Looking at a photo for more than ten seconds

[VisualEntropy]

<blockquote>

<p>I really like those fat pipes, for some reason (have you seen the movie <em>Brazil</em> -- the scene where Robert DeNiro as plumber goes into Jonathan Pryce's apartment wall ... ?). Almost more than the creatures. I'm not crazy about the thought-balloon porcupine (and if that doesn't get the rest of you to look, you need another cup of coffee).</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Yes, <em>Brazil</em> is pretty unforgettable. If I remember correctly, that scene introduces a new level of surreality that continues through the rest of the movie. The photo definitely takes me to a similar place, and Terry Gilliam has cited Bosch as a major influence on his style, so I got to geek out for a moment about you making that connection. :)</p>

<p> </p>

[Julie H]

<p>"I am at war with the obvious." — <em>William Eggleston</em></p>

<p>In that very well known quote from Eggleston, it is, I think often taken to mean <em>our</em> obvious. It doesn't (IMO); it means <em>his own</em>. Eggleston doesn't give a rat's ass about Alan Klein's obvious ... or yours or mine.</p>

<p>Tim writes: "I mean the guy just points and shoots." If he (or you or I) stare longer at something it gives our inner on-going same-old personal narrative time to take over and colonize what we're seeing. By shooting fast, I think Eggleston is trying to stay out ahead of that; that which <em>is</em> the obvious.</p>

<p>Color relations are the most immediate, felt narrative, arriving before the organizing, known, familiar, <em>obvious</em> narratives in which we are all embedded. By shooting color and letting our known narratives chase it, Eggleston is turning on its head the usual shooting of narrative and letting (or making) color chase our already given (obvious) narrative.</p>

<p>This whole thread is about how some photos make us work to find or develop a narrative. Because? They're strange, they're new, they're subtle? Because they're <em>not obvious</em>.<br>

.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>"Bill Eggleston's stuff sure didn't strike me at first as 'good' photography. I mean, everything isn't always in focus, the 'subject' isn't always in the center (it's sometimes chopped off!) and the framing sure ain't what they advise in the Kodak manual. And, to top it off, unlike a lot of 'documentary' pictures, one can't even tell what some of the pictures are about. Isn't a picture supposed to be about something? Isn't it supposed to be telling us something?</p>

<p>"But I kept going back to look at them. More and more of them. As if by staring long enough I might penetrate their mystery and understand why they mess with my mind like they do. And every time I'd think I'd uncovered some underlying system, device or technique, I'd see something else that would totally throw me for a loop.</p>

<p>"Maybe the sensation of getting thrown for a loop is the thrill I was seeking. Like stepping off a roller-coaster, or spinning around until dizzy, or drugs, or driving music, I guess the feeling of slight disorientation is addictive."</p>

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

<p>"It's a world that's familiar and darkly mysterious at the same time. As if we came home one day and there was this strange smell. Unrecognizable. Well, Bill Eggleston puts that smell in there. Sweet and stinky ... but I still can't figure out what it is." — <em>David Byrne</em></p>

</blockquote>

<p>.</p>

<p>... "sweet and stinky." Raw colors and smells; before or outside of the visual obvious.</p>

[michaellinder]

<p>Julie, I'm curious about your thoughts on the response I posted.</p>

[Julie H]

<p>Michael, thank you for posting your description. From it I can get some idea of why you are stopped by those two pictures -- which didn't stop me at all. That's not a criticism of either you or the photos. It's the peculiarity of each of us that I'm sniffing out in this thread ...</p>

[michaellinder]

<p>"Peculiarity" - interesting and helpful choice of words, Julie. </p>

[Tim_Lookingbill]

<blockquote>

<p>... "sweet and stinky." Raw colors and smells; before or outside of the visual obvious.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Interesting take on Eggleston, Julie. I have to wonder if he could find or see the "sweet and stinky" looking at reality in the way shown in the YouTube video because the color and tone in his mages/prints don't look like reality due to the color reproduction process he was using.</p>

<p>So his way of looking around for something to shoot, tripping the shutter in an off kilter but casual fashion had to have some preconception as to how it would look as a print. His decisions for choosing what to show must change the battle plans as well in his war with the obvious.</p>

<p>There's still an element of the accidental starting from framing reality in the viewfinder to showing the final prints that he decides to keep.</p>

[Tim_Lookingbill]

<blockquote>

<p>Julie, Tim - In Alf's image, I was taken by the presence of areas of monochrome and other areas of slightly desaturated gold or yellow. Also, the detail seemed to lessen the closer my eye got to reflections in the water. Jack's image was totally a different story. In this instance, my attention was mainly on the composition - four framed portraits sitting on the floor of a school storage room and a chalice sitting on top of a student desk in front of the portraits.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Alf's monochrome immediately came across to me as a circa early 1900's post card, but the yellow on my display shows more of a desaturated urine (slightly greenish) hue which actually gives it a unique other worldly distressed look as if to reflect how one would feel in an actual flood as well as give the impression the photo/print had literally been pulled out of polluted flood water.</p>

<p>McRitchie's row of portraits was a bit hard to understand on whether it's shot in an abandon school now used to warehouse instructional charts/maps and trappings of former school administrations or that it might be a working classroom being readied for a new school year. I do like the diminished hues of the wood with the concrete floor and off white dingy walls. Very Marxist looking. </p>

[photoriot]

<p>Thanks to a mix of inertia and excitement, I look at images longer in museums and galleries. Photos aside, I've spent as much as an hour or two looking at individual artworks in museums. The sorts of photos that keep me looking longest online so far vary from the realism of the guy who did the google cam selections to real life compositions like Jack McRitchie's, but a big commonality is juxtapositions: if there is an interesting path for my eye to cycle around, criss-crossing back and forth, I'm all in. At the moment smallish, intimate portraits in the National Gallery in London (turn left at the entrance) and a huge Renoir of Diana the Huntress in the Metropolitan in New York are coming to mind (paintings). Aha, for photos Joel-Peter Witkin stands out. I've actually put quite a lot of thought into how to interpret and use view time, in a context that can't be mentioned here due to censorship, but there is more about it in my gallery for anyone interested. This is my first post after being banned for a month (with a threat to make it permanent), so I'm testing the water!</p>

[AlanKlein]

<p>Bill, Did they make you stand in the corner?</p>

[Allen Herbert]

<p>"Looking at a photo for more than ten seconds "Julie Hooley.</p>

<p>It was a cold place, Julie. They answered without a soul...somehow, I can only think they were lost somewhere.. pray don't tell them.</p>

<p>Now, if a girl has a fit arse, us blokes would look at it for a lot longer than 10 seconds....don't you think?<br>

Girls like a blokes interesting arses.... 10 seconds plus..... and a strong back when they are not mounting a horses</p>

<p>Now, have a think...if a photo was communicating....have a little think.</p>

<p>Yes, I am.</p>

<p> </p>

[Julie H]

<p>"mounting a horse"</p>

<p>I may have a Mapplethorpe where a man is mounting a horse ... I know I have a Mapplethorpe, a gorgeous black and white with exquisite detail, of a man's ass being fisted -- up to the elbow -- that I confess I did indeed look at for a long time. But only because, on the farm where I grew up, the vet *always* wore a plastic full-arm glove when he did that to a horse.</p>

<p>[Hi Bill! Glad to see you back.]</p>

[Allen Herbert]

<p>"I may have a Mapplethorpe where a man is mounting a horse ... "Julie</p>

<p>Okay, I have wet my knickers. A name ,who means nothing to me....Sorry.</p>

<p>Julie is shy.</p>

<p>Move on. You need to look and respect a photo...and try to understand what is being communicated....</p>

<div></div>

[photoriot]

<p>One of the few bees I have in my bonnet is, why all the fuss about Mapplethorpe, when his transgressions are so slight compared to Witkin? Sometimes I really despair over humanity.</p>

<p>[Thanks, Julie!]</p>

[Allen Herbert]

<p>They walked among the dead....and lived among dead.</p>

<p>They lost their humanity.... it became a cold lost thing....</p><div></div>

[Tim_Lookingbill]

<p>Since I sort of feel responsible for inspiring the last comments concerning sexuality of the human figure with my "Gap" photo I'ld like to provide some level of profundity and class just to divert away from the titillating aspect of it.</p>

<p>I think the "Gap" photo subject matter needs to be presented in a way that makes its shape and design more than what the photo projects similar in a way as this sample photo depicting a sculpture of a full figured woman I found very interesting... http://render.fineartamerica.com/images/rendered/default/greeting-card/images/artworkimages/medium/1/fat-lady-sculpture-carl-purcell.jpg?&targetx=-29&targety=0&imagewidth=758&imageheight=500&modelwidth=700&modelheight=500&backgroundcolor=1B2421&orientation=0</p>

<p>I just couldn't find a sculpture of that "Gap" photo online.</p>

[Julie H]

<p>I have three ten-seconders this morning, one of which will definitely make you laugh:</p>

<p><strong><a href="https://unrealnature.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/coffer_civilwar01.jpg">First picture</a></strong>: I'm leafing through a book* about old photographic processes when I come to <a href="https://unrealnature.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/coffer_civilwar01.jpg">this image</a>. That horse way on the left, why way over there? nose touching the left side of the picture where there is a one+ inch area of pure black; on the right a row, a great crowd of men, massed; that black horse; why way over there? facing backward; its back to the men, its back to the center; its back to all that massed attention; to <em>my</em> attention; powerful, relaxed but fully ready; everything waiting in the dim light; feeling of dread; why is that horse over there? [the way-off-center horse and rider, facing 'backward' (left) and touching the black bar on the left is what holds my attention; I admire it's effect; it <em>works</em>]</p>

<p><strong><a href="https://unrealnature.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/neidich_aerialcivilwar.jpg">Second picture</a></strong>: still leafing through the same book. Stopped for <a href="https://unrealnature.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/neidich_aerialcivilwar.jpg">this one</a>; an aerial view; leaning forward to see what's way down there; wonder where it is; caption says 'aerial reconnaissance photographs, battle of chicamauga circa 1863; trying to remember the details of that battle to figure out which part is seen ... oh, wait, '<em>aerial</em>'??? chicamauga?? [big gotcha grin]; reading the rest of the caption: 'from the American history reinvented series 1987.' Took me more than ten seconds (making my excuse here) because the tintype process said it was genuine and distracted me from the 'aerial' impossibility. Okay, okay, I'm an idiot.</p>

<p><strong><a href="https://unrealnature.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/bidaut_egret.jpg">Third picture</a></strong>: This one is just drop-dead gorgeous. I stopped because it's interesting how key the frame is to the success of the picture; that contrast in texture, sinuous vs rigidly gridded; tone, warm vs bluish cold; and look at how clever it is to have the bird's beak almost touch the edge; because of that tight fit, I'm forced to realize the lines of the bird rather than just 'the bird'; most nature photographers are never going to squeeze the bird like that to force me to see lines and curves rather than animal; the line of that neck with the rigidity of the beak is just ... very fine. [the importance of the frame and the tight fit working to accentuate the lines are what hold me]</p>

<p>*the book is <em>Photography's Antiquarian Avant-Garde: The New Wave in Old Processes</em> (2002) by Lyle Rexer</p>

<p>Pictures, in order:<br>

1. John Coffer, <em><a href="https://unrealnature.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/coffer_civilwar01.jpg">Civil War Reenactment</a></em>, 1999, tintype<br>

2. Warren Neidich (with John Coffer doing the tintype), <em><a href="https://unrealnature.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/neidich_aerialcivilwar.jpg">aerial reconnaissance photographs, battle of chicamauga circa 1863</a></em>, from the American history reinvented series. 1987, tintype<br>

3. Jayne Hinds Bidaut, <em><a href="https://unrealnature.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/bidaut_egret.jpg">Common Egret, casmerodius albus</a></em>, 2000, tintype</p>

[Julie H]

<p>Phil you posted while I was writing mine, but I agree completely that many, even most, of what I think are the greatest photographs don't stop me so much as bring me back again and again.</p>

<p>I'm specifically not thinking of ten-seconders as a value judgment; rather simply in what can make me stop. Terrible pictures can make me stop just to figure out why they are so terrible.</p>

[AlanKlein]

<p>Go look at a picture of someone you love; and fall in love all over again.</p>

[Julie H]

<blockquote>

<p>Go look at a picture of someone you love; and fall in love all over again.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Many years ago, on one of the (real) philosophy forums frequented by (real) philosophers, they had a long and heated debate about whether it was ethical for a man to masturbate while looking at photos of a long-departed ex-girlfriend. They did not resolve the issue.</p>

[AlanKlein]

I don't want to seen critical. But that's not what I was

talking about.

[VisualEntropy]

<p> <br>

Julie as Mel Brooks and Alan as Carl Reiner...now <em>that</em> is worth revisiting again and again!<br>

</p>

[Julie H]

<p>Oh, thanks a bunch, Sean. Now I'm going around imagining Mel Brooks playing a masturbating philosopher. Mrs. Robinson is in there somewhere, too.</p>

<p>Movies, we'll stare at for hours; still photos, not so much. I need to get a copy of <em>24 Hour Psycho</em> and watch twenty frames of it (ten seconds). Trick myself into watching an almost-still because I think I'm watching a movie. I have watched a number of other avant-garde films where things happen verrrrry slowly.</p>

<p>Edited to add: "Watch" is not the same as "looking at," though, is it?</p>

[Tim_Lookingbill]

<blockquote>

<p>Go look at a picture of someone you love; and fall in love all over again.</p>

</blockquote>

 

<blockquote>

<p>Many years ago, on one of the (real) philosophy forums frequented by (real) philosophers, they had a long and heated debate about whether it was ethical for a man to masturbate while looking at photos of a long-departed ex-girlfriend. They did not resolve the issue.</p>

</blockquote>

<p><em>Quoting Seinfeld</em>..."Well that must've a been a real Algonquin round table."</p>

<p>I actually do view photos of my former wife longer than ten seconds and she's definitely still alive. My only concern viewing them is how well I fight the urge to want to get back with her, a decision I acted upon back in the early '90's with disastrous results for me.</p>

<p>I never wanted to gratify myself looking at them. Something too deep about my attachment developed over the times I spent with her good or bad that made it feel sacrilegious. Maybe anyone can see why from this polaroid I shot of her back in the early '80's. Can you look at it for more than ten seconds?</p><div></div>

[Julie H]

<p>That's a fine picture, Tim. You were lucky with the color of the car (?) she's leaning against. From the look on her face, I think she liked you. A lot. :)</p>

[Tim_Lookingbill]

<p>Thanks for the kind words, Julie.</p>

<p>Not to add to the perceived crassness of my previously posted female body type photo, but my former wife did not have a "Gap". Some women do and some don't no matter how fit looking they are. I really sense it's an anatomical mystery mainly influenced by bone structure.</p>