How to 'read' a photo book

[inoneeye]

"Was there intention beyond capturing a special moment or is sam wanting to communicate something..." 👈 rhetorical 

 

14 minutes ago, samstevens said:

gifted by the situation

👍

 

as opposed to a crafted moment with an intent.

[samstevens]

37 minutes ago, inoneeye said:

Grammar. 

While the specific intent may be anywhere from transparent to decipherable to elusive to opaque, that there is intent seems rather clear, regardless of what that intent is. I think that’s a start towards expression, empathy, meaning, communication, understanding, any or all of these. I read a deliberate layering of focus and emphasis … as well as a symbolic challenge in the contrast between hard foreground mask (self?) and artistic background painting (sensual passion?). Now, I can do with all that something very different than another viewer and either or both viewers can project correctly or incorrectly onto the photographer but that wouldn’t put either viewer in control here. 

[je ne regrette rien]

On 11/23/2022 at 8:54 PM, samstevens said:

That porousness is such a key and it's why precision and categories so often fail when discussing art, even though it's hard not to be restrictive when applying words to photos or groups of them.

And still there are so many people drawing a precise confine between what is art and what not. It’s exactly that porousness that makes it so hard.

A picture by Jeff Wall comes to my mind (Untitled (Overpass), 2001), or the “Audience” series by Thomas Struth. Unquestionably art. But how many pictures taken in the unknown tourist in the Vatican Museum in Rome, in the Pergamon Museum in Berlin or the MoMA in New York City are there? Where do we draw our porous line?

Who draws the porous line?

[je ne regrette rien]

On 11/23/2022 at 8:28 PM, samstevens said:

There's a fascination to "framed" reality, which is what a photo can be even when reality is presented as is. Walker Evans comes to mind. Robert Adams.

There’s more to it than just a frame.

The mentioned Jeff Wall and Thomas Struth are just two examples. It’s beyond any analytical explanation.

[je ne regrette rien]

17 hours ago, samstevens said:

The intent is not making the photo, IMO. At most, it’s stimulating it, along with so many other non-intentional factors also at play I’ve mentioned in an earlier post. Intention is significant and powerful. I think there’s also a point where strained awareness of one’s own intention becomes self-conscious and can get in the way. 

Intent is different front controlling (here we go again!) the myriad of elements potentially in a picture.

Some photographers claim that they control them all. Some may, some may not (I don’t care).

The intent is to put out a photo. Targeted, universal, controlled, random. All is possible. It’s the final outcome that I consider: presenting a picture (or a visual work). And the the intent is surrendered.

[samstevens]

5 hours ago, je ne regrette rien said:

The intent is to put out a photo.

I’m feeling like this thread may have gone off the rails and my own misunderstanding of your thoughts has contributed to that. Sorry if that’s the case. Maybe we can get it back on track. I thought I understood what you were pondering in terms of intent until I read the above. That’s the intent you’re talking about, the basic intent to make a photo? I thought you were talking about the intended message. Here are a couple of quotes from you to help you see why I thought you were talking about more than the intention to make a photo.

“As I must have said a couple of times, photography as a visual expression and as a medium for interaction is based on intent (of the photographer) and understanding (of the viewer).”

Are you talking about nothing more than “the intent to put out a photo” and the viewer understanding that your intent was to put out a photo? 

“If I perceive a deeper intent, I try to understand how I see it”

Surely you mean, by deeper intent, deeper than the intent to make a photo or a photo book, some intended purpose, meaning, communication … ???

Anyway, for clarification, can you speak specifically to a photographer’s intent and what you’ve been wondering about it and how it relates to this thread and to a viewer’s understanding? Can you also explain what “surrendering the intent” means to you, because you’ve referenced it a number of times and I don’t know what to make of it.

I’m also less than clear on what you wanted to discuss regarding photo books. Can you distill your issue about photo books to the main point you wanted to make or question?

Thanks.

[inoneeye]

“Grammar” 👍 - the grammar of a photo or a photo book fascinates me and looking behind the curtain expands the dialogue? with self and viewer.

Edited November 26, 2022 by inoneeye

[Allen Herbert]

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Posted Wednesday at 01:50 AM

"A picture is worth a thousand words" Alan.

There's is a thought. However, some folks believe a thousand words...well, how can any picture be more worthy than a thousand word? Indeed, you can turn a blade of grass into a masterpiece of pictorial photography, with just a mere thousand words.

Just a thought.

Anyway, being me, a photo. Finger salute to the thousand words.

 

 

[Allen Herbert]

A photo that works, is a photo that communicates in its own language, and reaches out to the viewers.

It does not need a thousand words'

Crap photos need that. 

The emperor without clothes is a good analogy. 

 

[inoneeye]

 

.

[je ne regrette rien]

On 11/26/2022 at 6:29 PM, samstevens said:

I’m feeling like this thread may have gone off the rails and my own misunderstanding of your thoughts has contributed to that. Sorry if that’s the case. Maybe we can get it back on track.

Hi Sam, I must say that I did my best to help derailing the thread.

And it took me a while to try and answer you.

As a matter of fact the trigger for my musings was how I wanted to "read" the photo books in my ever-growing library not only looking at the single pictures as such but also thinking of how I could look at the works in a unitary way, as they are conceived, discovering their rhythm, the whispers, the shouts, the passages and the cornerstones (I believe an author makes photographs with a purpose in mind, decides to create a book, selects, edits, processes, sequences, cuts, adds, subtracts. As I do when I self-publish my books).

My mentioning of "intent" is only instrumental in this context, I think that the author's intent is never fully knowable and many times not knowable at all. But the fascinating exercise is to take the photo book, examine and explore it, and, more important, feel, perceive and sense to try and figure out what the work means as a whole. This process is necessary unilateral, because direct interactions are unlikely.

Now, feeling, perceiving and sensing, when there is no direct interaction when I handle a book is a very subjective approach. Subjective not in that it is just based on personal tastes, sensations and preferences. It also includes what the viewer knows. Since we are talking about photography, it includes other photographs, other authors, other comments and critiques on photographs and authors, essays of experts, treaties on the history of photography. You name them.

Therefore, my approach to "reading" photo books is putting my own knowledge, experience, feelings, perceptions in relation to the works I see to try and imagine what is behind it, what the underlying idea was, what the author apparently did to produce the work and what they might have wanted to communicate.

Being aware that I may be wrong and not understand the real motivation and intent. Does it matter?

With "surrendering the intent" this is what I mean: the author handing over their work to the viewer's subjectivity.

I hope I'm clear.

 

 

 

Edited December 1, 2022 by je ne regrette rien

[samstevens]

1 hour ago, je ne regrette rien said:

the fascinating exercise is to take the photo book, examine and explore it, and, more important, feel, perceive and sense to try and figure out what the work means as a whole

Your goal here seems admirable and I often try to do something similar. I approach most books both in terms of their photos as individuals and as a whole. Some books are meant and lead me more toward one than the other. For me, while what a work means can be important, what I feel may not be dependent on or even related to a meaning as much as a gut response to something shown or expressed. Often, a photo will hit me on that sort of primal level and that may or may not inspire me to find meaning. Some photos don't seem to want to mean much of anything, and are nevertheless significant. Off hand, I would probably say that a photo and a photo book do something or are something as much as they mean something. (This suggests the active side of photography ... the creative act and the active part of viewing and response.

1 hour ago, je ne regrette rien said:

This process is necessary unilateral, because direct interactions are unlikely.

Now, feeling, perceiving and sensing, when there is no direct interaction when I handle a book is a very subjective approach. Subjective not in that it is just based on personal tastes, sensations and preferences. It also includes what the viewer knows. Since we are talking about photography, it includes other photographs, other authors, other comments and critiques on photographs and authors, essays of experts, treaties on the history of photography. You name them.

Here is probably where we differ the most. I don't think the process is unilateral even though direct interactions are unlikely. The sharing between a photographer and viewer, mediated by the photo, happens for me without direct interaction. @inoneeyementioned a common empathy between photographer and viewer for a subject of the photographer's photo. That common empathy can be for other things about the photo in addition to or instead of the subject. It can simply be for the photo itself. The shared history referenced in a photo, the understanding of culture, the symbolism of feelings, the textures, the methods of abstraction are all things that I feel both reflect and establish a significant relationship between photographer and viewer.

As to subjectivity, many of the things you mention as being subjective (other authors, other photos, comments, critiques, essays, history) are actually objective. They exist in the world outside ourselves. Your feelings about them may be subjective, but all these aspects of life are objective, observable, knowable.

1 hour ago, je ne regrette rien said:

the author handing over their work to the viewer's subjectivity.

In part, because of what I said about subjectivity and objectivity and, in part, for other reasons, I don't experience others' photos as being handed over to my subjectivity. I think of them as being shared with me. Even though I may never know what the photo means to the photographer or how it makes them feel, even though I may completely miss the photographer's intent, the photographer has set before me the stimulus to whatever I experience, and that stimulus is crucial and ever-present. It bears the photographers imprint.  

1 hour ago, je ne regrette rien said:

Being aware that I may be wrong and not understand the real motivation and intent. Does it matter?

It may or may not. Rarely would I consider a reaction to a photo wrong, even when different from what the photographer intended. The photographer may tell me he meant A, B, and C but I am still entitled to see and feel X, Y, and Z and not be wrong. There are caveats here. If a photo is of WWII and I think it's of WWI, clearly I'm wrong. Then there are questionable cases, such as Georgia O'Keeffe, who seemed genuinely annoyed that her flowers were being interpreted sexually and I think, though I don't know that she ever made this explicit, she may have felt there was a bit of misogyny in that (or at least a world projecting something onto her because she was a woman). I think she has every right and I understand her desire to set people straight on their projections, but I think those interpretations are understandable and valid, regardless of what understanding she wants her flowers imbued or not imbued with.

I think getting at motivations and intent can be enlightening and is pretty natural. I think trying too hard and expecting too much (both on the part of photographers and viewers) can yield diminishing returns and even thwart the art or photographic experience. Most art winds up expressing more than could ever be intended. So I tend to elevate expression over intention and the result, what I'm actually looking at, over motivation.

[samstevens]

Just want to add a thought:

How do we empathize or develop relationships with people we directly interact with? We're not literally inside their heads. We observe. We read signs from them, interpret behavior, notice their gestures, hear their words, watch their actions. How do we empathize or develop relationships with artists we don't directly interact with? We read signs from them, see through their eyes, see them gesture in their work, notice threads and strands they develop. I do believe we can relate to their visual behavior in a different but also similar way that we observe behavior in those we directly interact with. In person, someone's smile tells us a lot. But the precision and care of Adams comes through in the gestures of his photos, the intimacy and inquisitiveness of Brassai come through in his photographic gestures, the tone he presents his subjects with, the sensuality of Nan Goldin comes through her photos. Now, I've disagreed with friends on what to make of another friend's words and actions just like viewers may disagree on what to make of someone's photos. But such disagreement doesn't negate the fact that there's also plenty of agreement and that relationships to artists are formed through their work even though they are not in-person relationships.

[je ne regrette rien]

18 hours ago, samstevens said:

I think getting at motivations and intent can be enlightening and is pretty natural. I think trying too hard and expecting too much (both on the part of photographers and viewers) can yield diminishing returns and even thwart the art or photographic experience.

I agree. I perceive the feeling as some kind of flow coming over me, sensations that not necessarily can, or should be described.

18 hours ago, samstevens said:

So I tend to elevate expression over intention and the result, what I'm actually looking at, over motivation

Isn't motivation at the ground of expression? Not a goal by itself but it's conscious or unconscious motor.

 

15 hours ago, samstevens said:

How do we empathize or develop relationships with artists we don't directly interact with?

I see empathy as closely related to physical relationship. For me it has to do with real-life interactions.

I can feel attracted to an artist, creator or photographer-author knowing their body of work. Empathy for me is more than "feeling with", its, as Wikipedia says:

Quote

understand or feel what another person is experiencing from within their frame of reference, that is, the capacity to place oneself in another's position.

and this frame of reference includes more than can be mediated by any kind of creation, IMO it requires direct interaction which enables direct perception and feeling.

[samstevens]

Much of the beauty, personality, and depth of art, I think, comes from just that lack of direct interaction. It's this transcendence that makes art special. We often have to ask questions of the creation rather than the creator and much of our interaction comes not directly but through signs and symbols, gestures and expressions or expressiveness.

The dictionary definition gives a helpful clue. Frame of reference. What does it mean to frame a scene with one's eye via the lens? That is a deliberate and discrete frame of reference shared by photographer and viewer. And, from within that frame (what's been isolated within it), a dialogue ensues. Perhaps in-person relationships feel stronger because of the ability to go back and forth with someone, as we're doing here. But I think the back and forth one has with a photo, the questions asked, the answers supplied, the unfolding, the unsaid, the questions remaining, the suggestiveness, the mysteries can all penetrate just as deeply if not in some cases more deeply than the more traditional back and forths we have with people ... because it's through a medium, not in spite of that. The language of art relies on the senses we use when in direct contact with someone, just in a different and sometimes seemingly more oblique way. Seemingly, because I think this kind of relationship can be approached and honed to be as empathetic and real as in-person relationships. And, ironically, because obliqueness may actually add to the intimacy of that relationship.

Rather than the artist or photographer handing over their work to my subjectivity, I think in part they are handing me a way out of my subjectivity, offering me their perspective or at least a different one and, to varying degrees (often greatly) asking me to change or question my own. Picasso's Cubism, Monet's Impressionism, Stieglitz's Pictorialism, Man Ray's Surrealism are more than simply reflections of the way they saw. I think they're invitations (sometimes rather insistent) on expanding a viewer's frame of reference and way of seeing, of offering transcendence. 

[c_watson1]

It's really often a matter of sorting the artefact/milieu relationship. Understanding the world--and how it made the photographer who made the images--goes a long way to enhancing enjoyment of a good photo book.

[je ne regrette rien]

16 hours ago, samstevens said:

Picasso's Cubism, Monet's Impressionism, Stieglitz's Pictorialism, Man Ray's Surrealism are more than simply reflections of the way they saw. I think they're invitations (sometimes rather insistent) on expanding a viewer's frame of reference and way of seeing, of offering transcendence.

Indeed.

I recently saw different self-portraits by Picasso, depicting his evolution over the years. A plastic example of feelings and influences. To appreciate it one has to be aware of such evolution and has to feel as well.

Another artist that struck me recently is Jeff Wall: his works are so hyper-real that surrealism can be clearly perceived.

Gregory Crewdson, Thomas Struth, Andreas Gursky and others in different ways.

[samstevens]

You brought up the importance of frame of reference relative to empathy. My point in talking about the artists I mentioned was to expand on how frame of reference specifically plays a part in my relationship with artists. I tried to directly address a concern of yours with regard to empathy and the viewer/artist relationship. I don’t understand how the Picasso portraits and the artists you’ve brought up offers a response to me about frame of reference and empathetic relationships to artists.

On photo books, something a friend said last night led to my thinking about the difference not between a single photo and a photo book but between an exhibit and a photo book. There may be some clues about ways of reading photo books if I compare and contrast that to ways I experience photo exhibits.

[je ne regrette rien]

3 hours ago, samstevens said:

I don’t understand how the Picasso portraits and the artists you’ve brought up offers a response to me about frame of reference and empathetic relationships to artists.

Isn't the knowledge of the creative process - artistic process, if you will - one key element to (re-)construct the frame of reference which leads to the empathy with an artist/author? That means knowing, and trying to understand, how the artist with whom I feel empathy has evolved during their artistic course and integrating this understanding in how the emphatic relationship is shaped? 

[samstevens]

9 minutes ago, je ne regrette rien said:

Isn't the knowledge of the creative process - artistic process, if you will - one key element to (re-)construct the frame of reference which leads to the empathy with an artist/author? That means knowing, and trying to understand, how the artist with whom I feel empathy has evolved during their artistic course and integrating this understanding in how the emphatic relationship is shaped? 

Yes. Sorry, since you had said you don’t think viewers and artists can develop an empathetic relationship, I incorrectly read you as giving examples to support that view. I now understand otherwise. Thanks.

In terms of photo books, I’ll continue thinking about it, but I think scale (compared to viewing an exhibition) is relevant to how we experience a book. Being able to hold a collection in our hands vs. viewing a collection in a series of rooms. Just the idea of holding something while viewing it has a kind of power. I love both books and exhibitions and wouldn’t necessarily elevate one over the other. It’s more about noticing some qualities of each in developing a grammatical structure for relating to them.

[je ne regrette rien]

2 hours ago, samstevens said:

Yes. Sorry, since you had said you don’t think viewers and artists can develop an empathetic relationship, I incorrectly read you as giving examples to support that view. I now understand otherwise.

I have to apologise, I realise that I have used empathy thinking of two different things:

• in first instance a mutual emotional relationship, where one person projects into another developing a deeper sensorial understanding;
• second, representing the viewer’s research and investigation of an author/artist that leads to knowledge, understanding and emotional closeness. Not reciprocal and not based on a mutual relationship.

Sorry for that logical faux-pas.

2 hours ago, samstevens said:

In terms of photo books, I’ll continue thinking about it, but I think scale (compared to viewing an exhibition) is relevant to how we experience a book. Being able to hold a collection in our hands vs. viewing a collection in a series of rooms

In this respect I see a radical difference between the two ways to reach out to the public: books are more “rigid”, normally have a certain limit of the number of pictures and can be viewed over and over again. Exhibitions do not have such limits ( e.g.: I have seen a very large retrospective of Henri Cartier-Bresson in Paris at the Beaubourg with over 500 “objects”. Tough experience), but have the advantage of the three-dimensionality, allowing the viewer to move in and out, close and far from the pictures.

I love both, even if books are more easily accessible from where I stand.

[je ne regrette rien]

2 hours ago, samstevens said:

Sorry

 

22 minutes ago, je ne regrette rien said:

apologise

 

22 minutes ago, je ne regrette rien said:

Sorry

Lots of apologies here. But I think we are aware of our points of convergence but also of the differences in opinions we like to stick to, aren't we?

[samstevens]

5 hours ago, je ne regrette rien said:

• in first instance a mutual emotional relationship, where one person projects into another developing a deeper sensorial understanding;
• second, representing the viewer’s research and investigation of an author/artist that leads to knowledge, understanding and emotional closeness. Not reciprocal and not based on a mutual relationship.

I have been talking about the first instance of empathy …

“Reading is a conversation. All books talk. And a good book listens as well.” —Mark Haddon, novelist

The relationship I feel to photographers and artists, mediated by their photos and artworks, is a back and forth. Some of it can be enhanced by research and investigation, but that’s not really what I’m talking about. It’s more about my own stance as viewer toward the art itself, as an interactive one, giving to it and getting from it. The more developed I’ve become as a photographer, the more empathy I’ve been able to experience even with photographers long gone, feeling both like I can stand in their shoes and like they’ve stood in mine. 

One of the first, and still most powerful, photo books I was given was Roman Vishniak’s A Vanished World, an intimate look at Jewish life in Europe in the ‘30s. That book gave me so much but also asked a lot of me and still does. Not only do I feel his empathy with those he photographed, but I can feel him reaching through to future generations (and to me) who would need to see these images. And I can feel that he must have felt something in return from those future generations he was reaching out to. A photo book can convey significant history—political, social, cultural, personal—and history is alive and is present.

Edited December 4, 2022 by samstevens

[je ne regrette rien]

Empathy is a complex notion. In my concept I tend to associate it to an interpersonal relationship with mutual exchange, based on mutual interest. Instinctively I do not think of objects as mediums, even if a careful consideration may include them as well.

Thus the role of books in creating empathy, they have a role in empathising, as you say:

9 hours ago, samstevens said:

A photo book can convey significant history—political, social, cultural, personal—and history is alive and is present.

Empathy does not only inform my attitude towards a person, my emotions, I associate it with my behaviour. But my view may be reductive.