Film and “footprints”

[mdm]

The idea of "projection" raises a deep question that has not been explored adequately in the philosophy of photography: what is subject matter? My own experiments suggest a surprising answer. Here is what I did some years ago.

The only consistent and coherent answer to this and similar questions is that photographic subject matter, in its most fundamental sense, is actually no more and no less than the real optical image at the focal plane of the camera. Everything else, objects in the real world, lenses, filters, flashguns, and so on are merely the ingredients whereby we summon up this real optical image. Nevertheless indexicality still holds good. A tree for example "makes" and image and the image "makes" the photograph; no mistakes, no fudging.

You are full of shit (read rather verbose). The subject matter is the photographer. Ask Richard Avedon, he understood. You are the subject in your own photographs, even if the photograph is of a tree, house, cloud, person, naked person, you are the subject, the thing in the photograph is the object. What if Ken Lee were to swap places with Frank Petronio, What would Kens girly pictures look like and what would Franks pretty flowers, leaves, trees, clouds and barns look like. Of course, I am too.

David

[Heroique]

(Note: I just saw Maris’ post #7 arrive as I write this, and a quick glance seems to bring his thoughts a little closer to Rick’s.)

I’ve just now had a better “glance” at your post, and was happy to read, “We see with our minds not with our eyes.”

That adds an agreeable complexity to your earlier, more “scientific” claim that the photographer must seek-out & find a literal, physical subject (such as your “gothic castle,” or a pool room in “The Night Café,” etc.) to serve as an appropriate metaphor for the “intense feeling” he wants to convey.

Such a process – even if it sounds, well, rather mechanistic – nonetheless reminds me of a really good poet, quill on chin, searching for that perfect, concrete image to do the same thing. So this earlier claim of yours continues to “explain a lot” about photography for me.

Yet, I sure do like Brian Miller’s contrasting, Buddhist-like caution, that “it is the photographer's personal misdirection to seek a subject to fill a photographic concept.”

In view of your interesting “mind’s eye” clarification, Maris, it sounds like the capable scientist in you would be drawn to this, too.

[Brian C. Miller]

The subject matter is the photographer. Ask Richard Avedon, he understood.

Bullshit. The subject matter is the image on the film, or rather, what is on the final print. And no, I can't ask Avedon, because he's dead.

Sure, everybody photographs the same thing differently.

Thought experiment: imagine I make a still life that can be shipped around the world and everybody can photograph it. Here's the setup: a cardboard box with a piece of paper on top for diffuse light, a hole with a clear piece of plastic over it in the side for the camera lens, and a wooden ball glued into a corner. (Like a Fabrege egg, but cheap and ugly.) The box is big enough that an 8x10 with 300mm lens can focus on the ball. Each photograph must have at least part of the ball visible, and the lens (or lens hood) must be pressed up against the box.

How many ways are there to uniquely photograph that using a view camera?

Now, let's say that 100 of us photograph the still life, and produce 50 prints. That's 5000 prints. Shuffle them. Now, how many unique ideas are there? How many can be readily grouped together? How many Ansel and Earl prints are there? How many would form "a body of work?" How much composition was in the camera? How much composition was in the enlarger?

And at the end of it, the theme of this experiment is that we've stopped looking at a ball glued into the corner of a box. It has all gone awry. The subjects we are trying to see are the photographers, who aren't the subject of a photograph. The photographer isn't in the photograph, but outside the photograph. We don't really know much about the photographers. All we have are 5000 goofy prints, which are headed for a landfill.

A photographer may be the subject of a competition, but the subject of a photograph is what's in the image.

[rdenney]

Two or three points in your post keep nagging at me, demanding comment, despite that I'm quickly running out of vocabulary to maintain a philosophical discussion. After all, I'm just a fat, middle-aged engineer who takes pictures.

Yes, there is an obscuring process because a photograph is not a replica of the subject. A human foot print, for example, absolutely certifies the existence of a foot but not how tall the person was who left it.

That footprint absolutely certified the existence of a foot only if we believe it was a human foot that made it. It would have been just as easy to make it with a plaster cast of a human foot, or we could have exercised considerable craft and technique and carved the relief of a footprint using, say, toothpicks and tweezers. To believe that it was a fake, we must assume someone either 1.) wanted to deceive us, or 2.) admired their ability to carve a footprint and wanted us to admire it, too. The footprint doesn't prove anything unless we can also demonstrate that the foot was available to make it, and that nobody faked it. Thus, it is not absolute, and it certifies nothing. If we believe a person who persuades us that the footprint was made by a foot, then it is their authority that certifies the foot's presence, not the footprint itself. Short of that, we are making assumptions based on the apparent realism of the footprint, but that assumption may be easy (if we are gullible) or difficult (if we are informed by having perfected our own technique for carving footprints) to muster up.

I have worded the above carefully to allow it to translate directly to photography, but I think without undermining your use of the analogy.

Our perceptions are non-indexical and indeed so called "digital photography" is non-indexical too. Here's a recent experiment. I take a snapshot of a small piece of clear blue sky with my Canon 350D camera. In Photoshop I notice that all pixels have the same value. One pixel will do just as well as several million. Further investigation indicates the pixel value corresponds to Pantone #291. I go to my Pantone swatch book and cut a small square of #291 and stick it on a white mount board. The result is reminiscent of what I saw and identical to what a digital system could produce. But it is not indexical. A Kodachrome, even a thoroughly out of focus one, would be.

Yes, we can use any photograph as a model for a painting by the numbers. Theoretically, we could take a laser and manually control it to simulate the light that might have fallen on an emulsion, though that would probably be more difficult than carving a footprint with tweezers and toothpicks. Or we could make it easy by connecting the laser to a computer and feeding it a digital photograph. If we print a digital photograph using only photographic tools--that is--manipulating what was placed in the file by the action of light projected within the camera and not by rearranging details using software--then we have maintained the photographic integrity of the image. Yes, we could fake it and lie about it, but that would be a lie. That lying is easy should make us skeptical. It should not prove to us that truth doesn't exist.

I say otherwise. A photograph is inherently physical evidence; everything else is merely testimony no better than the credibility of the person offering it.

In a courtroom, evidence means nothing if testimony does not establish its truth. We can have a gun in a plastic bag with an evidence tag hanging off of it, but it is the testimony of the ballistics expert that persuades us the gun was the one used in the deed, the testimony of the custodian of evidence that demonstrates that the chain of custody was not broken or undermined, and the testimony of the fingerprint technician that persuades us the accused's hands were the last to pull the trigger. Without that testimony, we have the fact of the gun, but no access to the truth of what the gun means.

To me, the fact of a photograph is easy. It is established by the indexical relationship, and by the believable assurance of the photographer/editor that it shows what was there. But we don't have truth, and to me the truth is much more difficult. My photo of the stars is a fact, but it provides little insight into the truth of how they are arranged. Or, the photo by Capa of the death of the Spanish rebel has been called into question. I've read many arguments stating that even if it was staged, that it still told the truth and the public perception that it changed was good and proper. If they are right (and I'm not taking sides), then we have a photograph that may lie about facts in order to tell the truth. That possibility disturbs me deeply. Given how easy it is to lie using photos (using methods available since the beginning), I am skeptical when viewing them. I believe what is in a photo only when the testimony that accompanies it is persuasively authoritative.

Rick "thinking truth derives from fact, not the other way around" Denney

[mdm]

Bullshit. The subject matter is the image on the film, or rather, what is on the final print. And no, I can't ask Avedon, because he's dead.

Sure, everybody photographs the same thing differently.

Thought experiment: imagine I make a still life that can be shipped around the world and everybody can photograph it. Here's the setup: a cardboard box with a piece of paper on top for diffuse light, a hole with a clear piece of plastic over it in the side for the camera lens, and a wooden ball glued into a corner. (Like a Fabrege egg, but cheap and ugly.) The box is big enough that an 8x10 with 300mm lens can focus on the ball. Each photograph must have at least part of the ball visible, and the lens (or lens hood) must be pressed up against the box.

How many ways are there to uniquely photograph that using a view camera?

Now, let's say that 100 of us photograph the still life, and produce 50 prints. That's 5000 prints. Shuffle them. Now, how many unique ideas are there? How many can be readily grouped together? How many Ansel and Earl prints are there? How many would form "a body of work?" How much composition was in the camera? How much composition was in the enlarger?

And at the end of it, the theme of this experiment is that we've stopped looking at a ball glued into the corner of a box. It has all gone awry. The subjects we are trying to see are the photographers, who aren't the subject of a photograph. The photographer isn't in the photograph, but outside the photograph. We don't really know much about the photographers. All we have are 5000 goofy prints, which are headed for a landfill.

A photographer may be the subject of a competition, but the subject of a photograph is what's in the image.

Take 100 people, put them all in identical featureless rooms. Place a
monitor in front of each of them streaming verbose and poorly reasoned
philosophy on a loop. Alow no form of interaction, no communication.
Leave them for a long time. (And they do this and much worse to
thousands of people every day, they should be tried and I hope they
will, one day.)(Or is that how we live our lives every day?)

Your box will appear in surprising and interesting ways. Your box is a
form of opression, censorship, if you like.

I am free to make photographs of whatever I like. I the, photographer,
control the camera, if I can't control the object itself, at least I
can choose when and what to photograph.

[Brian C. Miller]

Let me guess, you are referring to television, right? My TV died a natural death back in the late 1990's, and I never replaced it. I espouse that everybody should stop watching TV, and get a good hobby. Things would be much improved for the world, I think.

Anyways, no I don't think that a box to photograph is a form of oppression or censorship. I think that it puts into perspective, what is the subject of the photograph? Since you've gone off on a tangent, I'm guessing that my reasoning is good. The subject is what is being represented on the final print. I make a point of the final print, because Jerry Uelsman does some interesting stuff using multiple negatives to achieve whatever it is on his final print.

The difference between photographing the scene in the box (creative interaction with a tool) and sitting and staring at the TV is that one requires a high degree of thought and the other doesn't. Making unique photographs takes some ingenuity. I bet that Frank Petronio could even make his hot babe photos using just that scene. It would take more work, but I bet he'd do it.

And still, what is the subject? In a mass of 5000 prints, it is still the ball in the box. Not the photographers.

[Vaughn]

I wonder if wading in here is a smart idea or not...

The subject I photograph is light. It is what I am looking at on the GG. I allow it to fall on the film in such a way as to serve as a template for expressing what I experience in that place, time, and light. I then take that template and use it to fashion a print. I go through this exercise to teach myself how to See. I can share the print with others to share what I have experienced and learned. But I hesitate to separate the light from the experience, the learning from the sharing, the subject and the seer.

Nothing we experience is "reality". All our senses feed our brains which creates its own version, its copy, of reality. As the Hindus and Buddhists would say (and perhaps the Christian mystics), it is all Maya, all illusion. Only a handful of people experience reality directly. I am not one of those, but I am at least aware that I do not.

I do not photograph, nor even see, people, chairs, rocks, trees -- I only see and capture the light that reflects off of them. I capture their presence, not their actuality, by the way light bounces off of them. Then I take that pattern of light and transform it into a print that expresses my limited understanding of their reality...and my relationship with that reality.

Vaughn

[Jack Dahlgren]

Take 100 people, put them all in identical featureless rooms. Place a
monitor in front of each of them streaming verbose and poorly reasoned
philosophy on a loop.

Hey, don't be so down on this forum!

[mdm]

Let me guess, you are referring to television, right? My TV died a natural death back in the late 1990's, and I never replaced it. I espouse that everybody should stop watching TV, and get a good hobby. Things would be much improved for the world, I think.

Anyways, no I don't think that a box to photograph is a form of oppression or censorship. I think that it puts into perspective, what is the subject of the photograph? Since you've gone off on a tangent, I'm guessing that my reasoning is good. The subject is what is being represented on the final print. I make a point of the final print, because Jerry Uelsman does some interesting stuff using multiple negatives to achieve whatever it is on his final print.

The difference between photographing the scene in the box (creative interaction with a tool) and sitting and staring at the TV is that one requires a high degree of thought and the other doesn't. Making unique photographs takes some ingenuity. I bet that Frank Petronio could even make his hot babe photos using just that scene. It would take more work, but I bet he'd do it.

And still, what is the subject? In a mass of 5000 prints, it is still the ball in the box. Not the photographers.

No, I was referring to your box.

[mdm]

I wonder if wading in here is a smart idea or not...

The subject I photograph is light.


Then I take that pattern of light and transform it into a print that expresses my limited understanding of their reality...and my relationship with that reality.

Vaughn

Precisely the point. The print 'expresses my limited understanding of their reality...and my relationship with that reality". The print is an expresion of your self, therefore you, or your self, is the subject of the photograph. The painter, posted earlier, clearly was the subject in his own painting. Why is photography any different.

This is a valid way of looking at photograph.