civilized ku # 199 ~ documenting the face of America

They live among us • click to embiggenLast evening I caught the PBS program, Documenting The Face of America: Roy Stryker and the FSA/OWI Photographers. It's not new - it's been around since last August but it was my first viewing.

Despite the program's shortcomings photography-wise - why do producers who are making a piece about photographers / photography insist on panning / zooming across / in and out of still pictures, a technique which totally changes our perception of them? - one has to be impressed with the enormous scope and monumental results that the New Deal-sponsored photographers accomplished under the direction and protection (many in political circles tried again and again to kill the project and even attempted to destroy the negatives/prints) of Roy Stryker.

The ranks of FSA photographers were filled with the names of many legendary giants of American photography - Walker Evans, Dorthea Lange, Arthur Rothstein, Gordon Parks, and Jack Delano to name a few. The pictures that they produced were powerfully instrumental in bringing to the fore both a truth and a reality about life in these here United States, Great Depression era-wise.

The pictures dealt with everyday real life with particular attention to race and poverty. This attention, which made many Americans uneasy, might be labeled in today's world as inconvenient truths - those things that Americans in particular kinda sorta know about but would rather not think about - much less do anything about. What the pictures that the FSA photographers made accomplished was to make perfectly clear a reality that many did not know about, that many who did didn't want to think about, and that many who did wanted to do nothing about - you know the ones, the free-marketeers who wanted government to keep their hands off the free market and let it work things out.

Now all of this got me thinking that what America desperately needs now is a reincarnation of the FSA photography project. There are way too many inconvenient truths out there in the real everyday life of Americans that no one wants to know about, think about, or do anything about.

Case in point, healthcare reform.

I have been trying to find pictures (but having no luck) of what has come to be known as "healthcare expeditions" - large-scale free healthcare "events" held around the US of A where tens of thousands of Americans without access to healthcare (provided by volunteers) stand in lines for hours on end (bringing lunch and folding chairs is recommended), sometimes overnight, to receive one sort of healthcare or another.

According to Wendell Potter - former health insurance insider turned healthcare reform advocate - one such expedition which he visited in his home state of Tennessee:

It was absolutely stunning. When I walked through the fairground gates, I saw hundreds of people lined up, in the rain. It was raining that day. Lined up, waiting to get care, in animal stalls. Animal stalls.

Let me repeat that for the benefit of those who would rather not know/think about it - Americans, who live in the richest nation on earth, standing in the rain to get healthcare in animal stalls. To be accurate, volunteers had cleaned the stalls prior to the event, but, nevertheless, Americans (who live in the richest nation on earth) standing in the rain to get healthcare in animal stalls.

This, ladies and germs, is an all-too-common 'event' in the hellthcare system that the private healthcare insurance providers, their townhall meeting hacks, and their paid political and media brethren are telling us is basically "OK" - just keep your hands off and let the market get it right. Don't touch it or you'll screw it up.

And just in case you don't buy into that solution / reform, don't forget that you too - or your aging parents, or your ill siblings and/or children - will one day have to stand in front of a socialist Obama "death panel" to determine whether you have enough individual worth to receive healthcare. If not, you die like the miserable uninsured swine that you obviously are.

Without a doubt, the healthcare mess is a thorny and difficult issue to address, but I would like to suggest a simple approach - much like my approach to the polluted fish problem in my neck of the woods, I would like to see pictures of health insurance execs, apologists, and hucksters of all stripes standing in line, in the rain, at fairgrounds, waiting to have their teeth (all of them) extracted in an animal stall.

Of course, that ain't gonna happen but I do want to see pictures of the reality of Americans getting their hellthcare at a "healthcare expedition" - a truth and reality that Americans need to wake up to.

Update on Wednesday, August 12, 2009 at 04:23PM by gravitas et nugalis

Featured Comment: Paul Lester wrote: "...if I read this correctly," (re: my quote from Wendell Potter about the healthcare expedition in Tennessee) "you have never seen this, nor can you find photos to support it. However, you seem to make it a statement of fact ... I think that you are shouting your opinion as fact, when you have nothing to back it up. Everything that you have is hearsay. Is it not?

my response: I did get one part of the story wrong - Potter was visiting family in Tennessee when he heard about the healthcare expedition in nearby Wise, Virginia. It was at that location that he witnessed what he saw.

This fact was made clear to me when I did more research about the event and I came across this and this - you can watch the video to hear Potter's account or read the video transcript for the same info.

I also found 1 picture of the event on the RAM website. The picture is from the 2006 event - it's an annual event - and I don't know if this is the year that Potter witnessed. However, it is very clear that the event was (and continues to be) held at a fairgrounds. BTW, in 2006 there were 7917 patient visits at the expedition.

Now, to Paul's point re: "hearsay" and "nothing to back it up" - if you wish to call Wendell Potter, who witnessed the event, a liar then I guess his account is hearsay.

If you wish to believe that the photo of the event does not depict a healthcare expedition because you can not actually see healthcare being administered so, therefore, it could be nothing more than a county fair ... well ... I don't actually know what to say other than to ask - are you from
Missouri, AKA - the show-me state?

Is nothing real for you unless you personally witness it? Is RAM real or don't they exist because you haven't personally witnessed their expeditions?

It seems that by Paul's standard / burden of proof, nothing is unless he sees it with his own eyes. That may, in fact, be overstating the case but it is, in fact, the basis of his critique regarding the Wendell Potter quote in my entry.

FYI and BTW, this response is not an Ad Hominem attack on Paul Lester - it is merely my opinion on his belief that there is no such thing as objective reality.

And, a suggestion for Paul, maybe a trip to Wise, Virginia is in order. You could bear witness to the fairgrounds status as a fairground. Then, next year, might I suggest another trip to Wise during the annual RAM healthcare expedition where you could bear witness to actual medical services being administered to actual people.

Maybe then Paul could get by his own personal "filters" and actually believe that this really IS happening in America.

Update on Wednesday, August 12, 2009 at 05:38PM by gravitas et nugalis

A little more research turned up these pictures and these pictures and this story.

man & nature # 196-204 ~ topiary and architecture

Stone Harbor topiary #1 • click all photos to embiggen
Stone Harbor topiary #2
Stone Harbor topiary #3
Stone Harbor topiary #4
Stone Harbor topiary #5
Stone Harbor topiary #6
Stone Harbor topiary #7
Stone Harbor topiary #8
Stone Harbor topiary #9

I didn't really get in an extended picturing frame of mind while I was at the Jersey Shore other than one rainy overcast evening when I took a walk around the block. Actually, it was 2 blocks x 2 blocks but the idea's the same nevertheless.

What I found extremely interesting - although it is not evident in these pictures - was the fact that many of the smaller "original" houses had people sitting on their porches. The reason that it is not evident in these pictures is because, out of respect for their privacy, I did not picture any people on their porches. So, you'll have to take my word for it.

In contrast to that observation was the fact that not a single person was in evidence at the many MacMansions that were on the same streets. In fact, the MacMansions rarely had a "sit-ible" front porch and the few that did were devoid of humanity and, in most cases, devoid even of human touches. Such as they were, porches, like so many of the purely decorative architectural accents on the MacMansions, seem to be there as just thematic / stylistic touches.

The contrast was quite striking. The MacMansions had their porches and decks on the back of the houses away from the street.

What is it about money that, when people get more than enough of it, the first thing they do is isolate themselves behind fences, walls, gates, and impersonal facades?

man & nature # 194-195 ~ I survived and Hugo tries to grasp a new concept

Grassy Sound Channel ~ North Wildwood, NJ • click to embiggenI'm back and I survived my 4 days at the Jersey Shore. In fact, you could say that I not only survived but thrived since I returned with a signed gallery representation contract from a very nice gallery on the Jersey Shore - Beacon Art.

I was informed that the owner/manager would be in on Friday between 10AM and 1PM as well as later in the day between 5 and 10PM. That worked out perfectly - I made a cold-call at noon on Friday with a portfolio of 6 24×24" prints, a folio, and a book wherein we closed the deal. I played a round of golf in the afternoon and returned to the gallery after dinner to sign the contract.

The gallery will showcase 5 of my 24×24" Shore Light prints, 4 13×13" Shore Light prints, 1 9×12" 16 print Shore Light folio, and 1 12×12" 40 pg Shore Light POD book. The prints are editions of 15 ($2,000 for 24×24" print, $1050 for 13×13" print), the folio is an open edition ($250), and the book is an edition of 50 ($400).

I will be one of only two photographers represented by the gallery. The other, interestingly enough, also makes square pictures albeit with a medium format/digital-back camera and without vignetted corners.

The gallery kept the book and the folio for immediate display. I will make and frame the prints this coming week and deliver them to the gallery the following week.

Hugo and the wife accompanied me to the gallery in the evening. As we were walking up to the gallery and I was explaining to Hugo that the art gallery was going to sell my pictures, he paused for a moment to ponder the idea and then announced, "I didn't know that taking pictures was art."

This from the mouth of Son of Cinemascapist / Grandson of Landscapist. Where did we go wrong?

man & nature # 192-193 ~ the last day of Rachael Ray

Relaxing and living large • click to embiggenToday was the last Rachael Ray Show shoot and amazingly enough we had Summer today as well. At least what has been passing for Summer - it didn't rain all day like it did yesterday and the temperature shot all the way up to the mid 70s. Not exactly what we normally have for August. And guess what? Tomorrow, rain.

In any event, in another couple hours - around 1AM - I'm off to the Jersey Shore for 4 days. The wife and Hugo got there on Saturday, so it's solo run through the night - the only way to fly on the Jersey Turnpike and Parkway.

man & nature # 191 ~ pictures (aka, signs) of signs that are about signs and "signs"

Signs • click to embiggenI'm back in the picture making saddle once again and my brain is once again a-whirl with thoughts of meaning(s) to be found in a picture - see the following entry - re: studium and punctum. That said, part of the key to studium and punctum is found in ideas and notions expressed in the field of study called semiology or semiotics - that is the study of, in part, the role played by signs in the construction of meaning.

It was in the late 19th/early 20th century writings of Charles Sanders Peirce, an American Pragmatist philosopher, that, amongst many many other things, 3 components of signs, known as iconic, indexical, and symbolic signs emerged with a specific application to pictures. These types of signs are not distinct types of signs but rather features shared by signs in general.

Iconic signs, quite simply, resemble the things/objects they represent - think of a sign with a silhouette of dog in a circle that is bisected by a diagonal line (No Dogs Allowed) in which the representation of a dog looks like a dog.

Indexical signs do not always resemble the things they refer to but they do bear at least a casual connection to the things they point to. Think of a human footprint which points not so much to a foot as it does to idea/notion of a human presence/person. Like our index finger, indexical signs point to something other than itself.

Symbolic signs create and convey meaning by convention and consensus. As an example, we all operate our vehicles, by convention and consensus, in a manner that red means "stop", yellow means "caution", and green means "go".

Photographs combine these 3 features: Iconic - Photographs resemble the things they depict. Indexical - because photographs are the result of light bouncing off depicted objects, they bear an indexical relation to the thing pictures. Symbolic - photographs can also create symbolic meaning(s) as I mentioned in the pictures of my recent entry, man & nature # 189 - the face of an exuberant child as a symbol of "joy" or an empty pot of coffee as a symbol of "pleasure".

All of that said, I would like to point out that I have become aware of a "hidden" body of work within my total body of pictures - one that I was really not particularly conscious of as a body unto itself until I started going through my pictures for a distinctly different reason. That body of work consists of a fair number of pictures of signs.

IMO, given the right academic lunatic fringe spin, these pictures, which are "signs" in and of themselves, of actual signs, which working in concert bring into question/discussion the semiotic nature of "signs" as symbols ... well, I could have a runaway hit on my hands because, in a time when the meaning of everything is open to question, my sign pictures are definitely a sign of the times. Although, I have to be careful because my head is already beginning to spin - a sure sign that I'm break-dancing on the border of the academic lunatic fringe.

That said, I do have to say that I very much like the pictures as pictures - if you know what I mean.

man & nature # 190 ~ it's one thing + another thing

It's a tree - but what else is it? • click to embiggenAs discussed here on a number of occasions before, studium - the cultural, linguistic, and political interpretation of a photograph and punctum - the "wounding", personally touching detail which establishes, with the viewer, a direct relationship with the picture's referent are ideas put forth by Roland Barthes in his 1980 book, Camera Lucida. Simply put, studium is the visually obvious subject (referent) of a picture - the thing denoted. Punctum, on the other hand, is the not-so-necessarily-obvious thing(s) the picture can call into being - the connoted.

The denoted in a picture is easily recognized - I see it, I know what it is. The connoted in a picture is most often a very ethereal thing - very open to personal interpretation - of feelings and thoughts that a picture can incite. I have often used the the phrase illustrate and illuminate to describe the same ideas.

What I am curious about is this - I suspect that most picture makers focus more on making pictures that are illustrative than illuminative. [CAVEAT: I am intending no value judgement here, I'm merely stating an observation.] I also suspect that most picture makers look at pictures with the same bias, that is, a picture's illustrative qualities are foremost in the viewer's mind rather than its illuminative possibilities. In other words, picture-wise, a cigar is always a cigar.

That said, it should come as no surprise to anyone who has followed The Landscapist for any period of time that I most value pictures that are rich with the possibilities of both the illustrative and the illuminative. Pictures that are not only pleasing to the eye but also to the intellect. Pictures that incite, irritate, instigate, and infatuate not just the eye but also the mind. To my eyes and sensibilities, a cigar is not always a cigar.

But, back to my curiosity - how about you? What side of the fence do you come down on with your own picture making? Is it the same side you come down on for your picture viewing?