17 Responses

1. Simon Miles

   Erudite and thought provoking as always, David, and picking up some themes you have touched on in your books. I am wondering if the lack of comments so far is down to the intellectually challenging subject matter! Someone needs to start the ball rolling, however, so I will stick my neck above the parapet and post a comment.

   I think I follow your reasoning and see the inherent value of what you say. My main problem is that most (perhaps all) of my photographs are made on an instinctive and intuitive level. This experience in the field, which is essentially emotionally driven, is quite separate from any ‘post-rationalization’ that might follow. I have also noticed that it is self-defeating to attempt too much rationalization in the field, as this tends to shut down the emotional and intuitive responses, without which I cannot really engage with the process of image making.

   Where, then, does this leave me (us?) in trying to produce a coherent body of work that expresses a set of values or emotions? I can see that semiotics offers a way to help me read, interpret and connect with an image that has already been made. But I am not sure whether I would be able to apply any of this during the process of actually making photographs, as it would conflict with the intuitive working method which, in my case at least, seems to be essential.

   If the answer is that our post-rationalizations are subconsciously absorbed by our minds, so that they eventually feed through into the intuitive process, then I can relate to this. On the other hand, if there is more to it, then I probably still have a way to go in fully understanding the value of semiotics (perhaps we need a follow-up article!).

   On February 8, 2012 at 10:03 am • Reply
   • Tim Parkin

     Hi Simon – personally I think this sort of thinking helps because as you read and understand your own and other photography, you become naturally aware of the meaning around you. This understanding goes from a conscious process to an unconscious process over time and when in the field, you can recognise ‘scenes’ with messages instinctively/intuitively, just as you mention. You can think of the process of looking and thinking about your own and other photographers pictures as a sort of low level programming of your sub-conscious which then comes into play when you are out and about and letting it ‘flow’ (just as you mention in your last sentence). Then again, on occasion I also consciously see ways to read a picture as I am taking it – possibly not at the level David is discussing but then again, describing something is often a lot more difficult than actually doing it in practise.

     On February 8, 2012 at 11:37 am • Reply
   • Mike Green

     Firstly, an excellent article as ever, David; very thought-provoking. Thanks!

     Simon, it seems to me that you’re expressing the same idea as David covers in his last paragraph, and also something which I wrote about in less erudite terms in my anthropomorphism article, in an earlier issue of this magazine.

     Having a deep understanding of the way meaning can be derived from an image – more prosaically, ‘how it works’ – will near-inevitably feed back into the way that we construct images. If this is attempted at a conscious level, then, as David suggests, this is likely to lead to somewhat crude (my word!) symbolism being employed, or symbolism which is perhaps so tied up with the creator’s intent that it becomes obfuscated to anyone else. On the other hand, if the symbolism employed is subconscious at its inception, it seems to me that it is more likely to be interpreted, by the viewer, in the manner that the creator subconsciously intended. i.e. that the emotional message of the image is more likely to come across.

     The natural consequence of this is that, if we are to create images with some form of meaning, then studying, interpreting, and perhaps understanding images, in general, should lead to reinforcement and enhancement of whatever nascent ability we each have to subconsciously create meaning in our work.

     To summarise that: I agree with you, and I think the benefit of the type of thought David is describing above is to exacerbate our ability to unknowingly create meaning through looking for symbols and interpretations in images in general.

     Mike

     On February 8, 2012 at 9:09 pm • Reply
   • David Ward

     Hi Simon,

     Thanks for putting your head over the parapet! I think that I answer your point in the last paragraph of the article. I’m a firm believer that we should try and avoid consciously working a composition and let our subconscious take over as much as possible. We need to feel a lot and not think too much at the moment that we make a photograph. But, as Tim points out below, thinking about signification will change subtly how we approach making images over a long period of time. It occurs to me that it might be worth attempting an article on the subconscious processes involved in making art… This is a huge topic but one that has direct bearing on all of us. Might take me a while to get the research together but I’ll start looking into it.

     David

     On February 9, 2012 at 12:58 pm • Reply
2. tashley

   I’d like to see a deconstruction of what conventional photographic method, as applied to landscape, does to the emotional impact of an image in terms of freeing it up from constrained vocabularies of seeing. For example, I have noticed that an awful lot of medium format landscape work is extremely conventional (like very formal and correct use of language) and that this tends to formalise (and ossify) the emotional response and the way in which the symbols in the landscape are read.

   Perfect focus from foreground to infinity using movements and DOF, a ‘false perfect’ tonal distribution but the use of graduated filters (that horrid Top Gear look so often seen on the covers of photo mags) and the use of foreground interest and lead-in lines mean that the results are so often stolid, predictable, and dead. These methods are so often rigorously taught and slavishly followed that the oeuvre produced through this particular creative channel has stopped, in my eyes, being creative at all, precisly because it dictates rather than evokes and emotional response.

   You only have to look at the ‘here’s my latest work’ threads in some of the MF forums to see how constraining this way of working is and how mush less imaginitive the results often are than in the smaller format forums, where a more flexible and fluid approach is made possible by the smaller, lighter and more manoeuvrable equipment used – and possibly by the fact that this form of work encourages less formal practitioners.

   To use the language analogy: traditional, conventional MF work is like formal French: centrally dictated (by the Academie Francaise) and formally rigid. What a lot of landscape benefits more from, in my personal opinion, is some good street talk: sloppy, loose, inventive, irreverent, constantly morphing, ambiguous, intertextual, humorous, dangerous.

   That’s language. Everything else is a form of control.

   On February 8, 2012 at 2:39 pm • Reply
   • David Ward

     Hi Tashley,

     Thank you for posting some interesting comments. I understand what you mean about the conventional nature of some landscape photography but I don’t think that this is a format specific problem. I also don’t think it’s so much a problem of formality, more one of formulas. To continue with the language metaphor it’s more akin to people using stock phrases (‘at the end of the day’, ‘over the moon’, ‘sail off into the sunset’) rather than slang (as you propose) or writing visual poetry, which is more subtle and complicated but can still be based around a formal framework – think of Shakespeare and iambic pentameters.

     I don’t think it’s quite right to propose that language is completely free form. Any language, or dialect, has to contain some kind of syntax, if it didn’t there would be no possibility for common understanding. The syntax is a form of control that we cannot escape from, though in visual signification it is inherently much less well defined than in natural language. Poetic associations between signs are therefore much more likely to naturally arise as long as we don’t try and force things.

     I agree with you that different formats invite different ways of working, each has their advantages and disadvantages and each a different set of possibilities. However, I would hesitate to say that one is inherently better than another. They’re simply different. If we go back to the language analogy; “War and Peace” by Leo Tolstoy is not directly comparable with “On the Road” by Jack Kerouac. They’re both great works but in entirely different styles.

     One final point; I’m a little confused though by one aspect of your comment: you write about using movements with medium format cameras. Did you actually mean large format or more correctly view cameras (this term being non-format specific)?

     David

     On February 9, 2012 at 10:42 am • Reply
3. Joe Rainbow

   Well firstly I would like to say that I just always enjoy seeing your work David. It has a deep emotional connection for me, that just hits the spot. You also write in a really succinct way that I admire, often verbalising what I would struggle to express. So congratulations on tackling one of the tougher aspects of the creative arts. I feel it is really underrated.

   Secondly I always seem to end up replying to comments and articles here when I am far too tired to make sense of what I am thinking let alone typing, so apologies for that! A long parents evening after a full days teaching can take it out of a man

   I think Simon has a valid point about the need to relax at the time of photographing and letting things subconsciously influence decisions. I also think that the more knowledge one acquires the more this information will also subconsciously influence how you take the photograph! Articles like this seem to filter down into the brain in some dark corner and emerge at an appropriate moment in the field or more likely in the car on the way home. I don’t think it destroys the validity of the photograph to say that “although obvious now I wasn’t thinking it at the time”, or words to that effect. Hidden or subliminal messages and symbols in all visual things are of a great fascination and importance and affect us all in one way or another. I guess you know if they are working for you if enough people tell you that they find your work emotionally engaging.

   I hear what you are saying tashley, but there is a point when everyone has to throw away the rule book and unlearn what has been learned in order to progress. But we can’t all be at that stage, and so many follow the safer option of following the more obvious codes of visual expression. Speaking a foreign language is fine as long as someone else can understand it. (and therein lies the difficulty in trying to express something that needs some prior understanding on the viewers part)

   Somewhere to be found, is the fine balance between the profound, the predictable and the spontaneous. As David says, that is a very hard thing to pinpoint and is different to us all. Some, however, seem to bridge the language barrier and speak to ‘the masses’ on an emotional level.
   Just to be talking and sharing thoughts on the subject is refreshing I think. A beneficial if slightly wordy article

   On February 8, 2012 at 9:41 pm • Reply
   • Simon Miles

     Thanks Joe, David and others, for further comments and elaboration. We have had musical analogies here before, and Joe’s description above reminds me of how we learn to play music, first learning scales, then ‘stock phrases’ or ‘riffs’ before eventually acquiring the ability to string them together, adapt them and invent our own phrasing. The parallels with other art forms, including photography, are obvious and I am sure David is right about the importance of the subconscious mind, particularly as our technical proficiency increases. That promises to be an even more challenging article!

     On February 9, 2012 at 4:18 pm • Reply
4. jonb

   Great article and very enlightening. Might have to print it out and have another few reads before it’s fully digested. But can I ask…

   Would you suggest that in order to develop a more universal visual vocabulary, that the shackles of this genre first need to be shaken off? The work of Wynn Bullock or John Blakemore has no concept of the tradition of representation – or more specifically, the visual tradition of ‘landscape photography’. Their notably strong use of signs and the deeper meaning of their images are a result of a keen intuition and knowledge of the visual arts as a whole. I can’t help thinking of some British landscape photography as naive art for this reason – mine included.

   ‘For the traditionalists, the search for symbolic meaning is necessarily constrained by what the landscape has to offer in any particular location.’ Some of us might completely ignore a particular landscape simply because there are no ferns or birches. Is our search for symbolic meaning also constrained by an adherence to genre norms in this way?

   On February 8, 2012 at 9:45 pm • Reply
   • David Ward

     Hi Jon,

     A couple of interesting questions!

     It seems to me that ‘traditions’ in a visual genre could be thought of as linguistic formulations – examples in natural language might be a sea shanty, a limerick or a thriller. Within these formulations there is quite a lot of latitude for expression but also a degree of constraint. “There was a young lady from Bude…” could conceivably appear in all three genres but if the lines that followed conform to a bawdy verse of five anapestic lines (usually with the rhyme scheme aabba) then they can only truly belong to the limerick genre. Of course the line or whole stanza might conceivably be quoted within the thriller genre… So the boundaries are elastic and permeable, as they also are for any visual language. The shackles that you refer to characterise a rigid adherence to a tradition. The failing is not so much with the genre as with the practitioners who lack the courage to experiment as you suggest. It’s comfortable to work within a recognised genre and slightly discomforting to try and break away. However there are very strict parameters that must be adhered to within some long established artistic traditions – Haiku is an obvious example. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haiku ) Yet this constraint doesn’t seem to stifle creativity (in fact with haiku quite the opposite seems to be true) so there wouldn’t necessarily seem to be a causal link

     I’m not sure how truly original any of us can be since the signs still have to be read and anything too outré might simply be beyond comprehension. (This might be why some artists feel the need to support their representations with art speak texts… Have a look at this link for an example of what I mean: http://www.artybollocks.com/) Even seemingly revolutionary art, though it represents some startling new synthesis, is really evolutionary. After all, as Newton wrote, “We all stand on the shoulders of giants.” (Incidentally this was not the straightforward statement that it seems to be but rather a barbed comment in a letter to his rival Robert Hooke.)

     As for genre norms constraining a search for symbolic meaning (beyond the simple question of availability of signs in a particular place), my advice would be to try and journey with a mind as open to possibilities as one can manage. Easier said than done I know, but to travel with an expectation, with an image goal, almost always results in an expected image. I accept that not having goals is scary for some people but none of us make progress unless we get outside our comfort zone. Minor White equated the preferable state of mind to that of an unexposed piece of film, static and seemingly inert yet pregnant with possibilities, ‘so sensitive that a fraction of a second’s exposure conceives a life in it.’ Any image might feasibly be formed upon the film and we should be equally ready to accept what passes in front of our eyes, not blinkered by convention or expectation.

     David

     On February 9, 2012 at 11:04 pm • Reply
     • jonb

       Thanks very much for the incredibly instructive response! Really appreciate it.

       Also, thanks for the artybollocks link. This statement serves as a strangely apt, yet ultimately bleak response:

       ‘As shifting derivatives become undefined through emergent and personal practice, the viewer is left with an impression of the undefined of our era.’

       On February 10, 2012 at 12:27 am • Reply
5. caroline fraser

   The more I think about photographic meaning, the more I realise that I don’t have any idea most of the time why I am even taking a picture, and that most of the meaning is deep in the subconscious

   http://carolinescamera.blogspot.com/2012/02/all-tied-up-untold-stories-from-walk-in.html

   I have tried to summarise my thoughts in my blog, based on a recent collection of images from a walk with my dog.

   On February 9, 2012 at 8:56 pm • Reply
6. Malcolm MacGregor

   As Simon and Mike have said – all very thought provoking. I fear I am in the traditionalist camp of photography, with the limitations that that imposes – though not too many hopefully. Generally I do follow a certain line of approach which is probably too methodical and structured. I am not sure whether that rules out intuition or if one can even develop a sense of intuition except through the raw experience of photographing day in day out.

   Semiotics and symbolism I have great difficulty with, as indeed I do with ‘Camera Lucida’. In my defence at least I have at least tried to read it! Should try harder. I am not sure how one begins to look for symbols, and what it is one is looking for and then photographing. Minor White comes to mind but better not go there.

   Anyway, all to be sorted out on the mother of all workshops next week…..

   Malcolm

   On February 11, 2012 at 9:12 pm • Reply
7. Rob Hudson

   Thanks David that was a truly inspiring and thought provoking article! I think I’m going to have to go away and think about your conclusion that there is little point in worrying about signification as it is so open to individual interpretation, that might have a
   profound effect on my work. For that is primarily what I deal with, not I hope in forcefully pushing it upon people, but as an underlying subtext that relates to the poetry I am (literally) interpreting. Now you have me worrying I may not have been subtle enough!

   In the meantime, did I misread the advocates of Equivilence? Did they really draw a direct line between the meaning/emotion the photographer saw or just leave it as a possibility? I’m not sure, but I certainly see something of Equivilence in your recent work!

   On February 12, 2012 at 12:30 pm • Reply
   • Michael Marten

     Rob,
     regarding your first point: perhaps this relates to the question of intention. Are you interpreting a particular poem (itself a semiotic exercise…!) in a way that enables you to reach it/come closer to it, or are you wanting to try and do something that enables someone else to relate to the poem more closely? Perhaps you are even wanting the poet (presuming s/he is still alive) to obtain further meaning from their work through your imagery?
     David hasn’t (perhaps deliberately, given the non-academic context) written explicitly about the distinctions between semantics and pragmatics here, but it seems to me that he is referring mostly to semantics, whereas in your first point here you are pointing mostly to pragmatics: whilst these are clearly related, there is also an issue of distinction. Perhaps your worry comes from the confusion of these two?
     I’m trying to remember this, but I think I’m right: Umberto Eco wrote on issues of recognition and replication (amongst other things), and whilst it is a long time ago since I read that, I wonder if it might be something for you. If you read Eco and it bears no relation to this topic, then do let me know – I’ll then put my recommendation down to a failure to recall the real signifiers in his work!
     Michael

     On February 12, 2012 at 6:51 pm • Reply
8. Michael Marten

   David,

   this is a very engaging and stimulating read, and the comments are also interesting.

   Jacques Lacan sought to develop thinking about the ‘ontological absolute’ that others spoke of, and contrasted the ‘Real’ and ‘Reality’, a theme that Jean Baudrillard then developed further (both working primarily in a linguistic sphere, of course, but I think it is very interesting to try and reflect on this in imagery too). I wonder in how far using such process might change the way we think of semiotics in photography.

   On a related theme: it might even lead us to question whether photography (as a term for what we do, for example) is even appropriate symbolic language for the direction some contemporary photographers(!) are taking. If outcomes are so far removed from the symbolism most associate with the term, perhaps a new term is needed.

   Michael

   On February 12, 2012 at 2:21 pm • Reply
9. Adam Pierzchala

   I’ve now read the article and all comments twice and the conclusion that I have formed is this: don’t worry too much about signage when you are out making pictures. Go with whatever pleases, interests or inspires you. Then when you get back (or when your films come back from the processor), analyse your pictures and try to see what it is about them that excites you –assuming of course that you are not bitterly disappointed with the results (though that can be a learning exercise of a different sort).
   However, as David pointed out, photographers cannot predict how the viewer(s) will receive and interpret the image. So it is always a good idea to ask a friend/family member to objectively critique a picture and feedback their reaction. Have I correctly understood the thread so far?
   On the vast majority of occasions when I go out shooting, I don’t have any pre-conceived image in my mind, I just react to whatever I come across and record that subject, while trying to show what about it made me set-up my camera. Sometimes I do look for particular conditions (e.g. light, colour contrasts, image structure) which I saw in published photos and which I found particularly appealing. But till now I have not looked for signage, I just went with my response to the photo and tried to create my own image that would evoke a similar response in others. I am not sure where that leaves me!
   May I suggest that in a future issue – not too distant future please – David analyses his own or perhaps some readers’ images for the signage? That might help some of us to apply in practice the deeper intellectual concepts that David has raised here. Thanks.

   On February 18, 2012 at 4:33 pm • Reply