On the influence of LF upon the moral faculty

[Heroique]

What's your view about the influence of our LF work upon morality?

That sounds like an impossibly broad question, so let's narrow the term just a little, and say "photographic morality." :D

For comparison, one might more easily describe the influence of LF on, say, one's mathematical faculty, or on one's aesthetic faculty – for example, leading to a better understanding about light on one hand, or a deeper (or finer) appreciation of beauty on the other.

But do you believe there's a relationship between LF work and personal photographic morality? If you do, can you describe it? And if you don't, can you describe why?

For example, in many of my images, I'm trying to portray for myself – or communicate to others – a certain type of truth, and the more successful I am, the more "moral" I think I've been. Now, I don't mean literal visual truth. (Plenty of threads here, and plenty of philosophical claims too, that doubt the existence of literal visual truth for any one set of human eyes, and I don't mean to go there.)

The type of truth I mean is, say, what a fictional novelist might try to communicate about human experience with a story that "never really happened." To be sure, when I think about many of my favorite images, I know they, too, never really happened as I've made them appear through field choices or darkroom technique. However, their truth about a particular human experience certainly did happen, and continues to happen every time I view it, and (I hope) every time my viewers take a look. In a phrase, I've been moral when I believe these conditions are met, and it doesn't happen every time, or even too frequently.

So to ask simply – are you, as a working LF photographer, being "moral," or do you believe there's little, if any relationship?

[Ray Heath]

My first thought is huh!

But then, there is nothing "moral" or "immoral" about any form of artistic expression.

The viewer is the arbiter of moral, truth, experience, whatever and brings their own moral beliefs, experience etc to the viewing and the appreciation of the work.

Another thought occurs, why should or could LF photographic practice be any more or less "moral" than any other artistic practice.

[mdm]

Truth, because it must be communicated somehow, is like a map, its a representation of what is actually there. All that matters about a map is that is a good enough representation to be useful. There is my truth, your truth and from a cultural perspective our truth, but all of that is only representative of the platonic ideal. The truth is how it should be. Morality is how you should behave. Art is amoral. No one told Picasso how he should paint. Propaganda, on the other hand is moral. Documentary photography is moral, its a representation of the ideal or truth.

[Alan Gales]

There is a nude section on this forum that I feel is artistic. Some (including my mother) would say it's immoral.

I would say that the "morality" of a photograph or any art has a lot to do with opinion.

[Brian C. Miller]

What's your view about the influence of our LF work upon morality?
(emphasis added)

Has my LF work contributed to morality, or immorality?

Bettie Page disappeared from the pin-up girl scene precisely because she felt her LF work, or rather work in front of a LF camera, was immoral.

Mostly, I photograph inanimate objects. Or perhaps some sort of seeping vista. I would have to say that I've had no influence on morality, one way or another. To influence morality, the photograph must contain a social context which is commonly identified as moral or not. If the social context is not present, then the photograph has no influence on morality.

[Peter De Smidt]

Do you mean "morality" in the sense of having a moral code, a listing or right and wrong actions? These codes depend on particular views of what's valuable. What we photograph can be an expression of a specific moral outlook. For instance, Ansel Adams' photos might be connected to Aldo Leopold's worldview, a worldview that our environment is intrinsically valuable. Pointing our camera at something is saying, "This is worth looking at." For another example, some acquaintances of mine photograph "alternative" youth with an 8x10. Part of what their work says, at least to me, is that the subjects are people worthy of attention, just as much as Karsh's subjects were worthy of his.

[Jody_S]

My long-term goal re. photography is to make a moral statement, about a particular human activity that I find immoral. I don't know if that influences my own morality, ie is it moral to denounce immoral behavior that you find harmful to society in general, and millions of individuals in concrete terms? Or is my being judgmental harmful in and of itself, and therefore immoral? Does my use of photography as my method of communicating my moral judgment make my statement somehow different than if I had chosen to write a novel instead, with a more linear narrative?

Given the very specific nature of the accusation I'm making, the accusation or statement must be judged as moral or not, and not the success or 'truthfulness' of my photography relative to my stated goal, or message. I think. Others may have differing opinions.

[John Kasaian]

My first thought is huh!

But then, there is nothing "moral" or "immoral" about any form of artistic expression.

The viewer is the arbiter of moral, truth, experience, whatever and brings their own moral beliefs, experience etc to the viewing and the appreciation of the work.

Another thought occurs, why should or could LF photographic practice be any more or less "moral" than any other artistic practice.
I disagree. In Art there is a mean which has a greater effect on Art than personal beliefs.
Not a popular position but it is the 800# gorilla in the hot tub which Artsy Fartsys cannot bring themselves to recognize.
I doubt that it is a matter of morality or immorality so much as it is a cement between Truth and Beauty.
I think it was Plato (I could be in error) who commented that a good picture is one that has nothing that's necessary left out and nothing that's unnecessary added (or words to that effect.) When I spend the time to compose with an aerial image that's upside down and backwards I'm pretty certain that Plato had it right.

[jcoldslabs]

Questions like this never occur to me. I pursue large format photography as a hobby because I enjoy it, plain and simple.

Jonathan

[ic-racer]

I have spent more time in a day with my LF camera than my wife. Is that immoral?

[Pawlowski6132]

Absolutely none.

[Heroique]

Do you mean "morality" in the sense of having a moral code, a listing of right and wrong actions?

Yes, though the "morality" I described above was different – portraying, truthfully, a unique, but recognizable human experience, never mind any moral code. Poetic morality, not polemic.

More in line with what you (and some others) are saying, I've also showed prints of neighborhood trees that had been taken down due to lack of care, to dramatize their disappearance and motivate greater awareness and action about the health of remaining trees.

In that case, I’m prompting what I think is right (over wrong) behavior, and exercising a moral faculty there too.

[Peter Lewin]

I would never have associated LF with "morality" on my own, but since you raise the subject, I have a different take, because I will define "photographic morality" differently.

There is a genre of photography consisting of photographs of people, or the lives of people, who are less well-off than we are. They can be the "down & out" victims of substance abuse, or the poor. I personally feel that using these people as subjects for our photographs borders on the immoral, unless (and it is a big unless) we make an effort to form a relationship with them first, to engage them, rather than just "snapping them" (typically with a 35mm or digital camera).

Within this narrow definition of morality, LF definitely comes into play, because it forces us to engage (unless we are using hand-held point & shoot press cameras). I can illustrate my point with three well-known examples. Paul Strand's pictures of unwitting street subjects, taken with a hand-held LF camera specifically fitted with a mirror so that he appeared to be photographing in a different direction, border on what I would define as immoral (possibly mitigated by the fact that the genre wasn't as over-shot as it is today). Bruce Davidson's "12th Street," shot on a poor inner-city block was moral, because in order to use his 8x10, Bruce had to become well known in the neighborhood. Richard Avedon's "American West" again pictured disadvantaged people, but he also had to gain their agreement to pose in front of his white backdrop, so I consider that moral. In these instances the format clearly played a part, since it forced engagement (except for the Strand example).

Probably not the approach to the question that Heroique had in mind, but the closest association between LF and morality that I can think of.

[Ray Heath]

I've also showed prints of neighborhood trees that had been taken down due to lack of care, to dramatize their disappearance and motivate greater awareness and action about the health of remaining trees.

In that case, I’m prompting what I think is right (over wrong) behavior, and exercising a moral faculty there too.

I don't view your tree images as moral or immoral. All I can assume is that they are the result of your bias in regards to the issue. Your pictures don't tell give me a sense of anything immoral unless I believe your version of events.

[Michael E]

The truth is how it should be.

Funny, that's how Vilém Flusser defined beauty.


Within this narrow definition of morality, LF definitely comes into play, because it forces us to engage (unless we are using hand-held point & shoot press cameras).

I agree. LF makes it more difficult to "steal" pictures. If I set up my camera on a tripod, people have the opportunity to protest or leave the frame.

I would be interested in a related question: How does morality influence our (LF) photography? Some posts in this thread have already adressed this question.

Michael

[StoneNYC]

To the person who mentioned Bettie Page, I would say she only arrived at that idea because of others opinion of their moral ideals, and under pressure from others decided it was suddenly immoral.

As for the rest, I would say LF is LESS moral than 35mm

I arrive at this idea because LF takes time (except speed graphic type RF cameras) and so any "truth" to me IS morality, and by way of ease of "snapping" you can capture more truth in life, were LF is often more staged.

So LF is less moral than 120, and 35mm is even more moral, that also means that, an untainted (unedited) digital image is the most moral because you can capture more truth in 10 seconds than a LF could in 10 minutes ;)

This is also abstract as a question, but that's my take on it all...

[Alan Gales]

To the person who mentioned Bettie Page, I would say she only arrived at that idea because of others opinion of their moral ideals, and under pressure from others decided it was suddenly immoral.

Bettie Page became a born again Christian in 1959. I would think this had a lot to do with her decision to quit modeling.

[paulr]

I hope through LF to follow in the footsteps of Socrates, by corrupting youth and flaunting impiety.

[Heroique]

Probably not the approach to the question that Heroique had in mind, but the closest association between LF and morality that I can think of.

Your three examples offer important insights, I think. I didn't mean to pursue any one take on photography + morality, but to hear what thoughts are out there about the connection (or non-connection). I thought there'd be few seeing any connection at all, and lots of corresponding "art for art's sake" comments. So far, I can't tell if my prediction is correct, but I've enjoyed all the comments so far!


I don't view your tree images as moral or immoral. All I can assume is that they are the result of your bias in regards to the issue. Your pictures don't tell give me a sense of anything immoral unless I believe your version of events.

You're right, that's just a couple of images from a series which had an accompanying statement about "what happened" in each case. And the statement, especially the facts I chose to include, exclude, and emphasize, certainly expressed my bias!

[frotog]

The faculty in the photo dept. where I used to work were not known for their morals. In fact quite the opposite, the less restrained you were by morals the more successful your career.

[paulr]

I don't believe it's possible for work to be "moral" or "immoral" without a surrounding context. An image itself can't mean anything, can't convey a truth (alleged, sincere, deliberately falsified)—or an intention—without some kind of contextual frame around it. Therefore it's the use of an image, not the image itself, which can be seen to have moral content.

I can't imagine how the film format or type of camera could be an important part of that discussion.

[Jmarmck]

My first thought is huh!

But then, there is nothing "moral" or "immoral" about any form of artistic expression.

The viewer is the arbiter of moral, truth, experience, whatever and brings their own moral beliefs, experience etc to the viewing and the appreciation of the work.

Another thought occurs, why should or could LF photographic practice be any more or less "moral" than any other artistic practice.

Well said!

Morality is for those who judge.

[Kirk Gittings]

I don't believe it's possible for work to be "moral" or "immoral" without a surrounding context. An image itself can't mean anything, can't convey a truth (alleged, sincere, deliberately falsified)—or an intention—without some kind of contextual frame around it. Therefore it's the use of an image, not the image itself, which can be seen to have moral content.

I can't imagine how the film format or type of camera could be an important part of that discussion.

ditto. Or film vs. digital FWIW. Though I wouldn't be surprised if someone made the argument (tired argument IMHO) that traditional film is inherently more truthful and therefore more trustworthy and therefore somehow morally superior.

[jnantz]

theosophists may argue that truth and purity and other aesthetic principles exist as less than an abstraction.
to me truth and beauty and morality are all subjective and me using a lf camera have nothing to do
with any of it.

[sepstein17]

I shoot what I like after I like what I see -- morality must be built in there somewhere but do I consciously think about being moral when shooting or amoral or immoral -- i don't think so...

[Heroique]

The faculty in the photo dept. where I used to work were not known for their morals. In fact quite the opposite, the less restrained you were by morals the more successful your career.

That was hilarious. :D

The thread title does sound like it's talking about a college department's faculty.


...Therefore it's the use of an image, not the image itself, which can be seen to have moral content. I can't imagine how the film format or type of camera could be an important part of that discussion.

If you cited a particular LF image "used" in this way, wouldn't it be easier to imagine?

Me, I can imagine a number of LF prints (used) by Ansel Adams that clearly suggest our moral relation to the natural world; I can also imagine several that are rich enough to transcend any moral code, and need little if any context to do so. (For the former, see Peter's post #6 about AA and Aldo Leopold's worldview.)

His best images do both in my opinion – they are moral + amoral.

[djdister]

The faculty in the photo dept. where I used to work were not known for their morals. In fact quite the opposite, the less restrained you were by morals the more successful your career.

Well, the same could be said about many Senior Executives or the wolves of Wall Street (and guess what, they are still there).

[Jody_S]

The faculty in the photo dept. where I used to work were not known for their morals. In fact quite the opposite, the less restrained you were by morals the more successful your career.

Camera (and I assume lens) collectors have the reputation of being the most 'moral' of all hobbyists, 2nd perhaps to the model train people. By 'moral', I'm implying Victorian or Puritan sexual mores, in that we don't generally fool around on our wives, or even divorce very often.

I gather that does not extend to photographers in general, especially fashion photogs. Nor, apparently, to institutional photography people.

[Kirk Gittings]

Boy must be a Canadian thing. I have known some American camera collectors that were lecherous aholes.

[Jody_S]

Boy must be a Canadian thing. I have known some American camera collectors that were lecherous aholes.

Every group has outliers...



I can't confirm this from any social sciences viewpoint, it's just something I've heard a couple of times. And compare camera collectors to just about any other group of hobbyists, it doesn't see far-fetched. I've spent my life surrounded by people into hockey and curling, snowmobiling and diving, and I can say with personal experience that many of these people used their pass-time as a means of getting out of eyesight from their wives, so they could get drunk and fool around. But a camera swap meet? Unless you're gay and into older men, there isn't anyone there likely to arouse your interest. Nor is there an active bar scene afterwards, unless nobody tells me where they're holding the party.

[frotog]

Every group has outliers...



I can't confirm this from any social sciences viewpoint, it's just something I've heard a couple of times. And compare camera collectors to just about any other group of hobbyists, it doesn't see far-fetched. I've spent my life surrounded by people into hockey and curling, snowmobiling and diving, and I can say with personal experience that many of these people used their pass-time as a means of getting out of eyesight from their wives, so they could get drunk and fool around. But a camera swap meet? Unless you're gay and into older men, there isn't anyone there likely to arouse your interest. Nor is there an active bar scene afterwards, unless nobody tells me where they're holding the party.

Having been to some swap meets in the US, I can confirm that Jody_S' observations are just as true here in Canada's poxy nether-regions. I think it safe to assume that all that got polished at these events were brass-barrelled, soft-focus lenses. But who knows... maybe there's an amoral group of wild polyamorists who fetishize paunches and halitosis just as much as they do vintage Leitz Thambars. After all, stranger things do exist. But whether or not there's a greater occasion for transgression as you move up in format is a question that I am not prepared to answer here. Lecherous apertures indeed.

[Heroique]

Having been to some swap meets in the US, I can confirm that Jody_S' observations are just as true here in Canada's poxy nether-regions. I think it safe to assume that all that got polished at these events were brass-barrelled, soft-focus lenses. But who knows... maybe there's an amoral group of wild polyamorists who fetishize paunches and halitosis just as much as they do vintage Leitz Thambars. After all, stranger things do exist. But whether or not there's a greater occasion for transgression as you move up in format is a question that I am not prepared to answer here. Lecherous apertures indeed.

Sheesh – what happened to simple and direct language?

Please un-mix all your metaphors.

And keep it clean! ;^)

[frotog]

You're right, Heroique, I got carried away there. Must be all the half-frame I've been shooting lately!

[paulr]

Me, I can imagine a number of LF prints (used) by Ansel Adams that clearly suggest our moral relation to the natural world; I can also imagine several that are rich enough to transcend any moral code, and need little if any context to do so. (For the former, see Peter's post #6 about AA and Aldo Leopold's worldview.)

His best images do both in my opinion – they are moral + amoral.

They only do that because you've been trained in how to look at them. You grew up with those images being presented in a certain cultural context, and with Ansel's ideas about them widely publshed and repeated. His images have been "used" since the beginning by conservation organizations like the Sierra Club.

A more instructive example might be images whose use has changed over the years. Consider Timothy O'Sullivan's work (which also happens to be large format, but I still can't imagine why this is relevant). His work on the Survey expeditions was used primarily for public relations and fundraising. People bought posters of the strange, ugly, barren landscape of the west. Landscape isn't even the most accurate word, because at the time, images of barren land were not generally seen as part of of a landscape tradition at all. And photography (at least straight photography) was not seen as belonging to the world of art.

When perspectives changed half a century later, O'Sullivan's work changed. Photographers from the early modern era rediscovered it, and were enthralled by the formal invention. It went from document to esthetic object, simply by a shift in the viewers' perspective. Another half a century later, the work became charged politically, as it became a jumping-off point for photographers who would eventually get branded as the new topographers. Robert Adams, the most influential among them, borrowed many of O'Sullivans pictorial techniques to frame the visual bleakness of the contemporary world. Mark Klett borrowed O'Sullivan's actual tripod holes, rephotographing exact landscapes, to show both change and lack of it.

It's almost impossible for us to look at those pictures and see them the way they were seen in the 1870s. We viewers are different, what we know and believe is different, so what we see is different.

I find it quite peculiar that 19th century ideas (like immanent moral content in images) can hang on for so long. These ideas fall apart under the most basic scrutiny.

[Peter De Smidt]

Paul's right that the meaning of a work of art depends on the viewer's outlook, but don't most moral judgments require a context?

[paulr]

Paul's right that the meaning of a work of art depends on the viewer's outlook, but don't most moral judgments require a context?

Yes, and I think if you want to really pursue it the question becomes about how much context you need and where it comes from.

Morality is one of the two branches of philosophy that concerns itself with values (the other, conveniently, is esthetics). A moral value can't be attached to a bare fact.

Some typical facts might be:

-72 seniors graduated from Springfield High School This Year
-Men clearcut the forest on the north side of the hill
-The soldier shot a woman pushing a stroller

Some added context might be:
-72 seniors graduated from Springfield high—fewer than half the class, a 30% decline from last year
-Men clearcut the forest on the hill, saving the town by preventing the fire from jumping the gorge
-Soldiers shot a woman seen pushing a stroller filled with explosives toward the school.

It's trivially easy to frame these facts in other ways, yielding different meanings, different moral implications. You could look at this as the difference between fact and truth.

This brings back the old question, can photographs lie? I believe no, because a photograph, by itself, cannot contain a truth. It contains (or at least suggests) facts. The truth or lie resides in how the photograph is used. You can most certainly lie with a photograph. Just as you can lie with a statistic. But the statistic isn't the lie. The greater power lies with the editor.

To be clear, I'm not talking about a falsified photograph or fact or statistic. When you airbrush out Stalin's political enemy, you are falsifying a fact (if you are indeed presenting it as a fact). This is a whole other discussion.

[Peter De Smidt]

All of this stuff is highly controversial, including whether there are facts, either scientific or moral, whether truth is an interesting concept, whether the fact/value distinction is categorical, whether reason is the slave of the passions.... Just as an example, pragmatic theories of truth don't necessarily suppose a strict fact/value distinction.

Getting back to photography, one doesn't need to know about Adam's Sierra Club activities, or really anything about him, to be moved by an experience of viewing his prints to a feeling or respect or awe of nature. That's likely a fairly common reaction. Whether such an experience does happen depends on both the print and the viewing subject, but that doesn't differ from many moral or value laden experiences. Stealing, for example, is often thought to be wrong...but not always.

As I said before, photographing with a large format camera _can_ be an expression of respect, and the respect of persons is essential to one of the main branches of moral philosophy, namely, Kantian deontology. As I mentioned earlier, some acquaintances of mine photograph decidedly non-famous people. They use an 8x10 or larger camera, and they make huge silver gelatin prints from them. They go on to professionally mount the photos and have serious shows at universities and museums. All of this effort, which is much different from a casual snapshot, speaks to their respect for their subjects, with the implication that these people are worthy of effort and attention. Sure, someone viewing the prints could come away with a different impression, but....so?

If you're a consequentialist, one of the other main branches of ethics, then every action has moral import.

[Kirk Gittings]

Hmmm effort and attention = respect. Would the subject feel respected if say the photographer sold the print for $100k and the project was full of effort and the subject got "respect"?

A few times in my life I have gotten incredible attention and effort from people who were trying to swindle me.

Feeling a bit cynical today...........

[Brian C. Miller]

... some acquaintances of mine photograph decidedly non-famous people. They use an 8x10 or larger camera, and they make huge silver gelatin prints from them. They go on to professionally mount the photos and have serious shows at universities and museums. All of this effort, which is much different from a casual snapshot, speaks to their respect for their subjects, with the implication that these people are worthy of effort and attention.

So the logical extension is that 11x14 shows more respect than 8x10, etc, 35mm is much less respectful, and tiny digital sensors, especially cell phones, breed contempt. Thus, a 6ft x 4ft connotes near-worship, as gargantuan cameras are such a pain to build and haul around.

This, of course, definitely justifies buying a Goerz 47-1/2 inch, and building a camera for it! It has nothing to do with being a nutjob... ;)

[cyrus]

I've considered committing a little white crime for a good set of flat files to store my ULF negs, so I guess the answer is that LF has had a bad effect on my morals

[Peter De Smidt]

Effort and attention _can_ be an expression of respect, but they don't have to.

If your waiter ignores you, don't you take that as a sign of disrespect?

Brian, that's a strawman argument.

[Heroique]

Prints by Ansel Adams only do that because you've been trained in how to look at them...

Heh, makes me feel like a seal balancing a ball on my nose. ;^)

But I liked reading your insights above, and agree w/ many of them.

Oh, but Paul, they seem so distrustful that a deeply felt experience might be communicated, through art, for someone else to experience too. "That's because I'm not interested in an artist telling me what I'm supposed to feel." (My apologies, just wanted to partly anticipate you and save you the trouble of a post!)

[Greg Miller]

So to ask simply – are you, as a working LF photographer, being "moral," or do you believe there's little, if any relationship?

People have morals. Not cameras. If a camera can influence someone's moralitities, then their morals were not very well grounded.

[Greg Miller]

It's almost impossible for us to look at those pictures and see them the way they were seen in the 1870s. We viewers are different, what we know and believe is different, so what we see is different.

Dare I draw a comparison to those who read a bible from a fundamentalist perspective? Trying to interpret literal meaning of words from another time in another (extinct) language? Seems like folly to me.

[Greg Miller]

Getting back to photography, one doesn't need to know about Adam's Sierra Club activities, or really anything about him, to be moved by an experience of viewing his prints to a feeling or respect or awe of nature. That's likely a fairly common reaction.

I'm not so sure it is as simple as that on a more macro level. It wasn't that long ago that Bald Eagles were considered to be a nuisance and were hunted with the intent to eliminate them. A photograph of a Bald Eagle from that era might be perceived entirely differently today. Same photograph, different time, different perception.

[Peter De Smidt]

So a technically exquisite photograph of a bald eagle in a Wagnerian/heroic manner couldn't cause a viewer to be moved towards valuing bald eagles more?

Aren't propaganda and advertising photos intended to achieve a specific reaction in the viewer? Sure, they don't always succeed, but why would that be relevant?

[Greg Miller]

So a technically exquisite photograph of a bald eagle in a Wagnerian/heroic manner couldn't cause a viewer to be moved towards valuing bald eagles more?

Aren't propaganda and advertising photos intended to achieve a specific reaction in the viewer? Sure, they don't always succeed, but why would that be relevant?

It is possible that they can. But it isn't a universal truth. Especially over a period of time. It is a bit of a nature vs. nurture thing. The meaning of propaganda is generally only obvious in context of its time.

[Brian C. Miller]

Brian, that's a strawman argument.

You mean I didn't need that rationalization to buy that lens and start constructing the camera? (Actually, I looked at what Manarchy was doing, his failed Kickstarter campaign, decided that he was never going to do it, and so I decided to do something locally myself.)

If the waiter ignores you, it means he wants to be fired from his minimum wage job so he can sit around at home collecting unemployment until the money runs out, and then he gets another job waiting tables.

[Greg Miller]

And the propaganda is only meaningful in its culture. I would expect that the vast majority of Chinese propoganda, would escape the understanding by americans. And what would a Wagnerian bald eagle mean to a peasant Chinese farmer?

[Peter De Smidt]

Greg,

Your point about cultural context is a good one, but we make cross-cultural judgments, including moral ones, on a regular basis. Sometimes we even prefer a particular moral judgment of a person of another culture to what people might commonly hold in our own.

One should be careful about getting too relativistic about meaning and morality, though. For instance, someone might hold that we can't understand people in another culture, as we don't share the same experiences as they do. (Analogously, one could claim that men can never understand women for the same reason.) While the different experiences provide a challenge for understanding, they don't rule it out. No two people share the same experiences, and hence they don't share the exact same associations of meaning. But if that means that we can't understand them, then we don't understand anyone, but that's obviously too strict. Luckily, our experiences do have some commonalities, and that's enough to allow some understanding to be shared between people, whether of "the same" culture, or of a different one.

[paulr]

Getting back to photography, one doesn't need to know about Adam's Sierra Club activities, or really anything about him, to be moved by an experience of viewing his prints to a feeling or respect or awe of nature. That's likely a fairly common reaction. Whether such an experience does happen depends on both the print and the viewing subject, but that doesn't differ from many moral or value laden experiences.

I mentioned the Sierra Club bit because it was obvious. But it it's not the most important or interesting kind of cultural framing going on. For example the feeling generally elicited by a mountain landscape has changed many times over the course of Western history. In the Middle Ages, it was likely to be a vehicle for dread, not beauty. Mountains were the geographical equivalent of monsters back then. In the early and mid 19th Century mountains were a likely vehicle for feelings of the sublime ... a kind of aweful-yet-awestruck feeling of smallness in the face of nature's hugeness. That kind of Romanticism persists today, but I think contemporary viewers are more likely to see prettiness of more comforting or even nostalgic type in an Ansel landscape.

What moral/rhetorical message, if any, I think is likely to be complex, including a sense of loss. Robert Adams writes about this at lenght in his Beauty in Photography essays. But any such feeling-ladden or meaning-ladden message is going to be dependant on the cultural and historical and personal position of the person doing the looking.


As I mentioned earlier, some acquaintances of mine photograph decidedly non-famous people. They use an 8x10 or larger camera, and they make huge silver gelatin prints from them. They go on to professionally mount the photos and have serious shows at universities and museums. All of this effort, which is much different from a casual snapshot, speaks to their respect for their subjects, with the implication that these people are worthy of effort and attention. Sure, someone viewing the prints could come away with a different impression, but....so?.

This is another good example. The idea that important people are depicted in art—once upon a time in painted portraits, today in large-scale photographs on gallery walls—has been cultivated by hundreds of years of the Western painting tradition. Your friend is one of many artists who plays with this idea in ways that are subtly subversive (anything that self-consciously democratizes an elitist tradition is a kind of subversion). So yes, his images have moral content, and yes, their message is dependant on the viewer being familiar with the basic tropes of Western art.

Kehinde Wiley does the same thing with painting. Here's his response to a painting of Napoleon ...

http://mrsawyersopus.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/3162829823_05aa28782f_b1.jpg

[Peter De Smidt]

Paul, as usual you make some good points. I doubt that we disagree all that much on these issues. I'm taking a break, though, as I'm packing to leave on my first vacation in over a year. Cheers!

[Heroique]

Luckily, our experiences do have some commonalities, and that's enough to allow some understanding to be shared between people, whether of "the same" culture, or of a different one.

Yes, I think Peter's word "experience" is key here.

As in a direct, unmediated experience of art – whose only contextual requirement for having it, and sharing it, is being born human.

That will get a snicker from our more "modern" climate, where it's common to think we're actually cut off from each other by super-subjective (and culture-based) experiences – not united by universal (human) ones. Ironically, it's the great Romanticists who launched us in the direction of this subjectivity & relativity; however, I don't think they thought we'd push their lesson all the way to the point of alienation. But here we are, some will think. In a sense, we're still living by the Romanticists' ideas, including their moral ideas about art.

[Greg Miller]

Greg,

Your point about cultural context is a good one, but we make cross-cultural judgments, including moral ones, on a regular basis. Sometimes we even prefer a particular moral judgment of a person of another culture to what people might commonly hold in our own.

One should be careful about getting too relativistic about meaning and morality, though. For instance, someone might hold that we can't understand people in another culture, as we don't share the same experiences as they do. (Analogously, one could claim that men can never understand women for the same reason.) While the different experiences provide a challenge for understanding, they don't rule it out. No two people share the same experiences, and hence they don't share the exact same associations of meaning. But if that means that we can't understand them, then we don't understand anyone, but that's obviously too strict. Luckily, our experiences do have some commonalities, and that's enough to allow some understanding to be shared between people, whether of "the same" culture, or of a different one.

Well, that's not what I wrote. I have been to over 30 countries, so I have a pretty good idea about understanding people from another culture. Humans are generally pretty capable of understanding each other through speech, writing, facial expressions, hand gestures,...

But when you limit the communication to a just a photograph, interpretations will vary greatly based on the individual, even from the same culture. Your Ansel Adams scene might be perceived by others as a wealth of natural resources to be exploited, or a terrible wilderness to be tamed. Or that Wagnerian eagle might be perceived by a hunter/trapper and a defiant varmint ready to steal his winter food supply. So a technically exquisite photograph of a bald eagle in a Wagnerian/heroic manner might cause a viewer to be moved towards valuing bald eagles more, but it might make the the viewer more determined to shoot the next one he sees. For every lover of Ansel Adams photos, I would venture to guess there is at least an equal number who are unmoved by them, and probably at least an equal number more who think he was an idealistic tree hugger.

[Peter De Smidt]

People have varied reactions to viewing a photograph. How does it follow that a photograph cannot have moral impact on some people?

[Greg Miller]

People have varied reactions to viewing a photograph. How does it follow that a photograph cannot have moral impact on some people?

Go back to post #45 to see why I chimed in.