Joel Meyerowitz: phones killed the sexiness of the street

[Supriyo]

The very act of picture taking is a form of nostalgia regardless of the subject.

 

That doesn't sound right to me. What do you mean?

[Supriyo]

The way I see it, I don't always feel nostalgic while taking pictures. Sometimes, the motivation is to explore the subject from varying perspectives and memories from the past may play a role in there, but not necessarily. Other times, its just a play with the camera and something turns out to be good.

[Supriyo]

The point is though that photography in the sense that we're speaking of it here (and which goes beyond the taking part) is essentially a nostalgic endeavour.

 

Well, this is where you lose me though. Its true that Meyerowitz's judgement about modern street photography could be colored by his nostalgia, and thats what Fred was opposed to if I understand correctly. But YOU made a very general statement. At the beginning, you said, "The very act of picture taking is a form of nostalgia regardless of the subject.", in response to this statement: "As a matter of fact, an exercise worth trying is creating the mood of nostalgia in a photo without photographing something old or from childhood.". You are now saying, you don't feel nostalgic about the subject or the photo itself. Then it has to be the act of photographing, aiming or pressing the shutter or walking around with the camera that you may be feeling nostalgic about?

[Supriyo]

Yes, it involves my lifelong experience, I understand that, but thats not always nostalgia. It can and will involve past memories, but those memories and experiences may not be always positive. You are not saying, someone who doesn't have positive past memories (faced a terrible childhood for example) cannot be a photographer, since the act of picture taking has to be a form of nostalgia?

[Supriyo]

The sense of loss - the ephemeral state of being

 

I understand what you are saying, but doesn't that longing, that feeling of loss comes because the person feels that the past was something that will never come back, so it feels precious in some way. I agree the memories may not be overtly positive, but they may not be terribly negative either. I have noticed, when I am nostalgic, I tend to remember the positive memories and suppress the negative ones. If I recollect the negative memories, the nostalgia seems to be diluted. So, coming back to photography, how is this feeling of loss, awareness of ephemeral existence guide all forms of photography, although I can understand it would be quite important for some types of picture taking? Some of my photos are just studies in shapes, forms, geometry, lighting, texture, no other feelings involved, I can swear. I do feel an urge to preserve those photos though, if thats nostalgia, then that comes afterwards, not during picture taking.

[Allen Herbert]

nostalgia

 

Is in every photograph.

 

Nostalgia is part of the human condition.

[Supriyo]

Of course, the nostalgia happens in retrospect and which is why it's so intrinsically linked to photography, not because of the choice of subject but because of the intentional choice to photograph and preserve a subject.

 

My photography does not always involve preserving the subject, it is also about expressing something that I felt or a premeditated vision. Its the satisfaction that what was on my mind is finally realized and the insight I might gain by looking at it. It would be wrong to say that I don't preserve my photos, but what I gain from those photos can be a lot different than a sense of loss and the urge to preserve something. Nostalgia, if present definitely takes a backstage in such cases for sure.

 

Coming back to your original comment, "The very act of picture taking is a form of nostalgia regardless of the subject.", Fred was talking about the nostalgia a viewer might feel by looking at a photo, while you are talking about the nostalgia the photographer feels for his/her own photos, these two are different things, isn't it?

 

I'd say it's exactly these pictures that you want to pay the most attention to in terms of what they could mean or should mean.

 

In retrospect, I do, but I am not sure how much role nostalgia plays in there.

[Vincent Peri]

The definition of nostalgia that I found is:

 

"A feeling of pleasure and sometimes slight sadness at the same time as you think about things that happened in the past."

 

With that in mind, I virtually never experience nostalgia when taking photos.

[Allen Herbert]

"With that in mind, I virtually never experience nostalgia when taking photos. "Vincent.

 

Perhaps a feeling of freezing time.

[Allen Herbert]

Which is in a sense....

 

Is nostalgia

[Supriyo]

Which is in a sense....

 

Is nostalgia

 

In other words, lack of nostalgia is also nostalgia.

[Supriyo]

My role as "the photographer" seems arbitrary in the whole process because once the photographs are taken I must assume the role of an observer in order to give the photographs meaning when I'm looking at them, regardless of what any viewer might feel when looking at them.

 

but the kind of nostalgia you were talking about only applies when I am viewing my own photographs. That would mean, my viewing of my own photographs is distinct from any other viewer viewing them. Therefore, the role as the photographer hardly seems arbitrary.

[Supriyo]

May be. What I am saying is, when I view other people's photos, I never feel any sense of preserving the subject or the photo. Its never that personal to me.

[Allen Herbert]

" when I view other people's photos, I never feel any sense of preserving the subject or the photo. Its never that personal to me"Supiyo.

 

But when you look at the old time photos you do have a feeling that they should be preserved for all time.

 

Todays photos are tomorrow...

[Supriyo]

When someone has found, scanned and uploaded them to the web, for me to view them, I typically assume they are being preserved. Bystander mentality.

[Supriyo]

I don't think, nostalgia is affected by the pace as which photos are posted online. Societies, cultures, neighborhoods change as usual over time, even at a faster rate than before in many regions. So, fifty years from now, someone somewhere may put up an exhibition of old photos archived from internet caches, and that would generate nostalgia as usual.

[Supriyo]

Why do you think, people in future wouldn't feel nostalgia. Photos aren't the only agents that bear memories. New shopping malls and food courts will appear in places of old ones. News and social networking sites will change. May be, your thought that there is no future for nostalgia is a nostalgic sentiment.

[Supriyo]

We are already pretty deeply into the digital technology age. I haven't experienced any old photos in the last 10 years, in the tactile sense. Whatever I saw was on the internet, and some of them have been pretty nostalgic for me, at times.

[Supriyo]

Nostalgia will become more irrelevant in the not too distant future. There will be no need for it - nor for memory - since you could simply relive everything that you've experienced and have captured so far.

 

I guess, 150 years back, somebody might have said the same thing about photography. I wonder how people used to feel nostalgic when there were no old photos around, and how that changed when photography was introduced. Nostalgia, like any other human emotion is inherently human. As situations change, we will find new ways to experience our emotions, not old ways, new ways.

[Norma Desmond]

"Prediction is very difficult, especially if it's about the future."

--Nils Bohr, Nobel laureate in Physics

[Supriyo]

Virtual technology is virtual, no matter how lifelike it is. I think, more we experience VR, more we will appreciate the value of reality. And no matter what, VR can never bring back our dead relatives, neither one's childhood. So nostalgia isn't going anywhere for now.

[Supriyo]

Unless what we call reality is itself a simulation that exists in an actual reality that we can't fathom nor appreciate (kinda like the symbolical/paradoxical premise of The Matrix in which the humans functioned as batteries that powered the very code of the matrix that kept humans in compliance...).

 

Hmmm... and we are going to achieve all that in fifty years?

 

Fifty years from now when nostalgia is finally deprived of a subject, nostalgia itself will be the thing to be nostalgic about.

[Vincent Peri]

Hmm... this is one thread

I won't be nostalgic for...

http://bayouline.com/o2.gif

[Supriyo]

Now the question is, can the great apes feel nostalgia.

[Norma Desmond]

Here's a bit of personal nostalgia, me on the porch of my house in college, about 42 years ago, at a pre-graduation party.

 

 

Who could have predicted the life I would go on to lead? Certainly not me.

"Those who have knowledge, don't predict. Those who predict, don't have knowledge. "

—Lao Tzu