Metaphor

part Tom Hines interview by Julia Vangsnes in Dazed digital.

"DD: These days...when everyone has cameras on their cell phones... I wonder...what really makes a photo interesting, what makes a photographer?
TH: Aside from mystical traits, talents and other x-factors, one thing stands out: contextual ambition. I think about Jackson Pollock slinging paint around like a beast but having the wherewithal to declare his work Art in the proper context. There is a quote, probably false--I can't find it online--often attributed to Pollock as a way of describing his hubris. It goes something like, "there are only three artists: Picasso, Matisse and Pollock." The ego needs to be hyperbolic like that sometimes. That's probably what makes a photographer. I mean, I built the obligatory darkroom when I was kid, worked in it so long my skin literally fell off from chemical exposure, I learned about photography during this time. I wasn't a photographer, nor was I anything else. I was just curious and incautious. I went through all the motions. I've since come a long way. I've experimented with every medium I've wanted to experience, and I'm comfortable declaring myself a photographer in relation to other endeavours. It was the declaration that was missing before. And, yeah…maybe hubris, too. As to what makes a photo interesting, I can offer a metaphor. All my peers are creative professionals with nuanced perspectives. A group of us were hanging out the other night, talking about what's good. I found a metaphor that might describe our rarefied circle, a food metaphor. In food, sweetness represents caloric abundance. Everyone must like sweets, it's a biological imperative. In science experiments, rats are given sweetened water which they'll consume until their tongues are swollen. There is no imperative to consume bitterness. Bitterness represents poison to an animal. When I eat bitter greens and enjoy it, that's my intellect at work. Believe me; I don't need my intellect to enjoy sweetness, my body lights up in pleasure. I like to think of some photographs as being sweet chocolate bars and some as being bitter greens. Chocolate bar photos are extremely interesting, but one's intellect could be resistant to them. I know all too well, many of my peers will only declare respect for bitter greens photos. Still, both kinds are interesting, just in different ways."

http://dazeddigital.com/Photography/article/1488/1/Tom_Hines_Eye_of_a_Tiger

'Pornofoto - a cornucopia'

Part 1
What should I write, I like porn? I use porn hmm that seems so simple, no purgatorial guilt not at all loaded with confessional catharsis? So far so good, now perhaps I can identify my project. I want to skim the surface of what we are consuming. I mean the pornographic imagery or at least I think I do. The trouble with talking about porn is that there never seems to be a good time for dialogue about it. With discourse perhaps narrower than other less taboo-stricken image genre perhaps a good starting point is whether or not I can discover the locus of current discourse? Hmm sounds reasonable If nothing the research will keep me busy. Interestingly the bulk of this study will be web-led, because nothing changes faster, so if I’m even going to get a handle on the thing I’ll be gleaning this as a primary resource.

Contextually this study will look at the currency of pornography in perhaps one of its most essential forms the still image, along the way I will identify the likely points of crossover between stills and moving image. Perhaps the goal of this project is as much an exploration, of a cultural phenomenon that continues to defy easy compartmentalisation, as it is an inquiry into the psychological schema of the image as porn.

The first thing you realise when you start writing about porn is that it’ll pretty much render most of your search engine enquiries incredulous. The very word causes, Results 1 - 10 of about 246,000,000 for porn (0.18 seconds), Google 2009-02-26. Now two hundred and forty six million results represents perhaps a subject better suited to a life’s endeavour but the thing of it is, that only represents pages cached with porn written in script somewhere. To take into account the true order and magnitude of the statistics you would need to add the results for images, Results 1 - 20 of about 6,080,000 (0.03 seconds).


That’s only from one search engine and maybe represents duplicated results I don’t have the stamina to back check these. It is often presented that porn statistically represents a majority stake in the total content available, James Stoner writing for the The Witherspoon Institute’s ‘Public Discourse’ - ‘estimates that as much as 35% of all content on the internet is pornographic’ J. Stoner ’09. This author believes that most if not all this type evidence is a misrepresentation. More often than not these types of statistics bear no real scrutiny. They are an unfortunate part of the freedom of the Internet. The truth is nobody actually knows, which is disappointing though not entirely unexpected.

I stated that the math above contained some statistical flaws, Imagine trying to write an algorithm that could calculate not only the total pay per view content but also the peer to peer material. ( difficult if not impossible to characterise). I believe the best point of departure in the face of such an impossible calculation is simply to assume the number is very large. Then logically the total number of consumers therefore is greater than the total content. With the world population currently estimated at 6.76 billion and even accounting for those who don’t have access to a computer it is my conceit that the number would be colossal. Even then you would still need to calculate the total hard copy of pornographic material including film, video etc That is not the purpose of this piece but serves as a guide to any notions of audience that I use herein.



· http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/viewarticle.php?selectedarticle=2009.02.09.002.pdart

Assistants Rights: GUIDELINES FOR WORK EXPERIENCE.

Following some controversy regarding recent postings for work experience, please read these guidelines if you're willing to offer someone a work placement:

NOT OK:

You need someone to help you out on a shoot but you're not willing to pay them. If you're in need of assistance for a job and have expectations of the assistant's skills and performance, then you should be willing to reimburse them for their time. You are, in fact, legally obliged to pay the minimum wage.

OK:

You're willing to have someone along to shadow you and help out with things along the way. This should not be a replacement for an assistant, but should be something that, were they not there, would not be shoot-critical. You should have no demands regarding their skills other than general competency and trustworthiness. Please let us know if you are willing to offer someone a placement along these lines at admin@photoassist.co.uk with the subject "work placement offered" and we'll send your offer out to anyone who expresses an interest. Likewise, if you're interested in doing work experience, please drop us a line with "work experience sought" in the subject line.

Also, if you're a student or an assistant and are doing a test shoot for your folio and are willing to have another student or assistant along so that you both benefit from the experience, then feel free to post in the "testing" forum.

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THANK YOU!

Originally Posted: 04 February 2009 at 11:45am
http://www.photoassist.co.uk/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=1402
by Duncan Soar

"disaster tourism"

I'm gonna guess that its an extension of the voyeurism associated with travel photography. It's part of vernacular photography and is at the same time very specific. The same is obviously true for historical sites such as Belsen, Auschwitz etc In a way the places that are visited are culturally specific the photographs made on these visits are analogous with owning something emotively - guilt, remorse, horror, a sense of identity/ history.

The photographs that are made on theses trips are often interesting in that the usual compunction in vernacular photography is to pose a companion/ family member left or right of the subject, you've know doubt seen this done a thousand times and like me have probably participated in this act too. The purpose in this type of formality seems at first blush innocent; contextual, evidential or corroborative. Though thinking about vernacular images that I've seen made in circumstances such as the 1st Iraq war, and how these operate next to say the works of the artist Thomas Hirschhorn, the photographer Simon Norfolk and laterally to the works of Sophie Ristelheuber - always leaves me slightly perturbed. Each operates as its own narrative thread (each its own ontology), all exist within the canon of war photography but the negotiation between the vernacular stuff, the art based stuff and the photo -journalism stuff is problematic. Authorial direction is what seems immediately absent from the vernacular photography produced in this context.

Herein is the platform for tourism which comes loaded with the baggage (excuse the pun) of colonial photography. And lest we forget Roger Fenton's work in the Crimea and the works of Matthew Brady and Alexander Gardner in the American Civil War. and the likelihood that a good deal of the work they made then was of suspect honesty. This macabre interest has always existed in photography. From Picture Post to coffee table tomes such as Joel Meyerowitz's - AFTERMATH. Devastation, death and disaster sell. I'm sure a clever editor may already be collating images for a book examining the yards of vernacular imagery created by the 'disaster tourist'.

Images as bodies of work, images as sequences and images as images.

I have a coming sense that the tide is waxing. The inference that I'm drawing a circle around is the inevitability of photographs produced to co-join. These works attempt to describe a narrative or to support each other as sequential, perhaps as a tip of the hat to the genre? Are they simply exposures from a roll or choices from say a Flickr set (evidence of concoction or observation)? What have we here? It seems we have a pattern that can only best be explained by its correlation to what has long been admired in prose, poetry and other print mediums. We have the ubiquitous desire to collate or collect.

The purpose of images seems to have been mystified again. Historically the medium has been pulled here and there, its project seized by any number of applied photographers/visual artists in an attempt to pin photography down, to ground it in its essence. Photography is of course not much else but a means to make. It is not of the object to describe its purpose. Culturally it is neither one object nor another it’s a matrix of parts. It is perhaps this proximity to fluidity, any camera anybody, that makes photography so special.

The art historical motives for the almost counter intuitive procedure of making bodies or sequences of photos seems unclear. Typically you could assert that photography was in its project still mitigating its own technology. Imitation of say print editions, joining in the fallacy of limited print runs artist print, printers print etc though perhaps this goes deeper? Sociologically we arrange, in the arrangement there is order in the order there is value. Bodies and sequences archive well and speak of history and perpetuity. Though the project of photography is often described as a pursuit of the ephemeral, the fleeting or happen stance. How can two such contradictory positions be reconciled? In order to investigate this we need to realise our parameters.

The purpose of this piece is to work towards a better understanding, of the purpose of a photograph.

'Shoot photos of police – get arrested.' POLITICS IN REPRESENTATION.

I know it was toothless.. Though nothing ventured nothing gained.
I attended;

I'm a Photographer ... not a Terrorist – Media Event - New Scotland Yard
The howls were more flashes and even so an uneasiness was upon Broadway. I fell by the way side. My infected red eye glowering at..at nothing really it was a fairly pleasant Monday morning, I had nothing to wince about. The act had become law, and theres a lot of disparity about that. Clearly it will affect journalists first they are the frontline. What is not immediately clear are the likely ramifications for all visual artists. Section76 is reasonably explicit in its project it seeks to curtail the possible use of stills/video of the U.K.'s state apparatus, military & constabulary by terrorists. There is an out - the out is based upon the definition of 'likely to be of use to terrorists'...... hmmm

Terrorist offences
76 Offences relating to information about members of armed forces etc
(1) After section 58 of the Terrorism Act 2000 (collection of information) insert—
“58A Eliciting, publishing or communicating information about members of armed forces etc
(1) A person commits an offence who—
(a) elicits or attempts to elicit information about an individual who is or has been—
(i) a member of Her Majesty’s forces,
(ii) a member of any of the intelligence services, or
(iii) a constable,
which is of a kind likely to be useful {Nice and vague legal definition, so theoretically anything related to the city of London though also any ex –mod staff or police} could be to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism, or
(b) publishes or communicates any such information. {The full legal implications would mean photographing any of the above list and uploading them to flickr for example – where they could be accessed by a third party possibly a terrorist}

58A.(2) It is a defence for a person charged with an offence under this section to prove that they had a reasonable excuse for their action. {This is the one clause that’s built in to allow you or I the opportunity to defend our actions in making a photograph, though if you need to use this it's probable that you are already under arrest}

I was peripheral, maybe I felt toothless amongst the valiant, their cannons (sic) hanging off them like guns for hire, old west, cops & robbers style. A hollow vacant yelp! as we slowly resign our rights to the state.

Contestation and power

"The metaphors of ‘discursive space’ and ‘argumentative texture’ bring a number of points to our attention. First, we can note the emphasis on contestation. There is usually in social life a struggle over how things are to be understood and for that reason it makes sense to talk of a politics of representation. Second, power is at issue here. Social scientists who study discourse have been interested in how people, groups and institutions mobilize meanings. How have some interpretations become dominant and whose interests do they serve? It has been recognized that control over discourse is a vital source of power and also there are limits to this control because meanings are fluid and escape their users and can be mobilized and re-worked to resist domination."

http://openlearn.open.ac.uk/mod/resource/view.php?id=211139

Monkey see, Monkey do.

In order to stand out in order to perhaps increase our chances of survival in a career that’s notoriously perilous. Like gladdened fools we imitate, we posture then when this is not enough we innovate. The concepts of art and entrepreneurialism have always operated together but perhaps at no other time have these two ideas become so necessarily coupled.