Balancing Emotion and Photography

[pierre_fermat]

<p>Hello All<br>

I am graduating into my 30s next January. Recent events have made me ponder over an increasing realization of transience of people and places. While I accept the change as natural, I would like to remember the path , the memories and retain a sense of history. Towards that, I have started photographing my parent's home and neighborhood, where I spent all my childhood and teen years. I also plan to do it regularly to 'record' the changes over time.I has turned out to be more challenging than I imagined. I would really appreciate some thoughts from you guys.</p>

<p>The first challenge is 'artistic' vs 'documentary'. I don't know if this is a false dichotomy. I am constantly conflicted between choosing an interesting composition and an 'accurate' vision of what I 'normally' see. Have you been through such a conflict on choosing the composition for its individual or documentary merit?</p>

<p>I am also trying to see what will trigger in my mind if I see a picture after a long time. I don't mind if it triggers sorrow, but I am morbidly afraid of losing out on something that I remember now. It is causing tremendous emotional strain to figure out compositions that in their totality, 'complete'. How do you manage to evoke or record emotional triggers through a set of photographs? Can there be even a collection 'complete' in its emotional gamut?<br>

If you have gone through such an exercise (both personally and professionaly), please share your thoughts.It would be tremendously helpful.</p>

<p>Cheers<br>

Pierre</p>

<p> </p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p>I think of the home movies my parents took through the 40s, 50s, and 60s. They seem to have been shot with love and a degree of innocence. Perhaps it was their ability not to separate or even consider the difference between what was accurate and what their feelings were that makes these movies so significant and moving for me, the ones before I was born and the ones of my childhood. They seem simply to have accepted what was in front of them. Feeling and accuracy seem both to come through.</p>

<p>"Artistic" vs. "documentary" is a bit of a false dichotomy because there is lots of overlap. Some great documentary work is art and some great art documents. That being said, one can take different approaches in a very conscious manner. True documentary work seems to require some degree of objectivity and distance. I will speak for myself here. What generally triggers in my own mind after a time, especially regarding pictures of my past, is genuineness more so than accuracy. Trying too hard can get in the way of genuineness so I'd go easy on yourself. Most of the home movies that act as emotional triggers for me looked like everyone was having fun and in love with what they were doing, including whoever was behind the camera. It wasn't that the one behind the camera loved photographing, it was that he loved what he was photographing.</p>

[michaellinder]

<p>Pierre: If photographs did not trigger emotional responses, they would be nothing but traces of light on a medium. I tend to think that too much time and effort is expended on a photographer's concern for what viewers may feel upon looking at his/her work. In my opinion, if the photographer is genuinely interested in conveying his/her emotions with respect to the subject matter, the rest will take care of itself - including the photograph's documentary aspect(s).</p>

[Matt Laur]

<p>Very insightful, Fred.<br /><br />Pierre, I've felt that problem before, too. I was just recently asked to photograph someone's beloved companion dog of 14 years. It was very clear that this was in anticipation of the dog's imminent demise. This was an attempt to capture her sweet personality and their relationship before more pain set in. It was agonizing, coming to the relationship from the outside, trying to perceive what would - seen years later - evoke just the right emotions.<br /><br />I realized that all I needed was to capture images that showed the dog content, not stressed or wary. Just as with a human subject, it's as simple as eye expression and body language. Because <em>nothing</em> I could do would photographically conjure up the owner's decade and a half with the dog. She would bring all of that to the viewing of the photograph later, herself. My job was to provide a touchstone for that, and to take care to avoid images that appeared to dwell on decline itself. Sure, that's making a point of skewing the "record" towards certain memories and away from others. But it can only work because that's what we do, naturally, lest we go crazy.</p>

[luis_g]

<p>"I am constantly conflicted between choosing an interesting composition and an 'accurate' vision of what I 'normally' see. Have you been through such a conflict on choosing the composition for its individual or documentary merit?"</p>

<p>"I don't mind if it triggers sorrow, but I am morbidly afraid of losing out on something that I remember now."</p>

<p>Relax, you're going to fail. Everyone does. Accept that this is an impossible task, that things and places and people will freely swim past the fingers of our dreams of catching them in our little boxes. Any moment can be something. You will remember some things, and others you will forget, and eventually, you too will be forgotten. If you are anxious about this, your photographs will be laced with morbid anxiety. If you place yourself under stress, the pictures will look it. You're the intended audience. Be who you are when and where you are upon making the pictures. The best photographers are emissaries from the future -- with amnesia.</p>

<p>Photographically, you will only be able to get a tiny subset, which will have to speak for the whole. Decades from now there will be pictures that you've forgotten what they are of, who is in them, and whether you took them. The moment will not stay, nor will it be lost, according to current physics theory.</p>

<p>Your project is one of the most elemental journeys of a photographer. Forget Art and Documentation. Merit, too.</p>

<p>Since you aren't sure at this time about several things regarding the project, my advice is to initially photograph things every which way you can think of. Work for a few months, then look at your takes, and the work will tell you where it wants to go. Add captions to your pictures. Get Blurb-type books made. Long before the end of your life there may not be any way of 'playing' these images.</p>

<p>"There is nothing as mysterious as a fact clearly described" --- Garry Winogrand</p>

[Wouter Willemse]

<p>Looking at your question from a slightly different angle than the (very good) answers above: is documentary really meaning an accurate vision? Whose accurate vision? Bring in your camera, but not yourself?<br>

I don't believe documentary work is that detached, or that accurate. To abuse/extend on Matt's example - the "accurate" shots came by just letting the dog be, respect it as the vivid animal it used to be - it could be said to be non-intervening and in that sense a detached approach. On the other hand, it also says something about Matt's way with dogs, and a keen eye for the characteristics of this particular one. That's non-photographic work, which enables the photo all the same. Is that a documentary photo, or is it a documentary photo by Matt? How accurate is that if you let the same photo be done with a somebody who is afraid of dogs, and cannot handle them? A photo has a point of view, and there is little way around that.<br>

Just as art, documentary work is a way of expressing yourself, and communicating.</p>

<p>On a very recent city trip, I again noticed how difficult it is (to me anyway) to make good photos of a place you do not really know all that well. I end up with really very tourist-photos. Those are maybe as close as I might get to accurate photos. By a lack of knowledge and emotional involvement. However, if I'd be making documentaries, I'd make sure I know the ins and outs. By which time, I'd have an opinion, emotions and ideas. And probably much more expressive photos.</p>

[don_essedi]

'Documentary' applied to a photo is an adjective, not a noun. If someone says "I saw a documentary yesterday", it is unlikely anyone here would think they refer to a photo; maybe a movie or tv show, but not a photo. 'Documentary' in the phrase 'documentary photo' refers to a quality of a photo. A 'landscape photo' refers to a kind or category of photo, but if someone were to say 'I saw a landscape yesterday', we would assume it was either a painting or a photograph because 'landscape' itself is a noun referring to a thing. 'Documentary' doesn't work that way, re a photo.

 

Single photos become a (or 'the') documentary when they are brought together as a work, for example, the classic Life Magazine photo essay. Artistic photos in the work inherit the quality of documentary by association. Often enough, the difference between an artistic and a documentary composition is a matter of showing context or not. Notions of getting in close, filling the frame with a "main subject", isolating it with oof, are of more interest to art than documentary which instead pulls back to include in the composition more of the context of the 'main subject', and in my practice, just plain ignoring the notion of a 'main subject'.

 

Time, place, change (or no change) over time -- transformation, are my subjects in documentary work. I also keep in mind the audience for the work is likely not yet born.

[stephen_hipperson]

<p>Fundamentally I don't think you can go return and photograph things in the hope of capturing/recordingn former memories - the recording should have been done at the time - it's a bit like taking a portrait now in the hope it would show what somebody looked like way back. <br>

I tried to do it myself several years back - I went along the roads/alleyways/etc of my youth - I took no photographs. The trouble was although it was the same place it was different. The places and I are at different places on the time line.<br>

For the purposes of the OP, I recommend aiming at recording as the prime objective. Going for something 'artistic' will load your images with a 'superior' quality - (the phrase 'If I only knew then what I know now' comes to mind).<br>

Your retrospective work will be creating a memory of a memory - do you go back and do the same thing again if you become disatisfied with your 'after the event' shots? Are you closing the gate after the horse has bolted? <br>

"When this picture was taken I played there 15 years before.".....mmmm<br>

Your OP has prompted some personal thoughts ..... am I documenting enough of my own life?..... a bigger mmmmmmmm</p>

 

[aplumpton]

<p><em>"On a very recent city trip, I again noticed how difficult it is (to me anyway) to make good photos of a place you do not really know all that well. I end up with really very tourist-photos."</em></p>

<p>In addition to the other pertinent comments and responses given to your question, I find that Wouter's comment is very appropriate. Over a period of a few months I have been trying to evoke something special or some small essence of unfamiliar places visited with friends during a mixed bicycle and car touring holiday. I have to come to terms with the fact that most of the hundreds of images now appear very touristy to me. Part of this may have been the inadequate time available to consider each subject, but a good part was probably my lack of familiarity with the subject matter.</p>

<p>In contrast to that situation, your great advantage here in regard to your admirable project is your familiarity with your subject matter. Recording physical changes of the homesite over time, as you can certainly do given your age, may be interesting to do. On the other hand, perhaps you may wish to consider and photograph those aspects, some of which are emotive, of your former place of life that made the most impression on you, or were/are significant to you in terms of your family life there. The transcient factor in those cases might be how you reflect on those former events or symbolic artefacts at the present time, and perhaps also at some future time, as your own overall views change and the specific view/remembrances of them might evolve.</p>

<p>Certain parts of your dwelling and its site may have particular significance to you. For instance, as an example, I remember my father having been very concentrated on improving a part of our former house, where he devoted much energy/passion. In another time, we huddled in a small part of it, in front of a decorous but fairly inefficient fireplace as we managed to live through a one week power outage in cold mid-February. My teenage brother and his friends used to hold court under an old tamarack tree and as a younger child the neighbours raspberry patch turned out to be too tempting for myself and buddies and succumbed to unlawful appropriation in high season of its production (we paid dearly when caught). My mother's garden saw much love expended on it and some vestiges of it remained when I revisited about 5 years ago. Photographing things that are associated strongly with family events or dramas and our memories of them can probably be revealing and important to our current lives and values.</p>

<p>Incidents like those probably have their analogies from your own teenage days at the former home of you and your family. I am glad for your post as I am incited to go back to my own places of youth to capture some of what they meant to me. Your project is a wonderful way to not simply document physical changes in the subject, but to reflect upon and record those artefacts (parts of your dwelling) and remembrances that they incite and that relate to, or can symbolize some relation with and the love for your parents, sibblings and friends of youth (and their love and relationship to you) and how you view those events today. How you visualize all of that may be for you a revealing, transcient and maturing process.</p>

[Julie H]

<p>According to research done by F.C. Bartlett, we note and then remember only bits and pieces of events as they happen. When we remember, we reconstruct the event by filling in the blanks with sort of generic stuff that we think “fits.” But the interesting thing is that he suggests that we don’t know which parts are “real” memory and which parts are “filler.” It all seems equally genuine (which is why eyewitnesses are so notoriously unreliable).</p>

<p>What do you want to document? The original bits and pieces or the whole fabric that you've patched together -- via creative imagination?</p>

[don_essedi]

It is a rare thing for documentary to be mentioned in this forum. Rarer still for an artist to understand it.

[Matt Laur]

<p>Off Topic: one of the occasional surprise treats at PN is the random selection of three thread contributors' photos that shows at that bottom of the page. I've bumped into many compelling images that way, and sometimes greatly enjoy the juxtapostion of the three that happen to show up in that spot, unlikely to ever be seen in that arrangement again. <br /><br />Just now, refreshing this page, I saw this:</p><div></div>

[aplumpton]

<p>Like erroneously double exposed film, some combinations of images as in the PNet groupings or other chance groupings can be humorous or inventive. In this case the two trees and person do that. You have a good eye, Mr. Laur! </p>

[alan_zinn]

<p><br /> Being nostalgic has very little cost today - some snaps, some scans, the sentiment of the moment is preserved. I have Googled and done "Street View" on every former address since birth that I know. Creative assessment, in some way, of what may turn out to be of nostalgic value could be entertaining. </p>

<p>I've determined only lately that I mustn't be very sentimental. Having reduced my living space to less than a quarter of its former size and forced to get rid of mementos and other nostalgia evoking ephemera, I'm surprised by my callousness. Without ceremony I tossed out my own tiny, white baby shoes, along with a picture of me in them. Their laces were tied to hang on the rear-view mirror of dad's pickup. I'm only supposing that. <br>

I have a box about the size of a generous candy assortment with my name carved in the top that used to contain <em>everything</em>. I emptied it in the trash with scarcely an inventory. I hadn't added to it since marriage when a geometric expansion of memorabilia commenced. Her boxes, added to my parent's cache when they died, brewed the perfect storm. It was then I decided the kindest thing to do for my progeny was throw it ALL away. A mere fraction gets saved or scanned with half-hearted archival rigor. Ending monthly storage fees swept away all traces of remorse. </p>

[KenPapai]

<p>I got this one... odd.... really... Evocative and emotional too.<br /> Three critical & balanced photos, all 3 in portrait mode (2x3):</p><div></div>

[pierre_fermat]

<p>Hello All<br>

Thanks for all your views. I am also happy that my post triggered some introspection too... Having read the posts many times, I finally see the light at the end of the tunnel. A quick summary would be:<br>

1.Love - You cannot do such a project with tension or anxiety. Nothing else matters.<br>

2.Acceptance - Things will wither; so will people, and my memory and I. Accepting the inevitable brings clarity.<br>

3. Memory - Choosing items/places that are already imprinted in the memory help amplify remembrance.<br>

Thanks again for all your thoughts. I deeply appreciate them.</p>

<p>Cheers<br>

Pierre</p>

[tom_ziegler2]

<p>Pierre, I believe you nailed it. 1-2-3. I am in the midst of "preserving" my father's photos of seventy years. It's a daunting task that is more selfish than sharing.</p>