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Thread: Walker Evans & Time

  1. #1

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    Walker Evans & Time

    I have a brief reference among my reading notes that Walker Evans felt that a linear conception of time was an indication of ignorance.....unfortunately I did not note the source of this reference. As non-linear time is now at the core of my photographic landscape work I would be very interested in once again locating the book that was the source of my notation... find the context and also see if there was any mention of how the concept influenced his photographic work. Could it have been in the intro to America.... sound familiar to anyone?
    Thanks....Annie

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    Walker Evans & Time

    Don't know Annie, but could it have come from his Photography book?

    Actually, in my quite humble opinion, I think Einstein may have agreed with Evans. I don't make any pretense of thoroughly understanding Einstein and I won't debate it, but in order to understand him, one has to get away with from the rigid concept of time that we sequence our lives around. Nuff said on that.

    Perhaps Evans looking through his lens saw he was recording time on the negative, from the very old to the very new, all in one image, without the linear separation of events that created the objects he was seeing.

    Just a ponderous thought!

  3. #3
    tim atherton's Avatar
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    Walker Evans & Time

    It isn't on American Photogorpahs (and I had forgetton how good that is - must be one of THE photo books of the 20thCentury) it only hasd an essay by Lincoln Kirsten.

    But that whole concept is an integral part of Sugimotos work (especially the seascapes and movie thatre screens) - there is an essay on his use of the idea of kairos time, by Francesco Bonami.

    Also, Berger writes on a similar area in Another Way of Telling, about the modern conflation of history and time.
    You'd be amazed how small the demand is for pictures of trees... - Fred Astaire to Audrey Hepburn

    www.photo-muse.blogspot.com blog

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    Walker Evans & Time

    T.A.R.D.I.S. Time And Reletive Dimension In Space.

    dee

  5. #5

    Walker Evans & Time

    Photographs (or any work of art) don’t create themselves in a vacuum. They come from photographers, and those photographers have minds and those minds think thoughts. Maybe they think about fstops and paper grades, or maybe they think about non-linear time or little pink fairies dancing in a circle. Even if it’s “only a photograph” you must have been thinking SOMETHING when you took it, even if it was just “hey, look at the tree”. Those thoughts, whatever they were, brought the picture to life.

    Wynn Bullock was famous for rambling on about his pictures in ways that were comprehensible only to him. Was it psycho-babble? Not to him, because it reflected the thought process that led him to the print. Our inability to understand doesn’t mean the pictures aren’t any good.

    Jerry Uelsmann is another that comes to mind. His pictures are very personal, coming in many cases from dream imagery. There’s no way an outside observer could fully appreciate the thoughts that went into their creation. Those thoughts might not even make sense to us. But they were essential to creating those photos.

    Most photos are somewhat literal, by the nature of the medium. The thoughts that went into them can be anything at all.

  6. #6
    Yes, but why? David R Munson's Avatar
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    Walker Evans & Time



    The basic human concept of time may tend to be linear, in that we take it to be a manifestation of the regular units that we use to measure time, but the human experience of time essentially never is linear. For me, this is evident in my photography in that, often times, when I make a photograph, it is at a point when I see something and everything else just sort of goes into suspended animation for a moment. A lot of my 35mm street stuff is like that. I may not rationally be thinking about the photograph in literal terms, but there's definitely a visceral reaction of sorts and time does seem to slow momentarily.



    It strikes me that the concept of non-linear time is both perfectly valid and perfectly compatible with the photographic process.


  7. #7
    tim atherton's Avatar
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    Walker Evans & Time

    As for non-linear time, almost all photography relies on this concept in some way - it is part of the inherant ambiguity of the best photographs. When all is said and done a camera is really nothing more than a box for transporting appearances. You take what is usually a fraction of a second of time (or a few seconds at most) and transport it to some other time and place for viewing - out of place, out of context, generally, out of linear progression.

    "A photograph is a photograph" I'm sure if that concept it shouted more loudly each time it is expressed it may possibly become more meanigful (presumably after a joint or two)? Otherwise, what exactly does it mean?
    You'd be amazed how small the demand is for pictures of trees... - Fred Astaire to Audrey Hepburn

    www.photo-muse.blogspot.com blog

  8. #8

    Walker Evans & Time

    I feel ashamed to be a member of this forum. Until now, it seemed different from other internet fora where, unfortunately, common standards of decency break down just because people aren't face to face with each other.

    "Linear" vs. "nonlinear" perception of time (tied into "eastern" vs. "western" attitudes towards reality) has been a topic in the art world at least since the 1950s; it comes up in any art history class. In fact, the idea of "eastern" vs. "western" expression in art is a little old fashioned and 20th-century-seeming in 2005.

    I suggest consulting with an enthomusicologist or ethnologist for further clarification.

    Many participants in this forum, myself included, engage in photography in pursuit of "fine art" ends even if the discussions we have here tend to be technical in nature. I'm very surprised that the question would inspire the worst sort of obnoxious "flames" in response.

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    Walker Evans & Time

    "Non-linear time" sounds like Wynn Bullock but I have no idea whether Evans ever read anything Bullock wrote or even knew of Bullock's existence. Bullock's ideas about time, many of which are a little difficult to follow, are set forth in a book written or edited by his daughter, sorry I don't remember the title or her name but it shouldn't be difficult to find with a little effort, there aren't that many Bullock books out there (assuming of course that you're still with this thread which I hope you are). It might be interesting (to most of the people here) if you started a separate thread explaining your work and ideas in more depth, no reason why we have to confine the discussion here to f stops and bellows extension factors.
    Brian Ellis
    Before you criticize someone, walk a mile in their shoes. That way when you do criticize them you'll be
    a mile away and you'll have their shoes.

  10. #10
    Mark Sawyer's Avatar
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    Walker Evans & Time

    Michael- there were a couple of "that's not photography- that's psycho-babble" responses last night immediately after Annie posed what I thought was an interesting issue. Sadly, two posters (who's words I cleaned up considerably may have driven Annie away. Our loss; I'd like to see or know more about her work.

    We live in an age where string theory, quantum mechanics, strange and esoteric philosophies, etc. are changing the way the universe can be interpreted. I'd love to see Noam Chamsky, Wittgenstein, Sontag, and Steven Hawking get together to discuss art for an evening. Some don't take photography farther than "my flower is more orange than your flower," and are somehow offended if another tries to see more.

    I think of myself as a practical person, but sometimes I wonder if the only thing that keeps the earth spinning on its axis is a circle of buddhist monks chanting in a temple somewhere in the Himilayas.

    "A photograph af a leaf is not a leaf. Sometimes it's not even a photograph." -Todd Walker
    "I love my Verito lens, but I always have to sharpen everything in Photoshop..."

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