The backdrop

Three new books have found their way into my home. They will not be alone, I love books of most colors and creeds. The reason I mention these three books in here, is that they are all about photography.

Susan Sontag's classic "On photography" (first published 1978) is a collection of seven essays she wrote on the moral and aesthetic problems surrounding photography as an art form. "A progress of essays about the meaning and career of photographs," Sontag calls it her self in the foreword in my edition.

The second book is Vilém Flusser's "Towards a philosophy of photography". The publisher states that "Flusser shows that the change from a text-based to an image-based culture (from the linearity of history to the two-dimensionality of magic) and the change from an industrial to a post-industrial society (from work to play)  go hand in hand, and how this mutation can be seen with particular clarity in the case of photography."

The third book is Ian Jeffrey's "Photography - A concise history" - a work that wants to go deeper than describing the history of the technical developments of photography, rather explore the essence of photography and it's relation to other art forms.

Maybe you are sighing now, shaking your head a little and thinking that this blogger is trying too hard to show off as an intellectual. What is the point of all this philosophy crap, really? What is there to learn in such texts?

This is where the backdrop come into consideration. Have you ever taken a photo where, after development you discover that the backdrop ruined your motive entirely?

- No, never been so unlucky? Okey: An example from my own collection then:

This tranquil and serene photo of a pretty resting dove was totally ruined by a cheeky, scratching sparrow that decided to be the ugliest lens-bug ever, totally ruining my motive. The culprit can be very very happy that I didn't notice this intrusion of the lens before I came home, or...

Another approach is of course to look on the outcome of this photo with a humorous smile and let it stand as a fitting photography of a lens-bug more than an image of a dull dove.

To read about philosophical theory on photography is to create a backdrop in your approach to photography: This backdrop gives the motive, to become a good photographer, focus in a indirect but important way. Sure if you sit down and think very hard about photography, the world around yourself, life, the universe and everything, you may come up with a lot of the things books like these will tell you. But reading good literature spares you a lot of time and effort, surely.

Susan Sontag practically starts her book of by stating that

"In teaching us a new visual code, photographs alter and enlarge our notions of what is worth looking at and what we have a right to observe."

I was in Rome in April 2008. Needless to say, I took lots of photographs. There is one photograph I regret not taking, but I was stopped by simply having left my camera with friends as I went for an exchange machine in the end of a very busy town square, next to horse cabs and street artists and (of course) tourists. A gypsy was standing next to the horse's watering station, washing himself quite thoroughly. A bit too thoroughly as he proceeded. The seance came to it's crescendo when he finished washing his private parts under his trousers and, without rinsing his hands, swiped them over his face and hair. A loud and shock filled sigh went over the audience. A few seconds passed, and then the merchants, concerned that this demonstration of poor sanitarian judgement might disgust the tourist clientele, chased him off with hash words and strong hands, "Go, go, never come back, ugly gypsy good-for-nottin'," they might have said.

One of the photos I did take while in Rome

The scene is vivid in my mind, and as I said I regret not having a photo of the happening, because it was one of those strong moments when you go abroad and want to experience something "different" than what you see in your everyday life. Maybe the incident felt so strong because it was a very strong confirmation of prejudices. I'm not sure. Another one of those things I have to think about.

Are you well equipped?

OK, I know this question can make some think of quite different matters than photography. Only the most serious of photographers will keep a very straight face and answer the question without even the slightest sign of a smile.

I’m not sure that kind of seriousness is good for you!

Photography is a hobby or profession with need of at least some equipment, I hope we can agree that it is rather impossible to take a photography without no apparatus at all. - At least if photographic memory is to be kept as a separate issue. And why don’t we keep it at arms lenght at the moment, please.

The knack when it comes to equipment, is to know that there must be limits, - both ways; your kit can both be too sparse and too abundant.

A photo motive just popped out on my imaginative retinas here, a overloaded press photogapher - rather big, red in the cheeks, overloaded and crowded with gear around & about. And next to her, a thin, pale, kind of lonely character with a single camera & nothing more. A expensive camera, maybe, but nothing more. She could look a little lonely and wanting, maybe looking with a sceptical eye down on a Leica apparatus anyone would envy her.  The photo should state that none is better than the other, rather that happiness most likely lie somewhere between the two illustrated extremes.

I’m thinking his older sister versus his daughter.

Oh, I’d love to take this photo one day. I’d make sure to be well equipped before I took it, though. ;o)

These days I’ve been one lense short, so I’m not as well equipped as I am normally. My Sigma 18-125mm was acting strange, threw the lenses inside around at certain zoom-points, and placed there it acted as if the electronics inside was haywired. Since the lens is only a little over a year old, I sent it off to the camera doctor today, hoping the repair is covered by the guarantee. Either way the process got me in the mood to buy a new lens. … And a new camera … and a flash, and a new tripod, and some more lenses, and ...a photo studio, and …  some filters and extenders and photo bags and books and a new car to transport it all around with and … It may be a form of insanity maybe.

A good link for the photo insane: The Camera Wiki, a place to look up all sorts of camera gear.

One thing to consider when thinking about buying a new camera, is should it be full frame or crop sensor? And does it really, really matter that much, - really? To try and find out, I had to find out what really is the difference between a full frame and a crop sensor. So I read this page on the web. I found this article quite useful for teaching me something new and interesting, and now I’d like a 7D camera even more. I’ll just have to save up and start a campaign with the wife to get there.

After sending the Sigma 18-125mm off with the post today, I got an acute fit of separation anxiety. I had to quelch the symptoms by visiting my favourite photo shop in Sandnes and buy a new lens.

I ended up buying the Canon EF 17-40 f/4 L USM, much to my own surprise, who had promised myself a lightstrong lens with a wide zoom range. But when I tested the 17-40mm, I fell as long as I was flat on my back and said, gasping for air, “I’ll … take it. Please! ”

The evening has been used for testing it’s qualities.

Along with the lens (and the obligatory UV filter) I bought a remote control for the camera. Self portrait was never easier.

If the damaged Sigma is not repaired, I’ll have to look into getting hold of a new zoom lens for “everyday use”. I like the possibility that lies in a zoom lense too much to be without it! - I think. Maybe the 17-40mm will teach me otherwise. Time will show.

And anyway, to justify today’s purchase for both myself and the world around me, I’ll have to improve my photo skills. So off I go!

Why would an atheist go to church?

Don't worry, I'm not going to go all religious - or antireligious here. The point I'm trying to make is that regardless of religious conviction, a beholder of a architectural praise to the transcendent powers, will see something made with love and awe. Sure, you can find that love and awe outside of churches and mosks and temples, sure - but the point is non the less that it's almost sure to be found in the buildings raised to praise the unearthly, while it's far from sure in a ton of other buildings and structures. Or do you see this kind of symbolism in your neighbor's garage or at the children's school down the road?

The architectural praise is something worth trying to capture with your camera, something to hunt for in the photos of a church, mosk, synagogue or temple - if you find it there to begin with.

I went with a friend out on Jæren today, to a place called Orre. There we found Orre Old Church hanging around on it's usual spot - a building from ca 1250, a so called "long church". 

It is called a long church because of its long room in the middle, that symbolize the holy road (“Via Sacra”), from the west towards the sunrise in the east. This was the most common type of church buildt from the middle ages until the 20th century in Norway.

I had my 60mm macro lens hooked to the camera, and in the cold north wind I really didn't want to start to change lens. In addition I had just downloaded a free stitching program I happened to stumbled upon on the net, Autostitch. That made me want to make a panorama-image of the church in stead of struggling over barbed fences and trafficked roads to get to a distance where I'd get the whole church in view. So -  I set the camera to an appropriate M setting and shot ten images of the church, five at the bottom, five at the top, clockwise. 

After that I thought "if it works, then it works, and if it doesn't then I'll go back another day when the sky is blue and bring my wide-angel lens mounted on teh Camera". 

The windy walk around the white chalked old stone chapel might have stirred some biblical neurons in me mind. On the way home I shopped some groceries and happened upon the most tempting and delicious looking Argentinian Apples, four of those please!

And if the temptation of apples is hard to believe in, just look at this lot.

While the tempted struggled not to bite into the fruit, I stitched and stitched and ... to be honest Autostitch did all the stitching for me. And this is what came out:

Magic that a program can throw together ten loose images to this, right? Well I have copped it and done a little photoshopping, to be honest. But not much, nothing much indeed. 

Still, I was not pleased with the mood the image gave, it was to light, to bright, to ... realistic maybe. I tossed and turned and churned it a few rounds in Lightroom, until this image showed:

And then I was pleased and ... ate an apple! 

On the Beach

Wednesday I went to the beach with a friend to see if there was some cool photo motives to be clicked -  and to smell the weather. It was cold, it was a lot of North wind, but it was sunny, it smelled of Ocean and it tasted like ... beauty.

And it was nice! The beach is almost always nice, no matter the weather - or maybe it gets nicer the more weather there is? I'll have to think a little about that.

In the meantime I'm going to get all philosophical. Or at least I'm going to look at philosophic photography. I googled “Photo philosophy” just for fun and got close to twenty thousand results.

Some of the blogs pertaining to be photo philosophical, was nothing of the sort. Instead they were superfluous, rather boring and art wannabe-like. Thankfully in between there was gold dew to be shaken out of the web, like Shutterfinger's good posts.

Photo philosophy ... There is an aesthetic branch of philosophy, which date back to Plato and which have the giant Immanuel Kant as it's utter most important modern contributor. Check out his work "Critique of Judgment" if you want to know more.

- And just because I read about it the other day, I happen to know that Susan Sontag wrote five or so essays on photography that came as a book "On photography" in 1977. When you follow the link to the book you find that others have taken the subject up too, Scott Walden and Vilém Flusser for instance.

Why bother to read books about photography, when I could just take the camera, go out there and practice and get better as I click? It seems like the photography hobbyist is "supposed" to click herself into better photos, a hands on-attitude, learning by doing. It might be just as sensible with a brains on-approach, where I learn by studying and reading. Even though, of course, it's not as much fun as click-click-click all the time.

The way I look at motives and situations around me is influenced by what's on top of my head (and actually at the back of my head too) at any given time. To think that I'm not influenced by external impulses, would be overconfident - to say the least. That's my second reason to read about photography, to have it with me as a thought as I go clickety-click around & about.

If rather than going to the books, you'd like to stay on the Internet and read here, maybe discuss deeper things with regard to photography, maybe it's time to join a forum like Photo.net?

And if you'd like to explore the subject on your own, without discussuon, why don't start by visiting Steve Pyke's portraits of philosophers here?

I'm going to round this post of by getting a little philosophical about photography as a revelation, as a "peeping" business, as a way of invading peoples personal life by catching them off guard or in the act - and keeping them there.

Yesterday I found this note in a small wood next to a children's school.

It says: "To Sanna! Thousand thanks for the letter. I like you very much. What will you do after school today? I'm going to a party. Greetings Merete"

Now without the photo of the note, you'd have to take my word for it's existence. Now all you have to question is it's authenticity - and my translation of the Norwegian text. With Google translate the last bit should be easy peasy to verify.

Seeing the note, picking it up, reading it - it all gave me a feeling of intrusion into someplace secret. But taking the photo was the biggest step, the greatest breach of privacy this note could possibly suffer. Taking the photo transformed the note to a photo of a note, made the private message a photo object, a viewer's thing, unpersonal, public and ... kind of ... I don't know ... ridiculed?

Is it unetical to take a photo of this personal note and post it on the Internet? Is it wrong of me? I intend no harm, have no agenda to make fun of the sender or intended receiver of the note. I just happened upon the note, picked it up and decided to keep it because no one else seemed to want to take care of it. But maybe taking it's picture is far from taking care of it, maybe putting it back between the two tree trunks would be a better act, a nobler adventure.

Some equal consideration may be the wont of many a photo taken, do you agree?