PH 302 Theory and Criticism
Photography: Theory & Criticism will examine historic and contemporary philosophical, aesthetic, and epistemological topics addressing the evolution of theories germane to contemporary photographic discourse. As a class, we will address structuralism, post-structuralism, deconstruction, semiotics, and the taxonomy of visual representation from simulacrum to social classification analysis. Conceptual understanding and the successful application of the topics addressed throughout this course are designed to further develop your photographic lexicon. The application of thoughtful, theory-based ideas can be employed to promote visual solutions to challenges in the design, execution, and creation of your work. Theories and topics discussed in the readings will be introduced with supporting imagery for discussion and debate.
Active discussion and participation are core requirements of this course.
Kevin Cummings
ReplyDeleteTheory an Crit
Lucy Lippard
In this essay, it is easy to see that Lucy Lippard is explaining to us that when documenting history, we make a statement just on how we pose our subjects. In the example used, the artist, photographed an Indian family. She makes them look sweet and innocent, not savage like. She does this by having them low to the ground, like they are close with nature, and was able to capture them in a relaxed mode.
In a sense, everyone who takes a picture is a tourist because we want to document what we see so we can relive that moment years later when looking at the pictures. If we go to another country, we want to see traditional dress, even if it isn't what the natives would wear daily. We are drawn to different cultures and need to capture that moment.
Lutz and Collins
There are many ways to look at a photograph. We can look at it through the eyes of the camera and see what the photographer saw, the magazine gaze and the even the educated gaze.
These different gazes can bring on different meanings. If we look at it in the magazine gaze, we are looking at the image from the point of the editor. That is, how he/she wanted to tell the story. This is done by cropping, and placing the images in a certain order in the spread. When looking at it as an educational gaze, we are actually learning something from the image. We decipher what's in the frame, breaking down each piece and take away a knowledge that we might not have known before.
Thoughts on Lippard: Her point about, “we can only relate our responses in terms of what we know. And as a nation we don't know enough.” sums up my feelings pretty nicely about this reading. Every time she posed a question I found myself screaming in my head an answer. I do agree that this photograph embodies a ephemeral moment and that it doesn't have the feeling of “flat death.” I find it difficult not to think in terms of time and otherness but I'm not “invaded” by it like Lippard is. I feel as though I know these people because of the ease I feel when I see their expressions and the sense of family and love. When Lippard says that this is “sympathetic photography,” I don't agree and I think instead she's confusing her own sympathy for the family in this photograph instead. When she pointed out in the second take of the identity of Schaffer it ruined the reading for me. Being called a tourist is like an insult in a way for me. Yes Mary was a tourist but that's just the bottom line. She is more than that to this family and that's why it ruined it for me.
ReplyDeleteThoughts on Lutz & Collins: It may just be me, but why do these gazes matter? Reading this just gave all the different ways that I “see” a title or category and for what? I don't mean to sound like I don't care but putting these gazes into categories ruins the allure of how I see images. I don't think I should be categorizing the view in which I see an image or a person. Not saying the categories are a bad thing just in my opinion a waste of time. It creates an even bigger barrier now between me and what I see and I don't think that should happen anymore than it already does.
Lippard: I really enjoyed how she did different "takes" on reviewing the image. It's like she was telling us a story every new time she saw the image. It was interesting learning as to why some Indian people do not like to be photographed, believing it takes the soul. Which I can kind of see, like Lippard said, the Beaver family is now living with her in her house, in the photograph. I also enjoyed how she explained the relationships between the photographer and the subject, the race either has makes a big difference. I also found it interesting how there are not many Native photographers, even today, because of what they dealt with having people take their pictures in such a way, searching for the "noble savage." Schaffer managed to bridge the gap between the photographer and the photographed and the white and Native with the picture of the Beaver family and I think it is awesome that bridge is still there today.
ReplyDeleteLutz and Collins: This article was interesting to me because I did not know there were so many different types of gazes, especially in National Geographic. I really liked how they went into detail about each type of gaze. One that stood out to me most were the non-Western subject's gaze. It was quite interesting to hear all the reasons as to why and what people look at different directions in the picture. The other type of gaze that really stood out to me was the refracted gaze of the other: to see themselves as others see them. Even after reading about it, its still weird to me that some people never really see what they look like and how a photograph can act like a mirror, except when looking at a photograph of oneself, we notice the picture doesn't look away when we do.
Lippard:
ReplyDelete"good photography can embody what has been seen"
A lot of photographs only capture what was there in that space, and doesnt capture the feeling or the special-ness of WHY the photograph was taken in the first place. most of the photos that we are drawn to have something extra on top of just whats in the frame.
Lutz and Collins:
"The photograph and the non-Western person share two fundamental attributes in the culturally tutored experience of most Americans; they are objects at which we look."
We travel around the world and take pictures of things and people that are not the normal to us. but to say it's just americans, it's a little silly. When I walk from Back Bay to Copley there are literally 3-4 buses full of asian people, taking pictures of the people walking by and all the buildings. Even when I was in China people would ask me to take pictures with them because I was American. Back in the day though this was something very true. Photos of other people and cultures were something to covet. we wiped out the majority of the native american population and yet we've exploited them in images. Its a worldwide thing these days, when we see something that isnt common or from the "outside", we flock and want to see what it is and a photograph is proof.
Lutz and collins - i thought this was very interesting i didn't realize that each gazes meant some thing different. i thought it was interesting how they different gazes went with another one. l like how they were separated by each gaze. i thought it was an interesting view on each gaze that before reading the article that i didn't even know about.
ReplyDeleteLippard - i thought it was very interesting on her view of the image because she is analyzing a post card which is reproduced and sent through the mail. i though it was interesting when she states that the images lies in her home which i think is partly true because she does have the post card in her home but it is a reproduced and that the original does not reside in her home she doesn't know where the original is at.
Lippard's process of using this photo to describe the gaze was a perfect example. "Schaffer's photograph is a microcosmic triumph for social equality as expressed through representation. The discontinuity and distinctiveness that usually characterized cross-cultural experience are translated here into a certain harmony or the illusion thereof. The way she deconstructed the photograph as how it basically travels through time to meet us as the viewer and bring a lot into perspective regarding culture, race and gender. I find the "tourist" idea to be very interesting as well. Are all photographs just tourist photographs?
ReplyDeleteLutz/Collins: The opinion of this gaze seems great and all but it just seems too judgmental... I understand where these stereotypes come from on how males end up being photographed, or women or other countries, but I guess I just need a better explanation of this gaze. If not explanation but more of a different perspective because it seems all too subjective.
---Are we as photographers considered tourists? Yes I believe so whether it is in our own backyard or not, as photographers we photograph what is interested to us and we are separating ourselves from the world between us and the camera.
---Are "gazes" different depending upon, person, place, culture, gender? I believe that this could be true in the sense that we do have these social patterns we follow based off of other works like modeling and what not, like Lutz and Collins describes, but I can also see that it deepens on the photographers gaze which is what determines the subjects gaze.
--- What "gaze" would be the most important? I believe the photographers gaze to be the most important because it is their vision in the first place, it is their decision to choose a subject and portray their vision onto that subject therefore creating the opportunity for the subjects gaze to occur, but referencing on the photographers original gaze.
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Lippard – I thought this reading was rather sweet. I know that I wouldn’t have put that much thought into an image I received on a postcard. It wasn’t until she began talking about the serene and kind expressions on their faces that I realized myself how rare that was for the time period. We know view this image as a rarity and appreciate it for what it is and means to us now and then. All images have a context but that context can change as time changes and moves on.
ReplyDeleteLutz and Collins – I really liked this article because it really broke down something that many of us do automatically. When you have an assignment to do you consider your audience and the possible means in which the work may be viewed. When shooting for a magazine you need to consider your readers, the layout of the page, the intent of the article and the meaning the company intends for the image.
Lippard: There was a point in this essay where I kind of forgot that Lippard was only talking about one photograph for its entirety. She completely breaks the photo down in so many different ways, which I enjoyed because her various takes and questions on the image gave it a different story or idea. This made me feel like I was looking at a different photograph every time. With each take on the postcard I found myself going back and just looking at the image over again just to see what I thought of it then. With this I can agree with Lippard when she states that it doesn’t have the feeling of “flat death.”
ReplyDeleteLutz and Collins: I found this essay interesting, only because so far, I have only ever really thought about breaking down the way we view photographs from the photographer’s perspective, and the subjects perspective. So this gave me something way more to think about on how one can interoperate an image. I feel the way these categories of “gazes” are set up were really interesting to think about and had a lot of detail and reasoning to help each one. Nonetheless, I felt like they were too specific. Some of these viewpoints, however interesting, I felt really didn’t matter. All of these “gazes” give one image different meanings, and can contradict one another, or give a simple image meaning far more complex than what is seen. But I feel like the specificity of the categories mentioned in the essay takes away from viewing an image.