urban ku # 30 ~ 2 myths about photography
Tuesday, February 20, 2007 at 02:58PM 
Dark sky over white snow • click on photo to embiggen itThe artist Jeff Wall said that there are two prominent myths about photography: the myth that it tells the truth and the myth that it doesn't.
I like this notion very much.
Steve Edwards (from Photography: A Very Short Introduction) has this to say about that: "...the most productive way to view photographs is to hang on to the contradiction or tension between the two myths; to pay attention to the pro-filmic moment and the form imposed upon it by the photographer and his or her apparatus ... [w]hile photographs are copies of their pro-filmic moment, they are never unmediated copies of it ... [p]hotography is then a double or paradoxical form ... a transcription of a bit of the world and, at the same time, a picture shaped by the determinents of the apparatus and the choices made by the photographer. Maintaining this double focus (ed. - the viewer's awareness of two myths) requires effort and attention; failing to do so gets the viewer caught up in all sorts of probelms."
I like this notion very much as well.
Featured Comment: Mary Dennis wrote (in part); "... what the heck is a "pro-filmic moment?" Is it related to the decisive moment? ;-) I'm just as smart as the next person (at least I think I am...) but the older I get the less patient I become with gobbledygook language. Maybe I'm just regressing. Or need a new de-coder ring..."
Featured Comment: Tom Gallione wrote (in part); "...Souriau, a French “Filmologist,” introduced and defined these terms as part of a terminology to study film: the “filmic” being everything that appears in the film, and the profilmic everything that exists in reality that receives a special destination in the film (like actors, props, decors) and leaves its traces on the celluloid ..."
publisher's comment: ...now, now, people. If the academics of the world write so that just anyone can understand it at a glance, they'd be out of a job. I am also beginning to think that the jargonese - which, in most cases, does have precise meaning for those who are "educated" - is an attempt to add a scientific luster/legitimacy to an essentially un-scientific field - art criticism.
PS - on the other hand, doesn't your daily bread taste that much sweeter when you have to earn it yourself with a little hard work? The stuff that gets spoon-fed to you is usually kind of mushy and bland.
Reader Comments (5)
I just came across your site a few days ago and find it very interesting. Re: your post concerning 'Photography: A Very Short Introduction'- another way to regard this paradox is to think of it instead as a continuum: between the subjective and the objective, between the photograph as a recording of the external world and and an invention of it.
Best, Sean.
I like this notion as well. But while I am keen to learn more about the tension between the two myths, the opaque academic-ese b.s. of these statements keep me from understanding the issues.
With terms such as: "...the pro-filmic moment..." and "...the determinents of the apparatus..." I feel like a dummy trying to break a code. Is that necessary for an understanding of the paradox?
Yeah, what the heck is a "pro-filmic moment?" Is it related to the decisive moment? ;-) I'm just as smart as the next person (at least I think I am...) but the older I get the less patient I become with gobbledygook language. Maybe I'm just regressing. Or need a new de-coder ring. Or need to go back to school.
I was confused as well. Some research yielded this:
Étienne Souriau, ed., L’univers filmique (Paris: Flammarion, 1953). Souriau, a French “Filmologist,” introduced and defined these terms as part of a terminology to study film: the “filmic” being everything that appears in the film, and the profilmic everything that exists in reality that receives a special destination in the film (like actors, props, decors) and leaves its traces on the celluloid. Digitally created elements, for instance, do not have a profilmic existence. Distinct from the profilmic, the a-filmic refers to everything in reality that has no such a destination, but can become profilmic (like locations and people in documentaries).
From here: http://www.yidff.jp/docbox/14/box14-1-2-e.html
Mark,
In answer to your PS---yes. Spoon feeding is for babies so I guess I'll quit whining and use my brain now. If I haaaaave to. :-)