Feeling in Pictures

[mdm]

Agreed 100%

[rdenney]

Hmmm. Music.

When I listen to the opening bars of Vaughan Williams's Second Symphony ("Symphony by a Londoner"), I hear the streets of London. That bit of that music conveys a clear picture, and the feeling of excitement one gets on being swept away by a bustling street scene. So, by the standards of many in this thread, Vaughan Williams must be a genius.

When I listen to Ride of the Valkyries, I see Elmer Fudd taking a shot at Bugs Bunny ("Kill the wabbit, kill the wabbit...").

Does that mean Ralph Vaughan Williams was a more effective composer than Richard Wagner? Somehow, I don't think so. What it does mean is that my first exposure to the Ride was on a Saturday morning long ago, while sitting on the floor in my pajamas. I was maybe age 6, sitting in front of our mammoth television with the tiny screen showing a Bugs Bunny cartoon.

And my first exposure to Vaughan Williams's 2nd Symphony was as an adult, after I had already developed considerable experience listening (actively) and performing (poorly) music.

With that in my experience, I don't think I could claim that an artist has much hope of pushing past the viewer's experience to enforce his own feelings.

Now, does Elmer Fudd prevent me from being moved by the power of Wagner? Absolutely not. I would hate to think I'm that one-dimensional. Is the motion I feel a purely intellectual exercise? No. But it is fully informed by my intellect. I think this is part of what Struan is getting at. Without the intellectual underpinnings, the response at the emotional level would be at best ephemeral, and at worst just noise.

Now, that's one way I might use music to help think about photography. Here's another.

When I perform, sometimes the music I'm performing moves me as I perform it. I have been moved to tears while listening to music on many occasions. I'm moved to tears right now just remembering them. One example was when the Philharmonia started their performance of Vaughan Williams's Tallis Fantasia with a chorus of voices, off-stage, singing the English Hymnal version of the original Tallis tune. So, we first heard a distant call of the real Tallis, followed by the modern interpretation of it on stage. Given that I have loved this work my whole adult life, and given that I had traveled to London for the sole purpose of hearing that work (it was my wife's present to me for my 50th), the emotion of the moment fairly overwhelmed me. It was actually rather embarrassing.

Now, if I left it there, you'd think I was a sentimental slob. Well, I am. But I have a point.

When I perform music, despite the constraints of lack of skill, the emotion of my response to the composer's ideas sometimes wells up. The point is: This is usually a bad thing. Why? Because too much emotion forces me to focus on impression rather than on expression. For me to convey power, I have to feel it, yes, but I also have to remain in absolute, complete intellectual control. Musicians are not allowed to buy into the modern artistic BS that technique doesn't matter.

The trick for me when making photographs is not to be led by feelings, but to lead my feelings, just as I do with music. The feeling is part of an intellectual expression, where the intellect is in command of the emotional response. If I let the emotion rule me, then technique goes to hell and nothing gets expressed at all. And God knows that happens often enough. Too often, I'm simply overwhelmed by the power of a scene, and utterly squash my intellect from finding some way to express it with any clarity. What results is a postcard image. We often think of postcard images as lacking feeling. In my case, the photos suffer from too much feeling and not enough thinking. Without the thinking, no feeling finds expression.

Rick "glad Ken Lee won't be reading this crap" Denney

[D. Bryant]

Could you explain how one goes about making a photograph that doesn't alter reality?

I thought regardless of how we make a photograph, reality remained the same sans us observing it. Of course that may not have a applied to Fred Picker who actually did alter reality before making a photograph.

Don

[Brian Ellis]

I thought regardless of how we make a photograph, reality remained the same sans us observing it. Of course that may not have a applied to Fred Picker who actually did alter reality before making a photograph.

Don

You got me. A poorly worded question. But hopefully no one thought I was suggesting that the photograph itself altered reality.

[Heroique]

Rick "glad Ken Lee won't be reading this crap" Denney

We all know, of course, that you mean (and I think) just the opposite about your reply – and my hope is that Ken does return, because your super-fine, super-fun remarks deepen and fine-tune, brightly, much that has gone before.

Maybe Ken won’t return. After all, many will notice that when related threads reach this point, they quickly trail-off or sputter-out. I’ve noticed the typical “fatal” moment before: when discussion compares photography to the other arts – such as music – to better address that more general (and tantalizing) question: “What is it about excellent work that moves me so?”

Perhaps this is so because there are no definitive answers to give, only better questions to ask.

Every cell of my being, however, says “feelings” play the principal role – and I mean, of course, the developed feelings of adulthood w/ a very firm acknowledgement of the necessary organizing powers of the formal intellect. But maybe it’s more than just the principal role. Maybe it’s the leading role, too. Yes: Feeling leading intellect. Not very congenial – indeed, very strange – to contemporary ears, I recognize. And impossible for me to tell for sure. And, of course, the influences of, say, Jungian archetypes, Freudian and other childhood experiences, social conditioning by science, or by this or that myth – these and much more besides are essential to the question. (Not to mention, except in passing, the ever-present assumption that “feelings” and “intellect” can actually be distilled-out of our experiences…)

What is clear to me is that coincident with every victory of artistic or intellectual expression is a deep satisfaction, a “feeling of power,” a “sense of joy.” All at once. There just doesn’t seem to be a chronology about it. But never-mind the artistic process. The artistic experience – being able to capture it, share it, inspire it, discuss it, no matter the mystery – that’s what really counts.

I think the forum at its best encourages these things.

[mdm]

I read a book once, that was built up from a single gesture, like a great symphony might be concieved from a single note. The premise was that gesture is imortal, that it exists independently of people. That all the smiles flutter around the world searching for a face on which to alight. And perhaps that we can use gesture to compose a wonderful symphony, life.

A photograph is not music, it is not life, but can be a smile, a frown, a laugh, a wince. And once a photograph is made, it exists independently of its maker. In the same way as a well timed smile (or frown) takes on a life of its own as it is interpereted and acted on and passed on by others.

Most photographs are just pictures, pretty representations. Life would be boring without them. Who would buy a National Geographic without pictures? Some photographs are pure, like the sound of a tuning fork or an orchestra preparing for a performance, a real, spontaneous smile or a twittering bird. That is Sudek and Avedon, even Cartier-Bresson and it took them a life time to write a symphony.

Thank you for helping me to get here.

David

[Struan Gray]

When I take photographs, particularly on a good day when I'm 'in the zone' and potential photographs jump out at me from all angles, I don't think much: I just take photographs. But I know that the sorts of things I point the camera at are conditioned by the musings and reflections I indulge in at other times. The urge to take photographs that look like other photographs I have taken or seen is incredibly strong, and on several occasions I have found it productive to consciously coach myself towards a less predictable view of the world - or, at the least, to look beyond my usual subjects and themes.

Instinct is a powerful narrative tool, but sea slugs and amoeba follow their instincts no less intensely than we do.