LensWork Vision of the Heart

Two Rooftop photographs from Peter Steinhauer and Linda Butler

Chuong Duong Roofs, Hanoi - 1998 by Peter Steinhauer
From LensWork and LensWork Extended #69

© 2007 Peter Steinhauer. All rights reserved.
Reproduced with the permission of the photographer

   

Rooftops, Dachang, 2001 by Linda Butler
From LensWork #56

© 2005 Linda Butler. All rights reserved.
Reproduced with the permission of the photographer

   

Here are two somewhat similar images by Peter Steinhauer and Linda Butler. These two images, I think, are classic examples of one of the things that is very interesting about photography as an art form: Photography is a personal expression but so often ends up producing images that are somewhat similar. Here we have two images of rooftops from the Orient — one from China and one from Vietnam, but nonetheless, very similar. It's obvious that these two photographers have had a fairly similar response to subject matter, yet there are some differences. Both of them were motivated to photograph rooftops, but it's interesting to ask why. Is it possible that these rooftops are symbolic of something? If so, perhaps that's why they're drawn and motivated to photograph them. More about this in just a bit.

But first, let's look at what are the similarities between these two photographs compositionally? They are rooftops and they are only rooftops. Notice that both images are bilaterally symmetric. With the Steinhauer image, there's a roofline going right up the center of the image; with Butler's image there is that big black square right in the middle that divides the photograph into an equal left and right part. Both of these photographers, compositionally, saw these things as bilaterally symmetric photographs even though Butler's is a portrait orientation (standard 4"x 5", roughly, proportions) where Steinhauer saw his as a horizontal composition and, indeed, a panorama at that. Nonetheless, they are both bilaterally symmetric.

Also, notice that both photographers made their images with no sky. Both of them have a strong horizontal line about halfway up the image. In the case of Butler's, that horizontal line is created by the rooftops themselves and you can see that her picture is also divided vertically symmetrically. In the case of Steinhauer's image it's also divided horizontally by a line, but in this case that horizontal lines is not a roof but it's actually some discoloration or marking of some kind on the wall on the side of a building. Nonetheless, it makes a strong horizontal line. Again, there are similarities in the way these two photographers have handled this.

So the question is why? And what does it mean that photographers handle the same kind of image in almost exactly the same way? Are they copying one another? Probably not. If I had to guess I would suspect that these two were totally oblivious to each other's work. Steinhauer photographed his image in 1998 before Linda Butler's book, Yangtze Remembered: The River Beneath the Lake, was published, and Linda Butler photographed her image in 2001 before Peter Steinhauer's book, Enduring Spirit of Vietnam, was published. Their photographs are probably a parallel response to a similar situation.

This is something that faces us photographers all the time. How do we deal with the issue of copying another photographer, or at least responding in the same way that another photographer has responded to a given subject matter? I, for one, have never perceived this to be the bugaboo or problem that some photographers do . If I were to go to Yosemite and make images that look exactly like Ansel Adams' images, I'm not sure that would bother me. My images would be my response, and so what if my response to Yosemite is exactly the same as Ansel Adams' response to Yosemite? Doesn't that simply make us kindred spirits?

It's one thing if we just have a parallel response; it's a completely different sort of thing if I go to Yosemite and specifically try to copy Ansel Adams with the purpose of somehow succeeding commercially or financially on the coattails of his success. That's clearly not the case with these two roof images.

I think, instead, what this points out is that as artists we have a reaction to a thing, to a place, to a situation, to an environment. We want to make some kind of an emotional statement about it visually, graphically, photographically. It's not uncommon, because we are similar in our sensitivities, to have a similar response photographically. That is to say, there is a universality of emotion that happens with human beings. It's possible for us to all have the same emotional response to the same kind of environment. We are all similar in that regard — regardless of our culture, our gender, our language, our age, the times in which we photograph. It should not surprise any of us that that universality of emotion would manifest itself in similar ways with different photographers. There is enough difference between these two photographs — from these two contemporary photographers — that they would never be confused, but the similarity of emotion actually bonds them. And that's one of the magical things about art. Because art is about the universality of human emotion, we can relate to it. As viewers we can relate to it, too, just as one photographer can relate to it like another photographer can.

What is it that we feel about these images? Well, that question leads us directly into another universality, in this case, the universality of symbols. There is an impersonal nature to these two photographs. There are no people in them. There is, however, a sense of crowdedness — building upon building packed in so close, so tightly. We know underneath these roofs are people who are living, people who are going through their life and their daily routines, doing so in an environment that is so crowded. There is also a feeling that comes about with these photographs relative to being just a cog in the wheel, a rat in the maze, just a little tiny person in a very big, complicated, and crowded world. We are not feeling the expanse of nature; we are feeling the crowdedness of urban life. Both of these photographers have responded to the environment in which they were photographing in a similar way; they specifically selected to go up into a roof, to look down, to eliminate the sky, to make that feeling of crowded, jam packed, house-on-house, with no square inch of street or escape. I might guess that's exactly how they felt being there in those places.

If the universality of emotion and the universality of symbol is valid, then we ought to be able to confirm this by looking elsewhere for something similar. That is to say, if it's universal, it ought to pop up a lot. In fact, it took me about five minutes to find another image that is very, very similar in emotional feel in one of the books in my library. In this case, it's Andre Kertesz in a book called Of Paris and New York published by the Art Institute of Chicago, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Thames and Hudson. And if we look on page 253 there is an image called Greenwich Village, Rooftops, Evening 1954 which was used as the cover image in this book. In this image of Kertesz's, he also is very high, very much in a tall building above the rooftops that he's photographing, looking down at the rooftops and again, we see no street, no people. In his case we do see a horizon — a bit of a dark, snowy, stormy, and foggy sky that adds the ominous feeling in the photograph. In Kertesz' image, again, we are a small human being in the presence of a large place which is confusing, jumbled, foreign, Metropolitan, and not open space. We are small and looking down at places where people are inside but invisible to us. That isolated, lonely feeling is definitely present in the Kertesz photograph enhanced by the fact that it's photographed on a dark, dusky evening in a snowstorm.

Kertesz felt that emotion in 1954. Steinhauer felt a similar emotion in 1998. Linda Butler felt a similar emotion in 2001 and I suspect we could go on searching for these images and find similarities a great deal. What this tells me, as a photographer, when I find that I photograph something that's similar to someone else's, is not that I'm copying, not that I'm not seeing uniquely or wonderfully or somehow I'm not being creative. It tells me that I'm connected to the rest of the human race and to other creative artists who are feeling the same kinds of things that I am. The connection here that's made between Steinhauer, Butler, Kertesz and all the other people who have photographed this kind of image, to me, is a connection that binds, rather than a competition or some kind of failure to not see the world uniquely. It's important to differentiate between mere copying, that is to say, setting out to do a copy, and having a parallel response like we see in these photographs from Peter Steinhauer and from Linda Butler.

A bit of cross-marketing

Forgive the bit of "cross-marketing," but I've started yet another blog that might be of interest.

http://dakotacreek.lenswork.com

   

Winter Landscape by Chip Forelli

Winter Landscape by Chip Forelli
From LensWork and LensWork Extended #64

© 2006 Chip Forelli. All rights reserved.
Reproduced with the permission of the photographer

   

This is one of those incredibly simple compositions that can speak so loudly in the world of photography because this is the kind of thing that photography excels at — showing us things in incredible detail without really showing us very much at all. What we have here is, essentially, a snowy field, some little structure, and some trees. How could you possibly make an interesting photograph out of those simple elements? In fact, this is not only an interesting photograph but there's a lot more going on here than meets the eye.

First, however, I'd like to point out that over half of the photograph is, essentially, empty. There's almost nothing from the halfway point up to the very top of the photograph. It's just a smooth, gradual, gray gradation. This is a very Oriental kind of aesthetic, the kind of thing you see in a classic Oriental landscape — just a few brushstrokes that highlight a rock or an island or a little tree and then this huge expanse of sky up above; it's not often done in Western culture. Usually, this kind of photograph would have big storm clouds or something in the sky. In this case, Forelli gets away with this very interesting compositional anomaly because the air is visible. That is to say, you're not just looking at blank up there. The sky is fog or perhaps even snow. It's the kind of sky that is alive. When I interviewed Forelli he quoted one of his favorite photographers — I believe it was Jay Maisel — who said, "Never trust air you can't see."

Compositionally, the sky is blank, but it isn't blank from an emotional nor from a sensual point of view and that takes me to the next comment I wanted to make about this image. This image is successful in bringing forth senses other than the visual. I find this a very common thing in the best of photographs. Usually there is something in them that brings more than my eye into play. You cannot look at this picture without feeling cold. That sense of cold is created in several ways. One, obviously, from the snow on the ground; there are no shadows to speak of in this photograph at all, no sun, no warmth. There's no feeling of any relief from this cold, wet, moist air that dominates the composition.

Furthermore, the bottom third of the photograph contains little grass stalks poking up from the snow, leaning in the blowing wind. The cold atmosphere, the snow, the bare trees, and now this sense of the cold wind combine to create a physical sensuality in this photograph. Any time we can include more senses than the visual in our images, we're a leg up in terms of composition. As a matter fact, I might propose that one of the things to do specifically, precisely, when we're photographing is to look for elements of other senses we can include. There is the sense of temperature — hot and cold, the sense of touch, the sense of sound, the sense of smell. There is the sense of time. All of these things can contribute to make the photograph more than just a picture of the visual.

One of the other interesting things about this image is that the lower edge, the upper edge, and to a lesser degree, the left and right hand sides, are ever so slightly darker. That is to say, Forelli has probably burned in the very edges of this photograph just a little bit — just slightly — to keep our eye focused in the photograph instead of drifting out of the photograph. That's a technique Ansel Adams talked about in his book The Print and I think Forelli has used it here incredibly successfully. If he goes too far it looks phony; if he goes not far enough then our eye drifts easily out of a photograph. He's done it just right.

As a sort of "fellow traveler" image, look at Arthur Rothstein's Fleeing a Dust Storm from the FSA work. A similar sense of the sensual and the use of atmosphere, but in a completely different context.

Stairway to Heaven by David Fleurant

Stairway to Heaven by David Fleurant
From LensWork and LensWork Extended #64

© 2006 David Fleurant. All rights reserved.
Reproduced with the permission of the photographer

   

Let's look at an image by David Fleurant from LensWork and LensWork Extended #64. His official title, which we did not publish in the magazine, is Stairway to Heaven.

I'd like to begin by engaging you in a little exercise. Let's determine what we can conclude, decisively, unequivocally, by looking at this image.

• First, we have a man standing on some steps. He has a certain sort of look about him with a certain sort of wardrobe. He looks like he's maybe some indigenous person, we suspect. He's outdoors in the sun and somewhere where it's relatively smog free. We don't really know much else for certain.
• We don't know, for example, whether or not this individual is walking up the steps or down the steps. He's pointed up the steps but he could have been turned around for the purpose of the picture. We also don't know whether or not he's actually walking up or down the steps themselves. If you look off the right side of the photograph, roughly in the middle, there is what appears to be a break in the rock wall and what could be a path headed down out the right side of the photograph about midway point. He could've come from or be headed down that path, assuming it is a path. It is very difficult for us to tell.
• We also don't know where this is, what country it is. We don't know anything about who this individual is. We could make some speculations, perhaps, based on his wardrobe; perhaps China or Tibet, maybe South America. It's hard to tell for certain.
• His facial structure and appearance is definitely he's not Caucasian; he's not African. But other than that it's pretty hard to tell precisely where he comes from.
• We also know if we look carefully at what he's carrying on his back, the very top item in the bag looks to be one of those plastic bins that you use to hold a case of bottles of Coca-Cola or something like that. So because it's a plastic item we know that this is not a 100 year old photograph or probably not even a 50-year-old photograph. It's probably more contemporary.
• We know a little bit about the weather. We know that there is a wake in the water in the background, but we can't tell what the wake is coming from because we can't see a boat or anything. There's a limited amount of information that we know about this image for certain.

The reason I bring all this up is because the photograph is actually quite a bit more interesting than what we can see visually. There is a story that goes with this, and as is so often the case with photographs that involve people, once the story is expanded, the photograph becomes a lot more interesting. So here again, the importance of story is so critical. This is such a classic example. So I'd like to share David Fleurant's comments about this image from my interview with him in LensWork Extended #64.

"This image was made on Lake Titicaca that borders Bolivia at the southern part of the country. The island I'm on there is called Taquile. If you look very carefully over that gentleman's shoulder down to the lake you can actually see the wake of the boat that he arrived on; it's leaving. Most of the commerce that takes place on Titicaca is done in small boats — 20- to 30-foot boats — and it takes about four hours to get to this island. His job is to take whatever cargo comes from the boat and haul it from the boat up to the village that is at the top of the island. One of the curious things about the major islands, Taquile and Amantaní that are in the lake, is that the villages are all at the top of the islands and the vertical drop from the lake level to the top of the island is probably anywhere from 800 to 1000 vertical feet. The islands are covered with these stone pathways. He looks to be a fairly elderly man and the load he's carrying is not small. The thing you have to appreciate is that the surface of the lake is at about 11,500 feet! This guy is amazingly fit. Certainly more fit than I was when we arrived because we just showed up from sea level and had to get acclimated. He lives up there and that's how he works. He brings cargo either up from the water line to the village or from the village back down to the water line either barefoot or in very, very beat up old sandals. The islands themselves have no mechanization. There are no tractors, no cars, no motorcycles at all on the islands. When you arrive at the islands, it's amazingly quiet. All the interconnecting points on the island are serviced by theses beautiful pathways that you see, big heavily laid stones. Not too far behind him the terrain gets quite steep; in some places the pathways turn more into vertical stone ladders. Traversing these areas is a bit tricky. In some areas it gets so narrow that you have to watch for people coming up or coming down and whoever has gotten into the middle of it first gets the right of way."

So let's assess what we just learned from Fleurant's descriptions.

• The photograph was made at Lake Titicaca on the border of Bolivia, which means by implication, that it's actually in Peru.
• It's an island called Taquile.
• The water we are actually seeing is a lake and not, for example, the ocean or the Mediterranean Sea or some other place.
• The wake did come from a boat and that the boat is used for commerce.
• The island is a four-hour boat ride away from wherever the boat came from.
• This man is a porter
• The village is located at the top of the island.
• This is one of two islands
• The villages at the top are 800 to 1000 foot vertical climb from the water's edge up these stone pathways.
• The lake is at 11,500 feet.
• This man lives there.
• He may wear sandals.
• There is no mechanization on the island.
• It's incredibly steep terrain that occasionally requires vertical stone ladders.

All of this we learned from his description of this photograph. Now think about how that changes, or I guess I should say amplifies, our appreciation of this photograph. Without the text, without the story, somehow this photograph is not nearly as interesting. It's still interesting even if there is no story at all. It's a fine photograph. But if we ever needed an example to disprove that the old maxim that says, any photograph that needs text is a bad photograph, this ought to disprove it.

I've become more and more convinced that photography's primary purpose is as a visual form of storytelling. Even in classic landscapes there is a story that's being told. David Fleurant's stories of this work from Peru are absolutely fascinating. It's a very interesting photographic body of work, but is so amplified by his comments. Without his text, I think the images are denied our complete understanding.

So once again, I'm going to recommend that, as photographers, we pay particularly close attention to the concept of story, to the idea of gathering the story at the same time we're gathering the photons, as it were, to make the image. We should think about how to incorporate the story with our images. Which parts of the story should be text and which visual? Should it be text alongside to photograph, or voiceover in a multimedia presentation? How could it be incorporated in the design of a book. There are lots of ways to communicate the story that supplements the photographs. However it's done, it's the element of story that so often will bring a photograph to life.

Jack and Agnes by Perry Dilbeck

Jack and Agnes by Perry Dilbeck
From LensWork and LensWork Extended #66

© 2006 Perry Dilbeck. All rights reserved.
Reproduced with the permission of the photographer

   

This portrait is from Perry Dilbeck's book called The Last Harvest and a portfolio that we published in LensWork #66.

I find it deceptively simple. I mean deceptively because there's so much going on in this photograph that doesn't appear on the surface — until you look more carefully. It's a great example of how enriching it can be to give time to a photograph rather than just gulping it in a quick glance.

Some of what we see in a photograph — particularly in a portrait — is deceptive because of the way we recognize so well the human face. Have you heard a malady called face recognition blindness? It is a neurological disorder that happens when people cannot recognize faces, even of their loved ones or of themselves. An incredibly powerful portion of our brain is dedicated to deciphering and understanding the human face, the human expression, the subtleties of gesture in our eyes, in our mouth, in our cheeks. Unless you have face recognition blindness, portraits are visually so rich because of the way we can interpret such subtle facial expressions.

In this picture, we see two people simply standing and staring directly at the camera. There's nothing particularly innovative or creative about the posing of these people. As a matter-of-fact, my suspicion is the photographer did not pose them. He simply pointed the camera straight at them and made the photograph. They chose to stand next to each other and probably — if the photographer did anything — he might have placed them in front of this building or house just to make a simple backdrop. I don't get the feeling — but I may be wrong — that he even advised them to hold hands. There's something in their expression that tells me that's of their own doing.

Let's begin by looking at Jack. What a classic! He's so grandfatherly; he's so friendly. He's so open; he's smiling. Not only his mouth, but his eyes smile. I don't think I'm projecting my own personal emotions about this. He's happy. He has a sense of pride — in her. Can you see that? It's as though he's holding onto his new bride here, caressing her hand, his left arm holding behind her. I can imagine him showing her off for the camera. This is my wife; this is my partner. This is the woman I've spent my years with. That comes through, doesn't it, in his face? It's a marvelous expression.

Her face has a different expression. She seems a bit apprehensive, maybe not quite as trustful towards the photographer or towards us. This is not unexpected. In my years of photographing elderly people like this, I've notice with consistency that older men seem to have no difficulty with the camera . Older women sometimes are more self-conscious. Perhaps they are concerned how they will appear in the photograph, or are embarrassed about being photographed, I'm not sure which. There are gender issues at play that I don't understand.

Notice the differences between their clothes. Jack's overalls are a bit dirty. They are not brand-new or even recently washed pants. Jack is just in his everyday work clothes. Agnes, on the other hand, looks like she spiffed up a bit for the photograph. She's wearing a nice dress with this wonderful lace and frill. She's obviously fixed her hair; his hair is just tussled down onto his forehead. There's a difference between their feeling about being photographed. It says something about their generation and their relationship with the camera. Jack appears to have the attitude of "take me as I am. Just take the picture; I don't care that I'm in my dirty clothes; I don't care that my hair is not combed. I am who I am and just photograph me." On the other hand, Agnes wants to put her best foot forward. She wants to have her hair done; she wants to have her nice dress on. She wants to be perceived in a certain way and she has prepared herself to be photographed.

Jack is a farmer, which of course we know from the context of the portfolio, The Last Harvest. But even if we didn't know that, even if we saw this picture outside the context of this particular portfolio, we'd suspect he's a farmer. He just looks like a farmer; he's dressed that way. She, on the other hand, looks like a homemaker. She spends more of her time indoors; he spends his time more outdoors. She's the one who brings a bit of refinement to their life; he's the one who's out in the dirt making a living. All of these assumptions we can make by looking at the clothing that they're wearing, to start with.

But, there's an extra element that adds to my assumptions and interpretations. Look at the size differential in their hands. Look at the size of his fingers compared to the size of her fingers. Jack has the hands of a farmer, of a guy who has worked his entire life — and worked hard. And she, obviously, has worked hard too, we assume, but differently than Jack has. She appears to have more of a homemaker's hands — possibly even a schoolteacher or something like that. We don't know by looking at the photograph, but it is interesting to look at the difference in the size of their hands and to realize what different lives they've led.

There's a great deal in this photograph also about the relationship between them, too. There are also clues to the relationship between the two of them and the photographer. They're posing for the photographer — this is not candid shot — so they trust the photographer enough to allow him to take their picture. But, each of them has different relationship to the photographer. Jack is leaning slightly forward towards the photographer. She is slightly reserved, almost leaning back. My suspicion from having interviewed Perry Dilbeck is that he spent quite a bit of time with Jack. He has a relationship with Jack; they've become friends over the years. (Perry had photographed Jack on numerous occasions.) Perry may not have the same relationship with Agnes. Or, maybe she's just reserved, maybe she's just a little shy, it's impossible to say for sure. There is no question, however, that there is a difference in the relationship between each of these individuals and the photographer.

The love between them is undeniable. The way he holds her hand, the way she grips his fingers is really such a sweet testament. It's a small, subtle gesture but so important to the photograph. Imagine this photograph if they weren't holding hands. By the way, that's a technique I often like to use when I look at photographs and try to understand them more deeply. For example, I might ask myself how I would think about this photograph if he were in a suit and she was dressed the way she is? What if behind them was a different kind of building entirely, say a brick wall or an office structure? So much becomes clear when we play this mental game looking at photographs and ask ourselves how would the photograph be different if something changed. How would our interpretation of it be different?

Well, in this case, we have in front of us a very interesting and tender portrait of a hard life spent together, a farmer and his wife and the care and love they have between them. The intimacy in their relationship is what makes this such an interesting portrait. Even though we don't know much about these people, we can be interested in the portrait because of the relationship between them. To me, this is the magical quality of a wonderful portrait. I think it was Paul Caponigro who first said It's one thing to make a portrait that looks like the person; it's a much higher form of portraiture to create an image that makes you care about them. In this portrait, we don't know these people but we care about them. We can feel a relationship with them and between them. Nicely done.

Three Women Survivors by Jonathan Moller

Three Women Survivors by Jonathan Moller
From LensWork and LensWork Extended #65
© 2006 Jonathan Moller. All rights reserved.
Reproduced with the permission of the photographer

   

This photograph is from Jonathan Moller's book titled Our Culture is Our Resistance. It's a body of work photographed in Guatemala where Moller has been photographing for over a decade, primarily focusing on "communities of population in resistance" known as CPR's. The CPR's were born out of the violent repression directed against the civilian population by the Guatemalan army in the early 1980s. His work there was primarily of a humanitarian nature, but he also spent quite a bit of time photographing the area. This book and the portfolio from it we published was a compelling look at this internal strife and  its effects on the people who live with its consequences.

I'd like to begin by drawing attention to the text that goes along with this particular image:
Three women, survivors of the violence, watched as the remains of relatives and friends who were killed in the early 1980s are exhumed.

It's a very powerful image but the text adds to it, so I want to begin by focusing on the importance of text with photographs. When I was first involved in photography — and it's an old canard that still floats around the photographic community — it was said that a photograph should not need text, that any photograph that needs text is not as good a photograph as it could or should be. That is to say, photographs are not supposed to need text. This is conventional wisdom, but I just cannot disagree with it more. Not all photographs need text, certainly, that goes without saying. But a photograph like this one is so empowered by having the additional text it would be a shame not to.

So many photographs are, essentially, stories. Without the story the photograph just isn't as interesting as it could be. This is still an interesting photograph even if you have no idea who these women are, if you don't know anything about Guatemala or about the internal strife there, or that they're sitting on the edge of an exhumation of people who were killed as a result of the violence. But, when you know this context, it enhances and perhaps changes entirely the ways that we're predisposed to interpret this photograph. Perhaps that's one of the reasons why so many people think that photographs should not need text is because text does influence the way we look at photographs.

In my way of thinking, a photograph is a means of communicating. In this case, it's communicating the story of these people. It's doing so graphically, but it's also doing so textually. Any photograph that purports to tell a story is likely — is probably — going to be enhanced by the text. As photographers we need to spend as much time learning the skills of preparing text, gathering text, writing text, editing text, the power of language, and the nuance of words. These are important skills for us supposedly "graphic artists" because so many times we'll find that we'll need them in order to communicate the stories more effectively. This is particularly true in print, in magazines, in books, and sometimes even with wall art. Even an exhibition of photographs have text that goes with them on the placard next to it — a title, a date, or a location. All of those things tell us something about the photograph and communicate part of the story. Pay attention to text because it's important.

Back to the photograph, it's fascinating to me how these three women have such different emotional responses to what they are experiencing at the time this photograph was made. First, there are three women. The photographer could have isolated on any one of them. However, I think Moller actually did himself a tremendous favor by composing the photograph this way. There's an old rule of thumb in art composition that says: Odd numbers make for more interesting, more dynamic compositions. And in this case we have three women — not one, not two, not four — three. Compositionally, it works very well. There's a balance, a harmony to the composition. At the same time, there's a counterpoint in their emotions. The woman on the left is lost in thought and appears to be clearly sad — all three of them are sad at this event. But, the woman on the left has a certain determination in her look, a clasping of her jaw that gives her a determined look, unique when compared to the other two women. The one in the middle is also sad, obviously, but in a different, more resigned way. And, of course, the one on the right is in a meditative or prayerful posture. She's focusing her concentration by closing her eyes in memory or prayer.

What fascinates me about the photograph is how the three women have such completely different emotional responses and how at this particular instant the photograph captures those three emotions. This allows us, as viewers, to have three different responses to the emotional experience, too. This variety creates a more powerful, emotionally-charged image than if were to see only one of these women. It's a little richer; it's a little deeper.

A moment or two later or earlier than this particular instant in which the photograph was made and the three women's expressions might have changed entirely. The woman on the left may not actually be determined; the woman in the middle may not actually be resigned; and the woman on the top may just be blinking. We don't know for certain. Be that as it may, this particular moment frozen in the image does allow us to see three emotions. That's wonderful. Any time, as a photographer, I have the ability to work with a group or a crowd of people reacting differently, it almost always makes for an interesting photograph.

Moller has created a very tight composition here that allows us to see these three women but nobody else. Seeing these three women in isolation makes me wonder: Are they sisters? Are they sisters-in-law? Are they from the same village? What is their relationship to one another? Because we see them as a group and next to each other implies a bond.

We can also observe fascinating body language. Notice the woman on the left is leaning to her left, sort of leaning "up the hill," if you will. The woman in the middle is leaning down and forward, almost into the exhumed grave. And the woman on the right has both hands on the ground and is very straight and holding herself up. This also communicates a great deal to us about each woman's response. It's really a terrific job Moller has done in finding exactly the right moment (or finding the right image on the contact sheet) that makes the best photograph.

I'd like to draw a parallel, by the way, to this image to a very, very famous Henri Cartier-Bresson image called Srinagar, Kashmir, 1948. This is the very famous image where Cartier-Bresson is behind the women who appear to be grieving and or praying — we're not exactly sure — but it's a very supplicant kind of body language. We see them from the back. Two of the women are standing; two of the women are sitting. They're looking out at a large valley with skies and clouds. Cartier-Bresson's image is a very similar moment photographically, but quite a different emotional moment. In both, we have a group of women involved in a very solemn moment in their lives. Both photographs are very effective in communicating the solemnity of the moment. But, they're composed so differently — one from the front; one from the back. I think it's an interesting parallel and propose it's interesting to compare them and see the differences in them.

Take a quick look at the women's clothing in Moller's photograph. I suspect this is not their everyday clothing. It's beautiful; it's special clothing, I think. That clothing communicates something to us, too. They have dressed for this moment to show their respect for the dead who are being exhumed. This is a holy moment, a tragic moment, and their attire influences the way I approach the photograph and the way I think about this moment.

Two more comments in closing: The composition is from the lower left to the upper right. It is uphill. This makes me think of Sisyphus and his never ending task of pushing that rock up the hill. This translates psychologically, maybe metaphorically, to the struggle these women have in this political conflict. Always going uphill, always a struggle, always another battle, another day, another strife, another worry. The uphill nature of this composition sets a metaphorical tone for what's going on.

And finally, my last comment is that it's curious to think about the position of the photographer in order to make this photograph. Obviously, what is in front of the women is where the dead bodies are being exhumed. In order for Moller to get this picture, he has to be looking across that abyss towards these women. He obviously had to pre-think this composition. He anticipated it. He knew that was the right angle. It may have been a temptation to photograph what was in the hole, what was being exhumed, and in truth in other photographs in the book he did that. But in this photograph, we don't need to see what's being exhumed; we don't need to see that there is someone in the hole digging things up. We know it's being dug up because we can see the freshly turned dirt that the women are sitting on. All of what's going on in the hole is communicated in the text. Three women, survivors of the violence, watched as the remains of relatives and friends who were killed in the early 1980s are exhumed.

We therefore know what's going on in front of them even though we can't see it. And Moller had the presence of mind to know that he didn't need to show that in this photograph in order to communicate effectively the emotional content of what these women were going through.

Demitria's Shoes by O. Rufus Lovett

Demitria's Shoes by O. Rufus Lovett
From LensWork and LensWork Extended #68
© 2007 O. Rufus Lovett. All rights reserved.
Reproduced with the permission of the photographer.

This image from the cover of O. Rufus Lovett's book Weeping Mary is titled Demitria's Shoes. Lovett spent quite a long time — several years —photographing a community known as Weeping Mary in East Texas, going back and back again, re-photographing over the years. He got to know the community and these people. It's a fascinating photographic project of a particular community. Here is an excerpt from my interview with O. Rufus Lovett that appeared in LensWork Extended #68 where he discusses this image:

I think it's just a beautiful representation of that childlike innocence. There's just this wonderful innocence about those little white socks and those patent leather shoes with the bows and then contrasted with that fairly well-worn wood plank that is part of the porch of the church. So it's that contrast that I really enjoy in that photograph. I'm not just talking about the brightness contrast of the socks and the dark background and so forth but the contrast of this delicate, little naïve girl standing on this weathered wood floor that is so beautiful to me. A metaphor, perhaps, for who is Weeping Mary? Could this be her? And what a wonderful entry to a book that feet that you use to walk into space or a place.

He mentions a couple of things that I thought were fascinating. First, he refers to the subject as a "naïve little girl." As viewers of this photograph, we were not there at the time the photograph was made. We don't know the age of the person who goes with these feet. We might know the cultural context of the kind of people who might wear these shoes, but that's about it. This could just as easily be a young woman of 20 or 30 who's wearing these shoes. Although we don't know she's a young girl, we might suspect it.

We also don't know that this girl is naïve. In short, this is a classic example of how a photographer can project into the photograph something that they bring from their experience of photographing that the viewer does not have the access to. We might assume it's a young , naïve girl, but because we don't know that we could easily make other assumptions about who belongs to these feet. Our assumptions might lead us to interpret the photograph entirely differently than the photographer does.

Lovett also mentions this was photographed on the porch of a church. Here again, we don't know that and would not likely assume it based on the visual aspects of the image. As a matter of fact, interpreting by just what we see in the photograph, my assumption would be that this is indoors, not a porch; that this is under artificial light; that she's standing in what looks like to be the halo of a spotlight or directly underneath a single bulb light. The way the light falls off on the right and left upper corners of the photograph would indicate to me more that this is a very narrow light source coming from almost directly overhead. In fact, when I was interviewing Lovett and he mentioned this was on the porch, I was surprised.

He also stated that this might be a metaphor for "Weeping Mary." In the context of the book and the portfolio that we presented in LensWork, we know Weeping Mary and a bit about the community. But, if the photograph is separated from that project we look at it from a completely different point of view. By the way, I think it is fair to look at an image separated from the project because some people probably will. For example, you could pick up LensWork and see the cover image without knowing the context. Without knowledge of the context, can we still appreciate the picture? I think so because there are elements of this picture that I think are quite interesting beyond the context of the Weeping Mary project.

For example, I think it's very difficult to look at this image and not — at least in the back of our minds —ask where we've also seen a photograph like this. What came to my mind, of course, was Dorothy and The Wizard of Oz. Dorothy had her special, magical shoes that would take her home and there is a famous scene in the movie that presents us with a view of Dorothy's magic shoes that is very similar to this photograph. With that cultural context and story we all know from The Wizard of Oz, we can't help but have a certain connection in emotional response from the movie to the photograph. We want Dorothy's magic shoes to work and take her home, so there's a natural empathy and sympathy for lost Dorothy. Looking at this photograph by O.Rufus Lovett, a similar emotional content is going to influence our response.

It is natural to ask whether or not this image reminds us of The Wizard of Oz or whether or not the view of these shoes were compelling for O. Rufus Lovett to photograph because of his memory of The Wizard of Oz. That is to say, did he recognize it as a photographic subject because he's seen this before in the movie? I may be stretching the point a little, but there is an interesting psychological parallel here — a "chicken or egg" question about which comes first.

Compositionally, notice that the line in the wall behind her is not parallel to either the floor or the edges of the photograph itself. It starts on the left-hand side of the image and disappears behind her calves and then emerges from the shadows in the upper right-hand corner of the photograph. We subconsciously know from this very subtle line that the building is crooked. We can infer that we're probably looking at some place that is old, probably poorly constructed, maybe a rustic building, certainly something that's not the latest construction. That impression is enhanced by the fact that we see planks in the floor that are unpainted and uncovered — an open floor. This informs our understanding of the context and tells us something of the people, or of this particular girl.

It's easy to see this as some kind of church or possibly a school. It's clearly not a shopping mall or grocery store or anything like that. Why? These are the kind of shoes and white socks that we would see a girl wearing if she were going to church or to school. We tend to interpret the building as a church or a school and the unpainted planks and non-rectilinear wall that tells us something about the poverty of the place. That makes the shoes and the socks even more poignant in the middle of what we perceive to be — somewhat stereotypically — a rustic or poor environment. These pristine white socks and shiny polished patent leather shoes show us someone in her "Sunday best." There is a dignity that comes through in the photograph in spite of the poverty-stricken surrounding.

There is a lot to observe in a relatively simple photograph. It's these kinds of things that are so subtle and so interesting about photography and how we see images — so "there but not there." This is part of what makes photography so fun and so interesting, and why it's such a fascinating thing to look at photographs more deeply than a quick glance and to think about what we really see when we see.

Vision of the Heart by Eugene H. Johnson

Vision of the Heart by Eugene H. Johnson
From LensWork and LensWork Extended #67
© 2007 Eugene H. Johnson. All rights reserved.
Reproduced with the permission of the photographer.

   

Vision of the Heart by Eugene H. Johnson, obviously, is the namesake that inspired this blog. I mentioned this in the introduction and once again I'd like to thank Dr. Johnson for allowing us to use the title of his image and the title of his portfolio as the name of this blog.

Here is an excerpt from my interview with Eugene Johnson from LensWork Extended #67 as he described the experience of photographing this old woman in the doorway:

There's a photograph called The Vision of the Heart and it's a photograph of an old lady sitting in front of a house. There's a chicken looking up at this old woman. The story is a very unique one because when I first met this old lady I was in her house and her children were there, her grandchildren were there, her great-great grandchildren were there and we were all laughing and joking, drinking coffee and eating little snacks. After a couple of hours, the old woman grabbed my arm and said, "Are you afraid of me?" I answered, "Why would I be afraid of you?" She said, "Well, many people are." I said, "I cannot see a single reason why I would be afraid of you." She replied, "People are afraid of me because I'm blind."

I had been with this woman for a couple of hours and didn't even realize that she did not have seeing eyes! Then she told me, "You know, my son, I am blind but I can see better than others." "And how is that?" I asked. She said, "Because I can see with my heart."

Then she added, "You know, many people when they see things, their eyes are confused by the physical aspects of things. But I can feel the soul of people and things."

Several months later I returned to that same house. Everyone was still there - everyone except the old lady. The first thing that went through my mind was, Oh my God maybe she died! I asked, "Please, can you tell me where Grandma is?" "Oh," they said, "she's in the back of the house just sitting. Why don't you go and say hello." I went around the back of the house and saw the old lady gazing into the sunlight. A chicken walked into the composition and I knew I was going to have to break one of my cardinal rules of photography — I sat the tripod down and I made a photograph without permission. When I finished, the woman still hadn't stirred. I walked in her direction and she extended her hand and she said, "Oh, my son, you've returned, you've returned." "But how did you know it was me?" She said, "Have you forgotten that I can see with my heart?"

I don't know about you, but I find that just a fabulous story, one that's very inspirational. As a photographer I am drawn to the idea of seeing with my heart.

As I mentioned in the introduction to this blog, seeing with your heart, to me, is the core of photography. When we see with our heart we see much more powerfully than when we see with our eyes. If we can combine the two, as Eugene Johnson has done in this photograph, and see both with our eyes and with our heart that's when we can make really wonderful photographs and he's done so here.

That's what's so marvelous about this image. It's a photograph of a blind woman who sees. We don't know that at first, but by looking at the photograph it does reveal itself visually in the photograph. For example, her eyes are closed and we become suspicious. Why would a woman sit in the sun with her eyes closed like that?

Compare this image with Paul Strand's very famous photograph Blind Woman, New York, 1916. If you're not familiar with this image you can do a Google search and find it easily enough — it's all over the web. In his image, Paul Strand emphasizes the woman's blindness where Johnson emphasizes her sightless vision. I find that absolutely marvelous. Paul Strand's image is looking straight at the woman's face and we're intended to see — to focus our attention — on this blind woman. She's obviously missing one eye and the other eye is not functional. Strand's is a very in-your-face sort of statement about blindness. Eugene Johnson's image is a completely different kind of mood. It's more upbeat. It's an image about seeing in spite of blindness, and whereas Strand's tends to be somewhat depressing and the blind aspect of this woman. Her blindness is fed to us visually with a bludgeon by the fact that she's wearing a sign that says BLIND in all capital letters. Her blindness becomes her identity. In Eugene Johnson's image it's exactly the opposite. We're not even sure if this woman is blind until he tells us that she's blind. But when he divulges that she's blind, her deeper story is that she's not blind. Again, what a fascinating twist! Johnson's is a more positive — I think — and more inspiring story.

There are some other visual aspects of this image that I think are worth noting. There's nothing in front of her visually in the photograph. She's staring off into space; all the objects in the photograph are behind her right shoulder. There's this big vase or urn, the chicken, and whatever it is that's on the very left-hand edge of the frame. But, there's nothing in front of her at all. That in itself is a visually symbolic metaphor of her inability to see. But at the same time her vision might be empty, her life is full. That is to say, the fullness in her life is represented by the urn and the chicken and the objects that exist in her life that are outside her vision. Again, compare to the Strand image of the blank wall and stark garments of the woman in his photograph.

I also think her blindness is metaphorically indicated by the direction of the light — in this case the sun — which is also behind her and again symbolic of her blindness. Maybe she lost her sight in her youth or something. We don't know the full story, but the sun that is illuminating her is not visible to her and that comes through metaphorically in the photograph, too.

She also has a walking stick which she holds in front of her. I thought it was interesting that the walking stick is standing vertical, poised as though it's some kind of alignment tool — a surveyor's stick or something. It's almost as though she's using it as a divining rod to see what's in front of her. She's not just casually holding onto it. The gesture that she's making by holding on to that stick, I think, is significant; she almost uses it to point with. And, of course, we know that to a blind person the stick is her eyes. Blind people walk with the aid of a cane or a stick to find the objects that are in front of them. So, this stick is her eyes.

What else do we know? Well, we know she's old — we can tell that by looking at her. We know she's poor, because the building itself looks poor. We also know something about the time of year. It's neither winter nor is it the dead of summer: if it was winter she wouldn't be outside without a jacket on and if it was the heat of summer she wouldn't be outside in the sunshine. We can assume it's either spring or fall but symbolically it's fall — the late fall of her life. But, it feels warm. It feels comfortable. You can almost feel the sun on her back as we look at the photograph.

Compositionally, the photograph is a "bullet composition" with her in the exact center of the picture. Bullet compositions tend to be static, often uninteresting. But in this instance, the bullet composition works because all the objects in the photograph are on the left side. That gives compositional weight to the left-hand side of the photograph and an airiness to the right-hand side into which she is gazing with her metaphorical eye.

The door makes a contrasting background that emphasizes her and draws attention to her. Again, compositionally, I think this was a good thing for Johnson to do with this composition. Imagine if she had been against the wall so that we didn't have that black background to silhouette against. I think it would have changed the composition and made it much more difficult to read visually. By using the door as a black background — which, by the way, is also symbolic of her sightlessness — it draws our attention directly to her. It's a marvelous framing tool (pun not intended).

The fact that the chicken is looking directly at her is also very curious — excellent sense of timing or good luck, I'm not sure which. That chicken looking at her draws our eye directly back toward the woman.

The more I looked at this image, the more aware I became of something else that was very subtle but powerful. The texture in the mud or adobe wall behind her is wrinkled and very much like her old, wrinkled and textured skin. The walls of the building physically echo the skin in her face and arms. This woman is old, this place is old, this village that she lives in is old. If this was a brand-new building — can you visualize that in your mind's eye? — if the building were brand-new aluminum siding the photograph wouldn't have the same impact that it has.

Most of the lines in this photograph are rectilinear. The doorway is vertical, the sticks in the wall are horizontal, the ground is horizontal, the lines in the cobblestones in front of her feet are vertical. It's a very rectilinear composition with the single exception, of course, being the chicken. That adds emphasis to the chicken and makes it more visible. There's an interesting parallel between the angle of the chicken's head and the unidentified object in the upper left window. This isn't a particularly important element of the composition, but it does bring that angle more into our attention and helps make the chicken even more visible when you see these two parallel lines. I'm probably overanalyzing the composition on an image like this but it's interesting nonetheless.

Well, that's what I see when I look at this marvelous image of Eugene Johnson's. It's a fantastic image, a great story, a beautiful composition, a wonderful sense of light.

A Few Preliminaries about the Comments

Obviously, the purpose of these Vision of the Heart comments is to talk about the photographs, but in doing so there are certain ways that I am going to choose to talk about photographs that I think are important to understand so that the comments make sense. These guidelines, if you will, come from years of experience participating in critiques and workshops — both of receiving critiques and offering critiques.

First, these are not critiques! I fundamentally don't believe in photographic critiques. Most critiques start off with the most deadly form of comment that you can make about an image which is "I like it" or "I don't like it." There is almost nothing of less importance for a photographer to hear when you're offering a critique, or as far as that goes for a docent to offer to the general public about a piece of artwork. "I like it" or "I don't like it" doesn't tell us anything about the artwork — although it does tell us quite a bit about the person who makes the statement. But, fundamentally why would you care if I like a piece of work or if I don't like a piece of work. It doesn't make any difference to whether or not you like it or don't like it, and doesn't add anything to the discussion about the work. So, I won't make any comments about whether or not I like or don't like the photograph under discussion because it's unimportant.

Related to that is the often-heard commenting a critique, "If it were my image, I do this to it. I'd crop it here, or I'd straighten or not straighten it," etc. Well, the point is it's not my work and so how I would approach a photograph or how I would change it or print it is essentially non sequitur. Such observations don't tell us anything about the work; don't tell us anything about the photographer; don't even help us understand the work. Similarly, "this image could be improved if it was treated thus and so" offering ways to improve is just a subtle way of saying "if it were my image . . ." If we are looking at an image, how we would choose to print it or a how we would compose the image is non sequitur because in fact we aren't going to print it. We have in front of us a finished piece of work. Therefore, the only useful comments we can make are about the work as it exists now. Our reactions to it, our interpretation of it, the context, the background — all of that is fair game. How we would change it seems to me to be fundamentally unimportant and a silly distraction.

When looking at an image, you may very likely have a reaction to the image — and also to my comments on the image — that may be different than mine. We will disagree. That's perfectly as it should be. I'm not offering my comments from a position of authority, but only from my personal experience. They cannot be the end-all and be-all of comments that can be made on a photograph. Hopefully you will find my ideas provide some stimulus to thinking more carefully and more deeply about the images. Agreement is not the objective; thought is.

I should say something about the problem of post-production projection. Comments that a docent makes about a work of art will almost always contain ideas that were not included in the artist's original conceptions. We have the ability, with the aid of time and objectivity, to project onto a photograph all kinds of ideas and interpretations, justifications and compositional elements, etc., that the photographer was not involved in at all at the time they made the photograph. Again, that's okay because part of the role of interpreting a piece of work is looking at the finished print over a long period and thinking about it in other contexts than that of artmaking. It's fairly common — a thing I've experienced as a photographer — that someone discussing my photographs after the fact brings out in their discussion ideas and even tangible things visible in the photograph that I didn't see. But there it is, and I can't deny it. This process of projecting characteristics or observations onto a print that the photographer does not make when making the print, is a perfectly valid way of interpreting the work. It is the role of interpreting the work as an audience that we're focusing on here. In some regards, we have the advantage over the photographer that we can look at their finished work without the restrictions of looking at the real subject in three-dimensional time and space.

A certain amount of forgiveness is due, therefore, both to the photographer and on our part that as viewers of photographs we can — and sometimes will — layer onto a photograph meaning and ideas that the photographer did not intend. Like all arts, be it music or painting or whatever, we each bring to the understanding of a piece of artwork our backgrounds, our own interpretation, the zeitgeist of our times, and ways of seeing and thinking about images that were perhaps totally foreign to the maker of the art.

In the end, if these Vision of the Heart commentaries help you think more deeply about photographs, help you think more deeply about your own photographs as you're making them or looking at them, and can serve as a bridge between you and some photographs, you and a photographer, you and a way of seeing, then we've accomplished our objective. With that said, we hope you enjoy these commentaries and find them useful in developing your own skills of looking at photographs and your own appreciation of the photographs you find in LensWork and LensWork Extended.

Welcome

The purpose of this blog is images. It's our objective in this project to more deeply explore selected photographs published in LensWork and LensWork Extended. We'll examine individual photographs (and occasionally groups of photographs) to discuss aspects of their content, context, and composition – and to gain a better overall appreciation of the work. Vision of the Heart is a study aid, a serious look at an image, a platform to think about photography and more precisely specific photographs.

We have a premise — or perhaps I should say a motivation — for offering this blog. We live in the age of the quick cut —the MTV age— where images are, in our opinion, cheapened by being so disposable. Images flash on the TV screen with incredible rapidity; we flip through books and magazines where the time spent per image could be measured in fractions of a second; museums sell tickets for specific times like a movie theater and we are supposed to saunter through the exhibition at the measured pace so as to not clog up the aisles by stopping too long in front of a masterpiece. Imagery has become volumetric. The more images you can squeeze into 30 seconds the better, or so we're supposed to believe.

We disagree. Minor White used to suggest that you can't say anything meaningful about an image until you look at it for at least 30 minutes. We might squabble with his clock, but the concept he expressed is valid. It takes time to understand an image, at least a good one. There are details and implications, thoughts and subtleties that can only develop over time. Instant art, like instant coffee, is a punishment for those who can't take the time — or won't take the time — to allow the deeper flavors to develop. Our premise for these podcasts is that a good photograph cannot be fully appreciated in the blink of an eye.

Similarly a good photograph often cannot be fully appreciated without a bit of context, without some background or understanding that is impossible to grasp in a glance. In this project we'll take a bit of time with an image to look at it more closely, to understand the photographer's point of view in their own words (transcribed from our LensWork Extended interviews), to savor the subtleties and enjoy a photograph to its full, well, or at least "fuller" potential.

We call this project LensWork Vision of the Heart which I suspect might need some explanation. We believe photography is not simply a tool to record the way the world looks; it's more than that. It's much more than that. Our mission statement in every issue of LensWork states that photography is more than mere craft; that photography is, or can be, a way of life. Beyond cameras and equipment, beyond film and chemistry, beyond pixels and technology, lie the mysteries of the creative life shared by those who strive to communicate and express themselves clearly. Inherent in this statement is that photography — at least the photography we focus on in LensWork — is a creative personal expression. Our premise for this Vision of the Heart project is that this expression comes not from the external world, but rather from the heart of the photographer. The best photographs are not those images captured with our eyes, but rather those captured with our heart.

Here in our western culture, we tend to think that the center of our being resides physically in our brain. If I were to ask where in your physical body do you reside, you would probably say in your head, somewhere slightly behind the eyes and between the ears. Not so for those in the Orient where the center of one's being is in what they call the "heart-mind" which they locate closer to your heart than your brain. It is known as the shin in China, as the kokoro in Japan. The heart-mind is where we both understand and feel. It's beyond intellect, that is to say, beyond words and formulas. When photography is at its best, it touches the heart-mind because it comes from the heart-mind.

Well, in LensWork #67, we published a portfolio by photographer Eugene H. Johnson. The title of his portfolio — and the first image in that portfolio — was "Vision of the Heart." This phrase, this title, struck a profound chord in me. In four simple words, it describes everything that photography is to me: a vision of the heart. So, with his permission, I can think of no better phrase to describe this project.

So, LensWork Vision of the Heart is launched and we will begin, as it should, with a discussion of Eugene Johnson's image that is the namesake of this project.

 Thanks for joining in the discussion whether you just read the comments or add to them. And, thanks for sharing our passion for photography. We hope you find these discussions useful in your creative life.

Brooks Jensen

Editor, LensWork Publishing

   

P.S. The Re-launch

As some of you are probably aware, Vision of the Heart (let's call it "version 1.0") originally appeared in 2007 as a podcast. Although the podcast was well-received and quickly gathered a world-wide audience, we felt there was something missing. As a podcast, it was a one-way street — comments by me, but no feedback from others. We published 11 podcasts in this format, but shelved the project until we could re-launch it with a venue better suited to a discussion involving readers, the photographer, and the publishers. With this new blog, we have that format.

We will post the original 11 images and my comments over the next few weeks. We also have one additional image whose podcast was recorded but never posted. If you saw them in the original podcast format, we hope you'll find these twelve images worth reviewing again. If you missed them in 2007, we know you'll find them interesting and hope you'll add to the discussion by adding your comments in this new format.