Can a photograph NOT be based on an idea or a concept?

[Julie H]

<p>We all agree (is this a first for this forum?) that dead people take no photos. Now to move on to the truly deep philosophical question:</p>

<p>Which came first, the chicken or the egg?</p>

[alan_zinn]

<p>I need to think about this and the previous questions of concept as limited to more deliberative efforts.<br>

My head is in a different, still unresolved, space philosophically when I make or view work destined solely for a display screen. <br>

What <em>are</em> we doing creating digital media, endlessly reproducible like books? It is never or hardly ever tangible. For one thing, as data, how can it be rare or valued? <br>

We have agreed that we can't <em>not</em> think of concept -- (<em> don't</em> think of elephants!). My elephant is that I am conceptually aware that every image I make now is destined for immateriality. I can tell you why I'm beginning to think that is a good thing, but have to think about it and try to pose a new question.</p>

<p>BTW, will you all quit repeating the <em>left/right </em>brain nonsense. We all use our whole brain with slight variance in the same way. It's one of those silly thigs like women being from Venus, etc.. Sorry, had to rant.</p>

[aplumpton]

<p>That's easy, Julie. Unquestionably, it was the egg, conceived without intermediary by Mother Nature. It would surely have been more difficult for MN to have created the fowl in just one go.</p>

<p>Or, to reflect further on the subtlety of the problem, in yet another form, herewith the insightful prose of a New Jersey bard:</p>

<p>"Spring is sprung, the grass is riz;<br /> I wonder where the boidy is?<br /> Some may say the boid is on the wing,<br /> But that's absoid, the wing is on the boid!"</p>

<p>Alan, this is as close as I can come to immateriality this morning. Or in providing a comment of non-substance (except, of course, to those of a philosophical bent).</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p><<<What <em>are</em> we doing creating digital media>>></p>

<p>Keeping up with advancing technology, as all photographers have done since its inception.</p>

<p><<<It is never or hardly ever tangible.>>></p>

<p>It's right there on your iPad. It's the new tangible. If that's not enough, print it. Hang it. Take it to galleries. Invite your friends to look and hold.</p>

<p><<<My elephant is that I am conceptually aware that every image I make now is destined for immateriality.>>></p>

<p>Alan, you may have to start changing your notion of materiality so as not to become the dinosaur (not elephant) you seem to be channeling. :-)</p>

<p><<<For one thing, as data, how can it be rare or valued?>>></p>

<p>How important is it to you that a photo (which you strangely refer to as data) be "rare or valued?" Can't you just appreciate a photo for what it gives you, whether you're the maker or the viewer? What do you mean by value? Is the experience of a moving photo of "value"? Or does it have to be bought and sold?</p>

<p>________________________________</p>

<p>There's a difference between people with ideas who create photos (which includes all of us who aren't dead, as Julie points out) and people who create photos "based on an idea," though there is, of course, some overlap. There's also a difference between having, at whatever level of consciousness, the idea to make a photo and basing the photo you make on an idea.</p>

[Julie H]

<p>Arthur, nope. Wrong. To the chicken or egg question the answer is:</p>

<blockquote>

<p>"Neither one nor the other, it was the rooster. And certainly not in the shape of an egg, since both a chicken and a rooster hatch from an egg and what God wants is a rooster. Therefore, short of believing that God resembles an egg and that he created the egg in his image — of course not — , all eggs resemble each other, while roosters do not, and we know that the rooster created by God to resemble him was a full-fledged rooster, a rooster of a divine and canonic age. … " — <em>Jean-Baptiste Harang</em></p>

</blockquote>

<p>Or at least most roosters seem to think that's the right answer.</p>

<p>Talk of chicken/eggs and photography always reminds me of Philip Larkin's comment on his own photographic portraits. He said he looked like:</p>

<blockquote>

<p>"a cross between an egg and a bloodhound" and "an egg sculpted in lard, with goggles on".</p>

</blockquote>

[alan_zinn]

<p>Fred,<br>

As soon as I get my next question formulated you will see that I'm wholeheartedly embracing the non-tangible art world . The interesting thing for us to discuss, I hope, is why it changes the way we must think about how we photograph. "<br>

"Value" I am talking about has to do with numbers. There may be only one or just a few manuscripts or film or whatever. Good or bad, its material existence is valued. And rarest things are sometimes so damn fine and difficult! <em>Data </em>(digital) is all an image is. We can expect no sort of rarity. Small point?<br>

Acknowledging that my data (image) is infinity mutable when I make it, changes everything. Those <em>everything's</em> that matter to me -- are <em>why</em> I make images.<br>

I think the answer to chicken/egg conundrum is <em>simultaneous</em>. Still an apt metaphor? What came first, concept or outcome? The image was <em>waiting</em> and so was the concept. No?</p>

 

[Norma Desmond]

<p><<<The image was <em>waiting</em> and so was the concept. No?>>></p>

<p>No!</p>

<p>IMO, neither was waiting. I come up with concepts and I make photos, sometimes together, sometimes separately.</p>

<p>No image is waiting in the wings like some priest's notion of a soul waiting to be born, waiting so desperately to be given life that we have to eschew birth control in deference to that waiting soul, a mere reification of a figment of a faith-based imagination.</p>

<p>Come on, man, take some responsibility for what you do! Stop with this <em>waiting</em> game.</p>

<p>It's not already there. You're MAKING it.</p>

[Julie H]

<p>[From the quote arsenal, for Alan to use (or not) if he wishes:]</p>

<p>.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>"My passion has never been for photography "in itself," but for the possibility -- through forgetting yourself -- of recording in a fraction of a second the emotion of the subject, and the beauty of the form; that is, a geometry awakened by what's offered." -- <em>HCB</em></p>

</blockquote>

<p>and<br>

.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>"I believe that, through the act of living, the discovery of one-self is made concurrently with the discovery of the world around us, which can mold us, but which can also be affected by us. A balance must be established between these two worlds -- the one inside us and the one outside us. As the result of a constant reciprocal process, both these worlds come to form a single one. And it is this world that we must communicate." -- <em>HCB</em></p>

</blockquote>

[Norma Desmond]

<p><<<<em>A balance must be established between these two worlds -- the one inside us and the one outside us.</em>>>></p>

<p>This quote betrays the mindset of the philosophical past, when there was thought to be an inner world and an outer one.</p>

<p>Like technology, data, and photo creation processes, time marches on. Bresson might very well say it differently now, if he kept up. And judging by history, he'd most likely say it in his own words.</p>

[aplumpton]

<p>Oops, wrong again. You are right Julie, God did create the rooster. I see and hear proof of that apparent folly daily, when navigating amongst my fellow humans in our twenty first century yet quasi-Medieval village. </p>

<p>Alan, come out with your erudite post instead of simply promoting it. My razor is sharpened.</p>

[michaellinder]

<p>Hmmm . . . "based on an idea or concept." I'm not sure what sense the OP intended to confer on this phrase. Clearly, I think, there are many times when I shoot a photograph with the clear intent of the finished product having a certain appearance or potential impact on a viewer. There are other occasions when I shoot a photograph not having any notion whatsoever about what the thing will look like, and it will be considerably harder for me to design the image around how I'd like a viewer to perceive it. For the most part, this latter sort of photograph usually becomes an abstract.</p>

<p>Accordingly, I think photographs inevitably result from an intention. Intentions cover a very broad spectrum, ranging from creating an HDR rendering of a mountain stream to thinking that the snap of the shutter is purely spontaneous. In the latter instance, the photographer's mindset is much like "Let's run it up the flagpole and see if it flies." But there still is intention.</p>

<p>If Dan meant "idea or concept" as "intention," I agree.</p>

 

[dan_south]

<p>Let's consider some ideas and concepts that might inspire photographs to be taken. I don't necessarily agree with these ideas - and much better ideas exist - but I believe that these are used to justify the taking of photographs rather frequently.</p>

<p><em>Surprising juxtapositions can yield interesting images.</em> (We've all seen examples.)</p>

<p><em>On someone's birthday, it's a good idea to capture a shot of them blowing out candles.</em> (Most of us have been IN this photograph.)</p>

<p><em>Abstract photos and candid photographs of people on city streets are artistic.</em> (Apparently, there are many exceptions.)</p>

<p><em>It's important to keep a visible record of the sights that one encounters on vacation.</em> (The inspiration for large numbers of photos.)<br>

<em> </em><br>

<em>The bride will be upset if I don't capture a photo of her bouquet toss.</em><br>

<em> </em><br>

<em>I need a photo remind myself that I once visited the Statue of Liberty.</em><br>

<em> </em><br>

<em>Photos of celebrities can be sold for large sums of money.</em><br>

<em> </em><br>

<em>If I see a rare bird, I should capture a record of the encounter in case no one has ever seen that particular species before.</em></p>

<p>Countless photographs have been inspired by these ideas, pedestrian though they may be.</p>

<p> </p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p>Dan, do you see any qualitative difference between the following two situations:</p>

<p>1) An idea as motivation (the bride will be upset, I want to push the shutter, I want to get a good grade in photography class, I want to record . . .) all of which address why the act is being performed.</p>

<p>2) An idea as a basis for the photograph (such as "photographing the idea of rhythm") where the idea is to be conveyed by the photo?</p>

<p>Consider that when one is motivated because the bride might be upset one is not necessarily trying to express in the photo the idea that the bride might be upset if no picture is taken. One's goal is more likely simply to get a good picture of the bride.</p>

<p>On the other hand, when one sets out to photograph the idea of rhythm, that is the idea one wants to photograph.</p>

<p>In the first case, one is photographing because of an idea. In the other case, one is attempting actually to photograph the idea one has (or at least convey the idea in the photo).</p>

<p>As always, sometimes we can do both and there is bound to be overlap between motivation and what is conveyed.</p>

[alan_zinn]

<p>Julie,<br>

Thanks for quote. HCB dinned out on his decisive moment shtick. Good for him. I see why he found painting more interesting. The idea of <em>waiting</em> that bugs Fred is that a picture could be waiting a priori when there are <em>infinite</em> possibilities. HCB's kind of thing is the predictability.<br>

Fred,<br>

Again, I know what you mean about the picture springing up through <em>your</em> process. It was <em>waiting</em> there in you only - nobody else. The resolved image in the physical world exists only to the extent <em>you</em> will it to be.<br>

Asymmetrical metaphors give philosophers job security.</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p><<<Asymmetrical metaphors give philosophers job security.>>></p>

<p>I have no idea what this means. Can you flesh it out a little.</p>

<p><<<The idea of <em>waiting</em> that bugs Fred is that a picture could be waiting a priori>>></p>

<p>Yes, the idea that a picture or anything else is waiting a priori is nonsensical to me.</p>

<p><<<It was <em>waiting</em> there in you only - nobody else.>>></p>

<p>Wasn't waiting. The picture maybe could have been made by me only but that doesn't mean it was WAITING or waiting IN me. Just like there's no <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_in_the_machine">ghost in the machine</a>, there's no picture in the machine either. And I say "maybe" because I'm not necessarily such an individualist as to think only I could have made THAT picture.</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p><em>Waiting a priori pictures?</em></p>

<p>The whole notion seems a confusion, IMO. A priori means non-contingent. You understand it as true without needing any sort of experience. How one gets "a picture," whether that picture is inside or outside (!), without any experience is a little beyond my comprehension. Some think, probably wrongly, that 2+2=4 is a kind of a priori proposition, that it can't both be raining and not raining in the same place and time is an a priori proposition, that a bachelor is an unmarried man is an a priori proposition. But the idea that our pictures already exist, independent of our experience, is a complete and utter sham. It sounds suspiciously like our being made in God's image. It's all already there, perfect and whole. Puh-leeze!</p>

<p>If this is a metaphor only, which I'm not sure you're suggesting, what is it a metaphor meant to convey? That you are not responsible for your photos because they're already there? That you are simply the medium for God's work? What could this metaphor possibly convey that would matter to anyone?</p>

<p>IMO, it's a bunch of pseudo religious claptrap masquerading as some sort of supposedly Zen-enlightened non-artist "artiste"ry.</p>

[DavidRabinowitz]

<p>i believe art in general cannot be divorced from idea or concept...there have certainly been artist who have tried but you are always selecting and that selection is conceptual at some level...it is even more difficult with photography where you actually have to point and shoot...automatism is art and writing may be to some extent the return of the unconcious but it is still a selection, an idea that has links to conceptual thought, it is organized...even dreams are an organization of thought...</p>

[michaellinder]

<p>Alan: Another opportunity to trash philosophy and philosophers? Philosophers don't need job security, unless the practice in which they're engaged is just popular stuff intended for mass appeal.<br>

As to the use of the phrase "<em>a priori</em>": My understanding of the phrase has to do with logical priority. Until and unless you proffer an analysis of "photograph", I just can't fathom how a photograph can be considered <em>a priori</em> to anything.</p>

 

[Allen Herbert]

<p>"But the idea that our pictures already exist, independent of our experience"</p>

<p>　<br>

Well it does. The the picture is not subject to anything...it exists. More often than not it is a life of its own regardless of our experience or conjecture...our vanity thinks we have created something which has already been created.</p>

<p>Perhaps we have just found something.</p>

[Allen Herbert]

<p>"idea that our pictures already exist, independent of our experience, is a complete and utter sham. It sounds suspiciously like our being made in God's image. It's all already there, perfect and whole. Puh-leeze</p>

<p>Puh-indeed to make such a statement.</p>

<p>We seek what is already there. We try to understand.That is what we do as a species.</p>

<p> </p>

[Allen Herbert]

<p>We have created absolutely nothing other than our own vanity.</p>

[Spearhead]

<blockquote>

<p>We have created absolutely nothing other than our own vanity.</p>

</blockquote>

<p> <br>

Human life in a nutshell.</p>

[aplumpton]

<blockquote>

<p>We have created absolutely nothing other than our own vanity.</p>

 

</blockquote>

<p>No. Not at all. Some avoid that "cul-de-sac." An inquisitive approach and the humility to accept failure helps.</p>

 

<blockquote>

<p>We seek what is already there. We try to understand.That is what we do as a species.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>In part, of course. But imagination, a desire for fantasy and breaking rules can take us elsewhere as well. </p>

[yangchen_lin]

<p>Perhaps one could gain insights from atonality (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atonality), which is probably the closest one gets to accidentally and randomly firing a shot while changing the battery. The issue here is the nestedness of 'idea' and 'concept' - although atonality is an idea/concept, once within the boundaries of atonality one could plausibly argue that one creates sounds with no nonrandom idea/concept i.e. random. But even this may have a problem, because if we use a pseudorandom number generator, it's as you know not truly random. So, depending on what temporal/spatial frame of reference you are considering, a photograph can be defined as having no preconceived idea/concept, although it could gain idea/concept from retrospective interpretation. I should really take the camera out one day, take random shots and see whether the distributions of shapes and colours in the large sample size of photos follows some kind of statistical distribution. And it would be interesting to see whether these distributions differ across photographers.</p>

[jocksturges1]

There are different levels to this. Certainly anyone can insist that as a question of semantics every photograph ever made

was the result of some mechanism of thought. This is self-evident to the point of silliness. Un-necessary cogitation. So

let's leave that behind and talk about what matters more - that being the quality and nature of thought in photographic

image making.

 

I think we can start by saying that thought importantly manifests motivation. A parent photographing his or her children at

Disneyland is making family snapshots but with the deeper and laudable motivation of wanting to preserve for themselves

and still more importantly the children themselves a record of their joy and innocence. Most parents do this and an

important part of what motivates them is the certain knowledge that childhood swiftly gives way to a darker game. It does

not last. For this reason I so enjoy looking at family albums for regardless of the quality of their photographic

achievement, they manifest love and sadness in equal measure. There is much in "art" that comes nowhere close to such

purity of purpose.

 

So, that's level one. Snapshots. They do not lack for nobility of purpose but as "photographers" we hope to aim higher.

We can do "better" than snapshots. We can make WELL MADE pictures. We study the craft and begin to do "projects"

(one of the longer four-letter words I know). Better cameras and lenses and an evolved technique give us pictures that

are technical accomplishments that incite admiration and envy. Amazingly sharp, amazingly colorful, subtle, beautiful gray

scale. We are better than them snap shooters... We can shoot anything, everything and do it well. We LOVE photography

and that is our motivator. Or at least that is the motivation I see behind a great deal of the work I see on Photo Net. The

pictures here are very often simply "about" photography itself. While this affection for craft is not ignoble and indeed is

essential if the work is ever to ascend to loftier precincts, it is finally a hollow and sadly empty exercise because perfect

pictures of things, places and/or people are essentially meaningless absent their being able to transmit a unifying

intelligence and profound level of insight and knowledge.

 

It's about here that art school graduates step in with scintillatingly abstruse artist statements and other such piffle and

beat us about the head with concepts and ideas -- though ironically they are very often so busy in their lives with these

conversations that their technical abilities are apt to be stunted and unlovely. No matter. They have a great

explanation/defense of the work. A dialectic. Soaring architectures of sophmoric thought. We do not understand. Or at

least I should narrow that confession to myself and say that I don't. Which is fine with me. These are shoal waters. Work

that is born of infatuation with intellectual concepts too often founders on one of two rocks. Either it is so complex and

labrythine in its ambitions as to rise to an impenetrable incomprehensability or it is so simple and obvious that after

looking at two or three images one gets it and has had enough. This is not to say that conceptual work that balances on

the edge of Occam's razor between these two dismissals does not exist. But it is passing rare.

 

So this level if thinking does not incite in me much admiration or respect. Not what I like. The ocean of graduate students

who live at this level would care not a fig for my opinions were they ever aware of them though. Academia will insist they

carry on and they will. Some of them raise to the level of powers in the larger art world. Their glittering conceits do not

move me whatever their success. I know for a fact that the emperor is naked.

 

But there is a worthwhile higher level. Truly. To describe it, it is most useful to indulge in reverse engineering. Look at the

work of whatever photographers you most admire and ask yourself the question, "what is it about their pictures that

unifies them, makes them obviously the work of whoever the specific photographer is?" As an example, what unifies the

many diverse images of Sebastiao Salgado? And I'm not talking about HOW he makes his pictures but WHY. What are

they ABOUT? The answer is pretty simple. Salgado began his working life as a politically motivated activist intervening in

the lives of suffering social groups in Africa. He is hugely, vastly taken by a profound empathetic respect and affection for

suffering indigenous peoples all over the world. He documents and wrestles with social injustice like a demon. His

photographic work is a SYMPTOM of this passion. The "ABOUT" rules. Edward Weston, the same thing. Though in his

case it was women that fixed his gaze and organized his breath. Even his objects (shells, peppers, toilets) and

landscapes are redolent with voluptuous line. Mary Ellen Mark -- a profound humanist also. She lives with her subjects,

spends months, even years with them and this gives her (and,thus us) images of transcendant compassion. Her work is

ABOUT her humanism. Dianne Arbus' work was about her brittle and deteriorating alienation. Ansel Adams' work was

about his huge affection for the natural world and more specifically the Sierras and Yosemite. As a young man he'd

escape up there on any pretext, drop everything and go. But in the early fifties he made a mistake. He published his

famous Zone System books around 1953. He became a "Photographer" in the event. If you look at the dates on his great

work you will see almost none that date after 1953. And yet he photographed for another three decades. He had lost his

critical "about". Swapping it for technique did not work. Does not work.

 

So that's a few examples to illustrate my notion of the critical idea behind good photographic work having rarely anything

to do with photography itself. How do you get to this level? Well every single one of you has had the experience of doing

a mess of pictures from amongst which there are always one or two that you really want to see first. Somthing special

happened. Something n your belly tightened and felt like want. Start there. Whenever you are lucky enough to hear that

voice, listen. That is your unique subconscious speaking out loud to you, saying, "I AM INTERESTED." It is a hard voice

to suss out. There is so much noise in our lives... So when you hear it, whatever it was that set it off, go and do a lot more

of whatever that was. Make a definitive effort. One of two things happens. Either you will become bored which will wall off

that avenue of inquirey or the work will lead you further in. The latter is the holly grail.

 

jock s ~ Seattle