Gabriela's WGSX talk - Artist Talk

Collateral Image: Portraits of Iraqi Refugees

Gabriela Bulisova, a former visiting Art Professor here at St. Mary’s gave a talk on war. Her talk was an extension of her photographic exhibition at Monty. Gabriela stated that when she was asked to be a speaker for the colloquium, that she was initially shocked because she was not a war photographer. The closest that she had been to photographing an actual war was during her time at Lebanon which was during the end of the war of 2006. However, she related that her works as a photojournalist represented other forms of war or aftermath of war that impacted not just women but also men. Her talk was focused on three main sets of her photographic works. They were Option of Last Resort. Iraqi Refugees in the United States, Iraqi Refugees, Damascus, Syria and her most recent work CONVICTIONS.

In Iraqi Refugees, Damascus, Syria, Gabriela stated that a large of number of Iraqis fled from Iraqi to neighboring countries because of the war going on in Iraq. She stated that supposedly fortunate Iraqis may sometimes be granted refugee status in the United States and be able to live there – this was the focus of Option of Last Resort. Iraqi Refugees in the United States. Many Iraqis fled to Syria such that a neighborhood in Damascus, Sayyida Zainab, is considered a hot spot for many Iraqi refugees. These Iraqi refugees live in dire conditions and because they are in Syria illegally, they can’t find decent jobs. Gabriela talked about a family she visited, the father was a doctor in Iraq but now he could not find a decent job in Syria and could barely feed his family. Another was of a woman, known as the mother of Iraqis. She gave up a part of her apartment for use as a school for Iraqi children to learn English and French. She is also the go-to person for Iraqis who are looking for housing, jobs, etc. Many Iraqis in Syria that Gabriela interviewed of photograph are anticipating the day that they would be able to go back to Iraq.

This sense of nostalgia or the feeling that things were more bearable in Iraq resonated in the tales told by Iraqis living in the United States. Many of these Iraqis were translators for the US military while in Iraq and so their lives were in danger. In Option of Last Resort. Iraqi Refugees in the United States, Gabriela took photographs of these individuals in their homes, their niches and she also played an audio recording of some Iraqis. These individuals all shared that they were grateful to the US government for giving them the opportunity to live in the US. However, in the US, they live in dire conditions and have financial problems. As I was listening to the audio, I could hear the pain and sorrow that these people felt – one of the men who spoke was almost at the point of tears. As an immigrant to the US, I can understand some of their frustration with living in the US.

In CONVICTIONS, Gabriela took us thorough the lives of women ex-convicts in D.C and how they dealt with transitioning to the society. Some of them had young children to go back to while others had changed in many ways. They were all finding it hard to adjust - be it in getting jobs or with taking care of family members or making up for lost times with their children. This project is still ongoing though and with great potential.

In all, Gabriela’s photographs were great in capturing the lives of the people she met. Some pictures were in black and white while others were in color. Also, Gabriela made use of vingetting to close in on her subjects and put them in focus. For individuals that did not want their faces to be revealed, Gabriela was able to respect their privacy but yet still capture the emotions or conditions that these individuals were in.

I thought the presentation was great and Gabriela’s work and her ability to tell a story really came through.

Art Event- Public Art, Community, Politics

There were three professors guiding this lecture- Lisa Scheer, Billy Friebele, Katie Gantz, and someone from the poli sci department who's name I did not catch. The lecture dealt with using space in artisitc and political expressions. The two that intrigued me the most were of Billy and Katie. Billy's dealt with defining the physical space in the District of Columbia and how the residents of that area defined their locations and their space; stressing DC as an organic being. His project was/is a very interactive project where people from specific areas in DC will photograph something in that space that more or less defines it, and submit their photographs to be added over layers of other photographs that make up the physical space on a map. I just thought it was very intriguing how people defined these spaces as their own and not in relation to whatever is thought to be known about the area. For example, to an outsider wandering around the national mall, they might be quick to identify the museums and/or monuments. However, to someone from the area, they might be more inclined to submit something completely different, like images of all the tourists posing in front of the camera appearing to be touching the tip of the monument--hilarious to see people do this, by the way.

Katie Gantz's contribution to this lecture was as equally interesting. Her talk was about the remodeled city of Paris from what it was in the 18th century and before, to what it has become since the 19th century. She started by pointing out the wide streets of Paris and how they outline the importance of the grand monuments that are seen at each end of the main streets. She mentioned how this model of the city, when it was new at the time, was to put an emphasis on their amazing art and architecture. However, the latest art movement in Paris seems to be tagging and street art, specifically through large stickers such as postage labels. It was pretty great being able to make that connection with taggers here in the states that picked up that same method. She basically explained how the seemingly vandalizing acts are an art form in the contemporary Parisian art culture. She mentioned how these street artists will apply the stickers even on the most famous of architectures that are found all over the city. I thought it was specifically interesting when she called specific tags a 'treasure' to find. Seeing as how some street artists go above and beyond to display their work in the most intricate ways as possible, there are specific tags that are thought of as rare and become a pleasant surprise to be able to come across one of these treasures.

Mary Early-Artist talk

The art talk earlier this semester was with the local Washington, D.C. artist Mary Early. Early is renowned sculptor, printmaker and drawer who primarily works with beeswax and wood material. She ultimately creates works that involve post-modernist ideas, revolving around the organic nature of her materials. One of the first things that Early stated was her reason for choosing to work with such an ephemeral material was that it wasn’t permanent, which was an intentional decision. She takes long strips of wood, glues them together and then literally paints the beeswax onto the wood in 3-dimensional forms that somehow exploit the architecture. She says that lighting is an important part of her work as well, and that she wanted to create works that seemed like they made themselves. One particular work of beeswax in a circular pattern, with holes around the entire sculpture, plus one in the very center was very beautiful. The yellow color of the beeswax works nicely with the gallery setting that it’s displayed in, and it seems so smooth and organic, yet it’s completely man-made. She seems to work a lot with geometrical forms and the axis’ that each can create when placed against eachother. From doing this, Early was able to create sculptures that seem to “continue infinitely.” One last alteration that she applies to her work is the use of water onto the wood and beeswax, which is done to warp the look of the wood, and to “cause deformity to result in something unplanned.” I honestly really liked Early’s work, although I’m not a sculptor I could clearly see where she was grabbing her ideas; simply working with the continuation of lines that connect together to the center is one of her main paths to creating this work. Using the element of repetition, Early says that she is inspired by sculptor martin Puryear, whose work obviously resembles Early’s. Quiet and poetic, the sculptures seem to take over the space of the room with its single form, forcing the audience to take a step back and actually explore the natural form and shape of the sculpture. Overall, I really enjoyed Mary Early’s talk on her life and work. I think that her work embodies a concept that most people can’t connect with internally, natural form, so for her to push this onto her audience is exceptionally pleasing.

Gabriela Bulisova-artist talk

The artist talk that I attended was for the wonderful Gabriela Bulisova, who I’ve actually had the pleasure I’ve being a photography student for. Gabriela is a Czechoslovakian photographer who is based in Washington, D.C. yet photographs all over the world. Her work mostly focuses around Iraqi refugees and lifestyles, as well as native Washington, D.C. previously incarcerated women. She works with documentary photography and is constantly sending a message to her audience with her photographs. Documenting internally displaced Iraqi refugees, sometimes forced to flee is Gabriela’s main source of content in her current work. The title of the WGSX colloquium, Women in War, was one of shock to Gabriela, stating “I’m not a war photographer!” Soon though, she said that after viewing her work over and over, she realized why she was asked to participate in this show. Her rich black and white photographs are from years of work, visiting various countries such as Damascus and Syria, getting to know the residents and families that live out their everyday lives there. Although she stated that most of her encounters revolved around beings living in dire situations, “desperate and disillusioned,” she has found a way to tell their stories discreetly, protecting the refugees from any documentation harm. From listening to Gabriela’s stories, I learned a great deal of information about the nations and each individual’s life. Having to travel from one nation to America can be really difficult, the transition can sometimes be too devastating for the refugees though, which sometimes forces them back to Iraq, simply because they feel they have no place here in the U.S. Gabriela photographed several men and women, and even their homes and surroundings, to show her audience the trials and hardships that were taking place in living there. She also stated how she wanted to diminish any identity within the individuals photographed, because honestly they didn’t really have any identity left; that and the obvious reason of protection from terrorists. Most of the people she photographed are still in fear for their lives, mostly due to helping out the United States through translators or military help, which keeps them secluded, away from outside life. One very important fact that Gabriela brought up was that with one photograph of the neighborhood she stayed in, from inside the house looking out a window. She stated that this was the only photograph of the neighborhood because her translator told her it was way too dangerous to be seen in the streets there, especially as a documentary photographer. I don’t know if I could deal with the reality of having to constantly fear for my life and others lives because of photographs that I wanted to document and tell a story with; a story that needs to be told. It shows that Gabriela not only has strength behind the lens but a deep relationship with those in front of the lens as well. The ending of the talk included audio clips from several African American women in D.C. who were recently just let out of incarceration. The photographs displayed during the audio captured the women’s faces and emotions that they described in their stories; how they are dealing with the hardships of being placed back into American society, a society that doesn’t necessarily promote previously incarcerated women. To hear the stories was very emotional for me. As a viewer you get the sense that you should be out there helping these women, and not just the incarcerated women, but the refugees as well. To hear the stories of what they have gone through, and how it’s been hard for them to live their afterlives in America, is really devastating and sad. To know that our country doesn’t give all the help it says it does, to human beings that are in dire needs, is to live in a place that revolves around censorship and denial.

Visiting Artist Talk – Gabriela Bulisova

I thought that the gallery of her works was really good. In addition to the fact that it was great to see Ms. Gabriela, I was happy to see her works in person as this was my first experience. I had been opportune to have taken a class with her and she was very helpful in directing me in how to edit my pictures or how to use the Photoshop tools to create the best effect. Looking at her pictures in the gallery made it possible for me to see the outcome of her great skill in photography that she taught me.

I really like her work as a photojournalist. Each project dealt with social issues that I had little knowledge about. When I hear or read about any news about Iraq, it is usually about the war and the impacts of the war to America and sometimes about its influence in the lives of Iraqis living in Iraq. Gabriela’s depiction of the lives of Iraqi refugees in neighboring regions like Damascus and Syria was something I did not know about. But her way of depicting the lives of the Iraqi’s that she met gave a face, a story, and sometimes unuttered words to these refugees.

I particularly liked the way she used vingetting a lot in her pictures which placed the individual or individuals as the center and focus of the image. Also, the choice of lighting or even the layout of the images added to the visual impact of the different pictures. One of the images that I remember is that of an Iraqi girl with a gown pulled up to reveal a big ghastly wound. The girl faces the camera and she is captured as if she is looking to us, the viewers of the picture. The image is quite captivating and not only tells us the health impact that the war in Iraqi (presumably) has had on her but also makes me want to know the what and the why of her story.

Photojournalism, like what Gabriela has done so beautifully with her work, really adds a second level to journalism and adds visual context to events or stories that are being reported. Like what Gabriela has done with her projects, photojournalistic works can stand alone without words. They are not fully descriptive but are a great way to spur a conversation which can then lead to the search for the text that describes the image. Gabriela’s images stand alone but are in themselves are not self explanatory. It was great that the text were sometimes not placed with all the sets of pictures which allowed the viewers to survey the images and ask their own questions before seeking to find an answer to their questions which I believe was one of the purpose of the texts.

Lastly, the thoughtful placement of the groups of pictures for each project was great. I got that there was a sense of order but also that the nature of the open space was used in the ordering. There was a sense of playfulness to my mind – I had to work to find the pictures, the pictures were just not waiting in plain sight for me. At one point, I would check all around the beams to see if there were any pictures in hiding.

In general, I thought that the gallery was a success and was able to relate the lives of other people who are in some way being affected by some form of war.

Reading Response 3

EKPHRASIS

Ekphrasis is the verbal representation of a visual representation, such as the description of a photograph.

Ekphrastic indifference is the realization that ekphrasis is impossible. An example is when I have to describe a work of art for an art paper. This is always difficult because I know that the words I choose will never be enough for the reader to picture exactly the image I am looking at.

Advantages and disadvantages for group work:

Indifference allows for more creative freedom for the individual in a group. Since ekphrasis is impossible, there is no point in trying to create a perfect connection between image and text. However, indifference could compromise the connectivity of a group project. Too much creative freedom could lead to text and images that do not go together at all.

Ekphrastic hope is when the perceived impossibility of ekphrasis is overcome by imagination. It is when we find the words “to make us see” an object or work of art. When I am describing a work of art, ekphrastic hope comes when I realize that descriptive words alone will not be enough. When combined with description, words that describe feelings and make comparisons better convey the image. Every visual image evokes a feeling or mood and text can bring out this same feeling or mood.

Advantages and disadvantages for group work:

Ekphrastic hope can make a group project more resolved and connected because each person is working towards a single goal and they believe it is possible (unlike with indifference). Each person in the group has less creative freedom and the final group project may not reflect their individual vision.

Ekphrastic fear is when we resist the possibility that the difference between verbal and visual representation can break. It is when we question whether we actually want to be able to see something purely through language. An example is when I read a book and then a movie based on the book is made. Sometimes I will not want to see the movie, because it might be a better visual representation than the one I imagined while reading the book. I am afraid that when I read the book again, the movie images will replace the images created by my imagination.

Advantages and disadvantages for group work:

Ekphrastic fear can lend creative freedom to each form of representation while maintaining a cohesive goal for a group project. It could be a problem in group work if only one person has fear and the rest do not. This could lead to big differences in the vision for the final project.

THE PLOT THICKENS

Through framing and juxtaposition, a photograph combines previously disparate elements into a cohesive whole. Why do we continue to make narratives out of this newly defined space?

We are constantly surrounded by narratives – movies, books, history, our own life stories and those of others. Everyday we tell stories, “Guess, what I did today.” “How was the party?” “You’ll never believe what happened to me today…” We are not satisfied with simply seeing an image and not having a story to go with it. A photograph is a representation of the narrative world, so it must have some narrative meaning, right? This is not always true, but it can be difficult to accept that a picture may be just a picture of a chair or a beautiful sunset. Photographs can evoke memories or feelings just like music or movies. Even if a picture has no inherent or created narrative, we can give it one of our own.

Discuss and define the differences between the “matter of fact world” of the photograph and the narrative world we live in.

The matter-of-fact world is based on what we can observe, like the image in a photograph. The narrative world is the story behind the photograph, derived from our world. When you first look at a photograph, you see the matter of fact world – the person, the landscape or the chair. The narrative takes over when you start to answer why this photograph was taken or what is happening or who is this person. Our world is narrative, because every person, place or object has a history or a memory associated with it. A photograph can have a narrative of its own, but it is not always evident because it is just an image. One image cannot tell a story, just like the landscape cannot tell its story. This is why the image is the matter of fact representation of our narrative world.

Be ready to agree or disagree with Valery’s comment, “ …that bromide (chemistry make up of a print) proves stronger than ink”. How does he argue this changes the nature of words…?

I agree that often a photograph can be much more powerful than words. This is evident in photographs of war or tragedy. Seeing the image of suffering or danger evokes a deeper response in the viewer than words describing the experience. To see something is to make it real because a photograph is evidence. However, Valery also says that photographs can lie. A photograph is taken from a point of view and it cannot wholly capture an experience. A picture has the limits of a frame, the choices of the photographer and the action of the subjects. Photographs can be more deceitful than words because they are not obviously taken from one person’s point of view. Stories or news articles are signed by authors or delivered by newscasters. The photographer is less visible than the author because it is signed in tiny print in the corner by someone usually unknown to most people or by the company that distributed the photo. Photographs are seen as evidence of words, an affirmation that something is true, but they can be just as easily if not more easily manipulated.

Discuss what Winogrand meant by “to photograph something to see what it would look like photographed”

In the real world, things are always moving and you cannot really see everything in front of you at once. However when you take a photograph, you are stopping time forever in an image. You can see what you would have missed if the world was still moving. The framing of the image also leaves out part of the world. The elements within the frame of the camera can change the context of the world it captures by leaving out information. Sometimes it is not what the photographer chooses to photograph that makes an image captivating, but what he or she chooses to leave out. So, to take a picture is to find a new way to see something and then, to look at the photograph is to see a piece of the world in a new way.

College high school information books as Photobooks.

So I could not figure out the best way to describe these books. If you can remember your senior high school days and remember how colleges would inundate your mailbox with why you should pick their school, then you know the books I am talking about. Well my sister is a junior in high school and our mailbox is filled with colleges asking her to apply to their school. Well I realized that the information books they send in the mail are photobooks - they tend to have contemporary styles. I have a couple of them that I plan on using to get inspiration for my spreads and thought I should share this with the class.

The Book Surgeon

Remarkable interview and images that should conjure up inventive ideas! (thanks Ruth!)

The Book Surgeon

PLEASE POST YOUR RESPONSES TO CLASS READING (CD WRIGHT)

Please put your thoughts and responses to Wright essay here to refer to in class on Tuesday. (in comments section)

Article Response

This discussion of the interaction between Wright’s poetry and Luster’s photography made me think a lot about the role of the camera in receiving/creating a reality simultaneously. The camera was described as an “O,” an opening, as opposed to its traditional theoretical association with a probing and forceful/manipulative phallus-like object. I believe I have read more about this in film classes – horror film and sex in American cinema, as it seems especially pertinent to these subjects. This was quite an interesting re-viewing to me, as I have tended to think about the camera as a more probing device, while that doesn’t seem to make full sense considering the receptive/creative side of both the camera and the eye.

To me, this points to a much greater interactivity between the often binarized penetrative/receptive roles of camera and subject in film and photography, and where the “origins” lie – in the photographer’s eye, the subject’s reality, or both. The concept of the subject as “subjected” was brought up, as well as the eagerness of the subject to be photographed, which introduces an interesting, possibly ambivalent relationship of the photographer and the photographed. The article also discussed Wright’s focus on bodily secretions, reproductive organs, disorienting perspectives, and childbirth, with the body being a source of power and energy, like the creative capacity –and the photographer, the writer, and the subject.

There was a lot of discussion of “openings” in relation to the ekphrastic process, as a production of the creative mind lends itself to being viewed by other creative persons who it then inspires to create. Wright was quoted as saying, “My eye is what I work off… I look for the line of the eye.” This is really exciting to hear a poet say, though it makes a lot of sense as she is a writer who has worked in close contact with photographers. It also brings up the visual nature of text, especially poetry, in which the visual form is so important. Some very literal examples are shaped poetry and organic poetry, which often tries to recreate the “breath” of natural and immediate experience through line spacings. The “line” of the eye can also be recreated in the sounds and rhythm of poetry, which similarly lead us through poems, like the framing and composition of a photograph leads us from edge to edge or otherwise in a specific direction through the photograph.

It was interesting to read about how Wright’s poetry focuses, like photography, on “angles of view, light sources (one or many?), light-dark contrasts (sharp or diffuse?), shadow and hue.” The role of photographic language seems very important in her writing, without directly speaking of the technical processes of photographing. I also found very fascinating the line, “To make familiar in her poems the work of a camera is also to make odd the work of an eye.” Writing about the subjective viewing of a chopped reality is very different from writing about the whole spread of reality that we generally accept in our everyday viewing. The article discusses the postsurgical eye and relearning reality. It also introduces Muybridge and the interaction between stillness and movement, as he sequenced still photographs chronologically to create a film-like effect before the moving picture was a cultural phenomenon.

The “stillness” of the photograph, showing us a moment in reality – even if it conveys motion through a long exposure or otherwise – versus the narrative nature of writing and poetry, is a fascinating tension in the ekphrastic process. It is also interesting to consider the cultural relationship between the photograph and evidence, valid experience, as one theorist mentioned in the article proposes as a reason for photography’s superiority to narrative/poetry. However, being aware of the manipulability of the world photographed, through distortions such as introducing props and altering lenses, makes the ekphrastic process more interesting to me. Photography can be just as malleable as fictional writing, but it also can be very literal, so the possibilities for representation of other mediums (and textual representations of photographs) seem completely unlimited to me.

The Book as Sculpture

Sent to me by the lovely Nora Burghardt:


http://www.npr.org/blogs/pictureshow/2011/03/03/134229879/destroy-your-books?ps=cprs


Also, with that first image, you can click through with the arrows and there are actually 15 examples - I didn't notice that at first, just letting you all know.

Ekphrasis and Plot Readings

Mitchell

Ekphrastic indifference is our initial response to the notion that visual and textual mediums could represent the same thing – we feel it is impossible for writing to perfectly describe a picture, or for a picture to perfectly illustrate a piece of writing. Ekphrastic hope occurs when we recognize the possibilities offered by the tools of writing, such as metaphor, to depict indirectly what we see in a picture (and vice-versa, in considering the visual tools of different artistic mediums). This phase also involves our realization that in language, or “linguistic expression,” we are often attempting to represent something that is not there – something visual, or an idea. In this sense, ekphrasis becomes more of an everyday thought and speech process. Ekphrastic fear is a resistance to the possibility of a total overlapping between visual and textual representation, with ekphrasis being utterly successful and the idiosyncratic aesthetic value of each medium adulterated.

Advantages/Disadvantages for a Collaborative Project

Ekphrastic indifference:
This approach is useful because it reminds the two creative minds involved that their work is inevitably going to vary. They should not attempt to fully illustrate the other piece of artwork or writing because it cannot be done. Therefore, they should work to convey a sense of meaning related to the work they are partnered with, or attempt to do something completely different, but in some way tangentially connected. A disadvantage to this approach could be going too far with it, and expecting that there is no possibility of a positive interaction between the two mediums because their conveying of the subject matter cannot be aligned at all. This would certainly be a fallacy and eliminate a lot of fascinating possibilities.

Ekphrastic hope:
This is probably the most positive approach to work from, because it involves respecting the tools of each medium to figuratively convey another piece of work. It acknowledges the creative possibilities of each medium, and looks for the best methods specific to the medium for portraying or otherwise alluding to another work. Disadvantages could involve relying too heavily upon these tools, so that what you are trying to do as an artist becomes to readily obvious to the viewer. One might also be too descriptive, and “tell” literally what is going on in a picture or text rather than “showing” it through more innovative ways or providing a tangential description or story.

Ekphrastic fear:
This can be positive in that it reminds the artist/writer that there is value inherent in each medium that can be preserved, so that the work is not merely illustrative, and the two works do not simply mesh in their portrayal. This could also be a limiting view because it might engage the artist in the binary opposition that Mitchell describes in the second half of his article. In fearing overlap between the two forms of expression and consciously pulling away from this, the artist might elevate his/her own medium and the role it can play in analyzing another artwork. The artist then becomes a voiced “self” projecting itself into a voiceless “other,” his/her role “masculine,” acting upon and disrespecting the resistance of a “feminine” artwork.

Travis

We continue to make narratives out of spaces because we have hope for the way our own eye will see them as distinct from how they have been seen before. We recognize immense possibility in spaces (especially as artists, visually minded people). We angle ourselves in juxtaposition with the subject to create new shapes and perspectival distortions, imagining them within a four-edged frame. There are so many possibilities of different objects to align, and so many possibilities for statements (or disorienting uncertainties) to be made by doing this.

The photograph exists between the matter of fact and the narrative world. It is possible to separate the “where” and “when” of the photograph’s creation, as Travis describes in Joel Sternfeld’s different projects. This has to do with the “temporary permanence” of what is behind the frame, as it is captured in a sort of death-like state, though we view it at a time in which that place or subject has changed. We then, as viewers, revive the “death” by filling in the time element, and a narrative or explanation – with or without the aid of text given to us by the photographer – through our subjective consciousness. Unlike the matter of fact world, Travis explains, photography withstands time, and new knowledge doesn’t discredit it. It maintains a relevance and meaning, unlike outdated mathematics or biology. Though the photograph appears, originally, very “matter of fact,” humans throughout history have learned about their world through narrative. Our inclination to this form of understanding causes us to project narrative into a still image, though not fully independent of the photographer’s intent as expressed through framing and juxtaposition.

Regarding Valery’s comment, all art forms have something to offer that no other art form has. For example, though both have and use the tool of metonymy, it is going to look very different in a Cubist painting versus a poem by Gertrude Stein. Although the ekphrastic process can create very tight parallels between mediums, they are still going to materialize very differently – resulting in very different material objects. Valery also engages in the fallacy of assuming language must be descriptive. He says that language has been “released” from having to convey anything accurately, as if the only purpose of language were to provide explanatory accounts of natural phenomena. Language can also convey imaginative/unnatural phenomena that cannot be seen with the eye (or camera), or convey natural phenomena in a distinctive way.

Winogrand’s statement involves the idea that we are freezing a certain juxtaposition of reality within a non-natural, rectangular frame when we photograph. Having been born in the last hundred years, we have grown up with photographs and family albums, let alone experienced four-edged paintings and drawings. We have been conditioned to value this shape as a representative art form. We want to think of ourselves as creative individuals, and we are, so we expect our “framing” of reality to be unique. Winogrand’s comment also alludes to the camera’s viewfinder – we are looking through it as we photograph, scanning reality until we freeze it just how we want. We have to be looking through the viewfinder, however, to reach this “controlling” of reality and determination of our creative process and its potential outcomes.

Third Group of Readings

Mitchell Reading- Picture Theory

1). Ekphrastic- the verbal representation of visual representation

"ekphrastic indifference"- grows out of the commonsense perception that                                                   ekphrasis is impossible

ex. Bob and Ray’s photographs can never be made visible over the radio. No amount of description will bring them “to life”. The verbal description of an object may refer to it, describe it, or invoke it but it will never make it appear before you.

 "Ekphrastic fear"- still moment of ekphrastic hope- moment of resistance or counterdesire that occurs when we sense that the difference between the verbal and visual representation                                            might collapse and the figurative, imaginary desire of ekphrasis might be realized literally and actually.

Ex. “Radio magic”, the audience is able to imagine in full detail the photographs the host are describing and interacting with

 "Ekphrastic hope"- “Shield of Achilles” in the Illiad- phase when the  impossibility of ekphrasis is overcome in imagination or  metaphor, when we discover a “sense” in which  language can do what so many writers have wanted to do: “to make us see”

 ex. radio show says “they wish you could be there”- but if you actually were there, their whole game would be ruined. The need for them to describe everything would no longer be necessary because you could see it yourself

These three phases can be summed up as this- “The interplay of these thre “moments” of ekphrastic fascination- fear, hope, and indifference- produce a pervasive sense of ambivalence, an ambivalence focused on Bo and Ray’s photographs: they know you can’t see them; they wish you could see them, and are glad that you can; they don’t want you to see them, and wouldn’t show them if they could.

2)  Pros

-Metaphors

-Similes

            (both used to “describe” objects)

-verbal and visual representations provide a well rounded description of the object both in the frame of mind and sight

-“art” breaks the bounds of skepticism in the way it captures the “uncapturable”/ “imagines the unimaginable”

Cons

 -Alone, verbal representations seem supplemental

-creates skeptics

Travis Reading- Plot Thickens Everything

        

Difference between narrative world and matter-of-fact world.

            The Narrative world explains the inexplicable while the matter-of-fact world is black and white with very little variation, and thus a lot of problems go unexplained or the explanation has holes in it.

            Without explanations for actions, the viewer is trapped in trying to find a logical explanation for what is being observed. The narrative is the explanatory part while the matter-of-fact part literally just states facts.

  

            Another difference between the matter-of-fact worlds and the narrative world involves scientific explanations. When science finds new information on how the world works, the new fact is accepted, practices are changed to accommodate it, and the old theory is discarded.  Narrative is different. Narrative instead treasures the old story that explained it even more, believing it still contains other truths. Instead of replacing it, it keeps it to draw supplemental information from that the new version may not explain. “Although narratives gum up the facts and distort reality for their own purposes, they still survive… But the matter-of-fact world persists and intrudes, and one cannot avoid it for long”. Narrative and matter-of-fact must be viewed hand in hand when photography is between them, providing both simplified and complicated was of approaching the content.

Be ready to agree or disagree with Valery’s comment, “ …that bromide (chemistry make up of a print) proves stronger than ink”. How does he argue this changes the nature of words…?

            Valery believed that photographs could be made to lie as language did, he felt that their inherent optical accuracy could release language from having to “convey the ideas of a visual object with any degree of precision” directly proceeding the usurped quote.

            It seems that an argument is trying to be made that words are fabricated after the fact, only to explain what the eye sees. “Unlike other visual art, in photography the incidental is often the primary reason for the picture having been taken in the first place. This forces one to try to devise surrealistic meanings for it or explain it with a story of one’s own making, which allows those beyond the photographer a role in the creative process.

Discuss what Winogrand meant by “to photograph something to see what it would look like photographed”

Winogrand= master of the incidental

“The photograph isn’t what was photographed. It’s something else. It’s a new fact.”

-photographs do not try to form themselves into completed stories

-somewhere between the matter-of-fact world and the narrative world

            Photographs take a moment out of it’s context. Winogrand could have meant that once the photograph is taken, it is something new all on it’s own, without a need for a context or any further explanation. To take a photo just to see what something would look like photographed, you are only looking for that one moment in time. You are not expecting that still shot to explain everything that was going on, everything that everyone captured in the scene was feeling, or the reason for the scene in the first place. You only desire the outcome of all of these separate entities working together.

Second Reading Response

    This group of articles, Robert Frank and the history of Japanese photography and photobooks, all address the topic of order and sequence. The photobook is a process. Robert Frank spent a year arranging and editing his photos down to a select number. Since the photobook is a whole object, a sequence of photographs that the artist has to consider the overall thought-process behind. Reading Robert Frank's take on the process he went through to create The Americans. Frank described his experiences has what drove his process, rather than his ideas or intentions. 

     Robert Frank, a well-known photobook author, did not know the complexity behind creating a photobook at the beginning of The Americans. He wanted the photographs to be seen as something more than just images, and to be more poetic and beautiful in nature. The symbols and places he listed provided a framework for what was to be photographed, but his observations of America and his experiences expanded the content of his photographs. As an outsider looking in, Frank was able to observe what Americans overlooked, such as what defines their behavior and impacts the way they interact. 

     As Robert Frank learned more about Americans, his style of photographing evolved. He let the subject matter and symbols define the photograph. He could not take too much time thinking about taking the picture. Allen Ginsberg describes this style as  "First thought, best thought". Basically meaning that gut decisions are the best. 

    The first time looking through the images in The Americans they seemed random, but after looking more in depth at how Frank saw it, and after the powerpoint in class, each sequence of photographs builds off of the last. The subject matter of one image is mirrored or found in subsequent images. Knowing that Frank spent a year simply narrowing down the images and sequencing them tells me that these quick turnover projects we have been doing is just the beginning. The semester long photobook seems to me to be more similar to what Robert Frank was going for. The continual process  and reconfiguration of the same images overtime is what I will be able to do with the semester long project, but only if I start it sooner rather than later. I have already visualized what I want to include, like Ginsberg said, "First thought, Best thought". Now I must capture what I see in my mind's eye, get it on film, and then put it on paper. 

     Japanese photobooks were also apart of this reading group. As a genre, they employ very innovative and interesting  ways of using the photobook form. Unlike western photobooks like Robert Franks, Japanese photographers take the objectiveness of photographs to a whole new level. They reinforce the blurry and grainy aesthetic elements of the photographs, completely stripping them of their documenting capabilities. Without the context clues in the details of the photograph, the viewer is unable to view the photograph as the object within it's frames, and instead forces the viewer to understand the photograph itself as an object. This understanding of the objective photograph is reinforced by the japanese bookmaking process, which is simply design, sequence and printing. The type of printing process can either add or detract from the overall feel of the photobook as well as help or deter the photographs and the book form from effectively interacting with each other.

     

     Not only do Japanese photographs interact with the book and the paper, but they also implore the viewer to interact differently with it. Without margins, the viewer is physically touching and interacting with the photograph as they turn each and every page. It is a foreign concept to many who read and view books with margins. The lack of which is offsetting and creates a different experience. By not including margins, the photobook can be seperated in the minds of the viewer form textual books and can instead be compared to other visual books,like magazines. 

    For my SLP, I want to incorporate more full page spreads that go from edge to edge as well as make use of the center fold in the book. I want there to be no frame around the image so that the viewer sees the photograph as a continuous scene rather than a captured moment. These readings raise many new ideas of how to approa

Second Readings - Analysis

These articles provided a valuable discussion on the importance of order and sequence to create (as well as find) meaning. The photobook is a space where images become a collective piece that can have an enormous amount to say in the placement throughout, rather than existing as individual pieces of art. Robert Frank did not sequence his photos narratively, but used paralleled content and form to arrange them, which has the effect of creating a rhythm. I thought it was very well-put when Sarah Greenough related The Americans to a poem as well as to a chorus of voices and the different types of sounds, ranging from whispers to rants, that become patterned. This is a really interesting concept for thinking about how to arrange images in a book. Frank also did not preconceive an order at the outset, but did so as more of a “process of discovery” after the images were produced. His process was also described as more emotional than intellectual, which I think is a really interesting point to make, as creating a photobook can be a daunting goal at the outset without existing material to inspire us.

Knowing that Frank spent over a year arranging and editing the photos makes me aware that I should be creating work for my final book throughout the semester, in order to have the time to do an effective job of editing. Frank was so certain of the ordering and titling once he had come to a resolution that he never altered them in subsequent editions. I really appreciated Greenough’s comment that in “coupling brilliant insights with rigorous editing, Frank had created a non-narrative, non-linear but distinct, cohesive order… in which images play with and modulate one another in ‘streaks of invention’… calling forth new ideas that no single photograph alone could elicit.”

I thought that Frank’s perspective was interesting that the artist shouldn’t discuss his or her art after creating it, but that the art should be able to convey what was intended – and also that the artist’s commentary might prevent the viewer from developing more personal and novel interpretations. The artist may not even be able to explain his or her creative process that effectively, as seems to be somewhat true of Frank. Other writers have provided a much more lucid commentary than Frank, as cited in Greenough’s article.

Reading these articles, especially the one on Japanese photobooks, made me think a lot more about the difference between montage and isolated images on spreads. I am interested in what that does for the experience of looking through a photobook, and what it says about each of the photographs. Though Frank used isolated images on spreads, his use of juxtapositions in sequencing point to a disparity and opposition between groups of people rather than a feeling of national unity. Issues of politics, wealth, religion, race, American iconography and opposites become prominent. The MoMA lecturer spoke of Frank’s focus on icons and ideals to demonstrate the things that people place their faith in, which become suffocating delusions. Americans can be largely inattentive to reality but heavily focused on perfected pseudo-realities that we will never attain – the fallacy of the American Dream.

The article on the Japanese photobook by Moriyama described books as the best medium for the immediacy of contemporary Japanese photography. This was very interesting to me in having thought about the photobook as opposed to gallery form of presenting photography. The explanation of the history and development of the Japanese photobook was very useful. Dyptics seem to be prominent in these photobooks, with images filling the whole page and juxtaposed in ways sometimes jarring and not flowing with content or form. This emphasizes a dialogue between the two pages and the importance of the spread as opposed to the individual page. This is definitely something I want to work with in my SLP, and the examples in this article are incredibly inspirational.

It is also interesting to think about the effect of having no margins, so that in flipping the page, you are inevitably touching part of the photograph – this really eliminates the “fourth wall,” so to speak, bringing the photograph into reality and the viewer into the photograph. Despite the three-dimensionality of the page, having no margins still does something strange in the minds of people used to reading books with margins. It makes the book more like a magazine, which we look at differently than textual books. We are drawn into the experience of viewing a magazine, which is something obviously intended by their producers. Reading about the importance of sequencing, editing, and layout has definitely made me think differently about my project and the possibilities out there.

Second Reading Response

While reading the second set of readings on Robert Frank and the history of Japanese photography and photobooks, I realized that there is a lot that goes into the process of a photobook, and the overall thought-process that the artist has to consider in order to construct the photobook as a whole. The section of reading titled The Americans-1955-57 had several interesting points about Robert Frank and the way he not only discovered photography but the way in which he immersed himself into the medium, creating photographs that were ultimately beautiful works of art. Frank created the book The Americans in a place that was completely foreign to him, someone who was a foreigner to the U.S., due to his native residence in Switzerland. The United States was a very troubled, distressed place at the time, which was difficult for foreigners. With a fear of communism from foreign countries, Frank really had no idea what he was getting himself into. The first interesting piece of information I found was Franks system of finding what to photograph based off of symbols he identified, which he said were “things seen everywhere, but not looked at or examined,” like flags, cowboys and politicians. This was what he used as a basis for photography and even used it to arrange his film by subject/symbol. As I continued reading I liked the fact that Frank said he knew that the American obsession with cars and the way Americans used them “would be central to his story.” So he started photographing people doing everything in their cars from joy riding to sleeping but also how cars isolated people. Also, as Frank traveled towards the south he wasn’t prepared for the segregation that occurred there. He said that at first he wanted to deal with the presence of racism but soon started dealing with how he wanted to celebrate the openness that African Americans had compared to the Caucasians that he encountered. I found this funny because of the fact that he is still a foreign presence in this world, which allowed for his own experience of racism. The defining image of Charleston, SC for Frank was a black nurse holding a white baby, which I also found to be very iconic of what was deemed harmful and wrong during the 1940’s and 50’s in the deep south.

From this, it was interesting to see Frank shift his interest towards the focus of movement as a subject, capturing things that move and things that respond to his movements. Going to bars filled with cowboys and taking photos of his subject’s with their back’s turned and faces partially obscured “as if they were about to turn and confront him.” I think a lot of this also has to deal with the intimacy of the photographer to the subject, lying on the edge of immersing oneself into a completely different realm, in this case Frank not only in America but in a bar setting that he probably wouldn’t normally set himself in, especially if travelling with his family. Most of these photos also have bad lighting and are out of focus which suggests that he didn’t even look through the viewfinder when snapping the shots. This though I think was done more for secrecy from violent, drunk cowboys in a 1950’s bar. Another aspect about Frank that I liked was how he traveled and focused on different things, things that were unexpected and unfamiliar. Though from traveling Frank had to experience things that would end up shaping his photography such as racism. Like the Mississippi boys calling him a communist and the sheriff telling him that he had one hour to get out of town, and even being stopped by the police in Arkansas because he was “a shabbily dressed foreigner whose car with New York License plates was heavily loaded with suitcases, trunks and a number of cameras.” Frank said that incidents like this only increased his passion for the people on the street and his determination to make them “the meat of the book.” Also, these incidents have made him fearless and willing to photograph anything, which to me made him a much better photographer. Now he could have the ability to capture whatever he wanted, because regardless he would most likely still get barraged with racist comments. Another aspect from the reading that I found interesting was the fact that Frank said that Americans had incorporated religion into their lives and “transformed it into a commodity to be purchased and consumed,” like crosses with Christ placed in stores above racks of merchandise. If this was the issue going on during the 50’s, then it’s surprising that it’s still continuing today. I don’t think it’s as prevalent as it was during the 1950’s but I do think that the idea of turning religion into some sort of commodity that can be bought and just placed back into the world of production is something to watch. While continuing to read the section just on the years of 55-57, I found it interesting that Frank had ultimately traveled more than 10,000 miles over a year, photographing every step of the way, and knowing that when he got back that he wanted to do a photobook, and he wanted it to be just right. Frank stated that the editing process allowed him to “come into the core” of what he wanted to express, so he spent 3 to 4 months just editing. Everything from the sequence of the book to the paper quality and book size was what Frank found to be important to the photobook technique. This is very true though, because otherwise the book is just another book with photographs placed in it.

In the next set of reading’s titled Resisting Intelligence: Zunich to New York, the author continued to talk about Frank’s photography and his career. One interesting thing that I found while reading was that Frank was moved to see the “impact that a group of photographs could have when united in a book,” and he looked at photography as a “seductive mean of communication and a way to define issues of national significance and personal importance.” One last thing that Frank stated that I found to be really provoking was towards artwork in general, stating that “to come out with something that is personal or will not be understood, to satisfy yourself rather than the public, that’s the important thing.” This is something I strive to do with my photography and all of my artwork in general, to be as unique as possible and to continue doing your artwork regardless of what anyone may say or do. The third set of reading’s titled Transforming Destiny into Awareness: the Americans, Frank said that he wanted to express his opinion of America in his photographs and reveal nothing less than what he perceived to be the kind of civilization born here and spending elsewhere.” I think that Frank simply wanted his photographs to tell the absolute truth of what he thought of America and what he thought should be shown to America’s audience, which at times wasn’t always good. One really interesting fact that Frank stated about the sequencing process of the photobook was that he used the allure of the human face and the power of the gaze to move readers through the book, and how his photographs echo his act of looking, so the viewer get’s to experience the photograph as if they were actually there.

In the last set of readings on the Japanese photobook, I found a lot of really unique fact’s that I didn’t expect from Japanese photobooks at all. For example, for magazines the format goes by photographers sending in monthly installments which could be anywhere from 2 to 16 pages, and the better the spread, the more likely it is that the photos will be reproduced in a book format. It seems that the photographs are judged just as much as they are here in America which actually isn’t that surprising; the mass media’s need for good photographs in a medium that will be shown probably all over the world has always been prevalent. Another topic that I found to be interesting was the fact that Japanese photography was first looked at as the aspects of Japan but not what was current in Japanese photography, up until the exhibition at the MOMA in New York. One last thing that I found to be pretty cool was where the author said that “in many such books, order is abandoned in favor of the trial and error pairing of images on a spread.” This is something that I do so that thing’s don’t get too complicated, although sometimes you really need to pay attention to the order and sequencing of the photographs, especially if it’s going into book format. Overall, I really found all the readings to be inspirational to the order and process of making a photobook, from taking the photographs to actually making the book, choosing a theme and making everything work as a whole. The process may be difficult but it is definitely one that’s worth doing to make a unique photobook in the end.

Readings 2

The first time I looked at Robert Frank’s, The Americans, I thought it was a random collection of images of America. After reading more about it and studying the sequence, I am moved by the deeply personal experience that Frank is sharing. It is a portrait of America that for the most part, is still reality. Frank, as an outsider, managed to see the truth of America better than any American at the time.

It was cool to read about the process that Frank went through and how his experiences, rather than his ideas or intentions started to take over the project. In the beginning, he did not know how complex and difficult it would be. He wanted the photographs to be poetic and beautiful. His list of symbols and places provided a framework for what to photograph, but his observation and experience expanded the content of his photographs. As an outsider, he was able to see things that Americans could not, such as what impacts the ways they interact. He said the segregation and racism of the south was a completely new experience, but he also found a group of Americans he could relate to as an outsider. His experiences exposed him to the truth of America. After looking at some of his pictures for the first time, he realized his pictures could not all be beautiful and poetic, because it was not reality.

I have had similar experiences when working on projects. Once I start taking pictures, I realize what is really true or possible about my idea. It is like a scientific experiment. I start with a hypothesis and a way of carrying out the experiment, but I learn what will work and what will not by doing the experiment.

His style of photographing also changed. He realized the breadth of subject matter and symbols was immense. He could not spend too much time thinking about taking the picture. The quote from Allen Ginsberg, “First thought, best thought” is good advice. When I think too much about when to take a picture, I miss the moment I was waiting for. I try to take pictures when I feel it is the right moment. I end up with a lot of pictures, but one of them is the moment I wanted.

Some of the things Frank discovered in his travels were things I had never thought about before. For example, he noticed that the rich were harder to find because they stayed out of the public view. The public was made up of middle and working class people, whereas the rich create a private world for themselves as seen in Frank’s photograph of the woman at the charity ball.

The first time I looked through the book, the sequence of the photographs seemed to be random. Now I realize that Frank was telling the story of American through the juxtaposition of opposites. Sequence does not have to be chronological or geographically organized to be narrative. Frank makes comparisons to show the diversity and inequality he sees and he uses reoccurring symbols throughout the book to reinforce ideas and tie the book together. I like the idea of the photobook being like a poem which must be read over and over again to understand. Every reading reveals new layers and a deeper understanding. It reminds me of a poetry class I took where I did not fully understand the meaning of the poem until the teacher explained it.

Japanese photobooks present very interesting and innovative ideas and ways of using the photobook form. American photobooks, like Frank’s, The Americans showed subjective pictures. They challenged the idea of photography to objectively show the world. Japanese photographers took this idea even further by completely separating photography from its potential to document or tell a story. The photographs themselves were objects and this was reinforced in the blurry, grainy aesthetic. If you cannot tell exactly what the picture is or what the context is, then it is a photograph, an object, not a window to the world. The objectness is reinforced by every part of the bookmaking process: design, sequence and printing. I never realized how the actual printing of the picture, besides black and white or color or the choice of paper, could affect the meaning. The type of process can enhance different elements, such as the nostalgic feel of offset printing or the physicality of gravure printing.

Second Set of Readings

In the readings that described the years before Robert Frank's The Americans, I enjoyed learning about the incidents and events that shaped Frank's vision of what he wanted his photobook to be. The history gave more depth to understanding Frank's choice of pictures as well as his sequencing. Robert Frank sequencing of his pictures showed that he had a motive and purpose for the order of his pictures. His photobook was his voice and response to what was happening around him - what he saw has he experienced and came to know America. While reading the discussion of The Americans, I could not help but wonder what a conversation with the people pictured in his book would be like. Frank's photobook showed his perception of America, I imagine if those he photographed would agree with what he thought they were going through at the time he took a picture of them.

The readings about Japanese photography really fascinated me. I really liked how Japanese photography in the photobook was designed to their culture. As the author puts it, There are hints and clues that can only be understood by the people "in the know."As an outsider, my first look at Japanese photography was more of confusion but after reading the article, I appreciate this confusion. I appreciate that the Japanese photobook, in terms of sequence, non-narrative, placement of pictures and text, is how the Japanese view photography and that the photographers do not subject themselves to a particular norm. The very last spread showing the elderly man and the the bonfire characterizes my understanding of what Japanese photography is about. The two pictures are sort of not related. The cropping and placement of the picture of the elderly man looking at the fire with intensity in his face makes me wonder what the photographer wants me to know. Everything about the spread speaks intention and I wonder if my lack of understanding of the spread is due to my status as an outsider. This type of photography differs from western photography. Robert Frank's The Americans and Paul Senn's Bauer und Arbeiter have a more global perspective. They deal with situations that are universal to all and both photographer's translate this in their sequencing and choice of photographs.

Second Readings

The readings about the years leading up to Robert Frank's photobook was an interesting read explaining the what really pushed him into his concept of The Americans. This also in some ways explained out why he choose to the particular order of images displayed in his book, and the fact that after so many reprints he still stays with the same sequencing just shows how important the order was to him. It talks about how he was simply documenting his experiences and then of how he came to perceive the US, which he tried to accomplish in a non judgmental way.

I really enjoyed the reading about the Japanese photobooks and looking at the way the images were arranged on the page. It was interesting how much their culture had an impact on the design of the books. The reading helped explain it more so why at a first glance the layout seems like a lot to handle. However after finishing the article and studying the images again, they began to have more rhythm and working consistency then I had thought when I just looked at the images. I liked seeing the difference of Robert Frank's book and the japanese books, because one is of Robert Frank being an outsider looking into a culture, and the other is of an outside viewer looking into an photographer inside the culture.

Second Set of Readings

Several things stood out to me in the readings focused on Robert Frank’s The Americans. The first was the way the sequencing of people before images (even ones on the next pages) and the orientation of their eyeline could create the effect that the people are looking at or away from the following image. I had previously realized this worked in a more literal sense when two photographs are next to each other on a spread, but the way this works subtly in Frank’s photos sequenced one after the other is powerful and one I think I will consider when making other photobooks for class.

I also found interesting the discussion of motion vs. stasis in Frank’s photos. While Frank doesn’t do too many effects to visually simulate motion (although there is some blurred imagery such as the blurred car behind the people on the bench), there is still a strong visual presence of motion or stasis by the subject matter and composition of his photos. I think this is focus on motion and statis is also tied to his motif of the car which he constantly repeats as a way to show both potential for extreme motion and, when still, powerful stasis in American life.

Finally, I started to think about whether Frank’s book was more a work of art or a work of photojournalism (or a combination of the two since they are not mutually exclusive). What I came to think was that the creation of photos themselves, while certainly having artistic intention behind them, seems to be much more along the documenting lines of photojournalist work. However, it is in the sequencing of these photos that Frank creates his art, using repetition and juxtaposition to express his ideas about American life.