Close Encounter of the Third Kind.

This seems to evoke a whole gamut of responses which reflect, in turn the responder's sense of identity.  Without a background story, reviewers will of course project their personal content onto the forms in the image, both photographic and social.

So here is my Rorshach.  The Muslim woman in the lead might very well be talking on a cell phone. At first glance it is tempting to think they are responding to the bikini'd figure, but closer observation brings that into question. The apparent focal length of the lens is short telephoto, say in the 85 mm range.  This is only "apparent" because there are no solid size clues from the background, and you can't infer, as you could with known tree species, for example, the amount of flattening occurring in the picture space..  With an 85 mm lens, the bikin'd woman could be as much as 15 to 20 feet further from the camera than the Muslim women, taking her out of their natural line of sight. If the venue is in fact a place where it is common to see western and Muslim dress conventions mixed at random, there is no reason the Muslim women "must" be reacting to the bikini.

 Despite that, the photographer seems to be putting such significance on the photo anyway.  Fair enough, but equivocal.  That doesn't weaken it for me, but changes the semiotics.

Doisneau and Cartier-Bresson to mention just two exemplars, did not hit people over the head with their juxtapositions...they often left room for irony and ambiguity in playing against expectations.  Stark contrasts in photos push the image into the proselytizing and propagandizing end of the communication spectrum.  Ambiguity keeps a human dimension.

Would most people study the photo, or glance, smile, and click/flip past it?  That is my question as a photo editor.  The impact would be stronger if the lead Muslim expression/gesture was more dramatic, such as "wide eyed" or "condemnatory" or etc...but that is from the standpoint of a photo editor who chooses photos for their specific communication content, not their entire existential gamut of attributes. As a photographer, and as someone who likes to look at pictures, I am fine with the subtlety.

Someone has mentioned the photo would be improved if the photographer were closer, echoing Robert Capa's dictum to get closer, then closer yet. I think it is an interesting suggestion, but the very nature of the photo is predicated on a distance and framing prerogative of this particular photographer.  How would a woman, a police forensics technician, a psychologist have taken this photo?

 It doesn't matter, at that point you are up against an obdurate given...a certain aloofness, a certain sense of privilege and distance is communicated by the photographer's entire gesture starting with the noticing of the encounter and continuing with the framing, shutter release, and subsequent posting for public review.

 I happen to have read the photographer's interpretation of "different cultures peacefully coexisting" which is acceptable as an artist's statement of intent.  But it makes me want to bring out my magnifying glass and ask him how his wife or sister react to the photo...do they see the same thing he does?  If not, what do they see?  How would a person who could not afford a trip to the beach or a camera react to the photo?  How would Hillary Clinton react to the photo?  Would she use it for or against her campaign for peace in the Mid East?  It is naive, and perhaps wilfully and generously so, to assume that people not casting rocks at each other do not wish harm toward each other.

As to the technical quality, I think it is better than just good.  It is very good. The D-Lighting compression of the Nikon is used to good advantage in bringing the texture of the white stone and some sense of the pattern on the second woman's shirt into the value map of the photo, while preserving excellent skin tone where it counts.  The image could be moved more to the right in the frame, allowing the bikini'd figure a disproportionate amount of space which then creates a more interesting dynamic between the solitary figure and the group.

So to render judgment according to Goethe's three criteria of criticism:

1. What was the photographer trying to accomplish? He was trying to deeply humanize the abstraction of cultural conflict, by finding and seizing an incident that accomplished that through the juxtaposition of both idealized and remarkably specific femininity in two contrasting cultures.

2. How well did he do it?  Very very well, actually.  With a combination of formal and informal qualities that create an object lesson for those who care about such things, he has offered the viewer a rich study of symbol and reality intersecting in a vivid visual context.

3. Was it worth doing?  Ah, here is the hard part.  I personally believe we are at the threshold of a new era in communication.  Many cliches and symbols have been created and exploited in the last century of photographic endeavor.  Do we really need another formalism of the difference between Muslim and Western attitudes, however well done?  Or should we, as photographers and editors, be looking a little harder for the fresh, the cliche-breaker, the new glimpse that contains new possibilities for integrating disparate beliefs?  

If I were to rate this on how much this is worth capturing and showing I would say it makes a nice prize for a young photographer's portfolio, it is dubious as even a "miscellany" style humor photo, and should serve as a goad to a truly ambitious social observer to look a bit harder, think a bit more, interact a bit more, search one's soul a bit more before settling for the tempting easy trope.  Go further.  You are on the right track, and have the merit and talent.  Push your own assumptions, now, and give us something that really speaks to a world of change and possibility.

I won't apologize for the length of this post.  I believe the photo and photographer are worth the detailed attention.

I don't see any pools in the picture. So these rocks could be anywhere unless the photographer says so, which he has neither confirmed, nor denied, unless I missed it. Also, I never said it isn't about the location. I said it's not the focus or the most important part of the photo. It's not a world heritage site because of the travertine pools either. That was a title given due to its historical value. I could understand your point of view if the photo were more like this: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/53/Pamukkale_Hierapolis_Travertine_pools.JPG but as it is, it's about the people.

Fred, if Saad came out and said that he shoots at Pamukkale every day and is totally inured to it's powerful charisma,

and he was only there in this case to capture the type of human interaction that has been dissected above, and that to

him this image would be an equal success if shot at any beach, then I would feel compelled to reconsider my

insistence that the location is so integral to the composition. I try to give an artist's intent, whenever that info is

available, equal weight to my own response in seeking enrichment from their art. It seems only fair, and more

interactive as well.

David, you see a bikini in the photo, and wet clothes on three other people, so the pools are enough in evidence to be

part of the location just by that fact alone. However, you also see East and West, so that strongly suggests Turkey,

where Asia and Europe literally meet. And travertine in Turkey is famously (if not only) associated with Pamukkale. So

that's how I, who have never been to Turkey, realized where this was shot. Hopefully that helps explain why I feel the

location is integral - though I do also feel that the stunning beauty which your link reveals is another important reason

why location isn't secondary here. 

But I would absolutely welcome some feedback from this photo's artist. This forum is supposed to be about him, after

all!

Patrick, I understand allowing an artist's statement influence. I do it myself at times. In this case, it seems strange that the visual and historical importance the place has for you when you look at the photo would change if the photographer said it wasn't important to him. Though there is the intention of the photographer to take into consideration, there is also the photograph he's presented, which goes well beyond his own intentions and even, I think, goes beyond my own biases and interpretations as a viewer. Art appreciation is in the balance and tension among these things. I think the photograph, the viewer, and the photographer can all assert themselves. I can respect the intent of the photographer and still recognize both the independence and interdependence of the photograph.

Fred, the importance of the place to me would not change; my regard of that importance toward the photograph would.

I think we are in general agreement.

It is neither a landscape nor a portrait,and the first woman with the head scarf is not using a cellphone,she is just laughing and tries to hide her laugh with a little or may be more feeling of shame.
with my utmost respect to the individual and personal opinion of all of yours,it seems to me that non of you have looked at my background and from where I come.it may be seems that it is irrelevant,but for my case it is extremely relevant and in an extraordinary way.
I am a photographer from Iraq,a place used to be a heaven of security for the average citizen who do not care about politics,and this state have turned into hell after the ninth of April 2003.
after that date the peoples have turned into each other ,the killing have started based on racial,religious,ethnic,political,occupational,and every body have started to denies the others right to speak,to govern,to act,to vote,and to work,it is just the greatest chaotic mess ever happened in the history of the whole area.upon publishing such image I am dreaming of my country to become such a place where the others opinions is respected in choosing the way of living,clothing,talking,simply to live your way,but do not deny the others their own ways.
Some images can not be viewed without taking the perspective of the eyes of the beholder.
It is simply my dream for my people and my country that I express it in this image.
Live free all of you.

"my regard of that importance toward the photograph would"

Yes, that is what I was questioning.

To me, what's important is what the photo looks like, not what I'm told. Whether she's on a cell phone is unimportant to me. That it may look like she is on a cell phone is very important to a photo. Were I to care whether people thought she was on a cell phone, I'd shoot the photo in such a way as to be determinative. Were I to want that left ambiguous, I might shoot it like it was shot here. Were I not to think about it at the time, or even care about it, I'd accept that some might think she was on a cell phone, because I'd step back from what I "knew" enough to consider instead what I see.

With all due respect to the photographer, I'm quite aware, as a photographer, that not everyone knows or cares where I'm from and what my life is like. If my photos don't transcend that biographical information, that tells me something about my photos. I may care or not about that. Some people want their photos very tied to their biographies and others don't. Some are making universal gestures, some very specific. Different viewers will approach it differently, as seen in the discussion between Patrick and me.

You didn't choose to upload this photo with any accompanying text or story, so obviously you were content to have it seen apart from your biography. The only text you accompanied it with is a tongue-in-cheek, lighthearted title reference a sci-fi movie. That title hardly conveys any of the seriousness you seem to impart to this photo and with which you just admonished a roomful of viewers.

My apologies to everyone. I was mistaken. I didn't realize that traditionally dressed Turkish women and scantly clad non-Turkish women can only coexist at the travertine pools, and nowhere else in the world. Again, I'm terribly sorry.

David, I can't make you acknowledge my actual point, any more than I can force you to care that the photographer himself has just weighed in with info that sort of renders of our side discussion more worth dropping than continuing. I can say that up until your last comment, I felt like I and maybe the rest of this forum was gaining something from your contributions. So thanks for everything up til then, because your opinion (when it's not steeped in bitter sarcasm and aimed specifically at offending) seems well informed.

Saad, thank you for weighing in with your sensibilities. PN benefitted greatly from you taking advantage of this rare opportunity to deliver to a larger audience your substantive and thoughtful feedback about what this photograph means to you. I am uplifted to think that for you, who are living in Iraq and suffering the duress of war and opression, essential freedom includes pursuing your human rights vision through the medium that all of us out here are passionate about. The gift of expression available through photography is the greatest freedom that I enjoy as a luxury, and it makes me feel connected on a human level to hear that same sentiment from you in your vastly different circumstances so far away.

Fred, I will happily reconnect with you another time - thank you for engaging.

Congratulations again, Saad, I love this photograph you have made. It deserves to be singled out as the Photograph of the Week.

Saad, thanks for the context. It's not a bad thing when a photo prompts different interpretations from people, that means it is a stimulating, intresting photo. After reading a bunch of comments about what people thought the leading woman's expression was, I thought that she was smiling either because she recognizes the irony of the moment and accepts it, or maybe added to that, she is a little embarrased but also accepting, or maybe because of the camera as well? Also the woman behind her. The cool thing about the photo is that for all the powerful emotions and perspectives this picture brings up for you, and your story for the photo and yourself makes absolute sense to any human being, to me all that substance is brought to light in a really , endearing, awkward and funny "small" moment that you were on the ball to catch which connects deeply to really big issues. That's a gift to be able to recognize that moment and its meaning and get the picture. I think the photo is a big winner. Now I'll have to go look at more of your photos.

Some of the comments in this discussion remind me of that lyric in Sheryl Crow's song All I Wanna Do:

This photo is simply a slice of life - a view of a life that I, personally, have not experienced. What impresses me as wonderful - because it prompts in me a sense of wonder about a situation I haven't personally witnessed - may not appeal to others. And that's fine. The differing opinions are at least as enlightening as the photo itself. Despite the rather lengthy deconstructions, misapprehensions (collage? snow?) and fine-tooth parsing, it succeeds in the goal expressed by Saad, the photographer:

"misapprehensions"

Lex, this word is only significant if one thinks about accuracy. If one is concerned with a description of how a photo looks matching up to the real world situation, "misapprehension" might be a word to use. But "looking like a collage" or "looking like typical snow" can be photographically descriptive and not bother laying claim to what "really was the case." I care much more about how a photo looks than how well it matches up with what was the case. The fact is, to some, it looks like the woman's on a cell phone. That is relevant, whether or not the woman is actually on a cell phone. It describes a certain look and it describes it well. So does "collage" and so does "snow."

And the first woman with the head scarf is not using a cellphone,she is just laughing and tries to hide her laugh with a little or may be more feeling of shame.


That was my first impression. But when people started suggesting she was talking on a cell phone, I thought "well that makes sense too."

I am a photographer from Iraq, a place used to be a heaven of security for the average citizen who do not care about politics, and this state have turned into hell after the ninth of April 2003. After that date the peoples have turned into each other, the killing have started based on racial, religious, ethnic, political, occupational, and every body have started to denies the others right to speak,to govern, to act, to vote, and to work, it is just the greatest chaotic mess ever happened in the history of the whole area....It is simply my dream for my people and my country that I express it in this image.


I like the photo. But I don't know if the photo alone expresses the idea that "I'd like to see Iraq become a relatively stable country like Turkey."


I think a lot of this depends on perception. I live just outside of NYC and have always just taken it for granted that various ethnic and religious groups can more or less coexist.

I was waiting in line at Starbucks the other day. In the same line with me (a secular American who was raisd Christian) was a woman in traditional Islamic dress and an Orthodox Jew with a Yarmulke. None of us gave the other a second thought.

But in the context of your comments, I find myself sobered. Will the United States always be as stable as prosperous as it is right now? With the Republicans and the media trying to whip up hatred between Muslims and Christians, I realize just how fragile society can be.

It is funny that I never, for a moment, had a thought that this was a collage. Never. Nor saw it as a cliche and I see a lot of documentary photos like all of us. And if it is a cliche as someone wrote, go ahead and prove it. If one can see this grouping anyday on the beaches. as one commenter offered, I say, fiddlesticks, kindly go ahead show me three linked examples. Take a week if you will... been to a few beaches. My point,it is hard not to see the cultural thing that Saad was aiming for. I know others saw it and then dismissed it. And that itself is puzzling. We often in discussion go way beyond the given and seek to do a brain scan of the photographer's intent. And here it didn't happen. So I wonder why. The content must have something to do with that. (Now Chassidic women with long skirts dunking in Coney Island, N.Y.? Similar encounter is possible I imagine. But then it would not have the slice of life impact as a document worth recording. Might even be humorous or lighthearted in our pluralism.) This says more. To me.

I believe I do understand the remark about this being a cliche and I agree in that it is common, especially amongst western PJ's and documentarians (which Saad is not necessarily) to get the "east" meets "west" shot. But all the same, even so, this is one of those that works and I think it does because of the faces and the postures etc. It captures the reactions from both perspectives, one to the other, assuming as we do, that there is some sort of polarized dialectic involved between the representations of custom and cultures. That maybe our own projection, but since it is shared enmasse, the photo speaks to that.

Fred, I'm glad you brought that up because I gave a lot of thought to whether misapprehension was the most appropriate word. Overnight, in fact, as I often do before committing to posting a comment.

Here's what cinched the usage for me, as opposed to "mistaken," "misunderstanding," "misinterpretation" or other word that might seem more neutral and perhaps even less pejorative:

In this specific case, a viewer's entire opinion of a photo was influenced, perhaps even manipulated, by the mistaken notion that the photo was a collage or combination of two or more separate exposures combined to produce an effect (which Saad, the photographer, has refuted, along with the mistaken impression that this photo was of a "snowy" scene). In that context, the term misapprehension seems appropriate since it more aptly describes the style of the critique and even the emotional content and context thereof. The alternate terms - mistaken, misunderstanding, misinterpreted, etc. - might have been more appropriate had the viewer regarded the assumption that this photo is a collage in pure terms of unemotional artistic aesthetics or integrity. But choosing to describe it in an emotional context - "poking fun" and "poor taste" - seems to lend itself better to a description as a mistaken apprehension.

At the same time my own interpretation of it as a mostly "fun" photo may similarly be a misapprehension of Saad's actual intention - and he does indeed seem to have a particular intention in mind that I may have mistakenly apprehended by seeming to almost trivialize the photo as merely "fun".

And I still can't improve on Jeff Beddow's pre-POW critique in which he describes this photo as a tabula rasa, a Rorschach test upon which we imprint our own psyches. To reiterate an analogy I probably use too often, we are, again, blind men describing an elephant.

Lex, I see what you mean about misapprehension. Drawing conclusions about the moral character of a photo or photographer from assumptions of what you're seeing is dangerous territory.

I was thinking as a different kind of viewer, one who tries not to draw such conclusions based on how I might think the photo was made. So I wouldn't draw conclusions based on something being a collage unless I knew that's how it was made. But sometimes, a photo has a collage-like look even when it's not a collage. And that look impacts me. I've even done it myself. I've processed photos where I try to isolate a figure from the background and it winds up with a very cut-out look. I will sometimes comment that a photo looks like a collage even when I'm pretty sure it's not. Because I want the photographer to know what it looks like, regardless of what it is. I've even said to people, "that looks odd, it looks like a collage." And their reply "But it's not" seems insufficient. "Yes," I might say, "but it LOOKS like one." And that's significant in SOME respects.

I'll stand by my comment about the cell phone. In fact, she does look like she's on a cell phone, or could be. That look impacts my experience of the photo, regardless of whether she's actually on one. Instead of adamantly telling people she's not on a cell phone, why not just show that? He might not have had the opportunity, it being a quick grab, but then you can't wish away how the photo looks. It looks to many like she's on a cell phone. And that look is a photographic fact every bit as important as whether or not she was actually on one.

As I said, given the serious tone the photographer has given this photo in his statement, he might have shown some seriousness in the photo and could have avoided the very non-serious title.

Lex, to me the tabula rasa thing is trivial. Every photo can be seen as that. So, the fact that this one is doesn't affect me much.

Without any doubt, this image presents cultural polarity in a matter of fact way. Women of two diametrically different cultures cross their paths here, almost accidentally. The reaction of women representing the conservative cultures is spontaneous and the photographer was there at the right time to record it.

Ant therein lies the strength of this picture.

Other than that, it is a bit too bright an image for my taste.

" ...to me the tabula rasa thing is trivial. Every photo can be seen as that."

Unfortunately, this is really pretty true in most cases when looking at images presented in these forums. It shouldn't be the case in all circumstances, but is really more a function that not many people work from any place deep enough, or rather focussed enough, that we really have any insight into their work or what their concerns might be. Certainly, we can sometimes discern that they have an interest in shooting people or landscape or whatever, but mostly it is a non-specific interest. In many cases, and I think Saad's portfolio reveals this, the interests are many and varied and the "point of view" is not consistent but somewhat opportunistic (not used here as a pejorative by the way). In fact, other than the hint in his name, one might ascribe the portfolio to someone from almost anywhere.

(Maybe in a certain sense, it isn't "blind men describing an elephant" but closer to "the blind leading the blind".)

Saad suggested that we possibly didn't look into his own background, however, I don't know that there is anything on the surface to glean in that regard that would lead us to where he took us verbally. Certainly one might conclude that Saad is from Iraq by the concentration of images done there and I don't pretend to know what it must be like there, before or during this war. It is true that one of the prime directives of the critique is to try and understand the culture, politics and philosophies of the time and person who made the visual. I just don't think in this case we had enough, contextually or specifically, to get much further than we mostly seemed to settle into. Even the words we have and the sentiments in Saad's profile suggest that everyone here approached this POW much the same as he himself would have had it not been his own image. "I look to the photo and subject together as one unit,and if the subject tells me something that matters,then many times I forget about the photo and concentrates on the subject alone as a message through the photo." This isn't to say that we should approach the work in this way, only that we have a clue that he himself views images (and their making?) in this way--as individual reactions/expressions.

So, if we have little knowledge, verbal, of an individual or the piece we are viewing, a body of work which is non-specific or supporting, words that suggest independence between images and a lighthearted title, where but into our own psyche would we be expected to go?

Although I certainly can appreciate what Saad said about his feelings, the current state of things and his dreams, I guess I would love to see him create a body of work that explores and expresses all of that.

Hi
I find it very difficult to find anything remarkable and inspiring about this image. The composition is visually confused and muddled. The narrative is unclear. I do appreciate that the message can rely heavily on my cultural background for its foundation. A muslim woman walking with a mobile phone with her family obviously a different cultural background to the lady in the bikini. A rather hackneyed story if that is the story you are trying to tell
There may have been a stronger narrative ...to show the muslim women in the sea.. on the phone having fun, enjoying life .. if you could have got a sullen woman in a bikini in the scene that would have made a interesting twist... hey sorry I am talking about an image that doesn't exist.. but i am just trying to make a point as photographers we can usually find the story we want to tell if we are patient enough.. not about representing the status quo but finding a story that represents our ideas or bias...
This image represents the story you wanted to tell but from where I am standing (I don't know which end of the elephant :) it doesn't say very much.

Hi
I find it very difficult to find anything remarkable and inspiring about this image. The composition is visually confused and muddled. The narrative is unclear. I do appreciate that the message can rely heavily on my cultural background for its foundation. A muslim woman walking with her family obviously a different cultural background to the lady in the bikini. A rather hackneyed idea that doesn't come over that well either ..your idea may be too subtle for this capture as you cant make out what really is going onl
There may have been a stronger narrative ...to show the muslim women in the sea.. having fun, enjoying life .. if you could have got a sullen woman in a bikini in the scene that would have made a interesting twist... hey sorry I am talking about an image that doesn't exist.. but i am just trying to make a point as photographers we can usually find the story we want to tell if we are patient enough.. not about representing the status quo but finding a story that represents our ideas or bias...
This image represents the story you wanted to tell but from where I am standing (I don't know which end of the elephant I am holding.. see earlier posts) it doesn't say very much to me.
okay there are lot of posts.. i don't normally post .. I suppose the elves chose it because its so easy to add your 2 pence worth .. doesn't make it a good image though..

Very interesting & original juxtaposition between two entirely different cultures

I would call this a "rich" photo. Rich in the sense of many layers of meaning and sensations to be derived from it. A contrast of cultures in a general sense, but also a somehow touching and amusing encounter between individuals. An image both memorable and universal in its appeal.