What is it?

[charleswood]

<p>Psychologically? Because people do the objectification in their minds, that's where objectification happens. A distinction without a difference: how is a photograph as an object distinguished in its objectification effect from a sculpture? The photograph as an object contains both its subject, objectifies it, but at the same time a photograph records the subjective state of the photographer. But that latter recording of the artist's subjective state, however vaguely or clearly written, however distinct or indistinct, is a tool signature left by the artist who used the tool to create something; and every tool leaves a signature of the artist just as the artwork is of a subject. Even on the issue of a piece of art being an artifact of the subjective state of the artist, photography is not distinguishable from sculpture, painting, basket weaving, etc. We can say the photograph is more 'real', but this discussion is an acknowledgment that a photograph is no more or less representative of a real subject than was Michelangelo's David. Sculpture preserves (sets in stone) and is shared, has the advantage of being 3d, and can be massed produced and distributed as in Eifel Tower, Statue of Liberty, etc. A unique distinguishing characteristic of a photograph hasn't been identified? That a photograph is a more convincing illusion? I'm not so sure that argument can be successfully made. What I'm left with then is the fact of the power an image has upon our minds, whether the image exists only in the mind, or whether the image is materialized into an object where a photograph is in no yet identified unique way any different than other art. Except maybe its cheaper to produce and distribute photographs than it would be paintings or sculpture. But even Eifel Tower statuary is acknowledged to be cheap, in a different sense of course.</p>

<p> </p>

[charleswood]

<p>Fred - "But, in a society increasingly clicking away at everything in sight, it's not a bad idea for us all to reflect on what we're doing and what the ramifications of that are for others and for culture in general."</p>

<p>Perhaps more from the decline in common decency than a cause of that decline. </p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p><em>"this discussion is an acknowledgment that a photograph is no more or less representative of a real subject than was Michelangelo's David."</em></p>

<p>Not for me. One of the significant qualities of photos are their relationships to the things they are photos of. That a photo is not the same as the thing photographed doesn't for one moment mean to me that there is not a different relationship between a photograph of David and David on the one hand and a sculpture of David and David on the other. I would never take Winogrand's ideas that far, whether he took himself that far or not (which I don't know).</p>

<p>I cannot take a picture of someone who isn't there. I can make someone up and make a sculpture of them. So, IMO, even when I don't make someone up and make a sculpture of someone who was there, it is still different from taking a photo of them.</p>

<p>If, indeed, it is only an illusion (and I think it is NOT only an illusion, since what we take pictures of are there, at least for the most part), then the fact that a photo is a more convincing illusion is significant. The reasons that make it more convincing are just what I'm talking about and something very worthwhile to pay attention to.</p>

<p>That art is, in part, artifice, is very important to me. How an artistic presentation or representation relates to my experienced reality outside of the art endeavor is important as well, and often determines how the artifice can operate.</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p>For me, Winogrand's contribution is not in telling me how photos work or how to look at photos. It is reminding me of something about photos. Though HE may not tell stories with his photos or may not want to see them as such, he won't be able to tell ME not to do that. He talked about a photo of Martin Luther King in front of a bus during the bus boycott as "the bus thing" and that's part of the way to actually see that photo as a photo. But not seeing it as a document of the event, not participating in the heart and soul of that event itself through the photo would be a great loss to me, and one of the reasons Winogrand's photos and ideas are only some among many. His is not the way to see photos. It is a reminder of a stance toward looking at photos that we can adopt not, for me, to the exclusion of other stances, but to supplement and check and relate to other stances.</p>

[charleswood]

<p>I get it. But consider that both a photograph and a sculpture create an illusion out of the subject, out of David who posed as a subject, made into an illusory David that is the sculpture and is also an illusory David that is the photograph. Once an illusion is created, distinct differences between illusions and the real object: well it is as though the object that became the subject doesn't exist. We can't speak to relative nothingness? "Murdered', destroyed as Floyd pointed out. That's the core complaint by Sontag, that objectification and destruction of the thing pictured, or sculptured. The object that became a subject is destroyed in the process of rendering them in art, not just in the art of photography. So it has always been subliminal murder in art, well before photography was invented. We don't want to be ourselves, we want to be something else, something else in a picture, a painting, a movie. For me, the parsing has to stop somewhere and for me it stops in noting that illusions are illusions regardless of how manufactured. For me, its there that it stops, in the 'murder' that the creation of illusion entails; because once destroyed, it is as though nothing noteworthy remains of the object that was the subject and meanwhile the illusion takes on a life of its own. That is either by consent, or it isn't, that process in which something else is created in art, is for good or bad, like everything else.</p>

<p>We can't take a picture of someone who isn't there, but if we don't have the physical pictures, mental images will suffice, are a substitute for the photograph. Just think of what would happen if the internet went down one night, how actively the imagination would go back to work, and the same activity would occur nonetheless. But more important, with objectification, we are in effect taking a picture of someone who isn't there anyway. That's Sontag's complaint, and a valid one. It has to do with relatedness and whether others to us are objects or are treasured unique beings if I understand what I think her argument might be correctly, not having read the essay from which the famous quote was extracted. For me it goes a little farther here. The demand for relatedness comes from nature, is love, and nature in her wisdom requires love of us in order to work. There is no relatedness without love, only power. That's the basis of Sontag's complaint in my mind, or it is just my complaint, not hers. Or from her perhaps an admonition that if as a culture we surrender to power, we aren't a culture any longer, we are a disorder.</p>

<p> </p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p><em>"But consider that both a photograph and a sculpture create an illusion out of the subject, out of David who posed as a subject, made into an illusory David that is the sculpture and is also an illusory David that is the photograph."</em></p>

<p>Sure, but while a photo and sculpture can create an <em>illusion</em> out of the subject, they can also make an <em>allusion</em> to the subject. IMO, art is, in part, in the combination and tension of that. And I think our sense of the allusion to the subject is often different and more immediate via photos than via sculpture. I love each for what they are and don't think one is "better" than the other, but I do think they allude differently, because of their different relationships to and dependence on the original subject.</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p>Of course, a photo or a sculpture can also point right to a subject. That a photo is not the subject doesn't mean it can't refer to the subject, in all sorts of ways. The reference can or cannot be illusory, and to varying degrees.</p>

[charleswood]

<p>Fred, partial quote (sorry) - "And I think our sense of the allusion to the subject is often different..."</p>

<p>Yes, sure, and there isn't in our imagination a real subject unless our image is also of someone real and an allusion to them. There is a real difference in that with sculpture or imagination there may never have been a real subject while in photography generally there was. I'm not sure if there is much to make of that difference? At some point the reality of the subject becomes an incidental regardless of the art form, we don't really care if there was a real Sir Arthur or not, the real can get in the way of our enjoyment of the art.</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p>Well, as someone who does portraits, it makes a lot of difference that there's a real Andy or Carl or Ian behind my work. For a lot of viewers, the same is true. I was thinking earlier about <a href="http://assets.nydailynews.com/polopoly_fs/1.1520233.1384742708!/img/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/landscape_635/john-f-kennedy-jr.jpg">THIS</a> iconic and historical photo (by Dan Farrell), which was shown a lot recently. It's a case where I think Winogrand's view takes a back seat. Sure, there are photographic qualities of a photo of some little squirt saluting. I might attend to the lighting, the composition, etc. But, I'm seeing and caring about a lot more than what John John looks like photographed at a tender young age. The reality of what this photo is and represents is very much worth caring about. How can I and why would I want to separate this photo from the reality it portrays? It was a real live singular moment that most of us who were alive then will never forget and it's as important a transmitter and reminder of that moment as anything else. The reality is that Jackie wanted this iconic moment, wanted the formality embedded in it to counteract the horrors that took place leading up to it. This situation was choreographed, and yet it is one of the realest moments I can ever remember. Were the picture only an artistic creation of someone's imagination, it would not have the same impact and effect. The subject is hardly incidental. It makes the photo and there's no reason it shouldn't.</p>

[charleswood]

<p>Gary to the back seat or even thrown all the way out of the car, and Susan must have been speaking to cases other than Ferrell's photo. Anyway, we've covered a lot of interesting ground.</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p>I've reached a different conclusion, but it's been a great a fruitful discussion. Pushed me in ways I hadn't foreseen.</p>

[floyd_davidson]

Charles, did you notice that Winogrand's name is not "Gary"? It is Garry.

 

It appears to me that this discussion has verified that Winogrand and Sontag were a number of things, starting with astute observers and more so than most they were able to communicate complex concepts to others in ways that literally moved the world forward a notch or two.

 

And while I'm still trying to learn more from them, as I figure that much of what they understood and tried to communicat is simply over my head, I do notice that many people can't even get to the point of realizing just how far over our heads Winogrand and Sontag were.

[Norma Desmond]

<p>Floyd, that's a tough conclusion. I'm sorry but I can't respect being told I don't realize things are just over my head, or being in the presence of someone who feels they can tell that to other people. I always have more to learn and, like you, appreciate that fact, but I don't like such condescension.</p>

[Julie H]

<p>Winogrand was "over" very few people's head; he was not the brightest bulb in the pack. (Which does not mean that he did not have wonderful pictorial instincts.)</p>

<p>And, as I said earlier. Sontag has long since been overtaken by history. There are very few people in the world today who don't know how to game a photographer; and there are many (even most?) who enjoy gaming a photographer much of the time -- which does not mean that anybody everywhere and anytime is happy to do so any time a photographer jumps out of the bushes and wants to "play."</p>

[floyd_davidson]

<blockquote><b>Fred G. wrote:</b> <p>

Floyd, that's a tough conclusion. I'm sorry but I can't respect being told I don't realize things are just over my head, or being in the presence of someone who feels they can tell that to other people. I always have more to learn and, like you, appreciate that fact, but I don't like such condescension.</blockquote>

<p>

I had not considered that it applied to you, but I certainly will respect you as the authority on that.

<p>

When people cannot read what someone has said and come up with at least some form of non-emotional logic in how they analyize it, I'm sorry but that statement applies even if it is condescending. An example is saying the way a word was used fits only one of multiple dictionary definitions when it is absolutely clear (and admitted to when it is pointed out) that the selected definiton is not the one that was used... and then later revert right back to the same thing, I'm sorry but that is not logical. That and repeated other instances of similar non-responsive discussion are indicative.

<p>

Charles and Julie have exhibited no inclination to seek out the meaning of the content in various very highly regarded philisophical statements from both Winogrand and Sontag, and that seems to be very willful. Neither chooses to discuss the points made by respected authoritative sources, but instead they choose to ridicule the sources with emotions.

<p>

That can never lead to serious discussion, and teenage level sardonic exchanges are far more condesending than my response to it.

[Norma Desmond]

<p>I agree with Julie that Winogrand would be over very few people's heads. It would be a shame to take him <em>too</em> seriously. He spoke in sound bites and what he said has much to recommend it but is also not a tight philosophical treatise worthy of being overblown into one. His thoughts, like his photos, are a snapshot in time. Julie also nails something important in directing attention to the role of subjects.</p>

<p>Some of this objectification/murder stuff is summed up for me in a quick back-and-forth with a guy I was photographing while we were walking around town. We got to the Tenderloin, one of the "down-and-out" San Francisco neighborhood's known for the trading of street sex services and a bunch of alcohol consumption, where we wanted to head for some local color as background for our shooting. We didn't know each other well but had met a few times before we set up the shoot. We were talking about all sorts of things and after we took some sexually-oriented pictures, Scott with his shirt off in a cowboy hat in front of a straight, somewhat glitzy porn theater, I told him I sometimes feel like such a voyeur and actually enjoyed that role. He nodded knowingly and said that, as an actor and someone posing for photos, he was an exhibitionist and enjoyed that as well. We laughed and went on with our dance.</p>

<p>It's sometimes that simple.</p>

[charleswood]

<p>Floyd, I'm just happy to have spelled his last name correctly.</p>

[floyd_davidson]

The problem with claiming Winogrand was in some way shallow, or any of the specifics you wrote, is very simple. He was explaining what made his photography what it is. And since very few people can claim to have been able to produce something near the same level, how can he be what you say?

 

His photography is beyond the ordinary be a vast distance, and so is (necessarily) his understanding of photography that gave him the capability to produce it. That does not make him easy to understand, though it really does get hard when people make an effort not to.

 

But the idea that an icon of that stature in the history of photography is not vastly over the heads of most people when discussing photography is just absurd. No Director of Photography at the Museum of Modern Art in New York seems to have ever called anyone posting here "the central photographer of his generation". Have any of us managed exhibits in even 1/10th as many of the country's top art museums? And did a fellow who was able to accomplish that, and to be recognized for what he was during his lifetime, manage to do these things with not even an average clue about what he was doing?

 

I can understand an individual disagreeing with some, perhaps even most, of what a person the Winogrand's stature might have said. But to try to discredit him as less than average in knowledge and understanding is more than just bordering on silly.

[charleswood]

<p>Floyd - "Charles and Julie have exhibited no inclination to seek out the meaning of the content in various very highly regarded philisophical statements from both Winogrand and Sontag, and that seems to be very willful."</p>

<p>OK. I've skimmed Sontag's On Photography, it was fair of you to point at my failing there, although that failing was more from being lazy than being willful.</p>

[Julie H]

<p>Floyd Davidson wrote: " ... Director of Photography at the Museum of Modern Art in New York ... " That would be Szarkowski. The same Szarkowski who referred to Winogrand as a "city hick."</p>

<p>About Winogrand's verbal articulations, as opposed to his photographs, which I love:</p>

<p>.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>... Renouncing photography's capacity to tell stories and its role in journalism, [Winogrand] asserted that "still photographs [have] no narrative ability." Negating the medium's rich heritage as a tool for social reform, he flatly stated, "I don't have messages in my pictures." Rejecting its potential for self-expression, he maintained, "I don't have anything to say in any picture." And when asked about photography's supposed link to veracity and if the camera ever lied, he replied, "If there is such a thing as truth, it's a lie." All you know from a photograph is "how a piece of time and space 'looks' to a camera." Instead, he bluntly stated that his objective was to explore "the contest between form and content," and he encouraged critics, curators, and casual observers to write whatever they wanted to about his pictures but admonished them to banish all talk of the "mumbo-jumbo" of meaning: "It's nothing to worry about! It doesn't have anything to do with taking pictures!"</p>

<p>[ ... ]</p>

<p>... while Winogrand drew freely on Szarkowski's ideas and while Szarkowski in turn passionately defended his photographs,. Szarkowski also recognized that Winogrand was not always the most articulate spokesperson for his art. In <em>Winogrand: Figments from the Real World</em> (1988), he wrote of the photographer's "grudging, elliptical remarks on his own work"; his "epigrams" that were "designed to infuriate the guardians of conventional photographic wisdom"; his tendency to "undermine one epigram with another, delivered with the same Old Testament certainty, but not quite consistent with the first"; and his "coldly contemptuous" treatment of students. But it was regarding the question of meaning where Szarkowski and Winogrand most dramatically parted company. Szarkowski reveled not only in the act of looking at photographs but also in thinking about them deeply and writing about them cogently, and he never underestimated "the symbolic power of photography." ... As he struggled to come to terms with Winogrand's late works [which he thought was weak as compared to his early stuff], Szarkowski wrote that Winogrand "constructed clever evasions to distance himself from the moral implications that others might see in the world of his pictures." ... Szarskowski stated that "if he had with words plumbed too deeply the meaning of his pictures -- had allowed analytic intelligence to look too insistently over the shoulder of intuition -- intuition might have been cowed." And he concluded that Winogrand "surely understood that ... his pictures described his world" and might also provide a "just metaphor for our recent past."</p>

<p>Szarkowski was right. Toward the end of his life, Winogrand suggested that he had begun to accept the symbolic power of his art. Perhaps this change in his thinking came with the greater perspective of age, or perhaps as the fifties and sixties began to assume the aura of the past, it became easier for Winogrand to step back from his own work and see that his photographs, though fraught with anxiety, inexplicable chaos, and profound beauty, were also deeply symbolic of both his time and his country. Whatever the reason, at a lecture in San Francisco in late 1983 he referred to the "social meaning" or "meanings" of his work. When questioned afterward by the photographer Richard Gordon, Winogrand acknowledged that he was beginning to reconsider what his photographs "meant." His death the following March at the age of fifty-six, only weeks after he learned he had cancer, prevented that reconsideration.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>— <em>from</em> 'The Mystery of the Visible Garry Winogrand and Postwar American Photography' <em>by Sarah Greenough</em><br /> .</p>

[floyd_davidson]

Julie, have you carefully read what you quoted? Someone is conjuring up supposed contradciton in out of context quotes where there is no contradiction.

 

Show me where Winogrand said there was no symbolism of any kind at all in his photography. Show me where is said there was no substance or no import. Taking something like ""I don't have messages in my pictures" to mean literally that is invalid. Things like "They do not tell stories" does not mean there is nothing in a photograph that communicates. All of these quotes, while they may be "designed to infuriate" are his method of conveying the understanding Winogrand had that made his photography great. The no stories quotes (it is something he said fairly often) was always followed by something to the effect that a story requires a time interval, which a photograph cannot have. The image cannot show what is happening over time, but can only show a composition that existed at that instant.

 

Consider your claim about what Winogrand was "negating" when he stated "I don't have messages in my pictures" with a more complete quote of what he said:

 

"I don't have messages in my pictures...For me the true business of photography is to capture a bit of reality (whatever that is) on film, later, the reality means something to someone else, so much the better."

 

You seem to have virtually reversed his actual meaning! He knows full well there is a "message", but is saying 1) he doesn't put it there, he captures a photograph of a scene that contains it, and he cannot determine precisely what the symbolism means to others.

 

 

I've never suggested, by the way, that you are alone in your views... Clearly most people can never understand creativity on that scale, and that of course includes me. But denying that it is there... is a total miss.

[Julie H]

<p>Leaving the current discussion ...</p>

<p>******************</p>

<p>I want to try, if only for my own edification, to bring this back to what I was hoping to talk about from the OP. I'm going to use a different analogy that might (might!) make my objective apparent, since, so far, what I've said about letting <em><strong>the picture</strong></em> be what it is has not succeeded in getting across my intent.</p>

<p>If you are cooking and you make a <strong>dish</strong>, you use <strong>ingredients</strong>. In my following analogy, I want the <strong>dish</strong> to stand in for <strong>the picture</strong> (in our case, the photograph). What I am <em>not</em> interested in, and what almost all of this thread has been a discussion of, is the <strong>ingredients</strong> (I have no problem with discussions going in their own direction; I'm just, in this post, going back to my own, thread-starting objective). I can make a particular <strong>dish</strong> with various <strong>ingredients</strong>, for example, chicken or beef, yet it remains the same <strong>dish</strong>. Yes, it will be different in obvious ways (chicken is not beef ...) but the <strong>dish</strong> will still be that dish, with its whole effect, its balance, its structure, etc. See if you can sort out the ways in which a <strong>dish</strong> is not its <strong>ingredients</strong>.</p>

<p>To illustrate, here is a visual test -- or exercise if you prefer:</p>

<p>Start with <strong><a href="http://24.media.tumblr.com/f4a0b06279bec60dfd70c8a571f79a24/tumblr_mnif24IFzM1qzg5ooo1_1280.jpg">Steve Gubin's picture of the group of teenage girls</a></strong> referenced in the OP. That's our reference dish that we have cooked up and tasted. Lets say the girls are chicken; we've made our <strong>dish</strong> with the <strong>ingredient</strong> of chicken.</p>

<p>With that picture in mind, now look at <strong><a href="http://unrealnature.files.wordpress.com/2013/12/shanghaimerchants.jpg">this picture of a group of Shanghai merchants</a></strong>, taken in 1862. It uses entirely different <strong>ingredients</strong> -- lets call the men, beef -- from Steve's picture of the group of teenage girls, but I will maintain that it is essentially the same kind of <strong>dish</strong>. It is about the fascinating interweavings via posture, eyes, clothing, tones, of the group in the same way as the same kind of interweavings as are found in Steve's picture.</p>

<p>Now, look at <strong><a href="http://unrealnature.files.wordpress.com/2013/12/raniamatar01.jpg">this picture by Rania Matar</a></strong> of a teenage girl in her room. Like Steve's picture, this one is also made with a teenage girl, it uses the same <strong>ingredient</strong> (chicken) but I would maintain that it is an entirely different <strong>dish</strong>. As already said, Steve's picture (the dish, not the ingredients!) is about the group dynamics (body language, the interweaving of the postures, eyes, etc.), while this one, this dish (not its ingredients!) works from the sparks and threads the lead to and from a single nucleus. Two entirely different <strong>dishes</strong>.</p>

<p>The <strong>picture is the dish</strong>. All of the symbolic, theoretical, or identity/culture associations that emanate from "what is it?" questions are about the <strong>ingredients</strong>, and, for my purposes in this thread, I do not care (or do not mind) whatever they may or may not be or mean. I'm interested in when -- or even if -- a photograph is able to <em>be</em> a <strong>dish</strong> and <strong>not</strong> its <strong>ingredients</strong>, in the same way that a food dish is able to be that dish regardless of whether its made with beef or chicken or tofu.</p>

[floyd_davidson]

<blockquote><b>Julie H wrote:</b><p>

The picture is the dish. All of the symbolic, theoretical, or identity/culture associations that emanate from "what is it?" questions are about the ingredients, and, for my purposes in this thread, I do not care (or do not mind) whatever they may or may not be or mean. I'm interested in when -- or even if -- a photograph is able to be a dish and not its ingredients, in the same way that a food dish is able to be that dish regardless of whether its made with beef or chicken or tofu.</blockquote>

<p>

If by "dish" you mean the distinction between a salad, a desert, a dinner an so on, that analogy might work. We have different genres in photography that are the same distinction. We might say that portraiture is beef and chicken is Street Photography, for example Or, maybe Street is like any meat you have never tasted before, "It tastes just like chicken!".

<p>

In that respect, yes a photograph, regardless of what the objects shown are can be a particular genre. Just as a salad is a salad regardless of which kind of meat is used, a portrait can be of a man or a woman, or for that matter of a dog, and it is still a portrait.

<p>

But the ingredients are what provides any number of characteristics, not the least of which is the taste. In the end, no matter what else (colors, shape, smell, etc) that appeals to a diner, if it doesn't have the right taste, it isn't good. And chicken salad doesn't taste the same as beef salad. The ingredients count more than anything else when it comes to what people like or do not like.

<p>

Perhaps we could compare that to a really great looking portrait made on a street corner at mid-day. If it barely shows, or perhaps not at all, the surroundings where it is made, that might well be part of what makes it a good portrait as it will lack superfluous distractions that are not needed to describe the subject, a human. Now, take that great portrait and post it to almost any forum on the Internet and ask if because it was made on a busy street corner at mid-day in an urban setting, is it Street? The correct answer is no, or at least that it is a very poor example. The "subject" in portraiture is the person, the "subject" of Street is the relationship to surroudings. Same ingredients but a different dish; and yet it is the ingredients that determine whether people like it. Nobody actually cares if it is a salad or a breakfast it it tastes good.

<p>

But lets analyze your example photographs for what they are, and are not.

<p>

There certainly can be comparisons between the composition used in the picture of the girls and the picture of the men. The same mechanisms or visual symbols are used to trigger a viewer's senses. Maybe we could say that both the chicken and the beef have had salt, pepper, and teriyaki sause applied. But that composition is to bring out the taste of the chicken in one case and the beef in another. They might be the same "people picture" genre or dish, but the ingredients are different.

<p>

The composition in the picture of the girls brings out the female transition of a child to an adult. If that isn't appealing to the viewer (and clearly it annoyed some people to an extreme), they just won't like it. The similar composition in the picture of the men is also used to help a viewer relate to what is important to the subjects, which in this case appeals to a very different taste. First it is men, second they are old, third they are a different racial/ethnic group, forth they are "mature", and fifth what they are contemplating may or may not be moral. Note that only that last similarity in taste is the same as what is in the picture of the girls.

<p>

Hence your "dish" might be a salad, but no matter how hard you try it absolutely matters whether the principal ingredient is chicken or beef, and the two pictures may both be images of a group of people, but even though both could be related to the morality of those people it again absolutely matters which ingredients are used. Chicken doesn't taste like beef (or to make it more dramatic, chicken is not what whale meat tastes like, and whale meat is a commonly served dish where I live and would be very acceptable; and perhaps not where you live). Potentially immoral young women leave a very different taste than potentially immoral old men, even if the "immorality" contemplated by 13 year old girls won't be immoral for them in another ten years, while the immorality of merchants plotting to extract every dollar from the pockets of a community is a never ending aspect of human greed, and thus actually is important.

<p>

So, can a photograph be just a photograph? Can dinner be just dinner if it is fried tongue from a Bowhead whale? Maybe a photograph isn't just a photograph if the subject is the sexuality of 13 year old girls in American culture.

[Norma Desmond]

<p>There is too much reciprocity between the dish and the ingredients for me to be able to separate them so distinctly. The question arises: why would I even want to?</p>

<p>For me, the strange thing about reactions to Steve Gubin's photo was not that the ingredients were being emphasized, but that they were actually being ignored, free association to one's own teenagers replacing those who were in the photo.</p>

<p>It was as if I sat down to a meal of chicken stew but refused to even taste it because I was served chicken stew as a child by my mean stepmother.</p>

[floyd_davidson]

"why would I even want to?"

 

Good point Fred! If you aren't thirsty, why drink the KoolAid...