Easter

[Ted Byrne]

Just before Christmas I posted on this and another forum what became a provocative European image. Now at Easter-time  you will find that conversation extended by this San Francisco moment by clicking here http://imagefiction.blogspot.com/2008/03/street-people.html

As you look through this image... you're thinking: What? 

[aprilS]

As you look through this image... you're thinking: What?

Why are all these people staring at him, while traffic whizzes by?

What is he doing out in the middle of the street? Is it a protest?

What is he voicing, which captures their attention while others ignore and walk on past? (It seems thoughtful, and he has a thoughtful/meditative posture.)

More viscerally, the three shadows remind me of a (ghoulish?) vigil.

[ilchkai]

ted,

 i like your style in general, the blown highlights, the saturation, and all that - really appeals to me! but in these kind of images i can not agree with the choice of manipulation, i feel it is not serving the purpose well.

i can see a point that you are making (i am saying 'a' point because there is probably more in that image than i realise). to me the image speaks of the desolateness in a tightly populated society, in which some people fall through the cracks, somewhat unnecessarily... shockingly the guy is being stared at by the three (or four) faceless shadows and the drivers who just whiz past him, viewing him as a nuisance, or obstruction in the road - in other words, we are so tightly populated that we all lose touch, an embarassing realisation for everyone who lives in a metropol has to, or should, make...

unfortunately, the link does not work, so that i am not sure if i am missing the point or not. but the treatment is too severe for this kind of documentary shot, in my opinion. i find the patchy focus and the motion blur contrived and annoying. but then i am judging the image as a documentary shot, and i like the subject matter - just wish it would have been treated more in the way that i prefer. so it is a personal thing, along the lines of: i would have treated, and captured that message (the one i see) differently.

thanks for sharing,
makes me think,

best,

kai

[eob]

I wrote this before I went to your linked article.

I don't know what your intentions were when you took this photo.  But here's what I see in it:

The individual versus society. The individual who does not particularly care to be a part of that society. He is free. The society is a prison - and he doesn't want to be locked up. No matter what. He does not care whether somebody will stop and hand him a spare change or not. He might be an alcoholic bum but he's got his pride and he does not care what anybody thinks of him.

That's just one way to see the meaning of this scene. There may be many more ways. But to me, the way you presented this person is very different from the way you've presented the beggar in your European photo. And that's why I read it so differently than that other photo. My point? The technique used is a part of the creative process. It is as important as a message or an emotion we want to pass to the viewer. As a matter of fact, without proper technique, the message as well as an emotion can be distorted or lost.

I think, the reason you used a different composition was because you wanted to show this person in a different way than the person in your other picture.

Then, I went to your linked article and I got an impression that I was right. Was I?

[Ted Byrne]

Then, I went to your linked article and I got an impression that I was right. Was I?

A perplexing question. Hmmm... yes, I suppose so, although not consciously. In both cases I chose to enhance the bustle of the scene all around the subject. But beyond that I chose to present the subject in the setting as s/he was. The similarities are the astonishing isolation in the center of so much humanity. In each case the subject seems to create that wall/space.. and yet their choice of technique is so different. In the first it is theatrical, almost farcical, in the second it is, I think, an inadvertent result of a mental/emotional challenge. The first was a marketing technique slammed against our sensibilities, the second something quite different. The first wanted money, the second demanded space, yet something else... Do you think his reward is creating attention to him as a person? Is that what he's begging? Thoughts?

Like the first image accessible on my blogsite above, this one has also enticed strong thoughtful reactions. Reactions like this one I recently posted eleswhere...

***

As someone anonymously e-mailed me, "This image is neither beautiful, nor radiant. I come here to find those things and frequently do in your work. I wish I did in this." And I appreciate the heartfelt criticism.

That letter reminded me that recently Jeff Curto did an excellent podcast on beauty and photographic art which has caused me to write an essay on What Do We Do After We Go “Wow”? You'll find it if you click here.

It begins: "I suspect  that somewhere deep down in our reptilian  brains – beauty  has a utility. Someone once wrote that we use pornography up. If we didn’t, he asserted,  there’d be no reason to publish more than one issue of Playboy."

Thanks to those of you who get my intention to create a portal like the image above that you can look through as well as at. I'm as much of a sucker for the brilliantly beautiful vista as anyone else, but it's also rewarding to open a hailing frequency to other-wheres, no? Beauty can do that, but frequently it doesn't ... then It becomes like junk food that peels taste off of nutrition. It's fun to do, but can leave you burping, doncha' think?

[Ted Byrne]

ted,

 
unfortunately, the link does not work, so that i am not sure if i am missing the point or not.
thanks for sharing,
makes me think,

best,

kai

Thanks Kai... I think the link is fixed. OOOOPS!

[eob]

I'm as much of a sucker for the brilliantly beautiful vista as anyone else, but it's also rewarding to open a hailing frequency to other-wheres, no? Beauty can do that, but frequently it doesn't ... then It becomes like junk food that peels taste off of nutrition. It's fun to do, but can leave you burping, doncha' think?

I couldn't agree more. That's exactly why I couldn't stand one more sunset (unless it's done in a creative/innovative way).

[aprilS]

Curious...

I've been reading Stephen King's (don't laugh ) Duma Key, which is focused on art/an artist. Just this afternoon, the following exchange struck me:

Primitive artist: "What makes them (the paintings) good?"

Gallery owner: "Truth; it shines through in every stroke."

PA: "But most of them are only sunsets! The things I added..." I lifted my hand, then dropped it. "They're just gimmicks."

...

GO: "What I want to do is clutch my heart and fall down when I see it... No talk of gimmicks. What you are after in most of these paintings is perfectly straightforward: you're looking for a way to re-invent the most popular and hackneyed of all Florida subjects, the tropical sunset. You've been trying to find your way past the cliche."

Ok, "clutch my heart and fall down" is a bit over the top. But there are photographs I've seen (including here!) which make me stop. Perhaps because they go way beyond cliche, and into a truth such as Ted is exploring...

[Ted Byrne]

Ok, "clutch my heart and fall down" is a bit over the top. But there are photographs I've seen (including here!) which make me stop. Perhaps because they go way beyond cliche, and into a truth such as Ted is exploring...

Gosh these are terrific quotes April. But there's something else to say here. Your photos overwhelmingly employ beauty as a device. But it is a device leading to an end. You anthropomorphize the inanimate to tease our minds to wonder... wonder about the thoughts that are dancing through the thoughts of things that cannot think. Or dance. Beauty can be shallow or deep. You seem to present  it frequently as metaphor or a mood... usually delicately playful, and strongly romantic. I wish I could do that.

[eob]

This is getting more interesting. I couldn't help myself, but go along this new path in the discussion.

Primitive artist: "What makes them (the paintings) good?"

Gallery owner: "Truth; it shines through in every stroke."

I take it as a sarcasm or a parody on the part of the gallery owner (or, on the part of the author Stephen King). Of course, there is no such thing as one universal truth. What one considers a truth, someone else may see as a total bull!@#$. We have evidence of that in everyday life. Let's take politics as an example: the truth as Republicans know it is a negative image of the truth as Democrats know it (despite many similarities between the two). I don't think the truth in art should be seen in any different way than the truth in politics, or any other field of the public life, for that matter...

[aprilS]

I took the passage to reference personal truth, versus what we're conditioned to see, value, or taught is a truth. Peeling away the layers, or looking hard, until we/I find something that resonates and says "yes, that's it!" Or, at least close.

But it's not that I think anyone is that interested in my personal, inner life as expressed through photographs. Here's another take on the idea, from Freeman Patterson:

"Photographers who ask 'What does does this egg express?', and then attempt to photograph that, are just as likely to come up with a wide variety of interpretations as photographers who ask 'How can I express myself by photographing this egg?'

"However, the photographers who respect their subject matter will be far more likely to make photographs that communicate with others than those who are too introspective in their approach."

Here, the photographer gets out of the way. (Much like I've discovered good camera equipment can get out of the way, as referenced on another thread.)

Apologies if my thoughts seem random. Connections are being made in my mind from this discussion, but perhaps not logically.

[eob]

No need to apologize. Your thought process is most likely similar to everyone else's in that there's no simple approaches or explanations as far as art is concerned. If there were, everybody would be an artist.

However, this, and other similar discussions, bring us closer to an understanding. Not that we throw around ready and complete solutions for others (and for ourselves) to peruse, but rather, we take a bit from here, another bit from there, we chew on them, we digest and--if we're lucky--we get some new idea that brings us forward - closer to our version of the truth.

[Ted Byrne]

Hmmmm... we are digging down a couple of stories below the entranceway that intrigued me. Lovvit.....

It was only my contention that beauty is either an end in itself or a technique in transporting the viewer to another floor. Now you are wondering if there is an objective understanding about that floor's furnishings. Yipes, that's wunnerul.

Hmmm.... Isn't the process enough? I mean if we can initiate the transportation process through our proscenium, isn't that the necessary condition for "Is it art?" Not whether it is "good" art, or "universally comprehensible" art, or what the "hell-izzit-about" art but art, right?

However, totally against my will you've sucked me into wondering something else (grumble, grmble, grb...). Suppose that one of us does an image. And suppose we are totally intending to do bullshit. You know, say, I took a random image or two, brought pieces of them into Photoshop and just pimped them up like this.... . It's a joke... no meaning, no intention, just bull....

BUT... suppose a gallery curator explains in a brochure something like... "Byrne's sense of the ambiguous here employes the sensation of beautiful-day storm in a way that causes the viewer to confront an inner disequilibrium pitting calm and sweet. It is a texture you can hear, but more importantly taste."

Okay, and at that point viewers attempting to figure out that weirdness begin to imagine, fantasize and construct story parts. The paragraph turns whatever it is that I did there into a portal to... to... Who cares? The question I'm now wondering about is whether someone else... some third party... can turn anything into art by pulling the viewer through it into feelings and ideas that are somehow connected to, um, whatever I did there?

Do you think that anyone can make anything into art? Actually create layers below it which you can amble around in?


Hmmmmmmm..... 

[ilchkai]

yes, because everything and everyone can be and is an artist, or an artifact of art. it is not in the skill of the creator or the object itself, it is just in the eye of the beholder, the act of creation, or the meaning (either explicit or implicit, wanted or not) within or of the object.

that is how, and why there is a signed pissoir in the 'tate modern' gallery in london (Marcel Duchamp's "Fountain").

a few years ago, tv producers got a group of three chimps to paint canvases and exhibited the resulting smudges in a 'highbrow' gallery, invited a group of relatively respected critics for a grand opening of an exhibition of a fresh new talent. the comments were remarkable and very much along the lines of how you (ted) described your image above (the second one that is ), with the critics remaking on the anguish and the passion of this young artist, his grasp of an ephemeral reality - or words to that end.

some photographers make a name for themselves by photographing the most mundane, everyday objects - at what point does a fork, for example, 'become' art? is it the act of taking the picture, the thought of taking the picture, the angle that the object is placed in, or is it the eye of the beholder (or the five inches behind his eyes).....?

in my opinion, it does not matter if we, you, i think that something is art or not - at some level, for some people, it is. 'just don't listen to the hype and make up your own mind!' is my approach.

i am sure that if the picture above my post would have occupied its own thread it would have generated some amount of discussion about "Byrne's sense of the ambiguous" which "causes the viewer to confront an inner disequilibrium"....

best,

kai

[although my post might not look like it - i do enjoy this thread, in an odd kind of way ]

[habakuk]

Another interesting thread which I read with pleasure. Isn't art just a task that is not needed to fight hunger or bring security? I mean, if I whistle creatively a new meoldy that (maybe) non one before has whistled, isn't that as much art as creating a painting? if not, is it therefore the amount of craft that is used to create art? If it would be Mozart who whistled the same melody than I did - is his whistling more artsy? Hmmm. How much does the intention of the artist define how much art his own work is?

I'm not even sure if the whole discussion about what art is makes sense, because as I said: art seems to be what evolution has brought up, once we were able to secure our existence and still had unused neurons... when the ancient homo sapiens started to create jewelry or musical instruments... what was their intention, and how does their art compare to our art nowadays?

cheers
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