Category: as written

Some References: Theory

Posted on Posted in as written, minimum daily requirement, The Why, Theory, visual mindTagged , , ,

books from the theory shelf. Would be considered as starting places in a course approaching the image making process. These are theory texts. Use these to build out a vocabulary. Build that vocabulary into your dictionary of ideas and image prompts.

— Barthes, Image-Music-Text. “consists of thirteen essays published by Roland Barthes between 1961 and 1973. As a whole, the pieces track Barthes’ movement from an influential early theorist of semiotic analysis and structuralism to his emergence as a major poststructuralist thinker. Sometimes, indeed, one essay will challenge, revise, and correct the preceding essay: having offered an “Introduction to the Structural Analysis of Narrative” (1966), the next essay, “The Struggle with the Angel” (1971), asserts that it is attempting “textual analysis,” not structural analysis. Stylistically, the essays include methodically analytical essays laden with highly specialized terminology (like “Structural Analysis”), ” see this

— Barthes, Camera Lucida. This title served as prompt for me to pull out this list of texts. “The book investigates the effects of photography on the spectator (as distinct from the photographer, and also from the object photographed, which Barthes calls the “spectrum”).”

— Bolton, The Contest of Meaning. The Contest of Meaning summarizes the challenges to traditional photographic history that have developed in the last decade out of a consciously political critique of photographic production. Contributions by a wide range of important Americans critics reexamine the complex—and often contradictory—roles of photography within society. Douglas Crimp, Christopher Phillips, Benjamin Buchloh, and Abigail Solomon Godeau examine the gradually developed exclusivity of art photography and describe the politics of canon formation throughout modernism. Catherine Lord, Deborah Bright, Sally Stein, and Jan Zita Grover examine the ways in which the female is configured as a subject, and explain how sexual difference is constructed across various registers of photographic representation. Carol Squiers, Esther Parada, and Richard Bolton clarify the ways in which photography serves as a form of mass communication, demonstrating in particular how photographic production is affected by the interests of the powerful patrons of communications. The three concluding essays, by Rosalind Krauss, Martha Rosler, and Allan Sekula, critically examine the concept of photographic truth by exploring the intentions informing various uses of “objective” images within society. from publisher

— Burgin, Thinking Photography “The essays presented in this collection contribute to the[ THEN , 1982] emerging theory of photography, aiming to establish a materialist analysis that transcends traditional criticisms. They explore the significance of photography as a practice of signification within specific social contexts, advocating for an interdisciplinary approach that acknowledges the complex relationships between representation and the represented. Key discussions include the distinction between photography theory and criticism, sociological dimensions of photographic institutions, and the importance of meaning production in understanding photography’s role in society.

— Campany, The Cinematic, “The cinematic has been a springboard for the work of many influential artists, including Victor Burgin, Philip-Lorca diCorcia, Stan Douglas, Nan Goldin, Douglas Gordon, Cindy Sherman, and Jeff Wall, among others. Much recent cinema, meanwhile, is rich with references to contemporary photography. Video art has taken a photographic turn into pensive slowness; photography now has at its disposal the budgets and scale of cinema. This addition to Whitechapel’s Documents of Contemporary Art series surveys the rich history of creative interaction between the moving and the still photograph, tracing their ever-changing relationship since early modernism.”

— Cotton, The Photograph as Contemporary Art, “Arranged thematically, the book reproduces work from a vast span of photographers”

— Sontag, On Photography, “In On Photography, Sontag examines the history and contemporary role of photography in society. She contrasts the work of Diane Arbus with Depression-era documentary photography and explores the evolution of American photography from Walt Whitman‘s idealistic notions to the cynicism of the 1970s.”

— Trachtenberg, Classic Essays on Photography, 1980, “Containing 30 essays that embody the history of photography, this collection includes contributions from Niepce, Daguerre, Fox, Talbot, Poe, Emerson, Hine, Stieglitz, and Weston, among others.” Alan Trachtenberg was Neil Gray, Jr., Professor Emeritus of English and American Studies at Yale University.

picture post… Burnside Powells

Posted on Posted in as written, book shelf, minimum daily requirement, On The Road, picture post

from walkabout.. driving by, during rain, went too quickly. These were the slower version, a day or so later. The blue windows got me. In the mist, they seemed bluer than in this AM sun.

Text on the table was Auerbach’s Mimesis. Picked up in Portland during 2014 trip. What does that have to do with the pictures … don’t know, yet.

mimesis notes -- prompts, since the answer changes more often than the question
-- what is reality
-- what is a portrayal (of reality)
math itself is an analysis, a synthetic formulation of reality./ it proves and approves itself
by definition... is math a science or a philosophy

LONG QUOTE, from the epilogue, which I took as my prelude around 1963..
"the interpretation of reality through literary representation or “imitation,” has occupied me[ Auerbach] for a long time. My original starting point was Plato’s discussion in book 10 of the Republic—mimesis ranking third after truth—in conjunction with Dante’s assertion that in the Commedia he presented true reality. As I studied the various methods of interpreting human events in the literature of Europe, I found my interest becoming more precise and focused. Some guiding ideas began to crystallize, and these I sought to pursue.
The first of these ideas concerns the doctrine of the ancients regarding the several levels of literary representation—a doctrine which was taken up again by every later classicistic movement. I came to understand that modern realism in the form it reached in France in the early nineteenth century is, as an aesthetic phenomenon, characterized by complete emancipation from that doctrine. This emancipation is more complete, and more significant for later literary forms of the imitation of life, than the mixture of le sublime with le grotesque proclaimed by the contemporary romanticists. "

bee shit

Posted on Posted in as written, creativity, fact, overnight notes, the fora

Keeping the image from falling too far. “the misty territory of truthful fiction”

imagery stimulates the creative.. often stepping across the boundary setup by prior makers. An image type, structure, content, will make it into another mode. Ads/Art/Commerce/Collection.

People who like photographs to be of things, make photographs of things they like .. The things they like often are places; often large places, with large cameras. These same photographers rarely make photographs of people … frequently they avoid people.. 

When presented an image, an object, a picture of people … people presented without adornment, without background ,so that your attention is directed towards only that person..if you don’t like that type of person, you won’t like that photograph.  You probably won’t like the photographer. You may feel confronted, intimidated.

Too often, a hardened view becomes a prejudice. Unexamined, so extending into more matters. Their prejudice extends deeper than their aesthetic matters, it has to vilify, not only them ,but those like them, even those who like them — a prejudice down to explaining the glasses. Maybe even cameras, cities

We know, of course, these critics  don’t apply such level of scrutiny to themself. Instead they conform. Limiting what they know to when they were 30.

Richard Avedon [1923-2004] , in 1979, was commissioned by the Amon Carter Museum [Fort Worth, TX, aka Cow Town] to produce photographs attentive to to people with overlooked occupations — to summarize the West. The overlooked westerner. Laura Wilson, a Dallas photographer, worked with Avedon on the project.

[ Richard Avedon died in San Antonio, TX, on assignment…]. His work, in overview, is here.

>> I like the picture. Obviously, it was staged; most beekeepers don’t wear their bees. But it’s still a natural picture – its natural bee behavior. I think those who were against Avedon before…are the ones who were most vocal about this picture when it comes out.— Ronald Fisher. Not from “.. some place up north…” Still selling Vacant Acres honey[2024]

Initial contact. Davis, California, which, even to this day is in the West, not the north… within CA is is east of San Francisco.

Richard Avedon – Ronald Fisher, Beekeeper, Davis, California, May 9, 1981, printed 1985

Note: Bay Area Avedon: “A career retrospective that covered all areas of Avedon’s photography, it was Avedon’s initial collaboration with the curator and museum director David Ross.  The first of Avedon’s photographs from In the American West debuted at Berkeley, an oversized portrait of Boyd Fortin, the rattlesnake skinner.  The show was disrupted (though not closed) when Avedon’s 30-foot-long mural of Andy Warhol and Members of the Factory was vandalized by a visitor who tossed an iodine-filled balloon at Warhol’s head, destroying the photograph. ” — UNIVERSITY ART MUSEUM, BERKELEY, CA, 1980

Links, refs:

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It took years for Carnie to see behind the mask: