Untitled by John Gladdy
Website: www.john-gladdy.com
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who are you, and why do i keep returning to the backstage?
Tell us more!!!
yes i agree with mimi.. tell us more
Nice one Gladdy!
“Published on July 12, 2009 by burn magazine. 4 Comments”
…it seems that during the current Burn brainstorming there was a breakthrough in time traveling…
Interesting photo, but some context would help.
Thodoris :)))))
Powerful, troubling, shot – like the others above, I want to know more. Yet, at the same time, whatever the particulars, I feel like I already do know.
But I could be wrong.
Somehow, although it is not the same at all, it reminds me a bit of Richard Avedon.
This says so much yet tells us so little. Disturbing…
Patricia
i like the trend..
next up – untitled by unnamed.
nice one john.. hope nyc is nice.
d
don’t descriptions distract from the picture anyway…?
a portrait lives from the dialog of model and photographer.
this one is good.
b/w was a nice choice. makes it serious and in a way .. deep.
John
Excellent Portrait.
Jim
No context is needed. Pure portrait of character. Isn’t it enough?
John,
One of the many terrific portraits from your site… My favorite of all is number 18 in your “musing” section… Hope you are having a good time in NY with the Burn crew…. we want some portraits as well from the event…
Cheers,
Eruc
marcin, it’s really not enough. What if the guy is really a very thin marathon runner, collapsed with fatigue at the end of the Boston Marathon? And folks decide from the photo that he’s a burned out crack addict?
I understand that Gladdy has made no assertion that he is either, which poses ethical questions in itself. I think it’s important that, if photos of people are ambiguous, context be provided for them. IMHO, of course.
who needs context when the evocation of life and love and hurt is felt in between the space of flesh and bone from the rib to the chin, from the eyes to the ring upon the shoulder’s cup, from the faded smile of light in the eyes to the grisp hollow under his arms………
good fucking grief….
and evocative and simple and heart-filled photograph….that is all i need from photography….
Lay your sleeping head, my love,
Human on my faithless arm;
Time and fevers burn away
Individual beauty from
Thoughtful children, and the grave
Proves the child ephemeral:
But in my arms till break of day
Let the living creature lie,
Mortal, guilty, but to me
The entirely beautiful.
Soul and body have no bounds:
To lovers as they lie upon
Her tolerant enchanted slope
In their ordinary swoon,
Grave the vision Venus sends
Of supernatural sympathy,
Universal love and hope;
While an abstract insight wakes
Among the glaciers and the rocks
The hermit’s carnal ecstasy.
Certainty, fidelity
On the stroke of midnight pass
Like vibrations of a bell,
And fashionable madmen raise
Their pedantic boring cry:
Every farthing of the cost,
All the dreaded cards foretell,
Shall be paid, but from this night
Not a whisper, not a thought,
Not a kiss nor look be lost.
Beauty, midnight, vision dies:
Let the winds of dawn that blow
Softly round your dreaming head
Such a day of welcome show
Eye and knocking heart may bless,
Find the mortal world enough;
Noons of dryness find you fed
By the involuntary powers,
Nights of insult let you pass
Watched by every human love.
–W.H. Auden
Jim – It pleases me to see that your opinion is a humble one.
And in this case, I believe there is validity to it.
Yet, the image stands strong alone.
So I am not sure.
But I do want to know who this guy is.
Every day that I move among people, I see many whom I would like to know about.
Most, I never will.
Well, Frostfrog, as another famous photographer here said very recently, it’s a photograph. Beyond that, though, we know nothing about it.
good portrait!!!
no caption , no bio , no…. just a photograph!
Isn’t it enough?
i think yes.
un saludo
I mean bob blacks’s response to the photo is “who needs context when the evocation of life and love and hurt is felt in between the space of flesh and bone from the rib to the chin, from the eyes to the ring upon the shoulder’s cup, from the faded smile of light in the eyes to the grisp hollow under his arms………”
How dumb is he going to feel if the guy is just an exhausted marathon runner? Context matters.
This portrait makes me afraid.
I see a man with a very thin face. My dictionary translates it as “hollow-cheeked”. Not sure, but I guess the expression fits. The wrinkles or furrow between the eyes show a concerned face, a timid face, an uncertain face.
The body looks thin and skinny – worn out. No haircut for a while, no shave for a day or two, so the man looks a bit neglected. The earrings show something anarchistic, the cool side.
On the naked chest I see a strong symbol, the cross, which for me stands for religion, belief and faith.
The man stands with his back against a brick wall.
So I feel there is plenty of information already in this picture which give me many hints and clues.
The look of the guy sparked my associations with people on hunger strike or people who have aids. Perhaps he is healthy and just a skinny guy – I don’t know?
Remembering John’s first image of a man in a wheelchair, then this portrait fits very well into his line of work.
What I like about this portrait is that it gives us many hints and clues and at the same time it leaves space for our own imagination, our own thoughts.
As I said, I feel a bit intimidated by this portrait since it provokes my fears, leaves me unsettled and as Patricia said, disturbed.
John, thank you for sharing this portrait with us. A context about this person will answer many questions, but I am not sure if it is always necessary. I think it depends on what kind of message you want to bring across.
Have a good time in NYC! Hope there is a chance to meet one day in London.
Best
Reimar
in a Portrait, Context IS the portrait……
in a Portrait, the way a photographer chooses to pitch a moment against the face IS the context…..
and this famous portrait:
http://lisawallerrogers.files.wordpress.com/2009/10/the-d-and-d-of-w-1957.jpg
is it necessary to know that just prior to releasing the shutter, Avedon asked the Duke and Duchess to speak of one of their beloved dogs who’d died….do we NEED that context, to understand the pain and grief in this image…
in this photograph which may in fact serve as a window into the entire difficult weight that love burdened upon these two and the decisions they’d made in their life…to we need to know avendon’s story to be moved by this photograph?…do we even need to know who these 2 are to expunge more weight from the image…or can we as viewers, not feel enough what power lay in that moment and choice that Avedon made….
surely a story from John about this man will give details which rounds out a life, and yes, i love details (im a reader and a writer as well as a photographer) BUT, this photograph evokes a lot from me, and again, the context is not needed to empower this photograph….
maybe context elongates a viewers understanding (often) but does it empower a photo?…no…it simply adds to the viewer’s needs….and that has nothing to do with a picture…
in journalism, context often matters….
in portraiture, the context is the image to which we must reconcile ourself to….
we’re talking photography here…not a story….
since john, as i, have spent much of his life around music….
Bob, you seem to be saying that portraits are empty containers into which we can dump the detritus of our own lives.
John
Nice photograph. I guess we could supply any context we like here, my own guess is that this guy is just a friend of yours who is fun to photograph because he is..you gotta admit..pretty odd looking.
My first reaction here was “what a bizarre looking man”. He could represent and AIDS victim, crack addict, homeless person etc etc, or he could just be a guy taking a rest on a hot day, or posing for a buddy who likes to shoot pictures of people standing against walls.
Doesn’t really matter I guess, except for the sake of curiosity.
I do love simple direct portraits like this. And, just for the fun of it, odd looking people make more interesting photographs than ordinary looking people (which always begs the question is it a remarkable photo or an ordinary photo of a remarkable looking person). The nit-picky side of me is bothered by the dark hair melting into the background and the shadow from the flash on the subjects left. However I’ve noted on your site that you like to use shadows on walls.
Hope your havin’ fun in the big Yapple.
Bob, Avedon did not ask the Windsors to speak of one of their dogs who’d died. He deliberately lied, saying that, on his way to meet them, his taxi accidentally killed a dog in the street. Avedon “manipulated” the situation to obtain the look he had decided that best represented the couple. That’s absolutely fair from my point of view, since every portrait is basically a self portrait of the author.
What the portrait tells me….
This is not an exhausted marathon runner. Corduroy pants with belt loops and suspender buttons is not typical marathon attire. This is not a trim ectomorph-like body of a runner. Emaciated, tired… possibly ill. Unhealthy eyes and gaunt face. The picture tells a story.
abele: :)
thanks for the clarification….:)) the story, about which i first read when i got his “Portraits” 7 years ago, speaks about the story…though, i remembered it entirely wrong i guess…i know that he’d felt frustrated with the ‘veneer’ he’d seen, as he watched them loose at gambling games in Monaco as well as during sits…u know the story of his portraits of Dinesen?…or Chaplin?…all of us manipulate and we manipulate when we speak upon that which we saw, read, remember, for we continually interpret all things through our faulty prism of sight and recall…
the fact that i remembered the Windsor story erroneously is an example…ditto: how we remember people, their faces, or why we photograph…
it has always seemed to me that, to some extent, all work is a mirror and often, even under the guise of showing ‘someone else’ we’re really attempting to express something through the visage and carriage of another….and this is no different in life for most of us…we still channel what we are told through our own faulty and often solipsisic perspectives…
and that’s ok, for me, if we simply acknowledge that basic understanding…
it’s the folks who refuse to except that (that one’s photography is someone larger or more universal or more ‘objective’ that one’s faulty selft) that makes me twitter :))…
avendon did manipulate, not only moments but was also knew what he wanted…sometimes he waited, sometimes, it appears, it carved it out…
and yet, how universally do those pictures speak to us…
that’s the think, for me…
i dont ask of photography to be more than one it is…
then again, i always have pretty emotional reactions to work….always have…
thanks for the correction Abele :)
cheers
running to meet my wife
b
I rarely read artists’ statements.
If the photos touch me then I go and read about them.
I enjoy when the photographer lets his photo talk.
I look at this man and I make my own story…
I find it much more powerful as it opens all possibilities.
This man could be anything, everything.
And that’s just fine!
Great portrait!
that’s more like it!
I have to see I like the lack of context- it’s wonderfull to be able to make my own assertions and what the viewer chooses to see i think is very telling. that’s the genius of this sort of work- when it’s not spelt out for you you are forced to engage with your own predjudice and bias.
so one man’s crack addict becomes anothers marathon runner- very, very interesting.
my portrait of John Gladdy coming to you in a few minutes…..
Nice one John…
great shot, strong…
but as it’s a portrait i would like to know who it is or some context?
immediately made me think of Iggy…
I dunno. I would rather know who the man actually is than who I think he is. I’m more interested in the man himself than some diffuse “everyman.”
Abele, Bob,
I saw a documentary on Avedon in which he recounts the story of the Taxi.
Manipulation is a bit of a loaded word, although in Avedons case perhaps appropriate. It is really a matter of taking charge of the situation and doing whatever is neccesary to arrive at the desired result. Avedon used a little white lie to lead the Duke and Duchess to a moment where their picture smiles dropped their expressions revealed the pain and sadness in their souls.
One of the things that makes Johns photo interesting, is the mans gaze. His right eye almost visits the camera, his left slightly off, and expression that suggests inward gazing. Wether John achieved that expression deliberatly by asking a question or making a comment, or if he just snapped it doesn’t really matter.
Ultimately, context is important. The photo does not just exist in a vacuum, there is some sort of intent involved, presumably the desire to communicate something. The photograph will operate differently depending on context. The snapshots we are familiar with of Ann Frank for example,would operate very differently if they were just anonamous snaps of a young girl.
jim,
although I get that you would enjoy the photo more with context, would it make you like it more?. I do think when an image is this strong it can avoid the need for bells and whistles. You say you would like to know who the man ” actually is” but how would a caption allow you to? After all, this man may be a crack addict who is also a surgeon? or a marathon runner who in his previous life was a drag queen? Who knows what secrets he is keeping. Without sitting and talking to the man would the viewer ever really know him. We all inject our own narrative onto images, and what i like about this image is that it makes me think about dangers of taking people at face value. Maybe john saw what he wanted in this man and chose not to learn anything that might change his mind – doesn’t make it less of a strong image?
so….
I was skipping down the street….
one summer afternoon….
and it was hot….
really hot….
I needed some lemonade,
so I went into this cafe…..
and
leaning against the brick wall,
was this man….
wearing a cross necklace….
staring at me…..
shirtless…
I smiled…
and
blushed…..
wanting to reach out to him….
with
a
ray
of
hope…..
I got my lemonade….
went back outside….
into the hot sunshine….
and
started
skipping….
***
mnm, there is nothing wrong with the photograph as a photograph. It’s a good photograph. But there are plenty good photographs. I just crave photos (and text if necessary) that tell me about the subject in the photo, that are not a reflection of the photographer or of myself. I think we are beyond good photography for it’s own sake. To me these days, I look for photography that communicates a story directly to me. Otherwise it just seems like eye candy.
This is a good photo. Just want a little more.
Jim you don’t place the images on your link in any context but you expect others to do so
I thought it was a self portrait. Guess that shows how much I know.
But about today’s Jim thing, I’d agree that journalism needs, nay requires, context.
Art? whatevah…
I’ve explained the images context here already. Did you miss it?
Bunch of kids. 30,000 gallons of water. Put the sun behind the the water. Sit in a growing puddle of water watching until the compositions you want happen. Press shutter. That’s it.
When I ran one of the photos as a feature shot in the newspaper, the cutline had the context, location, time of day, etc. That’s what we do with newspaper photos.
Maybe you need to put some text on your site so others get what you are on about no good writing about it here, in the newspaper etc it’s out of context………over and out
John, it’s like the guy down the road spends a lot of time hanging by a fibro wall
Very cool set of pictures Jim.
Jim – one thing is for certain: somehow, no matter what the essay or the photo, you always manage to cause a high degree of attention to shift away from the photographs directly onto thee. Now here I am, adding to it.
I like the pictures on your site, btw.
Even though I am a person who almost always puts words to photos, I was glad there were none on your site to give context to the photos beyond what I saw in them.
Frostfrog, I just post my opinions. Where others take the thread, I have no control.
Glad you like the photos. Some cool fun on a hot day.
The best part about Jim’s opinions is that even he doesn’t acknowledge them.
JIM..
these are the most provocative visuals i have seen from you (as best as i can recall)…in the context of simply looking at them here i do not need a caption to see (a) what it is (b) why it is interesting..of course at the newspaper you do need a caption and context presented to your readers…i personally see no “ethical” issue regarding photographs simply presented as the work of a photographer, as was John’s portrait presented here…just imagine of all the portraits you have even seen (museums, books etc) where there is no information supplied by the artist…surely this cannot be considered unethical..there cannot be anything more fascinating on this planet than the human face…miraculously, impossibly, no two are alike…people watching, face watching, is one of of the things we all do most…the facial expression is communication number one….we take all of our cues from the faces of others…you my friend are a different person to me post-Skype than before…your face tells me way more than your words…..in other words, the caption for Jim Powers is irrelevant compared to just looking at your face…your portrait….ethics are always specific to context..and i do not see anything unethical about the Gladdy portrait as presented on Burn…
cheers, david
David, I didn’t say it was unethical per say. Gladdy didn’t misrepresent a distance runner as a crack addict or vice-versa. He simply said nothing. But I think it raises ethical questions for photographers. Eddie Adams didn’t misrepresent what was happening in the photo of General Nguyễn Ngọc Loan executing the prisoner. But it was widely misinterpreted by everyone viewing with even Adams trying to point out that the interpretation was unfair to the General.
Our photos, whether we like it or not, can have consequences far beyond our intent. I think to just throwing a loaded photo like Gladdy’s out there without explanation, should not be done casually. It really is an ethical question.
Ethics?????? My goodness. The places we go here on Burn…
This is a portrait taken of an individual leaning up against a brick wall. It is not showing him in some compromising position. There is nothing here that would embarrass or disrespect him. The subject is obviously aware that his picture is being taken. Like so many photographic portraits taken during the history of this medium, John Gladdy’s portrait of this unknown (to us) man says all it needs to say. No explanation is necessary.
Now if this were published in a newspaper, I guess the editor would require the subject’s name, age and city of residence. S/He might even insist on a bit of context for the caption.
But Burn is not a newspaper. It is an online magazine that publishes photography of all genres. Photographers whose work is published have the option of submitting a verbal statement to accompany their selected photos/essays or not. John Gladdy chose not. That is his right.
We each come to Burn with our own preconceived ideas of what photography should be. Often these ideas are based on our life experiences. I’m sure Jim Powers’ years as a newspaper editor inform his opinions, just as John Gladdy’s years as a freelance photographer shape his. Both are valid. The trick is to stay open to other ways of seeing, other ways of presenting our work, other ways of determining what is “ethical” and what is not.
As for John Gladdy’s portrait “Untitled,” I do not want to know who or where or what was going on. I want to allow the photo to leave me wondering. I prefer the mystery.
And, in response to Jim Powers’ photos of the kids playing in the water, I say BRAVO! Well seen and photographed, Jim. Do I need to know their names or the context? No.
Patricia
Context does matter… and I know that John G disagrees on that.
For example, take the few Capa’s pictures for Normandy that survived the melting. There are numerous better composed, with better tonalities (or vivid colors), without motion blur pictures out there, but those remain some of the most iconic war pictures of all times. Had it not been for the when and where (and by whom!) do you suppose they would have gained the status they have?
On the other hand, it’s one thing to have a personal preference/need for more information/context when viewing a picture (or movie or whatever), and another to demand it from the creator of the work… After all, this is “just” a portrait. As Patricia said, there is nothing compromising in this picture for the person depicted that *requires* any explaining on the part of the photographer.