The “neurotic”, as Wyse refers, has certain troubles with photography, especially in the interpretation and meaning given to his work. The meaning in photography can be decided by the photographer, but the meaning given to the work by the audience is up to those who observe the work themselves. This may be difficult for the controlling person when trying to bring across a point in their work or establish a certain meaning.

“William’s work in relation to an act of deconstruction: it seeks to expose that which is undisclosed. It draws attention to the photograph as a cultural and social construction. It destabilizes meaning by revealing multiple and conflicting meanings. It brings to light that which was previously hidden, overlooked, or suppressed. William’s practice exposes photography’s repressions.”

Freud’s topic of repression is seen in the meanings of art according to Wyse. Photographic repression refers to the aspects of the art or photograph itself that are overlooked when observing the “meaning” in the work. Meaning is often just seen on the surface as the subject and the positioning of the work, but there are many deeper levels to the work that relate to topics in society and the culture of the people. An example of this is the relevance of corn in photography. Corn by-products are used in almost all products employed in photography and therefore when photographing an ear of corn there is much more meaning than what is seen on the surface. The deeper meanings are repressed until an artist like Williams comes along and exposes the undisclosed.

“Photographic meaning is never transparent”, but it may take a certain set of eyes or photographic intelligence to be able to come to certain conclusions about the art. This is the downfall of the neurotic in art. Wyse addresses the difficulty of the neurotic in displaying his art for public interpretation, but the real struggle is in hearing the interpretations of the mass public and that which is published by critiques. The true photographer must expose their desire in their work and allow for their love of the photograph to show through. Some meanings will always be lost in new interpretations of the work, but if the desire is present the true meaning will at least show through.

The opening quote of George Baker’s article Photography and Abstraction
frames the way that he talks about the usefulness of photography in a
historical moment of financial and cultural speculation.  It says:  Here
again the road leads over capitalism’s dead body; but here again this road
is a good one. —Bertolt Brecht At times reading this article it was as if
it were for an economics class, it appeared that capital speculation and
the transcendence of a movement from post-modernism has been indicative of
the saturation of markets.  Language like this made me feel a break from
the normal scope of photographic inquiry.  This was not an article that
focused on composition, arrangement, form, it focused on photography as an
abstraction that which, like the capital forces of the market, can be used
as a “tool to force the axiomatics’ of capital in different directions. “
He is insistent that photography appears and returns to the notion of the
underground to magnify the powers that pictures have in forming
‘aesthetics of the crash.’  The author is coming from a point of view that
makes him remark: “we seem to face the most extreme crisis of social
abstraction that we have ever known.”  Because of industrialization’s
disaster-like pathway it resembles a destructive force that is left up to
an uncontrollable nature (ie: earthquakes, tsunamis).  He understands
media to also be taking part in this digitalization of the image and its
broadcast.  Photography can tell so much but at the same time it does not
always tell the story that is behind it, sometimes the most important
actions are happening outside of the frame.  In the way that Barthes
responds to economic turmoil in Camera Lucida, to the same degree Baker is
revealing the bastardization of the image in light of our historical
moment.  He says: “Torn be-tween abstraction and atavism, photography
finds itself in a space between complicity and resistance, between
futurism and archaism.”  The types of photos that he references depict a
vulnerability of landscape that is torn from its roots or in other words,
is uprooted.  In his reference to Eugene Atget we are also reminded of the
way that regarding a photograph is making the viewer engage in an
‘umbilical connection’ with the subject before him.  In his deference to
the current economic moment of speculation, that time that occurs after
maximum production is reached, that money becomes an abstraction equal to
the abstractness of the term ‘finance capital.’

What does it mean to have the freedom as a photographer, and how and when is it limited? And or, when should it be limited? When reading this article, I was split between two concepts, and notions.

One side of me thought that Gary Gross was somewhat demented in creating the photographers he did. I thought that because, he was exploiting a young girl by sexually objectifying her. I also didn’t find the picture’s stylistic to my liking. Secondly, I was also split in my ideology, and thought of photographing someone else’s photo and calling it yours as being despicable. Youth exploitation, and art theft where the two subjects that were talked about in the article, and I was unable to hold one stance in both arguments. I was unable to answer the question, are these acts wrong?

Like I have explained previously, Yes it is wrong to make young, innocent youth as a sex symbol, and yes it is wrong to take someone else’s art and call it yours, but at the same time the other side of the argument was not heard. Artist have freedoms, and those freedoms are not limited as long as the subject consents in being a subject. Not to say I agree with child pornography, but the photo was taken as an art piece and not as pornography and ,therefore, Gary Gross should not be battered as being an evil artist. Art doesn’t have boundaries as long as it is not being inhuman and harmful. For example, Killing someone for the sake of art. Gary Gross as an artist has freedom to express his artistic view in anyway he wishes as long as it doesn’t implement harm. His motive in taking the picture was to “bring out the women in a child”. This notion might bring sickening feel to people reading it or hearing it, but we don’t think that when pornographers take pictures of women and sexually objectify them, that once in their life they used to be someone else’s little girl. I am not saying that was Gross’s first thought, but I am say we should look at that aspect as well. When doing more research I found a woman named Jane Feldman,who managed the studio on Broadway when the photographs were taken, and she said, “Garry saw it as art,” she said. “It’s an exploration, but it was done with great respect,” she added. “Yes, it’s intriguing, it’s provocative.”

When talking about art theft enacted by Richard Prince, in main stream photography perspective we can say that it was stolen art, but what does it mean to steal an art piece? If I walk outside,nicely frame a tree, take a photograph, and the next morning another person takes the same photo, do I have the right to say they stole my art piece, and that they should be able to do that? No! I don’t own the tree and how it looks, and in the same way, if someone scans or rephotographs my pictures, I can’t assert they stole my photo. But I am allowed to make the assertion that the photographer is not creative, but he is original in a sense that it hasn’t been done before. But the problem was (going back to artist’s limitation) Richard was the one that played the most important role in sexually objectifying Brooke, and made her stand as a sex symbol when the photos were distributed to playboy (which was not Garry’s idea but was blamed for it). Did Richard steal the photos? That is a question hard to answer in my point of view, because it holds with it the philosophy of morality, and that is a big subject to uncover.

“If an artist were to admit that he was uncertain as to what part of the content of his work answered to life and what part to art, and was perhaps even uncertain as to precisely where the boundary between them lay, we would probably consider him incompetent.” I think this quote stands to show how important it is for in artist to have the need to know what the art means. But the importance is that most artist create art but didn’t have the intention to create art. Personally, when I take photographs I don’t compose the photograph with having a meaning or intension. But as soon as I take the photo, I tend to find symbolism within it. It is also important for photographers or artist to not have the need to know exactly what their pictures stand for, or means. At the end of the day, when a picture is created or when an art piece is produced, it is up to the viewer to create their conclusion.

“The photographer hopes, in brief, to discover a tension so exact that it is peace.” Secondly, During a composition a photographer has unlimited option to create an art piece. With that said, a photographer creates tension in the composition, and yet in my opinion the tension is so intensional it leaves the artist at peace. The peace comes from the order that is in the composition created by the artist.

“…one might say that a photograph’s subject is not its starting point but its destination.” When a photographer takes a camera and composes a shot, and the action of proceeding to hit the shutter release, becomes a moment of capturing the last second of the subjects. The shot or the capturing of that moment in a single frame means that the subject has come to a complete resting moment in the frame. By that I mean, the photographer has created the reality for the viewers, and looking at the photo we can only infer that the object or subject is locked in its destination.

“..after the photographer had spent a century learning how to use his medium in monochrome, what chaos resulted when he was suddenly presented with cheap and virtually foolproof color film.The technical geniuses who developed this wonderful advance assumed, naturally, that more was better, and that the old pictures plus color could only be more natural.” This quote spoke out more to me because in my understanding of this passage, it seems though photography deals with the challenges of learning the medium, and also working against the challenges of constantly changing technology. You can see the frustration that comes from needing to prefect the art and skills, and also the challenges of working with the advancing technology takes away from the artist ability to successfully create the art.

There is a reason behind why photographing all and everything that comes to mind, or in contact with the eye of the photographer. We are beings that have been fascinated with reserving our history, and past and present life time, and so photographing has made that possible. In the passage, it opens by talking about being alone in the house when everyone is asleep. This feeling of loneliness is what we are all scared of, but at the same time the photographer find peace in that. Alone in the house with peace and quiet, the artist gains a time for self-reflection, and a puff of cigarette. “It is like I’m releasing the air from an inflatable image and shrinking back down to an essential form. Is this why I’ve come here? To find myself by photographing them.” He had the need to capture all the moments that he can, and he ends up with many photos, and many film that hasn’t been developed yet. He expresses that when trying to make one moment into a photo it never ends up working out, and therefore, he results to another means of photography. The other stylistics that the He to is a documentation style, and form that he find peace, and better looking and interesting pictures.

He also talks about how he used to pay attention to the importance of posing his father into a scene, but he come to a realization that in the process, he loses the most important moments and redid the scene unintentionally. He ended up taking pictures of his Dad that he already took, and also gets overly excited and misses to take the pictures he really wanted to. This has been a standing problem for me as long as I can remember, and I noticed this as soon as I picked up the camera heading upon a photographer’s lane. It grows to frustrate me in that, timing is everything in photography, therefore, I too, feel the need to photograph everything at all times, otherwise, a moment of beauty is missed. But at the same time, when being so focused on one subject or object, you end up losing an opportunity other places and other times. But, what I have learned from this is that, we as photographers have to make a sacrifice in letting go that last chance or opportunity, and that is how I gained control over the frustration. So when reading this passage, I was able to feel sympathetic towards the photographer.

Here is where you can read the text for that response that is due before class next Tuesday.  Please respond below!

Photograph of William Eggleston by Maude Schuyler Clay