Norma Desmond

<p>I think one thing to recommend Avedon's approach to photography is what seems to me a bit of skepticism about the seeking of so-called "essences" or the supposed stripping away of masks. Though I have my own critique of some of Avedon's work, he suggests a groundedness, humility, and concentration on what looking and seeing provide when he says:</p> <p><em>“My photographs don’t go below the surface. They don’t go below anything. They’re readings of the surface. I have great faith in surfaces. A good one is full of clues.”</em></p> <p>I think Avedon comes closer to doing what Karsh thought he, Karsh, was doing and it may be because Avedon didn't feel the need to strive for essence and that may have allowed him to capture more of it, if essence exists at all. I'd say no one captures an essence. What we think of as essence is more a significant kind of input from and alignment of subject, photographer, and viewer. IMO, the open-endedness and expansive character of clues allow for deeper reach than the more quixotic search for essence.</p>

<p><em>"It's incongruous that Karsh would describe a standard to which for the most part Karsh didn't work; in passing I wonder if Karsh was a superficial thinker"</em></p> <p>Like I said, artists aren't always the best ones to describe what they're doing. Much as many people don't like hearing it, Coleman (whether or not one likes his style of writing or tone of voice) described Karsh's photography better than Karsh did (assuming Karsh was describing what he thought his portraits did).</p> <p>I am finding that most who write about Karsh (including in Wikipedia) interpret Karsh's statement about lifting the mask to mean simply getting to the "essence" of his subject. But they don't say what that "essence" is and don't seem to differentiate between signifying, capturing, and epitomizing the role we know them in and stripping away that role. Many authors seem to feel the quote in question was Karsh's own self assessment, as if he believed he was accomplishing this.</p> <p>I think what Karsh did was to <em>reinforce</em> and <em>emphasize</em> the role famous people played with a very particular photographic vernacular, one that he honed and repeated and aimed at a variety of public personas in a similar fashion, finding gestures and expressions that the world would clearly <em>associate</em> with the particular characters he photographed.</p> <p>Where Karsh says he "stripped away", I'd say he did not. It seems to me he associated, emphasized, and reinforced in strong, formal, and somewhat starched visual terms.</p>

<p><em>"The revelation, if it comes at all, will come in a small fraction of a second with an unconscious gesture, a gleam of the eye, a brief lifting of the mask that all humans wear to conceal their innermost selves from the world. In that fleeting interval of opportunity the photographer must act or lose his prize."</em></p> <p>Charles, this is what Karsh said and I think he meant it to <em>but it doesn't</em> apply to his own portraits. I'd change the prize in referring to Karsh. The prize was not a lifting of the mask. The prize was actually capturing the essence of the mask on film.</p> <p>What he might have more accurately said is this:</p> <p><em>"The revelation, if it comes at all, will come in a small fraction of a second with an unconscious gesture, a gleam of the eye, an <strong>epitomization</strong> (<strong>or signification</strong>) of the mask that all humans wear in their adoption of their role in the world. In that fleeting interval of opportunity the photographer must act or lose his prize."</em></p> <p>Karsh actually seemed to come up with those gleams and gestures that <em>epitomized</em> the role rather than finding what was hidden behind it. I just don't think he did it uniquely for each subject and his work doesn't engage me to actually get much feeling for the masks or roles.</p> <p> </p>

<p>Arthur, it helps me, in understanding some of the comments about masks, to keep in mind that these are in part responses to the OP, who used Karsh's own words to describe what he is doing in the Churchill and other portraits as unveiling the secret behind the mask. Many of the contrary comments come from those who disagree and think Karsh has not done that but instead has shown the Churchill and Kennedy we know in their roles as statesmen. The comments mostly haven't really judged whether showing the public role is a good thing or not. They've judged Karsh against the standard he, himself, set and simply make the point that Karsh hasn't accomplished what he said is the job of the portraitist. Even Coleman didn't criticize Karsh for playing up the roles of his subjects. He criticized him for being monotonous and allowing his own heavy style to consistently take over the subjects.</p>

<p>My ISP is Comcast. It happened also recently when I was traveling and using Time Warner.</p> <p>The error message says only "502 Bad Gateway." Nothing else.</p>

<p><em>"It is even more interesting that while such criticisms are made of Karsh and his style, I have never seen them apply in other quite apparent cases such as the constructed portraits of Liebovitz and so many other photographers, well known or not, who portray famous people as role players or actors in masks."</em></p> <p>Leibovitz has often been criticized, and I've read such criticism on PN, for her Hollywood star portraits. I happen to like a lot of her stuff.</p> <p>I like photographers who explore and exploit masks and personas, so that wouldn't be my own criticism of Karsh or anyone else. My criticism of Karsh is his heaviness of touch and, as C Watson above notes, Karsh's more taxidermist approach to his portraits. Leibovitz for sure constructs and often photographs her people in their roles, but she does it, IMO, with more flare and more personality than Karsh. Karsh's portraits look very much the same from person to person, in terms of lighting and other starknesses of his approach. Leibovitz seems to vary her approach, even though it evidences her particular style, depending on the person and the personality trait she is looking for.</p> <p>Going with the mask, especially of famous people, seems very appropriate for a portraitist, and there can be great depth and authenticity in doing so genuinely. </p> <p>Karsh's statement of his own goal to uncover the person behind the mask sounds like something cool to say and something I've heard said before and since. But it doesn't sound like it really reflects what he was doing and it rings hollow coming from his lips. I think people doing portraits of people who are not well known are more likely to achieve and want to achieve such a goal. I am conscious when doing portraits of unknown folks of the relationship of and tension between masks and candor. There is no clear line of distinction and I enjoy the interplay. </p> <p>I often find I have to look at someone's work, sometimes in addition to listening to what they say and sometimes instead of listening to what they say, in order to determine what they're actually doing. Artists aren't always the best at describing what they are doing or even what they are trying to do, though I try to listen to them carefully and can still learn a lot by doing so, even when they miss the mark as I think Karsh did.</p>

<p>When it occurs, it's with every PN page, forum, photos, gallery page, critique pages.</p> <p>I don't know what a proxy gateway is, but when I try a site that anonymizes my IP address (as I understand it), I can get through. I've used anonymouse successfully, but of course I can't log on that way and can only read stuff on PN when I use the anonymouse site.</p>

<p>Yes, Jin. It's still happening. </p>

<p>I think these photos of Churchill and many I've seen by Karsh are studies of the masks, not unveilings of those behind the masks. Kennedy as statesman, Churchill as leader, formalistic portraits that, to me, are sculptural more than they are personal or intimate. Even the one of Churchill smiling, while it may be somewhat out of character, it is still very much tied to the austere character presented in the more stern portrait. This is still not a warm and fuzzy unveiling of vulnerability.</p> <p>Though Karsh knows a good moment to push the shutter and has great control over lighting and pose, his subjects seem to remain somewhat distanced, and he often shows the famous person as removed, idealized or idolized, and photographically stylized more according to Karsh's visual sensibility than to their own personalities, treating a diversity of "characters" in a very similar portrait style.</p> <p>While comparing a photo to a sculpture has its complimentary side, as it's not an easy quality to achieve, in this case it also has its down side in the heaviness I often feel from Karsh's work. His portraits seem to focus more on face and expression as a bodily function than an emotional or spiritual one. Regarding the mask issue, I have no problem with a portraitist dwelling on masks, since the masks and personas we adopt are every bit as real and every bit as significant as our more candid moments.</p> <p>Few have the chops to work with the masks while also transcending them. One word I would not use to describe Karsh is "transcendent." That's why Karsh fails to grab me instinctually and with the emotional depth and force of other photographers.</p>

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<p><em>"fake photo"</em></p> <p>tautology.</p> <p><em>"real photo"</em></p> <p>oxymoron.</p>

<p><a href="http://www.theguardian.com/technology/askjack/2013/aug/01/502-bad-gateway-error">HERE'S </a>a good explanation of what's likely going on, with some suggested ways around what seems to be a quirk of the PN servers rather than of our browsers or computers. I tried visiting PN through one of the recommended anonymous web sites when I was getting the 502 Gateway message and was able to access PN that way, though it's a bit cumbersome. Usually if I wait an hour or two, I get back onto PN the normal way.</p> <p>From the technology blog (but read further into the blog and it will provide links to anonymous websites you can go through to access PN when you're getting the Gateway error message:</p> <p><em>"The 'Bad Gateway' error is coming from the server, and usually has nothing to do with your PC. It may just be that the site is overloaded. Often, simply refreshing or reloading the page (Ctrl-F5) will work, but sometimes the problem can persist for days. If so, you could log the time(s) and browser version and submit an error report to the webmaster, because 502 errors can be caused by bugs in the associated PHP programming. In this case, email the admin team at myfreecycleadmin@freecycle.org. If it's an intermittent fault, the simplest option is to wait for 10 minutes and then try again."</em></p>

<p>I'm also getting the 502 Bad Gateway somewhat regularly for about the last 3 weeks. Mac/Safari older version.</p>

<p>Documentary photography and photographic artistry often go hand in hand. I also don't think an aesthetic sense of composition and a practical sense of how to handle and position a camera are mutually exclusive.</p>

<p>Art can be either a good or bad eulogy. Leni Riefenstahl's photos . . . in giving a propagandistic and obviously one-sided view of the Third Reich, leave behind an important record of the Nazis and their self-view, even while the photos helped propagate and continue a "culture" of will, hate, and deadly idealism and superiority. Her photos are in some sense false but in another sense chillingly revealing. The revelations of art about a culture can be more effective and significant than records of it.</p> <p>I recently saw an exhibit of so-called <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Degenerate_art">Degenerate Art</a>. This was the art a lot of which was destroyed by Hitler because it was obfuscating and tainted in his mind. Next to the remnants of Expressionism and Modernism that survived Hitler's axe were approved Nazi paintings and sculptures. They were clearer and record not <em>the</em> reality but a different reality, of which there were many at the time . . . as today.</p> <p>Compare all that to the surviving photos from the Nazi death camps which provide, in so many cases, a necessary and fitting eulogy and remembrance.</p> <p>Not all photos function as "art." And ones I see as art can be good or bad at recording their era and culture, some are even both good and bad in the same breath.</p> <p>As Charles says, photos can be "divorced from the real sequence of life" which can *sometimes* give them just the objectivity necessary to become good records of what they depict. In many other cases, their being divorced from particular context or their subject matter being divorced from its context, will make for an inaccurate or vague record.</p> <p>It may not be as much about what we who create the art think as what those who look at the art think. Whether I think about my photos this way or that won't mean that someone won't see something in them that reveals things about me I may not have been in touch with at the time. I often get comments on my work that suggest that a photo gives a more in-depth picture of myself than I might have thought. I was busy taking the picture and being in the moment and the viewer is divorced from all that and might just pick up on something deeper going on which my being part of the process helped keep hidden from me.</p>

<p><em>"contributors to, rather than records of"</em></p> <p>For me, it would be <strong><em>"contributors to, in addition to records</em></strong><em><strong> of</strong>"</em></p> <p>So rarely are these either/or situations. It's where so many art theorists, academicians, philosophers and other thinkers go awry.</p>

<p><em>"I first thought of the image this week in terms of compositional elements but then was more struck by its societal content and the character of the place."</em></p> <p>My thought would be that the character of the location comes through so well and somewhat intimately in great part because the composition is so savvy and effective and because of attention to detail. </p> <p>Though I went into detail about compositional elements, I don't think they are necessarily meant to be noticed by most viewers of the photo. I notice them mainly because I sometimes like to deconstruct a photo to get a feel for how and why it works to bring me such a feel for the content. The photographer is not really responsible for the architecture <em>per se</em>. He is "responsible" for figuring out a way to show it off, provide a sense of place, and engage the viewer in it.</p>

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<p>What draws me into this photo is not my knowledge of the French Square, of which I have none. So I am not able to relate this photo to the actual place it represents. I come to it, therefore, somewhat naively, even though I have been to Paris a couple of times.</p> <p>I feel like I am standing on the square, and that's due in great part to the perspective of the photo. It is wide enough to give me the sense of the square itself, the place, and yet it captures an intimacy where I can feel myself peeking down the narrower alleyways and I even get the sense of being able to look through the windows.</p> <p>There is an invitation embodied in the obtuse angle of the streets on the left of the photo. The asymmetry of the composition in terms of the lengths of the sides of the triangle formed in the photographer's eye provides a stimulating view of the square even as vacant as it seems.</p> <p>The photographer chose to introduce us to the square via a darker diagonal-oriented patch in the road in the foreground, nicely playing against the diagonal line of the street to the left.</p> <p>The framing on the right barely lets us complete that turn of the corner, so we see nothing of the right side of the square, but my eye seems to fill it in because of the orientation of the photo as a whole.</p> <p>The horizontal parallel line of the street we are facing provides a very solid grounding from which the dynamics of the other angles take flight.</p> <p>Overall, this photo utilizes the texture of any city extremely well. The sense of the street, the jagged roof lines, the architectural details and the blaring advertisements and billboards, not to mention a nod to the contemporaneous mode of transportation.</p> <p>Without actually seeing lives, this photo is very much alive. It's a place that feels worn and lived in. The photo seems to have an honest and genuine approach.</p>

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<p>Actually, Charles, sorry also for not coming out and saying that my post about the graphic shadows and timelessness was my attempt to discuss the actual photo as a photo and how it looks and the feeling that look gives me. I guess it was unsuccessful, so I'll just look forward to whatever discussion ensues with tomorrow's new pick and bow out from this one.</p>

<p>Charles, for me it's not that difficult to look at a photo and get a feeling that it's either timeless or iconic. That sometimes includes the subject matter and is sometimes aside from the subject matter and more about the way it's shot. I didn't mean to get into whether our penchant for war is biological or not and in what historic era there may be evidence for wars or not. I was talking about what I see in the photo regarding its timelessness and am sorry if I made a spurious claim (though I meant it casually when I said we've been involved in wars from the beginning) about the history of warfare and mankind. I didn't intend the latter to be the crux of my comments. </p>

<p>Charles, I used "timeless" to mean both everlasting and not limited to a particular era. That the men are anonymous (we don't see their faces in the photo even though outside info tells us who they are) and that the photo is statuesque, that the scale and perspective are iconic, suggests to me a feeling of the photo (if not the event it depicts) well beyond that specific moment and represents something more universal. Even were all wars to end today, anyone with a sense of history could look back at this photo and gain insights into what it meant and what it represented, beyond just the particular war and people it evidenced. I say that with no judgment in mind about war or my hopes for future peace. (And I have those judgments and hopes, of course. I just wasn't speaking of them at the time.) Whether wars will continue is not the issue, photographically, I was addressing in that post. I was assessing qualities of the photo and not my wishes for the human race regarding war. Though, speaking of war, it seems a fairly integral part of humanity from the beginning of time and so memorials and national pride and victory celebrations are likely to persist, if the past is any indication and the current mind set among nations continues on its current trajectory. Mine, in the post you refer to, was an assessment of the look of the photo and what it tells me and what qualities it has and what narrative and feelings it evokes because of how it looks.</p>

<p><em>And then, maybe, we could get back to this weeks iconic photo.</em></p> <p>Anders, is there more you could or want to say about this photo?</p> <p>_________________________________________________________</p> <p>One thing I noticed was the graphic blacks that the shadows create, particularly on the lower limbs of the men. Whereas I often don't like shadows that get so graphic and severe, here it seems to fit right in. It doesn't matter whether it was a deliberate choice or a factor of the lighting conditions, exposure, and post processing. It almost makes the men look a little like statues, as does the grand perspective to me, which they certainly were not but which is kind of a cool transformation offered by the qualities of the photo. To me, it pictures them as much as figures as actual men, as bodies (as well as souls) that are somehow constructed, with the potential of being deconstructed. It gives their limbs a fractured look which seems to go with the whole story.</p> <p>We were talking about statues earlier. This photo (and the scene itself) not only lends itself to having had a statue of it made. The photo itself reads to me like a statue. Those shadows give it the feeling of stone. Which helps push it to the iconic and helps make it timeless.</p>

<p>By the way, while I think the message people get out of Ecclesiastes (and which may well be there . . . the Bible is full of unfortunate messages) is debatable at best, there are alternative interpretations to the word "vanity" now being considered.</p> <p><em>[To get the point of Ecclesiastes, we have to ignore the usual translations of several key words or phrases. The Hebrew hebel has been translated as "vanity" (NASB, KJV, ESV, ASV) or "meaningless" (NIV, New Living Translation). The Message gets much closer by translating the word as "smoke." The word means "vapor" (Proverbs 21:6) or "breath" (Job 7:16; Psalm 39:5, 11; 62:9, 94:11; 144:4; Isaiah 57:13). In describing human life as vapor or breath, Solomon emphasizes that life is brief and beyond our control. Life is vapor because the world goes on unchanged in spite of all our frantic activities (1:3-11); because things slip through our fingers when we try to grasp them and through our minds when we try to understand them; because nothing lasts, yet everything stays the same; because it ends in death (2:16), and we have no control over the future (2:18-19).]</em></p> <p>We give up control to God at our peril. All this seems like a power grab by institutional religion. We control you. You have no control yourself. So, we can either have vanity or mind control and authoritarianism coming through our priests and rabbis whose main interest is their control over our thoughts, morals, actions and a good deal of our money. No wonder our lives are ultimately deemed to be or to feel worthless when we give up so much independence and freedom of thought and being.</p> <p>I'd rather take photos.</p><div></div>