The readings this week offered two different views on how people can use photography. In his article, Jonathan Crary describes the way Westerners view vision and how it has changed over time. He argues that today people see vision as separate from the observer. Where once people thought vision was like looking at the world through a camera they now do not trust the eye and they know it has potential to deceive. This argument rang true to me when considering it in terms of technological developments in photography. In the past, and there are still cases today, of photographs being used as a raw objective image of seeing the world. Landscapes photographs are popular because it can help people feel “close” to nature even if they are in an urban city. The photograph is taken for what it is, and the people can put their own meaning into it. These people seem to assume that the photograph is depicting a “reality” that they know. These people can only make these assumptions if they trust that the image itself is objective and not manipulated in anyway. The shift that has occurred in photography in the Western world, like the shift in the 19th century, is that people no longer can trust what they see. With the invention of digital cameras people can now manipulate faces, backgrounds and all types of images. Like Crary says, “The issue was not just how does one know what is real, but that new forms of the real were being fabricated and a new truth and the new truth about the capacities of a human subject was being articulated in these terms.” In the Western world, manipulation is seen as more a negative thing that disrupts the reality depicted in a photograph.
Pinney and Sprague’s articles offer a different view of photography that has not been influenced by the shift that Crary wrote about. Both in the Yoruba and Central India , photographers manipulate photos to add meaning to the picture. Both write about how formal portraits of people are popular in photography. In Yoruba vision “implies clarity and definition of form and line, and a subsequent clarity and identity. In India
I would like to further discuss the differences between these two cultures and what vision and photography means to the Western culture compared to India
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When dealing with the deception of the eye, I think it would be interesting too look at the relationship between the eye and the mind. Crary states that we can view the human mind as “an inner space in which clear and distinct ideas are passed in review before an inner Eye” (Crary 32). This suggests that not only does the eye impact our perception of objects, but the mind’s interpretation of the eye’s information then passes onward to an ‘inner eye.’ The abstractness of this idea is a bit hard for me to grasp. Nevertheless, I feel like this belief can somehow cycle into the optical unconscious, where the camera presents things that we would otherwise have not been able to see. Pinney claims that “the relationship between the evanescent body and the eternal soul is an attenuation of the link between visible and invisible qualities” (Pinney 93). Although we may think of the optical unconscious in a physical sense, the fact that a photograph allows us to reflect upon a specific moment in time draws out the possibility that we can find deeper meaning past the surface value of the image. The influence that the eye has on our observation of the world, whether actual reality or altered by some means, is of great significance.
In regards to the idea of the emotional connection to photographs, I suppose that this ties into to a concept brought up on Tuesday, about how our associations and expectations of a photographic image deal with our own personal experience. Although we may not have any knowledge of an event that took place, or of the individual in the picture, we will add to that photograph a description of what we believe to be true. On the other end of the spectrum, when it comes to people with whom we are familiar, I feel as though that emotional connection comes from direct experience, whether from physical interaction or generational stories. In Sprague’s article, he states that “the actual structure and symbolic meaning of the photographic image are not consciously considered: it serves only to trigger the viewer’s memory of the subject” (Sprague 251) If we take the example stated in this article about a person’s portrait being carried during their funeral procession, I know from personal experience that this action carries profound weight.
(There are two parts in this comment, everything did not fit)
I find it quite interesting to discuss the deception and manipulation associated to modern photography. Through Crary’s essay, we understand that the advent of modernity has transformed the reproducibility of the image – just like we had seen with Benjamin – through photography, and that now the observer does not trust the reality and objectivity of the image. I would like to argue here that we could make the claim that photography is always and will always be the failed promise of truth and objectivity, the constant manipulation through the fantasy of “reality”. In an essay called Photography, Or the Writing of Light – which I feel is essential to associate to this discussion – Jean Baudrillard writes the following:
“The miracle of photography, of its so-called objective image, is that it reveals a radically non-objective world. It is a paradox that the lack of objectivity of the world is disclosed by the photographic lens. Analysis and reproduction are of no help in solving this problem. The technique of photography takes us beyond the replica into the domain of the trompe-l’oeil. Through its unrealistic play of visual techniques, its slicing of reality, its immobility, its silence, and its phenomenological reduction of movements, photography affirms itself as both the purest and the most artificial exposition of the image.”
I add this quote to illustrate the idea that, as photography is always a manipulation (“In photography, we see nothing. Only the lens "sees" things. But the lens is hidden” Baudrillard writes in the same essay), maybe the manipulated image of today (Photoshop etc.) is more “real” insofar as it exposes the manipulation rather than hiding it under the disguise of “realism” and “objectivity”. There is thus no more reality in a photograph than in a painting: just like Picasso used to say, “who sees the human figure correctly? The photographer, the mirror or the painter?”
Furthermore, we decide to place on the photography our vision of the distorted reality we see in the image. We are the subjects observing the photographic image but we also fill the image with our subjectivity, and to the question of emotion you have pointed out. If I see a photograph of a random person, the son of that random person may see much more in that photograph: is that not already a form of manipulation? Just like Sprague points it out in studying Yoruba’s relationship to the portrait image, that population inscribes its culture and reality in the pictures. The contemporary French philosopher Paul Virilio has a very interesting way of looking at the deception implied in photography, which I have yet to fully grasp: “Photography (…) has incited us to delegate to our multiple machines of vision the exorbitant power of seeing the world, of representing it, of controlling it”.
- Ayan Meer (part 1)
Pinney’s essay also made me think a lot about what we said on Tuesday regarding the different perceptions of photography in India and the West, and we came to the conclusion that the process that had taken place in Europe – which Crary describes – had not taken place and that optical subconscious were thus radically different. Pinney points out this difference when he writes, “the preference for doubles and poses reflects (and in turn engenders) the lack of centred, visible personality”. The Indian relationship to photography is radically different from Roland Barthes’s, who claims in Camera Oscura that “what photography reproduces infinitely only takes place once”. This particular difference may be linked to the difference in the perceptions of time in the West and in India, time not being in the latter such a linear feature. One other difference between Barthes’s theory and Nagda photographic practices is also pointed out by Pinney; Barthes’s idea of an epiphany of seeing the identity of a person through a photo is on the contrary shattered through the fragmentation of identity, which is not stranger to Hindu culture.
However, the idea that India would not have gone through the process Crary describes, or the idea that modernity has changed our perception of the observer is one that Baudrillard does not believe in. He writes: “One may dream of a heroic age of photography when it still was a black box and not the transparent and interactive space it has become. (…) The image [when it was still a black box] is revealed for what it is: it exalts what it sees as pure evidence, without interference, consensus, and adornment. It reveals what is neither moral nor "objective," but instead remains unintelligible about us. It exposes what is not up to reality but is, rather, reality's evil share.”
I am sorry to keep coming back to Baudrillard’s essay but I find it very interesting when associated to our readings on photography. Here is one last quote I find particularly insightful:
“It is perhaps not a surprise that photography developed as a technological medium in the industrial age, when reality started to disappear. It is even perhaps the disappearance of reality that triggered this technical form. Reality found a way to mutate into an image. This puts into question our simplistic explanations about the birth of technology and the advent of the modern world. It is perhaps not technologies and media that have caused our now famous disappearance of reality. On the contrary, it is probable that all our technologies (fatal offsprings that they are) arise from the gradual extinction of reality.”
- Ayan Meer (part 2)
Because a photograph is only a single image, it has the potential to be an extremely raw representation of the “true” nature of the world. However, photographs can also be highly deceiving, as the readings, blog posts, and lecture pointed out this week. This deception can come in many ways. The first can be a case in which the single image is just not enough to capture the essence of the events surrounding the image. This is the case, in the image shown during the lecture of the two people kissing during the Toronto Riots. In this case, the single image, though accurately depicting what was happening, did not capture the essence of the situation.
The Crary reading identifies another way in which photographs may be deceiving (or how vision itself can be deceiving), by describing the ways in which people have questioned vision as an accurate depiction of the world. A good example of this is an optical illusion. In the case of an optical illusion, the image fails to accurately represent the state of the world because it capitalizes on some flaw in our visual system—a straw in a glass of water may look bent but that is in fact not the case. Interestingly, (though a bit off topic from my main point) even if we are aware of the disjunct between what we perceive (a bent straw) and what the state of the world is (a straight straw), we cannot change our perception to correct for this.
Sprague’s article introduces some other forms of deceit that may be caused by a photograph. The first part of Yoruba photography that may contribute to discussions of photographic manipulation is the way in which the portraits are so planned. I found this fascinating because what these people are trying to do is to make the picture a better representation of what life is really like for the person, but the method by which they go about doing this is very much fabricated. By dressing a certain way, sitting in an unnatural position, and filling the environment with meaningful symbols, the Yoruba believe they are creating a more accurate image of ‘real life.’ To me, it seems that the closest an image will ever get to being a pure representation of real life is if it were candid, and unplanned.
The Yoruba tradition of taking twin pictures is also fascinating. The act of fabricating these images in the event of the death of a twin is very much an attempt to make the image a better representation of the state of the world, through manipulation.
In these examples people have altered images in order to try to make them more real—better depictions of the state of the world. Photographers do the same thing now with photoshop. Photographers use photoshop to correct for things like exposure and saturation, to retrospectively make their images better reflect what we would see if we looked at the subject of the image with our own eyes. Of course, there are also examples of photoshop being used to purposely deceive, as was discussed in lecture, but I think the far more fascinating examples are of the paradoxical way people use photographic manipulation to make the image more accurate.
--oliver
I think it has been very interesting that we are focusing on photography this week because many members of my family are photographers professionally. I have never really thought of images as representations or even images that can be deceptive or have a certain vision. I always thought they were solely meant to help us remember past experiences or show beauty in some way. The subject of deception by an image changed my view of photographs. I agree with Oliver’s comments that images can leave out the true essence of a situation. Situations and event s become what they are based on events leading up to them, and a photograph does not capture that background information. Also, one’s own personal interests and views help shape their perception of an image. Certain aspects may be clearer to someone with certain views, while another person may see that same image in a completely different way. Andres Serrano’s photograph Piss Christ is a great example of this. Many people think the work is extremely offensive to Jesus, which is not what the artist intended. In fact, the main intention was to show that Christ is in everyone, including their lowest bodily fluids. Catholics were against the picture, while certain artists embraced it. Many interpretations are given of the photograph, but many are incorrect and do not capture the essence of the photograph. Crary writes about a similar subject, which is that the mind’s interpretation of the eye’s information is different for each person. This captures the essence of photography perfectly. It is not so black and white as photographs used to be.
-John Kaestner
In Crary’s article he states that the camera obscura ultimately failed because it became too immobile and cumbersome to be an adequate representation of human vision and experience. I agree with Crary that a more mobile, usable, and productive observer” was necessary to capture the “proliferation of equally mobile and exchangeable signs and images” (Crary, 40). To capture the “real” human experience of fleeting moments, places, etc. requires a system less fixed and more flexible.
Prior to this week, I had never really considered photography as a form of mediation that could be molded culturally and socially. I assumed that others used photography like I used it. Yet as Pinney states, “Photography [in Central India] is prized for its ability to record idealized staged events characterized by a theatrical preparedness and symmetry” (Pinney, 97). This is very similar to the traditional Yoruban formal portraits embodying one’s social accomplishments and achievements through adornments and dress. Other than some of the more advanced “photoshopping” done to portraits in Indian culture and the twin illusion in Yoruban culture, the idea of the camera obscura would have been perfectly acceptable. Even with the advancements in photographic technology that allow better capture of movement and active individuals, both cultures still prefer the fixed rigidity of staged portraits to convey their ideals. Both of these cultures seem to contradict Crary because the “proliferation of equally mobile signs and images” has had very little effect on photography’s cultural value.
-Daniel Gergen
As a member of the Igbo tribe, one of the three major tribes in Nigeria, I definitely identified with the Sprague piece. I lived in Lagos, one of the most populous cities in Nigeria for a large portion of my life. Since we lived in the city, in an effort to make us learn more about our culture, my parents would drive us back to the village during Christmas. There we would meet our relatives, participating in certain traditional activities, while learning more about our culture. My grandfather had 10 sons and 2 daughters and to accommodate each of his children and their families during visits, he built a large estate. Since he died before I was born the only representations I had of him were huge photographs in each of the living rooms. On one of them, just as in figure 3 of the Sprague piece, he was seated in the living room adorned in traditional Igbo cultural clothes. As a high chief, he had on a red hat with a white feather, multiple red beads and a staff. On display were symbols of his success in the Nigerian military and in the village. Since my parents did not talk much about him, I had come to interpret these images as truths. Just like the paper, these photos emphasized how well he was able to fulfill his traditional role in the Igbo society and in essence, were a sign of status. I looked up to him as the ideal man, believing that these images were a window to reality. In a way, I believe that through these pictures I could piece together whom this man was, what made him tick, and his successes and failures. I later realized that the purpose of the photographs was to skew my perception of him. He was not a perfect man, but observing his immense success, looking at the ways my uncles acted I was able to create my own reality of him. This was how he wanted to be seen and I fell for that illusion of status and perfection. The question was: how did I know I could trust my eyes? Like the lens of a camera, my eyes had created a reality for me that I refused to relinquish. In this case, the photographs deceived me. Nevertheless, I do not agree with the position that the intent of photography is to manipulate. Since there are two dimensions to the cause: the truth of the world and the truth that the observer attributes to this world, I believe that the later increases the propensity for photographs to manipulate one. By injecting our own subjective views of the world into understanding the photograph, we are more likely to create a meaning that is radically different from the intent of the photographer.
-Emmanuel Ohuabunwa
I found the juxtaposition between Crary’s article, which emphasized observation via photography, and the articles of Pinney and Sprague, which focused on how individuals are able to portray themselves to the world through photographic media, to be quite interesting. Photography is a two dimensional form of media that may also be studied from two distinct directions: the experience of the observer, or the perspective of the subject being photographed.
Crary’s description of how vision has been broken down and quantified as statistical information is interesting to consider in contrast to the effort that the Yoruba and Nagda inhabitants put in to conveying very specific personas/reflections of themselves. When reading Crary’s article, one was able to gain a background into the quantitative and scientific fascination with photography that has undoubtedly influenced the proliferation and development of photographic media into what it is today: a means of presenting oneself to the world, and preserving a particular representation of oneself via visual imagery. I would like to discuss the transition of photography from a scientific fascination to the social/emotional/sociological phenomena that it represents today. I would also like to look at the distinctive uses photography serves in Western culture and cultures such as those of the Yoruba and Nagda inhabitants.
-Amy
It was in my digital photography class that I was first exposed to the idea that a photographic image could be manipulated to get a certain response from its viewers. When I started taking photographs, I had no idea how much thought went into the positioning of the subject being photographed, the lighting to convey the mood and the acute details that create the setting of the photograph. I always took photographs at face value until I realized that they are all essentially manipulated in some way or another. I believe this ties into Crary’s argument that people see vision as separate from the observer, as Kristen mentions. I agree that viewers can no longer “trust” what they see in photographs, even portraits. When reading the Sprague article about the Yoruba, I realized that even though they are trying to portray the honesty and the tradition of their culture, that all of those photographs are, in fact, manipulated to make the viewer think that those photographs depict how their culture really is. I almost feel that through this manipulation, a sense of credibility can possibly be lost in the photograph. For example, one of the most powerful photographs I have ever seen is “Afghan Girl,” taken by Steve McCurry, on the cover of a National Geographic magazine. What made this photograph so powerful was it was almost a candid shot, but the girls piercing eyes and surprised, stone cold expression made it one of the most famous photographs in recent history. It is this type of honesty that can be lost through the manipulation of photographs in order to elicit a certain response out of the viewer.
Photography's ability to offer such seeming closeness to an objective world is double edged to be sure. On one side, photography offers the ability to feel a sense of closeness to the things that are not readily accessible. It leads the eyes to things that they want to see and even sometimes might not be true, just as is pointed out in Jonathan Crary's article. I contend that even though some images are manipulated, they still express the reality of who the person is, because they are reflective of the person's wants. If a person wants to be more beautiful, be in an "orchard" or be photoshopped into places theyve never been, that is even more true to the person. This is because it gives a view of the person's wants and likes even more than a regular photo might.
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