charleswood

<p>A couple comments from Wouter:</p> <blockquote> <p>Is recording the majesty of nature and a grand vista by definition an acceptable intent, and recording the every day life in the city one we'd need to scrutinize?<br /> <br />Can you actually see the real underlying intent of an artist by one work, or does it need the context of the body of work, a series, a background story?</p> </blockquote> <p>As to the first question, my thoughts. I think that nature is out there, it's there for me to see and record into my memory, we all can go see it, leave it and remember. Everyday life in the city is the same, it's out there, we see it, remember it. Why photograph it, there isn't necessarily anything going on. We'll ask ourselves of both nature and life in the city pictures: why would anyone take a picture like this, as Lex put it. We can all record surface events and have it clear that that is what we are doing. So I could take a picture of head banging or vulgarity just because it exists. When I then frame it and put it in a gallery my viewers have a right to ask "So what?" If instead the public says "Cool", then there is no "So what?" because public taste is perhaps unrefined, the experiential cultivated and nothing more. What's documented is a decline in culture and art.</p> <p>My thought on the second question is it depends on the picture and on how much one wants to know about it. And how much one wants to know about all the other pictures by other artists that bring in even more contexts. Another way I think about photography now is artifact, artifice, art. First a picture is an artifact. It can have artifice in some degree or another, of some kind, maybe. It tried. Did it succeed? And after that, is it art? That last standard, art, seems to have something to do with how creativity is defined: the ability to transcend traditional ideas, rules, patterns, relationships, or the like, and to create meaningful new ideas, forms, methods, interpretations.</p> <p>As to whether recording the mentally ill represents recording diversity. That's rubbish. As to whether schizophrenics are unredeemed, whatever that means, or lost: we may be flying, or choose not to fly and suffer for our choice. But with untreated schizophrenia: they are falling and not by choice. It's pretty awful to confront this condition in a loved one.</p> <p> </p>

<p>Lex - "I'd like to believe that some material evidence, artifact or remnant exists to support the artist's intent."</p> <p>Your artist's activity reminds me of a sandbox projective techniques where with supplied miniature familiar objects, paraphrased: the subject is told to construct whatever he would like uisng a large table top, the floor, or a sandbox as a base.<br /> <br />So in an interview with your artist I would survey his like and dislike of each object, his like and dislike of each object in comparison to the other objects, and then the likes and dislikes each object has about the other objects. In those relations is drama where like and dislike statements bring out qualities that are involoved in the drama. A sample interview question: "How does the shiny sphere feel about the plate with the coins on it?" Meaning is present because the objects in your artist's assembly are also subjects, that is, stand for something within your artist, have personal meanings to your artist. Each artifact is 'material evidence' with which to assess your artist's inner state.</p> <p>One component of your artist's inner state is the intent of your artist. Moreover, that inner state also contains many intents, each of those intents represented by the material elements included in the composition. With children the meanings and dramas can readily become transparent in an interview. In theory anyway. With theory applied, the biases of the interviewer can readily contaminate the 'test'. Since adults are more gaurded and sophisticated than children, getting an adult to participate I guess involves asking an adult to suspend disbelief and play along. Sample interview question addressed to an adult "I believe you when you say that you had no reason to put such an such an object in that particular place. However my question is why would that object have wanted you to place it <em>there</em>?" There are answers to those questions, I'm certain of little else. The Penetralium of mystery has meaning and we may want to be content with half knowlege. "But," as Jung remarked to Yousuf Karsh, "unfortunately, your mind is not discreet enough to leave you alone.” <br /> <br />So the question about photographic intent becomes: is our mind at least discreet enough to not be present in the photographs we take? Or is there always an artifact present of mind's presence? Since there are so many intents existing in the photographer it's hard to imagine that no material evidence of them, internal friends and foes alike, is to be found in a photograph.</p>

<p>Barry I'm saying that laying in wait wasn't the best choice of words.</p> <p>Steve - "I think she was drawn to what she was drawn to and the theme or vision revealed itself of its own accord in the body of her work."</p> <p>Interesting point and that makes me think it can be a bit of both at the same time, or one more than the other at different times.</p> <p>Jeff, Brad, both of you offered examples from your portfolios of street photography and indeed street photography is in the OP title. So is the word intention. Would it be unfair of me to ask either or both of you to discuss not how you got a shot, but about a particular shot: what you intended to convey to the viewers of your picture?</p> <p> </p>

<p>This thread has little to do with street photography and more to do with gauging photographer intent from a particular photograph.</p> <p>My starting point in circumscribing photographer intent is to note what the photographer portrayed in the photo. For example the one Brad included with his Jul 29, 2014; 11:34 a.m. post above, not titled, of a woman and that includes the text "Look Deeper". Fine. Look more deeply at what? The woman who is the subject of the photo? Certainly. But what is there in the photo, other than the text, that would direct me to look more deeply at a stranger? Why would I want to connect more deeply to someone just passing by, lots of people pass by that I can't pay any attention to. Where is the clue to the viewer that it's worth looking deeper, I fail to see any such clue. Why should I care about this woman, why take a picture of this one. Just because she was walking under some text written in the imperative case? That's a telling, the text is, and other than that telling there isn't anything showing that a viewer could care about. That's probably because there wasn't anything to show about this particular woman that the photographer was aware of. Who should look deeper then?</p> <p>In contrast the Maier photo Steve introduced to us in the OP includes something in the photograph that allows us a deeper view into her subject: a restitched ribbon. Ah ha. <em>Meaning</em>. Intent.</p>

<p>Jeff I prefer this one to the others of yours: <a href="/photo/14573260">http://www.photo.net/photo/14573260</a></p> <p> </p>

<p>Bass Hall Angel, we've got one at our neighborhood convenience store/gas station; her name is Maria and it fits her.</p>

<p>No I haven't been around or used one and don't speak with authority about anything, not being an authority on anything.</p> <p>I add that drones for photographing a farm from the air are totally safe for the pilot when compared to photography from a private plane. Not while photographing, but I've had two cousin pilots in separate crashes die when the private planes they were piloting crashed. I see it kind of like saw stop technology, where if the table saw blade can by one manufacturer be integrated with a device that prevents or significantly reduces the risk of user injury, then all table saws should have that technology and it isn't responsible for table saw users to cut stock any other way or for other manufacturers to offer table saw models that don't use that same technology. So if a job involves an aerial photograph of a farm it darn well better be a photograph taken by a drone all other things being equal beyond just user safety.</p> <p> </p>

<p>Sure, and I think of a literary frame as a fiction that introduces a fiction, 1001 Nights' frame is a fictional Scheherazade in a fictional predicament offering up the stories. Or Don Quixote's step father writing the preface to Don Quixote. So sure, The Kiss a frame for the individual story of images making up The Kiss. Nice.</p>

<p>"She doesn't "return to clandestine use in her text" because she wasn't talking about clandestine use in the first place."</p> <p>Exactly, she was not writing about clandestine use, the entire article offered to assuage public fears of surreptitious drone use. Yet still she introduced the idea of clandestine use by her use of the word 'surreptitiously', and did so in the context of her taking birthday party photos, a birthday party not usually an activity anyone would have to secretly take pictures of, if you get my drift?</p> <p>Come on, can't we just satirize her?</p>

<p>Brad - "You might want to re-read what I said starting with "Perhaps…”"</p> <p>So re-reading Brad: "Perhaps it's <em>lying in wait</em> [emphasis added] in an area recognizing the possibilities were a pair of appropriate subjects to walk by."</p> <p>So my comment in re-reading: describing street photography as involving 'lying in wait' is an emotionally charged way to describe a street photographer's behavior towards a subject. To me it sounds crass, to describe street photography methodology as involving 'lying in wait.'</p> <p>You post your photographs in this thread about intention. I think your street photography looks crass, that's how I react to it as a viewer of your art. It looks crass. All of it is offensive. Then you describe your crass work as from a methodology that involves what you conceive of as 'lying in wait?' How then, if my sentiment is generally shared, are we to talk about it? Crassly like I just did? Or some other way. It is a public that receives your art, and we are what we are.</p> <p> </p>

<p>From her third paragraph: "In near silence, the drone rose, hovered, and dove, silently and surreptitiously photographing us and the landscape around us."</p> <p>Compared to other tools she touts it blandly as less obtrusive. But when she actually pilots the thing it's 'surreptitiously'. To clandestine uses and it's excitement she does not return in her text. But it sure sounds like doing something secretly is what got her motor mind running. Just like before when she ran afoul of regulation.</p> <p> </p>

<p>Oh so <em>that's</em> what that is all about. Thanks David for saving me the cost of the guidebook Julie liked to use. Cool!</p>

<p>Yeah, Wouter, I got a lot out of the Brehmer review, Julie's, and other comments about details I wouldn't have noticed in the picture that then combined to kind of a poignant moment I had with that photograph. I wouldn't have seen any of that without help. Did I see what Maier intended? We'll never know and that is part of the intrigue, wondering about her mind and sympathies. Just because we can't be certain doesn't mean it isn't worth talking about.</p>

<p>Alan - 'Only it is more ego driven than for financial reasons."</p> <p>Ohhhh don't be so hard on yourself Alan.</p>

<p>From the good article linked to by Jeff: "Rather, be very conscious about when you decide to click the shutter."</p> <p>To that as a viewer I would add: And even more important, be very conscious about <em>why</em> you decide to click the shutter. </p>

<p>From Steve's quote of Brehmer: "The back of a woman in one tightly framed picture at first looks elegant, but the edges of the large bow on her hat are actually frayed and re-stitched."</p> <p>I think Brehmer's argument is evidence based, that is, the shot was tightly framed because Maier noticed interesting details, likely looked at the detail of the ribbon in the hat, felt connected to the subject for reasons similar to the one Brehmer offers (the contrast between hope and wear) and that the picture offers the viewer a closer recognition of her subject as a person than if Maier was just broadly noting the issue of social status. For just social status the photo didn't have to be tightly framed. The photo is also the view of one woman (Maier) who was viewing the woman that was her subject and now we have the view of another woman, Brehmer, who would notice more than I what a woman <em>would</em> notice about a woman and how Maier might have felt about all that and expressed it photographically.</p> <p>Brehmer also opined that Meir was more formalistic and backed up that opinion by giving us an example of shape and shadow. Did by talent, training, and practice Meir intend something close to that ascribed to her by Brehmer? And to express herself photographically did she make use of formalisms like shape and shadow? It's plausible. It's plausible to me that Maier would notice that a woman in less than an ideal situation would nevertheless still be presenting herself as best as she could; and plausible that Maier would use her skills to enhance her statement. And all without her statement becoming an admonishment. Brehmer from that quoted example comes off as a serious art critic.</p>

<p>The purpose of this kind of photography? It's a noble sentiment expressed as an admonition. Rather than a lie that tells a truth, it's a truth that tells a lie. Several truths presented together are less of a lie, but we can't very well put <em>The Garden of Earthly Delights</em> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Garden_of_Earthly_Delights">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Garden_of_Earthly_Delights</a> on a wall in a plaza and if we did it too would tell a lie though it would be closer to a truth. Culled from the images that comprise the mosaic were one's that didn't fit the sentiment of <em>The Kiss, </em>had to be culled because there are humorists in Spain too. Could none of them have responded to the call for photographic representations?</p> <p>Representations each of those smaller images are, and each one of them too tells a truth that for being simplistic and sentimental is a lie. "The world begins with every kiss" is a noble sentiment and that's great it is being expressed in a mural. That sentiment itself is a tile in a mosaic, and it is the kind of sentiment we stick up on walls. It's sanctioned graffiti. Is unsanctioned graffiti less art? Is there graffiti on that mural as I write?</p> <p>As to the translated Fontcuberta quote in the OP, first sentence: "All photography is a fiction that presents itself as truth." Trusting the translation, would Fontcuberta have better expressed himself by writing that all photography is a fiction that presents itself as <strong>a</strong> truth? There's a difference between 'as truth' and <strong>a</strong> truth, so the quote begins as it ends, with overstatement "The good photographer is one who lies well about the truth."</p> <p>What is unambiguous is "....the lie is inevitable, the important thing is how it is used by the photographer, to what intention it serves." There Fontcuberta counsels us to judge his lies by the purposes his lies serve, the lies are a means to an end, the lies an inevitability anyway. He fares no better in the material Anders quoted "they<em> 'constitute a sort of postmodern statement: they illustrate that the representation (of nature) no longer depends on the direct experience of reality, but on the interpretation of previous images, on representations that already exist. Reality does not precede our experience, but instead it results from intellectual construction.'" </em>That's probably best classified as from Fontcuberta's colloquial postmodernist beliefs and as colloquial probably not worth wading through.</p> <p> </p>

<p>Or</p> <p>There's yet nothing here to suggest not humor and photography are incompantible.</p> <p>The German part I believe is their propensity to add many more letters to sentences than are really necessary. Or else its just an archaic form of English.</p>

<p>And I agree with JDM ""I don't know nothin' 'bout birthin' babies"" is said ""I don't know nothin' 'bout birthin' no babies."</p> <p>But it would better be written ""I don't know nothin' 'bout birthin' no' babies"" where "nothin'" is a shortened form of 'anything' and "no'" is a shortened form of "nobody's".</p> <p> </p>

<p>Trying to translate JDM again:</p> <p>There's yet nothing here to suggest that humor and photography are incompantible is not humor and photographer are incompatible.</p> <p>But I disagree!</p>

<p> ???? It's late.</p>

<p>Here's how I translate JDM's: "Sorry; but I haven't seen anything in this thread yet to make me doubt that a sense of humor and photography are NOT mutually incompatible."</p> <blockquote> <p>Sorry; but I haven't seen anything in this thread yet to make me doubt that a sense of humor and photography are NOT [not compatible].</p> </blockquote> <p>He hasn't seen anything to convince him that they [humor and photography] aren't as the OP says. They [humor and photography] is or they [humor and photography] isn't, but they isn't isn't the opposite of they is. It could be anything. It's open ended. Right?</p> <p> </p>

<p>Judging by the number of women I make laugh I would say I'm pretty funny.</p>

<p>House? It's a bastion.</p>

<p>Ok Les, got it, thanks for fleshing that out for me. I think that African Americans in that era were represented in the media in ways that were positive and that didn't speak to the wider issue of that day. Nor do I see Bodine speaking in his larger body of work to the issue of poverty; instead his work overall comes off as technically good combined with an element of editorializing.</p>