Truth

[ellis_vener_photography]

Read John Donne's essay "On Truth"

 

It begins: "What is truth?" said jesting Pilate who could not stay for an answer.

[Norma Desmond]

<p><em>"But do you really think you or any other photographer get that close to the nature or essence of the person?"</em></p>

<p>Arthur, it's a great question.</p>

<p>I doubt a portrait ever captures what we think of when we talk about the essence of a person. As a matter of fact, I'm not sure that such an essence exists or would ever be able to even be grasped let alone photographed. People are ever-changing and have moving parts, and anyone trying to consider someone's essence is limited by their own perspective and context. </p>

<p>As for photo portraits, I think several portraits of a person are often able to capture more about the person than single ones. I love finding different shades of a person in series of portraits over time. If there is an essence to most of us, it may be that we each have so many different sides and so many different lights within which to be seen. It might be impossible to be in touch with all that at once.</p>

<p>One thing a portrait can do is connect a viewer to the subject in a way that's just different, and therefore special, than moments one may have with the person. Just like a photo can bring out of a scene or object something significant that might have been missed by a lot of people passing by that scene, a portrait can express things about a person that become felt strongly and seem to distill something essential about that person.</p>

<p>Maybe that's it. It's not that we're experiencing the essence of the person in the portrait, but we may very well experience something essential about them.</p>

[charleswood]

<p>Fred - "It's not that we're experiencing the essence of the person in the portrait, but we may very well experience something essential about them."</p>

<p>That well spoken statement rings true for me. It reminds me again of the Johari window which for two of its openings says that we can't know the essence of a person, are always confronted in part by a mystery just as on any particular day we might be mystified at our own self.</p>

<p>Arthur raised the issue of rigor when photography is used as a path to truth. Does that path contain increased rigor when we as photographers become more aware of and more actively engaged with point of view in photographs? The rigor of science is increased when, as with Heisenberg, point of view is incorporated as an essential element of inquiry. Can the same be said about photography? Any photographic examples that explicitly explore point of view?</p>

[charleswood]

<p>Another question related to point of view. Photographers are known at times by having developed a style. How does a photographer's style interact with point of view? Does style work for or against rigor in point of view?</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p><em>"The rigor of science is increased when, as with Heisenberg, point of view is incorporated as an essential element of inquiry. Can the same be said about photography?"</em></p>

<p>For me, not necessarily. Though it can be said for photography, I think it's significant that it can also be just the opposite, and suspect there is a perspective from which lack of rigor can and has played a role in the discovery of scientific truths, though I'm not especially schooled on the subject.</p>

<p>In photography, accidents can sometimes get us to the truth, as can spontaneity, as opposed to rigor.</p>

<p>Isn't it also the same in science? The old Archimedes-bathtub-Eureka! story.</p>

<p>Sometimes it's a momentous observation that takes place in the blink of an eye, perhaps in a significantly non-rigorous moment, that reveals truth.</p>

<p>____________________________________</p>

<p>A unique style, and one that comes off as personal, can help show point of view. But part of style is often of a period rather than an individual, so the point of view can be one of milieu and culture rather than of a particular individual. In art, style can be associated with a group or "school."</p>

<p>____________________________________</p>

<p>One way to explore point of view is to imply oneself in the action, not literally, but to have your own presence felt, if even outside the frame.</p>

<p>Here's a photo of mine and a comment I got. It's not crucial whether you agree with what the commenter is seeing, just the suggestion that a photo can do this.</p>

<p><img src="http://d6d2h4gfvy8t8.cloudfront.net/8548152-md.jpg" alt="" width="679" height="489" /></p>

<p>Here's the comment:</p>

<p><strong><em>theater voyeur</em></strong></p>

<p><em>Hi Fred. Is that a reflection on the TV or is it on? Looks like it is a reflection, is the photographer visible? With the person at the window with his shadow, i get a strong sense of the photographer involved in completing a 3 point geometry. Further enhanced by the angle of the room and the shadow looking for you. </em><br /> <br /><em>I recently mentioned this but don't recall you responding. In some of your recent photos I have noticed a trend...? I, as viewer have felt and seen your presence in the image more directly. As if you are interjecting your presence from outside the frame. Does that hit home or is this a case of my projecting my experience, reaction to your work?</em></p>

<p>_______________________________________</p>

<p>It's interesting that the commenter uses the word "voyeur," something I think a lot of photography participates in. I am often in tune with that notion of photographic voyeurism and it makes sense that it would have a lot to do with point of view.</p>

[Allen Herbert]

<p>"Fungus consuming "ourselves" seems more of a metaphor and more opinion than truth"</p>

<p>Not, really Fred. Life comes from a simple cell which has replicated itself creating many different variations.</p>

<p>A very much common theme.</p>

<p>We feed on ourselves and feed on our beauty. Think about it.</p>

<p>"As far as I can remember, it wasn't being discussed and you didn't mention it in your OP. How does it relate to the discussion in your mind?"</p>

<p>"Allen - shades of Pascal?."</p>

<p>Pascal's Wager Fred.</p>

<p><a href="http://atheism.about.com/od/argumentsforgod/a/pascalswager.htm">http://atheism.about.com/od/argumentsforgod/a/pascalswager.htm</a></p>

<p>Factual information regarding the truth of a photograph can only be based on probability.</p>

<p>The Truth is the story, the emotion, the imagination, the mystery....</p>

<p>And something else.</p>

<p> </p>

[Allen Herbert]

<p>throughout the world photography has produced a “familiarity with atrocity, making the horrible seem more ordinary – making it appear familiar.....</p>

<p>A truth lost.</p>

[aplumpton]

<p>Interesting questions about point of view of the photographer and its relationship to the image and truth, Charles, and a pertinent example, Fred, which also invokes the element of chance (Re benzene ring: I venture to think that the ring was already a possibility among others open to the researcher, but the chance dream of the snake chasing or consuming its tail was an important and consolidating interaction).</p>

<p>A point of view example may be the following image I made some time ago.</p>

<p>http://www.photo.net/photo/11472743</p>

<p>The point of view being expressed is the uplifting or soaring effect of music on the human spirit, represented by a flight of birds symbolized by the flying violins. In response to one colleague of Photo.Net making a critique, I mentioned that the publication of the image within a Canadian special issue ("La Magie de l'Image", 1989) was done upside down to what you see here. The "error" was not necessarily an error to the editors, who no doubt saw a strengthened image with the violins oriented to their normal playing position. I prefer the irrational but more upward soaring violins of the originally intended version.</p>

<p>This example may not address what your were after, Charles. I am trying to find an example, from within or without, that (also) relates to your very good question.</p>

 

[charleswood]

<p>Alan, has photography or anything else actually produced lots of people who are accustomed to atrocity? I don't buy it, it's just the author's point of view, an author who has a financial interest in saying something instead of just saying nothing. Bad new sells: it would be bad news if there were a lot of people who thought atrocity ordinary. I just don't believe that.</p>

<p>Arthur you could be right about the benzene ring having already been a known possibility. If I grant that I however still see a possible explanation for a ring hypothesis being given enough weight among all the other possibilities that the scientist decided to take the ring possibility through to a conclusion: he was excited about being told a possible truth by an affect laden dream-ish idea, impelled by the affect to follow through with that specific idea. In any case, that anecdote has been used often to illustrate how a dream may resolve an important problem or impasse presenting in an individual's life. I must at all costs cling to the "illusion(??)" that illustration provides me. Even to the point of suggesting that dreams don't operate on the principle of chance, that is, purposeless coincidence just aren't present in dreams. (See last paragraph.)</p>

<p>I think that violin image is an example where point of view makes for a stronger message in the image. I'll look for some examples too, but it is pretty hard.</p>

<p>I had seen Fred's offered image before, but I hadn't really looked at it closely. I'm starting to see something of what Fred's appreciation of complexity in a photograph means.</p>

<p>Back to dreams, I'll comment only because I'm puzzled by what I'll describe. My dog dreams. When younger, his running after prey dreams produced eager sounding vocalizations, much like his waking state vocalizations when chasing prey. When younger and dreaming that running type of dream, his legs would gallop in his sleep and he sounded positive and eager in his dreaming vocalizations. As of late, now 11, his running after prey dreams have changed. His leg movements while dreaming lack their former vigor. He tries, but the movements suggest hesitation. In life, he is still vigorous, but not for as long a time. The most striking change between his younger running dreams and his older ones: it's his vocalizations. They are more like a whimpering and crying than were the excited muffled continuous barks I was so accustomed to. In his dream, he was failing, his vocalization suggests that to me: in the dream it is as if his legs wouldn't carry him to his goal and he was upset. I feel his nature, through his dog dreams, is preparing him for the inevitability of death. He is losing in his dream struggles because of forces greater than he, and he by the dreams is being prepared for that fact. To us, its the sadness of temporality and impermanence. (To him, it's that he can't get what he most wants. Want he wants most are prey animals that are running.) I think it feels the same to him, though his life is smaller in thought and scope, it is still life, and life is preparing him for his decline in a dream state. That seems very natural to me. That it will be so.</p>

<p>Cave paintings, prey running what we wanted most: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cave_painting">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cave_painting</a></p>

<p> </p>

[charleswood]

<p>Maybe this one of mine, although point of view isn't explicitly explored, that is, an object suggestive of the idea of point of view isn't present in the photograph: <a href="/photo/14524616">http://www.photo.net/photo/14524616</a> . If a plastic fork were an object in that picture it would directly suggest point of view in offering a comparison of the hawk's predation with that of our own species, perhaps softening us in our view of the hawk. The photograph would have then become more conceptual, though I don't think improved in that particular case.</p>

<p>As to point of view that is implicit in that photograph: there's predator and prey and I selected that particular frame for its exaggeration of the predator/prey relationship; and I exaggerated again by processing it with boosted contrast and sharpening (which gave increased emphasis to the blood), intending to present the hawk unsympathetically.</p>

 

[Norma Desmond]

<p>Charles, the way I see point of view in your rather amazing photo is that I, as viewer, can't help but adopt the point of view of the standing bird. It's like his eyes become mine. That really helps me empathize with BOTH birds.</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p>Interestingly, there's visual point of view (the physical point of view adopted) and there's personal point of view, each of which can be at play, and sometimes both at once. So, if I say I adopt the bird's point of view, that's talking about the physical point of view. If I say a certain documentarian is obviously coming from a liberal or progressive point of view, that's more of a psychological or emotional or political leaning. We should probably consider the differences (photographically) as well as the overlaps.</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p>Far from desensitizing us to atrocity, photos can sometimes help make it more real. The world was up in arms upon seeing the photos from Abu Ghraib. Had we heard the stories but not had the pictures, I don't think our offense would have been near as swift and strong. The pictures themselves and the fact that they were taken to begin with actually added to our collective outrage over the atrocities rather than desensitizing us. The pictures made so much about it concrete and impossible to overlook.</p>

<p>Having said that, I'd cut Sontag slack in terms of the money making. Everybody's gotta earn a living. Just because she sold her words and ideas, there's no reason for me to think she didn't believe in them. She had a world of ideas to choose from and yet she settled on those as opposed to all the other directions available. Her writings embody a pretty consistent argument about photography and its cultural and societal roles and effects. Agree or disagree, I do think it's authentic and not just a sales pitch.</p>

[charleswood]

<p>I see what you mean Fred, that is, that I'm getting lost a bit in terminology. I'm not familiar with the analytical language that probably exists to properly separate physical view point (camera position), etc. from the statement an artist makes. Add to that all the subjectivity of all the people looking at a photograph, as well as where exactly any viewer can be physically standing when looking at a photo...</p>

<p>Still, when I look at a photo I do wonder what the photographer is 'saying'. Since it's visual, there could be visual clues to the artistic statement being made. Interplay between statement and physical points of view, etc. That said, an artist can intend no statement, or can be intentionally vague where ambiguity is a statement of sorts.</p>

<p>I'm sure we all recognize in photography a means of personal expression. How does one respond to and understand another's personal expression? Out loud, I'm exploring the idea that an important step in that apperception is to recognize that a photograph is one person's self-expression. A photograph is about what's being said and who is saying it; and I'm interested in both the what and the who.</p>

<p>All subjectivities are equal, but some subjectivities are more equal than others: a statement made using artistic forms is in my mind supposed to be more important than other forms of personal expression, even more important should others recognize art in it. Still, there is no doctrine of artistic infallibility supporting art's truths. Even worse, art gets used. I have a preference for the view that sees inside of subjectivity the existence of objective imperatives that we can all recognize as true even as we recognize that e - mc2. We have to eat, for example. We have drives in common. Put a layer of knowledge on all that and look out. I think that art can and does express such truths, as well as truths more subtle.</p>

<p>Points taken on Sontag.</p>

<p> </p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p>Charles, I didn't mean to suggest you were getting lost. I just wanted to point out the two kinds of point of view because I think they come together sometimes, especially in photography. Where we point the camera and where we point it from can very much influence and sometimes even make the artistic statement we are putting forth. I was saying it because I was thinking about the comment on my own photo above. In that case, part of the artistic statement seemed to be as a result of the point of view of the camera and the cameraman, physically. The comment was suggesting that the physical point of view was interjecting the presence of the photographer into the photo, which would be part of the artistic statement . . . "I am here."</p>

<p>In any case, I think this artistic statement* can vary in degrees of intentionality. Some artists do have something in mind to express. And yet sometimes things get expressed much less deliberately and more subconsciously. This is why even the photographer can "learn" things about himself from his photos.</p>

<p>*Maybe artistic "expression" hits it better because the "statement" is not always literal or understood, but rather shown and felt. Statement has that propositional element that can sometimes be lacking in favor of what might be something more akin to a quality, atmosphere, mood, or something very intangible but still recognizable.</p>

<p>__________________________________________</p>

<p>I think you're onto something in your last paragraph, especially the last couple of sentences. Art as an expression of drives we have in common. I've long considered art both extremely personal and significantly shared. I've often thought of the shared part in terms of artistic dialogues back and forth through the ages (how art seems to evolve through time as artists build on each others work or even reject a previous generation's visions and sounds). Also in terms of empathy, community, culture, etc. But your idea of physical (and emotional) drives strikes a real chord with me. Along those lines, I suppose that, for many of the greats throughout history, art may have been one of these core human drives (needs) itself, sometimes as strong (?) as the need to eat.</p>

[aplumpton]

<p>Truth is constraining, imagination not.</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p>Arthur, would it depend on how the word truth is <em>used?</em> In the <em>ideas</em> Charles and I (and others) have expressed about photographic truths, do you find anything constraining? Maybe there is another word that would be better to use than truth, which is fine by me. I just hope my ideas are being expressed well and that I'm understanding the ideas of others.</p>

[aplumpton]

<p>Fred, truth, in general, is an ultimate and I think unattainable destination. The process, or the travel, is to me more liberating, more revealing. The truths of some segments of our society are often simply dogma, whether unchallengeable (or not welcoming of challenges) or written as "self-evident" by others before us. Imagination and ideas, whether in photography or elsewhere, hold for me more fascination, even those difficult to find common appreciation with others.</p>

<p>We are little islands with communication links and sometimes those work and sometimes not, but ultimately the truths, if any are found, are quite personal. Respect for others is one combining link in that equation. Friends or so called "soul-mates" sometimes participate in our imaginations, which thereby empowers our social conscience and needs.</p>

<p>That is why I can resume my feelings in a simple 5 word phrase (that occurred to me in that form just this morning) and not need to greatly elaborate.</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p>Understood, Arthur. Thanks.</p>

[charleswood]

<p>In a sense, a truth recognized as a universal truth typically becomes mildly endorsable, off-putting, quaint, or cliché: having little power. In a sense, the most powerful truths can be the one's that are ultimately quite personal, as Arthur puts it, truths that we can't really share in proper context, becoming part of our mystery, or just part of who we are in our common place lives. For example a photograph of the natural beauty of place: yeah nature is beautiful, I'll endorse the idea of nature as beautiful with a ho hum, missing entirely the deeply personal element that makes such a photograph work on a high level for another. It is commonplace for people to be in physical locations, but who knows when or how the commonplace becomes for the observer something else.</p>

<p>Add a subjective element to a photograph, add something from the inner personal point of view of the organic perceptual system holding and operating an inorganic camera: to borrow Arthur's concept of rigor: I suggest that palpable subjectivity from the photographer adds rigor to 'photography as a path to truth.'</p>

<p>Whatever Ansel Adams saw in Yosemite is definitely in his photographs and I can and do appreciate it. We point a camera outward to make a personal artistic statement, putting something from our insides into the outside world that the camera captures in an image. I am 'in' every photograph I ever took, it almost goes without saying, I am there together with all the circumstances that put me in a place with the will to push a button. We may not recognize or think it so, but our presence in a place is not really commonplace.</p>

<p>Consider: the more a truth is a mere 'Universal', the less power it has. I can possess a view (or does the view posses me) that puts high value on family values, for example. I can express that idea visually, say with an image of a happy family picnic. A viewer can look at the resulting photo and feel "well, we all value our families, ho hum to that 'snapshot'". If I intentionally broaden the concept of family, as in my photograph <a href="/photo/11261313">here</a>, then I've added a different flavor to the concept of family values, extending it to include canines in a natural setting. Family as an idea can be broadened in ever increasing concentric circles to include just about anything. I've a daddy long legs whose contributions to my family are appreciated: he collects ants in a corner of my bathroom. I protect him from my family by including him in 'family' and by pointing out his contribution to us and how good he is at his family job.</p>

<p>Universal truths do have power, I'm not arguing that they do or don't. What I'm suggesting is that mere universal truths repeated ad infinitum don't have much power to change minds. Part of the topic, truth in photography, is in the particulars of how a photographic image changes minds. If photography is a path to truth, travel is broadening and travel stories can be shared. I'm suggesting that one of the 'change elements' is subjectivity incorporated into an image in an artful way.</p>

<p>Any ideas?</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p>Charles, Adams is an interesting example and forgive me if I'm treading on too common territory. I'd say Adams likely (must have) related very personally to Yosemite but I'd also say he wasn't that successful in getting it into his photos, stunning as they are to look at, especially in print. I'd relate his photos of Yosemite a little more to that endorsable and more universal sense of truth. Having been to Yosemite many times, I find myself quite removed from it when I look at his photos, though it certainly looks iconically and truthfully like Yosemite. Now I'm really not one who wants or needs a photo to make me feel like I felt when I was at the place that's being shown. A photo can be transformative and show something unique, rather than well-known or previously experienced. I find his photos of Yosemite, for the most part, coldly calculated and precise visions of something much more wild and unorganized and emotional.</p>

<p>Adams and his photos in particular notwithstanding, however, your post is really well conceived and offers a lot to think about and a lot that rings true for me.</p>

<p>I think many photos approach both the universal and the more particular or individual. Often, lesser significant photos or unmemorable ones try to go right to the universal truth, bypassing something particular. When a photo shows me something particular (like <em><a href="http://www.daftblogger.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Migrant-Mother.jpg">MIGRANT MOTHER</a></em>, for example) AND offers a sense of universality or a sense of the iconic (like <em>Migrant Mother</em>), I usually find it much more rewarding.</p>

<p>Building on your thoughts, I also think an individual photo is often used for that personal and unique truth while the more universal truth (and not necessarily cliché but sometimes deeply important and moving) may emerge in a series or body of work. The body of work gives the universal a chance to be constructed of and bolstered by the individual and personal.</p>

[aplumpton]

<p>Charles, I like your phrase, ..."mere universal truths repeated ad infinitum don't have much power to change minds." Holding a mirror to that may show a few cracks, but essentially what you say has some truth I think. Photography has an eery quality to it, as if that split second capture reveals something that the eye and mind don't normally see, somewhat analoigous to the scare of "subliminal messaging or advertising in filmed sequences. In reference to Fred's point about Adam's impressive prints, that subjectivity can be overridden by a more cold and calculating art, as his work also affects me too. </p>

<p>One current project, unfinished. is my desire to explore the traces or vestiges of human existence, apparent in scenes where no human is present. The eeriness for me comes from the fact that the image is often not as we would normally perceive the scene, but something transformed out of it and more visible once the camera has taken a slice from it. The intent or feeling at the moment of capture is quite subjective, but I think it does represent a part of the truth we approach in interpreting our subject matter. The following may (or may not for you) provide a part of that eeriness or unusualness. </p>

<p>http://www.photo.net/photo/17410692</p>

<p>http://www.photo.net/photo/17223534</p>

<p>http://www.photo.net/photo/16552584</p>

<p>http://www.photo.net/photo/16563422</p>

<p>http://www.photo.net/photo/11472847</p>

<p>http://www.photo.net/photo/11472844</p>

[Allen Herbert]

<p>"mere universal truths repeated ad infinitum don't have much power to change minds." Holding a mirror to that may show a few cracks"</p>

<p>Is there such a beast as universal truths? Or, just the latest perceived universal truths?</p>

<p>The search for such universal truths is the only truth.</p>

[charleswood]

<p>Arthur those photographs suggest to me that at some point no human will be around to view our photographs! The extinction of our point of view.</p>

<p>This and like cave painting in me evoke a grief for all the mysteries since lost to the natural world:</p>

<p><a href="http://artsfuse.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/cave-of-forgotten-dreams.jpg">http://artsfuse.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/cave-of-forgotten-dreams.jpg</a> </p>

[charleswood]

<p>Allen it may be that a one Universal truth is so particularly personal that there's no way to adequately communicate it, innervated into everything about us like the physical organic structures that comprise us, both part of us and beyond us at the same time. Any branch in that psychic/physical structure has roots, aggregated and disaggregated simultaneously. We are living things after all. Some call that love, but that's just a word.</p>

<p>OK then, another question, "What do we just <em>love</em> about photography?!!!"</p>