"meaning" in a photograph ?

jtk · Mar 25, 2018

Vaughn said:

I am not disagreeing, but I am seeing other possibilities beyond your statement. The totality expressed in an instant by Haiku can be awesome. Well, almost instant...it takes 17 (or less) on (syllables) to get there...not much longer than it takes to take in a visual piece of art. Then there is the photographic work of Duane Michals, who takes photography into the sequential world of the poem and short story.

The artist is always critcal of the art critic. The non-artist is always critical of the artist. No one is critical of the non-artist but their wives, thus they live in bliss.

Click to expand...

I'm not into written absolutes ("always" or the notion of "bliss). I work, appreciate, suffer, feel joy and don't seek "bliss." Bliss sometimes finds me, but I'm just as happy when my brain is going 100 kph, tho happy in a different way. A creative act isn't a flash, it's a process. IMO.

Haiku isn't 17 syllables in Japanese. I've read that.it's 5 sounds, perhaps as little as one character (pictogram). In other words it conveys very quickly.

On the other hand, some painters involve all sorts of tangential, long-winded, obscure concepts, some have intended instruction, some are complicated pranksters.

jtk · Mar 25, 2018

faberryman said:
No. If the meaning (generally or to you) of a work of art cannot be verbalized, it means you do not have a clear understanding of such meaning either through lack of interest, education, or intellect, or you are inarticulate. This all sounds like some pseudo-Zen nonsense masquerading as cogent thought.

Sounds like you're unhappy when asked to think Are you posting here simply out of anger?

faberryman · Mar 25, 2018

jtk said:
Sounds like you're unhappy when asked to think Are you posting here simply out of anger?

Not angry in the least, though I don't suffer fools gladly. I thought my post was right on point, responsive to the post quoted.

Ivo · Mar 26, 2018

slackercrurster said:
Meaning is all subjective OP.

Someone said my photo was of illegal aliens living on the street. Another said it was occupy style protest.

What is 'In the Shadow of City Hall' ?

It is a homeless tent encampment in L.A. I shot through my windshield while driving to the airport.

Then intellectuals have to mentally masturbate the photo many a time. I just freeze time and document my world. The photo should stand on itself.

+1

Ivo · Mar 26, 2018

jim10219 said:
Terribly incorrect. I paint and have sold many paintings in various galleries and exhibitions. I’ve only recently come to photography. Photography, for me, is much more difficult than painting. In a painting, you can control everything. In a photograph, most things are beyond your control. This is why you rarely see a photographer who transcends beyond the realm of mediocrity. Photography isn’t generally as highly regarded in art circles as painting not because it’s easier to do, but because it’s harder to do well.

Painting and drawing are skills. Virtually anyone can learn them. But for some reason, there are a ton of people out there who spend an afternoon trying to draw something, give up in frustration, and then proclaim that they don’t possess the natural talent to ever be able to do it. The truth is they can learn just like everyone else who can draw well learned to draw, but they lack the discipline to put forth the effort.

Everyone can learn to draw or paint, agree, even if it is the Bob Ross way. Everyone can learn to use a camera and everyone can learn to play a tune on a violine.

But virtuous playing, painting takes more than skill. It takes talent.

removed account4 · Mar 26, 2018

Ivo said:
Everyone can learn to draw or paint, agree, even if it is the Bob Ross way. Everyone can learn to use a camera and everyone can learn to play a tune on a violine.

But virtuous playing, painting takes more than skill. It takes talent.

i can agree with that, but i wouldn't suggest that
using a camera is for the talentless..

guangong · Mar 26, 2018

Sirius Glass said:
I can sketch, draw, paint and sculpt, but I choose to photograph.

Sirius, we have a lot in common. Sketching, drawing, painting and sculpting ( I work in marble) are very similar to photography in that all require a degree of technical knowledge in order to be practiced. As my friend the late Phil Pavia always emphasized, drawing and sculpture are really about the study of shadows. So is photography.
Some on APUG complain that they cannot squeez an additional frame from a 35mm roll of film. My wife comments that I spend a chunk of money for a 300 pound of expensive marble only to chisel much of it away to waste.

Something else these arts share with photography: the loss of art supply stores. The best of all stores, New York Central, closed its doors forever. Quality sculpting supplies like hammers, chisels and good stone are almost impossible to find.

jtk · Mar 26, 2018

jim10219 said:

Why would understanding lead to devaluation? Throughout history the majority of artwork of any kind was made and understood by its audience to have specific meanings. Without meaning, ancient fertility figures would just be lumps of clay (instead of pleas to the gods), Caravaggio’s “David” would just be a gruesome scene (instead of a plea for forgiveness), J.M.W. Turner’s “The Slave Ship” would just be smeared paint (instead of a call to freedom), and Picasso’s “Guernica” would be a bad cartoon (instead of a light shining on the horrors of fascism). Symbolism has long been an effective tool to communicate meaning in a piece of artwork so that’s its value extends beyond its aesthetics. So have titles. A title of a work can alter or expand its meaning and enhance its power. As can a description.

The idea that a work of art can exist on its own without meaning is a relatively recent idea. If anything, I’d argue that if the meaning of a work of art can’t be verbalized, then what was the point of it? Is it just decoration? Is it an advertisement for one’s technical prowess? If a photograph was created without meaning, and viewed without meaning, then what separates it from the wall it hangs on?

Click to expand...

Jim's is one of many intelligent responses to the questions I posed.

Jim tellsl us what those powerful paintings "mean" ...a short-cut to appreciation and understanding: "OK, now I get it...I'll move along to the next picture in our art history book."

In a wonderful art history course. many years ago...we spent hours on the "meanings" that were inserted by Renaissance painters in order to satisfy their patrons. The painters were, of course painters but Popes and other wealthy required "meaning."

Ko.Fe. · Mar 26, 2018

I'll skip the art part as irrelevant to photography with meaning and I'll try to explain "meaning" in photography.

It depends on capabilities of the viewer most. Why?
Because it is viewer whom photography is addressed to.

Viewer might have developed viewing and imagination capabilities. Basic example is then someone could see some object in the irrelevant parts.
"I spy with my eye" kind of game. In art Dali was capable to deliver it to the viewer.
In photography it could be some snapshot and something in this snapshot will arise and totally different subject.
Do you see faces in the forest often? Or some figures on tiles? I do...

Next "meaning" is then photographer feels something, without deep experience and viewer with experience is able to pick it up.
For example HCB second book from USSR. He didn't know USSR as I do since it was my country to live in.
But at every photo in this book of USSR I see very deep meaning for some very deep and internal aspects of life in USSR.
Perhaps, it is the only USSR photos book with so deep and accurate meaning I have seen so far.
So, meaning in photography depends on viewer knowledge, education, experience as well.

If you are experienced, open person, with gift of imagination, often cheesy and primitive photos glamorized as the art are garbage. And in opposite, many snap shot photos will tell you the story.

Art-shmart in photography has no meaning to me.
Where are some weak photos pushed as art among self-serving, self-promoting groups, but its monetary reason is too obvious for viewer with experience
For HCB artist and photographer were always different professions, means.

trondareo · Mar 26, 2018

To understand meaning, you need to read up on semiotics and visual semiotics.
You can deconstruct the meaning of images from the perspectives of narrative, culture, people, their expression, and composition. And more, or less..
Images are of their time, their place. We have lots of ways we categorize and value the things around us. Although tacid, we use these skills when choosing what to photograph.

trondareo · Mar 26, 2018

oh, and take a look at this : https://faculty.washington.edu/dillon/rhethtml/signifiers/sigsave.html

Saganich · Mar 27, 2018

I didn't read every post here but just would like to say while discourse expresses intelligibility (meaning) it is accomplished through interpretation and the logic behind it, assertion, which has propositional structure. To have propositional structure is to first grasp and deploy a concept or fore-understanding. So interpretation is an act of understanding made explicit by understanding it as something. However there is understanding that is missing the "something" that can not be made into assertions or put into description; a pre-interpretative understanding. In other words there is understanding that has propositional content (interpretation, assertion) and understanding that does not and the former seems to be derived from the latter. To put this another way, the argument is that there is a level of intelligence that is not conceptually mediated, that can not be captured in discourse. Take for example any practice or craft with a refined and sensitive set of skills. Can all that which goes into a work of art be deconstructed with a set of assertions? Isn't there a theory for everything? Well some construction is possible (self driving cars for example) but for more refined and sensitive practice it doesn't look promising. What we do we can do because we know-how not because we know-what and our ability to function is not based on vast body of rules and facts that can be described as a theory. So if someone is at a loss for words it is likely correct they are at a loss for meaning but not understanding.

trondareo · Mar 27, 2018

Very good point!

removed account4 · Mar 27, 2018

jtk said:
On the other hand, some painters involve all sorts of tangential, long-winded, obscure concepts, some have intended instruction, some are complicated pranksters

most are complicated pranksters, no matter the media. the staid conservative "artist" is usually like margaret dumont in a marx brothers movie ..

jtk said:
A creative act isn't a flash, it's a process. IMO.

the bleeding the creative energy until it is depleted making 50 identical works of art that go well together is the process .
the idea / inspiration &c is a flash. unless ... it isn't

jtk · Mar 27, 2018

jnanian said:

most are complicated pranksters, no matter the media. the staid conservative "artist" is usually like margaret dumont in a marx brothers movie ..

Click to expand...

jnanian said:
the bleeding the creative energy until it is depleted making 50 identical works of art that go well together is the process .
the idea / inspiration &c is a flash. unless ... it isn't

Visited DIA Gallery (a giant building on Hudson River)...one room had dozens of same-size, same look German industrial buildings shot 8X10 from the Sixties until recently by Bernd and Hilla Becher...and the main exhibition had 50 same size photo silkscreens by Andy Warhol...crazy colors, all of Marilyn Monroe, all would have been identical if the screens had printed with black and grey inks.

http://www.getty.edu/art/collection...nd-hilla-becher-german-partnership-1959-2007/

removed account4 · Mar 27, 2018

exactly but the inspiration and creativity didn't take 20 years that was the drudgery of making the images
the creativity is the light bulb not the electric bill

jtk · Mar 27, 2018

Saganich said:

I didn't read every post here but just would like to say while discourse expresses intelligibility (meaning) it is accomplished through interpretation and the logic behind it, assertion, which has propositional structure. To have propositional structure is to first grasp and deploy a concept or fore-understanding. So interpretation is an act of understanding made explicit by understanding it as something. However there is understanding that is missing the "something" that can not be made into assertions or put into description; a pre-interpretative understanding. In other words there is understanding that has propositional content (interpretation, assertion) and understanding that does not and the former seems to be derived from the latter. To put this another way, the argument is that there is a level of intelligence that is not conceptually mediated, that can not be captured in discourse. Take for example any practice or craft with a refined and sensitive set of skills. Can all that which goes into a work of art be deconstructed with a set of assertions? Isn't there a theory for everything? Well some construction is possible (self driving cars for example) but for more refined and sensitive practice it doesn't look promising. What we do we can do because we know-how not because we know-what and our ability to function is not based on vast body of rules and facts that can be described as a theory. So if someone is at a loss for words it is likely correct they are at a loss for meaning but not understanding.

Click to expand...

Time spent carefully reading your post was rewarding. Thanks.

barzune · Mar 30, 2018

What do my photographs mean? Well, I saw something that I thought looked worth recording, for whatever reason at the time.
The scene interested my eye, and that's all it means to me. If I show you the picture, it's because I think it may interest you as well.
That's the meaning of my pictures.

faberryman · Apr 3, 2018

Saganich said:
I didn't read every post here but just would like to say while discourse expresses intelligibility (meaning) it is accomplished through interpretation and the logic behind it, assertion, which has propositional structure. To have propositional structure is to first grasp and deploy a concept or fore-understanding. So interpretation is an act of understanding made explicit by understanding it as something. However there is understanding that is missing the "something" that can not be made into assertions or put into description; a pre-interpretative understanding. In other words there is understanding that has propositional content (interpretation, assertion) and understanding that does not and the former seems to be derived from the latter. To put this another way, the argument is that there is a level of intelligence that is not conceptually mediated, that can not be captured in discourse. Take for example any practice or craft with a refined and sensitive set of skills. Can all that which goes into a work of art be deconstructed with a set of assertions? Isn't there a theory for everything? Well some construction is possible (self driving cars for example) but for more refined and sensitive practice it doesn't look promising. What we do we can do because we know-how not because we know-what and our ability to function is not based on vast body of rules and facts that can be described as a theory. So if someone is at a loss for words it is likely correct they are at a loss for meaning but not understanding.

I have found that most often when someone is unable to articulate a meaning either there is no meaning, or he does not understand the meaning. Understanding requires a subject. But this is largely an issue of epistemology and metaphysics, and beliefs differ.

rgeorge911 · Apr 3, 2018

I believe that photography is communication, where the transmitter likely desires to transmit meaning to the receiver. Sometimes the meaning is transmitted successfully, sometimes another meaning is perceived, which may be fine in the case of art, and sometimes, no message gets through at all.

Michael Firstlight · Apr 3, 2018

Every communications major knows the 1st rule of communication:

You cannot not communicate.

MFL

NedL · Apr 3, 2018

Some real emotions and moods and ways of feeling are like colors, they cannot be verbalized well. Music, photographs, paintings, drawings, sculptures can be evocative in ways that words cannot. Different languages have words that perfectly describe a situation or feeling but simply do not translate. It doesn't mean the emotion is not real, it means that words are inadequate.

tballphoto · Apr 8, 2021

the attempt to give meaning to a photograph is merely a bourgeoise attempt to elevate shite to art by subterfuge of rambling bullshit to make a photo of say, a cidarette butt on the ground some sort of abstract art piece.

Michael Firstlight · Apr 8, 2021

tballphoto said:
the attempt to give meaning to a photograph is merely a bourgeoise attempt to elevate shite to art by subterfuge of rambling bullshit to make a photo of say, a cidarette butt on the ground some sort of abstract art piece.

Yes, but if there are those that elevate shite to pay six figures or greater for it, I'll gladly make some.

M.

warden · Apr 8, 2021

tballphoto said:
the attempt to give meaning to a photograph is merely a bourgeoise attempt to elevate shite to art by subterfuge of rambling bullshit to make a photo of say, a cidarette butt on the ground some sort of abstract art piece.

Here’s some shite for you. Penn and The Met seemed to find some meaning in the butts elevated to art.

https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/714839

"meaning" in a photograph ?

Privacy & Transparency

Privacy & Transparency