What is the value of novelty in appreciating photographs?

[je ne regrette rien]

<p>Fred, I think it depends on our concept of novelty.</p>

<p>In respect to the photographs, what I want to say about the first one is that it presents me something which in real life I am not used to.</p>

<p>The motives you indicate are exactly those which make me like the image.</p>

<p>The second is probably one of the worst - from my point of view, of course - photos I could choose.</p>

<p>Your comment on Weston's pepper: I agree it's novel, but its novelty is related to the novelty of presentation, rather than the novelty of the subject itself.</p>

<p>Here I think we need to make a distinction: the novelty of presentation is something completely different from the novelty of the subject. In this case I am particularly thinking of the perspective of the viewer of the photograph, and not so much from the one of the photographer, even if photographers are also viewers.</p>

<p>I value Roland Barthes' conceptualisation a lot, when he distinguishes the three roles in photography: the photographer, the photographed (the subject), the viewer. Even if the roles can be interchangeable, they in principle start from different angles of creation, self-representation, and perception.<br>

As said, I was thinking of the perspective of the viewer.</p>

<p>And also of the "scene" which is presented to him/her. And the the viewer being "used" to what s/he sees, or conversely, attracted by what s/he is not used to.</p>

 

[Julie H]

<p>Luca, how can you separate subject from presentation? A photograph is presentation.</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p>Luca, I'm with Julie on this. Something like a pepper had not been photographed before. It's the combination of the pepper and being photographed that is the novelty. It's context. A pepper is not novel in a salad. But it was in a photograph at the time.</p>

[je ne regrette rien]

<p>Yes, in photography subject and its presentation cannot be separated.</p>

<p>But can we separate the presented subject from the perceived, or the projected subject?</p>

 

[Norma Desmond]

<p>Another fellow with a camera could have been on the same street in South Africa on the same day at the same time and taken a picture very similar to the one of the two women walking. The picture might still have a novelty value . . . and then what?</p>

<p>I just keep thinking of all the great painters of still lifes. It seems to me the seeing and the something are intertwined and the photographic or artistic significance is in the seen something more than the something seen. I'm not minimizing the subject, which the painters were obviously intimate with and, perhaps, in love with. But it's more.</p>

<p><a href="http://www.nancyhuntting.net/cezanne-onions-bottle2.jpg">Cezanne</a></p>

<p><a href="http://uploads8.wikipaintings.org/images/henri-matisse/blue-still-life.jpg">Matisse</a></p>

<p><a href="http://uploads8.wikipaintings.org/images/vincent-van-gogh/still-life-with-pears.jpg">Van Gogh</a></p>

<p>Maybe there are just too many novelty travel snaps of exotic places that I can't stand looking at (from a photographic standpoint) to get too excited about.</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<blockquote>

<p>But can we separate the presented subject from the perceived</p>

</blockquote>

<p>I assume a connection between what I present and what is perceived by a viewer and between what I perceive as a viewer and what is presented by a photographer. It's complex and it varies but, no, I don't think we can, and I wouldn't want to, separate them.</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p>I look at it this way, Luca. When I look at that first photo you posted today, I am not seeing the street. I am seeing a photo of the street. I am seeing the photographer's presentation of the street. That doesn't mean I'm seeing what he saw and doesn't mean I feel the way about his photo that he feels and doesn't mean I respond to what he saw the way he responded or respond to his photo like he responds to it. (Though there will be some connections and communication taking place.) But what I am looking at is his presentation.</p>

[Julie H]

<p>"But can we separate the presented subject from the perceived, or the projected subject?"</p>

<p>Is it fountain or is it a urinal?</p>

<p>Is that my pipe or not?</p>

<p>[Actually it's an interesting question, Luca, just because my knee-jerk answer is "no." I'm still thinking ... ]</p>

[Julie H]

<p>Luca, I'm going to go airy-fairy for this post; forgive me if it drives you nuts ...</p>

<p>If you can think of your ongoing life as a surface (bear with me, please), then most days in most places, that surface might be pretty smooth. Comfortable, even. However, if you pay attention, there are inevitably and everywhere, knots, nodes, bumps, tears, little (or big) irritations that scratch and drag; that resist, that don't "fit."</p>

<p>I'd suggest that many pictures help make things smoother. However, some pictures go for the knots, the nodes; they work off of them, around them, taking the bend, the bifurcation as a launch out of smoothness.</p>

<p>When I wrote, way, way, way back at the top of this thread that "irritation makes pearls" I was thinking about this. Novelty is something foreign. Something the flesh of the oyster rejects but can't expell. A bit of grit that causes malformation. Mal formation. Splits, spreads, swelling, scarring, regeneration. Difference (etc. etc.; my fairyness is wearing out ...)</p>

<p>I've scanned a couple of pictures from Peter Fraser and Anders Petersen for you to consider. Fraser's are of stuff that is stupid, banal, mundane, not even colorful. And yet, and yet ... I think that they are just that kind of irritating little knot ("something happened here") that can, if one allows it, be novel; be an encounter that can make you stop and see (most people won't because the stuff is stupid, banal and mundane, and that's okay). [<a href="http://unrealnature.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/fraser_three.jpg">Link to Fraser combo</a>]</p>

<p>Petersen's are like a lot of Japanese photography -- high contrast and loudly odd. The scans are across two page spreads and are pretty awful, but you should be able to get the gist (the top one is of seafood and the lower is an appaloosa stallion). [<a href="http://unrealnature.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/petersen_two.jpg">Link to Petersen combo</a>]</p>

[je ne regrette rien]

<p>If we cannot separate the presented subject from the perceived subject, wouldn't it mean that the photographer and the viewer are fused into one single entity.</p>

<p>This is true when the photographer view his or her photograph, but this is not always the case. I do not think we can assume the con-fusion of viewer and photographer if they are not the same person.</p>

<p>The fact that photographer and viewer are two different persons should determine the separation of the presented subject from the perceived subject.</p>

<p>We may be told that "this is not a pipe", but we still are entitled to see a pipe, since we are not the author.</p>

<p>In that respect it exactly true what Fred says "<strong><em>I am seeing the photographer's presentation of the street</em></strong>."</p>

<p>When you add<br>

"<strong><em>That doesn't mean I'm seeing what he saw and doesn't mean I feel the way about his photo that he feels and doesn't mean I respond to what he saw the way he responded or respond to his photo like he responds to it.</em></strong>",</p>

<p>isn't that exactly the separation the presented subject and the perceived subject?</p>

<p>They may coincide, but not necessarily.</p>

<p>And you correctly hint at the connections and communications taking place.</p>

<p>You look the presentation, but you may perceive it differently from the intention of the author.</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<blockquote>

<p>If we cannot separate the presented subject from the perceived subject, wouldn't it mean that the photographer and the viewer are fused into one single entity.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>No.</p>

<p>Perceiving it differently or reacting to it differently doesn't mean there's a separation of the thing we're seeing and reacting to. Again, you're not seeing the street. You're seeing the photographer's presentation of the street. You cannot separate what you are seeing from the photographer's presentation of it because that's what you're seeing, a presentation. You and the photographer are two different people.</p>

<p>You didn't ask if the photographer is separate from the viewer, to which I would answer "yes." You asked if the presentation was separate from what is perceived, and to that I would answer "no." The intention might well be separate from the response, but that doesn't mean the thing presented is separated from the thing perceived.</p>

<p>A photo is something that exists outside the photographer and outside the viewer. The viewer may get in touch with the photographer's intent or may not. But that doesn't say anything about the photo as presentation. What the viewer has is the presentation. That's what he's looking at. And what the photographer has offered is the presentation which the viewer is looking at. What I'm saying is that what you are seeing is the photographer's presentation. I'm not suggesting you must be seeing his intent or are him.</p>

<p>__________________________________</p>

<blockquote>

<p>"<strong><em>That doesn't mean I'm seeing what he saw and doesn't mean I feel the way about his photo that he feels and doesn't mean I respond to what he saw the way he responded or respond to his photo like he responds to it.</em></strong>",<br /> isn't that exactly the separation the presented subject and the perceived subject?</p>

</blockquote>

<p>No. That's the separation between the viewer and the photographer. We have different reactions, different emotional responses, different associations. But what I am being presented with is not something I'm making up in my head. It's something the photographer is giving me.</p>

[je ne regrette rien]

<blockquote>

<p>You didn't ask if the photographer is separate from the viewer, to which I would answer "yes." You asked if the presentation was separate from what is perceived, and to that I would answer "no." The intention might well be separate from the response, but that doesn't mean the thing presented is separated from the thing perceived.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>We agree that the photographer is (can be) separate from the viewer.<br>

We also agree that I do not see the street, but the viewer's presentation of the street.<br>

What do you see as the difference between</p>

<ul>

<li>perception, and</li>

<li>response?</li>

</ul>

<p>can you separate perception and response?</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p>Never mind perception and response. You talked about perception so let's stick with that. A viewer may or may not perceive (or be in touch with) the photographer's intention. Let's say the viewer does NOT perceive the photographer's intention, which is probably often the case. Just because I don't perceive his intention doesn't mean the presentation is separate from what I'm perceiving. The presentation may or may not carry signifiers of the photographer's intention and, whether the presentation does or doesn't carry those signifiers the viewer may not pick up on them or care about them. But the viewer is still seeing what the photographer has presented. You can present me with a picture of your daughter and you may intend for the picture to show how sad she was at the time you took the photo. You may not be a good photographer or you may not be in touch with signifiers of sadness and you may not realize that even sad people can have an expression that suggests happiness in one moment while they're sad. So I may perceive happiness and miss your intention completely, whether by my own shortcoming as a viewer, your shortcoming as a photographer, or no one's shortcoming but just a missed emotional communication. Still, I am seeing what you have presented me of your daughter. I didn't have the opportunity to be with her that day and figure out for myself what she looked like and what her expressions were throughout the day, what she may have said or done, etc. You have presented me with a stilled moment that you caught at a time when you chose to or happened to snap the shutter. That's your presentation, whether it conveys your intention or not. That's the raw materials I have to work with. I may make certain things out of what I see that have nothing to do with what she or you were feeling at the time. That's on me. That's what separates me from you. But I am still doing that with the presentation you've provided me.</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p>Getting back to perception and response now. You and I can both perceive the sadness of a little girl in a well-executed photo of a sad little girl. I might respond by remembering my sad sister and get a feeling of nostalgia and longing more overpowering than any feeling of grief I have at the sight of the photo of the little sad girl. You might empathize more and self-reflect or associate less and so you might stick with the grief and even cry. Our responses could be very different even though the photographer was very effective at getting us to perceive a sad little girl.</p>

[je ne regrette rien]

<blockquote>

<p>Still, I am seeing what you have presented me of your daughter.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>I'm not sure. You are seeing my daughter but the signifiers might not come through. So there might be my intention, but a wrong perception and a wrong response.<br>

So there is a separation of the intended perception and the perceived perception.<br>

And consequently of the response: I might be compassionate when I perceive sadness or, on the opposite, misleadingly perceive happiness where there is none.</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<blockquote>

<p>So there is a separation of the intended perception and the perceived perception.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Absolutely! And yet I am still seeing what you've presented. I just missed something or you missed conveying something. But you've presented what you've presented. And that's what I'm seeing. I can see your presentation without seeing your intention.</p>

<p>___________________________</p>

 

<blockquote>

<p>So there might be my intention, but a wrong perception and a wrong response.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>I don't think there are wrong perceptions or wrong responses, just like I don't think your feelings can be wrong. They are just your feelings. They might be self destructive but there's nothing untrue about them. Perceptions just are. If I perceive a yellow sky because I'm under the influence of drugs or for whatever reason and everyone else present perceives a blue sky, I am not wrong. I am really perceiving a yellow sky even if I say to you how strange it seems because I know a sky should look blue. Believe me, been there, done that! If we can for a minute assess truth simply, the truth would be that I am perceiving yellow and that the sky is blue. (This is assuming that I know the correct word for yellow and the correct word for blue.) A color blind person's perceptions are not wrong. He is REALLY having them. They just don't coincide with others' perceptions. He can learn that when he sees red, everyone else is seeing blue, but he's really perceiving red and he's not wrong in saying that that's what he's perceiving.</p>

<p>If you've conveyed your perception really well and everyone in the room gets it but me, I'm not having a wrong perception or a wrong response. I'm having a very true perception and response for me, that doesn't happen to coordinate with everyone else's. I might be wrong in THINKING ABOUT my perception. So, I might perceive sadness in the photo of your daughter and conclude it's because you beat her. If you don't beat her, I'd be wrong in making such a conclusion. </p>

<p>There are a million and one reasons why I might perceive sadness in something a lot of other people perceive happiness in. Let's say it's a photo of a woman smiling. I might say it's a smile and you might say it's a smile and then you might say, well then you should perceive happiness. Then I might say it's just like my mother's smile and that's sad to me. I can't get past the sadness in order to perceive the happiness you're perceiving. What are you going to do?</p>

<p>Now, I'm conscious that this could sound like an argument for "radical subjectivity." (I can't believe I'm voluntarily bringing this up.) I would say, of course, "no." Precisely because of the <em>presentation</em> we're talking about, which is still out of my control, though the perception of the presentation might not be. </p>

<p>A photographer frames a scene. That's the presentation. The meaning is well beyond that.</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p>Consider phantom limb pain. The person who feels pain as if it's coming from an amputated limb is not wrong about feeling the pain. Where he would be wrong is if he assumed that, because he has such pain, he must still have the limb. The pain is REAL, he feels it. His statement, "I feel pain" is not wrong. It is true. Many conclusions he might draw from his feeling pain could be wrong.</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p>I don't know if this analogy will hold up or not, but it's worth at least a shot. I'm sure it will have some holes but if it gets the main point across, that's something . . .</p>

<p><em>His leg has been amputated</em> is analogous to <em>this photo is a presentation</em>.</p>

<p><em>I feel pain in the amputated leg</em> is analogous to <em>I don't see the sadness you intended in your photo.</em></p>

<p><em>I feel badly that he feels pain in his amputated leg</em> is analogous to <em>I do see sadness in your photo.</em></p>

<p><em>I hate that guy and I'm happy he feels pain in his amputated leg</em> is analogous to <em>I see happiness in your photo because I think you delight in the sadness of the people you shoot.</em></p>

<p>What we will generally agree on is that the patient's limb has been amputated. What we will generally agree on is that the photographer framed a scene and left some stuff out of the frame, shot from either above or below or pretty level, worked in color or black and white, took the photo when the girl had a tear in her eye and not the moment before when she didn't have a tear in her eye.</p>

<p>There is a presentation that we then provide with various meanings and react to in different ways. There is a patient with an amputated limb and a bunch of different things going on around that.</p>

<p>Now, I'll stop for a while!</p>

[Julie H]

<p>If I'm following Luca and Fred's exchange, above (and I'm not sure that I am), then I think it might help to make it explicit that a photograph (or a perception of any kind) enables; it does not justify. Justification (conclusions, meaning) are not a property of the photograph.</p>

<p>A photograph enables, makes possible. If it is perceived as an "instantiation of" then conclusions can be drawn (justified) but believing that something is an instantiatiion of x, y, or z happens in the perceivers mind. It's not "in" the picture.</p>

<p>It's Wouter's "opening the door." Whether or not you 1) see that openness, and 2) do or do not therein perceive an "instantiation of" that "justifies," has to do with ... everything. If it's not an "instantiation of" then we're back to novelty. I think.</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p>To me, importantly, photos show. My main point to Luca has been that the photo is there (and is in some sense alive). The intention isn't in the photo, the conclusion isn't, etc. But the photo (the presentation, the showing) is there. The intention may or may not be communicated. What's presented is <em>shared, </em>even if the intention is missed<em>. </em></p>

<p>Agreed that conclusions are not in the photo. (And that conclusions can be wrong.)</p>

<p>Also wanted to make clear that intentions not only may not be picked up by the viewer, they may be so fuzzy or complicated that the photographer will often not be able to articulate or fully understand even his own. Even if that's the case, he has presented something, often something as curious to him as to the viewer. A good photographer can learn as much from his photos and photographing as he can put into them. The "sad girl" example was meant simplistically to illustrate something. Photographic emotions and intentions are much more complicated than that, interweaving, overlapping.</p>

<p>And part of it is unintended, accidental and/or unconscious. [Maybe this leads us back to novelty. There seems to me something novel about accidents.]</p>

[je ne regrette rien]

<p>Yes, the photo is there. It cannot be separated from its subject. But the subject has its own presence, and I suspect that it has its own presence also in the eye of the viewer.<br>

[btw, I mistakenly wrote "wrong perception" and "wrong response". It is not wrong, its is just "different" or "non corresponding"].<br>

I am not so sure that presentation, perception and response are united.<br>

Fred sees a street in the picture of Morocco. I see houses, doors and shadows and a lonesome figure. I have no idea of what the photographer wanted to show.<br>

Maybe he just wanted to show the view from his window.<br>

We are presented the photograph. We are told that it is a photo taken in Assa, southern Morocco, probably away from the traditional touristic pathways. We are presented the perspective of the photographer on Assa.<br>

Once the photographer presents it, he loses control over the perception (<em>I might see the street, the colours, the doors, the unfinished roofs, the shadow, the lonesome figure</em>), but he also loses control over the response (<em>I might think of a township, of the wall construction technique, of the way colours are used - Morocco is known for the dyes which are used</em>).<br>

In fact the photo is there, as there is a connection between presentation, perception and response, but it seems extremely fuzzy to me.</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p>Nobody said it wasn't fuzzy! :-)</p>

<p>___________________________</p>

<blockquote>

<p>Yes, the photo is there. It cannot be separated from its subject.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>I disagree. In many ways, I think photos ARE very much separate from their subjects. A picture of a girl is NOT a girl. A photo can become the subject itself and the "subject" can recede. The subject can become in the viewer's eye an abstraction, a play of light and shadow.</p>

<p>______________________________</p>

<blockquote>

<p>Fred sees a street in the picture of Morocco. I see houses, doors and shadows and a lonesome figure. I have no idea of what the photographer wanted to show.<br />Maybe he just wanted to show the view from his window.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>I agree that you may have no idea what the photographer wanted to show. The photographer may not have an explicit idea of what he wanted to show. That's why he showed you a picture instead of telling you why he took the picture.</p>

<p>That you say you see houses, doors, and shadows and I say I see a street doesn't mean we're not sharing in seeing the photo (the presentation). It just means we're <em>describing</em> what we see differently. There is still a photo there that <em>we</em> didn't create, our varying descriptions notwithstanding.</p>

<p>_______________________________</p>

<blockquote>

<p>Once the photographer presents it, he loses control over the perception.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>No. I think he loses SOME control. Because he shot it from his perspective and chose the time and the moment and the exposure, etc., he will always have some control. IMO, it's already kind of built in because he took it. That's part of the reason why your looking at the table is different from your looking at a picture of the table. In some significant sense, your looking at the photo of the table that I created is looking at MY photograph. And in some sense, it also becomes yours. Thus the sharing.</p>

<p>A good photographer, I think, is aware of the control that will and must be lost and the control (or power) he has in terms of HOW he presents what he presents. Why do you say you like Eggleston's work or Eggleston is a good photographer (let's assume for the moment you do)? If what you say about photos and photographers and control were true, you would simply say about an Eggleston: this is MY photo and I like it. You wouldn't bring Eggleston into the picture! (IMO)</p>

<p>_____________________________</p>

<p>Julie, or anyone, a question occurred regarding this:</p>

<blockquote>

<p>A photograph enables, makes possible.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>In terms of enabling and possibility, how does a photo differ from a table or any other object I might perceive?</p>

<p>____________________________________</p>

<p>I guess what I'm getting at in this post is that a photo is tied to an author, however loosely or tightly, which varies. Even if nothing at all is known about the author, we know there is one.*</p>

<p>*Let's exclude for the moment cameras that take pictures of cars going through red lights, which may be a nebulous area in terms of authorship.</p>

[Julie H]

<p>" ... how does a photo differ from a table or any other object I might perceive?"</p>

<p>If you're into embodied cognition, being <em>is</em> movement with/in/to/from (eyes, head, body, etc.); to verify, to locate, to position to interact etc. etc. You can take it from there ...</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p>Thanks, Julie, but I don't know what you mean.</p>

[luis_g]

<p><strong>Luca - "</strong>We may be told that "this is not a pipe", but we still are entitled to see a pipe, since we are not the author."</p>

<p>One is entitled to see anything, I suppose, but we are not seeing a pipe. We are seeing a representation of a pipe, transduced onto a 2-dimensional space, out of time, etc.</p>

<p><strong>Luca - "</strong>So there might be my intention, but a wrong perception and a wrong response."</p>

<p>That would be true if we limited photography to a mere transmission of literal fact, something like a misunderstood business memo, or text about meeting at a restaurant. Photography would then be about transmitting information via unambiguous iconographic means. In terms of information, this would always make it's meaning the same size or smaller than its conceptual envelope. Even with forensic photography, there are ambiguities, and the context affects meaning. The photograph of your daughter, in a family album/slide show/digital frame or your phone preceded by other pictures of her, and/or captions, would go a long way towards narrowing the range of possible responses, though the intention-perception (and I would add interpretation of those perceptions) disconnect remains.</p>

<p>The early propagandist graphics/photos of the Soviets and US in the 1930's, though different, largely employed simple language/captions/slogans to forcefully narrow the range of potential readings of the images. What if the Morocco picture had no caption? Or if it was captioned "Solitary Man"? What I am saying is that no matter what the photographer intends, there is no intrinsic, immutable (here comes that word again!) essence in the photograph. And I suggest that if there was, photography would be a dull 3rd-rate lowbrow medium, and experiencing photographs akin to reading a very literal Tweet.</p>

<p>[Yesterday I was out photographing with a friend who told me a story about a photographer (who also happened to be a fireman) who would stand behind viewers looking at his work and eavesdrop to see how people "got it wrong". ]</p>

<p> </p>