Images and Reality

“It is not reality that photographs make immediately accessible, but images.” – Susan Sontag

A photograph creates a duplication of an image that once represented reality.  It proves that at a single point in time, light bounced off an object or scene and struck the film of a camera. Without the camera, that particular photograph does not exist – but the image does.

Before a photograph is taken – before light, object, and film react – what is there? A photograph is the “coincidental” meeting of light traveling from a source, bouncing off an object, and oxidizing crystals on a momentarily exposed surface – the “image” captured will never exist again. An image exists the moment before and the moment after a photograph’s conception, but the image – the one captured on the film of a negative – exists only for an instant.  In fact by time the light has reached the surface of the film, its referential image has ceased to exist.

As a constant stream of light hits an object, it emits a constant stream of images.  These images are themselves representations of reality, and more specifically they represent only visually.  Other senses – smell, taste, touch, etc. – combine with conscious and subconscious elements to create the reality of our lives.  Photographs are representations of the images emitted by light hitting (and bouncing off of) objects (reality).  Photographs are representations of images.

What does this mean for us? On one hand, it is cautionary – a photograph tells the visual story of a once-present reality. It is easy to accept photographs as perfect representations of the present reality, when in fact they are imperfect and their exact referent no longer exists. On the other hand, this idea highlights the transience of images. If objects emit a continuous stream of images, and our cameras (for obvious logistical reasons) cannot capture all of them, then the only way to experience them is with our eyes. Every object becomes somehow animate.

(As I sit now and stare at my coffee, I nearly expect it to change visually on its own; more accurately I am aware of the images it will when I am not here.)

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Grouping

It is unusual to see a photograph presented alone – that is, with no other photographs around it; most photographs are presented in groups. These groupings can be artist-, curator-, or collector-generated.  Large-scale photographs are sometimes the exception to this rule, but even these are mostly seen with smaller photographs alongside, providing foil through both scale and “punch.” (Groupings are to be distinguished from series, whose purpose is to illustrate a photographic idea through a contained number of prints.)

We group photographs by highlighting common elements – photographer or photographers, the image content, chronology, formal characteristics, scale, time period, or simply, idea.  While other forms of art are also grouped in these ways, it is less uncommon to see them alone. Why then do we usually find photographs presented in groups?

First, there is the ease of reproduction. The idea of an “original” photograph is often disputed – it is difficult to make the case for one print over another when both have come from an “original” negative.  Without a definite, unique original, photographs can be reproduced ad infinitum with no (physical) damage to the legitimacy of any one copy. Most photographers limit the production of their images based on inherent economic principles of supply and demand, but with multiple “originals” of the same image they become easier to distribute.  Put simply, there are more of each photograph.  This increase in quantity results in easier access and therefore less difficulty in obtaining them. Photographs are presented in groups because it’s easier to find more of them.

Secondly, the conventional size of photographs plays a role.  Each new generation of photographers have pushed the technological limits of scale, but in general photographs have remained the same basic size.  The most popular size of film in recent decades has been 35mm, which has limited enlarging capabilities.  Though there are obvious and notable exceptions, in most cases, it takes more photographs to fill a wall than paintings. A byproduct of this is that a spectator can more easily connect a number of elements visually when they are smaller, meaning that the conventional scale of most photographs offers a clearer view of the whole of a body of work.

Lastly, we can attribute photography’s grouping tendency to it’s long struggle to gain recognition in the world of fine arts.  Due to reasons mostly inherent to the characteristics of the medium, photography will likely never gain the universal respect awarded to its (as Michel Frizot puts it) “omnipresent reference point” – painting.  Therefore, in the attempt to compile “equally” valued collections of artwork,  more weight is given to paintings than photographs, and so the latter is presented in greater quantity. The photo-painting exchange rate is dramatically in favor of paintings.

Is this tendency toward grouping necessarily a positive or negative one? I think not. As with most trends in the world of photography, the significance lies not with what the issue is, but how we deal with it.  Our culture has become accustomed to seeing photographs grouped together – those creating work now will determine how that affects the future of the medium.

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“Myself” vs. “My Image”

Humans move continuously through the world, constantly broadcasting information about themselves through movement, gesture, facial expression, touch, sound, smell – even subconsciously.  When two humans see, feel, smell, hear, or sense each other it is a product of the scanning and emitting of signals we all constantly and uncontrollably engage in.  We can attempt to restrain or channel these emissions, but to stop them is futile; so long as we are living we are in constant communication with others.

This inevitable and uncontrollable broadcasting has both negative and positive consequences. When we experience strong stimuli it can be difficult to contain our reactions, leading to displays of emotion inappropriate for the moment.  On the other hand, that these “emissions” are continuously replaced by one proceeding limits their power, affecting only those who pick them up. If no one sees an expression, its effects are lost forever.

Photography complicates this idea.  A photograph can freeze any one of these emissions in its place, and retain it into the future.  For example a child’s expression of joy can be captured and shared. On the other hand, an emotion we might wish to conceal can also be preserved.

The French philosopher Roland Barthes notes two other consequences.  First, he explains that because his “self” is in a state of continuous motion and change, “[it] never coincides with my image.” Barthes notes that a photograph, which captures only the emotion of a single instant, is outdated immediately after its conception.  He speaks of his self, “which is light, divided, dispersed; like a bottle-imp [it] doesn’t hold still,” in contrast to the photograph “which is heavy, motionless, stubborn.”  This difference highlights photography’s inseparable link to the past, its referent (subject) continuously becoming further and further from the present.  “What I want,” he writes, “is that my (mobile) image…should always coincide with my (profound) self.” Barthes’ sensitivity to simultaneity and time is modern in its sentiment.  Writing in 1980, his ideas and concerns preview the technology age where a constant stream of information continuously presents itself, and the transfer of data is almost instantaneous.  On the other hand, his belief that an uncapturable “profound self” exists bespeaks a desire for more human-contact-intensive relationships.

Barthes’ second conclusion is slightly more complicated.  “I am doomed,” he writes, “always to have an expression.” He laments the loss of neutrality that the constant replacement of his broadcasts provides.  Without photography, the “image” he emits changes every instant, and his “self” cannot be nailed to with a particular expression.  But with photography, he becomes connected to images plucked from his stream of emissions, and his neutral self is lost.  “My body never finds its zero degree,” he writes.  Barthes’ respect for the power of photography is clear here, as he characterizes his new self as a triangulation of the images taken of him.

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Turning a Photograph

I am drawn to photographs that acknowledge the instant of their conception.

Consider for a moment that time is a three-dimensional stream moving in one direction, and a photograph is a (nearly) two-dimensional slice of that stream. As the stream continues and we move through it, that slice is carried “downstream” with us, and we view it from one direction.  Now imagine we were to somehow turn ourselves around to view the “back” of this slice – what would we see? Would it be blank void, like the back of most photographs? Would we simply gaze “upstream” in time? What if on the back of that slice is another image – an image of the making of that slice?

I am drawn to photographs that make me want to turn them around.

Susan Sontag writes, “the force of a photograph is that it keeps open to scrutiny instants which the normal flow of time immediately replaces.”  In other words, photographs are slices of the stream we carry along with us and view repeatedly.  Some of the most compelling photographs are those that force us to imagine the stream in both directions.  An image of Timothy O’Sullivan’s springs to mind. It shows his wagon with four horses on a trail between two sand dunes.  Stretching from the wagon to the bottom of the photograph are O’Sullivan’s footprints.  What is remarkable about this image is how it unmistakably forces us to imagine the photographer walking from wagon to camera, and powerfully brings to mind an image of the photograph being taken.  It is in the strongest sense a real (not imagined) scene.  It says, “this happened, and this is how it happened.”

O’Sullivan’s image nearly turns itself over for us.

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Installation Views

Presentation is a large part of any photography show.  And though good presentation can’t save a series of boring images, bad presentation can ruin one.  Emerging photographers are told to document the presentation of their work to add to their portfolios.  Though sound advice practically, I find the idea of “installation view” photographs somewhat problematic.

Photography entertains a complicated relationship with other forms of art. In her book “The Photograph as Contemporary Art” Charlotte Cotton speaks of the “ambiguity with which photography has positioned itself within art, as both the document of artistic gesture and a work of art [itself].”  As a “document of artistic gesture,” photography becomes a tool for recording (and often duplicating) the work of another medium.  Though some might argue this treatment as a tool cheapens photography, it can just as easily be approached as an opportunity characteristic of the medium – one to be considered and addressed in practice.  With photographs as “works of art [themselves],” the medium blends into the images, simultaneously becoming a more purposeful focus of the artist, and receding into subconscious of the viewer.  (There is a crowded and complicated spectrum between tool and art, to be addressed at length in a later article.)  But where does an “installation view photograph fit into these categories?

In some sense, the “installation view” is a document of the artistic gesture of the show. If the presentation of works of art is in some way a performance, then the installation view documents that performance.  But with the presentation of photographs, a complicated relationship emerges. With the possible exception of a show consisting of installation views, to document a photography show with a photographic installation view is somewhat problematic.  A photographer’s goal with a completed body of work is to produce a consistent and carefully chosen series of images representing a single idea or series of ideas.  In presenting a gallery shot photograph along with this body of work (after the work has been removed from its presentation,) a photographer runs the risk of negatively diffusing the coherence of that series.  The body of work uses photography to depict an idea; the installation view uses photography to depict that body of work.  These two uses of the same medium can produce a conflict in focus that detracts from the overall vision of the show. Both are valid uses of the medium, but too often photographers ignore this important relationship.

Is the answer then to produce an “installation painting?”  Though this would surely provoke an interesting debate, it is probably not practical, particularly because that painting would most likely be photographically digitized for websites, Powerpoints, etc.  I suggest the most effective way of avoiding this contradiction (apart from abstaining from gallery shots entirely) would be to shoot installation views with the ideas driving the photography show very much in mind.  Whether it is medium, lighting, angle, or something else, an installation view taken with purpose, and in the general style of the show reduces the conflict between gallery shot and series.   These purposefully related installation views are even arguably more effective in conveying the feeling intended by the creator, as they distract less (and can even reinforce) the ideas behind the show. A gallery shot that could be included visually in the show itself would be the ultimate pairing between these two potentially conflicting aspects of the medium.

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The Medium

Art is a representation of life.  Humans create art to represent the objects and ideas around them.  In one way or another, art depicts life through mimesis, displaying an element of the world with varying degrees of abstraction.  Artists abstract the world and represent their personal reality in order to show others what they see.  Art is delivered from artist to audience by way of media.

A medium is a vehicle for experiencing an artist’s interpretation of the world.  Each medium – painting, writing, sculpture, dance, etc. – has its own characteristics that are inseparable from the art.  But paint, words, three-dimensional material, and human movement, are more easily identifiable than the medium of a photograph.  A photograph is technically a collection of microscopic crystals ranging in value, hue, and density fastened to another surface.   But unlike most other art forms, the photographic medium is usually not apparent to the audience. The photograph is so visually similar to reality that at an early age we absorb its medium into our subconscious, and largely ignore it from that point on.  In this way it is similar to music.  With both photography and music, it is unclear where the line exists between reality and the representation of reality.  Audiences digest the medium of music, technically vibrating sound waves, as an invisible, subconscious experience.  Similarly, a viewer experiences photography’s visual content both immediately and unconsciously: the medium is hidden. And as Roland Barthés points out, this hiding of the medium can be dangerously misleading.

In his essay “The Photographic Message,” Barthés draws the distinction between a photograph’s denotation and its connotation.  Barthés identifies the “denotive” status of a photograph as its objectivity – the pure visual facts of the image.  He warns against confusing this with the connotation of the image.  For Barthés, it is only in the denotation half of the image where the medium is invisible, or as he puts, “has no code” – each viewer of a photograph sees the same visual data.  But the photographic medium is more apparent in the connoted half.  Barthés explains that the connoted message “comprises [both] a plane of expression and a plane of content, thus necessitating a veritable decipherment.”  This decipherment – achieved through study of pose, symbology, syntax, cultural context, and aestheticism, among others – focuses viewers on tools the artist used to deliver his representation of the world.  With this attention to the photographic medium in mind, audiences are more likely to notice the artist’s decisions.

In my opinion, this consciousness of connotation benefits both audience and artist.  Audiences are more likely to recognize decisions, both conscious and unconscious, that a photographer has made, resulting in a deeper understanding of the photograph.  This also forces photographers to envision their audience as they make their art (as briefly mentioned here).  I believe a broader and more conscious two-way communication between artist and audience benefits both.

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Photographs as Liability

Even though the world we live in is full of constantly Photoshopped images, photographs remain the closest and most convincing evidence we have about the existence of past events.  And though there have been notable exceptions, in general photographs represent proof that something took place.  Photojournalists task themselves with visually recording events and sights around the world, driven by the desire to set down evidence of things occurring and existing. But photographs also have the power to hold their subjects responsible. And with this inherent proof of the past comes an inescapability that can turn into a liability.

The idea of photographs as liability is not entirely new.  For one reason or another, humans have often declined over the years to have their photographs taken.  When photography was first invented, people were hesitant to pose for photographs, believing the camera would steal a part of their soul.  While the specific idea of soul stealing has become outdated, this larger concept still holds true.  When a photograph of us is made, a part of our lives is neither only in our memory anymore, nor entirely in our control.  With the proliferation of images around us – particularly on the internet – it can almost be assured that if we are in a photograph, someone else can see it. Seniors in college now commonly disable the photographs on their Facebook pages so their prospective employers do not have access to visual diaries of their college experiences as they search for jobs. When photographs were individual objects, undesirable ones could more easily be destroyed permanently.  But now each digital photograph is infinitely reproducible with the click of a button, and this complicates things.

The profusion of surveillance cameras has also made it exceedingly simple to recall an image of a specific moment of the past at will.  According to recent statistics, the average citizen in the United Kingdom is caught by a surveillance camera three hundred times each day – almost once every three minutes. Even more disturbing is that we have become so accustomed to these cameras that we live our lives unconscious of them.  (Whether or not our subconscious acknowledgment of their presence changes our behavior is debatable, as briefly discussed in a previous post.)  The accompanying ramifications to this are both good and bad.  Examples such as the home video shot of Rodney King being beaten by Los Angeles Police, or the more assassins of a Hamas leader caught recently on a hotel security camera, show that these images can prove useful in catching criminals.  On the other hand, the unquenchable thirst for photographs of celebrities, as promoted by gossip magazines and blogs, results in a culture where stars are never afforded privacy. Politicians and other famous figures are constantly blackmailed with photographs of them in embarrassing or revealing situations.  Instead of the Orwellian “Big Brother” always watching us, he is now recording; increasingly our lives are no longer our own.

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Context (Part I)

Photographs communicate with us primarily through our sight. Most viewers react initially to photographs based on the visual stimuli presented by the photograph itself – composition, size, color, subject, etc.  But the experience of viewing a photograph is never exclusively about seeing – in fact other senses are always involved.  Consider the photograph on the front page of this morning’s New York Times.  Viewers across the country see this photograph, but in very different contexts: the temperature in the room, the taste of coffee, the feel of newspaper, the sound of the radio – an infinity of external sensual stimuli powerfully affect reactions to photographs.  In short, the context in which we see photographs is undeniably linked to our perceptions of them. But perhaps most important in defining how we see the photograph is their visual contexts. When we see photographs on a museum or gallery wall, we instinctively recognize them as elevated to the status of “art,” even before we take in the actual image. Similarly an image viewed in the context of Facebook or another internet site is immediately lowered in our esteem, based entirely on its context.  One could imagine one of Ryan McGinley’s photographs both on Facebook and on a gallery wall – the same photograph would elicit drastically different reactions from its audience.

Time also serves as a context in which photographs change.  As discussed more in-depth in another post, we view photographs based on what has happened since the photograph was taken. Events occurring between the time of creation and the time of viewing can be the single most powerful aspect informing how we see a photograph.  Consider a photograph of the Titanic before it sets sail on its maiden voyage.  Undoubtedly this image evokes an immediate feeling of foreboding, despite the obvious absence of that feeling at the moment the photograph was made.

Susan Sontag writes in her book of essays On Photography that the volume of images we now consume has made us accustomed to experiencing multiple responses to photographs depending on their context. As she puts it, “the presence and proliferation of all photographs contributes to the erosion of the very notion of meaning, to that parceling out of the truth into relative truths which is taken for granted by the modern liberal consciousness.”  Sontag argues that because each photograph is infinitely reproducible, the original meaning of the photograph is quickly separated from the image itself.  And with the increasing ease with which other works of art can be photographed, this phenomenon is not limited to photographers.  More than ever, art is only briefly the possession of its artist.

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Posing (Part I)

A split takes place before every photograph of a person is made.  At this point the subject either becomes aware that a photographer is taking a photograph, or he remains oblivious.  If the subject remains unaware of the act of the photograph, the image unmistakably reveals this.  But subjects become aware of the photographer, they pose, throwing up a mask of something inherently other than themselves.  The departure from unaware to acknowledgement is an interesting one.  Some subjects pose actively, thrusting an emotion or idea towards the camera.  Others pose passively, attempting to erase from their faces any hint of their true thoughts.  In either case, the change is irreversible – once we know we are being photographed, we cannot genuinely return to our previous state of unawareness.

Famous photographers have dealt with this differently.  Diane Arbus confronted her subjects and told them to “pose,” allowing them to engage more directly with the photographer.  As Susan Sontag puts in her book On Photography, “[Arbus] believed that self revelation is continuous…[she] wanted her subjects as fully conscious as possible, aware of the act in which they were participating.” Arbus’s subjects all pose for her camera, both actively and passively; but the genius of her work is not the capturing of her subjects’ emotions as much as her use of the poses her subjects present to her.  Arbus’s subjects homogenize themselves by acknowledging her presence – her camera becomes the equilibrant.  The poses her subjects present her unmistakably distinguish the photographs from those of unposed subjects, but unite Arbus’s specific series of images. This self-equalizing of her subjects paralells Arbus’s treatment of her unusual subjects in the way most photographers create portraits of “normal” citizens.

Walker Evans provides a different take on posing in his series of people on the New York City subway.  Evans concealed a camera in his jacket, capturing photographs of subjects entirely unaware of their inclusion in an image-making process.  Most of Evans’s subjects appear in the middle of daydreams, acknowledging neither Evans nor his hidden camera.  These moments of privacy in a public space are both powerful and fascinating, but more interesting are the subjects who appear to look directly at Evans and his camera.  In these photographs Evans captures something impossible to do with an exposed camera: a human-to-human interaction.  When a subject is aware of a camera’s presence, his pose is always to some extent towards the camera and not the photographer.  But in these photographs Evans’s subjects interact only with Evans himself, as they are oblivious of the camera’s presence.  In what could be considered the most stripped-down and honest form of photography possible, Evans acts as a sort of camera himself, forcing his subjects to react to a photographer (apparently) absent of his camera.  These “photographically unposed” images are in fact of humans posing for each other.

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The Photograph vs. Photography

In John Berger’s essay “Understanding a Photograph,” he says “painting interprets the world, translating it into its own language.  But photography has no language of its own.”  Here Berger addresses the distance that frequently exists in photography between the artwork and the medium – namely that the photographic medium is often forgotten.  Photographs can be read by anyone, they have no immediate “language” that must be learned.  They become windows through which we look but seldom at which we look.  Ralph Waldo Emerson describes himself in a particularly transcendental moment as “[becoming] a transparent eyeball – I am nothing; I see all.”  This is similar to a phenomenon of photography.  It is unusual to view a painting for its subject matter alone – the handling of paint, representation, and other elements appear alongside content.  But we seldom see photographs as objects themselves – we forget “the photograph” in light of “photography”.  Recent advancements in digital technology have only compounded this focus away from the medium.  Many photographs now exist only as binary code, a series of ones and zeros.  Gone is the original physical object, the negative or transparency from which all other reproductions flow.

I am particularly interested in photographs as objects, and though it is somewhat natural for photographs to forget their medium, I believe we can gain much by paying more attention to the language of photography itself.  My favorite images often confront the medium of photography head on.  Hiroshi Sugimoto’s movie theater photographs draw me immediately to imagine their moment of conception – the photographic act in their creation is easily accessible.  And the size of subjects in a fixed photographic print, especially when compared in scale to the world in which we view them, can create powerful connections between viewer and object often lost to digital ambiguity.  Photography conducted with “the photograph” in mind is distinct next to photography conducted disregarding the medium.  Photographers make powerful images with both methods in mind, but as the trend towards more digital and less photograph-focused images continues, it is important to remember the photograph as object.

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