Can a photograph tell a story?

In the review of the four books, A Vision of Paris by Eugene Atget, A Life of Photography by Edward Steichen, The World Through My Eyes by Andreas Feininger, and Photographs by Cartier-Bresson, Clement Greenberg writes that the art of photography has only been successful if it tells a story leaving the pictorial aspects as secondary. Greenberg starts by referring to Atget as the "complete photographer". Atget was interested in the identity of the subject in which he photographed. Greenberg states that any "pictorialism" within Atget's work was came as a result from his interest in capturing the identity of the subject.

Greenberg continues by addressing the work of Edward Steichen, specifically one photograph towards the end of the book in which a woman's arms are raised from behind a large stone. In Greenberg's description and criticism of the work, I was confused. Here Greenberg is describing the photograph as having a story of "life verses trimmed and carved stone" yet goes on to write that because of this story it "cancels out artiness". Is this "artiness", that Greenberg refers to, a positive or negative term? Is this "artiness" referring to the image as having any artistic value or referring to a purely formal / abstract composition (which Greenberg discusses in the following paragraph)?

In the next portion, Greenberg discusses Andreas Feininger. It is in this section that Greenberg states that photography has the advantage of the speed, in which to represent realism, over painting. Where painting can achieve realism as, if not more, accurately than photography, the photographer has the advantage of being able to experiment with much more ideas and aesthetics from the quick process of making a photograph.

John Szarkowski has very different ideas as to what photography, as an art medium, is. He addresses this in five different points:

The Thing Itself
Szarkowski addresses that once a subject is photographed, it is transformed from reality to the intent of the photographer. In taking the picture, the photographer is keeping the final result in mind. The subject and the photograph itself are entirely different. Szarkowski states that the problem lies in the general publics notions of photography representing the truth. This idea is saying that what we may have overlooked in the everyday, the camera has captured the generally unseen, only for us (the viewers) to see the image,  and reminisce on the actuality of the situation which we missed the first time around. This is an illusion of realism.

The Detail
In this section, Szarkowski very literally argues that photography cannot tell a story. He refers photography as being a medium that symbolizes, not tells, the truth. If a symbol is an abstract form relying on human interpretation to give it significance, then this statement is in partial opposition of Greenberg's statement, "the purely formal or abstract is a threat to the art of photography." It is not a complete opposition in that the symbolization is generally not a pure abstraction. Traditional photographs generally use identifiable objects, people, and environments to be displayed within the frame. Because of this general notion, the photograph is not a pure abstraction because there are identifiable symbols and icons (as in a representation that is universally recognized as opposed to culturally) that comprise the image. If an image is then made up of icons and symbols that can be easily understood then the photograph, as the overall symbol, is abstract but not to a point of dismissal.

The Frame
Szarkowski describes the actual framing of an image as transforming it from what the actuality of the situation was. He refers to choosing two people within a large crowd. When photographed in a single frame, even if those two people don't know each other, the viewer sees a previously unseen relationship between the two, even if that relationship was nonexistent to begin with.

Time
Szarkowski draws attention to the fact that photography only displays short slivers of time.

Vantage Point
In this section, Szarkowski states that photographs give the viewer an idea or sense of the scene but "withhold[s] its narrative meaning". He does not write a whole lot about the vantage point while it seems as though there is a great deal that can be said about it. By photographing from a specific point, giving a specific perspective, even if the photograph was to display a narrative, it would be in the eye of the photographer. The narrative would be a first-person story not to the truth of what is being shown, but only to the truth as the photographer sees it.

This idea of "vantage point" can be considered in relation to Ariella Azoulay's recent article in Aperture about the work of Aim Deuelle Luski. Luski makes cameras while trying to remove the "vantage point". The artist does this by creating ways of making an exposure while leaving much up to chance. By creating cameras with multiple apertures to expose the film at the same time, the result is one not entirely of the photographers choice while not entirely by chance. The photographer still chooses when and where to expose but does not have control over the composition of the frame. Azoulay describes this vantage point as being the photographers "ownership" over the image. The work of Luski is attempting to break that ownership. If this attempt is successful then any sort of narrative that may be represented in the photograph is no longer held in a first person perspective, but more so in a third person perspective.

Week 11: Systems

In the essay "Systems Everywhere" the work of the New Topographics photographers is examined according to the systems theory, which puts the importance or meaning of something on the relation of multiple parts as opposed to each individual part holding its own. The first two systems we are presented with are the natural ecological system and the "broken system" of the human-altered landscape. The natural ecological system is structured around a recycling process: plants that intake oxygen and generate carbon-dioxide help feed the plants which intake carbon-dioxide and generate oxygen. We are presented with Robert Smithson's view of the "broken system" of the human altered landscape, which is addressing that man has not followed the natural system and is creating without regarding what will happen to the waste. This broken system is significantly enhanced by the industrial age and consumerism of a capitalist nation. The first example we see in the New Topographics, holding these ideas of systems in regard, is Robert Adams' Mobile Homes, Jefferson County, Colorado, 1973. The New Topographics photographers are looking at the systems of a human-altered landscape.

We then move onto the aesthetic of the images. In comparison with more traditional landscape photographers such as Ansel Adams, the New Topographics systematic aesthetic does not direct attention to each individual photograph but to the work as a whole. At first, one could regard this approach similar to Michael Fried's ideas about theatricality, but because unlike Ansel Adams' highly pictorial images of places most people were not familiar with at the time, the New Topographics look at what the mass majority was familiar with. Because of this we could relate the systematic aesthetic approach of the New Topographics photographs back to Hegel and his theories of true infinite.

I have made this graph that I think may be a visual representations of one of the systems involved in this work. As we can see, the photos are made using the landscape, the photos are presented to the viewer, who lives in the human altered landscape. I think that this can be related to Hegel's true infinite in that the viewers are connected in infinite ways to each other and the environment. These connections can be observed through the systematic aesthetics of the New Topographics.

Week 10: Photography's Expanded Field

In this essay, George Baker presents us with an idea that photography has expanded beyond its modernist idea of the photographic object. Baker is claiming that photography is becoming a much more expanded medium similar to the idea of sculpture as an expanded medium, primarily written about in Rosalind Krauss' "Sculpture in the Expanded Field".  Baker starts his claim by addressing that while modernist photography strived to be an art of pure visual stasis, it failed to ever do so. While the modernist photograph attempted to provide a narrative it would never be able to do that based on the stasis nature of the object. Baker goes on to claim that if modernist photography is not stasis and not narrative, then there must be not only an inverted form, which would connect narrative and stasis, but there also must be forms that connect both narrative and not narrative, stasis and not stasis.

Baker uses Cindy Sherman's Untitled Film Stills as an example of an art being stasis and not stasis simultaneously. This is found through Sherman using the photograph to display a stasis moment taken from a narrative, more specifically: a film. It is stasis in that it is addressing a stopped moment, while not stasis in that the stopped moment is from a film which is an art of almost pure narrativity.

We are then to look at the other side of the graph which would be an art that is both narrative and not narrative. The work of James Coleman, which are projections of stills taken from films, are seen as fitting to this claim. Narrative in that these are images taken from a film, but not narrative in that we are not watching a film but are watching a single image taken from it.

At the top of the graph, being an art of both narrative and stasis is the work of Jeff Wall. His work is stasis in that through the use of the lightbox, Wall is drawing attention to the photograph as being a physical art object, similar to that of a painting. While Wall is drawing attention to the physicality of the art object, the content within the image are mostly narratives. We can find the content as being narrative in that there is, most often, some sort of situation that seems to be paused. It is usually very easy to see that there is a story or an event that has the illusion of taking place as the photograph is being taken.

While Bakers ideas of the expanded fields of contemporary photography seem to be accurate, I start to question where Paul Graham's A Shimmer of Possibility falls into.

Pittsburgh (Man Cutting Grass), 2004, from A Shimmer of Possibility

Graham's first edition (published 2007) is comprised of 12 individually bound chapters. In each of these chapters we see a sequencing of images which, because of the similarities in visual aesthetic, are viewed as the passing of time of one event. In an interview with Aperture magazine, Graham addresses that he often examines the very nature of photography, "End of an Age alternates between sharp and blurry photos, so that considers focus; American Night has very light and dark pictures, so that deals with light intensity-aperture; and shimmer uses stuttering single frames, so that reflects upon time frozen or flowing through the camera shutter."

Page Spreads from "Texas" chapter of A Shimmer of Possibility

One can see the idea of the photograph as multiple images as opposed to only one image of a certain scenario, but there is something else going on here. From viewing the "Texas" chapter of the book, it appears as though Graham is following two people, one of which carrying two cases of Pepsi. It appears as though Graham followed them home, photographing them along the way, while also becoming distracted by other surroundings along the way. Between the 2nd and 3rd spreads, this idea of becoming distracted seems to be the case. In the 2nd spread the two appear to be walking uphill on a old sidewalk, the 3rd appears to be a view looking downhill on what appears to be the same sidewalk. The two continue to walk past a graveyard. Apparently there was not too many distractions here except for the graveyard, which appears to be in focus in one of the images. Then finally the two continue into a neighborhood, where at one point Graham seems to position the camera facing away from the road but into someone's yard where we see two children playing. The two carrying the groceries continue on until Graham stops and the two continue off into the distance. 

How can we interpret this body of work according to the claims of George Baker? I do not think that this work would fall into the category of in between narrative and not narrative, just as I do not believe it would fall into the category of in between stasis and not stasis. This work is both stasis and narrative, but may even be more than that. Is it possible that this body of work can be found in the center of Bakers graph?

Using the "Texas" chapter as an example, here are reasons why I believe this work may be able to fit in between all four categories-

Narrative - There is a sequence of images displaying what appears to be an progression of time over an event (the two people with groceries walking) through visual motifs, i.e., lighting, surroundings, subjects. 

Not Narrative - While we are seeing an event take place over time, we are not certain of the event. The Oxford English Dictionary definition of narrative begins with "An account of a series of events, facts, ect.". This is not a narrative because we do not have all of the facts. We assume these people have just gone grocery shopping and are now walking home, but we never see them leave the grocery store and we never see them go into a home.

Stasis - These are still, photographic images. If Graham was solely interested in the event happening over the period of time, he would have used a video camera. There is a reason that these are still images in sequential order as opposed to a seamless succession of the event. 

Not Stasis - There is a sequence of images we are watching, similar to that of a film. One can flip through the book and watch these images in a forward or backward sequence, so the element of motion is present. 

George Baker's theories about the expanded fields of contemporary photography and his Klein group graph were published in October in Fall 2005 and Paul Graham's A Shimmer of Possibility was not published until October 2007. I would be very interested to see if this work has modified or verified Baker's theories.