This post got so big I had to split it. I was inspired to this pondering by my (there was a url link here which no longer exists) today, where I went to a gun show, and found myself unexpectedly discriminated against because I brought a camera.
I seem to find myself straddling cultures often, which can make me feel alone. What about gun enthusiasts that are also camera enthusiasts? Jazz enthusiasts that ALSO like progressive metal? As one with broad interests I find myself an enemy and a friend of the same entity often. This causes unnecessary spiritual discord.
What about people that order large amounts of chemicals for their home laboratory? What are they up to? What about people that photograph unrelated children in the street and even buildings and bridges? What are their motivations? What assumptions do we make about these people? My heart tells me that these assumptions are bad. What assumptions do I make that can be spiritualy harmful in a similar way?
Does espousal of one philosophy or preference automatically project a stance? Is it a zero sum game? Can I not enjoy skateboarding without associating myself with an entrenched-yet-flimsy social perception thereof? Must what I do reflect on who I am? And can I possibly prevent myself from judging people as individuals rather than as members of groups that I poorly understand, and constructed myself, based on perceptual clues that I myself admit the fallibility of? I must learn about everything. That is not possible. I cannot know everything. In the meantime I must reject the meaning commonly invested in things. I must look deeper. Shallower. I must look less deeply into things.
In doing this I must reject photographs as identifiers of anything. The denial of photographs as representations of reality must be emphasized. The creative role of the photographer and the transcendent nature of photography must dominate. A photograph of a building must no more in my mind be an an ambassador of the building's being; I must purge this instinct. Photographs, especially of people, invite a reconstruction, of a reality that no critic can know. This reconstruction is faulty in all.
An image of a child with parents, with iced cream. Did the parent buy the child the iced cream? I had assumed so, but I do not know that. Is that person even the child's parent? I had assumed that. The photograph invites this inquiry, and that's the photograph's purpose. A photograph is a piece of paper with a pattern on it. On this we can look and enjoy ourselves in perceiving something in the pattern. Tilt a photograph sideways, and disappears. To consider not the photograph, but the subject of a photograph, through its image or photograph, is a denial of what the subject deserves.
As long as the de/reconstruction of the photograph remains divorced from reality in all, it is noble as art, the way a work of fiction can bear the full weight of the reader's imagination in a natural way, while a work of nonfiction unavoidably occupies an uncomfortable saddle between dishonesty and meaninglessness. And yet, the world continues to (mis)use photography in this way...as evidence, as documentary, as witness. Indeed ours moves more and more from a text-driven society to an image-driven one. Perhaps, this can be acceptable in some circumstances. But not for me. Not anymore.
I seem to find myself straddling cultures often, which can make me feel alone. What about gun enthusiasts that are also camera enthusiasts? Jazz enthusiasts that ALSO like progressive metal? As one with broad interests I find myself an enemy and a friend of the same entity often. This causes unnecessary spiritual discord.
What about people that order large amounts of chemicals for their home laboratory? What are they up to? What about people that photograph unrelated children in the street and even buildings and bridges? What are their motivations? What assumptions do we make about these people? My heart tells me that these assumptions are bad. What assumptions do I make that can be spiritualy harmful in a similar way?
Does espousal of one philosophy or preference automatically project a stance? Is it a zero sum game? Can I not enjoy skateboarding without associating myself with an entrenched-yet-flimsy social perception thereof? Must what I do reflect on who I am? And can I possibly prevent myself from judging people as individuals rather than as members of groups that I poorly understand, and constructed myself, based on perceptual clues that I myself admit the fallibility of? I must learn about everything. That is not possible. I cannot know everything. In the meantime I must reject the meaning commonly invested in things. I must look deeper. Shallower. I must look less deeply into things.
In doing this I must reject photographs as identifiers of anything. The denial of photographs as representations of reality must be emphasized. The creative role of the photographer and the transcendent nature of photography must dominate. A photograph of a building must no more in my mind be an an ambassador of the building's being; I must purge this instinct. Photographs, especially of people, invite a reconstruction, of a reality that no critic can know. This reconstruction is faulty in all.
An image of a child with parents, with iced cream. Did the parent buy the child the iced cream? I had assumed so, but I do not know that. Is that person even the child's parent? I had assumed that. The photograph invites this inquiry, and that's the photograph's purpose. A photograph is a piece of paper with a pattern on it. On this we can look and enjoy ourselves in perceiving something in the pattern. Tilt a photograph sideways, and disappears. To consider not the photograph, but the subject of a photograph, through its image or photograph, is a denial of what the subject deserves.
As long as the de/reconstruction of the photograph remains divorced from reality in all, it is noble as art, the way a work of fiction can bear the full weight of the reader's imagination in a natural way, while a work of nonfiction unavoidably occupies an uncomfortable saddle between dishonesty and meaninglessness. And yet, the world continues to (mis)use photography in this way...as evidence, as documentary, as witness. Indeed ours moves more and more from a text-driven society to an image-driven one. Perhaps, this can be acceptable in some circumstances. But not for me. Not anymore.
