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Thread: Aesthetics: Framing vs. Pointing

  1. #21

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    Aesthetics: Framing vs. Pointing

    This is a great topic. I was made more aware of the "unframed" or " pointing" approach to photography after reading an interview with William Eggleston, a "pioneer" in color fine art photograpy. His images to me are disturbing for their lack of reference to any frame. He says in the interview that in 1976 he stopped looking through the viewfinder altogether. Of course, he is not a LF photographer. Yet, he has influenced a generation of artists and photographers. I have been wondering how many other current photographers feel about this anti-frame approach. Its so antithetical to my own intensely compositional approach that I use whether I'm using a LF camera or a small camera. I compose automatically, without thinking. I can't imagine not. In order to not frame I'd have to not use the viewfinder nor look into the ground glass. Someone else would have to focus the camera for me. I still have a hard time understanding the appeal of such unframed photographs. To me they look random, like a 4 year old took them without knowing what he or she was doing. Still, according to the experts this is art! [scratching my head in bewilderment]

    Here's the Eggleston interview: http://observer.guardian.co.uk/magazine/story/0,11913,1266665,00.html

  2. #22
    Abuser of God's Sunlight
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    Aesthetics: Framing vs. Pointing

    Based on his discription of his working methods, Eggleston might look very much like someone who "points," but I think esthetically his pictures strongly suggest otherwise. His idea of photographing "democratically" applied not only to his choice of subject matter (anything around him being fair game) but to his formal arrangement of that subject matter. Most of his images are democratically composed, in that they follow the late-modern practice of obscuring what is "subject" and what isn't. It's all important ... or all mundane, depending on your point of view. In fact, in the afterword of The Democratic Forest ... the piece which he ends by declaring that he's "at war with the obvious," he expresses disdain for the pointing esthetic ... specifically toward people who can't understand an image unless it's composed as a subject centered in a rectangle. However shoot-from-the-hip his style may be, I think Eggleston's images to be meticulous and subtle examples of framing (if we're using the vocabulary brought up by the original poster).

    By the way, thanks for posting that link, Steve. Really interesting interview. Didn't know most of that stuff about the old hellraiser.

  3. #23
    Kirk Gittings's Avatar
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    Aesthetics: Framing vs. Pointing

    Exploring dichotomies as a means of aesthetic discernment is ultimately a frustrating exercise in cramming ill fitting pegs into oddly shaped holes.

    Whew! That was a mouthful.

    Nevertheless dichotomies are a useful tool to get the brain cells moving.

    Szarkowski's Mirriors and Windows from the early seventies is one such approach that I am fond of. In M&W he breaks photography down into two camps, the self-referential or auto-biographical "mirror" and the outward looking or voyeristic "window". I haven't read this book in awhile, but I remember dissagreeing with him on how some art falls into each of these groups. Weston's pepper comes to mind now. It is a "found object" but it is also "arranged" by the artist for the sake of making art. Is it about the pepper or about the artists? He points and carefully frames, but is he pointing at the object or to the subconscious suggestions that the sensuous forms of the pepper suggests?

    It strikes me that sometimes the act of pointing is actually autobiographical.

    I am mixing my dichotomies here. It is very dangerous ground.
    Thanks,
    Kirk

    at age 73:
    "The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
    But I have promises to keep,
    And miles to go before I sleep,
    And miles to go before I sleep"

  4. #24
    Abuser of God's Sunlight
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    Aesthetics: Framing vs. Pointing

    I think you made a trichotomy.
    let's see if it catches on.

    It does seem like in a lot of people's eyes that show wasn't Szarkowski's finest hour. The dichotomy is a nice one, and he writes about it beautifully, but he may have tried to extend it too far and to cram too many things too neatly into it. As you mentioned, so much work seems equally mirror and window. And fitting pegs into odd-sized holes is of little utility.

    As you said, use the dichotomy to get some brain cells moving ... and even to shed some light on the world. but try not to define all the cosmos with it. no single turn of phrase sheds enough light for that.

  5. #25

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    Aesthetics: Framing vs. Pointing

    To Paulr, following up on the Eggleston comments. I don't buy the idea that Eggleston was framing, especially if he wasn't even using the viewfinder. He was definitely pointing. The resulting images can look arranged, but that is because the human brain finds order in disorder by itself. The viewer, such as yourself, "sees" some kind of order and thinks Eggleston did it on purpose.

  6. #26
    Kirk Gittings's Avatar
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    Aesthetics: Framing vs. Pointing

    "The viewer, such as yourself, "sees" some kind of order and thinks Eggleston did it on purpose."

    Eggleston's most conceptually silly and least successful work was his "unmanned probe" work where he truely did not compose or look thru the viewfinder. The work was banal and pointless, conceptually and aesthetically. If you compare that work with the more popular work you know for sure that his successful work is very carefully and cleverly framed with precise points of view and orgainzation of objects and color blocks.

    Two summers ago I saw a retrospective show of his at the Museum of Cont. Photography in Chicago. I wasn'y prepared for what I saw. His images are very formal in a disarmingly casual kind of way.

    Eggleston did do it on purpose. He does "order" his images. Otherwise a chimpanzee could do it. I think you fell for it.
    Thanks,
    Kirk

    at age 73:
    "The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
    But I have promises to keep,
    And miles to go before I sleep,
    And miles to go before I sleep"

  7. #27
    Abuser of God's Sunlight
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    Aesthetics: Framing vs. Pointing

    I'm mostly familiar with his democratic forest work from the '70s. Without making assumptions about what Eggleston was trying to do (always dubious) I can say that the organization of those images, whether done deliberately or not, bears no relationship to the way "pointing" type images are organized. There's no clear subject placed against a separate background. The pictures are all about the the interrelationships of the different elements, with very little sense of heirrarchy. Contrast these to the work some classic "pointing" photographers: Avedon, Arbus, the Bechers, etc. There's no comparison.

    I haven't seen the "unmanned probe" work, but that sounds like neither framing nor pointing (more like pointing, only nobody's there to point at anything). Anyway, I'm sure that the work was banal, but not entirely pointless. It's an interesting exercise that can serve to put to rest a lot of long-lived questions and assumptions about the medium .. like what exactly is the influence of the photographer vs. the influence of the equipment? The way to know for sure is to remove the photographer completely, and see what happens. This kind of work isn't about making beautiful pictures (or even ones that are interesting out of context of the idea) .. it's really just about exploring an idea. Once you've done it, you've done it, and it's time to move on. Which it seems like he did.

  8. #28

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    Aesthetics: Framing vs. Pointing

    Hey paulr and Kirk,

    I haven't seen a lot of Eggleston's stuff, so I'm just commenting on things I've seen. Interesting subject though: pointing vs random vs composing. I do think the viewer always adds some internal organization to anything that is looked at. We're definitely a far cry from the "sunset on the ocean" type of photography that is popular. Just go to photo.net. Personally, I enjoy the most photos that stimulate my brain in some sort of sensual/sensate manner, even landscapes. Eggleston's work, at least what I've seen on the net doesn't have that property for me. I'm rambling, so I'll stop now. Good discussion.

  9. #29
    Kirk Gittings's Avatar
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    Aesthetics: Framing vs. Pointing

    Eggleston is no chimpanzee.

    http://www.mocp.org/mocp062500/vieweggleston.htm

    Look at the image on the right. This is maybe about the people and the cultural mileau in which they surround themselves. Yet the obvious visual selection process displayed by the point of view and the carefully arranged mosaic of cultural landscape artifacts that form the backdrop suggests that this artist is no chimpanzee but a visually literate person who has studied the tenets of modern art. Eggleston was not naive. His affection for formalists like Klee and Kandinsky are well documented in his biographies and I think well absorbed in his aesthetic formal senses. I share this affection so I understand the influence. This image is so carefully framed the edges are almost collapsing under the tension. What was revolutionary about his color work was the unapologetic way in which he brought a color painting aesthetic into a photography world that was trying to discern its uniqueness from other art mediums.

    Look at the image on the left. It is a kind of dead tech, post-industrial, pop art influenced pointing (yeah I went to art school).

    Having said all this blah blah, while I am fond of much of his imagery, his own original prints are so casually produced that some of them are embarrasing. We usually see them in reproduction where they are tiny and usually have boosted contrast and saturation or prints done by labs who know how to print. In real life his prints are quite dull. That may be part of the shtick. I jsut don't think he took his prints seriously.
    Thanks,
    Kirk

    at age 73:
    "The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
    But I have promises to keep,
    And miles to go before I sleep,
    And miles to go before I sleep"

  10. #30

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    Aesthetics: Framing vs. Pointing

    OK Kirk, I admit I am an artistic Philistine. Those images to me look like the snapshots you see in virtually anyone's file box when you are going through their closet. I would not be inspired to pursue photography after looking at these images. I think you just may be adding in your own knowledge of art as you evaluate these photos. Perhaps. At any rate, I enjoyed this discussion. I invite you to look at my own "body of work" on photonet under Steve J Murray. Having not studied art, I'm way more "naive" than Eggleston!

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