Equivalence: The Perennial Trend

[DennisD]

I've often times felt an image has a "what else it is" characteristic. Perhaps it's clear at the moment I'm composing or, in other cases, it might become clear only after the passage of time.

However, that "equivalent" may be something very personal that I would not expect another person to comprehend or relate to. For that reason, I don't suggest thoughts or interject personal feelings when presenting a photograph (unless necessary for some reason). Usually a straightforward title or identification is all I provide.

The viewer may never see what I see in my image, aside from the literal. However, I hope some images will evoke an emotional response such that the viewer relates to the image meaningfully or personally on whatever level possible - should he or she wish to delve deeper.

[jcoldslabs]

My wife and I always tangle a bit when we exhibit because I do not want titles on my images, and it is pretty boring to have to put up a tag "untitled" on every image. But adding too much in a title reduces the image the way captions in Life magazine reduced some of the strongest images of the 20th century, by limiting what the viewer saw with words.

I'm with you on this. I don't title my photos, but then again I've never exhibited any, either. I always imagine that if I did exhibit my work I would go with "Untitled" for each image. The average viewer might be frustrated by this, hoping for at least a descriptive label that identifies subject, place and/or time, but even those seemingly innocuous pieces of information can pigeonhole an image in a way I would like to avoid.

I hope some images will evoke an emotional response such that the viewer relates to the image meaningfully or personally on whatever level possible - should he or she wish to delve deeper.

I think this is the best one can hope for.

Jonathan

[austin granger]

I will begin by stating equivalence is not something I feel educated about. So my comments and questions come from that place and are not intended to be critical in any way. I'm simply trying to become better educated.

When I see a photo, such as this door, I see a photo of a door that is interesting in its composition. I can see how the mind could wander and find other meanings for the door. You have done that, and I can see how you would come up with that after your explanation. But I would never come up with those meanings on my own.

So that leaves me wonder how we can define excellence in this genre. There must me millions, possibly billions, of photos of doors, not too different from this photo of a door. How do we decide which photos are brilliant/genius, which photos are mediocre, and which are simply snapshots? It is possible someone could have jmade a similar photo as a snapshot. What differentiates the snapshot photo from this photo? Again, I am not being critical in any way. I just don;t get it myself.

I will put one of my photos up for examination. I think it is a mildly interesting photo, but I think it is likely a snapshot at best. I could probably come up with many equivalencies for this, but I certainly wasn't thinking about them when I made the photo, and don't think those equivalencies have any value since there were not part of my though process when making the photo. How would anyone have any grounds for saying this photo is a masterpiece, or this photo is pure rubbish?

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You bring up a lot of good questions Greg, and I can't claim to have the answers. I'm fumbling around like everybody. I do know though, that when I go around in the world, I find objects that make me feel things and think about things that are, on the surface, not related to the thing that I'm looking at. Is that in my mind? Sure it is. But what isn't? I mean to say, in a very real way, our world is made by our minds, right? The question I struggle with is whether I can telegraph an emotion or a thought to another person using a picture of an object. I'm not sure. Going back to the door, I'd say that there isn't really ANYTHING that distinguishes it from a billion other snapshots of doors, other than maybe the fact that's it's almost completely generic; it's "empty." Or put another way, it's done in a dead-pan style which (I hope) gets me (the photographer) out of the way. I don't want people to think about me, or about photography, or about door styles or anything like that. What I really want is for that door to become a mirror! I suppose ALL photographs are mirrors (because again, you're going to bring yourself to everything you look at) but what I'm after is a really highly polished mirror. In that way the viewer will feel like that door was meant for them, and we will have made a connection. At least, I hope that's what happens.

God, reading this over it strikes me that I'm getting more and more obtuse. But I'm trying here! Like I said, I struggle with these questions myself. You know, maybe we should all lock ourselves in our rooms with our objects and do a bunch of acid and then report back to this thread. I'm kidding! Well, sort of of. Let me tell you, there was this one time in college when I sat in a friend's living room, completely out of my head, staring at his Christmas tree for about six hours. I'm telling you, that little tree was the saddest, most terrible, most beautiful, most profound thing I had ever seen in my life...

[jnantz]

there

[austin granger]

One more post and then I'll give it a rest, I promise. I was thinking today (uh-oh) of the techniques I use to make pictures that I think of as equivalents. Aside from being attracted to objects that have known symbolism (roads=passage, missing chairs=mental illness, black dogs=depression, light=revelation, telephone poles=Christianity, etc) it occurred to me that I also use certain compositional "tricks." One such trick is to compose a picture such that two separate things are made to appear as if they're related to each other, even though in "real" life, they may not, in fact, be connected (aside from in my mind). For example, I have a picture (medium format, sorry) of a telephone pole next to a severely pruned tree. I gave them equal weight in the composition, and in doing this, I'm telling the viewer that they're of equal importance, and further that they're related (because the picture is explicitly about these two things). So a picture of a pruned tree and a telephone pole becomes a picture about transformation (trees being made into wood for telephone poles), or material, or the environment, or, if you're of a religious bent, about the crucifixion (the hacked tree a sacrifice/the telephone pole a cross). I enjoy doing this sort of thing. It's almost as if with the camera, one can make 2+2=5! Another example I thought of was how distance from the subject can impart a feeling. Imagine you find a lone car in a parking lot and you think; "Geez, what a lonely looking car" and you want to convey that feeling of loneliness to the viewer. What are your options? You could approach the car and fill the frame with it of course, but then you'd just have a picture of that specific car. But take ten steps back to show the context and now you have a picture of that car + a feeling of emptiness. Yes, it's a proven fact that ten steps back from the subject makes a photograph precisely 55% more lonely. Ha ha. But anyway, what happens if you go back a hundred steps? Well, now you're telling your viewer that the picture is not really about that specific car at all, but is instead about 'A' car in a whole sea of emptiness, just like... an individual in the universe. And with that, voila; it's still just a car in a parking lot, but now it is also something else ("what else it is"). Of course, there are people who will not get your message. Not to sound all hippy-dippy here, but there are people who are just not going to be on your frequency. Instead, they might be on the "Why didn't you fill the frame?" frequency, but in any case, I'm not sure much can be done about that. People are going to bring what they bring to the looking of any picture. Which, by the way, is why critique is completely useless. I mean, who knows better than you what your picture should look like? But that's another thread entirely...

Just a Rock


Not a Creature


Yes, I'm joking with the titles. But isn't the human mind amazing, how it is so intent on turning things into other things!

[jcoldslabs]

This thread is teaching me that I am a putz who takes photographs at face value.

As for the human mind being "intent on turning things into other things," see: pareidolia, or, more broadly, apophenia.

Jonathan

[Joe O'Hara]

So, does the following image invoke different metaphors than Austin's door or none at all. I know I had a specific intent when I made this photograph, but it's more fun to let other people make of it what they will.

Initially I see a contemporary interior, a study in light and tone.

Then I see what looks like the bottom of a trap door in the ceiling.

It is a strange picture, and I can't guess what you were thinking, but there is a suggestion of
some something else going on, aside from just an upstairs hallway. Vaguely unsettling.

[Joe O'Hara]

there

Yes. There.

[Bill Burk]

I was just looking (online, don't have a print) at Minor White's print "Dumb Face".

Now I know it's a frosty pane of glass, and I know he could have called it "Untitled".

But the name helps that one.

[austin granger]

This thread is teaching me that I am a putz who takes photographs at face value. Jonathan

"Before you study Zen, mountains are mountains and rivers are rivers; while you are studying Zen, mountains are no longer mountains and rivers are no longer rivers; but once you have had enlightenment mountains are once again mountains and rivers again rivers." -Zen saying

I think this means you are an advanced being Jonathan! :-)