We are what we see

Norma Desmond · April 20, 2016

Fred, I agree with you that reading up on the background of famous photographers will reveal info about them that wouldn't have been clearly understood just by looking at their work

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That wasn't my point. My point was that looking at their work often reveals to me things that later get confirmed/filled in by reading about their lives. And in some cases their work actually gives me, on some level, a deeper connection to them than the biographical info I read. For me, someone's photography provides me with something often more visceral.

After reading their story I still would not feel I'ld have a real relationship with those photographers you listed because of the distancing caused by the knowledge that the backstory is penned and edited in a way to market and promote the photographer even though it may smack of a real life spontaneous account of their dramatic life. It's still filtered information from all the variables I've mentioned in my previous posts.

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I'm less skeptical (or cynical) than this about many things I've read about photographers, though it's certainly true in some cases.

Besides as a photographer I really don't want a relationship with another photographer knowing I'm not going to get the full story nor can I expect it.

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I think this is just fine and I don't think you should seek something you don't want. I also don't expect to get a full story. Not even sure what a full story would be like. I get glimpses. I do want a kind of relationship with other photographers (through their work) and find that I often get that.

One says it is, another says it isn't so there's no point in defining it for everyone.

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Absolutely agree!

Tim_Lookingbill · April 20, 2016

Tim, Many serial killers are incapable of empathy. It is a brain anomaly. Thats how they hide their true personality from their loved ones. Any normal person including artists who are capable of empathy won't be able to conceal their emotions or ideologies as easily as a serial killer (or any sociopath) can do.

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That wasn't my point I was making with that analogy, Supriyo.

It was to point out that getting to know someone in order to develop a relationship/kindred-ship involves a certain amount of long term control and manipulation in what each divulges about each other whether both parties know it's happening or not even with the most long term and closest of relationships.

So considering the amount of effort involved building the best long term relationships, I don't put much faith in getting to know all about a photographer just by looking at their body of work. If a viewer, including myself, makes a connection with the photographer this way, I would have to believe it is purely a figment of our imagination.

Tim_Lookingbill · April 20, 2016

I'm less skeptical (or cynical)...

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So you took what I said as a negative experience. You judged incorrectly. I find what I say and do is a positive experience to me. The only comfort I can have about myself is be sure about what I think and feel. Whether someone sees it as a negative is out of my control and of no concern to me.

Fred, you seek to find the back story on a photographer to confirm something you saw in their images to make a deeper connection. That's how you appreciate other's photography. I don't. I'm more enthralled in the experience of seeing what something looks like photographed and how well it comes close to looking like a dream.

You are very keen on parsing negative from positive POV from contributors. Don't you think that says something about you? You like to judge people's actions, Fred.

Now, do you see how I'm judging you going only on the words you use? Do you think a photograph can judge a person the same way? I've never seen a photograph do that which is why I don't ask it any questions. Photographs can only communicate so much where words can get in the way, so there are limitations with both.

With that in mind there must be something else going on that words and pictures can't communicate, so where is the deeper meaning and connection coming from?

Supriyo · April 20, 2016

I don't put much faith in getting to know all about a photographer just by looking at their body of work.

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Agreed, and as both you and Fred pointed out in some parts of your posts, that it is not probably important. I think the discussion has shifted somewhat from the OP's original question. If I am not mistaken, the OP was not asking whether it is possible for others to know us from our works. Rather, he was asking whether we can identify our own true selves through our works. I think that is a more realistic scenario. If we cannot find our true philosophy, our purpose through our artistic endeavors, then we would be deceiving ourselves, right? Why not we look back at our volume of work and reflect how we have come to recognize our true identities over time through our photos. This is just my suggestion.

Norma Desmond · April 20, 2016

is penned and edited in a way to market and promote the photographer

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One definition of cynical = skepticism of motives of others

Yes, I judged it as cynical. Of course I'm open to the possibility that you may not have meant it that way and glad you've clarified that. Relationships grow, even over minutes.

Fred, you seek to find the back story on a photographer to confirm something you saw in their images to make a deeper connection. That's how you appreciate other's photography.

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No, it's actually not. You may have missed the part where I said "And in some cases their work actually gives me, on some level, a deeper connection to them than the biographical info I read. For me, someone's photography provides me with something often more visceral." You're making a much bigger deal of the back story than I ever did.

You like to judge people's actions, Fred.

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I'm not sure I "like" it. But, yes, I do it. I think our actions say a lot about ourselves.

Now, do you see how I'm judging you going only on the words you use?

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Yes. I think that's fine. I imagine if you knew me better, you'd judge me on other things as well. Just as I might judge your words differently if I knew you better. I think in life, I have access to what I have access. And all the different types of relationships I have and connections I feel are based on all sorts of different types and degrees of access. Someone's photography gives me a particular type of access, though somewhat different for each photographer. And I'm well aware that that's the type of relationship it is. I don't confuse that with a relationship to a spouse or to a friend I've known for years or to someone I share one drink with at a bar for 30 minutes. They're all different. They're all connections. They're all relationships. To me. Again, I'm fine with however you approach it.

Norma Desmond · April 20, 2016

Supriyo, while I think we're mostly on the same page, I don't think of myself as having a true identity. It's why I talk in terms of glimpses more than full stories. For me, identity isn't really identity at all. Identity is so singular and . . . well . . . identical-like. Can we step into the SAME river twice? Again, if I have a purpose to my photography, it's not about my identity. It's about my connections. I'm probably taking photos to create and project into a future more than as a retrospective of where I've been or what I've thought.

Supriyo · April 21, 2016

Fred, thank you for presenting your fresh and very unique perspective. I can empathize with your point of view because I have seen your work. Your photos introduce real people to the viewers, whose stories you narrate. If your own identity comes in the way, you cannot connect to your subjects as you want to.

At the same time, I can imagine that your scenario could be different from photographers who shoot inanimate objects, or scenes where the subjects' personal identities are less prominent (example might be a street scene with silhouettes of human figures), who would see more of their own selves reflected in what they shoot, ... or not? I don't really know.

aplumpton · April 21, 2016

With the exception of the very recent posts by Supriyo and Fred, which relate a little more to the statement of the OP, much of the discussion before that seems to be related to a "cart before the horse" manner of discussion (photograph rather than photographer).

In that sense, perhaps it is equally constructive to worry less about the history and motivations of well known and often dead photographers, and whether the product represents the creator, and think more about the OP in relation to one's own work? How does "what I am is what (or how) I see" relate to your own photography? Philosophy can be as much first person as well as third person. Anyway, that was the intent of my question to other members and an interest in whether the OP describes a cause and effect relation in their photography, or not.

Norma Desmond · April 21, 2016

Supriyo, yes, I'm quite sure my scenario is different from how others think about themselves and their photography. Though I wonder if in those differences there is also a lot of sameness (and maybe it's the descriptions of it all that are different).

Arthur, I wasn't terribly "worried" about the "dead photographers" I brought up as a point of interest. My own "first person" take on your question, interestingly, is that photography gets me out of myself and away from emphasis on first person. I've often said that I view photography as a dialog through the ages with other photographers and artists, living or dead. Please take all the talk of dead photographers in the spirit in which, for me, they are still very much alive and exist at least to some extent in what I consider my first person, through my relationship and connection to them. I accept that your mileage may vary and will not bring up another dead photographer in this thread so the discussion can proceed as you would like it to.

aplumpton · April 21, 2016

Phil, Sontag is a good reference, as is Barhe's book on photography, or the musings of Proust in "Swan" or "In search of lost time". Identity is often described in these writings in collective terms (community or society values or terms, especially in the first two references), but the society issues are often similar to our personal ones. And when they are not, the "collision " is often even more fruitful in relation to our own photographic approach.

Fred, thanks for your comments, both here and today via pnet mail. Free discusssion of the topic is fine with me, dead photographers or not (no need to heed my feelings about that), and I wish I had more availability this week to express personal motivations or state of mind when photographing to support my own interpretation of the OP statement. If the discussion is still active next week, I will do that.

Norma Desmond · April 21, 2016

The following is said in jest and good spirits. I really am enjoying the discussion, on whatever terms people want to approach it.

Note to self: Dead photographers out. Dead writers in.

;-)

Seriously, though, it just brings me back to what identity means to me. I am, to an extent, all that I've read, all the photos I've seen, all the actions I've taken, as well as all that I will do and will share with others and all that others will do that will affect me. If my photography reflects that, then it probably will fulfill some of my purpose.

Supriyo, thinking a little more about our discussion, I think you put it really well and have probably stated it better than I have. It's not that I think I've escaped my perspective when shooting others. And it's not like I don't know the camera presents a point of view. And probably more with my San Francisco guys than with the Plowshare folks, I do help to create some of the characters my subjects and I together present. It's that fine line you mention of not getting in my own way (or theirs), even when doing that, that feels significant.

I understand that others find self a comforting and generally OK place. "Comforting" is just the descriptive word I can think of at the moment. I'm sure others would have different ways to describe their feelings about self. Honestly, for me, it's lonely "in there," so I reach out. Language is a bit limiting here. (Another reason to photograph!) So I make or see self as not distinguished from other or from "out there." Holism? A kind of unity with others rather than an identity of self.

Tim_Lookingbill · April 21, 2016

So the OP was meant as an introspection on one's own identity based on their own body of photographic work and process. My mistake for interpreting otherwise and diverting this topic away from the spirit intended.

What good does it do to have an appreciation of one's self in this manner? How does one avoid being blinded by their own self awareness? So you like how you look to your self by what you've accomplished photographically. Isn't that just another version of a selfy only with more panache and expensive equipment?

Should we be concerned and/or make adjustments to the way we work, if "We are how and what we photograph" doesn't come across to the viewer as intended? This brings into question whether this self awareness and identity through one's own photography can go beyond that into art. As Phil pointed out...

This 1 : 1 relationship of oneself and the world ( when framed into a photograph ) seems most true for the 'non-photographer' and for photography that's done not as an artistic expression and communication but primarily as a self affirmation, whether done consciously or subconsciously. Art, and photography done as art, goes much further than that I'd hope.

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I'ld have to believe the viewer would have to have developed or be born with some sensitivity for image language to separate photography done as art from mere ego soothing, self affirmation. I just can't think of an example that makes this clear or possible, though. Maybe someone here can offer a link to demonstrate.

Tim_Lookingbill · April 21, 2016

I understand that others find self a comforting and generally OK place. "Comforting" is just the descriptive word I can think of at the moment. I'm sure others would have different ways to describe their feelings about self. Honestly, for me, it's lonely "in there," so I reach out. Language is a bit limiting here. (Another reason to photograph!) So I make or see self as not distinguished from other or from "out there." Holism? A kind of unity with others rather than an identity of self.

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This is where you and I differ, Fred. And it shows in the subjects we photograph.

I don't want to reach out to others. I'm too aware of how others are TOO aware on how things look different when photographed to the point it makes them change their behavior that I know the results will ultimately present them out of context of their idea of how they see them self.

It's personal to them, but creatively stifling for me because I can't relate to their reaction of how different they may look according to their expectations. I still have to view them as lights and darks composed within a frame. Technically that's all a photograph can be defined. What a person sees in it is beyond me and my control. That's too nerve-racking.

I've shot portraits of local folks and they were straight portraits taken at different angles and lighting in and outside their homes and they liked the results in the prints, but it was not a very comfortable place for me to be creatively. People just distract me too much and I think the subjects in my images bares this out.

I even have problems shooting my self portrait. The distortions in how I see my self in the results is like shooting at a fun house mirror. Takes 25 frames just to get one good one. It's the most exhausting shoot I've ever done.

Supriyo · April 21, 2016

Fred, I wholeheartedly agree (after thinking about it) with your point of view, and in art it is as important to reach out to others (by others I mean not just your subjects, but anyone else who cares to listen) as it is to yourself. In this context, I want to post <a href="http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/why_we_make_art">this page</a> that I found, where several artists of different disciplines were asked the question: Why one creates art? The answers will give the variety of perspectives that artists reflect in their creations. Poet Kwami Dawes writes:

I write in what is probably a vain effort to somehow control the world in which I live, recreating it in a manner that satisfies my sense of what the world should look like and be like.

I’m trying to capture in language the things that I see and feel, as a way of recording their beauty and power and terror, so that I can return to those things and relive them. In that way, I try to have some sense of control in a chaotic world.

I want to somehow communicate my sense of the world—that way of understanding, engaging, experiencing the world—to somebody else. I want them to be transported into the world that I have created with language.

And so the ultimate aim of my writing is to create an environment of empathy, something that would allow the miracle of empathy to take place, where human beings can seem to rise out of themselves and extend themselves into others and live within others. That has a tremendous power for the human being. And I know this, because that is what other people’s writing does to me when I read it.

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Supriyo · April 21, 2016

What good does it do to have an appreciation of one's self in this manner? How does one avoid being blinded by their own self awareness? So you like how you look to your self by what you've accomplished photographically. Isn't that just another version of a selfy only with more panache and expensive equipment?

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Tim, I think this and Phil's 1:1 relation between art and artist are valid (cautionary) points, but I hope my mindset is not this extreme, so that self-awareness divulges into mere narcissism. For me, to know myself is a first step towards knowing others. Also my vision of self-awareness is to bring me and my art in symbiosis. I want to know my grazing ground, and not digress where I don't belong. If I do that just for crowd pleasing (and in that process to please myself), that would be the blind self-appreciation that you referred to, if I read correctly. I know many people who are victims of this self-image of how people take their work (including myself in the beginning, and may be even now, here and there?), but I try to be aware of it and stay away from it as much as I can.

Supriyo · April 21, 2016

Phil,

Sorry for my mistake. You wrote "1 : 1 relationship of oneself and the world" and then within bracket: "( when framed into a photograph )". Hence my misunderstanding.

I was saying that art, and photography done as art, isn't about that kind of constant self-affirmation or the cultivating of a self-image.

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I agree with you, and my previous comment would be relevant to this POV.

Norma Desmond · April 21, 2016

I'm too aware of how others are TOO aware on how things look different when photographed to the point it makes them change their behavior that I know the results will ultimately present them out of context of their idea of how they see them self.

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Sure, Tim, I think I get why you don't like photographing other people.

I often consider how people I shoot are aware of their being photographed and how it can make them change behavior. People "act" not only in photographic situations, but in all kinds of situations and environments. I go to parties with friends and they become different. I visit friends' parents with them and they may become VERY different. I watch lovers in the park and could swear they're imitating Hollywood actors when they look longingly into each others eyes. (Maybe Hollywood imitates them but it's hard to tell.) I watch guys smoking on a street corner and could swear there's a little Bogart in every one of them.

So the behaviors people adopt when I photograph them are fascinating to me. In some cases it shows me who they want to be. In some cases, it shows discomfort, which is something I find photographable. Who they actually are can be elusive, unless it turns out we're all some sort of amalgam of all those behaviors we adopt in all kinds of situations, including being photographed. I find something very telling in those deliberate kinds of behaviors and engagements.

As Supriyo noted, for me too it's not just reaching out to the people I shoot but also to the viewer. So presenting a person I'm shooting in that behavior-adopting mode you speak of has a lot of potential for me, since I'm not always trying to capture something accurate about the person I'm shooting. I may be after that, of course, but sometimes a photo of a person might just show something significant about human expression, something relatable, along the lines of how fiction and theater can work. A photo might just transform or transcend the individual it's a photo of. Like you said, and I appreciate this sort of Winograndian aspect of photography, sometimes it's about how something or someone looks photographed, which can be very different from who they are.

Julie H · April 23, 2016

Phil wrote: "( What we make others see may very well be that which we saw )"

... which is, for the most part, BORING. BOOOOOOOOOOORING. Boring, boring, boring, boring, boring. Mind-numbingly boring.

There's a reason why watching Uncle Bob's slide show is a legendary form of torture to everybody except Uncle Bob -- who finds his slide show endlessly interesting and fascinating, deep and meaningful, touching and transcendent; and who will tell you so ad nauseum. And then make you watch it again.

aplumpton · April 23, 2016

Like the characters playing out Bogart or some other Hollywood person or scene we have the choice of living in our own worlds or those of mass media or mass culture. Julie's Uncle Bob is likely play-acting his presentation as well, except that the camera is on himself, or he is a particularly bad auto-critique of his own work.

Far from the me-tooism of mass culture, far from what the photograph says about the photographer (which seems to be a fairly strong emphasis in more than one responses to the OP), or how the photographer perceived his subject, is the knowledge a photographer can glean and then invoke from the what, why and how he or she photographs, based on his or her values, history and other subjective aspects.

It is I think not a constant but a dynamic parameter, and possibly also something that evolves as the person does. Recognising those factors and behavioural aspects together with one's cultural anchor and values is what interests me in this discussion. What we are is what and how we see. In some cases who or what we are has a large effect on how we make an image and its result, while in some cases it is no doubt only a lesser factor.

A simple and rather one-dimensional case would be that of the Nazi photographers, imbued with the philosophy or propaganda of that regime, who produced images that corresponded to those values. It was not the case there of what they saw defining what they were, but the opposite. Other cases to which the OP speaks are likely more complex than that of these political photographers, although their individual values may have been subdued to that of the more simplistic whole.

Norma Desmond · April 23, 2016

I have an uncle who likes to share his vacation slideshows with me. He knows how important photography is to me and does it as a way to show he cares, to share something with me, and to connect. I love looking at them. What more could I ask?

aplumpton · April 23, 2016

On the specific topic of uncles showing slides and the value of human connection, I find your anecdote both touching and genuine, Fred. He no doubt recognizes some of your personal values as a photographer.

Norma Desmond · April 23, 2016

The Nazi photographer case got me to thinking. It points up the complexity of trying to determine who we are from what or how we see and photograph. Ambivalence and contradictions are at play. Self denial in balance or imbalance with self awareness. It may be that we can be helped some by the eyes of others when assessing ourselves in terms of our photography.

"Until the day I die people will keep saying, 'Leni is a Nazi', and I'll keep saying, 'But what did she do?'"

—Leni Riefenstahl

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Speaking to my own experience, photography may be less about self knowledge and more about self actualization. By self actualization I'm referring to coming into the world more than being in my head.

aplumpton · April 23, 2016

OK, so decoupling self-actualisation from self-knowledge requires

1) that it occurs without one being aware (i.e., self-knowledge) of any personal values, feelings, culture, judgemental approaches, emotions, etc, having been brought into play;

2) recognising that something else rather than one’s personal make-up is operating to allow self-actualisation to take place.

What might that be (if it is not who and what you are)?

Not related:

"Until the day I die people will keep saying, 'Leni is a Nazi', and I'll keep saying, 'But what did she do?"

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Some insist on self-denial.

Norma Desmond · April 23, 2016

Arthur, decoupling self actualization from self knowledge may require all those things. So why decouple them? I said my photography is less about one than the other, which wasn't meant to decouple them. I've said several times in this thread that for me it's a matter of emphasis, which doesn't deny the existence of self knowledge. What I was moving toward with the Riefenstahl example was that even self knowledge can be helped by others' knowledge of oneself. And I think part of self knowledge is how one is seen by others, how one perceives themselves being seen by others, and how one sees oneself reflected in the eyes of others.

aplumpton · April 23, 2016

Fred, thanks for clarifying that you meant both rather than self-actualisation alone. We are on the same line of thought. Persons associated with despotic regimes, even just as propaganda photographers like Ms Riefenstahl, knew full well the implications of what they were doing, believed in them (presumably) and do only further discredit to themselves in attempting to deny that later. She was a very good craftsperson, but she wasn't at arms length of her creations.

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