civilized ku # 52 ~ What? # 3

Lobby mural at the Northwood Inn • click to embiggenApparently, the best way to set subject aside (with straight photography) is to look at paintings.

Me, I don't think it's possible, in the medium of photography, to divorce subject from meaning/denoted from connoted. Visually, photography deals best with the "real". I like the way Winogrand put it -

"I like to think of photography as a two-way act of respect. Respect for the medium, by letting it do what it does best, describe. And respect for the subject, by describing it as it is. A photograph must be responsible to both."

Comments

[tim atherton]

There are few interesting leaps of assumption in there.

Assuming that photographs can and do deal with the "real" (rather than appearances); that they have the language to independently carry sufficient "meaning" and that such a thing a "straight photography" actually exists...?

Wasn't it Winogrand who also described a photograph as a "new fact"

"The photograph isn't what was photographed. It's something else. It's a new fact."

[tim atherton]

BTW not all the apples were paintings (and I could also have thrown in peppers or nautilus shells or even Half-Domes)

[Tim Kingston]

"How does one view a picture and set subject matter aside?"

I'm going to go out on a limb here and give my opinion. If I were to
describe myself, as a person and my photography as a result, I would
have to say that I function based on emotion rather than on rational
thought. I know that statement probably opens me up to some ridicule
but that's my honest opinion.

One of the reasons I find your photography and this site so interesting,
is that I never really considered photography the way you have expressed it through your work. I guess I should say the way I interpret your
writings and photographs.

I find we have some commonality. For example, I agree with the statement
-

"I like to think of photography as a two-way act of respect. Respect for
the medium, by letting it do what it does best, describe. And respect
for the subject, by describing it as it is. A photograph must be
responsible to both."

I have participated on another photography site and often I am
frustrated by the attitude that many photographers do not consider (in
my opinion) what is real, to be important at all. What the final image
looks like, in terms of visual appeal, is all that seems to be important
many times.

Anyways, back to the subject, the way I might describe what I'm talking
about is as follows. An example would be standing a great height looking down at the view below; that is the "subject".
Given the way I think, what you see is not really the subject. Rather
what you feel about what you see, is the real subject. The fear of
heights, lets say, how that is expressed is the real subject for me.
It could be looking down at the pavement from a rooftop or looking down
from a cliff's edge at the rocks below; the subjects are different but
the fear, the emotional response is the same. Therefore I feel I can and
do, view a picture and set subject matter aside, in a sense.

Now people that are not afraid of heights, they probably wouldn't get
the message. However if a photographer were to use the camera and
techniques to relate what it feels like to be afraid, that is what I
appreciate about this medium and that is what I hope to achieve , when
I'm really trying to be an artist. So, if I can position the camera and
use the photographic tools to sort of make the viewer feel somewhat
disorientated and transfixed on the scene below and as result people who
are afraid of heights and those who aren't can relate to that feeling of
fear that I'm trying to express, then I am attempting to relate
something real, even though you can't see it, as a simple subject.

[Jim Jirka]

Tim,
I used to be frustrated also due to the views of the other site.

I just don't participate there anymore. Many share your same feelings.

[Tim Kingston]

Jim,

I don't want to get off topic but just want to say that I loved the other site and the people who run have been very generous to me, incredibly so, actually.

It's just, I don't know, I always felt more at home with people like you and Marc and the ideas you are trying to express.

Relating ideas and not just emotion is something new for me and I know I have a lot to learn. I am looking forward to it.