Maybe we should have kept “the bar” closed (from post #3).Originally Posted by Vaughn
I wonder if wading in here is a smart idea or not...
But since you’re coming in, just be ready to duck!
Actually, this is fun.I’m learning a lot here (“Indexical,” “Maya,” etc.) that I missed in school since I was always in the principal’s office.
And before the scuffles subside & the dust settles, I think plenty more about film + “reality” is on the way.
I’m stickin’ around! (At least until dawn.)
I'm not. I have reality to deal with.
Seeing only the light reflected by objects does not disprove reality. It only forces us to consider that what we see may not describe the entire reality. Optical illusions are tricks that play on that fact.
It is easy to get mystical and believe that light is some spiritual medium that may or may not reflect realistically off objects. But in daily experience, light behaves in ways that we can predict, especially if we consider multiple viewpoints. And we can analyze objects in many ways other than by looking at them in order to determine what they are. Believing that all of that is an illusion seems to me purposed navel-gazing.
What started this discussion was the notion that photographs should represent truth. At best, they represent fact, but fact must be explained before truth can be drawn from it. And we believe that a photo is factual only if it is represented as such by someone whose authority we trust (that can, of course, be implicit). That trust can be violated, of course, which makes us rightly skeptical. But I don't think that should cause us to question the very existence of the objects we can analyze on the basis of the light that reflects from them.
For example, I was touring a chemical lab today that is used to conduct research into highway materials. The bits of asphalt and concrete being tested can, when sitting on a table over there, be evaluated only by the light that reflects from them. But we can also walk over and touch them. We can put them into an XRF machine and bounce X-rays off of them to see their signature fluorescence, and know precisely what elements are present in them. We can weigh them and measure the gravitational force exerted on them. We can dissolve them in chemicals. And on and on. After all that analysis, we can determine that all they all pointed to the same conclusion: chunks of asphalt and concrete. We can still question their reality as a mystical level, but at a physical level, doing so would not be going with the percentages.
But even for people who believe that light bounces off things predictably enough to ensure their existence, it does not necessarily provide a complete description, and two-dimensional photos are actually rather limited in their ability to describe fact. Video, being four-dimensional, is more likely to provide a thorough description, but it still requires that we trust the process by which the video was made. A few minutes before visiting the chemistry lab, I visited a roadway visualization simulator. Its realism was excellent--good enough to suspend disbelief while viewing it (and good enough to give me motion sickness). But it was not good enough so that suspension of disbelief was automatic, though that really is only a matter of technology. The biggest problem with believing it though was the walk through narrow corridors into a room with hard walls within which stacks of computers were hooked up to the shell of a car, with a big curved screen wrapped around it.
Thus, we are skeptical, and that's why we apply tests from our experience. It's why we don't trust photographs to show fact unless that fact is certified by someone we trust, and it's why a photograph by itself doesn't provide that certification.
Back in my architecture-school days, we studied the effects of light on shapes. All art students start with a still life of a cylinder, a cone, and a ball. One exercise will be to render the shapes of the objects using only black ink, without using shades of gray. The skill being taught was how to see how the light reflected from a subject revealed its nature, and then (separately) the skill of revealing that nature using difficult tools. Photographs are an easy tool, and the result is often statically two-dimensional because it does not force us to see. So, as photographers, it doesn't matter whether what we are looking at is real or not. What matters is how we express it. We can choose to be deliberately unrealistic, and the most obvious way of doing that is to remove color.
We should not, however, confuse expression with subject matter, or reality with truth.
Rick "confusion is our most important product" Denney
Rick, quite astonishing – your first two sentences come close to summarizing Plato’s famous story about the cave (Republic, chapter VII), even if the Athenian used shadows where you use light. His point being that, in the end, there is a reality that we can all point to and agree upon.
I enjoyed the rest of your post, too.
Maybe it really is true that European philosophy is a series of footnotes to Plato…
Back again -- sorry for the delay, but I was out photographing today under the redwoods. I know, I know...odd behavior for a photograher...
All is an illusion -- yes, I am a naval-gazer at heart. I do not worship light, but if I were put something up on an alter, light would be a prime candidate.
Photographs can represent truth...I do not know if they can represent Truth. That is a tough question that I do not have the answer. It is the old Zen problem -- the mind can not know the Mind.
It is fun to fiddle with words, as long as the music we are playing is not too distracting.
I like this. It reminded me of another old Zen saying about not confusing the finger for the moon. Basically, if someone is pointing out the moon to you, don't mistake the finger for the moon...or the dogma for the dharma...or in this case, the perceived reality for Truth.We should not, however, confuse expression with subject matter, or reality with truth.
Yours truly, Vaughn
I'm pleased that he agreed with me.
Rick "" Denney
Fact: what.
Truth: how.
Truth with a capital "T": why.
Is that what you mean? If so, then I agree. Photographs can represent (as in, illustrate) truth. But they cannot establish it, at least not by themselves.
Rick "who'd rather be photographing redwoods" Denney
Close enough, Rick.
I’m not so sure it’s “close enough” for me, but it is getting closer…
Below, I’ve chosen three parts from Rick’s hypnotizing post for a little clarification – from Rick or others – to help us capture that ever-elusive photo subject, “reality.” Yes, we can do it. In other words, I think there’s some good, clean fun left in this photo-philosophical thread…
Ah, analysis – that’s the Western bias, I think, that Vaughn resists. If I read Brian Miller’s earlier thoughts correctly, so does he.
Now, I may have a little more sympathy w/ analysis than others (and I suspect Maris does too), but I do have to ask: What makes an instrument of analysis (e.g., your “XRF machine,” etc.) – no matter how many of these instruments we use on a subject, no matter how sophisticated they are – a more reliable interpreter of “what something is” than by our looking at it and seeing the light rays bounce off? Is it the more reliable operator looking at the instrument’s more reliably calibrated scale? Maybe the more reliable technician collecting more reliable data? Or perhaps a more reliable scientist interpreting this more reliable data? I recognize these well-meaning people may not always be “looking” at bouncing light rays as they carry on their important work, but come now, aren’t they “looking” nonetheless? And what about all those “parts” they’re looking at? Are all the parts they’re analyzing really the same thing as the whole thing they started with?
(I know these questions may not come naturally to those under the spell of Western analysis – and I fall into that group – especially in view of the material benefits it can provide, and the moral conscience it can sharpen.)
I’d like to hear more about this “authority” we trust whose representation of a photo as “factual” is the only way to generate our belief that it is. (And I’d like to meet him.) Let’s say it’s someone who has no intention to “violate” our trust – one whose credentials enjoy an iron-clad reputation for trustworthiness. Still, can this ideal authority ever enjoy such perfect knowledge about the facts of a photo to warrant the only way we can believe in those facts? If they can, is it because they have access to an even higher “Authority” – note the capital “A” – to whom we have none? Or maybe this authoritative photographer used special instruments of analysis? Makes me think one should be more than “rightly skeptical” about this person.
Perhaps this is my most pressing question of all: Once one “predicts” all the ways light can behave, and considers all the multiple viewpoints that are possible, which one (or how many) of these behaviors and viewpoints does one select, or emphasize, to make a point about reality? Do instruments of analysis have anything to do with the choice?
(P.S. Where’s Maris?)
You nailed it, though the bias is not limited to Western thought. Once one begins the attempt to define "reality", one enters a realm that words do not work very well, since the words, and thoughts behind them, are based on our perception of reality, not on reality itself (the mind can not know the Mind).Ah, analysis – that’s the Western bias, I think, that Vaughn resists.
I only enough of Hindu, Buddhist and Zen thought to be totally confused...which is an okay state to be in, as far as I am concerned. For me, it is better than fooling myself into thinking I actually know what reality is. I can still operate in the realm of Western thought quite well.
I know we can test the components of concrete to determine the strength and characteristics of the concrete, but all the testing tells us nothing of the reality in which the concrete exists. And we do not need to know that in order to build a Hoover Dam.
Of course, the "authority" in court is the one who swears that they took the photo at a particular place at a particular time, and that no trickery was done to mislead us. Watkins was asked, in a trial involving a mine that he had photographed back in the 1800's, why he picked that particular place to put the camera. He answered, "It was the best possible view, your honor." I have always liked that quote.I’d like to hear more about this “authority” we trust whose representation of a photo as “factual” is the only way to generate our belief that it is.
Your pressing question must wait -- I must go develop a couple carbon prints as the 30 minutes of transfer time has passed...
Vaughn
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