urban ku # 191 ~ platitudes
Tuesday, February 3, 2009 at 09:58AM 
Scaffolding & trees ~ Brant Park, NYC • click to embiggenIf I lived in NYC, I'd most likely make about a zillion pictures a day. The city is one gigantic tableaux of picture possibilities. I suspect that NYC is not alone in its picturing possibilities. Paris, London, Tokyo, and, for that matter, to a lesser extent so is my humble (by comparison) home hamlet of Au Sable Forks.
Priscilla Ferguson-Forthman postulated what is essentially the same notion when she opined:
The entire visual world is an incredibly interesting place. If that is not sufficient "subject" for you, then I propose that you are in a 'world' of trouble, and had best get out while you can, because this game (of photography) is not for you.
But, for me, here's the thing about that notion that has informed my picture making in cities like NYC or, for that matter, wilderness / countryside places like the Adirondacks where I live. I like my pictures dense. That is to say, I like my pictures packed with information and the more discursive that information is, the better.
Some guy by the name of Matthew Summers-Sparks has given this idea a name - he calls it Dense Photography. In a recent article in The Morning News, he claims that by adopting the dense-photography method of picturing, he is able to "compress many of the sites of this beautiful city into just four handy photographs" - the city being his home town of London. The key word in that statement is "many". Obviously all of the "sites" of any city (and in all probability even my little hamlet of Au Sable Forks) could never be capture in just 4 pictures.
That said, his point regarding dense-photography with which I totally agree, is this:
While I appreciate the closely packed nature of dense photography, what I enjoy most are the memories and idiosyncratic elements that can be incorporated into the shots.
As anyone who has taken the time to view my pictures should know, I really like dense pictures - both those that I make and viewing those made by others.
What I have discovered from a zillion comments - primarily from "photographers" - is that many aren't on board the same train. Most 'photographers' seem to have trouble understanding the notion as is evidenced by their nearly universal consternation when viewing my pictures. The question - "I can't figure out what this picture is about." - almost always arises.
The best that I can determine is that dense-photography violates one of the basic tenets of the rules of photography - the one that states quite simply, "simplify". A rule which, to my way of thinking, simply means that the viewers of your pictures are most likely to be "simpletons", at least so when it comes to looking at pictures.
The idea is that by keeping it simple, the simple-minded will be much better able to figure our what a picture is about. Apparently, the last thing a picture maker should do is tax or challenge the eye, mind, and soul of the viewer. It is apparently much better to speak in simple platitudes than it is to present complex thoughts and ideas - a notion which runs quite contrary to that of Philippe Halsman's thoughts on the matter:
This is the essence of a work of art: that you never touch bottom. If a picture has for everybody exactly the same meaning, it is a platitude, and it is meaningless as a work of art.
My thoughts, exactly.
Reader Comments (6)
Very interesting post Mark and I've been leaning toward the denser end in my own photography for quite awhile now too. I think it's possible to pack a lot of information within the edges of the frame and still make it a pleasurable and illuminating viewing experience. Sorting out what's in a very dense image is a stimulating exercise and actually pretty fun in my opinion. I think it forces the viewer to spend a little more time rather than just take a "drive-by" look. Not for everyone, that is for sure. But you can say so much more when you pack a lot in the frame. Not everyone will take the time to read it but that's okay.
Hmmm...platitudinous photography. I like that idea as expressed by Philippe Halsman. You know it when you see it.
OK, let's keep this simple.
What you've done here is to equate images that are not "dense", (that is, they incorporate simple ideas and straightforward subject matter) with "simple - minded people" and "platitudes". You've made it an either / or question when, of course, it is not.
I'm guessing your response will be that you haven't actually said that, but that's certainly the impression that a thoughtful reader will be left with.
Simplicity in photography or music or writing in no way implies that the artist is targeting the idiots of the world. Hemingway's style was remarkably simple when compared to someone like Dostoyevsky, but I don't know of anyone who claims that he was playing to the "simple-minded".
You're right, however, when you say that most people will not spend a lot of time with art that tends to be complex (or "dense"). If they can understand a powerful idea by reading "The Old Man and the Sea", then why bother with "War and Peace"?
Now, the latter isn't inferior to the former - both are powerful works of literature. I'm simply saying that the power or impact of an idea isn't measured by its complexity (or in your terms, its density).
I'll even go further and suggest that density is a disadvantage, especially in photography. While I may give "War and Peace" the benefit of the doubt by reading a few chapters, I'm not nearly as likely to give a "dense" photograph the same latitude. If it's too "busy", I'm likely to be done with it in about 3 seconds. And that has nothing to do with my level of curiosity or my intelligence. It's just how the human brain works. Visually, we do not like complexity. It has nothing to do with following silly "photographic rules".
Are you really suggesting that a photograph with a "simple" composition is incapable of challenging "the eye, mind, and soul of the viewer"? Now that's a pretty dense idea.
Hmm ... interesting. You may know that I've tried for months now to find out what exactly fascinates me so much in your photography. Until now I thought it was something about composition and balance, and that is certainly true, but it may go deeper, and probably this "dense photography" lies at or near the bottom.
I don't think that your images are complicated (or "chaotic", as someone said), much to the contrary, they are exceptionally concise, simple and elegant images about very complicated relations.
Basically it is all in your motto of "being true". You can't be true to a complex reality without making aspects of complexity a subject.
That being said, do you "know" or "plan" what your photos "are about"? As I have understood your term of "plain seeing", I get the impression that you don't, because that would be exactly the opposite of "plain", it would be filtered through a plan.
And if I'm right, do you rationalize your images later or are you content with the fact that they happen on another level, outside of verbalized communication?
I think that very sparse images, ones with very little information in them, can also be powerful and full of meaning. And I think some people have trouble with those also, complaining that they are too minimalistic without enough information in them to figure out meaning. I don't honestly think it's a matter of scale here, of 1 to 10 on the densiometer. I think there has to be some sense to the density and some sense to the sparseness. Something in them, or an inherent design quality, that makes them worth spending time on.
I go along with Andreas and Mary here: sparse does not necessarily equate with simple, neither does dense equate with complicated.
If I understand corectly, you are trying to use dense photography to denote complexity (much subject matter) rather than being complicated (difficult to understand). But further, I'm not implying that ideas that can be easily grasped can also be done so quickly - somethimes it takes contemplation to reach that understanding (something of the Buddhist approach).
Given my experiences in London last week, 4 pictures is about the maximum you can take before the police descend to question you about being a terrorist, so it seems like a good number to aim for.
When I really started with a camera, my pictures were often busy and confused, with lots of incidental 'stuff' encroaching into the frame. The solution is easy - simplify! Use a long lens, get rid of stuff you don't want in there.
Eventually that gets boring and things start to creep back in, adding layers of complexity, planes of complexity, more stuff, but with at least an attempt to do this in a controlled manner, so there is less random 'stuff' in the frame, but more stuff.
That ability to manage complexity would seem to be an important skill.