What we see, what we don't see, and what is truth.

bdcolen · January 4, 2012

I cannot highly enough recommend the book "Believing Is Seeing: Observations On The Mysteries of Photography," by Oscar-winning documentary film maker and MacArthur "genius" Errol Morris. Expanded from a series of multi-part essays he wrote for the New York Times lens blog, Morris writes at great, and quite brilliant, length about the issues we kick around here. The book consists of four sections: one on Cameron's two "Valley of the Shadow of Death" photos taken during the Crimean War; one of the Abu Ghraib photos; one on Walker Evans and the FSA photographers, and, finally, one about the toys turning up in photos from the war in Lebanon. The FSA section is particularly valuable in terms of thinking about what is or isn't documentary. But the overarching theme of the book and question is raises has to do with whether we can ever have a clue what a photo is "really" about, what the photographer did or did not intend, and whether it matters.

Ever since I began teaching my documentary photo class at MIT I have had Sontag's "On Photography" on the required reading list, warning my students that it is pedantic, often wrong, painful to read, but also necessary. Well, this spring semester, it is gone from the Syllabi at MIT and Harvard, replaced by Morris.
Read it. You won't regret it.

RSL · January 4, 2012

Thanks, BD. I just ordered it from Amazon. Should have it Friday. Sounds fascinating.

rainbow · January 4, 2012

I took the cheap route and am getting at the library...

bdcolen · January 4, 2012

rainbow wrote: »

I took the cheap route and am getting at the library...

! I have gotten so into it it inspired me to order a copy of an out-of-print book by a former U of Delaware prof Morris interviewed at length - it came out in the 1990s and is about what he contends was widespread manipulation by the FSA photographers, who were, after all, propagandists, not documentarians.

Quincy T · January 4, 2012

rainbow wrote: »

I took the cheap route and am getting at the library...

I will do the same

RSL · January 4, 2012

bdcolen wrote: »

...and is about what he contends was widespread manipulation by the FSA photographers, who were, after all, propagandists, not documentarians.

Which is why Roy Stryker fired Walker Evans who arguably was the finest artist in the FSA photography program. Walker simply refused to be a propagandist and Styiker couldn't allow that.

bdcolen · January 4, 2012

RSL wrote: »

Which is why Roy Stryker fired Walker Evans who arguably was the finest artist in the FSA photography program. Walker simply refused to be a propagandist and Styiker couldn't allow that.

Quite questionable.

rainbow · January 4, 2012

Just glanced at the book. Sure are a lot of words in it...

Juano · January 4, 2012

Thanks for the tip BD, I'm going to get it.

Richard · January 9, 2012

I ordered a copy this morning, but it will probably take three or four weeks before it gets here. It's certainly an interesting topic, and I look forward to reading his take.

Quincy T · January 9, 2012

rainbow wrote: »

Just glanced at the book. Sure are a lot of words in it...

I'd sue, honestly.

RSL · January 9, 2012

The book is about questioning authority, the good kind of questioning authority. In other words, it's about refusing uncritically to accept an unsupported assertion at face value, especially the kind of assertion based on the unstated presumption: "as everyone knows." It reminds me of Bill Buckley's story about a party he attended just after Reagan was elected where a woman said to him: "I just don't understand how he got elected. Nobody I know voted for him."

Morris tackles four historic photographic situations in which subjective responses to photographs led to conclusions not supported by facts. The conclusions weren't always wrong, but even when they were right they were reached for reasons that had little or nothing to do with the content of the photographs themselves. In other words seeing followed believing.

Since this book is a series of detective stories I'm not going to spoil the suspense by summarizing the cases and the conclusions. The bottom line is this:

It's often pointed out that a work of art -- fine art, not commercial art -- has to stand on its own feet. And, in an important way, that's true. A text shouldn't need to accompany a good street shot in order for the picture to strike home. But at a deeper level, whether or not the picture strikes home, and if it does strike home, the meaning you give it, depends to a very large degree on your background and your prejudices. Believing is Seeing makes that point in spades.

Good recommendation, BD.

M38A1 · January 9, 2012

Ordered this morning..... Cant' wait for it to come in now!

RSL · January 9, 2012

bdcolen wrote: »

Quite questionable.

I'm not sure why you say that, BD. Walker flat refused to follow Stryker's "shooting scripts," which called for propaganda shoots. I'm in Florida at the moment and away from the bulk of my photographic library, but it seems to me some of Stryker's shooting scripts were in Rothstein's A Vision Shared. I know I've read several somewhere, and I can understand Evans's contempt for them.

bdcolen · January 9, 2012

Evans did indeed refuse to follow the shooting scripts, but there is plenty of question about the "honesty" of what he did shoot - brilliantly as he shot it.

RSL · January 9, 2012

Okay, but considering Stryker's honesty level do you believe he fired Evans for dishonesty?

I too have questions about the straightforwardness of some of Evans's "documentary" photography, but as Errol Morris asks, what defines "dishonesty" with reference to the kind of shooting Evans was doing? Was reversing the flare-producing mirror on the mantel dishonesty? I don't think so. Was placing a clock on the mantel dishonesty? Maybe, but Morris's researches never told us whether or not he did that, and, one thing Believing is Seeing never questioned is why, if Evans was trying to show how poor the Gudgers were, would he put what for them was a relatively expensive clodk on that mantel? I'd have to wait until I'm back in Colorado to do the research, but it seems to me I read a statement by Evans somewhere where he admitted he pulled the bed out. It wasn't exactly an "admission." It was more like an explanation about why he had to do it in order to get a decent picture. Then there were the flies on the bedspread. In the first printing the lab eliminated the flies, but Evans made them put the flies back. Yes, having the flies on the bedspread emphasized what Evans was trying to get across, but it also was honesty.

When Stryker came on the job he hadn't a clue about what photography was capable of doing. Evans's early photographs were what sounds to me like a grudging revelation to Stryker. But he couldn't control Evans. Evans was an artist, not a journalist and not a propagandist, and in order to satisfy his own boss, Tugwell, and the other people on up the line, Stryker needed to show what the government was doing for the poor sharecroppers, but Evans simply wasn't interested in concentrating on that kind of story telling. He and Stryker were a bad fit from the very beginning.

bdcolen · January 10, 2012

"Evans was an artist, not a journalist and not a propagandist, and in order to satisfy his own boss, Tugwell, and the other people on up the line, Stryker needed to show what the government was doing for the poor sharecroppers, but Evans simply wasn't interested in concentrating on that kind of story telling." There you go. And while I can't instantly pull it out, I seem to recall the quote from Trachtenberg, at Yale, to the effect that "we all knew Walker was a liar."

Why did he put the clock on the mantel, assuming he did - see clause 1 above. Perhaps he really didn't give a rat's behind about 'truth,' documentation, etc., but only cared about his art - and the clock improved the image qua image. Frankly, I believe that virtually everything written - and shot - suggests that Cartier-Bresson came at photography in a similar manner. I am not suggesting that he set anything up - far from it, but rather that what he cared about was the composition, the form, the light, the shadows, the expressions, and how they all intersected. What he didn't care about much if at all was the subject it self.

Ed911 · January 10, 2012

One problem with photojournalism is when editors and photographers have to decide between appeal and reality, or more succinctly, how to make reality appealing. As a photographer, what do you submit...and as an editor, what do you buy. It's all about money and notoriety. Of course, the best of the mix is when reality is appealing.

Just my two cents.

RSL · January 10, 2012

I'm not going to argue the question of Evans's honesty. Trachtenberg's statement is exactly the kind of unsupported assertion Morris was questioning. "we all knew..?" Come on, BD, that's "as everyone knows" all over again. If we're going to discuss honesty we're going to have to do what Morris did and consider the specific situation.

But you made my point exactly. Evans was an artist, not a propagandist, and that's why Stryker fired him. Stryker needed propagandists in order to stay in business. Stryker couldn't have cared less about honesty.

As far as Cartier-Bresson is concerned, I'd tend to agree with you. In the beginning he wasn't even pretending to do "documentation." He was a surrealist. Later on, after he'd met and worked with Capa, and was told by Capa to stay away from the surrealist approach and call himself a photojournalist, he began to do documentation, but what you're saying was still true. He was interested in his photographs as art objects, not as simple conveyors of truth.

As far as caring about the subject itself, it depends on what you mean by "caring." If you mean HCB didn't become emotionally involved with his subjects, I'd agree right down the line. But if you mean the subjects of his photographs were secondary to the composition, I'd refer you back to "The Locks at Bougival."

bdcolen · January 10, 2012

I know you're in love with that image, Russ, but, to fall back on Morris, we have absolutely nothing to tell us that HCB carried any more about those people than he did or didn't about the people in any other image he took. Also, yes, Trachtenberg's statement is unsupported, but he did, I believe, know Evans at Yale.

Richard · January 10, 2012

bdcolen wrote: »

I know you're in love with that image, Russ, but, to fall back on Morris, we have absolutely nothing to tell us that HCB carried any more about those people than he did or didn't about the people in any other image he took.

Hmm...and what if he didn't? So what? Did Leonardo, Goya or Rembrandt care about their models? I haven't a clue, but the works of art they produced speak for themselves, and I'd say the same applies to HCB. There's easily as much truth in art as in journalism, arguably more.

RSL · January 10, 2012

Then when you said "caring" you did mean emotional involvement. I'm surprised at that, BD. When you were doing photojournalism did you become emotionally involved with your subjects? I doubt it, since obviously your work was very effective. I don't see how anybody can do effective photojournalism or for that matter fine art photography effectively if he becomes emotionally involved with his subjects. What you need in both cases is objectivity, and when you become emotionally involved, objectivity goes out the window.

Yes, I'm in love with "Bougival," but I'm in also love with a lot of other images by HCB, by Atget, by Evans, by Erwitt, by Frank, by McCurry, by Gene Smith, by Marc Riboud, by Winogrand, to name just a few, and, just off the top of my head I'm in love with "Solveg's Song" from Peer Gynt, and "Dai Campi, Dia Prati" from Mephistophes, and I'm in love with a raft of paintings by Thomas Cole and Albert Bierstadt. My point about "Bougival" was that in that picture HCB's subjects clearly weren't subordinate to composition, though the composition was magnificent.

torags · January 10, 2012

RSL wrote: »

. The bottom line is this:

It's often pointed out that a work of art -- fine art, not commercial art -- has to stand on its own feet. And, in an important way, that's true. A text shouldn't need to accompany a good street shot in order for the picture to strike home. But at a deeper level, whether or not the picture strikes home, and if it does strike home, the meaning you give it, depends to a very large degree on your background and your prejudices. Believing is Seeing makes that point in spades.

Good recommendation, BD.

Hmmm... I have a couple of contentious notions:

First I disagree - to put street photography and fine art together in the same sentence is an oxymoron.

Art is original; to document is a craft... my view...

Perhaps truth doesn't exist. It seems to me people see what they want to when seeing a picture and reading words.

Is that crazy? Ask the millions of people who practice different religions what is the truth. My idea of truth is consensus, right or wrong don't matter (or are too costly to identify).

Without words an image can impart some simplistic physical human responses for the viewer. Words can change the entire response (re: propaganda). Is text necessary? for beyond simplistic it might be; especially for time and place.

The bottom line might be, that we as photographers are responsible to "craft" a good image for the viewer (& that isn't always SOOC)

:hide

Richard · January 10, 2012

torags wrote: »

Art is original; to document is a craft... my view...

You are entitled to your view, of course, but you might want to consider that all the major art museums that contain 20th century and later art have photography collections, and that many of the street photographers that are mentioned here are well represented. Why do you suppose that's the case?

bdcolen · January 10, 2012

torags wrote: »

Hmmm... I have a couple of contentious notions:

First I disagree - to put street photography and fine art together in the same sentence is an oxymoron.

Art is original; to document is a craft... my view...

Perhaps truth doesn't exist. It seems to me people see what they want to when seeing a picture and reading words.

Is that crazy? Ask the millions of people who practice different religions what is the truth. My idea of truth is consensus, right or wrong don't matter (or are too costly to identify).

Without words an image can impart some simplistic physical human responses for the viewer. Words can change the entire response (re: propaganda). Is text necessary? for beyond simplistic it might be; especially for time and place.

The bottom line might be, that we as photographers are responsible to "craft" a good image for the viewer (& that isn't always SOOC)

:hide

I know this is your belief, Rags, you've expressed it before. But I'd say you're on the early 20th century end of an argument that was settled in the first third of that century - photography certainly can be art. Documentary photography can be art. You'd be hard pressed to find a museum curator who doesn't consider many of the FSA photos of Walker Evans to be "fine art." Good photography, like any other art, requires an artist's eye and heart, and a craftsman's hand.

torags · January 10, 2012

It might be me; but have any of you been to any modern art museums and seen what the curators call art?

Because a curator needs to serve a commercial aspect of of filling his museum with anything that will draw a crowd; I will question the "art" aspect of documentary photography.

RSL · January 10, 2012

For heaven's sake, Rags, why are you using a camera? You should be learning to draw and paint. Have you ever tried it?

richardman · January 10, 2012

Rags,
I probably will regret writing this and I hate to put it so bluntly, but IMHO, your insistence that photography is not arts, is holding up your pj/street photos. You can capture the actions, you know composition, you know light, but I really want to see YOU in your pj/street photos. I see you put poetic titles but they lack souls. You are crafting images, but I want see the artistry.

bdcolen · January 10, 2012

Richard wrote: »

Hmm...and what if he didn't? So what? Did Leonardo, Goya or Rembrandt care about their models? I haven't a clue, but the works of art they produced speak for themselves, and I'd say the same applies to HCB. There's easily as much truth in art as in journalism, arguably more.

I'm not saying there's anything wrong with his not caring. He was. Great artist.

torags · January 10, 2012

RSL wrote: »

For heaven's sake, Rags, why are you using a camera? You should be learning to draw and paint. Have you ever tried it?

Hmmm.. didn't have to learn to draw, it was an endowment. Got straight A's in all my art classes without trying; but I got D's in conduct - I can't imagine why: can you?....

There wasn't enough money in it for me; I would rather load freight cars with razor blades in Southy (& I did) than compromise my artistic values.

Frankly I'm perplexed why photogs would think of themselves as artists: photography is more honest: the art business is such a phoney racket with vapor values. I would guess it's the romantic social vanity it bestows.

Comments made earlier about a photogs body of work being less than artistic, sort of rubs me wrong; these guys were trying to make a living and earn some pieces of silver from the man. Do you think "art" was foremost in there minds? Rodin had to argue with committees to get commissions. They did what they had to do.

Ahhh... existentialism... the neighborhood of contrarians ... I'm comfortable there.

bdcolen · January 11, 2012

RSL wrote: »

Then when you said "caring" you did mean emotional involvement. I'm surprised at that, BD. When you were doing photojournalism did you become emotionally involved with your subjects? I doubt it, since obviously your work was very effective. I don't see how anybody can do effective photojournalism or for that matter fine art photography effectively if he becomes emotionally involved with his subjects. What you need in both cases is objectivity, and when you become emotionally involved, objectivity goes out the window.

Yes, I'm in love with "Bougival," but I'm in also love with a lot of other images by HCB, by Atget, by Evans, by Erwitt, by Frank, by McCurry, by Gene Smith, by Marc Riboud, by Winogrand, to name just a few, and, just off the top of my head I'm in love with "Solveg's Song" from Peer Gynt, and "Dai Campi, Dia Prati" from Mephistophes, and I'm in love with a raft of paintings by Thomas Cole and Albert Bierstadt. My point about "Bougival" was that in that picture HCB's subjects clearly weren't subordinate to composition, though the composition was magnificent.

Objectivity in journalism - or pretty much anything other than science? NO SUCH THING. And anyone who believes there is is, well, delusional. Along with several other quotes, I include this one at the top of my photo and writing syllabi at MIT and Harvard:

“We can never be objective, for all that we have been, and all that we are, is with us every moment of our lives, shaping all of our attitudes and our vision. What we can be however, what we must be, is fair. And that idea of fairness boils down to one word – honesty, the one thing that we owe our subjects.”

Eugene Smith was clearly emotionally involved with his subjects; he cared about them. And it shows in the photographs. HCB generally was not. And it shows in his photographs. Cartier-Bresson - with a few exceptions - smacks us in the head; Eugene Smith punches us in the heart.

While there could not have been a Smith without an HCB, I'll take the former over the latter any day.