The role of desire in photography?

[aplumpton]

<p>Fred, I was referring to Cohen's desires (sensual and spiritual, the latter witnessed perhaps by his 5 year enclosure and subservience to his guru within an oriental spiritual group in California) and their evident transfer to his music. He is a magnet for those concerned with what concerned him, a sort of reconciliation if possible between our sensual existence and the questions of what and why of existence itself.</p>

<p>When I questioned a photographer's desire it was not from the point of did that exist or not within a photographer, which I can believe (and share), but how often does it come out in his works. The POW is not a good benchmark for that research, perhaps, but I think it is interesting to reflect on how many of the multitude of those images over the years have displayed the photographer's emotion of desire. Whether we examine the POWs, or the realm of works of professional photography and art photography, I do not find that many cases of a photographer's unfulfilled desire or longing being manifested in his or her images. Did Brassai and Dorothea Lange have unfulfilled desires, or were they simply focussed in a professional manner on reporting what they observed around them or of other people's desires? Many photographers of mark are brilliant educated technicians (somewhat like a particular surgeon who has perfected a specific technique and applies it with uncommon dexterity and grace, but may not have to struggle with problems outside of and adjacent to that expertise, unless you can simply say that he has an unfulfilled desire, or a personal challenge, to do even better) and such "technicians" (I use the word in a wide sense) can analyze a dynamic situation and create a photograph that is both something of what is there, coupled to what they see as being there. I do not subtract from that the possibility that human desire can also attached to their work, but often I think that it is not needed to be invoked for them to succeed. Of course, sometimes it is.</p>

<p>If Cohen had penned his song (and others) without having sweated over it for nearly three years and through 70 some versions/partial rewrites, perhaps his desire might have been more easily attained and not in an unfulfilled desire state that he experienced over all that time. When creativity is exercised too simply, or too quickly, without internal struggle, I think it can be a product of a spontaneous creative capability, or chance, and perhaps less connected to desire.</p>

<p>I might have to think about that a bit more, and I would certainly have to think more about examples of famous photographers who had great unfulfilled desire that also showed in their work. Nonetheless, a few possibilities: Ernst Hass used to go out to create his images on an empty stomache, believing I think that comfort or well-being interfered with his desire to make what he might consider significant photographs, primarily those in which color harmonies or discords were key. I may have read his notes wrong, but I think it was something like that. His work does seem to show an affinity and desire for the power, sensual pleasure and symbolism of color. Atget lived daily by his commercial photography, which might have been enough to satisfy another, but he couldn't stop making, in his spare time, more and more images of the Paris he knew. They were rarely of Parisians, but mainly of what the architecture and sense of place said to him. An unfulfilled desire? I don't know, but I think so, and the products of his vision seem (!) to reflect a desire to be one with his subject matter.</p>

<p> </p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p><<<<em>who had great unfulfilled desire that also showed in their work</em>>>></p>

<p>You might not ever know it because "unfulfilled desire" could manifest itself in so many different ways and not be evident as "unfulfilled desire" in the work. It could be the muse for the work without it being the subject of the work or even noticed as desire in the work. There is so often not a one-to-one translation in the way certain emotional states wind up <em>looking</em> once they've been poured into whatever work an artist is creating. We can't look for literal iterations of desire, necessarily. What we may be seeing is how a photographer used his desire as a source of inspiration but not the desired itself portrayed. And the photographer, like any artists, might use his work as a catharsis of sorts. We may be seeing not the desire but what the desire produced.</p>

<p>Sometimes, a photographer might specifically want to convey desire, which I suspect both Lange and Brassai may have done quite consciously.</p>

<p>Part of the desire you're talking about with Cohen is self-reflective and procedural, about the song itself and his relationship to it and its production and reception. But even not knowing the story of the song (which I hadn't up until now) I think it portrays/suggests/elicits/speaks to all kinds of internal desires as well (which you also describe). Most of his songs do. Not because he's waiting for them to be heard or become successful or because he may take time ironing out wrinkles or plodding over what works musically, but because he's steeped enough in his own personal desires (often sexual and sensual) and puts that into his music, long before he ever awaits the results of his labors.</p>

<p><<<<em>If Cohen had penned his song (and others) without having sweated over it for nearly three years and through 70 some versions/partial rewrites, perhaps his desire might have been more easily attained and not in an unfulfilled desire state that he experienced over all that time. When creativity is exercised too simply, or too quickly, without internal struggle, I think it can be a product of a spontaneous creative capability, or chance, and perhaps less connected to desire.</em>>>></p>

<p>The internal struggle can be and often is but isn't limited to the process of making art or the amount of time it takes to make it. Some of the most passionate songs (ones born of or expressing desire), I'm sure, are written in only a few minutes, the pen almost overflowing with emotion. The struggle isn't only in the making, it is expressed by the making.</p>

<p><em>"Your faith was strong but you needed proof</em><br /><em>You saw her bathing on the roof</em><br /><em>Her beauty in the moonlight overthrew you</em><br /><em>She tied you to a kitchen chair</em><br /><em>She broke your throne, and she cut your hair</em><br /><em>And from your lips she drew the Hallelujah"</em></p>

<p>This is the desire I think of when I think of Leonard Cohen. Less so about his process in writing it.</p>

[aplumpton]

<p>Agree totally about both desires that Cohen experiences - the words of his song, and the desire in making those assemblages of words to express best his feelings. I think they are inseparable, but I appreciate mainly his sensual and spiritual poetry, desires and the human tensions that relate so closely not just to his, but to most of our lives. Glad he is still at it, CDs and concerts at 78, with a son Adam following in his footsteps (or trying to make his own). </p>

<p>I also agree (I must be in an unusually compliant state...) that a photographer's (or any artist's) desire does not need to manifest itself in the work, but can be a driver or catalyst of sorts to its creation. </p>