But it is a coherence of actions or an adaptation of actions to a purpose that creates the performance aspect. And, yes, those adaptations to circumstances (the way we might act differently in different situations) is a performance, audience or no audience, stage or no stage.</p>

[cyanatic]

 

<p >I find it interesting that as this discussion has developed, it begins to echo elements discussed in Luis' "Being in touch" thread.</p>

<p > </p>

<p >Performance and roles -- in the way we've been discussing them -- is one aspect of being in touch with one's work. And then there is the nuance of performance in terms of how we play the role as mentioned by Josh: sometimes consciously adopting a particular persona ("invisible", "photojournalist" "devil-may-care street shooter"), or subconsciously, chameleon-like, adapting to the situation and environment in which one is photographing.</p>

<p > </p>

<p >Josh also mentions the performance of post-production (also an aspect of being in touch). Last night I was working on some images in Lightroom/Nik while listening to Thelonius Monk...my "performance" influenced by the music I was listening to.</p>

<p > </p>

<p >And plays and playwriting, ah yes. In another life I was a budding young playwright which, in turn, got me into acting. For a while I worked with other local playwrights for an organization that introduced and taught playwriting to high school students, on campus and in local theater spaces. One of the organization directors was a drama professor at San Diego State and was friends with Edward Albee. We got to meet with him at an informal get together. Quietly passionate and unprepossessing as I recall. And John, don't forget Albee's "Zoo Story", one of my favorites after "Woolf". Mamet and Pinter are among my favorites, though. Mamet like a pushed, grainy b&w street shot. Pinter like some surreal, desaturated juxtaposition of menace and whimsy. I've never thought of it this way before, but among my own photographs the ones which please me the most have (to me) a Pinteresque quality. I often seek out and admire the same quality in the work of other photographers.</p>

<p > </p>

<p >And the performance aspect of how and where one displays photographs. I have a few YouTube vids posted. Some just stills with my own music, some more documentary in style (University of Chicago's Balkan Spring Festival). John Kelly has written about the usage of music, ambient sounds, and words to accompany photographs. I prefer music and ambient sounds to words. Took a walk through the neighborhood with my daughter last weekend during a thunderstorm, taking photographs while carrying a small digital recorder to capture the sound of thunder, rain, cars, footsteps in a gravelly alley. Not sure what I'll do with it yet, but it seems that the performance aspect of photography becomes more evident when one begins to look for complementary elements to accompany photographs. Whether it be sound, or music, or words, or method of presentation. Speaking of presentation, is anyone familiar with Zoe Strauss "Under I-95" Exhibition? Strauss is largely self-taught. She began taking photos of her Philadelphia neighborhood, then exhibiting them amongst the concrete pillars of the I-95 overpass that cuts through her Philly neighborhood. And, whether she thought of it as a marketing ploy or not, it certainly garnered her a fair amount of attention.</p>

[Spearhead]

<p>I think Natacha Merritt is a photographer whose work seems to be a performance. I look at "performance" as something I would pay for, or at least go out of my way to watch strictly for what it is. Merritt might be the only one. And I would pay, but I would need a big bag of dollar bills.</p>

<p>I don't think I was clear enough about what I think about the definition Luis gives near the top. <a href="http://www.flightstats.com/go/FlightRating/flightRatingByCarrier.do?airline=ua"> Here is a good example</a> of that use of the word "performance." I meet that definition when I shoot commercially. It's one of the things I pride myself on. </p>

[luis_g]

<p>Steve - I am quite familiar with Zoe Strauss and her under the freeway show. I loved her pictures of capitalist logos in a Commie country, and the storefronts. She's not spectacular or slick enough for a lot of people, but I regard her as a conceptual powerhouse. </p>

[jtk]

<p><a href="http://zoestrauss.com/zoe.html">http://zoestrauss.com/zoe.html</a></p>

[chris_waller]

<p>Yes, indeed. There is an element of what I had thought of as 'theatre' in shooting a portrait, or, when shooting such as landscape, an element of what in that case I would call ritual. When I am shooting a portrait I try to convey to the subject that I am serious about this picture, that it is important to me. So, in the presence of the subject, I set the chair (if a seated portrait), I step to and fro, I take light readings, I go back to the camera and peer through the viewfinder, and so forth. It is indeed a kind of dance and I aim to create a kind of creative dance with the subject. I witnessed something similar in a cafe in France: the proprietor breezed around the tables out on the pavement, tray balanced on hand, his gait was fluid, yes, dance-like, as he engaged in brief repartee with his customers while taking orders and dispensing coffees. It was his little bit of theatre. When I shoot landscape, even thought the subject is, as far as I'm aware, incapable of response, I go through a ritual of setting up the tripod, mounting the camera on it, loading the film, taking the light-readings, as if building myself up to that final moment of firing the shutter. </p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p>Chris, thanks for your various performance descriptions. What you describe with your photographing of landscapes sounds like coming to a crescendo of sorts. I'm sure the rhythms vary as well.</p>

<p>Ritual really strikes a chord . . . certainly it is a specific and significant type of performance. Death always brings to mind how steeped in ritual we humans can be. Rituals can help connect us to generations, who we know have performed them before us and will likely continue to do so. I think of death the same way, as something that ties one generation to the next. Obviously, a feeling of connectedness -- not only to your landscapes and to your process, but to those photographers and photographs who came before you and will follow you, going through similar motions while giving their own individuality to them -- can be apparent in becoming aware of such rituals. Just as each of our photos may become part of a greater body of work, our photos and our work as a whole can be seen as part of something bigger as well, links in a chain.</p>

[je ne regrette rien]

<p>Somehow I have a peculiar feeling about this thread.</p>

<p>As it goes now, I have my camera with me most of the time. Maybe loaded with black and white film, maybe with colour film.</p>

<p>I'm interested in documenting what's happening around, involving people.</p>

<p>Thinking of recent experiences I realise that I am busy enough with "getting my photo right" in terms of what I want to have in and what not, and how I would like light to work, how the overall composition works, to realise whether I am performing or not.</p>

<p>What I can tell is that I try to avoid people realising that I am photographing them before I do, but that I'm definitely inside the scene of my photo, since I am very close when I compose.</p>

<p>And when the shutter is released, there is maybe a smile and a wave.<br /> A relationship is built, even if only for seconds.<br /> More than performance, the first phase is a process.<br /> The second phase after the release I would define as a momentary straightforward type of relationship.</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p>Luca, I like your description of remaining invisible to those you're shooting (to the extent you can) and yet putting yourself in the scene. What's interesting is that one can remain invisible to others when shooting and still shoot in such a way as to become quite apparent in the photograph itself. When you say you are "in the scene," do you mean strictly your involvement at the time of the shooting or do you see that involvement translating through to the photo, so that the photographer's presence (physical or otherwise) is felt (though not necessarily seen) in or through the photo?</p>

<p>Some photographers do make themselves apparent, not just in terms of emotion or perspective, but in a more physical sort of way (and not by including their reflections or shadows, though that can be a method). Triangles can be important in doing this, where the photographer becomes the implied third point or side of a suggested geometric triangle. </p>

[jtk]

<p><strong>Lest anybody miss it</strong>, there's a lot of humor in recent posts by Allen Herbert and Jeff Spirer :-) <strong>Browse back.</strong></p>

<p>Back to Zoe Strauss: she's an interesting, daring , deeply involved <strong>photographer</strong>. Therefore (not just incidentally) she's a creature of concepts (few concepts are verbal). To reduce her photographs and her I-95 exhibit to the hackneyed 70s-80s NY notion of "concept" seems to dismiss the substance of her work. </p>

<p>And, not incidentally, all sorts of painters and sculptors and performers have for a century or more "performed" in strange spaces. It can be a great thing, even if it does have a "marketing ploy" aspect sometimes...the best part is that it does widen the work's sphere beyond the usual gallery-goers.</p>

<p> </p>

[Allen Herbert]

<p>"And when the shutter is released, there is maybe a smile and a wave.<br /> A relationship is built, even if only for seconds.<br /> More than performance, the first phase is a process.<br /> The second phase after the release I would define as a momentary straightforward type of relationship."</p>

<p>And that about sums it up.</p>

<p>The rest discussed is just an emotional introspective arse grazing encore.</p>

[Julie H]

<p>Allen Herbert said: "The rest discussed is just an emotional introspective arse grazing encore."</p>

<p>What a lovely example of what Richard Rorty calls 'final vocabulary.'</p>

<blockquote>

<p>"All human beings carry about a set of words whch they employ to justify their actions, their beliefs, and their lives. These are the words in which we formulate praise of our friends and contempt for our enemies; our long-term projects, our deepest sef-doubts and our highest hopes. They are the words in which we tell, sometimes prospectively and sometimes retrospectively, the story of our lives. I shall call these words a person's 'final vocabulary.'</p>

<p>"It is 'final' in the sense that if doubt is cast on the worth of these words, their user has no noncircular argumentative recourse. Those words are as far as he can go with language; beyond them there is only helpless passivity or a resort to force."</p>

</blockquote>

<p>As compared to, for example (not the only possible varient, but one that Rorty offers), what he calls the 'ironist':</p>

<blockquote>

<p>"(1) She has radical and continuing doubts about the final vocabulary she currently uses, because she has been impressed by other vocabularies, vocabularies taken as final by people or books she has encountered; (2) she realizes that argument phrased in her present vocabulary can neither underwrite nor dissolve those doubts; (3) insofar as she philosophizes about her situation, she does not think that her vocabulary is closer to reality than others, that it is in touch with a power not herself. Ironists who are inclined to philosophize see the choice between vocabularies as made neither within a neutral and universal metavocabulary nor by an attempt to fight one's way past appearance to the real, but simply by playing the new off against the old."</p>

</blockquote>

<p>-- both quotes from Richard Rorty, <em>Contingency, Irony and Solidarity</em>, (1989)</p>

[luis_g]

<p>Good observations from Chris Waller. The repetitive motions that we go through with things like the technical aspects described, are ritualized. Sometimes while working on a series, there can be more complex, higher-order forms of ritual involved. I don't bother to convey that I am serious. I <em>am</em> serious (and light-hearted, simulataneously), and think the subjects sense it.</p>

<p>_____________________________________________</p>

<p>The quality of performance affects the outcome, perhaps even the way we see. Look at the difference between Weston (who stayed, by his own humorous account, no more than 500 yds from the car trunk), an Ansel Adams, who when young, took mule packs and went deep into the landscape, and a Galen Rowell, who often took very light gear on cross-country runs and climbs, Atget, who took the train and walked into parks and preserves as well as the city. Or in any other genre in the medium. All with very different results. While yes, photography is obviously visual, it is also inescapably <em>physical.</em><br>

____________________________________________</p>

<p> </p>

[fate_faith_change_chains]

<p>Luis, yes. Physical fact, psychic effect. What we don't know - or what the viewer doesn't see - is the getting there, the going and the doing behind and of the photograph.</p>

<p><em>I carried an 8- by-10 to the top of a mountain in Estes Park and never took a picture </em> -Harry Callahan<br>

---<br>

Perhaps like meditation, acting, the most solid performance is no performance.</p>

<p><em>The essence of Cartier-Bresson is photographic performance. He didn't really need to put the film in the camera - the importance for him is the act of taking pictures ... being in the right position and being fast -</em>Luc Delahaye</p>

[je ne regrette rien]

<p>Fred,</p>

<blockquote>

<p>When you say you are "in the scene," do you mean strictly your involvement at the time of the shooting or do you see that involvement translating through to the photo, so that the photographer's presence (physical or otherwise) is felt (though not necessarily seen) in or through the photo?</p>

</blockquote>

<p>my purpose is to document, being openly present in the space where the photography is taken, but without being inside the photo. My subjects should at a certain point in time realise that I'm there, but I would like to document without becoming part of the photo.</p>

<p>It would be illusory to think that my presence is neutral in respect to the photo, but I'd rather avoid being inside the picture. I'm intrusive enough when I take the photo. I would like to be the describer of a situation, but without becoming part of it. Some sort of external actor. In fact, when I recently took a photo in a place full of mirrors, I tried not to be in the picture.</p>

<p>The reason is that I would like the entire focus to be on my subject, avoiding the distracting presence of myself.</p>

<p>I realise that this is just a point of view, and that there are cases where the photographer might directly wish to include him/herself in the picture somehow.</p>

<p>My preference is to limit my "presence" to the mere perception of the subject.</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p>Thanks, Luca. I understand. It seems to me it's a desire for as much "objectivity" as you can discern. Your description is clear about not wanting to be a distraction.</p>

<p>To add a twist, when a photographer does include himself -- to whatever extent he or she chooses or just naturally does -- the subject can become <em>inclusive</em> of the photographer. What can certainly be a distraction (especially if handled poorly or self-consciously without nuance) can also simply transform the subject, which now includes a presence, perspective, or metaphorical (or physical) shadow.</p>

<p>Taking that even a step further, here's something I recently said to Phylo (check out <a href="http://www.motionandstill.net/index.php?/projects/be-here-nowhere-be/">THIS SERIES</a> and <a href="http://www.motionandstill.net/index.php?/projects/the-road/">THIS ONE</a>)</p>

<blockquote>

<p><em>". . . [H]is work, more than most, is NOT about his subject matter. . . . It's like his subjects don't matter that much. They are casual bystanders or a springboard to the ether in which his photos (and his mind) wander. . . . It's more about the watched going right through the watcher. Phylo seems to complete a circle in his work, one that includes him conceptually [as part of the subject] if not gravitationally. . . . There's a king of triangle. There are two points of the triangle (maybe call them the physical and the metaphysical . . . maybe not) in the photos and the third point of the triangle is somewhere behind Phylo, the photographer. So it's as if the vision is coming from behind and through [him]."</em></p>

</blockquote>

<p>In many cases, the photo itself is the subject.</p>

[Allen Herbert]

<strong> </strong>"an act of presenting a play, concert, or other form of entertainment:<em>Don Giovanni</em> had its first performance in 1787"

<em>

<p>"I carried an 8- by-10 to the top of a mountain in Estes Park and never took a picture"</p>

</em>

<p>-Harry Callahan</p>

<p>I think what we are really discussing is the journey and pleasure of. For instance a fisherman will enjoy sitting on a riverbank all day without catching a fish. A photography might not get any decent photos, or even taken any, but will have enjoyed their day of photography. I think, at best, we are stretching the word performance to its outer limits.</p>

 

[Allen Herbert]

<p>Why thanks, Julie Heywood. I just thought it had a nice rhythm to it. Even nicer it could used as an example of "final vocabulary" from a Philosopher.</p>

<p>I also like what he wrote about Nabokov.</p>

<p>"Nabokov can invent his own final vocabulary, thus freeing himself from the vocabularies of his predecessors..."</p>

<p>Can we call each other Julie and Allen full names seem so formal and stuffy.</p>