civilized ku # 55 ~ antithesis, or, oh, the tragedy

MAtthew's smiling but feeels like a turd • click to embiggenIn an tourism antithesis event (see urban ku # 102 ~ a tourism "nightmare", this past weekend the wife and I stayed ( a return visit) in a hotel. In fact, in Canada's #1 rated hotel - the Auberge du Vieux-Port in Montreal.

One of the reasons that we return to the Auberge du Vieux-Port is Matthew, the valet. The entire staff is excellent, but if this guy can't make you feel warm and welcome, no one can. He always seems to be there in the lobby, right outside of the elevator, full of greetings, banter and helpful information. His sense of humor and timing is exquisite and everything about him seems utterly genuine.

Upon arrival, he greets you at your car, unloads your stuff and gets you to your room. After that he parks your car. Upon departure, it works in reverse and therein is the tragedy. Due to a quirky series of circumstance surrounding a marthon nearby, Matthew delivered our (brand new) car for departure complete with a nasty gouge in the front bumper. Matthew was beside himself (if only my kids could at least appear as crest-fallen, remorseful and contrite as Matthew).

The hotel, of course, made everything right but Matthew seemed so out of sorts that we gave him a really big tip to help him snap out of it.

civilized ku # 54 ~ a brief history

Salad bar, pizza, wings, pies and internet access • click to embiggenBeau Comeaux wrote; ... I find myself less interested in imagery where someone with a camera has found a subject of visual interest and rendered it plainly. This is, in effect, simply "pointing at" the subject. As a photographer, saying, "I liked the way this looked. Here, you look at it." I have coined a phrase for it: "plagiarizing nature." ... This "pointing at" style? of photography seems to be limited arbitrarily by the history of the medium. I get much more excited by new uses or approaches to image-making ... Perhaps this could be the start of an interesting conversation about the medium and its varied permutations ... Your thoughts?

From its inception, the medium of photography has had its status as an Art form challenged by the accusation that the medium was little more than a lowly artisanal (or mechanical) trade that produced 'documents' - detailed 'copies' of the contingent features of the actual world (plagiarizing nature). 'True' Art (idealized forms that were not copies of imperfect nature), it was said, was always characterized by its distance from the contingent features of the actual world and the amount of obvious mental/intellectual effort the Artist infused into the work. None other than the Royal Academy in London and the Academie Royal de Peinture et de Sculpture in Paris declared this to be so.

The result of all of this, photography-wise, was the movement known as Pictorialism. Pictorialist Art was intentionally and self-consciously 'arty' and the pictures most often displayed a soft-focus technique that suppressed the contingent features of the actual world. Pictorialists also favored 'difficult' printing techniques and they used brushes, sponges, pencils, etching needles, etc., on the negative and print to add layers of 'handcrafting' to their work. Pictorialists were driven to even greater heights of retched excesses in an effort to separate themselves from the hordes of snappers that George Eastman unleashed upon the photographic world with his easy-to-use Kodaks.

As always happens, all good things must come to an end and Pictorialism eventually gave way to the the influences of Modernism most notably at the hands of Paul Strand and Alfred Stieglitz (who championed Strand). Strand's approach to picturing was based on what he considered to be the inherent qualities of the medium - direct, optically sharp images filled with details of the contingent features of the actual world. He also believed in the modernist idea/ideal of 'truth to materials', aka, 'medium specificity'.

Medium specificity suggests that significant Art is created by concentrating on those characteristics inherent in a medium. It also tends to feature the means of depiction over what is depicted and, most often, highlights those characteristics of a medium that separate it from other art forms.

The eventual result of medium specificity in the medium of photography in the Postmodernist world is what has been come to be known as the 'snapshot' aesthetic (pointing-at style) - an approach to picturing that suggests a photographic gaze of 'detachment' and 'coolness' and one that seems to let the camera 'do its thing' so to speak. One, that retro-like, returns photography to its origins of 'copying' the contingent features of the actual world. One which gives the appearance of an invisible hand of the photographer.

Now, I would be the first to admit that, in the age of digital picture making, the term 'medium specificity' is a moving/evolving target. One could opine that, with the ease of digital manipulation (Photoshop is just brimming with 'pictorialist' tools), Pictorialism - third-wave edition - is rearing its head (some might say, 'ugly' head) once again.

Beau, your pictures are a fine example of the New Pictorialism and maybe, just maybe, the Art world is ready for a swing away from the decades of the 'cool' Postmodern photographic gaze.

Update on Tuesday, August 28, 2007 at 11:00AM by gravitas et nugalis

Featured Comment: Beau Comeaux wrote; "... The far flung after-effects of the German coolness and detachment (as initially? proffered by the Bechers) has worn me down a bit as of late. The ironic pointing to empty, banal spaces has run its course for me, failing to interest or engage me.

I hope that doesn't sound too cynical - it's simply that I am tired of seeing that type of work. I am always ready to explore the farther reaches of the medium and it's possibilities (whatever that really means these days). I suppose what I'm really talking about here is the straight rendering of a subject isn't really telling me anything other than an accurate (I know the fallacy in labeling photos as accurate!) depiction of what was before the camera ..."

civilized ku # 53 ~ What? # 5

Bananas, peqaches, raisins and pickles • click to embiggenIt would appear from the 2 comments on yesterday's entry that urban ku # 97 is a picture that, for some, transcends subject matter.

IMO, transcending subject matter is a very far cry from setting aside subject matter. But that idea might be too much of a parse for some, so let's not go there now.

Instead, how about this re: the real/truth in photography;

For spectators (the viewers of the photographs), Barthes explains that there are two elements involved when viewing a photograph. One element is the studium. The studium is a "kind of education (civility, politeness) that allows discovery of the operator." It is the order of liking, not loving. News photographs are often simple banal, unary photos which exemplify studium because "I glance through them, I don't recall them; no detail ever interrupts my reading: I am interested in them (as I am interested in the world), I do not love them."

The second and far more interesting element for the spectator is punctum ... "that accident which pricks, bruises me." It is the unintentional detail that could not not be taken, and that "fills the whole picture." Barthes says there is no rule that can be applied to the existence of studium and punctum within a photo except that "it is a matter of co-presence." These are the photos which take our breath away for some reason that was completely unintended by the photographer (or by the subject, for that matter). It is at the moment when the punctum strikes that the photograph will "annihilate itself as medium to be no longer a sign but the thing itself." And the object will become subject again ... 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." ~ all quotes are by Robert Barthes from Camera Lucida

Comments please.

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."

civilized ku # 51 ~ relationships

Relationships - one to the other and everything else to everything else • click to embiggenThink about it this way - inside/outside, daylight/atificial light, younger/older, engaged/disengaged, gay/straight, one moment/another moment, seen/unseen, observer/observed, one picture to the other picture and everything else to everything else.

civilized ku # 50 ~ just plain civilized, or, it ain't what you eat, it's the way how you chew it.

A night out for diner at the shore • click to embiggenIt has been stated that all communication takes place the medium of signs and according to semiology (the role played by signs in the construction of meaning) photography is primarily concerned with 'iconic', 'indexical' and'symbolic' signs.

Very simply stated, iconic signs, in some way or another resemble, the object they stand for. A pictured tree, although certainly not a tree, bears a resemblance to the tree which is pictured. Indexical signs do not necessarily share a resemblance to the objects that they refer to but are nevertheless connected to it. A footprint signifies a causal relationship to human presence - we don't see the foot but its existence is signified by the footprint. Symbolic signs convey meaning through cultural convention and consensus. By convention and consensus in our culture, we all know the meaning red, yellow and green lights used to regulate traffic. These signs bear no resemblance to the things they signify.

So, here's my take on how this applies to a photograph using today's post as an example.

The photograph, as a sign, is iconic in as much the objects denoted in it truly resemble the things pictured - amongst many other things, does anyone have trouble recognizing this picture as 2 women a a table in a restaurant? The photograph, as a sign, is indexical in as much as there are visual indications of human presence that have happened or, in all probablity, will happen - amongst many other things, does anyone doubt that the near empty bottle of wine or the nearly full glasses of wine signify the act of drinking? The photograph, as a sign, is symbolic in as much as, amongst many other things, by convention and consensus, it suggests meanings of friendship, joy and pleasure.

Viewed in this manner, the picture not only only denotes the specific - my wife's best friends in a restaurant drinking wine - and has special/added meaning for her that the uninitiated viewer might not share, it also connotes through signs/symbols a somewhat universal experience that others can divine and appreciate.

civilized ku # 49 ~ civilized to within an inch of its life

Plastic fantastic • click to embiggenThe wife says that, at one time, the Jersey shore, Stone Harbor edition, had a sort of nativistic summer colony look and feel. I believe her because, scattered here and there, are very tiny hints of that era - a few small cottage-type summer places that remain amongst the upper-middle class subdivision dreck that is elbow-to-elbow clogging/gobbling up the landscape.

In any event, it was so hot and humid during the daylight hours that I took to picturing at night, wandering about like a stranger in a strange land. I'm new to the night photography game but I found that the night landscape spoke to me in a fashion not unlike that of my normal daylight picturing.

As I was processing and viewing some of my night images, I was struck by the lost history/culture of this place. By sheer coincidence, as I was taking a break, I came across this reference to the photography of Walker Evans -

...if it can be said that Evans’ work is essentially denotative, and its ambition is to name irrefutably what it shows, it must be added that, almost paradoxically, through the concentrated descriptive power of photography, his pictures also claim those other trailing meanings that lie hidden in things. By being so vividly, immediately present – and so compassionately unmasked – these objects, facades, corners of towns and rooms, and human faces not only report what they are, but also suggest the improvised, heartfelt, and difficult histories that brought them to the moment Evans photographed them.

This seems to describe much of my photography.

ps - the excerpt is from the essay, Evans and Frank: An Essay on Influence, the purpose of which is to describe the influence of Walker Evans’ American Photographs (1938) on The Americans (1959) of Robert Frank.

civilized ku # 48 ~ county fair

Sunday afternoon at the county fair • click to embigggenLiving in the mountains as we do with fresh air and all, on ocassion we feel the need to be like city folks - spin around in circles, smell burning auto fluids and eat inside. The impulse usually lasts only for a couple hours and then, feeling just a bit queasy in the stomach and light in the head, we remember why we live here and return to 'real' life.

Sometimes we even call the whole affair 'having fun'.

note for Carol - I think we should use the picture on the right for the cover of next year's summer travel guide.