The Downfall of the Hyperbolic: An Exploration of the Deadpan Aesthetic in Photography

The evolution of photography has led us to question what we think we see in images. A style has emerged in photography, however, that addresses some of the concerns raised by approaching their subject mater in a more straight-forward way. With very little manipulation of the images, and as much subjectivity filtered out as possible, these images attempt to show the viewer their subject in an honest to life sort of way, free of the bias and influence of the photographers personal wants, beliefs or desires.[1]

In an age that includes the marked rise of abstraction and the ubiquitous confluence of the digital manipulation of photographic images as a means for photographers to convey sentimental or subjective ideas, it has become difficult to know what is real, and how much is set, staged or created when viewing a photographic image.[2] Deadpan photography offers a contemporary counterbalance to all of the more narrative, text-laden or sentimental images so prevalent in current photography.

These images still engage with emotive subject matter, in some cases the subject matter is highly emotive, but it is done in a way that does not instantly reveal what the photographers emotions about the subject may be. “The adoption of a deadpan aesthetic moves art photography outside the hyperbolic, sentimental and subjective.” (Cotton, 81). Due to their presentation of subject matter, one is directly confronted with the subject of a given image instantly upon looking at it.

The roots of the style can be traced back decades, and is linked to photographers such as Diane Arbus, Candida Hofer, and Bernd and Hilla Becher. Fueled by the New Topographics exhibition of the 1970’s, and spearheaded by such artists as Andreas Gursky, the movement gained momentum in the 1980’s, and was really only acknowledge by the artworld in the early 90’s. “Photography that offered an objective and almost clinical mode had a renewed freshness” compared to the neo-expressive painting and subjective art making of the 1980’s. The increased clarity and scale of the prints helped to both bring photography into the same realm as painting and installation art, but also command more physical space and presence in galleries and exhibitions (Cotton, 81-84).

Part of the power of deadpan photography comes from both its acute visual clarity, and from the huge scale in which they are most often presented. The emphasis is on removing photography from the realm of the individual photographer, and opening up to a much broader world. It attempts to break free of the “limitations of individual perspective”, and instead, “map the extent of the forces, invisible from a single human standpoint, that govern the man-made and natural world” (Cotton, 81).

A variety of photographers have made use of this particular aesthetic, and have used it to cover a wide range of subject matter. From landscapes and portraits to more obscure images of rooms and neighborhoods, it is an aesthetic style that can certainly cross genre, and has been harnessed for a wide variety of subject matter.

Street photography, a favorite framework for deadpan images, offers an interesting set of circumstances for photographers to explore. Joel Sternfeld makes portraits of strangers he meets in the streets, but with the careful care and execution of a well thought out commercially commissioned portrait. His images show people at a respectful distance, and imply to the viewer all that has transpired. They suggest the interactions that have taken place between photographer and subject, and show the subjects reaction to having their impromptu portrait taken (Cotton, 108).[3]

Some of the images that do not include people, but rather focus on either landscape or stationary objects. Some of Lewis Baltz’s images in which he utilizes the deadpan aesthetic are especially engaging due to the seemingly neutral portrayal of his subject matter. In his Power Supply series, Baltz created images of the inside of high tech research laboratories and facilities. Focusing on the clean and ordered presentation of these spaces, one is confronted by the strict geometry of forms presented in the image (Cotton, 89).

The underlying subtext of what these spaces actually represent is only found upon deeper investigation of the image. Unlike many of his other more narrative images and series’, in this instance, Baltz chooses to let the viewer decipher the image on their own. Without any direct attempt to guide the viewer in a specific direction,

Another photographer making use of the style in the late 90’s was Japanese artist Takashi Homma. His choice of subject matter is that of newly built suburban housing in his native Japan, and the landscape that encompasses it. Takashi is certainly influenced by some of the early work of photographers like Baltz, emphasizing how everything in these developments is strategically placed, and nature carefully controlled. The fact that Homma chooses to photograph these scenes from a low camera angle, and only when no people are present adds to the sinister feeling created by his images (Cotton, 88-89).

The choice of alienated or desolated landscapes and cityscapes seem an especially interesting choice for these deadpan photographs, while also opening the whole aesthetic up to a more broad interpretation. “To be sure, a cityscape is not made of flesh. Still…buildings are almost as eloquent as bodies in the street,” (Sontag, 8).[4] There is something to be said about the links we, as people, make to desolation and degradation, whether people, buildings or simply barren landscapes, we cannot help but make connections to our own frailties and wounds.

With the goal of this style an attempt to reach a broader and more universal truth, the seeming neutrality of the photographer is important to keep intact.

“This is one of the major uses of what, to a contemporary eye, looks like a distinctly neutral photographic stance. Polemic narratives are raised for the viewer, but it appears as if this information is being given impartially. Deadpan photography often acts in this fact-stating mode: the personal politics of the photographers come into play in their selection of subject matter and their anticipation of the viewer’s analysis of it, not any explicit political statement through text or photographic style (Cotton, 88)

The use of this aesthetic puts power back in both the hands of the images, and of the viewers. In a contemporary context, it arose, in part, as the answer to the use of text and series as a way for photographers to communicate something to the viewer.

Though these images often function in series, they are each also strong enough to stand on their own. They may fit into larger narratives, but do not require that larger narrative to function. Each individual image draws one in through often starling confrontations with their subject matter, and forces them to break through that discomfort to find the truth a bit deeper down in the image.

This is not to say these images lack emotion, however. As stated before they often deal with very intense and emotive subject matter, like many of Richard Misrach’s images of the Salton Sea in Southern California. Damned and ruined landscapes and former cityscapes are enveloped by an eerie calm, shown still and lifeless. The disturbing beauty that emerges as a result of the ruinous landscape is very provocative, and begs many questions of the viewer. “With his objective stance, he [Misrach] has borne witness to a site that has its own story to tell, a site that only photography lacking the overbearing hyperbole of a strong personal signature could visualize effectively” (Cotton, 96).

The removal of the “overbearing hyperbole” in this strand of contemporary photography is a large part of its appeal. Without text or other means of additional information that stress meaning to the viewer, the more subtle statements being made by many artists using the deadpan style seem somewhat understated compared to much of contemporary photography.[5]

Much of the power of deadpan photography is harnessed through the medium itself. It is the only medium that can still be considered to “capture” a moment, or to convey something as it actually happened. “Ordinary language fixes the difference between hand made images…and photographs by the convention that artists ‘make’ drawings, while photographers ‘take’ photographs,” (Sontag, 46). Whether bias or subjectivity is actually present or not, the appearance of neutrality is in large part from where these images draw their power. With the appearance of neutrality comes the implication that what is presented is actually fact, not interpretation. This makes us want to believe what we see, and encourages us to explore the image in an attempt to discover the truth located within.

Richard Misrach Stranded Rowboat, Salton Sea, 1983

Lewis Baltz, Power Supply, 1989-92.

Joel Sternfeld Attorney with laundry 1988

Takashi Homma, From the series Tokyo Suburbia 1995-98

Axel Hutte, Atlanta, CNN, 2005

Bibliography

Batchen, Geoffrey. Burning with Desire: The Conception of Photography, Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1999.

Cotton, Charlotte. The Photograph as Contemporary Art. New York: Thames & Hudson, 2009.

Sontag, Susan. On Photography. New York: Picador, 1977.

Sontag, Susan. Regarding the Pain of Others. New York: Picador, 2003.

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[1] Though it is probably impossible to filter out all of the subjectivity passed from photographer to viewer, in this style of image making, as much of that is done as possible.

[2] The question often arises if anything in photographic images can actually be considered “real” or “truthful”. The answer to that rests, to some degree, on how what is considered to be real has been defined throughout the course of photographic history. In large part that seems to be tied into the manipulation of images; the less altered an image is after its initial capture, the closer to reality, and, in turn, to truth it remains.

[3] Showing his subjects in this way captures and freezes a specific moment in time, but hints at a much larger story. This moment, merely the duration of the shutter on the camera opening and closing, reflects on much more than a single instant, however. This can be said of a lot, maybe all, portraiture, but what is different in cases like this is the mediation taking place due to Sternfeld’s choice of a deadpan aesthetic. With the subject showing no distinct or truly overt emotion, one is left to wonder what they are truly feeling. They are not smiling or frowning, but somewhere in between. The photographers choice to portray them in such a way liberates them for just this moment, or his reaction to it, and offers paths that lead in many different directions.

[4] Though the attempt is made on the part of the photographer to be totally neutral, one cannot help but consider choices being made such as camera angle, time of day and the lighting being used. Though all are utilized in a way that attempts to neutralize the photographers’ own opinion or bias, one must question how much these very choices actually infuse those images with opinion and bias. Though these elements are always considerations to be made, with subject matter such as these landscapes, it seems especially pronounced. Often times there is no definitively “straight-on” view of the subject, and the selection of camera angle becomes even more important.

[5] In the work of Axel Hutte for example, we see nightscapes of cities. His method of presentation brings the photograph out of the realm of strict documentation, however, and shows us something more. “It is part of deadpan photography’s presentation of things we cannot perceive with the naked eye” that is so intriguing. Hutte’s night photographs are printed as very large scale transparencies, and mounted on light boxes that allows the light to shine through the thinner parts of the images. The result is a sort of living glow that emanates from a still picture, giving his images even more life and depth (Cotton, 94)..

Degradation and Ruin: Critical Theory II Readings

What happens when things that are created to serve a purpose are no longer able to serve the purpose of their original intention? What about when things are discarded, and begin to become obsolete, stagnation and decay set in? There are times when all we are left with is the trace of something that once was, a husk that reminds us of what could have been. As people trying to come to terms with some of these concepts, we often struggle with the memories we have, and try to find a way to preserve them. It is only human nature to do so.

In the critical theory reading, many different topics were discussed, more than could possibly be discussed in a single short research paper. Some of the many themes that can be pulled from many of the readings have to do with death, loss and mourning. The ways in which we, as humans, both interact with and try to adapt to these ever present themes reoccurs throughout the readings, as does how these topics so close to human nature factor into art making and the creation of images.

From Pliny, the story of what was supposed to have been the first attempt of a person to freeze a moment and memory in time, we learn of a girl who wanted to keep the memory of her lover close, even though he would no longer be. She goes to great lengths to trace his shadow, and then her father Butades models a portrait in clay from the shadow traced by the daughter. In a way, it is a sort of pre-mourning ritual, preparing something that will serve as a visual reminder of what will no longer exist, or a time that will pass. In this story of the origin of drawing, the drawing is merely the trace of the shadow, and the trace of the person. The implication is that drawing could only have emerged through the sacrifice, loss or absence of her loved one (Fisher, 219).

The daughter was never trying to capture the physical likeness of her lover, but rather the memory of him. Focusing only on the shadow, and never on the actual person, the mark made by the girl becomes in and of itself the memory of the moment in which it was created (Newman, 93-97). The cast shadow of the lover was the indexical sign of her lovers’ presence in that specific place at that particular time, and her attempt to physically link the index to its referent by tracing his shadow on the wall as an attempt to preserve her lover’s memory speaks to the innate desire in people for something that will outlive our physical bodies and corporeal existences (Krauss, 198).[1]

As a mark becomes a line, a line becomes a form and a form becomes something to which we assign meaning. It is, however, “…impossible to observe, or to catch hold of, the precise moment, or experience, of the flip-over from the pre-sign…to signification, image and meaning” (Newman, 100). The very basic act of making marks that become an image with meaning, and something more than just a physical representation, begins to take place, can serve as a reminder for all of the things that we, as humans, cannot control. The creation and filling of the space of the paper also has to do with being and non-being, and is related to absence as well.[2]

The inevitability of death is something beyond our control, but in the face of this truth humans have nonetheless tried to find ways of outsmarting the inevitability of death. As in Pliny we see something intangible, a shadow, converted to a corporeal presence, a tracing, meant to endure in the absence of its inspiration, we can also see the physical being of people being reproduced as a means to preserve their everlasting form. In ancient Egypt, for example, the common practice of mummification and effigies of the dead were specifically created as a means of cheating death, and ensuring eternal life.

Mummification and the creation of statues of the deceased were meant to provide “…a defense against the passage of time” to satisfy the “basic psychological need in man, for death is but a victory of time. To preserve, artificially, his bodily appearance is to snatch it from the flow of time, to stow it away neatly, so to speak, in the hold of his life” (Bazin, 9). This way of cheating death through artistic recreations of a deceased person was also a way of coping with it, and facing it, in a way.

That need has persisted in us as artists and people, but has surely evolved over time. Our view and attitudes toward art, and life in general, have become more pragmatic, and less rooted in mysticism and magic. As art and civilization have evolved side by side, the plastic arts have lost much of the magical role they once had. “No one any longer believes in the ontological identity of model and image, but are all agreed that the images helps us to remember a subject, and to preserve him from a second spiritual death”(Bazin, 10).

These themes, however, exist beyond the realm of just literal death, and extended into other categories such as loss, degradation and obsolescence. Some times it is not actually death, or even real loss, but rather the perceived loss of something that can cause turmoil within us. This progress and change has been explored in the work of many artists and photographers, and has a lot to do with death and mourning, though not specifically about it per say.

In Freud’s essay, Mourning and Melancholia, he discusses not just loss and mourning, but what happens when it is never brought under control. If left unchecked, he asserts that it can consume and control a person, until they can ultimately overcome that instinct which compels “every living thing to cling to life”, and wander into suicidal territory (Freud, 246).

His point behind this is that the loss need not even be real, but that this situation may arise from the “perceived loss” of something in a person’s life.

…One feels justified in maintaining the belief that a loss…has occurred, but one cannot see clearly what it is that has been lost, and it is all the more reasonable to suppose that the patient cannot consciously perceive what he has lost either…he knows whom he has lost but not what he has lost in him (Freud, 245)

This hits on a main point of the themes from the reading, the fact that the external stimuli that cause us to respond internally are processed and then once again externalized in the form of visual expression, but take on new and varied meanings once re-presented in the form of visual art. It doesn’t matter what inspired the initial feelings of loss, or if they are even rooted in actual experience, but rather how that loss is anticipated, perceived and processed through our thoughts, memories and actions.

Whenever people see death or loss, degradation and decay, it elicits a response from deep within them. We, as people, seem to have a substantial reaction to things falling apart, and in there own way, passing on. Sometimes we find beauty in it, other times we find it sad, but always we are curious; fascinated by what was once there, and just how that has changed and/or is still changing. Emmanuel Levinas touches upon themes linked to this in his article, “The Trace of the Other”.

When he discusses “the other”, Levinas is referring to they way in which we view ourselves compared to the places, things and people around us, both literally and figuratively. Often times, we view (or at least want to view) the degradation or death that we see as the other. We want to separate ourselves from what we see, and add levels of mediation to keep “that world” separate from “our world”. The reason for this is often the inability to accept that which we recognize; namely the potential for that degradation in our own selves. Everything ends, and the inescapable truth is that everyone must die, but this can be hard to accept.[3]

Obvious truths aside, there are obviously elements in my work this semester that have to do with degradation and decay. There is also a sense of loss, and a grappling with the way things change over the course of time. This change is not always a positive thing, and often leads to more destruction and ruin. The places being documented this semester are not always what they initially appear, and there is a distinct grappling with many of the themes from the reading this past semester.

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[1] The act of drawing seems specifically important to these concepts, because of its links to creation as well as destruction. As Michael Newman points out, drawing has a status of becoming, and it creates a consistency of sense, from one to the next.

[2] In a sense, the filling of the paper, thusly eliminating the absence that was the page, is a sort of death. What was once blank is now filled, and that emptiness is gone. What was once a blank sheet has been assigned new meaning.

[3] To categorize degradation and loss as the other is to give oneself the fleeting freedom to believe that it may not happen to us. Just as Butade’s daughter did with her lover, we try to capture and espouse the concepts of loss and mourning, to try and preserve them in a way that negates their potency. It is a way to try and overcome the inevitable, but it is also a way to embrace, and ultimately try and come to terms with, our own inevitable failure. We each only have so much road to walk, and eventually get to the end of the line.

Residency Summary Semester Two

I had a lot of critiques, and almost as many epiphanies this residency. Now I’m sitting here and trying to organize everything into some sort of cohesion, and cursing myself for not taking more legible notes.

I came into Group 2 not fully understanding all that I had done over the course of the semester, and my second residency served largely as a period in which I was able to begin to digest some of the things I had spent the semester internalizing. I knew that I had started in a certain place, and ended somewhere completely different, but wasn’t really sure how that progress was charted. I spent a lot of the semester just churning out photographs, trying to figure out just what it was that I was trying to say in my work.

In my first critique, which was with Oscar, I wasn’t really sure how it was going to go. I started to run down where I had started the semester, where I ended, and, suddenly, I realized that patterns were already beginning to emerge. I also realized that my semester had not been about producing a body of work that in and of itself said something cohesive and specific, but rather was about the process of grinding through a lot of ideas until I could get to a place where I was able to find the one or two ideas I felt were really worth pursuing.

I had done this, maybe without really even realizing it, and showed pieces that focused mainly themes related to these ideas. The two sets of images, dubbed the “backyard” set and “TV” images, had the most power behind them, and also the greatest possibility for growth. Most people advised me to continue to follow both to see where they led, but some felt, rather, that I should reel it in even tighter and choose just one to be able to delve down deeper. I still feel the television images have something to say and will eventually lead somewhere, however the power of my work resides largely in the images of my backyard.

The themes that I started to see emerging in my work through critique and discussion were intertwined between the two series, but only came across in my backyard images for the most part. In these it was more evident that there was a sense of loss and mourning, decay and change. I had to explain to people that these were images of the area immediately around my house (or any house really), and when people realized that, I often saw a shift happen in their perception of what they were viewing. They no longer simply saw pretty images of an ostensibly ugly place, but rather a broader commentary was opened up.

Tackling this aspect of my work in the upcoming semester is going to be one of the most challenging, I know. It is already proving difficult to find a way to include more information about what and where I am shooting, which in turn will help to reveal why it is that I am shooting what I’ve chosen to. I plan on venturing further from my own home, and exploring more of the community I live in, showing images that reflect ideas similar to those in my Backyard images.

To include more information to give the viewer context of what they were really seeing, it was suggested that I could find paper documentation from the town itself, and integrate those somehow. It was also said that perhaps I could not just explore my community, but other places that I felt were in someway connected, and by doing so establish a broader dialogue that would help reveal my true intentions.

As my images stand, I realize that there is not enough information included for the average viewer to understand exactly what it is they are seeing. It was suggested that I try working in diptychs or series where each image informed or leaned on another, but I don’t think that that is the course of action I will be taking. Rather, I think that the best approach is to try and include more visual information in each individual image, almost making each one a series unto itself. I would like to make each image capable of standing on its own by conveying a clear sense/message of its own, but also fit into a larger, over-arching dialogue.

Through the course of my critiques, many people gravitated to my Backyard series, but there were also some who were drawn to my television images as well. The multi-layered mediation inherent in those images is part of what was interesting to me at first, as well as the seductive quality of the visuals that was created by the screen itself. Some encouraged me to pursue them to see what would come of it, and a few thought they should be left entirely so I could focus on just one body of work. If I do pursue this work, it will be with caution, and with a slightly different perspective.

During one of my last critiques, with Hannah Barrett, she directed me to think more about the actual mediation of the television itself, and how that was meaningful to me. I realized that part of the interest for me came from the degradation of my screen, that is, the particular way in which my set is breaking down. As a consumer product that was originally mass-produced to be one of many that were the same, the progress of digital technology is slowly rendering these tube televisions obsolete. I’m not sure if any major companies even still produce them any more.

My point is, these objects, once a mass-produced commodity, are becoming scarce, and many are starting to breakdown. If I continue this portion of my work, it will most likely focus on different sets, and the ways in which they are individually breaking, highlighting the particular abnormalities that show how each mass-produced set has become unique. The dots in each screen start to burn out differently on every set, each TV might have a different rolling effect etc.

This residency was one that was truly uncanny in many ways, with strange crystallizing moments all coinciding, and the reading syncing up very nicely with many of the themes in my work. Some of the ideas of loss and mourning that we read about in Freud were certainly present in much of what I was doing, as were the concepts of line, mark and trace. It was interesting to see how the concepts from the reading, the ideas from my work and the various topics we discussed in Michaels class really started to gel as the residency went on.

Many people commented on a sense of loss or sadness they thought they saw in many of my images, both in my backyard and TV series. I spent a lot of time discussing how the two disparate ideas could somehow merge, or at least come closer to doing so. I definitely felt that there were common threads that could/should be exploited and explored. Some of the suggestions I received on this matter ranged from re-photographing images of my community as presented on screen to actually taking physical television sets out into the spaces I shoot to meld the two ideas.

A surprising amount of people, however, felt that the two bodies were not quite as separate as I seemed to think they were, and encouraged a continued exploration of both. As the residency went, I became more aware that I was interested in ideas of transience and loss, change and decay. After all of the critiques and advice, I think that these concepts are where the connection between the two series exists, and it will just be a matter of following them through to their ultimate point of completion.

At the end of my second residency, I have a much better feel for the program than I did just six months ago. I no longer feel overwhelmed, and believe that I am exactly where I am supposed to be. I would like to spend this semester hashing out the concepts I became aware of during my residency, and seeing how the project goes. I feel like I’m in a good place now, and by the end of next residency will be right in line to begin work on my third semester and thesis show.

This second residency was totally different than my first. I didn’t feel the same, and it did not play out the same, but those are both very good things. It was a period where I really started to understand all of what I had been doing over the previous semester in a much deeper way. My approach to this semester will be more deliberate, with a few hundred less images being shot, but in the end, I know that it will be even more fruitful.

Semester Summary

With one hand the past moves us forward, and with the other it holds us back. I did not realize how big a part of my coursework this phrase would become, but it certainly has. I have endeavored to explore the things that are central parts of the life that I live, and question why the things so familiar and close to us in this world so often go unnoticed, and ultimately fall apart. To get to the point where I even understood what this is that I am doing, if it really is, took a lot of trial and even more error. I had to experiment and question and hone and practice and lose more often than I actually won until I got to the point where I am now, which is still just the beginning of an ongoing process.

True not just in the Studio, my academic work was challenging as well, and also aided greatly in hammering out my direction. Reading texts and articles, I was able to deepen my understanding of not just what I was doing, but of those who have created work that is in some way similar to mine, be it in final product or conceptual idea.

JANUARY

After the first residency I spent a couple weeks tracking down a mentor and working on my first paper. I ultimately ended up working with Dan Torop out of New York City, and in the beginning of the semester I was still very focused on Winthrop beach, and wanted to continue to explore it. I went there armed with three or four different cameras, a variety of film, and at different times of the day than I had done previously. I spent a lot of time having my film processed, and then scanning my negatives. I would then manipulate them digitally, and was combining multiple images together.

I liked the effect in some of what I was getting, but it left me wondering where else I was going to go with it. As much as I wanted to continue to explore the beach, it was starting to feel a little worn out to me. As a result, my attention started to focus on other potential subject matter.

FEBRUARY

February was a difficult month for me, both academically and in regard to my studio work. I was writing my first research paper in the program, and was struggling to tie together all of the themes I wanted to. [1]The challenge this presented me with, coupled with the limitations of length placed upon me, gave me good insight into how to make my points more succinct and coherent, without sacrificing my point or meaning.

In my photography, I started the month out still at Winthrop Beach, and was becoming increasingly more disengaged with it. I met with Dan for the first time around this point, and was starting to seriously consider shifting to new places/subject matter. I also began to consider what it was I wanted to be doing, and how I wanted to accomplish these things.[2]

MARCH

During this month, I broke away from the beach completely, and started a whole new body of work. I began what would become two separate series, one consisting of an exploration of my world, and another that I did not quite understand. I began to take notice of the things that usually go overlooked in my life, and took note of why they interested me. At this stage it was just beginning to evolve, and I wasn’t really sure why these things were attracting my attention quite the way they were.

The Second series was one that started with just a whim of an idea.[3] I began making photographs off of my television screen, and found it very engaging. There were a lot of interesting questions that arose when I started, and it opened the door to quite a bit of discussion. The concept of making digital High Resolution images from an old analog television screen has been quite revealing. When zoomed in, all one can see are the basic red, green and blue components that make up the bigger picture.[4]

During this time I was looking into the work of Hiroshi Sugimoto, and reading Geoff Dyer’s The Ongoing Moment, as well as Neil Gaiman’s American Gods. All of this work was fueling my curiosity about technology, time and how we experience/view both. These thoughts stayed with me, and caused me to seek out more work and artists in the same vein.

APRIL

During April, I focused a lot of my studio work closer to home, literally. I began shooting not just things that were part of my life, but the things most central to it. I spent a lot of time shooting different parts of the interior of my home, as well as my car, both inside and out. I began to question what the concept of “home” means, and how each one of us has a potentially radically different definition of it from the next. I came to realize as I moved forward that these things are not just central parts of my life, but are also roadblocks in it, though not just literally. It is better explained as being about the things that both help us move forward, but can also slow us down and even hold us back. I realized that my work at Winthrop Beach was most certainly tied into this, being a place that I likened this feeling to, but was certainly not enough to be an entire body of work in its own right.

The first shift that occurred technically in my work was from a mix of grayscale and color to all color, both film and digital.[5] I realized that as much as I may enjoy black and white, it was not working for these particular projects. Color has so much to do with the visual language that I am using, that the black and white images seemed to be lacking some of the strength of their color counterparts. The next shift was, I feel looking back, inevitable.

Around this time, I abandoned using film, and went totally digital. It was allowing me to yield more images in less time, and was helping me gain steam on the ideas I wanted to develop. Part of why I like film was that I didn’t have the same immediacy while shooting, and therefore did not try to censor myself, or edit while I was shooting. After tailoring the way I do things digitally, and denying myself the ability to look at my images as I shoot them, I started to find that I was producing a much better body of work. It increased my ability to create images overall by leaps and bounds.

Academically, I was reading a lot more about many contemporary photographers, and discovered Atta Kim and Chris McCay, among others, whose work caught my eye. Their forays into the exploration of time manipulation as a means of altering both the meaning and appearance of their photographs was very thought provoking, and led me into the month of May with a new amalgamation of my current projects.

MAY

I began doing some work that I feel has definite potential for growth during this month, and helped build a link between the two main series that have developed in my work. It started with the idea of what home means, and the ideas I was rolling over in my head that have to do with technology and how it functions in our lives. How people who commute spend so much time on trains and in cars, listening to headphones or watching movies on their ipods etc.

I started shooting from my car, and making photographs of the things I encounter during a normal period of commuting for me. During May, though, this idea evolved into making images from a moving vehicle at night. Abstracting the things I see and know, and using the light and bright colors of the technological world we live in to illuminate these things we think we know.[6]

This semester marked a period of great personal growth for me, as well it should, and I see myself growing as an artist. My work and my meanings are becoming clearer to me, and I am gaining a deeper understanding to how I function as an artist. Next Semester, I plan on continuing both bodies of work, and urging them toward ultimate convergence. I want to branch out from the local places I have explored, and find other places that I have a similar connection to in order to make a less specifically personal and more widely understandable body of work.

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[1] With the paper having to be about the readings from our first residency, I felt a little restricted, and had a hard time formulating what I wanted to say within the confines I was presented with. I discovered just how challenging it is be to write about art.

[2] At this point, I was shooting film and scanning it, and still using a combination of both black & white and color. This method was producing interesting results, but a much less than cohesive product. I also did the majority of work that would become my Holga series around this time. There was such a strong reaction to these images from my first residency, both good and bad, that I decided to go with the idea of making a series of just these images. It ended up being about a twenty image series that in itself didn’t go anywhere, but opened up many more doors to me. This was the first time I started to break away from the beach, and explore other subject matter. It also reminded me how important it can be to just get something out of your system, make something that you want to, even if it is self contained.

[3] Going into this semester, I was told by many to really take this semester as an opportunity to experiment. Anything that I wanted to try, I did my best to. I started shooting all variety of subject matter in all different sorts of ways, and this was one that has panned out rather well. No matter what, however, I found there was just not enough time to try everything I would have liked.

[4] Just like the digital photograph itself, RGB is the base for all of the colors that are presented on screen. To take a high-res image of a low-res screen, and by doing so using the high resolution to expose the low-resolution building blocks of both digital and analog technologies, I started to question the nature of technology and how people view it.

[5] Technically, this was an important time period for me. I was still mixing film and digital, and was also still doing both color and grayscale. Over the course of this month I made a lot of decisions and streamlined my process greatly. I had been doing digital for my television series, and film for my other images of home, but found it did not work for me the way I wanted to.

[6] As the month progressed, this idea was really just beginning to develop, though, and as of the time of this paper it is still very much in flux. It is an idea that I feel will eventually help me gap the bridge between the two separate bodies of work I have been doing, and, though I may not fully understand it yet, I know that it was a big step forward in the progression of my work.

What We Think We See and What We are Really Being Shown: A Comparative Analysis of the Work of Atta Kim and Chris McCaw

Photography is the visual medium that is perhaps most constrained by the process through which it is created. Inexorably linked to this very method that allows it to exist, many contemporary photographers seek to undermine these principles, breaking the constraints of literal imagery in an attempt to transcend what can be seen into a realm of what is felt and known, but that could never be literally witnessed through human eyes.

In the work of both American photographer Chris McCaw and Korean born Atta Kim, what we think we see and know is openly challenged. By using light to their advantage, and bending and twisting it to their whims, these photographers remove images from the context that helped them to exist in the first place. In Kim’s DMZ series and the Sunburn series of McCaw, these artists have both made an open challenge to traditional notions of photography and image making. Ultimately Kim’s DMZ series is more compelling; it has stronger content and meaning, and he employs a more powerfully emotive and thought provoking technique that challenges intrinsic notions of not just photography, but life as a whole.

Science and art are very different in their approach and methods, but they often inform each other in some way. “The purpose of both science and art, in the modern sense, is to discover the reality that lies hidden behind, beneath or beyond appearances,” (Rexler, 78). To accomplish this in their own works, both McCaw and Kim remove a literal, immediately recognizable subject, transforming landscapes and city scenes into otherworldly stages that seem at once familiar and also distinctly alien.

Both photographers make images of landscapes that are in some way altered, and are not immediately recognizable for what they actually are, but do so in distinctly different ways. In his DMZ series, Atta Kim makes photographs with incredibly long exposure times of the Demilitarized border between Northern and Southern Korea. In what Kim is doing, the exposure time, usually being between four and eight hours, process is important. It is this method of photography that allows for the images he is making to carry more weight than simple pictures of a hostile place.

As with the work of Kim, the method and process are also important in the photographs made by Chris McCaw. In McCaw’s ongoing series Sunburns, he employs a process that involves the use of unique paper negatives to record his images of landscapes and cityscapes. In these images the sun is seen streaking across the sky above his chosen locations. The sun burns a streak into the photographic paper, solarizing the negative and converting it to a positive while marking the paper with a scar (Rexler, 184). McCaw’s process, however, strips the images of color, and leaves them feeling flat.[1]

The images he creates appear empty and remote. As though there is no life there to be found, these locations seem isolated, and as though they have been abandoned. This emptiness is initially intriguing, but ultimately seems lacking. There is not a lot of depth to explore, and the images feel almost too staged. The locations chosen do not have obvious personal meaning, and the reason for their selection remains a mystery to the viewer. This helps to undermine the strength of the images, and weaken the dialogue that can be created around them.

Kim’s images are just the opposite, with his DMZ series rife with meaning. Both moving and personal, Kim’s DMZ series was shot on various locations on the border between Northern and Southern Korea (Rexler, 185). Carefully chosen and constructed, Kim’s images seem subtly abstract at first, and more so as they unfold before the viewer.

“In the work of…Kim, the subject, or rather the very center of the photograph, where the classical subject should reside, has become…a blur” (Rexler, 185). Due to the long exposures, the only elements that register in camera are the stationary objects found within the landscape, and the landscape itself. The movement of forces through the Demilitarized zone, concentration of troops and all traffic disappear into a haze that is created over the course of the eight-hour long exposures, leaving empty landscapes and elements stripped of their purpose to look out into an empty world (Rexler, 185).

The presence of human life is at once confirmed and hidden by its very existence and movement; only stationary aspects of the landscape can burn themselves into the image. The long exposures capture hours of activity and life and meld them into a single instant. Though they appear stark and lifeless at first, it is only after a closer examination the one realizes that they are actually alive with activity.

To abstract images in these ways frees them of their literal associations. This is done as a means to reveal deeper truths about life and photography. These truths often seemed tied into Buddhist ideals, and a main one is “the notion that change, or transience, is the only concrete reality, and that time as a quantifiable, linear entity is a mirage. All time and no time are the same (Cotter).[2]

The way that time is compressed in Kim’s images of the DMZ in Korea make us question some of the notions of how time flows. Where McCaw’s images seem to stretch out time, elongating an exposure and showing the charted course of how and why, Kim’s images are less direct and more thought provoking. They make us see what happens over the course of many hours, and how that meaning is changed when all of that information is condensed and presented in a single frame. These images do not feel linear, but rather somehow cyclical and continuous.[3]

As a result of this, an interesting space is created within the frame of the photograph. With time being expanded and flattened the way it is, an emptiness and sort of eerie silence is created in these images. “’There is nothing like silence to suggest a sense of unlimited space…absence of sound leaves it quite pure and, in the silence, we are seized with the sensation of something vast and deep and boundless,’” (Bachelard, 43). As discussed before, the bustle of activity that actually exists in the DMZ is masked in Kim’s exposures by its very existence, which leads to a feeling that life is both present and totally absent in the same space.

Neither Kim’z series on the DMZ nor McCaw’s Sunburn images are just about literal subjects. The subjects that they choose are simply used as a means of conveying larger meaning and deeper truths that they want to share. Ultimately, Kim’s images prove to be more powerful and poignant, abstracting an image while also leaving portions of it intact. His methods, means and execution are all stronger, and in the end this produces a better example of the power of abstract photography than do McCaw’s images.

Bibliography

Atta Kim - ON-AIR Project, DMZ Series, Battlefield,The Western Front, Movie Still, 2003

70 3/4 x 90 1/2 inches, c-print.

Atta Kim, ON-AIR Project, DMZ Series, The Western Front, 4 Hours, 2003.

Chris McCaw, Sunburned GSP#269(Pacific Ocean/Summer Solstice), 2008

2- 8”x10” unique gelatin silver paper negatives Private collection.

Chris McCaw, Sunburned GSP#366 (Nevada/Summer Solstice) 2009 unique gelatin silver paper negative 4 x 5 inches

Bachelard, Gaston. The Poetics of Space. Beacon Press books: Boston, 1994.

Cotter, Holland. Photography Review: In Atta Kim’s Long-Exposure Photographs, Real

Time Is the Most Surreal of All. 2006. New York Times. 12 July 2006.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/12/arts/design/12atta.html

Hickey, Dave. The Invisible Dragon Revised and Expanded. The University of Chicago Press:

Chicago, 2009.

Rexler, Lyle. The Edge of Vision: The Rise of Abstraction in Photography. Distributed Art

Publishers: New York, 2009.

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[1] Each image McCaw makes can be said to be truly unique, and should lend to the individuality of each image. The opposite ends up happening, however, with each image blending into the next with the focus shifting from meaningful content to the simple exploration of a technique.

[2] Kim is always very careful to make clear that he is in fact not a practicing Buddhist, but nevertheless, some ideas central to Buddhism can often be found in his work. This is particularly true of the DMZ series, with hours and hours being compressed into single instants.

[3] In these elongated exposures, the end result often feels less like a photograph and more like a performance. The photograph itself becomes a sort of performance art, with the performer being the very light that created the image. Stretching and bending our view of time, these images show us things our eyes could never see without their assistance. (Rexler, 12).

What Transpires Over Time

To say that all the artistic ground that can be covered has already been so may be a bit of an overstatement, but it is fair to say that almost everything has been done before in some way. When it comes to subject matter or themes, especially in photography, there is a precedent that has been set for almost everything. Photography is a relatively young art form but even as such, it is not new, and much of the ground it covers has been covered before.

For every new or inventive method or photograph being made, there is a precedent for it that has been set at some point. It is human nature to repeat ourselves over time, but that does not mean that there is nothing left to be said. The fact that certain things continually emerge in the work of many different artists proves that there are certain themes and ideas/ideals we are drawn to again and again, and that they can be expanded upon. With each new foray into a given subject, theme or concept, the meaning, and our understanding of that, grows, deepens and evolves.

So to simplify things, over simplify perhaps but prove a point nonetheless, lets assume that it has all been done before. In his text, The Ongoing Moment, Geoff Dyer discusses this idea at length, and poses several questions of the reader in regard to it. Writing about disparate photographers separated by half a world, half a century and sometimes even more, often without any knowledge of each other, creating similar work with similar meanings, he suggests that it is all more than mere coincidence. “How long can a coincidence extend before it ceases to be one?” he asks, implying that there may be no coincidences, in a very Jungian way (Dyer, 115).[1]

Wondering if a coincidence only “lasts a moment”, and if this moment then repeats over and over, Dyer asks if this moment in question can then be considered an “ongoing moment” (Dyer, 115). His terminology seems fitting in regard to his subject, saying that the themes that arise over and over do so because they resonate with people. More than just that, however, it seems impossible to deny the way people are drawn again and again to certain subject matter and themes.

Much of this may have to do with how ubiquitous photography has become. Recently, in the last 40 years or so, photography has become a widely practiced hobby for many. This means that the majority of people making photographs are not making them as art, but rather more as a “social right, a defense against anxiety and a tool of power,” (Sontag, 8). The more familiar with the language of photography people become, the more comfortable they will feel when using it.[2]

One theme that many photographers are drawn to time and time again is that of a decrepit subject matter. Photography seems to lend itself well to recording and conveying the feeling of things that are in a state of disrepair. Regardless of whether the photograph is a portrait, a landscape or abstract detail, people are always somehow drawn to images that resonate a sense of the broken-down, the ruined. Damage resonates with all people on some level, and we are drawn to it (Dyer)[3].

This is part of what initially drew me to photographing a particular beach. In many ways in my mind it was the antithesis of what a beautiful, pleasing beach should be. It was all together barren and desolate, with a sense of alienation hanging over it. Photographers including Edward Weston and Diane Arbus, among many others, have all explored this concept, all having their own idea of what “ruin” means.[4] A desire to capture and somehow convey the sense of ruin I found in this particular place put my name on a very long list of photographers who have attempted to do so with any number of subjects.

Abstraction in photography is no new ground to cover either, but I have been exploring it nonetheless lately. [5] “The picture may distort; but there is always a presumption that something exists, or did exist, which is like what’s in the picture,” (Sontag, 5). The belief that people hold on to of the truth in photography is part of what helps abstracted photographs have so much of an impact.

Abstraction does not have to be very on the nose, however. Some of the most effective abstractions can be much more subtle, where the viewer does not fully understand how the scene is being manipulated at first glance. “People have been reading photography as a true document…they are now getting suspicious…I let the camera capture whatever it captures…whether you believe it or not is up to you,” (Sugimoto, 14). With a precedent set by photographers like Hiroshi Sugimoto and Masahisa Fukase, sometimes images that are visually cryptic, but still appear to be relatively straightforward are the most interesting version of abstract.

Taking images of the houses facing the beach instead of the beach itself for example, or having a dark image lit by a single stark bulb that is blocked by an obtrusive pillar changes the meaning that could have been in the photograph. These were certainly influenced by the work of Sugimoto whose images are never quite what they first appear to be. In a way I am exploring the things that obstruct or views, and only indicate what might actually be. I am, however, far from the first to do this.

It is not just about similar photographs being taken over long periods of time however; it is also about how these photographs are different. Time does not ever stop, and a tradition is never completed, but is always being incrementally advanced (Dyer, 23). As these traditions grow and evolve, real developments begin to become apparent.

The fact that it has all been done before is no reason to stop or give up; it is, in fact, the best reason to keep going. The more that is done, the more ideas can grow and evolve and be passed on. Even though it has been done before, each new person picking up the mantle will have their own particular take on whatever it is that they are doing, and help it become more than it was when they started. Sometimes we have no idea what we are doing as we do it, only to find our answers in retrospect. No of us can truly know the impact we will have on what’s to come, and to a certain extent, we cannot fully understand the impact of what already has come to pass has had on us.

The trick is not simply to try to do something that is completely new and unassailably original, but rather to accept the fact that much of what we do now as artists has been, in some form or another, done before. The paths we walk are well worn. To then take that knowledge and use it as a starting point to fuel your own ideas and allow for growth in your own work, as well as evolution in the medium as a whole, is where the really pertinent meaning comes from.

Evolution is inevitable, and change can be cyclical, we’ve seen it all before, so to speak. To say that everything created by artists in any period draws from something that has come before is a truth. Not just in art, but in life in general. Just as those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it, those who do know are destine to borrow from it. It is only human to repeat ourselves, and it is good. Through repetition, we can achieve growth, and allow for ideas to evolve and move into bigger and more complex echelons of understanding.

Bibliography

Dyer, Geoff. The Ongoing Moment. New York: Pantheon Books, 2005.

Sontag, Susan. On Photography. New York: Picador, 1977.

Sugimoto, Hiroshi. Sugimoto. Fundacion “la Caixa” y Centro Cultural de Belem, 1998.

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[1] Subscribers to Jungian theory are familiar with the concept of the collective unconscious, wherein all living breathing humans are inexorable linked mentally and emotionally to all others who have lived and will live. Claiming that it is something deep within us, existing since our protoplasmic beginnings, connecting us all on a subconscious level Jung claims that there is no such thing as coincidence. We are all tapped into this well of shared knowledge, and we access it whether we know it or not. Only the most self aware, or “self-actualized”, can do it fluidly and intentionally, but all of us are subject to it in some form or another. Some of the ideas that Dyer is discussing walk a line nearly as fine as this, and very similar in concept.

[2] The more people speaking the same language, regardless of why they are speaking it, the more common phrases will be introduced and re-included over time. So the fact that I have been drawn to a beach, or a run-down basement, or anything else for that matter, has a precedent set by hundreds or even thousands of others. All of us are speaking the same visual language, each with different dialects perhaps, and each using the same words and phrases to form our own statements.

[3] This idea of “the ruined” did not come from just one part of Dyer’s book, but resurfaces again and again. I therefore left out a specific page number, and rather just referenced his book on the whole.

[4] Weston tended to focus more on literal ruins when he was working on images of this type, but others, like Arbus, engage the concept in a less direct way. In a way, all of Arbus’s work had an underlying element of ruin coursing through it.

[5] In some small way, all photography is inherently at least mildly abstract. However true it may seem, it is never quite what it seems. Any given photograph is, at best, just a fraction of a moment in time that is highly manipulated by the image taker to convey what they want it to.