"It's about. . . ."

[michaellinder]

<p>RE: Examples </p>

<p>At this time, Fred, the best examples I can address are from your own work - the two Plowshare series. These images are replete with visible elements that easily can attract a viewer. Yet, in connection with this discussion, I feel the photographs also are successful because of your intentions. Indeed, even without my knowing the overall nature and purpose of the Plowshare program, it appears to me that your primary intention is to portray the grounds and facilities in such a way that the residents and staff - and especially Denis - showcase the way in which they are constructive, productive, and happy members of society, regardless of their special needs. </p>

<p>Also, I've seen enough of your photographs of men to know that your intent is not simply to showcase their sexuality, but rather to utilize the images to contribute to the day when indeed all people live as equals. Indeed, certain elements (such as the strong contrasts in the photo of Andy, above) may attract a viewer's attention, but perceiving your intent is equally important in that regard.</p>

<p>Please don't think that I've used your work for any ulterior motive. It's just that I've never been a student of photography, and so I'm unable to point to certain photographs from other photographers' bodies of work.</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p>Actually, I think the two examples, Plowshare and my work with gay men, are good examples for what you've been trying to convey. I knew there was likely something important to what you were saying and I think I do understand now. Thanks.</p>

<p>One thing I'd like to address and it's a subtle point but one I want to make sure to make. It relates to this:</p>

<blockquote>

<p>Also, I've seen enough of your photographs of men to know that your intent is not simply to showcase their sexuality, but rather to utilize the images to contribute to the day when indeed all people live as equals.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>It's that word "equals" that always gets me, and I know you had only good intentions in using it and that most people would use it, just as the U.S. Declaration of Independence does. <br /> <br /> A big part of my intent with my continuing work with older gay men is to show them as unique individuals. I would say that my prime motivation is to give middle-aged gay men a kind of visibility that I think we've been lacking. Any political ramifications of what I'm doing I would not deny but I honestly have not set out to make a political statement or to further the cause of gay liberation or rights. I would probably choose to say—instead of talking about equality—that I'd like to see the day when people can live very <em>diverse</em> lives and embrace each other considering all that diversity. "Equal" often suggests to me a kind of sameness and I really think it's important to respect and honor and allow for differences. It's one thing that's bothered me about the struggle for marriage "equality." I'm all for it, of course. But many of the arguments put forth by the gay powers that be center on showing that "we're just like you" . . . we love, we have children, families, etc. I would prefer to say we deserve the right to marry even though we're NOT just like you, in many ways. And there are, of course, many gay people (and straight people, for that matter) who've chosen not to be in married-like relationships. And they deserve the same respect. I fear sometimes that gay political spokespeople have forgotten many of those who don't fit the "just like you" mold. The gay community seems, in some ways, to have lost sight of the fact that many of us do live an <em>alternative</em> kind of life (just as many artists do, and many people of all stripes do). So we should not be in the position of showing each other that we're all the same or equal but rather that we're all individuals and, on that basis, deserve the same rights and privileges as everyone else. <br /> <br /> The same would hold true for my friends at Plowshare. They are different. And they each bring their unique difference to the table. They can't and don't work equally. They can't take care of themselves equally. Each has different needs. They can't even really be treated equally, in that some need much more attention and assistance than others. So, for me, it's less about equality than respect for individuality.<br /> .<br /> <img src="http://www.fredgoldsmithphotography.com/gallery/Plowshare2013/034.jpg" alt="" width="800" height="533" /><br /> .<br /> Now, please don't take this in any way personally, because I know your intentions were good in talking about equality, as most people's are when they use that word. I only mean to nuance it a bit.</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p>What's kind of interesting here is the actual role of intentions and what comes through to you, Michael, as a viewer. It really was not my intention to consider a future kind of equality or to contribute to that. Yet, it would be foolish of me not to recognize that my photos could help contribute to that and certainly foolish of me not to understand that a reasonable viewer would come away with that feeling. So it's all a bit nebulous. I completely understand and empathize with your reading of the photos relative to what you think my intentions were and yet my intentions, at least as I go into these shoots, are somewhat different, and are really about discovering each individual guy, as a gay man for sure, but not in terms of a political statement of equality. So this is where the freedom comes in, for me to let go of my own intentions and even my own interpretation and honor what the viewer gets out of it. Because I think what you're getting from the photos is valid, it's just not completely in accord with how I went into them.</p>

<p>There's an interesting story about Georgia O'Keeffe, who consistently denied the Freudian interpretation of her flowers and overtly resented her paintings being used by feminists and others as representing something other than flowers.</p>

<blockquote>

<p><em> “I made you take time to look at what I saw and when you took time to really notice my flower you hung all your associations with flowers on my flower and you write about my flower as if I think and see what you think and see — and I don’t”</em></p>

</blockquote>

<p>Honestly, I can appreciate her not wanting motives attributed to her and her not wanting her work appropriated for purposes that might be at odds with what she herself believed they were about. Nevertheless, it's also the case that viewers are allowed to see what they want in the work, even though I think they have a responsibility to consider the artist's (visual) voice in their viewing. No artist, including O'Keeffe, has full control over the meaning of their work, as it will ultimately take on a life of its own when viewers get to view it. But, artists do have a right and maybe even an obligation to respond if they feel motivations are given them that were not there, at least to their knowledge or self awareness.</p>

<p>In the case of your statement about my intent, I don't have any resentment like O'Keeffe had, even though I would say your supposition about my intent was not accurate as I understand my own intent. I do think it was reasonable and I also think suppositions about O'Keeffe's intent were pretty reasonable as well, though she reacted pretty strongly to them.</p>

[michaellinder]

<p>I need to read your last two posts in detail. For now, Fred, I just want to emphasize that, in no way was I saying - or even implying - that we are all the same. To me, "living as equals" has to do with rights.</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p>Thanks, Michael. I get it. As you're thinking about this, I just want to make one thing clear, which is that I understand that your use of equality has to do with rights. My statement, in my last post, that your read of my intentions was not accurate is not made because of any understanding or misunderstanding about equality. It's that my intent really wasn't to contribute to people's understanding of the rights of gay people. My intention was focused on making visible these older gay guys as individuals. And, though I think you are right that such visibility may wind up contributing to an eventual gain in rights (although it will take much more than my pictures!), I can't honestly say that was the intention I had. And, yet, I think your reading of the photos has validity if not complete accuracy in terms of my actual intentions.</p>

[michaellinder]

<p>One more point, Fred - The fact that your work treats your subjects as "unique individuals" is evident. Can we go one step further to look at your images as addressing personhood? When I mentioned rights, I think this is the direction in which I wanted to go.</p>

 

[Norma Desmond]

<p>Michael, sure, personhood seems more along the lines of how I would assess my own motivation as opposed to rights or equality. And our conversation here relates to the whole notion of intentions being the thing that grabs us about photos and the difficulty I find with the concept. Because it really takes a conversation like this to fully flesh out an understanding of a photographer's motivation. And I don't feel comfortable, without a lot of information to supplement the photos, in attributing motivations to a photographer. When it comes to Plowshare and my work with gay men, I wonder if I'd be more comfortable saying that what grabs you or what you like about it is the idea behind it or the ideas it stimulates in you rather than agreeing that it's my intent or motivation that is drawing you to it. The ideas in a photo are more in that nebulous region between photographer and viewer. And I feel comfortable with viewers talking about the ideas that seem apparent in the work. When a viewer talks about my intent, however, based solely on the photos, there's much more likelihood that that viewer will be projecting something onto me than that he will really know what my intentions were.</p>

[aplumpton]

<p>I am much more comfortable in thinking about what grabs me in making an image than what grabs others in viewing my images or those of others. As a photographer that is my first priority, otherwise what I make will perhaps only coincidentally influence others and if it does it will likely do so in ways I haven't imagined. But so be it (or that). One of the hallmarks of a successful photograph for me is the different ways it may intrigue or inform others. The picture of Andy doesn't really grab me. Running shoes may be unusual in Europe fashion but we in North America hone that omnipresent look. The shoe-dress relation may be a bit unexpected but then many things in life are. When I will have seen and reflected on everything (Something I know will not happen) it will be time to end my own saga. Luckily unlikely, as that would be a boring climax.</p>

<p>The distinction between intention and the creative spurt or realisation is almost seamless and sometimes contains little of the former. While I find Fred's example an attractive and interesting photo, I would simply put it into the same category of images as those of August Sanders. They inform us of or categorize different humans. I see nothing unusual in Andy's running shoe as being inconsistent with the rest of his attire. Or the photo of him in the car that appeared in Fred's discussions some years ago. I wish that all photos of others would be so clear and honest in their message (about the person more than about any part of society he may be representing). Fred shoots without intention in my mind, at least in regard to how or what he is showing us. For me it is documentary photography of individuals that carry no more expressed intention than that of portraying the person in an honest way. That of course is an outside view and Fred may well not think so.</p>

<p>We are a far way in this example from the propaganda of the Nazis via Ms. Riefenstahl, which, apart from its glorificatiion of Hitler's world, is more composed of artistic (/emotional) and political concoctions with quite definite intentions. Whereupon it looses I think its honesty, and one wonders how it could be so effective with thinking German peoples (and maybe it wasn't, but the power of power silences many). On the other hand, a look at our own war propaganda can be equally interesting and effective.</p>

<p>Perhaps Lannie never precised this, but to me the OP relates more to what grabs the artist (photographer if you will) rather than than the viewer. And that may or may not be so evident in the result, even to the photographer</p>

[Landrum Kelly]

<blockquote>

<p>[T]o me the OP relates more to what grabs the artist (photographer if you will) rather than than the viewer.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Arthur, I'm not sure that it matters who took the shot. It was the shot itself that I was concerned with. It is true that my surprise in B&W processing of one of my own shots led me to post, but it could have been something about someone else's shot.</p>

<p>--Lannie</p>

 

[Norma Desmond]

<p>Lannie/Arthur, I don't think Arthur was discussing who took the shot as much as discussing what it is that grabs the photographer (in this case himself) and makes him want to take the shot or at least is at play in his taking the shot. Arthur, I don't think this is what Lannie had in mind as several of his posts talk about the photos rather than the photographer. But I nevertheless think it's a valid and productive line of thought and one worth discussing.</p>

<p>Speaking for myself, I was a viewer long before I was a photographer so my own photographing is very wrapped up in my own viewing experience. I would have a hard time separating the two or prioritizing one over the other, since I love looking at the photos of others, others who provide me compelling pictures (the sorts of pictures you mention, Arthur, that shake me up in some way) almost as much as I love making my own. I wouldn't want to give either up, especially since I think many of the great photographers were better at it than me so I want to keep having those sorts of experiences, sometimes vicariously through those other photographers.</p>

<p>Viewing, to me, is nearly as much an art as making photos. I would say that it is very similar things that grab me about photos and that inspire me to make my own. The one word I most often come away with is "transformation" (or "transcendence"). I like "transformation" these days since it feels a little more down to earth than "transcendence" which can sometimes imply something metaphysical and I don't necessarily mean that.</p>

<p>Photos not only transform me or my view of the world or my emotional state or my state of knowledge, but they seem to transform an original person, thing, or situation into something different from what it was, even when relying on what it was for its foundation. That can be both ironical and metaphorical. I tend to operate in a background of <em>metaphor</em>, both as photographer and viewer. That doesn't mean I'm constantly thinking, "What metaphor can I make here." It just means I'm kind of guided by (couched in) the sense that something is both standing for itself and standing for something else when I'm making or viewing photos. I'm in this world and the world of the photo, reality and artifice simultaneously. What I see through my lens and what I see in others' photos, to repeat an oft-used contemporary phrase, both is what it is and is not what it is.</p>

[aplumpton]

<p>Fred, your last paragraph pleases me as that is what I consider important in the act and pleasure of seeing (as opposed to just looking at) the world about us. Photography as a form of communication has its constraints but its ability (or rather, that of the photographer within the medium's confines....) to present metaphors is not one of them, and thankfully so. Most good photographers I know are curious persons and explorers of what a subject is or means, metaphorically or otherwise.</p>

[charleswood]

<p>Going back to Lannie's point about my surprise that a couple of my photos had a lot of views when compared to views of other photographs of mine: Lannie thought that a reason for higher views for those two than my average views could be found in the expressions of the subjects.</p>

<p>That might be the reason. If so, at that time I really wanted to get more interesting actions out of coyotes and birds. Daily I would have wanted coyote mothers licking puppy faces, bird incredible acrobatics, etc.</p>

<p>What I did get were photographs of how the wildlife connected with me, that is: they kept their wary eyes on me and that's pretty much what I got, pictures of wary eyes on me before the subjects came to a decision to just leave. So for me I still compare my results with my loftier intention where the results came short, but still I like the eye contact in a lot of my shots. There's an element of self-recognition there, for me like when I was a young child where it was a thrill to recognize that an animal was looking at me and I was looking at it in mutual curiosity.</p>

<p>And I think with words like 'equality' or 'rights' or 'personhood', 'individuality' it would feel a bit invasive to approach a subject like an older gay man, or Andy, or Plowshare residents with anything other than a desire to connect, Plowshare particularly where even entertaining a such well defined intention can feel inappropriate. It must be that it would take a pretty sensitive person to bring to a viewer by photographing such subjects a sense of self-recognition.</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<blockquote>

<p>it would feel a bit invasive</p>

</blockquote>

<p>I grapple with feeling invasive as a photographer. It goes into my shooting.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>with anything other than a desire to connect</p>

</blockquote>

<p>I wouldn't find it helpful or creative to limit my objectives in this way. As a matter of fact, there are many times I feel a disconnect and want to explore that photographically and honestly. I think that does as much honor to my relationships as anything else I might desire to accomplish.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>loftier intention</p>

</blockquote>

<p>My own can be far from lofty.</p>

[charleswood]

<p>Fred - "I wouldn't find it helpful or creative to limit my objectives in this way."</p>

<p>I don't see connection as a limitation, or disconnection as a limitation, just that they're both self-exploration and an exploration for the viewer too where it's all expression, communication, connection. Sorry to be so general.</p>

<p>In my photography I was rarely feeling that metaphor was working for me, I really felt/feel lost in that area. But in woodworking, for me metaphor comes more readily and I am less dismissive of it when it comes up in me as I work, where it's like metaphor is getting a free ride when it attaches to what I'm doing with my hands.</p>

<p> </p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p>Charles, it sounded like a limitation to me, especially because you were suggesting it for the folks I shoot.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>And I think with words like 'equality' or 'rights' or 'personhood', 'individuality' it would feel a bit invasive to approach a subject like an older gay man, or Andy, or Plowshare residents with anything other than a desire to connect, . . .</p>

</blockquote>

<p>I don't see connection <em>per se</em> as a limitation either. But you put it forth as one, since you excluded pretty much everything else one could have as a motivation as invasive. So, I would say, connection is NOT a limitation but you used it in a limiting way by saying no other motivation works with these subjects. I can't wrap my head around why photographing someone as an individual or as an equal (Michael's word) or with an eye toward their gaining rights would be invasive. And, as I said, being invasive which, to me, has negative connotations, is a part of photography I'm cognizant of and don't always fight, since I try not to always avoid the darker sides of my responses to and encounters with people.</p>

[charleswood]

<p>I didn't intend to sound prescriptive, apologies. Instead I'm saying the subjects seem sensitively handled and allow me as a viewer to feel a connection to the subjects. The distinction I'm trying to make in intent is say between approaching a <em>person</em> with a specific intent to show them as a <em>person, </em>(which to me would be kind of rude to approach a person to 'show them as a person' since they already are a person so what else would one be showing?) and approaching a subject less definitively than that<em>. </em>Less definitively, more sensitively, etc. etc.</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<blockquote>

<p>The distinction I'm trying to make in intent is say between approaching a <em>person</em> with a specific intent to show them as a <em>person, </em>(which to me would be kind of rude to approach a person to 'show them as a person' since they already are a person so what else would one be showing?</p>

</blockquote>

<p>"Show" is both a transitive and intransitive verb and I thank you for bringing this up because it's a way to think about photography as well. It's true, as you say, that photography shows its subjects in one way or another. And it's also a way of showing a subject TO a viewer. So, while I understand what you're saying, I don't agree it's necessarily rude to want to show a person, who happens to be of a certain type—whether ethnic, sexually-oriented, or disabled in some way—as a person or individual. Stereotyping and lack of understanding are facts of life and I'm not always just showing people as I see them. I am also showing people <em>to others in a particular light, </em>others who may not have the experience or emotional space to see people beyond their "type."</p>

<p>For me, photography is not just about my relationship or connection to my subjects. I wouldn't need a camera to have such relationships and connections. It is about expression, sharing, interchange. It's often a bridge to the viewer. This doesn't mean I'm always overtly thinking of a potential viewer, but it's part of the fabric of photography to me.</p>

<p>Now, it's not like I set out with the intent of showing people as individuals. I seemed to naturally gravitate toward somewhat theatrically creating or finding characters in the people I photographed. So it started out as a tendency and then probably got incorporated, to some extent, into my intentions. I've noticed that working with such personas has the strange ability to reveal something "real," something personal and unique, about each subject . . . and probably about all of us beyond those individuals. A portrait, IMO, isn't just about its subject. Anyway, my good feelings about the photos I took early on led the way for me to explore this more.</p>

<p>Maybe "intent" and "motivation" are too strict concepts for all this. A lot happens by osmosis and intention gets wrapped up with proclivity.</p>

<p>I've heard it said, specifically regarding portraiture, that the eyes are the window to the soul, as if the soul were only somewhere within. I think there's plenty of soul in the various appearances we take on as well, right there on the surface, even applied with makeup sometimes.</p>

[charleswood]

<p>Fred - 'Maybe "intent" and "motivation" are too strict concepts for all this.'</p>

<p>For me intent and motivation are words that have some categorical, narrowing connotations.</p>

<p>I like the phrase you use 'showing others in a particular light'.</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p>By the way, Charles, I think you have a good intuition as to why your coyote photo attracted more attention than others and also understand what you've said about your alternative goals for photos of coyotes. More than expression, what I see is a statuesque photo, almost iconic in nature, clearly shot, good colors and composition, everything in place. People like that. It's accessible and relatively easy. The kind of in situ shots you would prefer to make, as you state, are a bit more challenging and tend not to be as squeaky clean. Many viewers will pass those by.</p>

[a._t._burke]

<p>Mr. G...</p>

<p>I guess times change. The meaning of words has certainly changed over time. I see where you got your posted definition of “platitude”. It was not as I understood it (educated in the late 20s and 30s) from my hearing and using it over my lifetime. So I looked for other definitions and this one from Wikipedia is more what I spent my life time understanding the word to mean: </p>

<p>“A platitude is a trite, meaningless, or prosaic statement, generally directed at quelling social, emotional, or cognitive unease. The word derives from plat, French word for "flat." Platitudes are geared towards presenting a shallow, unifying wisdom over a difficult topic. However, they are too overused and general to be anything more than undirected statements with ultimately little meaningful contribution towards a solution.” </p>

<p>Heavy on the terms "trite" and “shallow”, if you will. </p>

<p>Used in the Wikipedia sense, I would understand Mr. Gubins point. I would not necessarily be one to whom he was referring? </p>

<p>A. T. Burke</p>

 

[Allen Herbert]

<p>Does it make you think and wonder?</p>

<p>What else is there to say..</p>

[Allen Herbert]

<p>Would you like 10.000 words.</p><div></div>

[Allen Herbert]

<p>Methinks folks love the words....</p>

<p>But where is the photo? Just the words.....all those words.</p>