Some times a photograph can be used effectively to define the character of a place or ethos.Obviously such a picture will have disparate elements somehow fusing together to convey the overall character of a place or scene.We come back to the old premise-a picture manages to integrate several elements that share a common spatial consciousness which is tied to a particular chunk of time. The character of the scene is defined by the way the elements fuse together to convey a single unified impression.

In the abovephotograph ,taken from the timesonline.uk.com archives,one can experience the  defining character of the coalmines premises on a wet afternoon .The defining character is of course the mind-numbing dreariness of the place which can be experienced easily although the scene is from a place far removed from us in space and time.

Photography can be effectively used to make stylized representations of the human condition in much the same way as poetry .Here the photograph ceases to be a mere document depicting the current reality and assumes a much larger profile -that of an artistic representation of a universal truth.In several of these representations you can see the human drama unfolding and the characters playing out their part on much larger canvas ,their immediate concerns losing their significance and their role and scope enlarged beyond the immediate context.

We may talk of exploring the beauty of the human form in photography through a study of archetypal postures observed in anonymous humans.This we can do by looking at their fascinating possibilities by positioning their bodies in different postures in silhouettes.But there is another aspect to it. Instead of in a silhouette we may look at the individual as a speck of light in the darkness of the universe.The light is of course controlled  and is guided by what we would like to do with the manner in which light falls on their bodies. By controlling the light that bounces off their bodies we can create subtle textures in their exteriors and luminous halos around their presences. This we can do  at the composition stage but,more particularly,at the editing stage which puts in your hands an array of tools for manipulating light and shadow ,hues and tones.

There is a bit of thinking in photography ,especially in bringing about just that much light which will show things in a different perspective than what they appear usually in.Apparently the effort is towards running away from reality. How do we run away from reality ? Probably by thinking that the reality is much deeper than appears on the face of it. What if the perspective falsifies the reality and the art presents things in a perspective which only exists in the mind .Of course the obvious answer is that it does not make any difference and what you eventually see is the reality. We are not duty-bound to concern ourselves with reality as it exists and secondly having found the reality what do we do with it ? Thirdly we do not know that the reality as we see is in fact the reality that we are concerned with.

Having thought this way, I begin to think if I can find some approximations to truth while copying reality in its normal existence .For instance my figures become blurred and my background a different texture .Why do we relate to paintings more than we relate to photographs ? Probably we all believe that the figures in art should represent only the Idea and not copies of the reality .Of course at the back of our mind is the Platonic theory that art is twice removed from Reality in that it imitates reality which itself is an imitation of the Idea.

I have come across an interesting piece of freeware(http://www.fotosketcher.com) for editing your photos to bring about the effect of a painting .I have used this and found some lovely pictures have resulted out of the use without much effort.

In the following picture I have used the freeware:

“Q: What about photography, isn’t that art?

No. My position is that photography, which can indeed be a wonderful and excellent thing, is not actually an art form per se. A photographer can be more accurately said to “document” something by showing the audience exactly what was there (when well done, he does this using some of the same techniques that an artist might such as composition, selecting contrast levels, etc.) rather than recreating what was there in light of an expressive goal which allows a great deal of freedom to adjust what is there and how it looks which is unavailable to the photographer

Brian K.Yoder
http://www.artrenewal.org/articles/2003/Best_of_ARC/best1.asp?msg=108&forumID=18

We cannot agree with the view here. The assumptions here about what photography is themselves need to be validated.For example ,the photographer does not merely document what is already there.He searches out for that which furthers his vision and arriving there he expounds his vision which is uniquely artistic. Composition in photography is not a mere beautification device but arises out of the photographer’s unique vision.The photographer recreates ,just like an artist,”what was there in light of an expressive goal which allows a great deal of freedom to adjust what is there and how it looks.It is not correct to say that such a freedom is not available to a photographer. We are not talking about photo-journalism which perhaps merely documents what is .We are talking about the great photography artists like Cartier-Bresson whose photographs are as much an expression of a unique artistic vision as any painter or a music composer.

Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh : 12 October 1883

“one must not look at the local colour by itself, but in conjunction with the colour of the sky! That sky is grey -but so iridescent that even our pure white would be unable to render this light and shimmer. Now, if one begins by painting this sky grey, thus remaining far below the intensity of nature, how much more necessary it is to tone down the browns and yellowish-greys of the soil to a lower key, in order to be consistent. I think if once one analyses it thus, it is so logical, one can hardly understand not having always seen it so.”

In most photographs we do the same thing -that is we look at the local colour of the thing photographed ,the paddy field,the brown earth ,the rocky terrain, the water surface etc.and ignore the colour of the sky hoping to salvage the colour in editing. This is just unworkable and very often I find that the local colour comes out beautifully but a terrific mess is found in the sky .In digital photography some part of the sky gets dissipated by way of loss of pixels and the overall impact is none too satisfactory.
What is true of painting as observed by van Gogh in 1883 is true of photography today.

This is the winning BBC picture by Brian Dion entitled “I am Late ,I am Late !” Another example of how so much meaning could be read into an absolutely normal movement in nature ,making it exquisitely human-like ,lovable and amusing.

There is a particular type of photographing which I  like most.This is the photographing of a particular spatial situation consisting of several elements of living and non-living things acting out together in a single mime .In people photography we tend to focus on individual participants without looking at the overall functioning of all of them as participants in a spatial situation.I have tried photographing the marketplace ,the temple precincts,religious congregations etc.where such possibilities exist.But at the symbolic level where different elements participate to convey an emotive meaning or a subtle suggestion the situations available to us are much fewer because the symbolism is an after-event usually depending upon what the photographer likes to construct and is purely a matter of chance that such a fortuitous combination of the different elements is available to you.

Raghu Rai’s photograph of the religious ceremony of the immersion of the Goddess Durga in the river Ganga in Kolkata is an outstanding example.
Here the number of elements is unusually large but nearly all of them contribute to the spatial situation of the photograph.There is the river,the boat, the tree , the cow, the image of the Goddess and a woman participating in the situation.The beauty of the photograph arises largely from the different elements acting out together in a unique spatial situation.

I have just come across a fascinating photo collection by G.M.B.Akash  , of beautiful pictures, dealing with life in Bangladesh.In particular I have liked the train pictures .All of them are about people who travel on the train’s roof and on every conceivable space  on the train including the  precarious  chain links  between the coaches. Apart from the human interest of the picture below, what fascinates me is the counterpoising of inertness of sleep with the blurry speed of the train ,achieving a kind of death-like effect , the inevitability of the dark tunnel  as though it was an intended return to the womb. The man is disintegrating in the vast space-time continuum  and the walls of  his consciousness have broken apart as he gets sucked into the vastness of empty space.

Silhouettes are not something to be obsessed about but should certainly be considered as one of the means of creative representations.At the best they can be viewed as abstract representations which are meant to stylize expressions as intense thought.They are basically two-dimensional representations which have their significance in highlighting thought content ,not necessarily the same as what outwardly they represent or their apparent meaning in the context in which they occur.
In the photograph above the figures represent people worshipping shiva linga (the phallus god in Hindu Pantheon) installed in an ornate ancient stone canopy.Apart from the intrinsic beauty of the figures against the golden sunset ,what comes out is a strange magic in which the figures represent exquisite beauty of expression in the way their bodies stand out ,their souls merge into the sacred ambience of the worship.The woman figure stands in a body posture , her garment flowing ,her hands moving in space as though in dance.Actually none of this happens in reality and it is only what emerges from the perspective, the visual slant of the mind’s eye.

April 19th, 2007