Allen Herbert Posted October 21, 2011 Share Posted October 21, 2011 <p>A Photograph is a moment frozen in time. We have not seen the before or after just that moment. The translation of it is always going to be an act of or imagination and individual culture and perception. <br /> A Photograph can contain illusions, lies, honesty, truth and factual information. Dependant on the Photograph the mixture can contain more of one and less of another ...but they are all there to lesser or greater degrees. It is all about shades of grey not pure black and white which neither exists in nature or Photography. The journey is about all of those and how we want to use them, our measure of them, in our personal vision...our truths. That is how I see them working on our individual journeys.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AJHingel Posted October 22, 2011 Share Posted October 22, 2011 <blockquote> <p>That is how I see them working on our individual journeys.</p> </blockquote> <p>I would agree, <strong>Allen</strong>, apart from the journey is always collective and between the photographer and uncountable numbers of viewers. I most cases the journey goes in divers directions, but if the photo is good and succeeded (few are !) they might end up in the same neighborhood of places, sharing some kind of understanding about the illusions and lies in play.</p> <blockquote> <p>I do not see illusions as lies per se, (<strong>j d.</strong>)</p> </blockquote> <p>Neither do I. Illusions are lies when they are made to prevent people seeing "truth" about the photo and/or the seen "reality". Illusions are lies in photography if they are made to cheat the viewer into believing he sees "reality". Illusions in photography is no lie if the process towards "truth" is started between the photographer and the viewer and/or between the seen reality and the photo.</p> <p>That is at least how I see it and how I would suggest to use the term "lies". In order not to provoke moral/ethic/religious reactions, one might choose to name such "lies" as : <em>intended manipulation of the viewer. </em>Most of us would do it, if not all the time, most of the time, more or less explicitly.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wouter Willemse Posted October 22, 2011 Share Posted October 22, 2011 <p>Anders,<br> To me, the controversy in lie versus truth, and where illusions fit in, seems mostly one of choice of words. I think your 2nd last post (Oct 20, 2011; 09:06 a.m) clarifies a lot, as I think Fred clarified his point earlier very well too.<br> As I opposed earlier against the use of 'lie', it would be the 2nd kind you refer to in that post. I do not see those as lies. The fact the viewer perceives them as real, is not wholly the photographer's fault; the viewer also bears responsibility for misinforming him- or herself there (by being not critical enough, or not asking the right questions). The refinement you make in your last post (answering to Josh) comes much closer to how I see it, but there is still a small nagging difference.</p> <p>To me, a lie is a deliberate effort to convey a non-truth. It's the photographer's intent to misinform the viewer and setting things up to misinform - according to the photographers perceived truth (*). Illusions can do this, but they also (as stated before) can have the exact reverse effect, as you also say in your last response.<br> Manipulation, however, is a subtly different matter to me. Illusions can also manipulate the viewer towards seeing the truth (of the photographer). Sarcasm and irony come to mind. Manipulation and illusion seem close relatives to me, rather than manipulation and lie.</p> <p>That in our photos we manipulate most of the time - agreed. That there is an intended manipulation - agreed. That those would be lies - there we disagree. But I think we (still) disagree on choice of words, more than we do on the actual concept.</p> <p>________<br> (*) this becomes a mess when the photographer has wildly different ideas and thinks he lies while the whole world thinks he's telling a truth, but let's assume reasonable mindsets.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AJHingel Posted October 22, 2011 Share Posted October 22, 2011 <p>I agree, Wouter, it is all about words. But words are important because that is what permits us to communicate and they define, to a large degree how we see reality, whether they are pronounced, written or not.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Julie H Posted October 22, 2011 Share Posted October 22, 2011 <p>Anders, responding to your earlier post that brought up "essence." I believe in essence. "Belief" entails essence (and existence entails belief ... and I believe I that I do exist). I don't believe in "surface."</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AJHingel Posted October 22, 2011 Share Posted October 22, 2011 <p>Julie, I do believe in surfaces. Surface is what you see and feel whan you are not able to approach the essence of things and events.</p> <p>Maybe, one way making the discussion about illusions/lies/truth more concrete could be to look at <a href="../photo/14440814&size=lg">this photo</a>. It could be described as a "kind illusion", because it surely does not show anything else than what can be seen by all eyes that pass the place, and yet, it hides indices to several layers of lies and illusions of our daily life that invite the viewer to a process of reflections that might lead towards corresponding layers of truth. </p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Julie H Posted October 22, 2011 Share Posted October 22, 2011 <p>Anders, how do I know what "you see"? What DO you see?</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AJHingel Posted October 22, 2011 Share Posted October 22, 2011 <p>Julie, according to the order of things, apart from my photos, you would not know what I see.<br> If you refer to the photo I referred to above, it might be more interesting to hear what viewers are able to see than what the photographer saw.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Allen Herbert Posted October 22, 2011 Share Posted October 22, 2011 <p>"Julie, according to the order of things, apart from my <a href="l">photos</a>, you would not know what I see"<br> <br /> I think we each as a viewer have different perception on a Photograph or a piece of Art. To go several steps further down the road it is about the story the Photograph is telling. A strong Photograph well tell me a story.. my understanding of it may be difference from others but still the story is there for all. It will play on my emotions, subconcious, imagination, and orchestrate them all together much like a piece of classical music. As an individual photographer that is what we try to create whether just for us or the participating viewer. However, generally it is about us and our search for some nebulous truth...and sometimes our hands open and feel something.<br> <br /> I think those thoughts are very much expressed in the work of Vincent Van Gogh where he is seeking, searching through his Art. The Starry Night series of pieces are an example having a special sort of magic which to my mind is indescribable in words. To try in a simplistic way I would say he has attempted to captured the wholeness of everything in geometry and clandestine colour and to a certain extent succeeded. I certainly feel he has opened his hands and felt something and the challenge is to follow his journey and percieve it in our own ways.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Allen Herbert Posted October 22, 2011 Share Posted October 22, 2011 <p>I before e except after c. Jeeze.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AJHingel Posted October 22, 2011 Share Posted October 22, 2011 <p><strong>Allen</strong>, I agree that photos, like book, are their to take and round away with, for each of us. This does however not eliminate a serious consideration of the "story line" that the artist intended to tell and its influence on what viewers end up with as "journey". As you write: the challenge is to follow ..(the) journey and percieve it in our own ways". </p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Norma Desmond Posted October 25, 2011 Author Share Posted October 25, 2011 <p>Beliefs are strongly-held opinions (opinions with an extra amount of oomph!) and they are, indeed, human, as human as certain body parts in that everybody has them.</p> <p>It's not, to me, important that Copernicus <em>believed</em> that the sun and not Earth was the center of the universe. It's important that he showed it to be the case. It's not persuasive to me that Wittgenstein and so many other 20th-Century philosophers <em>believed</em> that the notion of essences was flawed. It's significant that they framed the world in non-essentially-oriented ways and showed the flaws in essentialist thinking by refuting and challenging the assumptions of their dualistic predecessors who saw the world as being divided into inner and outer, predecessors who had depended on unwavering definitions of things in order to find a foundation and security in a fixed, stagnant, and eternal reality.</p> <p>Often, the historical progress of thinking involves uncovering the illusions in the thinking of previous generations. Though it may, on some level, be a matter of replacing one illusion with another, the alignment of Science and Philosophy throughout the ages does seem progressive rather than regressive, though there will always be resistance by more conservative minds who prefer to think in terms of the status quo. Thus, things like evolution and climate change are challenged by those whose <em>beliefs</em> guide them more than evidence. Religion is, perhaps, the sorriest of human endeavors to come out of our irrational and misguided adherence to <em>belief</em>.</p> <p>Regardless, I do think belief has a vital role to play with regard to illusion. I also think belief is very much tied to habit. Photographic illusions, not unlike twelve-step programs, can act as an intervention between a photographer/viewer and his/her visual habits.</p> We didn't need dialogue. We had faces! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Norma Desmond Posted October 25, 2011 Author Share Posted October 25, 2011 <p>As for the journey/process, for me it also includes the <em>subject</em> as well as the photographer and the viewer. I like that tripartite aspect of so many photographs. In that respect, photographs I respond to and the kind of process I employ are more triangular than linear.</p> We didn't need dialogue. We had faces! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AJHingel Posted October 25, 2011 Share Posted October 25, 2011 <p>Fred I agree with you on the tripartite journey, when it comes to "subjects" in portraits. It is less the case when the "subjects" are artifacts or unknown people passing by in a street. It is even less the case when the "subject" is abstract. In such cases, the journey in question is more an ever repeating return between the artist's expression and the viewer.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aanji Posted November 6, 2011 Share Posted November 6, 2011 <p>aren't all photographs illusion? simply an image I am showing you, not the leaf, not the person but a doppleganger - and the coolest ones are the illusions containing an illusion.</p> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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