Suggested Reading/Viewing: Text with Image

The suggested items were intended to illustrate the use of text with images.

Janet Cardiff – Alter Bahnohoff Video
The tutor provided a link to an eight-minute excerpt from the full 26-minute film, a project within a project, in which the camera records someone viewing a film on a mobile device.  The point of view is the viewer.  All we see of the viewer is his right hand holding the mobile device.  The film being watched was shot in the same train station in which the viewer is standing. As the view in the film moves around the station, so too does the viewer, creating a film within a film.  This is an intriguing idea, but after you figure out what is happening, there is little left to see and you are left to follow the narration, which I didn’t find particularly engaging.  This is an example of aural text.

http://www.cardiffmiller.com/artworks/walks/alterbahnhof_video.html

Review: Traud, Heller, Bell eds (2006). Education of a Photographer. NY: Allworth Press. Section Four: Guides for the Uneducated: Higher Education and Photography

Section Four:  Guides for the Uneducated: Higher Education and Photography

John Szarkowski - Commitment (1962)

Photo director of the MoMA calls on educators to commit themselves to exploring the unknown through photography, thereby inspiring a new generation with equal commitment.

“If we commit our work, then our students may commit theirs, to the business of probing and exploring life, including all those intuitively sensed realities for which we have not yet found formal expression.”

Review: Traud, Heller, Bell eds (2006). Education of a Photographer. NY: Allworth Press. Section Three: The Legends

Section Three:  The Legends

Alexey Brodovitch - Brodovitch on Photography

Unfortunately, the extract is not referenced.  Shame as it is quite good:  clearly written and obviously based on years of experience as an editor and teacher.

On what makes good photograph:

“A photograph is tied to its time—what is good today may be a cliché tomorrow.”

“...the problem of the photographer is to discover his own language, a visual ABC’s to explain this event. The photograph is not only a pictorial report; it is also a psychological report. It represents the feelings and point of view of the intelligence behind the camera.”

“It is every photographer’s responsibility to discover new images and a new personal way of looking at things. If he can do this his pictures will command attention and have surprise quality.”

He notes the insipidness of most images and feels that much of this comes from too much attention to staging images, rather than letting them happen.

“...things should be used which could happen, not things which are obviously posed, obviously artificial only to meet the needs of that ad.”

He believes cropping is an important tool, even though some purists insist on perfecting framing within the camera at the time of the event.  He argues that photographers should make three to four prints from each negative cropped differently.

On the act of seeing/looking:

“There are two phases of seeing in the making of a picture. The first takes place when the photograph is actually shot. This is when the instinctive decision is made which results in the picture being recorded on the film. The second seeing comes in examining the contact prints of the pictures. It is important to be able to recognize the pictures which express your viewpoint and also how these pictures can be printed and cropped to bring out that view point. It is also important to be able to recognize the lucky accidents which can often result in good pictures.”

On developing style, he notes the tendency of new photographers to shoot everything and anything.

“He must learn that shooting just for the sake of shooting is dull and unprofitable and he must develop a general tendency in his work. With this maturity the photographer will begin to develop his own photographic vocabulary to express new discoveries of vision and understanding.”

On education, he notes that in his job as editor he could always tell from which school students had arrived as they delivered images of similar style and presentation.  He fears too much cliche is the product of formal education. 

“Rather than a teacher in the accepted sense, what is required is someone to tease or irritate the student and to help him discover himself.”

Finally, on the career prospects of photographers, he notes:

“The creative life of a commercial photographer is like the life of a butterfly. Very seldom do we see a photographer who continues to be really productive for more than eight or ten years.”

Review: Traud, Heller, Bell eds (2006). Education of a Photographer. NY: Allworth Press. Section Two: How Others See Them: Considering the Photographer

Section Two:  How Others See Them: Considering the Photographer

William Klein - Brian Palmer, from Klein Symposium Statement

Written by a student-assistant who arranged NYC shoot for Klein describing an evening at CBGBs with attention to Klein's demeanour and working method.

“One gets the impression from watching him work (and talking to him) that he’s damn near self-sufficient, almost self-contained. He moves through space and among people with authority, as if he’s moving through his own living room among guests. Klein assumes he has the right to be there, wherever there may be; and moreover, that he’s got the right to photograph. He’s relaxed when approaching people, thoroughly un-self-conscious and self-assured. Klein gets close to people, literally steps into their space; he comes close enough to intrude—and close enough to be turned away.”

“Klein works like an irritant and a catalyst. He’s bold, often intrusive, not surreptitious in the least. He’s not after candids. Klein imposes himself on situations. And people perform for Klein; they primp, posture, clown, menace. People go off for Klein.... Though Klein is not in the picture, it’s apparent that he has caused or provoked a particular situation into being; his presence is unmistakable in the photograph.”

Interesting to note the professional arrived at the gig with uncharged flashes.  The assistant lent his. 

Review: Traud, Heller, Bell eds (2006). Education of a Photographer. NY: Allworth Press. Section One: Reflections on the Medium:What It Means to Photograph Pt 2

Daile Kaplan:  The Soul of the Image and Visual Literacy (2005)

An essay that appears to be intended for wide public dissemination, such as a newspaper editorial, highlighting the importance of visual literacy in shaping responsible citizenry.  Briefly reviews the history of intellectual and public policy efforts to raise awareness of visual literacy as well as outlining a few current projects (in the U.S.), concluding with a call to action from the reader. 

Vilém Flusser - Towards a Philosophy of Photography (extract) (1984)

Minuscule extract in which the author argues that against the developmental tide turning humans into products of their machines, or apparatuses, photographers seem to have retained some degree of freedom on their production of images.  For the photographer, freedom “equals playing against the apparatus.”  Must look into the full text of this one.

Review: Robert Capa: The Definitive Collection

Following on from Linfield’s review of Robert Capa’s work in Cruel Radiance, I was fortunate to find this tome of a text in the university library, nearly 1000 images in 600 pages covering Capa’s entire 22 year career.  Presented thus it seems so slight.  It helps to recall that photography was not always a near instant process of shoot, edit in camera, and upload.  It might have taken weeks before images were processed and published.  Sometimes they might not have been seen at all.  Two examples worth noting from Capa’s life are shots from Omaha Beach, the US Army landing in Normandy in which Capa participated at great risk to his own life.  All but 11 images of the landing were destroyed by a careless lab worker in London, while images of US soldiers abusing German captives were prohibited from being published by US military censors.