felixg

<p>Three cheers for Fred G ... a true philosopher. The world needs more like him.</p>

<p>m stephens:</p>

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<p>There was no :patriarchal tone" intended. It was inserted as an answer to the OP who posed this question: "How would they like it if a photographer took photos of their <strong>daughter or wife</strong> without their consent?"<br /> Had the OP referenced "son and father", I would have put the responsibility on wife.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Point taken, and accepted; in your case I retract the "patriarchal" label. There remains a more general philosophical consideration: the acceptance, regardless of gender, that adult X is responsible for assuring (or has any right to decide) that adult Y is sufficiently dressed to meet the public (I specify "adult" since I do accept that there may, depending on age of the offspring, be parental responsibility).</p>

<p>I'd agree that the morality lies not in the taking of the photograph but with the subsequent use of it.</p>

<p>I am, however, troubled by the unthinkingly patriarchal tone of many contributions. The most blatant example is within a post with which I otherwise tended towards agreement: «The husband or father can not ignore his responsibility ... to assure that the wife and daughter are sufficiently dressed to meet the public».</p>

<p>Laurentiu Cristofor is an honourable exception («How about ... husband or son ... Why is that more easy to digest?»).</p>

<p>Albert: I agree with everything you say (and I <em>have </em>asked many war correspondents the question ... especially when examining my own reasons for being in theatres of conflict; their answers largely match your suggestions).<br /> <br />However ... from a <em>philosophical</em> point of view, it remains true that each of us does, or continues to do, our work as a result of a moral choice. That choice may never be consciously examined, but it is there.<br /> To take a less dramatic example: I work part of my time inside an education system which I consider to waste resources and to be partially damaging to some of those it seeks to help. My moral decision to continue involves weighing a set of positives (frm selfish ones such as income to more altruistic ones such as help which I believe I can impart or perhaps even harm which I believe I can mitigate) against the negatives including that harm and waste.<br>

<br /> There are also negatives to be weighed against negatives ... I quit third world war zone field work and feel that the resulting lifetime feeling of desertion guilt (negative now) is a price I have to reluctantly accept for escaping what it was doing to me (negative then).<br>

Every one of us makes such choices, however unconsciously. Feeding the kids (positive) versus exploitation (negative) is a common one.<br>

War correspondents are as subject to such necessities for choice as anyone else ... I know many, for example, who continuously weigh the addictive adrenalin rush and feeling of doing something valuable (positives) against the recurrent nightmares. But they have relatively more freedom for maneouvre than most.<br>

None of this alters the fact that everything you say is both true and valuable: I'm only adding to that, not for one moment disputing it.</p>

<p>Albert: all good, valid points, well put.<br>

I would add, though, that for all of us (though of course to a greater or lesser degree), the work which we choose is a choice which we make.<br>

A war correspondent is almost always doing work which s/he has chosen, and continues to choose, to do: anyone with a war correspondent's rep can get alternative journalistic work elsewhere. the reasons for that choice are many an various, and often complex.</p>

<p>Since this is the Philosophy of Photography forum (and I am no longer a subscriber, so any contribution from me is questionable), I'll restrict myself to philosophical consideration. Mind you, this is moral philosophy and not really philosophy of photography. My own opinion is that a journalist places her/himself in this situation as a moral choice; from there on, there is no morally "right" choice − only a relative weighing up in the balance of differently "wrong" ones.<br /> From some experience of the sort of situation dramatised in the video clip you referenced: there is no real "choice" at all. Your body makes the decisions, not your mind.<br /> Stepping back from that to the moral issues...<br /> (1) In the situation that you describe, there was perhaps opportunity to help parliamentarian and walk away (I don't know). In the dramatised clip, trying to help would have resulted in the death of the child <em><strong>and </strong></em>photographer.<br /> (2) It can be argued (and is genuinely felt by many photojournalists) that to show the crime to the world is in itself a moral action.<br /> (3) Taking (1) & (2) together, to get the photograph out to the outside world is perhaps the only possible moral choice unless martyrdom is seen as having moral value.<br /> Then again ... returning to the dramatisation ... it seems to me that the moral obscenity shown in that clip is not the action of the photographer but the society which sets up a glitzy show biz event around a picture of a murdered civilian.<br /> The dramatisation also leaves open what the child is asking for in the eye contact with the photographer. She (the child) clearly could escape with her life but without her bundle − yet chooses to tussle for the bundle despite the clear threat of death. Is her eye contact, then, asking the photographer (a) for help in retaining her bundle or (b) to document what must follow? This is a drama, not reality; the question therefore exists in dramatic terms and not real world ones ... so, we are left with what message the film maker intended, rather than what a real victim intended.</p>

<p>Interesting questions from both of you, which will have me thinking hard as I work.<br>

I recognise exactly what Kandinsky is saying ... I watched it for years in my ex wife's physical involvement in her painting, from the grinding of pigments through to the wrestling of a finished canvas.<br>

As a first response ... I think my equivalent is the explicitly physical feeling of everything orbiting about the moment as a photograph plummets towards exposure: the light, the positions of a myriad objects in space, the camera in my hands (this, the "felt galbe" is <em>at least</em> as important in my choice of equipment as any combination of specifications) and its controls moving my fingers, the internalised zone system knowledge spinning greys fruit machine style, the shift and flicker of expressions across faces...<br>

As all that happens, a swirling column of vibration runs from the centre of my head to the pit of my stomach.<br>

The moment the shutter closes ... I have a feeling of either completeness or emptiness, the picture made or lost, and (if it was made) only self discipline makes me care about carrrying through to the end result of a photograph which others can also see.<br>

Hmmm ... hope that wasn't too embarrassing, and had something at least vaguely to do with what Fred wanted...</p>

<p>As someone who knew her, Emma, I'm probably not a reliable source. For what I'm worth, though...<br>

I didn't like her work, but I did admire and respect both it and her enormously. Her work has, in my biassed opinion, a rare degree of unflinching honesty and purity. The world of documentary expression (not only photographic) is richer for her − more so than for many whose work I <em>do</em> like. Liking is somewhat irrelevant; honesty is priceless and enduring.<br>

But that may all be too contaminated by bias to be useful. Like the others, I hope that you will feed your own impressions back in to here − so that I can learn more from them than you can from me.</p>

<p>In cheerful recognition that quotation proves nothing, and with no particular intention (to prove something or otherwise) beyond enjoying the quotation:<br /><br /><br /><strong>How Some Enter The Profession Through Loftiness of Spirit, and Some, For Profit.</strong><br /><strong>Chapter II</strong><br />It is not without the impulse of a lofty spirit that some are moved to enter this profession, attractive to them through natural enthusiasm. Their intellect will take delight in drawing, provided their nature attracts them to it of themselves, without any master's guidance, out of loftiness of spirit. And the, through this delight, they come to want to find a master; and they bind themselves to him with respect for authority, undergoing an apprenticeship in order to achieve perfection [p. 2] in all this. There are those who pursue it, because of poverty and domestic need, for profit and enthusiasm for the profession too; but above all these are to be extolled the ones who enter the profession through a sense of enthusiasm and exaltation.<br /><br /><br /><strong>Fundamental Provisions For Anyone Who Enters This Profession.</strong><br /><strong>Chapter III</strong><br />You, therefore, who with lofty spirit are fired with this ambition, and are about to enter the profession, begin by decking yourselves with this attire: Enthusiasm, Reverence, Obedience, and Constancy. And begin to submit yourself to the direction of a master for instruction as early as you can; and do not leave the master until you have to.<br /><br /><br />[Cennino d'Andrea Cennini, <em>Il libro dell'arte</em>, probably late 14th century CE. Trans Daniel Thompson, <em>The craftsman's handbook</em>, 1960, New York: Dover 048620054X (pbk).]<br /><br /><br />(Could be equally at home in the concurrent "Value" thread :-)</p>

<p>On Julie's raising of "honesty" ... that is, to return to Fred's initial question, one of my primary values in my own photographic practice. But ask me to define honesty in this context, and I'd have a difficult task.<br /> Julie's and Fred's photographs both seem to me to strongly exhibit honesty; but how far is that just my perception, not shared by others?<br /> Taking Julie's suggestion that I try to hate something I love (which, I think, I now better understand) ... I love her <a href="http://www.unrealnature.com/Equilateral_thumbs.htm"><em>Equilaterals</em></a> compositions, which seem to me to embody many aspects of my own taste but also the quality of honesty. I can, however, easily imagine another viewer seeing them as dishonest, therefore on the same value hating them, despite sharing my tastes, because that hypothetical person sees a dichotomy between honesty of vision and synthesis of imaginary from multiple realities.</p>

<p>Josh, Julie, Fred (in chronological order) ... it seems to me that taste and value are inextricably linked <em>in part</em> but not coextensive.<br>

A lot of your respective discussions hinge on different meanings of "value" ... possibly of "taste" also.<br>

For example ... it seems to me (at the moment, anyway ... in ten minutes time, or after reading another post from one or other of you, I may see it differently) that if we are considering the values and taste of the artefact producer, there is no way to wholly disentangle the two. If we are talking about those of the viewer, they may well be entirely separate.<br>

I can produce an image which I find distasteful, but which I value ... but its seems difficult to argue that the value is divorced from taste, because taste is not only positive. If I felt no positive or negative taste in relation to something, I don't immediately see how I could impute a positive or negative value to it (though I'm quite willing to discover that I'm misthinking this). In viewing something else, done by someone else, however, I can certainly see the values of the producer (or what s/he valued) whilst having no taste reaction to it (though often this will not be so ... it just <em>can</em> be so).<br>

Defining taste is difficult. Anybody want to have a stab? A quick poke about the web throws up "preference; strong liking; delicate discrimination". The first two are much more easily separated from value than the third.</p>

<p>Returning to what I understand (perhaps wrongly) to be the core of the original question, leaving both Barthes and the paraphrased quotation aside ... it seems to me that an amateur is, by definition, closer to the "spirit" or "heart and soul" of <em>any</em> activity than the professional, for exactly the reasons given by Matt Laur in response 3.<br>

The amateur and the professional are, however, as I previously commented and as Mark M well illustrated with Leibowitz, different people. Fred used the word "genres" in connection with the two different Leibowitz corpora, and it's an apt one; also applicable, though, would be "modes" – in one set of images she is in "amateur mode", in the other "professional mode". In reality, every practitioner is, in different degrees of mixture, <em>both</em> amateur <em>and</em> professional.<br>

So the question is really: is the amateur <em>part</em> of you/me/him/her closer to the spirit and mastery of our shared activity that the professional <em>part</em>? To which my answer would be: the amateur part is closer to the spirit, but the mastery is up for grabs because "mastery" is another whole can of worms waiting to be picked apart and defined.<br /></p>

<p>Julie — my brain hurts! Could you run that request by me again??? [grin]</p>

<p><strong>Fred:</strong> Does anyone ever set aside their own taste when looking at others' work?<br>

<strong>Me:</strong> Definitely yes. Sometimes it's automatic; sometimes it is a conscious effort; the difference being, I think, the Levenshtein distance between my taste and that which I am viewing. In other words, if your work is only slightly different from my taste, I will set my taste aside without even realsing that I'm doing so ... if radically, I have to tell myself not to turn away but to look again from outside.</p>

<p>My immediate feeling about it is that, as Fred suggests, the implied dichotomy between amateur and professional is a false one.<br>

It is perfectly possible (in photography or any other area of activity; I differ from you on your sureness that this doesn't apply to "most other vocations in life") for a professional (one who uses an activity to pay the bills) to also be an amateur (one who does it for love). I know a number of of them ... I'm one myself.<br>

Very often, the profession develops out of the love. Sometimes, where that is the case, the profession kills the love; but sometimes it doesn't.</p>

<p>Fred – thank you for the expansion on important points. It makes a difference.<br>

I did realise that you hadn't mentioned absoluteness but, in deliberately emphasising so myself, I was responding to what I perceived in your OP which I kept before me as I responded.<br>

Having now re-read that OP in the light of your reply, I see it differently. We still differ, but I have a clearer idea of why – and a less clear cut feeling of difference. I value both the learning experience involved and the difference itself.</p>

<p>I've come late to this, but I agree with an early take on it: "value" can no more be absolute than "like".<br>

I freely admit that I make some values absolute<em> ..</em>. but the key words there are "I make": they are not absolute except in my framework.<br>

In relation to so called "female circumcision", for example, or slavery, or torture, I draw a line in the sand and say <em>"this is an absolute value; I refuse to acknowledge the validity of contrary valuations"</em>. In photography, I do not ... I say, instead, <em>"this is my own definition of value"</em>. <strong>BUT</strong> ... philosophically, in neither case is there an absolute value beyond the framework of my beliefs. My values on which I choose to stand, to say <em>"Hier stehe ich; ich kann nicht anders"</em> (note the double recurrence in that iconic statement of the word "<em>ich")</em> are based in my cherished notion (inherited from the world in which I live, but deeply valued by me) of "human rights" ... but over most of history there has been no such notion. Human rights exist only if humans decide to recognise them; and looking back over the evolution of those which we now acknowledge it is quite possible that, in a future time, human rights will be recognised which we as yet do not.<br>

In relation to human rights, I have to pretend to myself that my own values are universal; in art, and specifically in photography, I have no such imperative. I can afford the luxury of being more truthful with myself: my values, value systems, things or ideas I value, are all relative.<br>

With great hesitation (for I profoundly value your thoughts) but nevertheless with unavoidable certainty (for i believe it important to freedom of self, of expression and of creativity) I have to dissent when you say "<em>To deny that is to beg for common blandness.</em>" On the contrary ... for me, to deny that (in absolute terms) is to beg for the full marvellous expression of human difference and variety.<br>

Although it may well be that "<em>Some are better photographers than others</em>" and "<em>Some have a more compelling or more distinctive or more individual vision than others</em>", I don't see how any of us can possibly know that this is in any absolute sense true, let alone specify (again in any absolute sense) <strong><em>which ones</em></strong> are better, nor which are more compelling or distinctive or individual in their vision – the judgement can only ever be either in relation to my (or your, or her/his) own personal value system or in relation to some consensually arrived at value system. Of the two, in this particular context, I prefer personal and endlessly plural to consensual.</p>

<p>I really don't see why a high quality credit card sized camera should change the game any more than, for example, the arrival of high quality industrially produced tube paints changed the game for painting.<br /> Any art/craft/whatever depends not on the tools but on what is done with them. Greater ease and convenience democratises the means of production, but not the skills/vision/imagination/determination required to best utilise them.</p>

<p>It is, as Anders says, a mammoth task ... and I'm gobsmacked by how far youv'e already pursued it.<br /> A valuable resource, which I've immediately added to my own web of linkages and will be recommending to students forthwith. Thank you :-)<br /> Unlike Anders, I don't think you need to worry about it being done by others. The great thing about the web (well, ONE of the great things about the web) is the opportunities it offers for plurality of information. I may not agree with everything you tag, for instance, but that is a strength: your key will be different from mine, and also from anyone else attempting similar objectives, and thus will add to them.<br /> All power to you.</p>

<p>LK> <em>what is there in <strong>the successfully<br /></strong></em><strong> </strong>LK> <strong></strong><em><strong>understated photo</strong> that makes it<br /></em>LK> <em>pleasing?</em><br>

My answer to that would be: the understated photo leaves more scope for the viewer to learn and discover - rather than having emphases served up on a plate, s/he is left free to discover and evaluate them for her/himself.<br>

LK> post some in-line samples of your<br /> LK> own that you think succeed without<br /> LK> going over the top. In either case,<br /> LK> can you explain why the photo<br /> LK> succeeds, if you think that it does?<br>

What is a successful photograph is very subjective ... however, the included image is one of my own <em>which succeeds for me</em>.</p>

<p>It does so because I feel that it supplies enough clues for an exploration of the subject without specifying what is to be done with them. Put another way: it shows to me the qualities of the subject which I sought to portray, but does not insist upon them to another viewer. (I may well be utterly wrong in this assessment!)</p><div></div>

<p>I found camera clubs fitted a particular phase of my life and development.<br /><br />I had been "doing" photography for about five years, learning "by book and practice" as somebody said above, and had hit a point where I needed people to learn from.<br /><br />I was thirteen at the time ... the club was full of people at least twice my age, mostly four times or more. They were people I would later in my teens see as boring, limited, stuffy (probably just like I am, now!) but they were kind to me, generous with their advice and help (which I was free to accept or reject, and which was different from each person so I could test one against another in actual practice) and I owe them a tremendous debt of gratitude.<br /><br />There came a time when I no longer found anything more to gain from the clubs, and began to be stifled by them, so I moved on. There came another time (somewhat later) when I really had outgrown them. But none of that alters the fact that they were an absolutely vital stage in my early photographic development. I remember them fondly, even though they no longer offer me, personally, what I need now.<br /><br />Incidentally, Photo.Net maps (from my viewpoint, not necessarily from others) almost exactly onto them. I came into PN out of a feeling that I had a debt to pay; but others do it so very much better than I, so it didn't work out that way...</p>

<p>I hesitate to say this, in case it sounds trite, but ... everything. There is no separation. Photography is a part of my life, and cannot be distinguished from it. I photograph because I live.<br>

Oh dear. It <em>does</em> sound trite. But it's true nevertheless; "hier stehe ich" and so on.</p>

<p>As a start, to buy myself time to think about the rest, and knowing that this isn't what you are asking but believing it to be relevant anyway ... a photograph <em>always</em> transcends the object(s) photographed, and is <em>always</em> itself at least "a" and often "the" subject.</p>

<p>John K: your perspective is worthy of consideration; but you often seem to feel that the same is not true of perspectives offered by others.</p>

<p>Neil A: thank you for the reminder that photography is a million things to a million practitioners.</p>