How to write about one particular picture

sjmurray · November 10, 2016

Fred, when I read the two examples that Julie gave in her first post I had a strong reaction that the two critics cited were really reading into these photos a whole lot more than I suspect the photographers were intending or thinking about. Its great the critics can add such interpretations, but they are just that, interpretations. I do agree with your statement: “In many of the best instances it's simply a reading of the photo and a look at how the photo operates relative to other photos and the history of photography,” and I think that is very important. My intention was to be a bit of an antagonist here to stir up some reaction and I apparently did a good job! I am definitely not as enthralled about art criticism as some people and I’m just adding my point of view. I am a photographer, and when I look at other people’s photographs, like the famous ones, I simply do not have the kind of thoughts the critics are expressing, even when I really like a certain photograph.

Julie H · November 10, 2016

If you tell us (i.e. write about) what you see in a picture, we can compare and contrast. We can LEARN.

The critics in the OP wrote about what they saw in the pictures. Because of that, we know what they saw. We can discuss it. If nobody writes to tell us what they see/saw, nobody knows what anybody else sees/saw. You ((Steve) have told us what you don't see; you have not told us what you saw in the any of the photos. We can guess what you saw or we can assume; we learn nothing; we go nowhere.

If you disagree with what is written about a picture, write your disagreement. Add something to our learning!

Here is Mary Price disagreeing with Janet Malcolm about Richard Avedon's work:

"Janet Malcolm, whose comments on photography appear in her book Diana and Nikon, says that Richard Avedon in the early 1960s was 'no longer valiantly tussling with the confines of the medium, using them (as poets use regular rhyme and metre) to plumb his unconscious and shape his intentions,' but was making people ugly deliberately as a background for models in photographs where:

[quoting Malcolm] the idea is not to bring models' beauty into relief but to point up its artificiality and vapid unreality. ... Avedon has, of course, created them [the background people 'of unvarying unattractiveness -- fatness or scrawniness, slack-jawed dullness, pitiful agedness'] with his pitilessly scrutinizing strobe lights and mole-into-mountain-making big camera, to whose grim transformations only young children and specially endowed adults, like fashion models and Picasso, are impervious.[/end Malcolm quote]

"Malcolm's savage attack has many targets: weight, intelligence, age, the efficacy of camera equipment, and the intention of the photographer, which according to this passage should be to plumb the unconscious, presumably his own. Alas, the photograph by Avedon that Malcolm is describing gives me a different impression.

[line break added] What seems to Malcolm 'slack-jawed dullness' and 'pitiful agedness' looks to me like elegant older people laughing at a joke. The joke is embodied in the model, all right, but the joke is not on her. She is absurdly fashionable, mocking the pose, and those gathered around her are amused by the difference between a human being and a posed extravaganza of fashion. The photographer sees the joke and perpetuates it in the photograph.

[line break added] Yet either interpretation of the photograph depends on attributing its sense to the photographer. My argument is that such an achievement is the combination of expertise (strobe lights and all) and the imaginative power of the mind. Every image is also subject to the second mind, that of the viewer." [while I can guess which Avedon picture is being discussed, it's not identified in Prices' writing; an example of what not to do :) ]

</blockquote>

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Later, speaking more generally, Mary Price goes on to say:

"Even now, when the critical tendency is to discount the trustworthiness of the photograph, there is an equal and opposite tendency to believe what is seen in it. The question is then removed one step to ask not whether what is seen can be trusted but first to name what is seen and then interpret it. That way of proceeding, that way of talking about the photograph, gives the power of words back to the viewer. When the words complement the photograph, any deception no longer deceives.

[line break added] If photography were a field in which anyone were as good as anyone else, achievement would be accidental and mechanical. It is better to begin with the generous assumption that the photographer transcribes what he sees and that he does so because what he sees is in some way memorable, remarkable, moving, sensational, or typical. To describe and to name is to continue the process of seeing by interpretation."

</blockquote>

Julie H · November 10, 2016

The photographer who made the picture is also a viewer. He/she too needs to explore, compare and contrast what he/she saw with what we see in his/her picture. Again, here is Mary Price:

"Walker Evans photographed persons in the New York subway cars by riding the trains with a concealed camera. James Ageee says of those subjects:

[quoting Agee] The simplest or the strongest of those beings has been so designed upon by his experience that he has a wound and nakedness to conceal, and guards and disguises by which he conceals it. Scarcely ever, in the whole of his living, are these guards down. Before every other human being, in no matter what intimate trust, in no matter what apathy something of the mask is there; before every mirror it is hard at work, saving the creature who cringes behind it from the sight which might destroy it. [/Price gives more, but I here end her Agee quote; emphasis added by Price]

... Photographer Evans maintained his mask of unawareness, concealing his intention, while at the same time pointing his hidden camera."

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Notice that Price is pointing out that both photographer and subject are masked. Later, moving to Yousef Karsh, famous for his heroic portraits of famous people, Price writes:

"Contrasting his photographs of famous people with photographs of famous people taken by Man Ray, André Kertèsz, or Richard Avedon illustrates how deeply Karsh's mask of admiration obscures the revelation of a private person.

"Karsh thus understands the necessity of looking beneath a public mask, but he does not understand that he has contributed another mask. His <a href="http://67.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_ln57sty1Vu1qfvq9bo1_1280.jpg">Marian Anderson</a>, so wholly and straightforwardly admirable, looks, or could be thought to look, ever so slightly bored."

"... Karsh says, '<a href="http://67.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_ln57sty1Vu1qfvq9bo1_1280.jpg">This</a> is the portrait of a harmonious soul revealing itself unconsciously in song.' But as an example of 'the invisible target,' the secret that can be surprised under the mask, it is too bland. That look of abstraction is characteristic not only of a harmonious soul but of a woman who has just begun to wonder whether she turned the stove off before leaving home. The portrait is beautiful, but Karsh has not made it reveal the unconscious soul."

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Notice how Price points out of the photographer, in this case, "he does not understand that he has contributed another mask." The photographer is a viewer. We are viewers.

Earlier in her text, Price writes:

"Every photograph is in this way a test for the viewer's imagination.

"Some aspect of the real is transcribed, like it or not. The question is not whether, not even how, this occurs, but how the viewer is to think and imagine a description and interpretation that will makes sense and that will correspond to what can be seen and named in the photograph."

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Name what you see in any of the photographs cited in this thread. Begin a discussion.

Ian Taylor · November 10, 2016

talking about photography is like dancing about architecture

Julie H · November 10, 2016

"talking about photography is like dancing about architecture"

Give us an example of one particular picture. Links please.

AlanKlein · November 10, 2016

Huh?

sjmurray · November 10, 2016

I need to “put my money where my mouth is” and talk about what I didn’t like about Julie’s first example of “Jonathan Bayer talking about one of Ben Shahn's pictures of Ozark sharecroppers.”

Borrowing Fred’s format of analysis:

“It is the doll that shows the same lively twinkle as the mother while the baby is hauntingly lifeless and anomic."

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I have been a documentary photographer for almost 50 years. I know that look on a kid’s face. They often look like that when they are simply thinking, especially staring at a strange man with a funny metal object is stuck on his face. The fact that the doll shows a “lively twinkle” is simply chance and a forced interpretation, IMO.

the Virgin Mary and Child allusion of the composition

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When you are documenting people you are just running around trying to compose shots and hoping your subjects aren’t blinking and you’ve caught their eyes closed! I’m sure allusions to the Virgin Mary are far from the photographer’s mind at that moment.

the mother's lively face looking off one way and the doll's with a matching intentness looking off in the other direction.

</blockquote>

Come on! The mother (or maybe grandmother) is simply looking off at something going on outside the frame. Happens all the time when shooting live moments with real people.

My interpretation of Shahn’s photo is that he, being a documentary photographer, is trying to capture images showing these people’s humanity in the circumstances of poverty. The woman’s face to me shows a smile of someone slightly embarrassed about being photographed (perhaps), or she could be responding to someone outside the frame too. The child’s expression I explained earlier. The doll is tattered and further demonstrates their struggle with poverty. The woman’s face to me looks older than her years and reflects her struggles with poverty. She is also very slender, looking at her arm, and she appears undernourished. What also stands out to me is the background: some kind of rural area, and there is what looks like a broken chair in the background, giving the place the feeling of a junkyard, further driving home the impression of poverty. As a documentary photo I think it is very good, but I have different reasons for thinking so than Jonathan Bayer.

Norma Desmond · November 10, 2016

Steve, why did you say you were adopting my method of analysis? I thought I clearly said that what's going on in the mind of the photographer (which you seem to place all your emphasis on) has very little to do with what may be seen in a photo.

I'm sitting here looking at a framed black and white photo I have sitting on my piano which my father took of my mother at the 1939 New York World's Fair, three years before he fought in WWII and six years before they were married, fifteen years before I was born. I have no idea what he was specifically thinking. I assume he was feeling some kind of blossoming love and also having fun seeing my mother pose for him, her hair a little bit in her eyes and her skirt blowing loosely in the wind. Regardless, I see their 60+ year relationship distilled in a sweet moment of innocent and likely pretty spontaneous snapshot. I see the nostalgia of the art deco style monument and symbol of the fair under which she sits. I see the loveliness of her period clothes, I feel my own nostalgia for a time lost. Who the hell cares what my father was thinking when he took the picture! The picture is so much richer than that. There's so much to see if only I look.

Julie H · November 10, 2016

Thanks Steve (sincerely).

My only wish would be that you'd posted purely what you see in the picture — without using it to try to somehow invalidate Bayer's description. I think his description of what *he* saw is as valid as yours is of what *you* see. Both are valuable to the discussion.

Norma Desmond · November 10, 2016

Steve, I just realized that when you said you were adopting my style of analysis you may simply have been referring to using box quotes to highlight statements and then commenting on those statements. Regardless, though, the point is that you keep coming back to trying to show that what a critic says may not reflect what the photographer was thinking when he or she took the picture. I'm trying to convey that that's not what criticism often is and not what the example you just analyzed was trying to do either. It was suggesting a way of seeing, not trying to relate that way of seeing to the specific and conscious thoughts of the photographer at the time of its making.

sjmurray · November 10, 2016

Julie--I did describe what I see in the photo: the paragraph starting with "My interpretation of Shahn’s photo. . ."

Fred, Sorry about the confusion and reference to your methodology. I did just mean using box quotes etc. I appreciate your efforts to get me to understand criticism! I think being a photographer myself, I can't help putting myself in their shoes as if I was the one taking the photo, thus, my interpretation will be quite a bit different, obviously. That's why it is hard for me to read what critics write.

Phil, I get what you are saying in the Friedlander example. Clever juxtapositions are a mainstream of street photography. In the Shahn photo things are just as they were in that moment. You are right, anyone can interpret the chance placement of things any way they want. That's what I earlier referred to as being triggered emotionally by something in the photo, such as what Fred so eloquently described about the photo of his mother. I guess I take that for granted, but I don't regard it as art criticism. For me art criticism was described earlier by Fred: "In many of the best instances it's simply a reading of the photo and a look at how the photo operates relative to other photos and the history of photography.” Perhaps I am being too rigid. Ya think!

Uhooru · November 11, 2016

You are right, anyone can interpret the chance placement of things any way they want.

</blockquote>

....and I find it almost mind boggling on some of the meaning people ascribe to elements of a photo. Take the discussion of Nan Goldin's shadow in the hug shown above.

"... Goldin amplifies the physical and psychological dimensions of The Hug by introducing a shadow to the left that almost swallows the lovers. On the one hand, this combined silhouette signifies their merge, and adds to the sense of their escape into a private space. On the other, it casts a pall over their moment, implying total self-annihilation.

[line break added] It is difficult to speak of shadows without using verbs that convey a sense of doom, since as entities they typically 'loom,' 'haunt' and 'hover.' This shadow extends into the space of their bodies, creating a giant, black void around their heads, suggesting lost consciousness as well as lost identity. Its darkness is particularly damaging to the wholeness of the man ... "

</blockquote>

As interesting and possibly insightful as these projections are, they are basically that. The viewer's own trip on how the photo effects her. Golden didn't "introduce" a shadow. She shot quickly with a flash in a low light situation and created a huge shadow. To ascribe this psychological intent to Goldin is actually quite violent even though well intentioned. I would much more like to see what Goldin herself said about it. Just because the curator is haunted by shadows this attempt to ascribe one to one analogues between photographic elements and interpreted meaning, is inventive and fanciful, in the way that children make up things or find shapes in clouds, but no more. If Nan said that's what she was doing, I'd buy it, but not a curator in a museum, trying to connect dots that may not exist.

AlanKlein · November 11, 2016

Barry, The critics are treating photos as Rorschach blots. Its very silly.

Norma Desmond · November 11, 2016

Golden didn't "introduce" a shadow. She shot quickly with a flash in a low light situation and created a huge shadow.

</blockquote>

I doubt she was as clueless as you seem to think. No doubt, accidents occur all the time and not everything is planned or conscious, but to assume that the shadow in The Hug was just a quick, unintended result of using flash seems mistaken to me.

To ascribe this psychological intent to Goldin is actually quite violent

</blockquote>

Given so much of Goldin's work is about real physical and psychological violence she actually suffered, I doubt she'd consider what a curator has to say about her work to be violent. The use of "violent" with respect to a curator's description, especially in the case of Goldin, is remarkable. Now I'm going back to her work to see what violence looks like.

Norma Desmond · November 11, 2016

The critics are treating photos as Rorschach blots. Its very silly.

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<a href="https://www.moma.org/media/W1siZiIsIjE1NjM4NyJdLFsicCIsImNvbnZlcnQiLCItcmVzaXplIDIwMDB4MjAwMFx1MDAzZSJdXQ.jpg?sha=16e767992ac4934b">Andy Warhol, Rorschach, 1984.</a>

Nothing silly about it.

Not just critics, but many artists (like Warhol) have recognized the "Rorschach" nature of art perception and have done so throughout history. If photos weren't a Rorshach test of sorts, then presumably everyone would see them the same way rather than individually. Now that would be silly.

AlanKlein · November 11, 2016

The problem Fred is that they use the art as a Rorschach blot of the psychology of the artist. They write as if they are Freud analyzing the artist's psyche based upon their interpretation from the photo. That's the part they shouldn't do. Now if they see something in the art that they see, well that's OK because it's their own inner thoughts. But trying to create some mythical story about the artist's intention or psychology in the print is a bridge too far.

Julie H · November 11, 2016

We're not talking about Rorschach blots. We're talking about figurative photographs. Anybody who claims to look at *any* figurative scene without interpreting attitudes and motives in it, is being less than honest, IMO.

Whether or not they are aware of or paying attention to, or willing to write about those inferred interpretations or motives is up to them. To somehow claim that others are lying and they are not is to themselves "create some mythical story about the artist's intention or psychology." Pot calling the kettle black, IMO.

AlanKlein · November 11, 2016

Opium dreams. Reading tea leaves. Sorry. It's all unreal.

Julie H · November 11, 2016

Thank you, Alan. Exactly what I like.

Now you're telling us what *you* see. That's all I ask.

Julie H · November 11, 2016

Photographic writing about a disagreement in what is found in a picture:

Example 1:

Writer A: This is what I see, feel, and am lead to think about when I look at this picture.

Writer B: I don't see, feel, or think any of those things!! Here is what I see, feel and am lead to think about when I look at this picture.

Writer A: That's fascinating! I had no idea that other people didn't see, feel or be lead to think about what I assumed was clearly there. So interesting. But I find your description of what you see, feel, and are lead to think ... bizarre! ... but also eye-opening and mind-opening! Thanks!

Writer B: Me too! But can you tell me more about how you found those things you describe in the picture?

[and a lovely discussion ensues]

*****************

Example 2:

Writer A: This is what I see, feel, and am lead to think about when I look at this picture.

Writer B: That's not what I see, feel, and am lead to think about when I look at the picture therefore you are stupid, a liar, and a fantasist. I am not going to tell you anything about what I see, feel or think; but I will tell you that because I don't see, feel, or think any of what you do, clearly if I mine is not the same as yours, you are full of it.

End of discussion.

Uhooru · November 11, 2016

To somehow claim that others are lying and they are not is to themselves "create some mythical story about the artist's intention or psychology." Pot calling the kettle black, IMO.

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That's a load of bollux Julie, sorry.

Claim others are lying? Wow, that is an interesting interpretation. Who made that claim? I believe I said quite clearly as was said before as the starting point for my post. I think I can explain myself without having words put in my mouth.

You are right, anyone can interpret the chance placement of things any way they want.

</blockquote>

and to Fred:

I doubt she was as clueless as you seem to think. No doubt, accidents occur all the time and not everything is planned or conscious, but to assume that the shadow in The Hug was just a quick, unintended result of using flash seems mistaken to me.

</blockquote>

I don't think she is or was clueless and didn't say that, those are your words Fred. I think she has a very direct, immediate shooting style for those photos using flash and absolutely new it would create a big shadow. But she probably didn't know exactly what it was going to look like, so shot it, liked how it came out and included in her edit. Because she resonated with what she was saying at the time. Her photo projects have an incredible power to convey her intimacy in her community and friends in all its reality.

Julie H · November 11, 2016

Here is University of Arizona professor Carol Flax quoting from a letter from one of her graduate students about how lucky they are to be able to visit the archives of the Center for Creative Photography. This is what the student wrote:

"The most amazing connection for me was seeing Lartigue's work. I have loved his childhood photographs of his family for years. The thought of a little boy looking through his camera and taking beautiful, complex pictures of his little eight-year-old's world thrills me. One photograph in particular, of his cousin leaping down the stone steps, is right out of a child's imagination since she appears to be flying, caught by the camera in mid-air.

[line break added] There is nothing like looking at the genuine photograph; you cannot help but envision the artist's hands, in this case a little boy's hands, touching the very same photograph you are touching, and feeling a more intimate connection with the artist than by merely seeing their work.

"Another artist's work that is almost essential to see in person is the work of Roy DeCarava. His prints are dark and deep and full of detail that is difficult to appreciate in reproduced forms. I found myself feeling with my eyes the textures of the dark details of the smoke filled jazz clubs and smoggy staleness of New York City subway tunnels. The nearly indiscernible forms in the shadows are alive and probe the imagination when DeCarava's work is seen up-close." [Nicole Frocheur, graduate student]

</blockquote>

If you aren't familiar with Lartique or DeCarava, image-search them. You're in for a treat.

Norma Desmond · November 11, 2016

From Barry:

I think she has a very direct, immediate shooting style for those photos using flash and absolutely knew it would create a big shadow. But she probably didn't know exactly what it was going to look like, so shot it, liked how it came out and included in her edit. Because she resonated with what she was saying at the time. Her photo projects have an incredible power to convey her intimacy in her community and friends in all its reality.

</blockquote>

Previously from Barry:

To ascribe this psychological intent to Goldin is actually quite violent

</blockquote>

What we learn is that it's OK for Barry to ascribe psychological intent to Goldin. Barry seems to know what she "absolutely knew" and what things resonated with her. Thanks for clarifying.

When something resonates, it does so because it has meaning to the person experiencing it. Most artists know that "meaning" is something that goes well beyond their own interpretations or intentions. I don't know many artists or even non-artist photographers who think the meaning of their artwork should be limited to what they, themselves, think about it or intended for it. Most artists know that when they put their work out into the world, they generously give up control over its effects on people. Most art is created as a psychological opening and as an invitation, not as the closing of a door, not as a means of saying "Here, this is what this means because I made it and I say so."

Julie H · November 11, 2016

From a different perspective, here is <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Clerk_Maxwell">James Clerk Maxwell</a>:

There are ... some minds which can go on contemplating with satisfaction pure quantities presented to the eye by symbols, and to the mind in a form which none but mathematicians can conceive.

There are others who feel more enjoyment in following geometrical forms which they draw on paper, or build up in the empty space before them.

Others, again, are not content unless they can project their whole physical energies into the scene which they conjure up. They learn at what rate the planets rush through space, and they experience a delightful feeling of exhilaration. They calculate the forces with which the heavenly bodies pull on one another, and they feel their own muscles straining with the effort.

To such men momentum, energy, mass are not mere abstract expressions of the results of scientific enquiry. They are words of power, which stir their sound like the memories of childhood.

For the sake of persons of these different types, scientific truth should be presented in different forms, and should be regarded as equally scientific, whether it appears in the robust form and the vivid coloring of a physical illustration, or in the tenuity and paleness of a symbolic expression.

</blockquote>

.

If you think <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Clerk_Maxwell">James Clerk Maxwell</a> is "silly," we'll have to move on to Einstein. I can do that, too ...

AlanKlein · November 11, 2016

I doubt if many art critics are mystics or psychologists. While it's OK for them to explain how a photo effects their inner experiences, they should not enter into ascribing those effects to some inner workings of the photographer's mind. They probably are wrong.

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