urban ku # 93 ~ portal/transition

Transition - mystic/rational • click to embiggenYesterday, pursuant to civilized ku # 50 Martin Doonan asked, "... are the great photos those that, even though only enjoyed for their connotation (the event/place isn't special to the viewer), have a deeper meaning denoted to the photographer? Thus, the photos that we appreciate most are those that we sense have meaning to the photographer, without necessarily knowing or understanding it."

When I view a picture - even my own - I assume that the photographer has a 'meaningful' connection to picture, if not the actual referent/object of the camera's gaze. Whatever the referent, I take it as a given that the photographer has pictured it for a reason - he/she, by picturing it, has 'elevated' it to a level of importance that should warrant the viewer's attention.

Whether the photographer has 'elevated' the referent for its denoted or its connoted qualities is often difficult to discern without the assistance of words - artist's statement, caption, title.

So, in answer to your question, I guess what I am saying is that I think it's difficult for a picture maker to make a picture that can be appreciated beyond its decorative qualities unless the picture maker has a 'meaningful' relationship to his/her 'subject' - the 'subject' being expressed through both the denoted and the connoted.

However, that being said, for the viewer, if a picture does not possess a personally experienced punctum - "... that accident which pricks, bruises me ... - Roland Barthes/Camera Lucida - no sense of the picture maker's connection to the denoted will help the viewer connect to the picture as anything more than decorative (if even that).

While most photographs offer only the identity of an object, those that project a punctum potentially offer the truth of the subject. They offer "the impossible science of the unique being."