ku # 421 and a commentary for your consideration

A between moment - it was very overcast. The light was fading fast and this tree was incredibly intriguing/beckoning.

So I was rummaging around googleworld looking to find commentary on Roland Barthes (1915- 1980) - the French literary critic. He wrote an oft-mentioned (at least in effete/commie-pinko/liberal/pointy-headed intellectual academic circles) book - Camera Lucida. I have read only excerpts from the book, but I have been interested in his notions of studium and punctum.

The following is from an essay - not his book - about those notions (italic emphasis is mine)

For spectators (the viewers of the photographs), Barthes explains that there are two elements involved when viewing a photograph. One element is the studium. The studium is a "kind of education (civility, politeness) that allows discovery of the operator." It is the order of liking, not loving. News photographs are often simple banal, unary photos which exemplify studium because "I glance through them, I don't recall them; no detail ever interrupts my reading: I am interested in them (as I am interested in the world), I do not love them."

The second and far more interesting element for the spectator is punctum. There are two kinds of punctum. The first is that which is "that accident which pricks, bruises me." It is the unintentional detail that could not not be taken, and that "fills the whole picture." Barthes says there is no rule that can be applied to the existence of studium and punctum within a photo except that "it is a matter of co-presence." These are the photos which take our breath away for some reason that was completely unintended by the photographer (or by the subject, for that matter). It is at the moment when the punctum strikes that the photograph will "annihilate itself as medium to be no longer a sign but the thing itself." And the object will become subject again.

Sometimes, the punctum reveals itself after the fact, as a function of memory(attn: JimJ, TomG, MichelleP). It is a testament to the pensiveness of a photograph, comprising the part of the photo that is it at its strongest when one is not looking at the photograph. This pensiveness is the strength of a photograph. The pensiveness is, again, a political element of photography. While most photographs offer only the identity of an object, those that project a punctum potentially offer the truth of the subject. They offer "the impossible science of the unique being."

The second kind of punctum is that of Time. The punctum of time, the existence of the dead with the photographed object, forces the photograph into an unreality, a hallucination of sorts: "on the one hand, it is not there, on the other, it has indeed been." It is the paradox that the object must have existed, and yet at the same time, it cannot be there now. The photograph is "false on the level of perception, true on the level of time." When Barthes is struck by a punctum, he "passed beyond the unreality of the thing represented, I entered crazily into the spectacle, into the image, taking into my arms what is dead, what is going to die." It is, he says, madness. Society wants to tame this madness by making photography an art (Barthes says that no art is mad) or by taming it through generalizing, banalizing it "until it is no longer confronted by any image in relation to which it can mark itself." When the image is stripped of its personal, private reading, the potential for madness is gone. When the image is meant to be viewed when flipping through a magazine, it is inert. Society consumes images now instead of beliefs, in order to keep them from reaching madness.

Think about it and please let me know what you think

FEATURED COMMENT: Ana wrote "So much of the resonance of a photograph is that collision of past, present and future, and existence."

Jim Jirka ~

Tom’s latest post inspired me to continue working on an image that always interested me. The sense of mystery in the clearing. The unknown awaiting around the corner, obscured by vegetation and darkness. A foreboding feeling.

But in the end….

ku # 420

An odd light tonight in the Forks. The Au Sable never looks blue. Adirondack rivers are tannic brown. Weird.

It looks like blue dye was dumped into the river, which is odd because that's exactly what the pulp mill just around the bend used to do. Town's people could tell what color paper they were making on any given day because the Au Sable was also the same color. Ahhh, the good old days.

That's Main Street on the left. I'm on the bridge over the West Branch of the Au Sable about 100 yards from where it meets the East Branch of the Au Sable to form the plain old Au Sable River. Guess that's why I live in village called Au Sable Forks.

FEATURED COMMENT: Michelle C. Parent wrote, "I see that you've situated yourself in that place the Celts called "between". It's a place where you are neither in one place or another and two worlds meet...anything that lies between is traditionally a place of potent enchantment: a bridge between two banks of a river; the silver light betwixt night and day; the moment between dreaming and waking; the motion of shape-shifting transformation; and all those interstitial realms where cultures, myths,landscapes, languages, art forms, and genres meet."

ku # 419

The Beatles sang "...life flows on within you and without you..." Most discussion about the meaning of this song and these lyrics centers around the LSD/shroom/psyschedelic experience, or, a spiritual experience in the Eastern tradition. On one level, I certainly would not disagree. But the Beatles were a playful bunch and I think George was also quite simply saying that life goes on whether you're here or not - with or without you. No argument with that idea either.

Everyday I wake up to my within and then I go downstairs to make coffee and I look at the without. Sometimes, when the window's clean, I can see clearly or, at least, clearly enough. Other times it's rain-streaked, frosted-up or, during the good weather (times) the without has its hard edges softened by a fine window screen.

And then there are the times I go outside the within - beyond the barrier - and the without and the within are one, with or without me.

It's at those times I have to be very careul not to step in the dog-crap land mines that dot the backyard.

Tom Gallione ~ Morning Light

I love peering into the woods, especially when there is a clearing or an opening of some sort. It's an invitation, even a beckoning to enter. If not physically, then at least with my imagination.

Query (from TG): Much of my own work that I actually like took some time before it appealed to me...this photograph included. In fact, most of my favorites I almost tossed. Does anyone else find this to be true with their own work?

Blog Publisher's Comment ~ "...peering into..." , "...beckoning to enter..." , "...imagination..." - IMO, good photography is an invitation to explore a new way of seeing something that you have never seen in quite the same way before. The French have a phrase for it - jamais vu (trans. - never seen). Jamais vu is part of the 3 vus; deja vu, jamais vu, and presque vu.

IMO, Tom (and myself) sometimes take a while to appreciate his own work - and most probably that of others as well - because photography is, for him, more than a form of entertainment. It is a method he uses to peer into his own soul/being. As he grows as a person he probably recognizes more of the unthought known that each of us possess and could connect to if the desire/curiousity is there.

An interesting essay on the subject - thanks to Ana for bringing it to my attention.

FEATURED COMMENT: Tom Gallione wrote "...photography has become more than a means of entertainment. It is, at times, a spiritual, intellectual and emotional activity for me.

As for entertainment, I agree with Neil Postman, we are "Amusing Ourselves to Death." Modern civilization as a whole is splashing around in filthy, shallow mud puddles when just outside our gaze is the shore of the deepest, most wonderful sea...." metaphorically speaking, of course. It just takes an open mind and a bit more effort to see it."

ku # 418

The nature of beauty

Any comments?
thanks to theonlinephotographer for the link

Photopop 7.0 ~ scorched earth

these beautiful fall colors come from scorched earth in mid january near the equator.

Mary Dennis ~ Tangled Web

This morning I think I found everything I like about autumn in the crook of a fallen branch.

It's a Tangled Web She Weaves

ku # 416

Remnants and mark downs always seem to draw a crowd at the carpet store but in the natural world they draw blank stares or, more often, no stares at all. Anyone see the connection with the war in Iraq?...or is that a foolish question - linking a nature photograph and a war...