(embiggenable) • µ4/3 - from my single women body of work
(embiggenable) • µ4/3 - from my single women body of work
I HAVE BEEN FOREVER ANNOYED BY ATTEMPTS to turn photographs into something they are not. A good example of such an attempt can be seen HERE in an entry, What the Photo Doesn't Show, on Leicaphilia. The title of the video in that entry, WHAT THIS PHOTO DOESN"T SHOW, rather concisely illuminates my point, re: to turn photographs into something they are not.
In any event, on to the photo in question:
“Young Farmers”, or, “Three Farmers on Their Way to a Dance” ~ August Sander - c. 1914
August Sander, born in Westerwald, Germany, made many pictures of the rural people in that region. His intention was:
..."to speak the truth in all honesty about our age and the people of our age...[I] hate nothing more than sugary photographs with tricks, poses and effects."
Regarding his ideas about making pictures, he stated..
..."The person is mobile, ... then I freeze one moment in his movement, a mere five-hundredth of a second of that person's life-time. That's a very meager or small extract from a life."
Re: my point - a picture, any picture, is, as Sander states, a very meager or small extract-a mere five-hundredth of a second-from a life. Given that fact, iMo, the only thing one can "know" from a photo, knowledge wise, is that which is discerned from viewing the precision of the depicted referent in a photo.
Here's what I "know" from viewing this photo...depicted are 3 young men, dressed like dandies in an enviroment for which such dress seems to be rather incongruous. It's a cloudy day. The young men's expressions do not tell me much about what's going on inasmuch as they range from: tough guy, supreme confidence, and, huh? say what? Other than those things and the supposition-cuz it could be well executed reenactment-that it is a vintage photo, that is all I know.
But, here's the thing (for me). That's all I need to know cuz this photo just flat out draws me in. To my eye and sensibilities, it is both factual and yet somewhat strangely mysterious. It raises questions to which it provides no answers. And, from a purely visual POV, I find it to be delightfully interesting.
That is also all I need to know cuz I am not looking at this photo as a history / geography lesson. I am viewing it as a piece of art. I am not hoping to learn something. Rather, I want to feel something.
I want to be visually delighted / interested / intrigued. I want art to raise questions, not to give me answers (propaganda)...in the case of photography, why was a particular referent selected by the picture maker? In the case of any form of art, do feel as though I am touching, at the very least, a fragment of the nature of beauty?
All of that written, in most cases, I have not the slightest interest in what a photograph doesn't show. That is simply because a photograph's unique characteristic is to show us something with a fair amount of specificity, something that has been extracted from a mere small moment of life.
If making pictures is result of a picture maker being in the moment, then it make sense to me that, when viewing a picture, the viewer should be in the moment. That is, at that moment the only thing that matters is what is in the picture, not what isn't.
FYI, I have included in this entry some pictures from my rather substantial single women body of work. That is cuz I felt there is some relevance to the topic at hand inasmuch as I could not offer any information about the women-all strangers-depicted other than what can be viewed in the photographs.
The women were pictured-in public places-without any knowledge-before or after the fact-that they were or had been pictured. I made the picture and went on my merry way. Which, BTW, was a pretty niffty trick inasmuch as all the pictures were made with a 34mm (eqivalent) lens.