The role of desire in photography?

aplumpton · December 4, 2012

I doubt that desire is exclusive to extreme egocentrism. The challenge of obstacles can often be absent (a desire for the simple taste of maple butter, sitting in a tin on a back shelf of the fridge) although without desire and obstacles (two more or less independent entities) many of the greatest achievements of man, and the photographer, would not have occurred, except perhaps the few that did so by chance.

iliafarniev · December 4, 2012

This obstacle/no-obstacle vs. desire/no-desire situation is otherwise known as extinction, ... which some consider as final point of arrival for creative investigators unless they figure one better on the way.

Norma Desmond · December 4, 2012

<<<I doubt that desire is exclusive to extreme egocentrism.>>>

Arthur, I doubt this as well. But it wouldn't surprise me if the lost and lonely person, perhaps one who is isolated and operates mostly within himself (can't get outside of himself) would project some sort of solipsism onto desire and particularly onto others.

IMO, there's a relationship between desire and empathy. I wonder if the desire awakened in me isn't that empathetic connection to the photo that many of us feel (and we've talked about here before) when we are looking at a photo that really moves us . . . whether for a long or short period of time.

Ann, I think there's something to what you've said about others' work stimulating our own. So often, I am inspired to make photos when I've returned from a museum or when I've opened a good photography book of pictures. Even when I've been to a good concert!

And yet there is also an awakening of desire not for what I, myself, might do but for a connection to what the other guy has done. Along these lines, I'd say desire and looking at a photo is more like an embrace and less like masturbation. The latter seems to me what Julie is proposing.

Julie H · December 4, 2012

Obstacles create desire; desire creates obstacles. (What is an obstacle? Something that prevents you from fulfilling a desire. What is a desire? Something from which you are barred by some kind of obstacle. Absent desire there is no obstacle; absent obstacles there is no desire.)

Wouter Willemse · December 4, 2012

desire serves both as connection and motivation to make further connections

</blockquote>

Luis' sentence pulls a few things together nicely - for me anyway. Much of what came up reading this echoes in Fred's last post too.

Potential. Passion. Completeness.

I left the thread a bit with those words echoing in my mind. There is a spark-like thing about desire - it comes, it does not necessarily have a logical ancestor (but connects to something already lingering in me), it moves and awakes things - it ignites. There is something very creative about desire. Energy, already mentioned - good word in this context, but I prefer creative for its Latin roots - it's about making something, something you do not have today. That's both connecting to your potential (and if all goes well, unleashing it), and raising your passion - it drives to act, change, do, learn - to create.

Completeness is the odd one there. Not sure why it stuck in my head. I don't like "complete". Complete is done, finished. Boring. Static. Nothing to add. It leaves nothing to want. Completeness to me is the opposite of desire. Desire is about flaws, coming from a flaw and hoping to remove it. But "complete" (and its worse neighbour "perfect") - they might seem goals, but somehow for me, they aren't. Incomplete and imperfect are human qualities, and somehow I prefer it that way - it leaves things to desire. And desires make me feel more alive than complacency.

I know, I am being quite incoherent here, but these were some left-over words from earlier posts that were still brewing in my head.

In practise it's a bit as what Fred said above after visiting a museum, concert, or reading a good book. Inspiration makes me want to use what I've seen/heard/read, and apply that into something I create - there is a sort of literal link between the two. Desire, on the other hand, makes me just want to create. It's far less directed, less precise. It has an 'inspiration'-like quality, but it works out completely different.

The first time seeing Brassaï photos inspired me; they still do (and i do fair amounts of night photography, so that helps). Those photos have qualities I hope some day to achieve in my own. The first time I saw Serrano's Piss Christ, I just wanted to see, feel, catch light. I wasn't (and still am not) going to do a photo like that one. But darn, that radiant light. It just makes me want to make photos, of whatever. See sunrays. Enjoy light. It doesn't inspire me, it makes me want to create. As much as I adore Brassaï, that photo really makes something happen.

(it is kind of hard to explain the difference; it's subtle, but hopefully the above makes some sense)

____

In my view desire does not create obstacles, it creates - it awakens potential and passion to use the potential. Desires can be fullfilled - to awake other desires; Julie's repeated statement suggest otherwise, but I see it more as cynicism than anything else. If everything you deeply want to do is an obstacle, then there is nothing left to do. Maybe it's me, but I miss some vibrance there.

____

I doubt that desire is exclusive to extreme egocentrism

</blockquote>

Arthur, I did bring in egoism earlier, and while I fully agree with what you say, there is a hint of egoism. My desire is about what I want - the desire as such is not necessarily empathic and antipathic. To me, it just is. In some cases, it does take a bit of rationalising to not follow a desire or to shape it into a more socially accepted shape. But i do see a dash of egocentrism at the core of any desire.

luis_g · December 4, 2012

Wouter, for me the idea of completeness means one thing seems (nothing ever really is, is it?) finished, or to be abandoned for now, and within that, perhaps implicitly, are seed pods for the beginning of something else. Desire, push or pull, energizes that first step and a vector to start out on. The Tarot card for the Fool, traipsing along a precipice with his little dog comes to mind.

http://www.biddytarot.com/cards/fool.jpg

[i want to clarify that this is out of a form of wanderlust, restlessness, mental nomadism (call it desire), not a search for something "unique" or "new", though perhaps new to me.]

Norma Desmond · December 4, 2012

<<<My desire is about what I want>>>

Is it about what I want or what I want or the want-ING? Or some of all of that . . . and perhaps more. Wouter, it seems you may be alluding to the wanting itself when you say "incomplete and imperfect are human qualities." Having had that gallery show recently, I was happy with the results all the while being very aware of my own limits (and newfound potential) in terms of where I currently am both with printing and shooting. That incompleteness felt great, hopeful, motivational. I didn't experience this immaturity as an obstacle or roadblock, but rather as part of the passing scenery and my own evolution.

Wouter Willemse · December 4, 2012

That incompleteness felt great, hopeful, motivational.

</blockquote>

I meant that, Fred - the incompleteness basically is a source for desire.

With the "human qualities", I chose my words rather lousy. What I was aiming at, is that it is reachable, doable. Completeness (and as Luis said, nothing really ever is - but I mean even as an ideal, an aspiration) is not that - it's not something I can achieve. Too "divine" - it cannot give me that motivation. Something incomplete can. Hence, my desire for completion and perfection delude; desire needs to be doable.

The reason why I dislike programs for SkinSmoothing is that it perfects women that otherwise would be desirable. Transforming them to something perfected makes them out of reach - beautiful, gorgeous, lovely - but not for me.

And yes, in a big way it is about wanting. With desires, in my mind anyway, the actual outcome is not all that defined, it's not that rational, more etherreal. It's more a sense of direction than knowing a destination.

Luis, I'd be the first to admit that my idea on completeness is debatable, or at the least far from universal. If that ends up depicting the fool, I won't mind. The fool can ask more questions than a wise man can answer - there is something about foolishness there that's utterly attractive too.

luis_g · December 4, 2012

Wouter, you misread me, I was citing the Fool card for the way I view myself.

Wouter Willemse · December 4, 2012

Darn, I want to be the fool! ;-)

Yes, indeed, misread you there. Rereading I see that.

Norma Desmond · December 4, 2012

Wouter, I think you chose your words well. I agree with you that incompleteness is a human quality . . . it is finiteness . . . it is NOT divine, not perfect, not an ideal.

cyanatic · December 5, 2012

Luis -- condolences on the death of your friend.

Cats. And I thought my 14 lb black cat was unique in his supergravity powers. Who knew?

Fred, your initial post definitely struck a chord with me. Arthur enumerated a number of scenarios in which desire is created and at which I found myself nodding in agreement.

And this from Fred --

Not for more good pictures or how I could make more good ones or what I could learn from this one, but just the awakening of desire in me, by looking at the photo. For me, it was less about the desire to photograph and more about the desire produced by one.

</blockquote>

Yes. A photograph may bring out desires (some to which I cannot put a name, sometimes an almost bittersweet yearning, sometimes like being taken to another world or time that doesn't really exist, one which I imagine from the image, perhaps, or like some world or existence from a dream that seems familiar in the dream, but is not so upon awakening), but similar desires may come from a novel, short story, poem, or snatch of music.

I would like to attempt to contribute more in regard to what others have already written, and in a more coherent fashion, but it is late and I must go to bed. Fascinating topic, Fred.

iliafarniev · December 5, 2012

Somehow, this thread seems to be drifting away from the earlier pred.: compassion. It's too soon. Let's go back and examinate it closer.

Norma Desmond · December 5, 2012

Steve, perhaps even something to do with escape (at least sometimes).

I can grow weary of the real world. And so the world of the photo, in all its glorious artificiality, can provide solace, shelter from the storm. Then again, it can rage just like the storm and even foment some storms. Perhaps not knowing its power is part of the draw, and my desire. The artificiality of the photo is very real to me, so photos participate as if they exist in two worlds. I like that interplay between what is so real and what is so not, between truths and lies, between the concrete raw materials and what a photo transforms them into.

I wonder if desire, for me, is wrapped up in fantasy, which is often my own further trespass on reality.

aplumpton · December 5, 2012

Steve and Fred have touched on an important aspect of desire, possibly the same thing in different descriptions: a dream world of imagination and an escape from reality, including evoking fantasy or fantasies. Exploring subject matter as a photographer, or visiting a photograph that presents an enigma that we desire to figure out or be swept up by or challenged by, are parts of a desire to see something beyond the ordinary or the common sight. Desire and arousel, or desire and compassion, as Ilia latterly mentions, are perhaps generally more concrete aspects of the feeling or attachment to desire, although not always so.

Norma Desmond · December 5, 2012

I believe Wouter mentioned passion, not compassion. I'm not sure how compassion would fit here, and I suspect it was just a trip of the tongue.

Something I've always appreciated about the loaded nature of passion is its religious connotation of suffering. The passion of the Christ.

Desire often seems to spring from a certain kind of passion. Wouter says, appropriately, about desire: "It does not necessarily have a logical ancestor."

Then there's lust, which is a kind of desire . . . sometimes an almost addictive desire. Surely important as well.

cyanatic · December 5, 2012

<a name="00b693"></a><a href="../photodb/user?user_id=2347092">Arthur Plumpton</a> <a href="../member-status-icons"><img title="Subscriber" src="../v3graphics/member-status-icons/sub6.gif" alt="" /><img title="Frequent poster" src="../v3graphics/member-status-icons/3rolls.gif" alt="" /></a>, Dec 05, 2012; 01:53 p.m.

</blockquote>

Steve and Fred have touched on an important aspect of desire, possibly the same thing in different descriptions: a dream world of imagination and an escape from reality, including evoking fantasy or fantasies. Exploring subject matter as a photographer, or visiting a photograph that presents an enigma that we desire to figure out or be swept up by or challenged by, are parts of a desire to see something beyond the ordinary or the common sight. Desire and arousel, or desire and compassion, as Ilia latterly mentions, are perhaps generally more concrete aspects of the feeling or attachment to desire, although not always so.

</blockquote>

It is a little as you described (and as Fred described), yet for me it is also different. Fantasy and escape form a part of it, but not in the same way that a good novel or movie might provide me with an escape. Photography which elicits desire from me serves also as an enhancement of reality. I'm not sure I can put it into words.

In the last month I obtained copies of Koudelka's Gypsies (the newer Aperture reprint) and Klein's Life is Good & Good for You in New York (from the Errata Editions Books on Books series...an original is just a little too pricey for me to justify at this point). Many of the images in these books give me a desire, they transport me, yet they also change my reality, my vision, when I go out into the street or to an interview or event in relation to a documentary I am working on. These books are not the only examples of images and photographers that have that effect upon me (Ishimoto, Frank, Arbus, Faurer, Lee, et al, do the same for me in many cases), they came to mind because they were recent acquisitions and I had just been looking through Klein's New York when I left off to check photo.net and came across Fred's post.

Some may doubt my credibility or sanity, but when I speak of a change in reality I am quite serious. I don't see differently because I am under a temporary influence of Klein's or Koudelka's viewpoint, I see more...I see things in addition to what I saw before and that is what I mean by enhancement. I can never see as they did (nor do I want to), I continue to see as Steve Gubin, but with, perhaps, a few less scales over my eyes. If that makes any sense.

That's also why I don't see the "world of the photo", as Fred put it, as a "glorious artificiality". A photo is what it is, and is something unto itself. As a poem, a novel, or a piece of music does not necessarily have to be seen as artificial. They are parts of reality, even while they may mimic, reflect, and fantasize reality. Part of this may be due to the type of photography that, at this point in my life, most interests me and sparks desire and enhancement: candid street photography of a certain type, and documentary photography of a certain type. But I'm not convinced I would feel any different if I worked in a more fantastical, composite based genre of photography and had recently purchased monographs by Jerry Uelsmann and Julie Heyward.

Norma Desmond · December 5, 2012

<<<Then again, it can rage just like the storm and even foment some storms.>>>

Steve, thanks for fleshing out your description. I think, when I included the above line as a qualification to a photo's being an "escape" from the storm, I was trying to leave the door open to photos being very real as well, precisely because of the raw materials from which they are made. Photos have that extraordinary ability to put us in touch with the real in some cases and create a reality of their own in others, to be reality-based in an almost hyper sense (as in some good documentary work but also much "art" photography as well, which is quite real and whose springboard are actual events or objects and places) and fantasy-based in other applications, sometimes both of those worlds being touched on in the very same photo.

I can relate to what you're saying about seeing more when under the influence of having seen an exhibit or looked through a photo book. I guess I'd call it a matter of clarification. And, sure, a change in reality.

Likewise, for me, when I am holding a camera, my reality can sometimes seem to shift. It's a little bit of the observer effect. How I observe changes what there is to be seen. I can affect the world by how I approach it . . . and then I take a picture of it.

I'm always hesitant to use the word "artificial" because it does have, for many, some negative connotations (in a world where I, too, put a premium on, for example, eating natural foods, not wearing synthetic fabrics, etc.). I mean "artificial" in the best and most authentic and genuine sense, however, of something being man-made, crafted by the hands of someone who sees, of someone who desires to make . . . a photo.

Norma Desmond · December 5, 2012

Steve, I want to add that there is a sense in which "artifice" is significant to me, in a way that I might similarly use "theatrical." Now, sure, theater is its own reality. I'm the first to advocate that. But I also think of it has a having a certain relationship to my day-by-day experiences (which I hesitate to refer to as a different sort of reality). So that, in some of my photos I take a purposely and deliberately theatrical attitude, a "staged" vision if you will, different from a candid one though in many ways still somewhat spontaneous, and yet I think that artifice or theatricality can arrive at some very real truths, or what we might call genuinely human emotional depictions.

aplumpton · December 5, 2012

Rather than having a desire to seek out some aspect of reality, or a form of reality that may be rediscovered by my photographic process, or in the approach of another photographer, or a desire to see reality in a photograph, my desire (and yes, I think that passion rather than compassion is at the root of art making and many other activities) is more to see beyond reality, and at what might also exist, albeit sometimes only in the mind and as yet without physical presence. I guess "to see beyond" also describes the desire of a researcher and for anyone else for whom exploration is a game whereby the result is unforeseen. When something is foreseen, as so often happens with reality, it often is accompanied for me by a much lesser adrenolin charge.

I think that desire needs little psychological explanation or justification, as it is such a key motivational force in the human condition. The precursors to my desire are often supplied by external events or experiences, much like a baton received from another runner which I take up and run with until some point I can hand it over to another (in photography, the viewer) to take it where he or she wants to take it. The external event, whether it is a situation or fact provided by another, or instead simply something I have thought about and which is ready to be constructed (I have often also thought of theatre in that context, or what I call a deterministic process of photography), defines a need to which desire can couple. I think that the term engagement describes the way my desire is pursued or enacted. The engagement is not something as methodical or univariant as that protocol someone might apply to prepare himself to shoot a friend's wedding (of which I am not capable of doing, let alone being drawn to) but a free engagement which is very open to variation as I interact with a photographic subject.

Fantasy, the unpredictable, and enigma, may have little place in defining reality for many of us, but to me they are necessary elements of going beyond the familiar of what we consider as reality. Just as the future exists only in our imaginations, fantasy can only be a part of what may be "possible realities" and therefore of greater interest than something we know very well. Exploration becomes a child of desire.

luis_g · December 6, 2012

For me, "complete" is not an ideal, but more of a sense of plateau-ing. Often a signal for change, dig deeper, work harder, persevere, or move on.

___________________________________

Maybe due to my magical realist early upbringing, but reality is endlessly fascinating to me and getting more so as I get older. Photographs feed my (ADD-led) curiosity. They are short vertical movies, subsets of time and space as defined by echoes of light that have branched off, yet remain a part of reality. Escape is part of it, but as an exile that idea seems a double-edged blade. The idea of exploration fits my construct better, though some photographs almost demand one leap in with abandon. The photograph is a magical space with its own rules and price of admission. It is simultaneously a depiction of the subject, implied presence of the photographer, culture, the process(es) involved in its creation, and more. It is also a record of something not so much to escape to but something that escapes all too easily: The boundary layer between what happened on either side of the shutter curtains. That hiding-in-plain-sight, nearly transparent membrane fascinates me.

___________________________________________________________

When I look at someone else's work, spnapshots, advertising, painting, etc., there is a kind of conceptual parallax, similar to getting to know someone, a new place, culture, etc., or doing drugs. That empathetic displacement and the subsequent process of absorbing/resolving it is in my case very similar to what Steve reports about books, and not in a slavish, clingy way.

Norma Desmond · December 6, 2012

<<<though some photographs almost demand one leap in with abandon.>>>

Got it. Hits the proverbial nail on the head!

Also, sometimes taking (and making) photos can demand this as well.

________________________________

In some ways, fantasy (for me) can be a leap into reality with abandon which (again, for me) undermines or at least calls into question the foundations I may have become used to for support.

For me, intimacy and connection with and to the subjects of my photos needs a strong grounding in reality. The beauty of photography, for me (or at least the photos that attract me), goes beyond what I might call a Disney-like fantasy . . . a photo can achieve depth, even with its important relationship to fantasy and mystery, by also keeping it real.

I really do believe that, even the most abstract, the most creative, the most strange or imaginative photo is also a document of some sort. The interplay of imagination or fantasy and reality is a fairly significant part of photography, IMO.

Wouter Willemse · December 6, 2012

At the risk that I might actually be talking about a whole different end of the spectrum....

important aspect of desire, possibly the same thing in different descriptions: a dream world of imagination and an escape from reality, including evoking fantasy or fantasies.

</blockquote>

For me, desire does not have to do all that much with escapes from reality, or a dream world of imagination. It can be a very down-to-earth real wish. Dreaming is related, but not the same. Reality is related, but neither inclusive or exclusive. I understand what Arthur is bringing up with it, and yes, it plays a role. But it's not the whole story. And I think frequently it's far more down to earth. For me, certainly when it comes to photography - it translates into actually making some more, but other, photos. That's not an escape, nor a dream.

Going bare-bones thinking about desire (as I see it): there is a current situation where something is not. I want it. The missing thing can be anything - from the material to the most dreamlike fantasy. The one thing driving it all is the lack of its current presence in my life. The lack drives desire. That's also where I see it connecting two ways - to the current state, the lack/void, to the desired state and inclusion, and to the process of changing the state from one into another. There is leaving behind, there is moving forward. It's change. But the change can be as mundane as buying a coffee.

Norma Desmond · December 6, 2012

Wouter, all kidding aside, I think that's why there's often (always?) an element of sexuality and/or lust relating to desire, for me. It's human, of the body, physical. There is something very physical about making and viewing photos. (Of course, all crafts and arts have that sense of physicality.) But the photo's tie to history or to what's occurred or to "what's out there" makes it seem especially of the body, especially corporeal based. Of course, I'm a big believer in the transcendent nature of photos as well, thus my sense of a strong interplay between the photograph and the photographed, be it tension, harmony, or some other state. And it would also explain my desire to connect to what I'm photographing intimately, penetratingly.

Wouter Willemse · December 6, 2012

Fred, I agree; while my photos are not particularly about sexuality or human physics, I can relate to what you say. Just to be clear: I can also relate to what Arthur wrote, it can also be etherreal, and there can be desire for the etherreal. It's to me different ends of a continuous spectrum. I did not want to oppose one to another. Desire rings more bells for me (as a word/sensation/idea) on a physical, earthly level, though. Wanting, rather than dreaming.

But that's also knowing that in my native language, it has two translations, one being more 'profound' but with a strong background of being used to indicate sexual desire; the other more straight-up ("to want") and used common, without the tension. Neither one really maps to the English word, I'd say. I guess such differences in linguistic valuations will leave their traces on my thinking too, as it may for others of course.

In my photos, well, it's a bit more a jump. Your photos make much better examples for this point than mine!

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