ku # 608 ~ a reason to keep coming back
Wednesday, June 24, 2009 at 09:07AM 
Fungus • click to embiggenI may have been unjustly harsh in my recent statement that:
.... so-called "interpretation" is the lazy person's way of trying to make an interesting picture.
I use the word "unjustly" because those from the interpretive school most often expend a great deal of time and effort creating their interpretations. Long and sometimes arduous treks hauling lots of gear to favored locations, once there decisions about equipment and technique, and once back to their darkrooms (computer + PhotoShop) spending a significant amount of time manipulating their RAW material into an interpretative state are all part of the effort involved in their interpretive enterprises.
Add to that the time and effort spent learning their interpretive techniques, it really is unjust to label that effort as a "lazy" one.
So, in that light, I must amend my statement to include the word "intellectually", as in intellectually lazy. I have considered adding the word "emotionally" to that phrase but I don't really think that applies in that sense. However, the phrase "emotionally stilted" has a nice ring to it since most their interpretations are strictly limited to the emotion of "wow" - an emotion of which they never seem to tire.
Now, you should feel free to call me a smug, effete, and arrogant snob/bastard but that's how I see it. I can't imagine a picture world that has only that one note to play over and over again. Well, actually, I don't have to image it because I was immersed in one just like that for a couple of years with the net effect being that my mind and my eyes just became numb from the endless repetition of the same song - kind of like being trapped on 500 story elevator ride with some vacuous background music adding to the drudgery.
Only one word comes to mind - boring (once again, feel free to call me a smug, effete, and arrogant snob/bastard).
That's just not my cup of tea. I prefer something more like this:
a concentration on the world within the frame, For my material I have gone to the "commonplace", the "neglected", the "insignificant" - the walls, the pavements, the iron work of New York City, the endless items once used and now discarded by people. the concrete walls of Chicago and the deep subways of New York on which the water and weather have left their mark - the detritus of our world which I am combing for meaning. In this work fidelity to the object and to my instrument, the clear-seeing lens, is unrelenting; (take a deep breath - here it comes) transformation into an esthethic object is achieved in the act of seeing, and not by manipulation ~ Aaron Siskind
What Aaron Siskind was attempting to create with his picturing making - based on the preceding statement - was essentially the Stieglitz / White idea of an equivalent. An equivalent, photography-wise, is a picture that is
...both rooted in the subject and yet beyond it; surface appearance, though of secondary importance, is essential; and the photograph must be transformed into a new event, to be interpreted, or read.
The significant idea in this statement that emphasizes the key difference between those who picture what they see as opposed to those who picture what they wish to see - the straight crowd v. the interpretive crowd - is that the straight crowd leaves the interpretation / reading to the viewer of their pictures whereas the interpretive crowd leaves little or nothing to be interpreted or "read".
One could also consider this difference to be a one that revolves primarily around the notion of imagination.
The interpretive crowd evidences little imagination in the aforementioned act of seeing. Their imagination is centered primarily around what technique to apply and which spectacular display of nature to picture, the net result of which is to leave nothing to the viewers imagination - both literally and figuratively. Everything is made apparent from the opening up shadows (literal) to (over)stating the obvious (figurative).
IMO, and to my eye and sensibilities, the straight crowd is much more imaginative. They concentrate their imagination of the act of seeing in which they evidence some discovered meaning. And, most importantly, they respect the viewer of their pictures by letting them put their imagination to work, letting them interpret and read what they see in a picture.
By any standard, the straight crowd makes much more "involving" pictures. Which is why although the interpretive crowd's pictures may initially wow the eye, they most often fail to grab the imagination and are therefore easily forgotten as soon as the next wow-thing comes along.
As many have noted, finding the picture maker's intentions and meaning is not easy. But, that said, one of the most pertinent statements I have read in a long time regarding that process of interpretation / reading / discovery is the comment left by John regarding the book, The History of Photography:
... This was the first history of photography I owned, maybe even the first collection of photographs, and I spent hours of my younger life pouring over images late into the night. Sometimes I was astounded, sometimes mystified, but never bored. I occasionally wondered why a certain image was deemed significant, but that only led me to more investigation. Most of the pictures my younger self did not get then have become treasures to my older self. The few that still elude me only give me a reason to keep coming back ...
There it is, plain and simple - the power of the medium.
Reader Comments (1)
Some people see things as they are and say why. I dream things that never were and say why not?