Icy artic blast

I'm out running errands. Be back later. In the interim I'm trying to conserve heat for tonight's artic blast. Low's predicted to drop to -40F in traditionally cold spots - that means you, Aaron.

PS - for you spell-checkers out there, pun intended.

Meaning # 3

Speaking of meaning, what the hell does this photograph mean?

Update on Thursday, March 8, 2007 at 02:45PM by gravitas et nugalis

publisher's comment: Ian P.'s response is a topic unto itself, so here it is in its entirety.

Featured Comment Ian P. wrote: I'll bite. To pick one particular definition of meaning...meaning: the idea that is intended to be conveyed

Presumably the photograph itself cannot form intent, so immediately we have the question of 'intended by whom'? At least three possibilities come to my mind here. The photographer (assuming that there was one, see later), an editor/image selector (for example if this is a photograph to show as news then there probably was a selector involved), or the poster (being one Mark Hobson)? There could well be other possibilities, and any combination of these possibilities could in fact be a single person.

Pooling from these three possibilities we could speculate at a number of ideas that were intended to be conveyed.

One idea that might have been intended by the image taker is the idea that a particular event took place. If we assume that this idea was the intent, then without any further context there are a number of things we might be willing to infer about the event from the image, but not many: Clearly an event took place somewhere in which someone was lying on the ground with a man with a gun standing over him, and a crowd of people standing behind the man with the gun. It looks like some of the crowd nearest the man lying on the ground were taking photographs or video using cell phones. Judging from the lighting this event took probably took place during daylight hours in sunlight.

Further speculation about the event without further information gets more difficult. Perhaps the man lying on the ground is sufficiently interesting that some of the crowd made the effort to take photos. However the event may have been staged, perhaps the photograph is a still shot from a movie set.

If the intent is judged from the point of view of an editor as the image selector then there is less that I would be willing to speculate about. It may have been selected to convey more realism to a news story. It may have been selected to convey the idea that the editor is good at choosing interesting photographs and knows some good photographers. It may have been selected to generate thoughts of interest about an up coming movie...

The intent of last possible intendor is perhaps the most interesting. From the context I would be willing to speculate that the image is intended to generate ideas about meaning within images and the role that context has on the meaning within an image.

In this context it is possible that the intended ideas have nothing what-so-ever to do with the actual image being displayed. For example, the image could have been selected at random from a large pool of images (such as available on the web) and displayed here through the use an automated script, so that the content of the image is completely unconnected to the selection of the image. It could even be possible, if rather unlikely, that the image itself was taken by some automatic process, for example an unusually high quality security camera, dumped into the universe of images available on the web and then selected completely at random using a script. If we were to find out that this was the case, then the meaning we would then form about the image really comes from the process and has no connection at all to the content of the image.

I have problems with the whole idea of meaning within art, I am not sure that I agree that the purpose of art is to convey ideas from artist to viewer so much as having to do with the generation of ideas in the viewer. That is, I do not like to think of art in terms of what is the idea that the artist is intending to convey, but rather I prefer to think in terms of what ideas or thought processes the artist is generating within the viewer. (I prefer thought process to ideas, and I am thinking of thought processes as being something less tangible than ideas, although idea is often defined in terms of thought processes. In a sense I am thinking of ideas as thought processes that can be thought about and communicated, and assuming that there are thought processes that cannot be or are very difficult to directly think about and communicate). Since the context in which a piece of art appears has an effect on the thought processes that the piece generates, context is an integral part of art.

urban ku # 40 ~ meaning # 2

Considered together, urban ku # 39 and # 40 might be understood to mean that I have developed an attraction to tow trailers parked in yards. Truth be told, 'round these parts tow trailers of all stripes are rather ubiquitous and they might be rich fodder for a body of photographic work with meaning, but that's not where I'm headed.

Where I am headed with this thread is to attempt to drive a nail in the coffin of the stupid notion that, because photography is a visual medium, a photograph that needs words to 'explain' it is a failure. Dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb. I might also add 'dung'.

At best, photography employs a 'language' of visual symbols - something that represents something else by association, resemblance, or convention, especially a material object used to represent something invisible (Amer. Heritage Dictionary). Literally, a photograph represents something else - its 'referent'. Figuratively, a photograph implies a 'connoted' - the 'invisible' meaning.

This is not about trailers #2 • click on photo to embiggen itBUT, because symbols are ambiguous - their 'interpretation' depends on so many variables which the viewer brings to the table - the connoted meaning is also ambiguous. IMO, the only definitive action that can mediate and restrict (not eliminate) the range of ambiguities is an addendum of words.

IMO, 2 recent comments on The Landscapist bring this into focus; #1) Ana wrote; "...it's about discourse: in the art world, it's the discourse surrounding the work that defines it as art." #2 Ian wrote; "...if a title of a picture is a required element for conveying or exploring whatever idea it is that the artist has, then the unit of art (publisher's emphasis) would be 'image and title'."

To which I would add - All hail the Artist's Statement.

Featured Comment Sean wrote: "This is touching on semiotics. You could then look at a 'language' of visual symbols' in the following manner:

symbol: an arbitary or purely conventional sign (the spoken/written word).

icon: a sign that resembles or imitates that which it depicts (a painting).

index: a sign directly connected (a photograph)."

The Right Reverend James W. Bailey, C.S.A. (Contemporary Southern Artist)

Right out of the box you just have to be intrigued by a guy who claims to be 'Burning the Flesh Off Modern Art' as The Right Reverend James W. Bailey does on his multimedia blog Black Cat Bone.

On his blog, The Right Reverend writes; "The Right Reverend James W. Bailey is an experimental artist, photographer and imagist writer from Mississippi. His art focus includes Littoral Art Projects that explore the fleeting moments of cross-cultural communicative intersections; film projects, including the short film, "Talking Smack"; "Wind Painting", a unique naturalistic art practice inspired by the vanishing Southern African-American cultural tradition of the Bottle Tree; street photography centered on the hidden cultural edges of inner city New Orleans life; and "Rough Edge Photography", a hard-edge non-digital photographic style that celebrates the death of 35mm film through the burning, tearing, slashing and violent manipulation of chemically developed negatives and prints."

Check it out. I love it, but be forewarned, 'Burning The Flesh Off Modern Art' is not an activity for the hidebound traditionalist.

urban ku # 39 ~ meaning

"...we have assumed that photographs produce meanings independently of language; this is an abiding assumption ... but it is seldom, if ever, the case." - Steve Edwards, Photography: A Very Short Introduction, Chapter 5 - Apparatus and the image, pg. 109 in the section on Narrative.

John Szarkowski curated an exhibit at MOMA - From the Picture Press - in 1973 which consisted of press photographs presented without captions/text. It was said that the photographs seemed strangely ambiguous, which supported Szarkowski's claim that photography was not a narrative form and that photographs lacked an immediate legibility. According to Szarkowski, photography was 'an art of details and fragments and not an art of storytelling' - that meaning is simply not in the image.

This notion stands in stark contrast to the conventional wisdom that 'a picture is worth a thousand words', the idea that complex stories can be told with just a single still image, or that an image may be more influential than a substantial amount of text. To the contrary, I have always felt that a picture needs a thousand words.

Consider the famous "napalm girl' documentary photograph from the Vietnam War. Without captions and/or text it is obviously a picture of some scared kids in a war-like setting. Other than the general time-tested idea that 'war is hell', little else can be known. In order to grasp the full horror which image represents, words are a must.

So where does that leave 'art' photography? What does, as an example, urban ku # 39 mean?

click on photo to embiggen itAgain, Steve Edwards; "Photographic art ... typically abjures words, or employs elliptical text in order to leave the image open to associations and intrepretations. For art, vagueness or ambiguity are often the preferred modes."

OK. I know that sometimes a picture is just a picture. You can just look at it, revel in its visual and formal beauty and let it be exactly what it appears to be - a picture of whatever it is a picture of. Good enough, but I am beginning to feel that, without some immediately apparent semantic reference or other pertinent contextual knowledge on the part of the viewer, a picture is indeed just a picture.

Featured Comment Ian P wrote; "I have been recently mentally toying with the idea that, as a work of art, a single photograph ('picture') on its own is problematic.

If the meaning is, as you put it, simply not in the image, then the appropriate 'unit' of art should perhaps consist of more than just the image itself.

In a certain simplistic sense this would mean, for example, that if a title of a picture is a required element for conveying or exploring whatever idea it is that the artist has, then the unit of art would be 'image and title'. If a caption is required then the unit would be 'image and caption'. Following this idea out further, if a series of images are integral to the interpretation of any one image in the series, then the appropriate unit of art is the whole series of images..."

publisher's comment: As Monty Burns says - "excellent"

urban renewal # 1 - a new kind of ku

Throughout my commercial photography career, I specialized in 'creating' creative solutions to tell a client's 'story'.

Virtually all of my commercial work depended upon controlling every detail in a photograph - models, props, locations, sets, lighting, etc. In the commercial world the last thing we depended upon was the 'contingient features of the actual world'. I can't tell you how many hours I spent picking and arranging peas (as an example) for food photography but, you know what? - I enjoyed it.

Since I have been (and still am) a proponent of landscape photography that is true to 'the spirit of fact', I never thought to bring that commercial sensibility to my landscape photography. Jeff Wall's work has opened up a new awareness in me of 'the spirit of fact' - that the 'fact' does not always have to be about the literal 'contingient features of the actual world'.

There is meaning and narrative that is also 'fact' and those 'connoteds' might sometimes be best served by selectively arranging 'referents' in order to better convey those "spirit of fact(s)'.

The Adirondacks without the APA • click on photo to embiggen itThe bitch of it is though, I can't bang these photographs out like I can (and will continue to do) my 'contingient features of the actual world' ku. Urban renewal kus need lots of planning/photographing and lots of post pro-filmic moment(s) work - what Lee Bacchus labeled 'artistic rigor and craft'. If I really apply myself, I might be able to create 3-4 urban renewal kus a year.

PS - the self-referential particulars of urban renewal #1 are; Stanley Kubrick - 2001: A Space Oddessy , Jerry Uelsmann - everything he has ever done, Jeff Wall, and a tip-o'-the-hat to Terry Gilliam and the road scenes in Brazil.

Featured Comment Joel Truckenbrod wrote; "...One of the problems that I'm running into, is that it looks like a constructed image to me..."

publisher's question: Joel, could you please explain this in a little more detail?

Update on Wednesday, March 7, 2007 at 01:29PM by gravitas et nugalis

Joel's response to my request can be read in in the comments. Joel basically stated that he could see 'artifacts' of digital creation in the image - mainly related to spatial and light relationships. In fact this image was created from separate photographs that were not pre-planned in order to maintain flawless blending characteristics. I was just playing around with an idea and exploring possiblities with existing photographs.

That said, I have been showing this photograph around in print and on online forums. The absolutely remarkable reaction by everyone who has seen the print is; at first - they immediately accept it as a photograph of a real place. They spend a great deal of time trying to figure out where it was taken. Failing that, they then start to ask questions like - what happened to the pavement? Did runoff/melting snow from the mountain have anything to do with it?

Online responses have run something like these; "Wonderful light and colors ... Another example that there is beauty everywhere if you want to see it." and "...What a fantastic photo. I love it. The colors are superb. Especially love the water gushing by in the trench. Easily a 10 from me." No mention of fakery at all.

Interestingly, no one asked about the gravestone. I wonder what that's about?

Also interesting, is the fact that the only ones who immediately recognized it for what it was were 2 teenage girls, my step-daughter and her friend. My step-daughter's immediate reaction (after only a few seconds) was; "You made this didn't you?"

Teenagers are such smart-ass know-it-alls.

urban ku # 38 - Q&A

Eric Fredine, in answer to my question - Is it possible in the Art world for a photographer to be 'invisible' and let the photograph 'speak' for itself? - wrote; "Yes. There seem to be many of them in fact ... I don't see it as an either/or proposition."

Eric also mentioned an example of a photographer - Alec Soth who lets his photographs of the 'contingient features of the actual world' speak for themselves. Eric gets no argument from me on either point - there are many photographers who let their photographs speak for themselves and Alec Soth is certainly one of the many.

I also don't see it as an either/or proposition, but I do think that Jeff Wall has raised the bar or, at the very least, validated a big change in the photography game. Here's how -

Eric Fredine, Alec Soth, myself, and 'many' others are adept at 'seeing' and at translating that 'seeing' into a vision which produces pictures which both illustrate and illuminate, BUT...that vision is almost entirely dependent upon the 'contingient features of the actual world'. In a sense, they also rely heavily on that age-old photography bug-a-boo - making (by means of the machine) 'copies' of 'contingient features of the actual world'.

Now, don't misunderstand. They deliberately and intuitively use all the 'apparatus' of the medium - mechanical, cultural, intellectual, et al - to great effect and affect. Wall, on the other hand, uses the same 'apparatus' but he is not constrained by the 'contingient features of the actual world'.

Instead of skillfully and artistically 'capturing' (or copying) found 'pro-filmic moments', Wall adds (and most probably, subtracts)/creates 'contingient features of the actual world' to his cinematically constructed photographs as he see fit in order to strengthen and convey meaning. His MO is much more like that of a - I'm going to hate myself in the morning for saying this - painter. Wall uses Bits and Pieces of the 'contingient features of the actual world' and assembles them on his photographic 'canvas'.

In an Art world where a single - not part of a 'defining' body of work - photograph, un-tethered from or anchored by words, is considered to be without intrinsic meaning or narrative, Wall is free to create one-off photographs in which meaning is more direct. Many critics have pointed out that his photographs can be appreciated and 'understood' by a large audience even though they are not versed in (or even aware of) the arcane Art history and theory that underlies them.

IMO, Wall has validated and given momentum to a new photographic genre - an emergence also acccelerated by the digital domain. Label it something like, The Cinemtaic Photograph, or, The Narrative Photograph - a genre in which photographers 'make' as much as they 'take' picture-wise.

I intend to explore this terrain but, unlike Wall, my self-referential nod will be to the history of photography not painting. At least that way I'll be able to live with myself in the morning.

Featured Comment Ana wrote; "Hmm... new? Can we say "Rejlander?"

publisher's response: Ana - yes, as I have mentioned recently, there really is nothing new under the sun. There is probably a list as long as my arm (but not much longer) of photogs who have worked this approach as opposed to 'the many' mentioned by E. Fredine. However, very few have pursued it with the 'artistic rigor and craft' of Jeff Wall and only the most recent have had the tools of the digital domain at their disposal.

urban ku # 37

Yesterday's snowstorm dropped 8 inches of wet, heavy, heart attack inducing snow. Today dawned sunny and warm - temps are in the 50s. My hands have started to sporadically and spontaneously assume a golf grip position so I'm having trouble buttering toast. Times are tough.