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 01/12/2006 02:41:16 PM · #26
Ah, but the hot air is like an aphrodisiac and I inflate.

Consider what happens to our perception when we are depressed, contenplative or happy. Look at those moments where we revel in a small dose of happiness and we simply overlook all the things that would normally bother us.

The above makes me wonder if we can ever be trusted to perceive.
 01/12/2006 03:00:48 PM · #27
Originally posted by gloda:
You're right about abstract photography. Could you give some examples of other realms of photography where the results are not memento moris, please?


A good question without, perhaps, an adequate answer - I'm not sure I could give another categorical example. I think that specific examples could also be found within commercial or stock photography, and perhaps some other less "snapshot-of-the-moment" kinds of photography-



Here are a few specific photographs that I don't see as memento mori.

Originally posted by Bear_Music:
Memento mori is literally a "reminder of death", of mortality. In an artistic sense, the term most often refers to an aspect of the work of the great still-life painters of old; if you look closely, you will see that virtually every still life of the Dutch School, for example, includes at least one dead object. Classically, a memento mori in art is the inclusion of such a reminder within the larger image.


Right - here's what I think is a great example of a memento mori in the classical definition-

Memento Mori by Philippe de Champagne - courtesy of Wikipedia

Originally posted by Bear_Music:
Sontag, clearly, is working on a larger definition. She's saying that "every photograph is a reminder of our own mortality". Speaking of portraits, for on example, I can see exactly what she means; you only need to be 60 years old looking at an image of yourself as a child, with your family perhaps, to get a frisson of impending, inevitable death. Especially if some of the group already are dead.


Right - I'm just not sure I agree with what Sontag wants to do with the term. I think there's a difference between "a reminder of our own mortality" and "a reminder of the transience of things." It's a question of whether that reminder points to oneself or the outside world, and conflating the two represents a blurring of ideas.

Originally posted by Bear_Music:
I'm not sure I'd agree with her in the sense that a classic landscape, say, is a memento mori. And to be fair, I'm not sure that was her point; she may be referring specifically to images of people, it's been some years since I read the book and my copy is in California.


I wouldn't agree, either. A landscape doesn't make me think about death; along those lines, it would rather make me think about the likelihood that the particular scene that was captured is no longer there, or is different; perhaps it's later in the year, and the fresh green grass in the picture is by now long and brown, or perhaps the photo captured a great skyscape that has undoubtedly blown on. To me, this is a reminder of transience, not mortality.

Originally posted by graphicfunk:
This very thread demonstrates the unsurmountable task of defining perception. We can only employ ours to evaluate or appreciate anything but even then we note internal changes and recalibration. What we did not see yesterdat we see today. More ephemeral than permanent.

Methinks I am exuding the same hot air as S. Sontag. lol


The task may be insurmountable, but I don't think that means it's not worth doing. I view the project as one essentially of translation: translating the visual realm of photography (and its attendant emotional and ethical counterparts) into language. The translation is difficult and, probably, necessarily imperfect, but I think it's a good exercise in itself and can also aid in understanding.

While Sontag may have blown a lot of hot air, I feel that not all air blown on this subject is needlessly hot--

Originally posted by BobsterLobster:
Your post I quoted reminds me of what I feel about academia in general when it's applied to the arts. I can't stand it.


It's rarely easy reading, but I think it can be fruitful.

Originally posted by American_Horse:
In the industry that I am about to go to this very early morning, when on location, especially in small town America, the camera is truly powerful.

No, I don't mean that laser beams come out of it and whole communitys are leveled.


Ah yes - I believe that feature is being developed for the Mark III :)

01/12/2006 03:01:23 PM · #28
Originally posted by graphicfunk:
Ah, but the hot air is like an aphrodisiac and I inflate.

Consider what happens to our perception when we are depressed, contenplative or happy. Look at those moments where we revel in a small dose of happiness and we simply overlook all the things that would normally bother us.

The above makes me wonder if we can ever be trusted to perceive.


We can always be trusted to "perceive"; the issue is the validity of our perceptions, and therein (of course) lies the rub.

To "see" or not to "see", that is the question;
whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
the slings and arrows of outragéd critters,
or to lend credence to their virtuous moanings
by making images like them, that is the issue.
To die, to "see" no more, aye, there's the rub:
for in that sleep of sight, what shots we take
may cause us shame, even as they satisfy
the rigid critters of this darkling place.
For us, to "see" no more is to be blind
as any creature trapped within its herd,
lowing in common tongue, in no way bright
or strong enough to dare the world alone.
No, sir, I'll have none of that pabulum,
but rather take my cues from the vast sight
that opens to all men of open mind,
"seeing" my images as best I can
and paying small heed, or none, to any man
who'd force my sight into his own, small box,
as if to darken ME might make HIM shine.

(jaysus, where did that come from?)

R.

Message edited by author 2006-01-12 15:03:29.
 01/12/2006 03:42:15 PM · #29
Originally posted by mycelium:
Originally posted by e301:
"There is an aggression implicit in every use of the camera."

>> We 'shoot', we 'take' photographs. Even simply in its moments of recording goofy expressions and nailing our worst fashion choices to the history book, photography definitely has a certain level of aggression.


Right, and you can also talk about the 'loading' of film and the 'firing' of the shutter, and so on - but that's just borrowed terminology.

I wouldn't argue with someone who said that photography can be aggressive - one need look no further than paparazzi for that - but I don't think it's always there. If I'm taking a picture of a beautiful landscape, I don't feel like I'm aggressing anyone or anything.

I would agree that photography is aggressive to a point. If we take a milder stance on 'aggression' (and not necessarily a hostile behavior) and have it be 'assertion' or 'imposing one's view', then it's hard to argue that it's not both of these things. A photographer steps up, decides that this is important enough to capture, invades a space, and presents it, saying, "This is how I see the world."

Originally posted by mycelium:
"To collect photographs is to collect the world . . . Photographs really are experience captured, and the camera is the ideal arm of consciousness in its acquisitive mood."

I don't know about you, but sometimes I have "Twilight Zone" sort of thoughts and this has been a subject of one of them. I've kind of played with the idea that a photograph is a true capture of the world and if you could somehow enter a photograph that you could relive that moment.

I know what you're thinking...it's nothing I haven't heard before from my psychiatrist before... ;)
 01/12/2006 04:40:55 PM · #30
Originally posted by Bear_Music:

To "see" or not to "see", that is the question;[...]

Does this come from you? I quite like the whole derivation. Very witty.

Also, thanks for the clarifications on memento mori, Bear and mycelium.
 01/12/2006 04:43:04 PM · #31
Originally posted by gloda:
Originally posted by Bear_Music:

To "see" or not to "see", that is the question;[...]

Does this come from you? I quite like the whole derivation. Very witty.

Also, thanks for the clarifications on memento mori, Bear and mycelium.


Yeah, that's me running a riff on Shakespeare. It's a bad habit of mine; with a drink or two I can do it spontaneously in front of a group, off the cuff so to speak, until the boo me into submission.

R.
 01/12/2006 04:52:26 PM · #32
That's a great talent. Is the change of register after 'No, sir, I'll have none of that pabulum,' voluntary?
[/off topic]
 01/12/2006 05:19:00 PM · #33
Originally posted by gloda:
That's a great talent. Is the change of register after 'No, sir, I'll have none of that pabulum,' voluntary?
[/off topic]


If by "voluntary" you mean "intentional", yes.

R.
 01/12/2006 05:34:03 PM · #34
Bear - thank you for the word - Essence.

That is what I try so hard to see when I look.

Having spent so much time in Plato's cave with regard to photography, I am working more towards an appleness if you will - work that tries to show what I believe is the essence of the thing in itself.

Okay, so it made sense when I thought it. And it made sense when I explained it to people to explain my reduction to simpleness but I've a full belly now... :)
 01/12/2006 05:36:05 PM · #35
Originally posted by dahkota:
Bear - thank you for the word - Essence.

That is what I try so hard to see when I look.

Having spent so much time in Plato's cave with regard to photography, I am working more towards an appleness if you will - work that tries to show what I believe is the essence of the thing in itself.

Okay, so it made sense when I thought it. And it made sense when I explained it to people to explain my reduction to simpleness but I've a full belly now... :)


It makes all the sense in the world. Here's what Wynn Bullock said: "Not form rock, not object rock, but the light that IS the rock."

R.
 01/12/2006 06:14:24 PM · #36

A lot of negative opinions of this book here. I actually think think the book is extremely thought provoking and makes one examine not only why one takes pictures, but why the world needs, collects, is inspired by, is influenced by and has been changed by photography.

Perhaps these are things most of us do not think of on a daily basis, but as photographers it is valuable on occasion to analyze and dissect the reasons we take pictures. This is turn will help us to become better photographers for the very reason that we will have a better understanding of our motives.

If "On Photography" is not pleasing to you because it is wordy, you don't agree with Susan's philosophy or perhaps because there weren't any pictures in the book that is not a bad thing. Our taste in books is as subjective as our taste in photography. I do, however, find it hard to believe that any photographer could come away from reading this book without gaining something. That should be merit enough.
 01/12/2006 08:16:38 PM · #37
Originally posted by nsbca7:
If "On Photography" is not pleasing to you because it is wordy, you don't agree with Susan's philosophy or perhaps because there weren't any pictures in the book that is not a bad thing. Our taste in books is as subjective as our taste in photography. I do, however, find it hard to believe that any photographer could come away from reading this book without gaining something. That should be merit enough.


My problem with "On Photography," as I outlined it above, is not its wordiness; it is its often-unsupported generalizations and undeveloped themes.

I did find the book thought-provoking and I'm glad I picked it up, but I was disappointed because of so much unrealized potential. Sontag makes these big claims and then moves right on to the next big claim; I would really have liked to see some of the nuances brought out, and some of the thorny issues examined in more detail.
01/12/2006 08:29:23 PM · #38
Originally posted by mycelium:
My problem with "On Photography," as I outlined it above, is not its wordiness; it is its often-unsupported generalizations and undeveloped themes.

I did find the book thought-provoking and I'm glad I picked it up, but I was disappointed because of so much unrealized potential. Sontag makes these big claims and then moves right on to the next big claim; I would really have liked to see some of the nuances brought out, and some of the thorny issues examined in more detail.


I would agree on this point. I do think I would have liked to have seen these ideas further developed. For a short book it hits on many subjects. To fully examine every idea would have required a thick several volume set. (Which I would have gladly welcomed) Or she could have had the book at its current length more focused.

As it stands, and what I suppose as her intentions, (or I could be wrong) the book is not meant to answer all the questions as much as it is meant to make us examine the questions more fully for ourselves. Thus the brevity of the book. This is exactly what it does for me an why i personally merit this book as valuable.

Absolute truth? As Plato would have it, it does not exist in this dimension.

Message edited by author 2006-01-12 20:33:30.
 01/13/2006 01:30:42 AM · #39
Originally posted by mycelium:
Anyone else read this, or part of it?

I've read bits and pieces of this book - the first thirty or so pages, as well as a few other parts I opened the book to. I was expecting a series of insightful treatises, but wound up being somewhat underwhelmed. There is some good material in there, but I think it's mostly contained in the first two pages, and a few other worthy tidbits sprinkled here and there. Otherwise, lots of unsupported generalizations, not helped by the fact that the advent of digital photography changed the way people understand photography in a big way.

Some of the interesting tidbits, thought-provoking, if not well-developed:

"Humankind lingers unregenerately in Plato's cave, still reveling, its age-old habit, in mere images of the truth. . . . In teaching us a new visual code, photographs alter and enlarge our notions of what is worth looking at and what we have a right to observe. They are a grammar and, even more importantly, an ethics of seeing."

"To collect photographs is to collect the world . . . Photographs really are experience captured, and the camera is the ideal arm of consciousness in its acquisitive mood."

"To photograph is to appropriate the thing photographed. It means putting oneself into a certain relation to the world that feels like knowledge--and, therefore, like power."

"Although there is a sense in which the camera does indeed capture reality, not just interpret it, photographs are as much an interpretation of the world as paintings or drawings are."

Interesting stuff.
But on the other side of that are questionable proclamations like these:

"There is an aggression implicit in every use of the camera."

"Taking photographs has set up a chronic voyeuristic relation to the world which levels the meaning of all events."

"The omnipresence of cameras persuasively suggests that time consists of interesting events, events worth photographing. This, in turn, makes it easy to feel that any event, once underway, and whatever its moral character, should be allowed to complete itself--so that something else can be brought into the world, the photograph."

"To photograph people is to violate them[.]"

"All photographs are memento mori."

"Nobody demands that photography be literate. Nobody can imagine how it could be authoritative. Nobody understands how anything, least of all a photograph, could be transcendent."

--

With that latter group of quotations, I think Sontag is just plain wrong, and at the very least, utterly unsupported in her assertions.

Care to discuss or add anything, anyone?

Damon


She also stated somewhere toward the first half of the book (I believe) that taking quotations out of context rendered those quotations surreal. (and then she ended the book with a chapter of quotations)

I'm surprised no one has brought up the surreal aspect of the book. That was the main message I got from it. That photographs are a shadow or the reflection of reality taken from the conic view of the photographer from any infinite number of possible viewpoints representing just a small portion of the world for only a split second of time rendering the end result beyond a true representation of reality and into the surreal - like the quotation.

And I believe that is why she brought that up and included the quotations at the end.

Message edited by author 2006-01-13 04:26:00.
 01/13/2006 03:47:51 PM · #40
Originally posted by nsbca7:
She also stated somewhere toward the first half of the book (I believe) that taking quotations out of context rendered those quotations surreal. (and then she ended the book with a chapter of quotations)

I'm surprised no one has brought up the surreal aspect of the book. That was the main message I got from it. That photographs are a shadow or the reflection of reality taken from the conic view of the photographer from any infinite number of possible viewpoints representing just a small portion of the world for only a split second of time rendering the end result beyond a true representation of reality and into the surreal - like the quotation.

And I believe that is why she brought that up and included the quotations at the end.


This is some interesting insight you have into this book, and after reading what you said, I think your interpretation of quotations is correct: they are the literary equivalent of photographs, with all the attendant surreality.

Another interesting point that Sontag brought up is this - because photographs are capable of such a high degree of verisimilitude, we often view them as being a literal representation of what is depicted, even with the representation is not literal.

My favorite example of this is old, yellowed photos and magazines from the 1970s or before - because they're photographs, they have a pretense of literalism, but because of the color shifts, what they depict is actually pretty far from what was there. Nonetheless, I find it impossible to view such aged works without my understanding of the subject in the photos being affected by the coloration of the image I'm looking at.

Basically, it's a picture, so it's real, and the picture is yellow, so the thing depicted is yellow, right? -- of course this is not true, but it's the initial reaction I have, and I have to mentally get over that and 'correct' my perception.

To this extent, photographs can actually be more misleading than other art forms like painting. When we see a painting, we know immediately that it's nonliteral; no matter how lifelike the brushstrokes, we know that they are brushstrokes, and that the image we're seeing is someone else's interpretation. We're less likely to think that a painting is fully representing its subject than a photograph, which is why photography can be so devious when it comes to depicting its subject matter.
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