illusionary quality of photography photographs, and photographic processes

[ambaker]

Sometimes a picture is just a picture

- Freud (paraphrased)

 

[yulia_s_rey]

Sometimes a picture is just a picture

- Freud (paraphrased)

. I wonder if it was the same student?

 

[Bill Burk]

To quote an extract from Fox Talbot’s “The Pencil of Nature” - But when the sensitive paper was placed in the focus of a Camera Obscura and directed to any object, as a building for instance, during a moderate space of time, as an hour or two, the effect produced upon the paper was not strong enough to exhibit such a satisfactory picture of the building as had been hoped for. The outline of the roof and of the chimneys, &c. against the sky was marked enough; but the details of the architecture were feeble, and the parts in shade were left either blank or nearly so. The sensitiveness of the paper to light, considerable as it seemed in some respects, was therefore, as yet, evidently insufficient for the purpose of obtaining pictures with the Camera Obscura; and the course of experiments had to be again renewed in hopes of attaining to some more important result..

Let's have a talk like William Henry Fox Talbot day!

"The effect produced upon the transilluminated computer output device when the disk file had been written by the transparent original image sampling peripheral device was satisfactory enough; but the impression of the paper was not strong enough. Further experiments produced an effect which more closely resembled the paper; when the reflected light image sampling device was chosen for the source of the file. This contradicted earlier convention whereby the introduction of additional generations of image transfer through intermediate materials was sought to be minimized."

 

[markbarendt]

Only God is Truth.

Only physics is truth.

 

[Jaf-Photo]

even straight forward documentary photography isn't really what's there.
while it can be called evidence or and artifact it isn't, its just an illusion, a reflection, a light-shadow.
its not the kind of illusion that vanishes ( but it really is ) it can't reappear
somewhere else ( but it can ) and it is more based in "reality" than painting and drawing
( not really ) ... color negatives or diapositives aren't true to life, black and white images even less

with the ephemeral quality the materials we are all fooling ourselves with it all just like chalk on the sidewalk ?

what do you do with the illusions you make, and do you even suggest that they might not be "real"

A similar thouht struck me as I was photographing moving objects a few weeks ago.

What does it mean to freeze time and get an image of an object, which really isn't exactly there?

But my mind started to boggle, so I dropped it.

 

[pdeeh]

You dropped your mind or you dropped the object? (be careful of your toes)

 

[Jaf-Photo]

You dropped your mind or you dropped the object? (be careful of your toes)

I dropped the thought, but I don't know if my mind went with it. Supposedly, one doesn't know if one has lost one's mind

 

[MartinCrabtree]

Only physics is truth.

Actually both require a leap of faith to get there.

 

[Gerald C Koch]

Photography is at its heart unnatural in that we live in a constantly changing now and a photograph is a static image of a "now" that is forever gone. Before the invention of photography there was no way to preserve a moment of time. Some would say "well what about painting?" But a painting is someone's interpretation and only bears a slight connection to reality. If, as some believe, a completely new reality is created for every action taken then a photograph represents the moment just before this new reality is created.

 

[removed account4]

sometimes i take portraits of people ...
the close friends, even the person who i took the portrait of says " who is that ?!'
it doesn't look like or resemble them at all. it wasn't me, i just pushed the button ... it was the camera.
it isn't hard to create a new reality with a camera, based of the shimmer of our own reality

 

[markbarendt]

Actually both require a leap of faith to get there.

Our films, lenses, shutters, chemicals, papers, etcetera, interact with the world in certain ways and I can test and see the results of the physics involved here and now.

Our films, lenses, shutters, chemicals, papers, etcetera, don't care about what we believe, or about what we think, about what's written in books about them, or about the magic bullets we might have faith in, or about what we understand, or about what we have yet to learn.

Physics typically gives us "proofs" (observations made of real phenomena) that we endeavor to explain afterwards.

Faith(s) tend to provide explanations that we try to prove later.

 

[markbarendt]

sometimes i take portraits of people ...
the close friends, even the person who i took the portrait of says " who is that ?!'
it doesn't look like or resemble them at all. it wasn't me, i just pushed the button ... it was the camera.
it isn't hard to create a new reality with a camera, based of the shimmer of our own reality

This has been a regular occurrence in my work too, one I even cultivate.

I think part of it is that the way we are, and the way we think we are, and the way the photographer wants to portray us; doesn't normally match. A portrait is many times a struggle of wills.

http://www.karsh.org/#/the_work/portraits/winston_churchill

Karsh's portrait of Churchill is a case in point. Churchill wanted one thing, Karsh another, Karsh won.

Several years after my mom died my dad married a nice lady named Mary. Getting a good portrait of Mary was a real struggle, she had the weirdest "say cheese face" that she instantly put on any time a camera was pointed her way, and she was good at spotting any camera. I did finally get a good one of her and my dad during the festivities around my son's wedding. Surprisingly it happened in my studio as the primary subject, surrounded by a full studio set during the rehearsal party. I had my dad spin her as if they were dancing and for once she was caught as most around her saw her.

 

[Bill Burk]

This has been a regular occurrence in my work too, one I even cultivate.

I think part of it is that the way we are, and the way we think we are, and the way the photographer wants to portray us; doesn't normally match. A portrait is many times a struggle of wills.

http://www.karsh.org/#/the_work/portraits/winston_churchill

Karsh's portrait of Churchill is a case in point. Churchill wanted one thing, Karsh another, Karsh won.

Several years after my mom died my dad married a nice lady named Mary. Getting a good portrait of Mary was a real struggle, she had the weirdest "say cheese face" that she instantly put on any time a camera was pointed her way, and she was good at spotting any camera. I did finally get a good one of her and my dad during the festivities around my son's wedding. Surprisingly it happened in my studio as the primary subject, surrounded by a full studio kiting set during the rehearsal party. I had my dad spin her as if they were dancing and for once she was caught as most around her saw her.

Fun story, this is when a fast camera is needed... when people change faces on you, you have to have a quick shot before they catch you... So difficult.

I use Steichen's portrait of Churchill from 1932 as a profile icon on a site somewhere...

 

[markbarendt]

Fun story, this is when a fast camera is needed... when people change faces on you, you have to have a quick shot before they catch you... So difficult.

When shooting candids you are right Bill but candid isn't necessary.

Actually both Karsh's example and mine are true formal portraits: fully contrived setups, not in any way candid, nor taken on the sly; our subjects knew darn well what was going on and had to physically step into the situation/scene/setup willingly. In both examples the subjects were being directed/coerced/manipulated into providing something they didn't necessarily want to give.

I admittedly was using a fast modern camera, but like Karsh, the camera was mounted firmly on a tripod with everything manually set, I was using a remote to fire the shutter, also probably like Karsh, and to have the lighting and focusing work in my shot there was maybe a 2'x3' box that my subjects needed to stay in, Karsh's limits were probably similar.

 

[Gerald C Koch]

My favorite portrait of Churchill is the one with him facing away from the camera seated before what appears to be a pond. Even though we cannot see the face one instantly recognizes the figure as that of Churchill. I don't know whether this is because of the will of the subject or the skill of the photographer.

 

[pdeeh]

Had you only ever read or heard of Churchill, but never seen a picture of him before that one, would he have been instantly recognisable?

 

[removed account4]

This has been a regular occurrence in my work too, one I even cultivate.

I think part of it is that the way we are, and the way we think we are, and the way the photographer wants to portray us; doesn't normally match. A portrait is many times a struggle of wills.

http://www.karsh.org/#/the_work/portraits/winston_churchill

Karsh's portrait of Churchill is a case in point. Churchill wanted one thing, Karsh another, Karsh won.

Several years after my mom died my dad married a nice lady named Mary. Getting a good portrait of Mary was a real struggle, she had the weirdest "say cheese face" that she instantly put on any time a camera was pointed her way, and she was good at spotting any camera. I did finally get a good one of her and my dad during the festivities around my son's wedding. Surprisingly it happened in my studio as the primary subject, surrounded by a full studio kiting set during the rehearsal party. I had my dad spin her as if they were dancing and for once she was caught as most around her saw her.

hi mark

i know what you mean, sometimes a portrait is a dance, an orchestration between the photographer and the person being photographed
but im not so much suggesting in my last comment that i did anything different other than take a photograph ..
i didn't make the person act or look any differently than the way she acted, no hidden emotion, no hidden side of them ..
just photographed from a "different angle" and the way she had been recognized or understood had been erased.
and SHE didn't even know who she was, another time when i was photographing a university dean for a local paper
the people at work said " who is THAT !? , they even had PR photos, and stock photos of the same person. maybe it has to do with perception of who we THINK someone is, who we THINK we are and how we are supposed to be / act

Had you only ever read or heard of Churchill, but never seen a picture of him before that one, would he have been instantly recognisable?

hi pdeeh

while i was going to say ...isn't someone only recognizable if you know who they are ?
i realize now that if we only know-of someone, sometimes one can imagine the face with the voice,
but i don't have that gift. ..

 

[markbarendt]

maybe it has to do with perception of who we THINK someone is, who we THINK we are and how we are supposed to be / act

I think that is a big chunk of it John.

That is an expression of the thought that a portrait is always a portrait of two people; the subject and the photographer.

This was an idea that took me a long time to understand/get used to/get comfortable with.

Essentially, if you and I are given the same subject to photograph and we are allowed to get to know it/them and photograph it/them separately as we please, it is IMO almost a given that we would end up with very different results.

 

[Gerald C Koch]

Had you only ever read or heard of Churchill, but never seen a picture of him before that one, would he have been instantly recognisable?

Probably not for "millenials" who seem to be ignorant of just about everything. I think of them as pod people which they will probably not understand either.

 

[pdeeh]

Such contempt is unworthy of you, Gerald.

 

[removed account4]

I think that is a big chunk of it John.

That is an expression of the thought that a portrait is always a portrait of two people; the subject and the photographer.

This was an idea that took me a long time to understand/get used to/get comfortable with.

Essentially, if you and I are given the same subject to photograph and we are allowed to get to know it/them and photograph it/them separately as we please, it is IMO almost a given that we would end up with very different results.

but i see that as half of it mark.
i realize 2 people will make 2 vastly different portraits
its all about letting in ...
but the sitter ( and friends/family ) not even recognizing him/herself ...
maybe that is a bit drastic ...


gerald

while i don't think millenials are pod people ( at this point, i don't know what to think, maybe we all are )
i know many people have no social graces, etiquette
social skills, would make most people's grandmother's blush,
be polite, don't know how to have a conversation "in person"
or even be with someone "in person" or "be present" ... and i wonder if in a handful of years
if "people" will have to text eachother at negotiations
or meetings ... i find it strange that people who go out and have dinner/drinks with eachother
can't even have a conversation with eachother, but are busy texting and being "digital" instead of the "here+now" we live in a very surreal world at the moment where people's priorities are
askew, people are adrift and their grasp of reality is only what they are "fed" by "the stream"

then again, maybe they already know the answer, that in fact it is ALL an illusion and nothing is real unless it is
indexed on the internet or by their cellphone provider ... as mr snoewedeen has shown so many of us ... maybe it is part of the matrix ?

 

[markbarendt]

but the sitter ( and friends/family ) not even recognizing him/herself ...
maybe that is a bit drastic ...

Yes, that's true.

 

[Maris]

sometimes i take portraits of people ...
the close friends, even the person who i took the portrait of says " who is that ?!'
it doesn't look like or resemble them at all. it wasn't me, i just pushed the button ... it was the camera.
it isn't hard to create a new reality with a camera, based of the shimmer of our own reality

Were it not for photography nobody would know what they themselves look like. The nearest most people get is the image in the bathroom mirror. But, hey, that's left to right (more correctly mirror) reversed. A photographic portrait is not mirror reversed and looks somehow "wrong" to the sitter. I always make one portrait proof with the neg flipped in the enlarger to show the effect to my portrait subject.

Now, portraits made as reflective camera-original material (direct positives, tintypes, ambrotypes, daguerreotypes) do exhibit the mirror-flip and seem to be most acceptable to those lucky enough to be thus portrayed.

 

[markbarendt]

I think of them as pod people which they will probably not understand either.

I think you underestimate them greatly. Their interests and the challenges they face are different than ours were.

My Grandmother didn't understand why people would spend more than a few seconds on the phone, my mom got it though.

Similarly, Millennials get that the world has changed again and given your comment, it seems like you maybe missed that text. (That comment is tongue in cheek BTW.)

Speaking of texts, I think it was about a year ago that I saw an interesting statistic about texting. The read rate on texts parents send to our kids is on the high side of 99%, the response rate was abysmal though, as I remember under 10%. The moral here is that if you want the kids to know something, send 'em a text, just don't expect a confirmation.

 

[removed account4]

Were it not for photography nobody would know what they themselves look like. The nearest most people get is the image in the bathroom mirror. But, hey, that's left to right (more correctly mirror) reversed. A photographic portrait is not mirror reversed and looks somehow "wrong" to the sitter. I always make one portrait proof with the neg flipped in the enlarger to show the effect to my portrait subject.

Now, portraits made as reflective camera-original material (direct positives, tintypes, ambrotypes, daguerreotypes) do exhibit the mirror-flip and seem to be most acceptable to those lucky enough to be thus portrayed.

hi maris

i think before photographic images people knew exactly what they looked like.
there have always been shiny objects, mirrors, reflective surfaces, water, glass ..
while i admire your train of thought, i don't think people didn't know what they looked like ...
not even in "cave man" times