Review: Linfield, Susie (2010). The Cruel Radiance: Photography and Political Violence. Chicago University Press. Ch 7-9

 Chapters 7:  Robert Capa: The Optimist

This last third of the text is the most challenging.  Linfield profiles three photographers (Capa, Natchwey, and Peress) to highlight different approaches to the problems raised in the previous sections.  She quotes quite extensively, describing numerous photos, but showing very few.  In the absence of pictures, or an appreciation of the work based on extensive viewing, it is impossible to appreciate her reading of how these image makers deal with issues of suffering and truth.

Capa was one of the first great war photographers, winner of numerous awards, and highly respected by peers and public alike.  He was, as she points out, never described as a voyeur or a pornographer.  While ostensibly known as a war photographer, he specialized in work depicting life behind the lines.  He did not point his camera at brutality.  He in fact declined to shoot the liberated extermination camps of Europe.  This she finds more telling of the times and the state of politics, war, and violence before midcentury.

Review: Nakano, Masataka (2000). Tokyo Nobody. Little More: Tokyo.

Tokyo Nobody reminds me of New Year 1989.  I had been in Japan less than six months and wanted to get out of the small city where I was living for a visit to Tokyo.  What a better time to visit than New Year, when there would be all kind of excitement in such a huge international city.  It turned out to be quite the opposite and a wonderful learning opportunity.

Japan celebrates the same year end holidays as in the west.  They make a big to-do about Christmas, even though their traditional holiday is the new year.  Appearances, though, can be deceiving.  In spirit, the holidays are reversed:  New Year is the quiet family holiday spent at home with family and relatives, while Christmas is a time for parties, friends, and colleagues.  Had I known this I wouldn’t have been so eager to visit Tokyo.

Review: Linfield, Susie (2010). The Cruel Radiance: Photography and Political Violence. Chicago University Press. Ch 3-6

A Jewish woman walks toward the gas chambers with three young children after going through the selection process on the ramp at Aushwitz-Birkenau. May 1944. US Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Yad Vashem.

Chapter Three:  Warsaw, Lodz, Auschwitz: In the Waiting Room of Death

With Chapter Three Linfield begins an exploration of Place and Event, including the Nazi extermination camps, China’s Cultural Revolution, Sierra Leone’s civil war, and images from the wars of the Middle East.

Beginning with the Holocaust she examines the arguments surrounding the very powerful images of suffering and cruelty, specifically those produced by the Nazis themselves.  She observes that such images are some of the most morally vexing as they depict people soon to be murdered.  They demonstrate quite clearly that photographs in themselves have no moral power or authority. (And in a footnote - p72 - that such images published in wartime generally did not provoke the hoped for responses.) What does it mean, then, to look at such photos?  Should we look?  If so, how?

Review: Linfield, Susie (2010). The Cruel Radiance: Photography and Political Violence. Chicago University Press. Ch 1 & 2

From the copyright page (iv):  SUSIE LINFIELD is director of the cultural reporting and criticism program at New York University, where she is an associate professor of journalism. Her articles and essays have appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, Bookforum, the Boston Review, Dissent, and other publications. She was formerly an editor at American Film, the Washington Post, and the Village Voice.”

Chapter 1:  A Little History of Photography Criticism; or, Why Do Photography Critics Hate Photography?

There is much in the chapter to be reviewed and of the writers she discusses I have read only bits of Sontag and Barthes, two seminal writers in photographic theory who have an unfortunate disregard for the reader.  Linfield asserts that while these two have done much to shape a negative opinion of photos and photography, their suspicion and distrust can be traced back to Siegfried Kracauer, Walter Benjamin and, through him, Bertolt Brecht, who she holds primarily responsible for having first articulated a mistrust of the the photograph based on mistrust of emotions.  She argues that modern critics fail to particularize, to take account of Brecht’s situation and concerns in interwar Germany.

P&P: Exercise 18: How space changes with light

Coming soon.  Idea:  Mother's home at sunrise, high sun, sunset.

Review: Have A Nice Book

Richard Billingham // Ray's a Laugh from haveanicebook on Vimeo.

As a requirement for my photography course I was making my way through The Photograph as Contemporary Art when I came across a reference to Ray’s A Laugh, a photobook equivalent to an episode of The Jerry Springer Show.  Digging around a bit I found the book (published in 2000) now out of print, with used copies selling in excess of $150, more than $1.00 per page. Ouch.

P&P: Exercise 17: The user’s viewpoint

For this exercise we are to consider the use’s point of view for a space designed for a particular activity, considering height, orientation and focal length.  I have chosen to stay with the library theme established in with the previous exercise.  The first image looks at the entrance and front desk from two perspectives, the patron and employee, with the same space shot from opposite sides.

P&P Exercise 16: Exploring Function

With this exercise we are to consider and then document interior space with an emphasis on function.
I have chosen my college library, which is intended for use by the college faculty and students.  This space is not available for use by the public except perhaps on special occasions, such as festivals or other functions, or perhaps by special invitation.  As the building was erected in the early 90’s, I have no record of the designer’s intentions,  and so can only speculate on what was planned.  One thing seems certain.  The lack of closed space suggests it was not intended for archival purposes.  As this is not a research institution but vocational, and as many resources are now available electronically, the library currently serves to support students through the provision of learning space and resources – private study halls, conference rooms, computers, audio-visual equipment, IT support services, a café.  The building is circular in design and absent trees or some kind of multi-floor structure in the central atrium a lot of potential space on the first and second floors seems to have been wasted.  The open space and dome-shaped ceiling serve to amplify sound and make the ground floor quite noisy when there are more than a few students present.