The Ontology of the Photographic Image - André Bazin

In the course notes for the exercise 'The Myth of Objectivity', a link is given to the full documents from which the quotes by Bazin and Sekula were taken. This is my notes on Bazin's document.


Bazin begins by talking of how people historically attempted to 'preserve life', utilising mummification and statuettes as in ancient Egypt. He then goes on to say how painting took over this role, with people being content with having their likeness preserved in a hand-made picture, rather than embalmement. This process has evolved over time, and in the fifteenth century, Western painters became to become more concerned with as complete an imitation of the outside world as possible. Today's cinema has been described as the furthermost evolution to date of plastic realism.

Photography has freed the plastic arts from their obsession with likeness. Photography and the cinema are discoveries that satisfy, once and for all and in its very essence, our obsession with realism.

Bazin states that regardless of the skill of the painter, there is always an inescapable subjectivity in their work, as a human hand intervened; this casts a shadow of doubt over the image. He also says that photography is '...a mechanical reproduction in the making of which man plays no part'. Which we of course now understand to not be accurate.

 It seems that in this writing, Bazin's main points are that paintings are inevitably subjective, regardless of their realism, while photographs are inescapably objective, and that they have 'irrational power to bear away our faith'. Also, that photography has taken over the job of accurately reproducing a scene, giving painting freedom and allowed it to recover its aesthetic autonomy.


Direct quotes from the document that I found interesting and useful:

'the preservation of life by the representation of life'.

The evolution of art and civilisation has relieved the plastic arts of their magic role. (of preservation). Initially people were embalmed to preserve a representation. Later, painting took on this role.

No one now believes that these representations actually preserve life, but they help us to remember the subject.

Andre Malraux has described the cinema as the furthermost evolution to date of plastic realism, the beginnings of which were first manifest at the Renaissance and which found a limited expression in baroque painting.

In the fifteenth century Western painters began to become more concerned with as complete an imitation of the outside world as possible.

Thenceforth painting was torn between two ambitions: one, primarily aesthetic, namely the
expression of spiritual reality wherein the symbol transcended its model; the other, purely
psychological, namely to duplicate the world outside.

In achieving the aims of baroque art, photography has freed the plastic arts from their
obsession with likeness. Painting was forced, as it turned out, to offer us illusion and this illusion
was reckoned sufficient unto art. Photography and the cinema on the other hand are discoveries
that satisfy, once and for all and in its very essence, our obsession with realism.

No matter how skillful the painter, his work was always in fee to an inescapable subjectivity.
The fact that a human hand intervened cast a shadow of doubt over the image.

...a mechanical reproduction in the making of which man plays no part.

A very faithful drawing may actually tell us more about the model but despite the promptings
of our critical intelligence it will never have the irrational power of the photograph to bear
away our faith.

it has freed Western painting, once and for all, from its obsession with realism and
allowed it to recover its aesthetic autonomy.

Discontinuities

For this exercise we are asked to select five images from our personal collection, that could not belong to someone else. We are then to ask other students to write a short explanation or caption for each image; the idea being that they are viewing the images in isolation, with no supporting context or information.

My five selected images are as follows:

 

With no supporting information, the viewer of the images has to use any visual clues they have in the image in combination with their imagination to provide a narrative and context for the image. Firstly, here are the responses from my fellow students:

Jane494769

1) Nothing beats a warm summer's evening for a spot of camping
2) A Bambi-rometer
3) I'm still smiling.. just. Hurry up its moving and about to run up my sleeve!!
4) I want to play too!  If I just roll around here a bit and wag my tail it should really liven things up a  bit
5) On the road - alone again

Maurice512591

1. Camping holiday in France. This was our spot.
2. Barometer says this has to change. Wash up and clean!
3. Testing her fear of spiders in a zoo. Look: she is not afraid.
4. The cat disturbs a game. And is forgiven.
5. The end of a holiday - alone

Miriam506964

1. A great campsite, with lots of space and shade.
2. Abandoned in the shed, a barometer decorated with a deer head.
3.  She looks so calm!
4. A cat insists on being the centre of attention
5.  the morning after a lonely night away from home.

Anne507559

1. A perfect spot for camping
2. Time I was clearing out the shed
3. I am NOT afraid of spiders
4. If you think your going to have a game without me you have another think coming
5. Back on the road after your holiday

Judith Bach

1. Camping holiday / road trip
2. An abandoned shed on your travels full of rather interesting objects.
3. A brave lady ! She seems quite composed but perhaps is less keen on the (huge) spider than the photo suggests .
4. Cat interupts game , making sure he/she is not ignored .
5. End of road trip

Now, I will give the actual circumstances for each photograph:

1) This was indeed a camping holiday, for me and my then girlfriend (now wife). It was taken on a camping and caravan site on North Hill in Somerset.

2) Lots of people thought this was taken in a shed; in fact it was taken during a spell of 'urban exploring' of an abandoned farmhouse. The image taken was just above the kitchen sink, and that is the kitchen window. I found the barometer with a deer's head to be quite a novelty!

3) Again in Somerset, at a place called Tropiquaria, where you can handle a tarantula. This was my then girlfriend (now wife). She's very scared of spiders, so was being particularly brave here!

4) About 10 years ago, we were playing a card game on the floor at my parents house, when the cat decided he wanted some attention, so spread himself all over our meticulously organised cards!

5) A family holiday in Cyprus. My and my girlfriend (again, now wife!) were probably sharing the single bed, leaving the other untouched. I quite like the open narrative to this image, it asks more questions than it answers in terms of the one bed made, and the other unmade, who the suitcase belongs to etc.

Reading In, Around and Afterthoughts by Martha Rosler

I found this a difficult piece of writing to read, probably due to my inexperience with reading this kind of literature. I spent a lot of time using an online dictionary and thesaurus, translating the dense wording into something I could better understand. I was successful with this for the most part, and the essay raises some very interesting points, which I’ll briefly outline here. It is worth bearing in mind that this essay is around 30 years old, so certain points made may no longer be applicable; references to The Bowery for example as being ‘an archetypal skidrow’.

From what I can gather, Rosler’s over-arching point in the essay is how the use of documentary photography had changed for the worse. She said:

‘The meliorism (the belief that the world can be made better by human effort) of Riis, Lewis Hine and others is in contrast to pure sensationalism of much of the journalistic attention to working-class, immigrant, and slum life’.

 In other words, Riis, Hine, and others were trying to use their photographs to bring attention to a particular problem, and encourage a gradual (rather than revolutionary) change. With their images they were trying to show facts, facts which were made more clear and concrete by being photographed. Jacob Riis alluded to this when he said; 'I wrote, but it made no impression'. These photographers used visual imagery in combination with other forms of discourse as propaganda to argue for the rectification of wrongs. They would also attempt to prompt action by appealing to polite society’s self-interest, arguing that the symptoms of poverty would affect their own health and security. Their work was in contrast to the sensationalistic journalistic attention to working-class, immigrant, and slum life.

This quote from the essay encapsulates Rosler’s thoughts on the progression of documentary photography over time:

            ‘The exposé, the compassion and outrage, of documentary fueled by the dedication to reform has shaded over into combinations of exoticism, tourism, voyeurism, psychologism and metaphysics, trophy hunting—and careerism’.

Rosler also talks about the emphasis on the photographer, rather than the people they are photographing. Florence Thompson, the subject of Dorothea Lange’s famous image The Migrant Mother, is one such example. She gave her consent for the images, as she believed they would help to improve her situation. In fact, she personally benefited very little; her identity was not discovered until the late 1970s, where she was found living in a trailer home. Florence was quoted as saying:

 "I wish she [Lange] hadn't taken my picture. I can't get a penny out of it. She didn't ask my name. She said she wouldn't sell the pictures. She said she'd send me a copy. She never did."

Lange’s image was public domain (as the project was government funded), so she didn’t directly receive royalties from the image, although it did make her a celebrity and furthered her career. It seems to me that once the image was taken, it became a distinctly different entity to the person herself; the image thrust into the limelight for decades to come, and the person herself all but forgotten. As Rosler put it in her essay; ‘Florence Thompson is of interest solely because she is a postscript to an acknowledged work of art’.

To get some further insight into the essay, I searched YouTube in the hope of finding a video of someone talking about Rosler’s work. I didn’t get exactly that, but I did find an interesting video titled Aperture Foundation at The New School: Documentary Photography which can be found at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6nTXZKoggQ. The video is a look at the work of three contemporary documentary photographers, although the speaker does begin with a few words on Rosler’s essay. She talks about how ‘pictures of the poor are framed with a liberal rhetoric’ and how ‘Power relations characterise documentary photography; it's part of the genre’. Both points made by Rosler. The video was made recently, and so is a more up-to-date viewpoint than Rosler’s essay. The speaker in the video made a particular statement that I think is very pertinent to what we are looking at in this part of the course:

‘21st century documentary photography has a much more pervasive uncertainty about facts. It reveals the transparency of the medium, and the subjectivity of the photographer. It's not about giving truthful information; it's questioning what all that might mean’.