“Having a story to tell and willingness to tell it, is nothing – a total zero… ability to do it is much more important and valuable…”
this is just a part of a very provocative, and soon to be very controversial comment, by one of our readers , Anthony RZ , under our most recent multimedia essay by Kerry Payne…so provocative, that i felt it should be right out here for general discussion…why? because it is one of the most important discussions in photography today in my view…..this topic has been discussed a bit before here on Burn and on my previous Road Trips blog, but i do not think it can ever be thought about enough…..please read the entire comment by Anthony…it will definitely make you jump one way or the other….
the discussion here should not be to single out Kerry who obviously has a heartfelt story to tell and who will most likely be moved to tears by the comment of Anthony….any form of diplomacy/sensitivity was clearly not his intent…however, he was honestly direct…..i do not want to fuel that fire for its own sake, yet at the same time with passions now raw among us and surely on full alert, this seems like a good time for more of a general discussion about content and form …about stories to tell….about the ability to tell them….about storytelling and storytellers….and clearly about the medium itself…and even about the purity of still photography and it’s morphing into multimedia….
obviously we all want a great story, brilliantly told…but, the question here put forth by Anthony is of priorities….
so, what do you think?
what is most important for you as a viewer: the story or the ability to tell it ?
Imants/mw: Please could you put up a link to the Pagetti piece you are referring to. Thanks.
http://magazine.viiphoto.com/feature/show/270
Yes. That really works, it has great strength. I feel I’m able to take my time, make my own connections, I don’t feel like it’s staged or too manipulated or overdone. It’s about photography and putting you there.
It’s real and it has an impact.It assumes the viewer is intelligent and thinking.
I love the simplicity.
Too much chatter and video mixed with stills just lessens it for me, I feel it’s too easy for the message to get lost in the busy-ness.
I hope I’m not too late to this party — just back in NY and finally online again.
I am immensely grateful to everybody who has taken the time to view this essay and share with me your feelings about it. I will address those more specifically in the Left Behind thread after I’ve re-read and considered all comments one more time.
David, I’m so pleased you started this dialog. The energy flowing from the discussion here gets right to the heart of all that is special about Burn Magazine and why it is such a valuable resource for the photographic community.
Is story or the ability to tell it well more important? In my own experience as a new entrant into the photo world, I was shooting around the edges of this subject, getting nowhere, really, until DAH gave me the push I needed to dive right into it. His advice at the time, ‘you gotta have something to say’… well, I had something to say and I am grateful to him for helping me make the leap from shooting subway musicians to something that can, and will, make a difference.
Can the photography improve? Yes. Can the construction of the essay be more polished? Yes. Does this essay in its current format make an impact on the people it is targeting? Yes. That much I know from the heartfelt comments I’ve received from so many who’ve been touched by suicide and have viewed it in all it’s rough-around-the-edges glory.
So for me, the story leads, and the way it is told will continue to improve with time and experience.
I’m not so sure I wanted to tell this story, but it needed to be told and I didn’t want to wait until it was perfect – whatever that might look like. My purpose was and is to raise awareness of this issue, to get people talking about suicide and hopefully to reduce the stigma and collateral damage it leaves behind year after year.
To that end, I am hungry to learn how to do justice to the courageous people who are willing to open their hearts and share their stories with us. This dialog and the essay feedback (the good, the bad and the ugly) is fuel for my fire as I continue my work on this project and to grow as a photographer.
Thank you.
Kerry
p.s. David, no, I was not moved to tears by Anthony RZ’s comments – although I do fully expect him to buy the first round should we ever meet in real life. ;-)
As to question of priorities, the story or the ability to tell it, my personal answer would nearly always be the ability to translate the story with the aforementioned visual acuity. My exception is along the lines of the mission of WITNESS and the dissemination of visual media by civilians (Civi that’s you!) against human rights abuses, or of Community Video Units, when the story must take absolute precedence, but certainly in these instances I am looking for information alone and the lack of authorship is ‘forgiven.’
Apples and oranges though, that way. So using the food metaphor, I think the larger question of what the public wants can’t be reduced to one answer; to me it’s the same scenario as exists with food, sustenance. There are plenty, most, who are satisfied with filling their hunger with whatever is in front of them without regard to quality or actual value, either because they have not been exposed to the other options, or because it actually suits their palate, or because they haven’t the means to acquire anything else. And there are others who wish to consume not only that which is wholesome, but that which was prepared and presented with a level of artistry. The latter group will sometimes be put in a position to take in lesser foods / (any given ill presented story as a method of sustenance), but they will always be aware of the lack they are experiencing and will most likely lament it. Then there are those who would rather go hungry than subject themselves to what is on the menu at the rest stop.
Kerry – welcome home! funny we both used the hungry analogy, simultaneous posting :)
Kerry
DAH isn´t here to say it right at this moment, so let me do it for him..you´re a class act!
best
Kathleen
Kerry,
My dearest and darling… despite my honest opinion about this particular essay, now I have a feeling that you are very close to me… You are a really strong and great person… the way you react to the criticism shows you have a great potential to grow as an artist… we all need cold showers from time to time even if they aren’t always entirely fair… Yes, Kerry, I would very much like to meet with you in person, especially after I looked at your picture:))… I have something as a present to you… I am going to travel around the world, so either New York or Australia are very likely places for us to meet… I am too shy to write you a private message though:)… with love and respect…
emcd, very well thought and precise metaphor…
now there’s a burn moment! (re: anthony’s message to kerry)
****************************
(wish we could have Marshall McLuhan at our roundtable discussion, the one who coined the phrase ‘the medium is the message’ – meaning “that the form of a medium embeds itself in the message, creating a symbiotic relationship by which the medium influences how the message is perceived. The phrase was introduced in his most widely known book, Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man, published in 1964.[1] McLuhan proposes that a medium itself, not the content it carries, should be the focus of study. He said that a medium affects the society in which it plays a role not only by the content delivered over the medium, but also by the characteristics of the medium itself.” http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=4693
a youtube version of his thinking: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n3ApZGGY9RU
“There is no agony like bearing an untold story inside of you.”
—Maya Angelou
YOU Photographers…you are blessed and cursed…
…and yeap…some of you be prepared to buy …many rounds…
oime…I am the proudest civilian
Universe Thank you…what have I done to deserve that ???
BURN is the place to be…
Go out BURNIANS…if you can’t do it…then who…
P.S Since I am in a remote area (I am drinking ouzo with ANTHONYRZ-big heart…and I can’t read many of the comments…don’t tell me that I have missed BOBBYB…:)))
Anthony RZ, Kerry
awwwwwwwww….:))
k-
hhhhmmm the story or the ability to tell it?
both do, and must have their place, both are interwoven. but what we have to accept is that that place is rapidly changing. what’s in the story? does it have to be about the other, can an individual step into a situation/event/culture/life/experience that they would normally not be a part of and tell the story of those who are really living it? for me NO, that false objectivity, to which many have and many still are aspiring to has fallen by the wayside. photography, for me, is about experience, the experience of whom? the photographer, and only the photographer. that is the only reality photography shows. that is the only subject or story that a photographer can author.
how the story is told has slowly changed since photography’s creation, and will do so for as long as we make technological advancements. lets not forget that photography is a technological medium. prints, books, galleries and now LCD screens all have their place in how we convey the stories we choose to tell, and will continue to do so. i can’t see how multi media pieces will make photography die a horrible death. its just the latest in a long line of technological advancements. this will excite some and challenge them to embrace it, to explore new possibilities and add the growing visual language. however it will frighten and anger others – who see it as a bastardisation of their beloved medium. they represent the conservative, who fear any change, for me the surest way of ensuring a horrible death.
in all things there are the good and the bad, but then, that is another subjective statement isn’t it. what’s good for me may not be for someone else, and vica-versa. this of course applies to the story that is being told and the way it is being told too. how bored am i of seeing pictures of dusty soldiers in iraq or afghanistan? very. but thats just me. the viewer. that doesn’t mean that the work is bad, the mode of conveying it wrong, or the story boring. it means that i’m not interested.
subjectivity, subjectivity, subjectivity!
i don’t think that there is a big controversial issue in what stories are chosen or how they are shown. multi media work is here to stay, and for me is a fantastic innovation. just look at magnum in motion for example, alex majoli’s requiem in samba and libra me, trente park’s minutes to midnight, are for me all outstanding.
Jamie Lynn Walker
A dry leaf does not burn without other crucial elements added to the mix. Burn burns because of the mix, not in spite of it. You are simply the latest to muse wistfully about how nice Burn would be without the extraneous chit-chat, sugared platitudes, sycophants and whatever other content displeases you. I have read most/all (?) your comments and found them to be considered, thoughtful and articulately expressed. I do not always agree with you but am always stimulated by what you have to say. How unfortunate that you would choose to filter out the voices of others whose style of expression, viewing reactions, discussion points rankle you.
Make no mistake about John Gladdy, a man of few words though he may be, he is also tolerant, thoughtful, kind and respectful to all comers. There was a self-portrait published once. To my mind it was iredeemably awful. And i said so. Short and sweet. John, on the other hand, went to great lengths over several posts to understand why the photo was not working. He gave the photographer every benefit of the doubt pondering whether it was the processing, camera, scanning or relative inexperience of the photographer before concluding that perhaps the photograph simply failed. I learned a lot from/about him that day.
And lest you think that nary a non-essential bit of text escapes his lips, he once posted this poem he wrote about photography that was so universal in its angst, self-doubts, self-deprecating wit that i printed it out and still find it inspirational. So, from the man who said this yesterday ¨I do not pretend to be a wordsmith, so I stay away from using words to paint with.¨, consider this:
My pictures suck,
My Pictures are fantastic
I am a great photographer.
I cannot take a pciture at all.
The high from a picture lasts about a day.
The low from missing lasts weeks.
My best pictures are works of art.
My best pictures are flukes.
pure luck
albatrosses.
The bar is too high.
aim lower?
Give up?
Get back on the horse?
…i don´t have a horse!
I have a camera.
But i don´t know how to make it work.
I am a hunter of light
Laying silver traps,
That are nearly always empty.
or worse: Average.
ok
not bad
useable
My pictures suck.
My pictures are fantastic.
I am a great photograopher.
I cannot take a picture at all.
Best
Kathleen
He totally nailed it with that poem!
as a photographer in progress, this conversation is something that i stand to learn much from. of course, utopia speaking, to have both a willingness to tell a story, as well as the tools available to make that story as effectively illustrated as possible, is what any photographer probably should strive for. a photographer with the greatest techniques, but no personal investment; i imagine their work to come across as detached and aloof. aesthetic ability at best can explain the what, the why, the where, the how, these aspects of a story. But the feeling of a story, that ‘extra’ that motivated the photographer to choose THIS story over an infinite amount of other stories that are out there. This I imagine to be less of a learned technique, and more reflective of the photographer as a person. To this end, I find personability, charisma, compassion and other likeminded personal traits to be just as important as any ability one can have. Of course, objectivity is important so we don’t get swallowed up in a story and lose a sense of perspective, but so is subjectivity – the ability to tell a story from the perspective of someone inside the story itself.
Presently, I teach photography to some of the kids in my neighborhood here in Panama City. Casco Viejo. A world heritage site, incredible architecture in all states of repair/disrepair, ongoing gentrification/restorations/economic revivals mean that the neighborhood is in a constant state of flux. One street will be identical to any street you might find in Old San Juan, another is more or less a no go zone. An able photographer might portray an eloquent story at a macro-level, giving spot-treatment to all sides involved, and illustrate how they interrelate with one another, within an area that takes five minutes to walk from one side to the other. My students tend to return with very micro-level stories, normally based around, ‘this is important to me’. The stories these kids come back with aren’t necessarily ‘ably constructed’, they haven’t had the benefit of years of practice/instruction/mentorship. But are they ‘a total zero’? Personally, I prefer that connection, that intimacy that they return with.
Forgive the rambling, these are just my thoughts [as jay-z famously said]. Of course, Burn is a magazine which, whether or not it explicitly stated, is dedicated to furthering photography as an art while it explores its storytelling capacity. Sometimes these two priorities intersect, sometimes they don’t, and sometimes they clash with one another. However, if we prioritize one over the other, or if we prioritize seamless fusions of the two, don’t we risk excluding something that we very well might be interested in seeing? If an audience refused to hear a story from one of my children because it was somehow not ‘ably’ constructed enough so as to please our eyes, would that say more about the abilities of that child, or about the priorities of the viewer? Without turning Burn or another such venue into a completely democratic forum like Flickr, where everyone can tell whatever they want to the point that it is impossible to hear anything over the cacophony, a photographer’s dedication to a story should be evaluated when considering its worth as a body of work, and no, I don’t think that this extra addition to the criteria would necessarily diminish the quality of work available. After all, isn’t passion a prerequisite to art?
Kathleen, thanks for John’s poem. Yes, absolutely.
Kerry, good to hear your comments. It sounds as if you have a pretty good take on the work, and the comments. Your essay is very powerful, and speaks so loudly to those of us who have been touched by suicide. It has clearly makes a difference.
This essay makes a good case to illustrate how in some instances, the story is so powerful that it overpowers any shortcomings the delivery might have. Despite being “rough around the edges”, it has a huge impact. Perhaps the roughness even underscores the rawness of the emotions being expressed and adds to the power of the piece.
Congratulations for taking this (and us) on.
KERRY….ANTHONY RZ
you are BOTH class acts…
cheers, david
SIDNEY…
i sure hope you are wrong, but you might be right…you surely might be right from a mass media standpoint, which in all honesty has never been the shining star for excellence anyway…..i guess i will be like Erica’s mythical roadside traveler who would rather go hungry than eat from the fast food menu….
cheers, david
David/Sidney
“in other words, as long as the visuals are “OK”, the seemliness and seamlessness of the total package… words, sound, music, pacing, still images, video.. working together… will be more important to most viewers than whether the visual acuity in particular is at a higher level… we might wish otherwise, but I think that is likely to be the case.”
So is effective communication the goal here or is the goal artistic expression? I know one is not exlusive of the other, but photographs, like words, are merely the tools of the storyteller. As photographers, we adore the image, and want every one to be a gem. However the “OK” photographs may be critical components of the whole piece. Every sentence does not have to be poetry or clever metaphor. I’ll happily wash down a Big Mac with a coke now and then.
Panos reminds us of the un-pretentious power of department store and school photographs. Many of the most powerful and moving photographs I’ve ever viwed are snapshots.
I’m not suggesting that we all settle down to make “OK, good enough” photographs, only that perhaps we need to examine our motivations and decide exactly what it is we are trying to achieve. Are we truly trying to tell a story about something we are passionate about, or are we just passionate about making cool photographs, and the story is just a convenient excuse for making them.
Kathleen, thanks for posting the poem by John and John; impressive!
Mike.
“p.s. David, no, I was not moved to tears by Anthony RZ’s comments – although I do fully expect him to buy the first round should we ever meet in real life. ;-)”
Wow, that’s about my definition of elegance. Way to go Kerry.
Anthony – thank you, tho if you had ever dined with me you would know it wasn’t much of a challenge to come up with the metaphor !
and DAH – you just made me realize that my mythical roadside traveler has another side; rather than go hungry, from experience (s)he is able to speculate on the territory ahead and goes to lengths to be sure there is a feast on board, so no one need go hungry due to their discernment. I think here in this metaphor you are driving and I’m just riding shotgun…but at least we’re in the same car :)
DAVID,
Actually, I would rather be wrong… I was speaking in the short-to-medium term… in the long run, I think high quality visuals will reassert themselves… Don’t know, of course… actually, I think the food analogies like Erica’s are good ones (I don’t mean my kumquats and kiwis)… There will always be a market for really inspiring cuisine somewhere… the question is, how many chefs can realistically support themselves by only catering to the high end market? And can the compilers and purveyors of media content really afford to turn up their noses at all but the very best visuals when they have other production values to juggle?
Aside from my gut feelings about what ‘the masses’ expect of photography and the media these days, I was reasoning a bit by analogy with the revolution brought about in the movie industry by the introduction of ‘talkies’ circa 1930… suddenly silent films became passé overnight… all the interest was in sound movies, even Chaplin couldn’t make a silent film that was profitable, but most of the early talkies were far inferior in visual qualities to the films of the last decade of the silent era, and except for the sound, not as good in story-telling qualities either… it took a good 7 or 8 years before the visual craftsmanship and storytelling of the late silent era reasserted itself in Hollywood films. Don’t just take my word for it, see Kenneth Brownlow’s book “The Parade’s Gone By.”
None of these, of course, are reasons for any of us not to aspire to the very highest level of quality and authorship. I mentioned seeing Alex Webb’s photos in the “Iron Silk Road” article in the August National Geographic on the now moribund “Trees and Dreams” thread… When I look at photography like that, I think, ‘…if this is what can be done, how could anyone settle for visual hamburgers?’
Rough percentage of importance, I think:
The story: 80%
The way you tell it: 20%
I’m struggling with both…and I guess you can get by without an initial story because a story will just eventually make itself after you take enough pictures and try to put some together to show someone what the heck you have been doing all the time…but having the story in the first place focuses you, and makes things much easier…I’m only learning this now…need to keep learning to stay alive…
I re-read David’s question:
“what is most important for you as a viewer: the story or the ability to tell it ?”
And I must admit my answer right now is: the ability to tell it…even though I may not like the story.
OK, besides everything else, I consider myself being a starting independent photographer… and at the moment, to me it’s much more relevant to find ways how to gain access to the places where the great global stories are… I live in a little, quiet and peaceful country – plenty of little stories… but I am interested in much more, more extreme, more dynamic, more global, more dangerous… to me, looking for a photo-story and working on it, isn’t only about the story itself, but also about my personal way of living… I know, I am not the only photographer having such desires and problems… I have a feeling, I am yet to make a really interesting photo-story… I have done some wedding photo-stories in the past and I feel confident of my abilities to take decent images continuously… the problem, honestly, I am not really interested in any local story… there are other, my personal problems to this as well… and recently, I have just been catching separate moments in the city’s daily life… only for my personal archive – that’s great, but not enough for me…
Kerry: Good for you! Wonderful!
Erica: I’m fascinated why you would introduce “what the public wants” as vital to the question.
mw: Many thanks for the link. The Pagetti piece is certainly dramatic!
“I live in a little, quiet and peaceful country – plenty of little stories… but I am interested in much more, more extreme, more dynamic, more global, more dangerous… to me, looking for a photo-story and working on it, isn’t only about the story itself, but also about my personal way of living…”
Anthony; I think that’s the trap many fall into. If you can’t find challenging stories in your own neck of the woods, then you aren’t looking hard enough! :-)
By the way, I don’t really believe in ‘the story’ as such – or rather I agree with Henri-Cartier Bresson on creating ‘a visual diary’. To me it makes sense and fits with my life philosophy. The story is where you are or where you go and what happens along the way ie. the story of one’s life. However, I see that this approach is not serving me too well because my images have so little violence in them. For instance, when I was in Bangkok during the Red Shirt protest, I didn’t take any pictures of injured people. But that was because for the 2 months of the protest, I only saw ‘conflict’ on one evening. It was not that I was avoiding it, it was simply that I was not ‘looking for it’. I have been told that I need to incorporate more ‘violence’ in my images but if I don’t see any, should I go looking for it in order to ‘make a story’?
Jenny
NB No sorry, I do have a couple of images of injured people on April 10 now I recall – being treated on the street but that is all.
Spent day in Malibu today.. Day well spent..
Not going to Venice yet… I’m too emotional for that…
Reuniting with old friends…
I haven’t sounded as happy since the last kibbutz party
Haven’t I?
Big hug
Surf is up
I don’t like HCB much nor flies on the wall nor flies in general…
I hate bugs (in general) ;)
Avoiding to photograph “violence” doest mean that “violence” is eliminated…
It is always out there either we ignored it or not..
Either shoot it or not…
Nachtwey photographs it and he explained it numerous times:
“not to be repeated”…
But “violence” is not just part of human nature..
It IS human nature…
That does not mean that we should keep robbing and killing each other .. That’s why we should keep photographing it..
To reminds us that pain will always be part of our existence..
Pain is part of us.. Pain is “necessary”..
We are “designed” to feel pain..
But we shouldn’t be so generous while inflicting it…:)
I can write 4ever..Ross is always “ahead”..:)
“What does Caborca know of Huisiachepic, Huisiaachepic of Caborca? They are different worlds, you must agree. Yet even so there is but one world and everything that is imaginable is necessary to it. For this world also which seems to us a thing of stone and flower and blood is not a thing at all but is a tale. And all in it is a tale and each tale the sum of all lesser tales and yet these also are the selfsame tale and contain as well all else within them. So everything is necessary. Every least thing. This is the hard lesson. Nothing can be dispensed with. Nothing despised. Because the seams are hid from us, you see. The joinery. The way in which the world is made. We have no way to know what could be taken away. What omitted. We have no way to tell what might stand and what might fall. And those seams that are hid from us are of course in the tale itself and the tale has no abode or place of being except in the telling only and there it lives and makes its home and therefore we can never be done with the telling. Of the telling there is no end. And whether in Caborca or in Huisiachepic or in whatever other place by whatever other name or by no name at all I say again all tales are one. Rightly heard all tales are one.”–Cormac McCarthy, “The Crossing”
Jesus, i can’t believe i’m foolish enough (hubris?) to try and write something after having quoted McCarthy and to what is for me the near apotheosis on the truth of both story telling and the world and it’s union, indivisible…..but screw it, this IS Burn and so i’ll wade it….
but before that, let me just say that I haven’t had the opportunity to read the comments following David’s posting and so probably much of what i’ll write is not only redundant to what others have probably written but may even be mute at this point….one thing that I am please to hear (someone sent me an email after i wrote my long comment earlier this evening under Kerry’s piece) is that Anthony and Kerry have had a connecting and supportive conversation…that is wonderful to hear/see….one of the all-too-comment elements of the web is that it depersonalizes to the point that folk malign and mistreat and all the condescension i interpreted in anthony’s post seems to have been another point of miscommunication rather than enmity or contempt….that’s terrific to hear….anyway, so i won’t write anything specifically about the comment about clueless and amateurish and useless etc….
so, story telling…
To begin with, we are all story tellers, each and every one of us and it is our ineluctable nature to listen and lantern and inhabit stories. We ring out against the darkness and the fading of all things by shuttling our lives and selves inside and out of stories. In the beginning was the word, indeed and we use this as our songline to navigate the land and the meaning of the land at first and later to navigate the loss and meaning of the loss of what it means to live and to vanish. We are not mute creatures but filled with aching song and celebrating psalms. We carve out from the mute meaning of things a preaching sermon of what it means to gather and to loose. There isn’t a single one of us, regardless of walk of life or flight of nation that hasn’t been defined by the soul of tale. In fact, the world lives and dies through the passing of that, the world is given shape by the placing into shape sounds and sights and meaning. The world, itself, is a story, refracted and innumerable, threadbare and unasailable. And frankly, it is the only thing we have that gives our life it’s thrust and meaning and breath, whether that story be one of loss or levitation, philosophy or artistry, occupational or spiritual. From our mother’s bossom to our father’s leaving cradle, we are committed to and born along the path of story. And stories, of all shapes and sizes, walks and wilkels, are what join us to one another and those that came before us and will scatter us when we are gone.
The odd thing to me about all this questioning of what constitutes a story is that it seems, frankly, a bit overly academic and sometimes pointless. What is more important the story itself or the way it is told? I am not sure I understand that question at all. For some, the story is the subject and the meaning of that subject (it’s narrative). For some, the way someone tells a story is the story itself (it’s form and conception). Comedians tell stories differently than photographers who tell stories different from writers who tell stories different from teachers who tell stories diffferent from parents who tell stories different from conceptualists who tell stories different from strangers sitting across from one another on the TTC (toronto public transportation). For me, i dont care frankly which is more important, it’s not a question for me, never has been because the answer is always the same:
does it work, in whatever form or shape it takes.
But, as I wrote under Kerry’s piece, what is important, above all in telling a story, in the ability to tell a story, is something more fundamental. The ability to tell a story, to create something and to share it with others begins, above all, with the ABILITY TO LISTEN TO ANOTHER PERSON TELL THE STORY FIRST. It’s obvious and we know this innately, as long before we could speak or write or draw or compose we could listen and listen we did; we watched the world around us and made notes, we scratched and sniffed and jokeyed and jostled trying to figuring it out and shit all of us, or at least most of the folk i know, are still doing just that….listening….watching, trying to figure it out….
As a photographer who is also a writer and a writer who also is a photographer, it’s always been an interesting question as i seldom make photographs and photographic stories without the shadow and background of words and i almost never write anything without visual ideas in my head, including the shape and look of words. I parse and place them together in almost everything i’ve ever made, at least with every photographic essay or exhibition i’ve put together: their complementary and antagonistic and I like it that way. One thing that photography, still photography still does remarkably well is spell out the world through silence in remarkable ways. Photographs, not has truth, but as alchemy, as wands and conjuring moves. Photography, in it’s ambiguity and poetry, somehow takes the quotidian markings of the world and shift-shapes it. I love, always have, the beautiful and haunting silence of photographs and the haunting silence of photogrpahy essays and photography books. Within their extraordinary silence, my head and heart and body and rhyming hum are free to shuttle and think and sing. they communicate, the way the wind moving in the distance through the canopy of trees, communicates not only distance and movement but memory and loss and time. Within the silence of pictures, we are given a vista to imagine and stakeout and reinvent. This cavern, temple really, of silence is really about the endless beauty of our imagination and our memory. The power of still photography lay squarely there: the power of SILENCE. the visual metaphor, the quotidian re-seen through a different perspective. The collision of the pictures to reinvent the real and our interpretations and by extension us through it. Not amount of transformation and technological intervention has, can and will change that. The power of the image will last because we are still visual creatures who communicate with a cosmos of meaning: words, sounds, images. People still write songs and that hasn’t stopped because video came along or youtube. Still photography thrives and will not be burried asunder the panolply of multimedia. There is a place for still photography and that place is more important and more necessary now that ever before.
More people make and develop and print and post and share photographs, still photographs, then ever before. Shit, every single one of my students has a camera and makes 1,000′s of pictures and shares them with everyone and maybe only 1 or 2 % of all the students i’ve ever taught is a ‘photogrpaher’ or wants to be a ‘photographer.’ Sometimes yes, they incorporate text and video and share them and create films but most of the time they’re simply sharing, it’s democratic and thank god for that. and guess what, i love, insanely love, looking at all those damn images….why…i dont know why except that they haunt me and that they somehow connect me to all these people, or rather, they remind me of why i still make stupid, long, pretentious, overly-indulgent art shit photo stories….because it is a way for me to communicate something, something deep and personal that has to do with how i fit into this work and try and navigate my way through it…
photographs, still photographs, are here to stay….
but multimedia is also important and exciting. shit, my hero Chris Marker (who is one of the major inspirations for my photo story Oxen of the Sun) made multimedia projects and films long before we even used that word, in the 50′s and 60′s: with text and video and stills and animation, by himself and with a great polish illustrator. and of course, his magnificent film La Jetee is comprised of all still images, some text, voice narration and then one beautiful, heartbreaking piece of moving image……add to this all the great video artists and documentary filmmakers of the 60′s and 70′s and viola, we realize there is nothing new with this new heroic ‘multimedia’….for me, actually, sometimes i get depressed when i hear photographers/photo world talking about multimedia as if it were the new holy grail, it aint. I love film (have made them too) and love multimedia but i think it is very important that we see it for it’s value. Simply putting together photographs and some video or pictures and text and jumbling doesn’t necessary make it more interesting or more revealing. However, the form of multimedia can be interesting, because, stories are still also about the form of story telling and that form itself can be just as beautiful and just as important a type of story.
the other important consideration is that, obviously, stories fit for different folk. Shit, i’m still reading long-ass 19th century novels while cramming in modern work. I still have the patiences to read and to also devour photographic content. And i always try to see inside the word of the author to see what is the story driving their story. In other words, there is not calculus for success. Each story is determined not by a forumula (which is more important what is being told/shown or how something is told/shown). For me as a ‘modernist’ photographer obsessed with ideas of conceptual questions, i’m much more interested in telling stories that are internal, stories as physical expressions of bodiless things: ideas, emotions, memory, etc. I dont even like to make ‘pretty’ pictures any more but i want to see how much the pictures and the pictures in union with one another and with other ideas (writing for example) can hold up as expressions of what it is I am trying, and failing, to express. Take bones of time for example. when David published it here last year some liked it some hated it. i was called a ‘bad photographer’ by a few, some even pointed out dust and scratches on the images, even though i’d scratched some of the negatives on purpose and threw dirt on my diana when doing some portraits. when i saw bones first here, i was kind of horrified because somehow when i scaled the size of the pictures to meet the burn standards, something when wrong and in some of my pictures got this weird pixelization, like dots and it looked horrible…Lassal told me the technical word, which sometimes happens when converting scanned negatives into digital files and then re-sizing later…whatever it was, many of the pictures look different from the real ones in my home…and does this mean the story is bad…the technique bad?….maybe…well, i am an idiot when it comes to digital processing my scans, that is for sure or with using photoshop…
the point being that to me, what matters is the totality,not the division. Generally, it seems to me, the commentators at burn and many of the photographers, tend to be traditionalists or documentary traditionalists. I respect and love this, as i consider myself a documentary photographer but i think it is important that one remembers that when deciding to tell stories what is important is the questions the author themselves must make…..i think, it’s always the SAME story, no matter what story….and that is about the living of this life….
and like john vink mentioned, i know many great great stories that have been told to me by folk who didnt know they could tell stories or didnt consider themselves story tellers, let alone photographers or writers or multimediaists…..
some of these questions about multimedia too seem a bit, well, surface. i agree that what is exciting about multimedia is much of the same things that make films and video art and conceptual/installation art exciting: use of music and text and contrapuntal ideas and it is NOT just about pans and edits (i hate ken burns effect), but about exploring, endless, the boundaries of what stories are….and guess what, we’ll never satisfy everyone…and what matters, to me, or rather, the stories that I best respond to, are the ones in which the speaker/author/photographer/writer has invested some real and authentic and risky part of themselves and has offered it up to others for inspection, examination and possible rejection…for we share ourselves to twine the world, that is it…..
there is a reason i love Alec Soth’s Little Brown Mushroom project so much is that because he still believes in the power of the story in the power of the book….that in this age of digitalization where ebooks sell more than analog books, there is still a place and a real need for books that are comprised of silence…..silence of pictures….silence of words….
the silence for your own private space in which to wonder and in which to partake of this world….
and that IS our ability to tell….
our beautiful, mad, broken hope to partake of this world and to speak of that to ourselves and others until our dying breath vanquishes us in that small space inside….
and that ability, even then, shall never leave us
cheers
bob
There are storytellers and those that just tell stories
Jenny – like DAH said “it is one of the most important discussions in photography today” and though I first offered my personal point of view, I think a global discussion of the issue requires more than a personal perspective. The question is not just about content and delivery, but about if and how that content and delivery is communicated, digested, understood and used by others.
Erica: So, if you view the question in that way, it follows that you therefore consider “what the public wants” when creating your stories – is this correct?
Bob I love the word “apotheosis”..:)
It’s as Greek as Diamanda Galas’s grandmother..:)
Man u type fast;)
I’d rather have a grandfather that “storytells” than just simply tell stories;)
Ross: Moments, yes. But not necessarily ‘random’ and not part of a story other than the author’s ‘life’ or ‘journey’.
Panos: You are making me laugh!!! : )
It is very strange that not all of these comments are appearing in time order… at this moment, a comment that Ross wrote at 6:09 is appearing after comments that I wrote at 11.45… or they are on my screen… wierd… they are making that one comment appear as ‘a random moment in time’! ; )
Jenny ,Ross possess powers out of this world..
He can stretch or bend “time”..
Einstein first and Akaky later proved it is possible…
About the laughs? Ah I know it’s a dirty job but somebody has to do it;)
ANTHONY RZ,
If I responded to every ridiculously fatuous pronouncement I read on BURN, it would be a full-time job and then some. Besides, I figure, I was young once too, and probably just as fatuous… a little tolerance and forbearance are called for, people usually need to learn things for themselves, and they need the space for that to happen. But this particular line caught in my craw and I couldn’t let it pass unanswered:
“The purpose of art is to touch otherwise indifferent people…”
Oh, really??? And here, all these years I’ve been thinking that “the purpose of art” was to keep amused and out of trouble chimpanzees and some other large primates, too clever for their own good and with lots of time on their hands, in ways that were relatively harmless to themselves and others! Thanks for setting me straight…
The rest of that post affirms that you have a young person’s self-assurance, willingness to be intolerant and doctrinaire, and little self consciousness about how your words and behavior impact the world around you. Fair enough, you’re certainly not alone.
“I live in a little, quiet and peaceful country – plenty of little stories… but I am interested in much more, more extreme, more dynamic, more global, more dangerous… ”
At first I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry when I read this, but since you seem sincere and have already been adequately (and justifiably) boxed around the ears by numerous other commentors for your earlier ill-mannered remarks to Kerry, I will attempt a sincere response.
(I’m just guessing here… might that “little, quiet and peaceful country” possibly be an island city-state in Southeast Asia? If so, then the big, “dynamic, global, dangerous” stories also exist there… but they are ones you don’t even dare think about because the clamps of authority will crush you before you even get started).
Maybe I’m wrong, maybe it’s not that particular ‘small, peaceful country’, but I guaran-fucking-tee you that there are big, important stories that affect the globe that are to be found there, where you are, wherever ‘there’ is, because that’s what ‘global’ has come to mean these days. Are they easy stories to tell in photographs? Maybe not, but they are important, and if photography is your chosen medium, then you have to try. If you succeed, you will probably become a great photographer in the process.
Here are some examples of big 21st century stories that are unfolding everywhere right now, even in ‘small peaceful countries’ and need to be told:
1. Energy… where it comes from, who controls it, how it shapes a society and people’s behavior, what alternatives exist… including just using less.
2. Wealth… where it comes from, who controls it, who doesn’t have it, how is it used, the inequalities it creates, the power it buys, where it disappears to. Corruption in government, in business, and in the police.
3. Environment… there is no modern society on earth that lives in any kind of equilibrium with the natural environment… what and how much do people consume, what is being destroyed forever, how are people adapting or not adapting to to the environment, what are the consequences of people’s lifestyles, where is progress being made, why are so many companies (and governments) spending more on advertising how ‘green’ they are than on actually doing anything positive about the environment… Where does your water come from, how is it distributed, what does it cost, how much do you consume and how?
4. The Justice system… who benefits from it, who is victimized by it, where are its inefficiencies and problems, how is it abused?
5. Health and medicine… an infinity of topics here, including the business of health, scientific research, preventive medicine, epidemiology, health care delivery
6. Education… how, for what, for who?
7. Race and ethnicity… language, multiculturalism, intermarriage, inequalities, discrimination, quotas, immigration
8. Religion… expressions of faith, politics and religion, conflicts between religions and conflicts within religious organizations
9. Media… how people get information, what they believe and why, the myths and untruths that are easy to create but so hard to disprove, the change in media dominance and the huge media empires
10. Technology’s impact on people’s daily lives.
11. What we called the ‘Battle of the Sexes’ back in the 50s and today is usually referred to as ‘Gender Issues’… not just gays, lesbians, and transsexuals, but even among so-called ‘straight people’… how do we interact? How should we interact? What does ‘family’ mean?
12. Generation gaps, parenting, children’s issues, old people
I could go on… but if you haven’t gotten the point by now, what hope is there?
The fundamental questions we all must grapple with, and they never change, and they exist in all ages and in all countries, are “How can we live? How should we live? What is wrong, and how can we change it? What is right, and how can we learn from it? How do I get along with the people around me? What are we missing that is in front of our noses?”
If photography really is a tool for change, it must be adaptable in some way to telling these stories, or at least in helping to tell these stories.
As you can tell from my big talk, as compared to the paltry photographic output I have made available to BURN readers, I am a coward and a lazy bastard and a hypocritical old blowhard. I abdicated my responsibility for dealing with most of these issues (at least photographically) long ago. But, heed what I say… if you really want to make a difference, find a way to tell these kinds of stories with photographs… trust me, it will have far more impact than yet another batch of images of dusty G.I.’s in Afghanistan or earthquake aftermath in Haiti.
Cheers,
(Hey, Bob Black, my post is still shorter than yours…!)
Bob Black…
Thanks once again for your wisdom and your way with words.
Sidney,
Really thanks for motivation and inspiration …
Yes…yes indeed
All that