Guest or host?

[Julie H]

<p>Dear Mr. Baudrillard,<br>

I bring the eye.<br>

Sincerely yours,<br>

Julie</p>

[don_essedi]

Luis: "But in real life, nothing waits unless we halt it, and then it's halting."

 

Of course, the photograph halts things by its nature -- movement for example (and, just about everything else). The familiar object, a person taking a step, contains moments that are optically implausible, but the photograph offers them to us as real, true, objective, always there, and so they are, except we do not see them -- "the magical eccentricity of the detail" (Baudrillard).

 

The photographer having seen the scene through their idea of the image, in post finally sees the actual image and deletes it.

[luis_g]

<p>The way I see it, normal photography halts nothing. It is a <em>very </em>short, vertically stacked movie over the duration of its exposure, whether it is months-long, or a flashed 1/30,000th of a second. An onlooker may not be aware of this, or the photograph may appear really static, but it isn't. Only when exposure lengthens with motion involved and we get blurs that it becomes readily apparent, and then, <em>it is often considered an imperfection.</em></p>

<p>Now, photographers who are unable (for whatever reason) or unwilling to work in dynamic situations are by far in the majority, as is the aesthetic that conforms to it. They <em>physically arrest the subject, trapping it </em>in order to force it to conform to their convention. Or they simply bypass all of the subjects that will not be enslaved to their abilities/ideas.</p>

<p>[Necessary PoP disclaimer: I am not advocating any kind of photography over others, nor implying or suggesting that one is superior. Only that the still variety is by far the most dominant.]</p>

<p>Look at the difference between Robert Frank's photography and Garry Winogrand's or Joel Meyerowitz's color work. Not aesthetically, but technically. Real B&W film speeds and push-developers had progressed by Winogrand's day to where he (and Friedlander) could get f/16 @ 1/1000th sec. in strong direct daylight, very much turning their Leicas and 28-50mm lenses into lightning-fast point-and-shoots with sub-30 ms. lag time. This freed GW to work in a far more fuid mode and with less blur than Frank had to cope with, though the passage of time was far more readily apparent in Frank's work. It gave GW, coupled with his excellent predictive abilities and photographic athleticism, abilities to work in temporally accurate, to use a Don E. term, ways that had eluded others, and continues to, even in the age of easy 7+ fps cameras. Ever notice how many photographers drool over the Red Ball cameras? They hope it means they won't have to acquire predictive abilities.</p>

<p>When Meyerowitz switched to ASA K25 & K64 color film, his style shifted considerably. Note how many are made in the strongest light, and usually on the sunny side of the street. Much more static than the B&W.</p>

<p>Yes, I agree with Don E. that the photograph of course offers what we cannot see. We do not see in still imagery to begin with, save perhaps in memory, most of us have binocular stereotaxic vision, etc. We can't see what a galloping horse's hooves are doing. I am keenly aware of Edgerton and others who have gone to shorter exposures to "freeze" moving things. Those are more like extrasensory measurements than first-generation sensory observations, but many have no problem conceptually adapting to them.</p>

<p>Which brings us to the difference between Adams' previsualization, and Winogrand's photographing to see what things look like photographed. Very different angles on the subject.</p>

<p>In closing, there is nothing wrong with still, static imagery. It was mandated by the early form of the process, became part and parcel of the medium's prevailing aesthetic and dominates it to this day. I believe that as ISO's climb higher and higher even in inexpensive cameras, it will be from young, newbie outsiders that we will see photographs that are more temporally dynamic.</p>

<p> </p>

[don_essedi]

I hadn't considered "stacking"; I'll mull over that and thanks. I wasn't thinking of motion blur, but the moment in the kinetics of walking at the top of the arc when a 'high stepper' looks as if they've just booted a soccer ball off their knee. As a 'still', it looks as if they are standing on one foot, the other bent and raised. People do not stand that way (cats do, however). Is it the street photography version of the tree growing out of Aunt Mary's head? But it can be anticipated, even in complex scenes. I don't see such images besides my own, except among those posted by enthusiasts. You would think Winogrand never encountered such moments, based on his commonly published work. Point being, we tend to pass over or delete such images; we remove them from our consideration. Hand and arm gestures are less predictable. 'Delay', and possibly "stacking", make contributions to the issue.

 

To avoid capturing those moments rather than another requires study and practice. The technical advances you mention may provide useful tools, although they do not help me. A physical condition in my right hand makes shooting with modern cameras (whether film or digital) difficult.

[aplumpton]

<p>"In your relationship to the stuff -- people or places -- that's in your photos, do you feel more like a guest or more like a host?"</p>

<p>Neither (normally).</p>

<p>Julie, I have been elsewhere of late, but saw your OP a few minutes ago. I rarely feel like a guest and feel like a host only rarely when the photo is conceived almost entirely by me (host being "directorial conception", if that theatrical pairing makes any sense to anyone) rather than being the result of my simply interacting with people or places.</p>

<p>I would characterize my normal interaction more as being that of a very curious observer, where the observation leads often to some sort of image perception. In such interaction, being a guest would be too passive in that sense, and being a host would mean something too pre-conceived. </p>

[don_essedi]

Luis, regarding "stacking". The moment captured may imply an immediate past-moment and a future one. Regarding "physically arresting the subject", there is the 'tableau vivant' effect. The discreet moment, without "stacking" is too real to be experienced except as a capture at a level more granular than our scanning, normalizing visual brain perceives. Technically -- as you wrote -- the tableau can be captured in the dynamic, raw, presenting scene, or the static in the studio, on location, "staged". The distinction between the two pretty much collapses. There is no need for the predictive ability because there is nothing to predict. Everything is known.

[Julie H]

<p>[<em>Luis and Don, carry on; I'm enjoying your exchange</em>]</p>

<p>In the current issue of <em>National Geographic Magazine</em> [November 2011], the 'Visions/Photo Journal' section features <a href="http://www.timothyarchibald.com/">Timothy Archibald's photos of his son</a> who has autism spectrum disorder. I'm going to quote from Archibald's text -- and I hope you <a href="http://www.timothyarchibald.com/">look at his photos</a> which are wonderful -- because I think he so clearly illustrates how a photographer moves in and out of and back and forth from watching/understanding. This is a parent working with his own child:</p>

 

<blockquote>

<p>"We began this project when Eli was five. He was doing well at school but fixating on odd things, lashing out, speaking repetitively. My wife and I couldn't figure him out. Then I started taking pictures of him around the house. It was an instinctive act for a photographer: Point your camera at something in order to make sense of it. But a curious thing happened. As I documented what Eli was doing and creating, he became interested in the images I was making. I was learning how he thinks: he was learning what I like and value.</p>

<p>"We soon had a system. Eli would do something unusual, one of us would notice, and we'd make a photo of it together. The pictures we took over three years were more raw and feral than anything I'd done as an editorial or advertising photographer. And more personal. This is, after all, the story of a father and his son."</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Below I'm quoting from captions to the three photos (other than the lead picture) featured in the magazine. You can find them <a href="http://www.timothyarchibald.com/">at Archibald's web site in the section called <em>Echolilia</em></a>:</p>

 

<blockquote>

<p>"One Christmas we collected logs at a park and brought them home to use in our fireplace. Eli became obsesses with the shape of one and asked us not to burn it. I wanted to make some pictures with the log outside, but he took it into his room instead. As a photographer -- and as a parent -- I often like to let him lead."</p>

</blockquote>

 

<blockquote>

<p>"Why Eli put these needle-nose pliers in his mouth I can't tell you. Maybe they reminded him of a bird's beak. To me, their sharp edges and his bare skin imply danger. Working with him, I find myself questioning boundaries. Am I his parent now or his collaborator? Am I empowering my kid, or am I overpowering him?"</p>

</blockquote>

 

<blockquote>

<p>"At a point in this series I started to focus on the settings we were using. Our living room is great because it gets so much light. We cleared the floor and took all the toys out of this plastic bin. Eli was delighted to learn he could get his whole body into it -- so he curled up and pretended he was sleeping inside an egg."</p>

</blockquote>

<p>[Archibald's web site is here: <a href="http://www.timothyarchibald.com/">http://www.timothyarchibald.com/</a> .The project with his son is <em>Echolilia</em>.]</p>

[luis_g]

<p><strong>Don - "</strong>People do not stand that way (cats do, however). Is it the street photography version of the tree growing out of Aunt Mary's head? But it can be anticipated, even in complex scenes. I don't see such images besides my own, except among those posted by enthusiasts. You would think Winogrand never encountered such moments, based on his commonly published work. Point being, we tend to pass over or delete such images; we remove them from our consideration. Hand and arm gestures are less predictable. 'Delay', and possibly "stacking", make contributions to the issue."</p>

<p>I'm not concerned in this exchange with the particular moments that can be chosen from a dynamic sequence. For those with predictive abilities to do so the choice is theirs. For those with little or none, it's random, and almost all of the choosing is done subsequently, via editing. Or they do what most photographers do, and settle for the 'suspended moment', one that is amenable to their abilities or tradition.</p>

<p>There's always been a lot of that, even in the film era, but now it is far more common. Since the number of variables is considerable in most scenes, if one understands chaos theory, it is obvious this is an inexact, pinball wizardry-type of thing (like predicting the weather) although the brain does some things related to this very well autonomously, and part of learning to extend one's predictive abilities involves letting go not just more control.</p>

<p>The guys who did work with handheld press cameras before roll film, going out with usually less than 6 shots, <em>had </em>to get good at this.<br>

The puddle jumper in HCB's St. Lazare picture, set-up or not, can't sustain his position hovering in mid-air. We have a pretty good idea of what happens next. I do not see that image as the equivalent of the phone pole coming out of someone's head. It should be said that Eggleston (and others) have used precisely that stratagem to great advantage in some pictures. True, these are made as art, not documentary, photographs.</p>

<p>Winogrand was really good at this, yet he still had to work at it incredibly hard and took an enormous amount of pictures to get what he wanted. I have no doubt that there are many 'failures' among his rejects as well as many superbly interesting images that were rejected for other reasons. We see what the photographer wants to show us.</p>

<p>People tend to repeat gestures, and every one of them has physical antecedents. They also have a limited inventory of gestures, and tend to use a few of them quite often. The astute photographer can learn this. In a way, it's like ballet. The script is the range of appropriate behaviors in a given context in a given culture. Being aware of these things gives one additional predictive ability, and perhaps documentary ability as well.</p>

<p>I am quite interested in the passed-over moments. Amateurs tended to get prints of everything, and kept all of them. Many still do on places like Flickr. One can view those rejects (even GW's) as bloopers, but they are a mixed bag, with some extraordinary images to be found, images that their maker didn't accept for whatever reason, and can't see. I also do not think we all see the same way, or reject certain kinds of pictures in unison. I do think a lot of people do that being slavish to the visual conventions of the day. Not that there is anything wrong with that, but the mutations fascinate me.</p>

 

[aplumpton]

<p>The Archibald photos are indeed impressive. The photographer is hosting as well as simply observing and the dyptics are I presume the photographer's (and not his son's) synthesis of what he has seen. They may also be somewhat dangerous, as well as being open-ended (not a bad thing), insofar as his main audience is concerned. He is courageous in undertaking that project.</p>

[don_essedi]

Luis: "The puddle jumper in HCB's St. Lazare picture, set-up or not, can't sustain his position hovering in mid-air. We have a pretty good idea of what happens next. I do not see that image as the equivalent of the phone pole coming out of someone's head."

 

We can see a leap. It occurs over time of which we are consicously aware. The arc described in mid-air implies a jumping off and a landing. My example was to indicate what we do not normally see but can photograph. In a photo, it attracts the viewer's eye, as they see something they do not normally see, someone standing still with one leg raised. Our vision is good at spotting an anomaly. If it were a sports photo, the context would likely normalize it. I haven't been writing about staging vs not staged, or documentary vs art. Perhaps about the point where documentary and art photography give way to a fascination with the anomaly -- in detail. No one, not even the players on the field, can see the collision in the goalie's cage in the explicit money-shot detail of a Canon or Nikon deathstar's image. Technological r&d in photography is a progress towards freeing us to become enslaved to the absolute objectivity of objects. No context required.

[m_stephens]

<p>Guest or host? Good question. The role of host is to be generous, welcoming and polite. The prototypical role of guest is gracious and adaptive to the host. I might take on one of those roles in some photographing circumstances, but not often. It would figure into "photography for others", as a kind of special case.</p>

<p>More commonly, I think I am in the role of snoop, or detective, or on the high side maybe an archaeologist? That is to say, digging and looking for the photograph that must be here, somewhere. I feel as though the scenes are hiding, and must be uncovered. I hope to be mostly ignored by anyone happening by just through chance either in front of, or behind the lens. To be ignored wouldn't suppose then a role of guest or host. </p>

<p>I could also think of it as science. The scientist is not a casual observer, but combines the observation with recording. To observe that it is hot today is ordinary. To read the thermometer and mark down 93 degrees on paper is science. Recording discovered scenes with a camera then is a bit like that. The scientist attempts to remain neutral relative to the subjects, I think. Let the data speak for itself, and mean what it wants to mean.</p>

[luis_g]

<p><strong>Don - "</strong>We can see a leap. It occurs over time of which we are consicously aware. The arc described in mid-air implies a jumping off and a landing. My example was to indicate what we do not normally see but can photograph. In a photo, it attracts the viewer's eye, as they see something they do not normally see, someone standing still with one leg raised. Our vision is good at spotting an anomaly."</p>

<p>I understand your point, but disagree on some things. As with the jump at St. Lazare, most (but surely not all) realize that the impossible-looking moment you wrote about is part of a sequence. It is natural, even if it can't be held without moving, just like the leap. You're probably aware that the range of human perception is large. For making color discriminations, it is about 1:28X, and I suspect that for movement it varies greatly as well. I do not see what you call an anomaly as such. To me, it's a perceptual gap. However, I agree that for some it has the power of attraction (which takes us back to Julie's strangeness, as in strange to <em>us, personally).</em></p>

<p><em><br /></em></p>

[Julie H]

<p>Arthur, I don't think the father is hosting; I think he's being the guest to his son's world; or probably more accurately, they are fellow guests, both learning about each other. The father is choosing, is willing, to deliberately "arrive" without an asssertive understanding. He's williing to be lead, willing to be taught, willing not to already know.</p>

<p>m stephens, there are a bunch of reasons why I think the scientific observer is very different from what I'm trying to get at. First, I'll repeat the Michael Sheringham quote I gave in a previous post: ""… What, asks Lefebvre, if we adopt another perspective (this is his repeated tactic) and strip human activity of that which pertains to specialized activities, removing all technical knowledge and expertise and simply leaving such everyday factors as effort, time, and rhythm? What is left? For some (scientists, structuralists, culturalists), next to nothing; for others (metaphysicians, Heideggerians), everything (because the ground of human existence — the ontological) is beneath all this."</p>

<p>For a scientist, the picture is a necessary evil, not an end in itself. He's interested in documenting structure -- "this did that," and the science is NOT IN the picture. He, the scientist, posits the science to/with/from the picture.</p>

<p>The kind of guest observer that I'm thinking of, for example, the father in the linked pictures above or Robert Frank in his <em>The Americans</em>, etc. <em>uses</em> structure to "document" an <em>experience</em>. And that experience is (hopefully) IN the picture. Structure is <em>used</em>, structure is means not end; the pictures is about the/an experience; and that experience is <em>in</em> the picture.</p>

<p>In the following fragment from a poem (about a rocky outcropping; imagine a Weston photograph), consider how totally unscientific it is; it's the experience of the rock, not the (scientific) rock:</p>

<p>Earthquake-proved,and signatured<br /> By ages of storms: on its peak<br /> A falcon has perched.</p>

<p>I think, here is your emblem<br /> To hang in the future sky;<br /> Not the cross, not the hive,</p>

<p>But this; bright power, dark peace;<br /> Fierce consciousness joined with final<br /> Disinterestedness;<br /> [<em>Robinson Jeffers</em>, Rock and Hawk]</p>

<p>I also think that one can be an observer of one's own world. Though an observer might seem to be an "outsider" or a guest to what he's observing, I think a host can and is often an observer (admittedly, purposely biased; loving, hating but viewing from a position of understanding -- Matt Laur's "tour guide" of one's own world). So "observer" doesn't get to what I'm interested in which is the difference in stance between when one is already in relationship, in my-world; versus when one is looking at (experiencing) a not-me, not-mine.</p>

[Landrum Kelly]

<p>Voyeuristic, uninvited guest--sort of like the photographer must have felt when he took this one:</p>

<p>http://www.photo.net/photo/14512995</p>

<p>Then again, sometimes I feel like more the little boys at the left, just ogling, but with a lens.</p>

<p>--Lannie</p>

[don_essedi]

Luis: "I understand your point, but disagree on some things. As with the jump at St. Lazare, most (but surely not all) realize that the impossible-looking moment you wrote about is part of a sequence. It is natural, even if it can't be held without moving, just like the leap. You're probably aware that the range of human perception is large. For making color discriminations, it is about 1:28X, and I suspect that for movement it varies greatly as well. I do not see what you call an anomaly as such. To me, it's a perceptual gap. However, I agree that for some it has the power of attraction (which takes us back to Julie's strangeness, as in strange to us, personally)."

 

St Lazare is arranged to imply past and future in the present 'still'. From the orientation of the frame, to the bit of ground seen on our left, then the ladder, and then the figure nearly out of the frame on the right, that plus 'stacking', guides our interpretation of what we are seeing.

 

HCB might have easily ruined the effect by following any number of words of photography wisdom, often read in coments...if you are unsatisfied with the shot, you weren't close enough, comes to mind. So, I'd expect the commenter to advise, zooming tighter to isolate the main subject, and perhaps to crop creatively to emphasize the abstract compositional elements of the figure (you know, the diagonals they've read about). Since the photo lacks the explicitness of the money shot, our fascination with object-detail, sharpness, smoothness, and clarity, the commenter might helpfully advise using a tripod and getting L glass. To do such things would likely result in a frozen, lifeless moment. St Lazare probably appears amateurish to amateurs.

[luis_g]

<p>I agree with that last post of Don's. The last paragraph in particular.</p>

[m_stephens]

<p>Julie Heyward,</p>

<p>"The kind of guest observer that I'm thinking of, for example, the father in the linked pictures above or Robert Frank in his <em>The Americans</em>, etc. <em>uses</em> structure to "document" an <em>experience</em>. And that experience is (hopefully) IN the picture. Structure is <em>used</em>, structure is means not end; the pictures is about the/an experience; and that experience is <em>in</em> the picture."</p>

<p>Assuming you are referring to the Timothy Archibald photos of his son----</p>

<p>I fully agree with your position that he uses structure as a means and not an end of itself. He also appears to be conducting an interactive experiment with his son. An experiment in which the photograph is a stimulus applied to the subject, who then reacts to the stimulus to produce a new output, which is then photographed again. And, around and around they go in a number of iterations. I was intrigued by that use of photography as both an input AND an output process in a unified loop. It could be science, it could be documentation, it could be experiential process.</p>

<p>The father is creating experience with the son, and simultaneously documenting it. This is true simply on the basis that the son (e.g. with paper bag over his head) is fully aware of the father in the room with the camera, which is capturing the two of them entwined in that experience. One behind the lens, one in front. The photographs speak as much about the one behind as the one in front. It wouldn't become science until he drew some set of formal conclusions at the end. I can't tell if he did or not. Maybe the photographs alone become the conclusion, I don't know.</p>

<p>The Sheringham quote is too difficult for me to apply here. At the ground of existence, no-thing is of any consequence. A person (a consciousness) can be there or not be there, but not in between as some kind of witness to use that state with any utility, as utility itself has disappeared. Well, I thought!</p>

<p> </p>

[aplumpton]

 

 

<p>"("La gare à ) St Lazare" probably appears amateurish to amateurs."</p>

<p>Yes, no doubt, yet also to many pros. One (must) reads an HCB image in a different way that one does with sports photography, wedding photography, glamour photography, industrial photography. most art photography and indeed most street or journalistic photography. HCB provides us one element that is missing from most of the other photographic expressions and types - and which lights the fire of some of us photographers - the element of mystery (I think someone alluded to that as a strangeness - so be it). </p>

<p>How? One only has to consider the relationship (or not) of the various picture elements - the flat ladder, the ..railowsky (actually a forward truncated name of a dancer) sign, the dancing figures to its right, the position of the puddle jumper (he actually does not jump over all of it, which is interesting), the implied static and the dynamic of the jumper, the water rings where the jumper took flight, the railway track symbolism of the ladder, the unusual position of a ladder, the mirroring of the jumper in the water, and so on. HCB puts so much into his images that they naturally effuse mystery as much as a definition of what is happening. He is showing us something, albeit apparently simple (puddle jumping cliché), that makes us think about wider issues, about life and things not even related to the elements of the image.</p>

<p>It can also be noted that we often reject otherwise important images because (of our virtually mechanical visual responses, and) because we feel that some element is non-contextual, or apparently does not blend with the meaning we summarily perceive. Sad, as the beauty of some imagesd and of HCBs communication is not based upon contextual perfection (directorial type "hosting") but on provision of everyday elements in a fortuitously thought provoking manner.</p>

<p>The dinner is served, but you are obliged to guess its composition, with whatever senses, emotions and culinary intelligence you can bring to it. </p>

 

 

 

[luis_g]

<p>I disagree with Arthur on HCB's jumper being out on territory of its own. HCB was nothing if not an (initially surrealist) artist, and that photograph is rife with Modernist tropes of the day. Look at the jumping/diving pictures from that time made by other Surrealists. Deceptively simple, it is the product of an artistically well-informed, very bright mind.</p>

<p>It should also be said that no one here rejected that photograph. Most of HCB's strengths are totally lost on a majority of street photographers (SP'ers).</p>

<p>[The SP/Doc Forum here seems to be like a competitive W/NW forum. They don't say much, I notice.]</p>

<p>I am following the host/guest thing still not quite convinced, refusing to see that as anything other than a continuum, and then not mutually exclusive. Then I also wonder how useful is it, if true. Worse, I am thinking that there are implications beyond those words that are embedded in them. Host/Guest imply property, invitation, acceptance, not to mention a Julie-an dichotomy. If we accept that structure, what about trespassers? Breaking and entering artists? Squatters? Passers-by? Realtors? Renters? Voyeurs? etc.</p>

[aplumpton]

<p>I don't think that you are disagreeing, Luis. On the contrtry ("it is the product of an artistically well-informed, very bright mind"), that was indeed what I was referring to, in different terms than yours.</p>

[Brad_]

>>> Most of HCB's strengths are totally lost on a majority of street photographers (SP'ers).

 

What a bold claim, surely you have data to support that. Smells elitist to me...

 

>>> [The SP/Doc Forum here seems to be like a competitive W/NW forum. They don't say much, I

notice.]

 

Not true. There's a lot of discussion. It is more oriented about matters concerning photographers that actually

shoot SP.

[dennis_couvillion]

<p>Brad, gotta agree with you....</p>

<p>Those who can...do.</p>

<p>Those who can't...just talk about it.</p>

[luis_g]

<p><strong>Brad and Dennis - </strong>Thank you for your considered opinion.</p>

<p> </p>

[dennis_couvillion]

<p>You're welcome, Luis...</p>

<p>I have been followed this erudite discussion somewhat and while your analysis of the works of Cartier-Bresson are both interesting and enlightening, I am not sure if you fully grasp the notion that Cartier-Bresson may be appreciated differently and on a more practical level by street photographers. For over thirty years I have admired Cartier-Bresson's elegant compositions which have influenced my own approach to capturing street images...not in immitation, of course, but in the compositional sense that every element is important and has a place. When I look at at Cartier-Bresson shot I am usually struck by how every bystander in the frame is in his proper place, as though Cartier-Bresson was a film director who placed every extra in his spot for the take. To compose on the fly as Cartier-Bresson did is remarkable...and as a street photographer I appreciate that as Cartier-Bresson's greatest talent as an artist.</p>

<p>Of course, Cartier-Bresson's photographs are more than just elegant compositions and perhaps it is your area of expertise to tell us the greater meaning of his photographs. But Cartier-Bresson's photographs mean something different to each of us...and I still experience a sense of wonderment every time I view one. </p>

<p>I don't know your photography background or if you do street photography. (I have for over thirty years.) But your suggestion that street photographers don't appreciate Cartier-Bresson's greatest strengths is unfair, particularly if you don't appreciate, from a practical standpoint, how difficult it is to do what Cartier-Bresson did.</p>

[dennis_couvillion]

<p>Sorry for the typos...my keen compositional eye must only work on the street. ;>)</p>