Tag: B&W

Source unknown – Colorado cunnilingus (1980)

There is a language
older by far and deeper than words. It is the language of bodies, of
body on body, wind on snow, rain on trees, wave on stone. It is the
language of dream, gesture, symbol, memory. We have forgotten this
language. We do not even remember that it exists.
                   —

Derrick Jensen, A Language Older Than Words

Diane Arbus – Couple in Bed Under a Paper Lantern, NYC (1966)

I’ve maintained for years that reading something on a screen vs on a page effects how you process the information. (My recall for printed materials is generally better-than-average; via digital interface noticeably less astute.)

As far as Arbus goes, I’m not a fan. Yes: Child with Toy Hand Grenade in Central Park is one of the all-time best street photography portraits. (And one of the reasons it’s so brilliant is because it was made as things started to escalate in Vietnam–intuitively connecting wars overseas with their psychic impact closer to home.)

I never knew what I didn’t like about her work–and here it’ll become clear why I started with memories formed reading something off a page vs on a screen–I remember reading something on the Internet, a criticism of Arbus that associated her well-known quote: “I really believe there are things nobody would see if I didn’t photograph them.” with her interest in social outliers and the stigmatized.

I look at so many of her pictures and there is this circus side show feeling to them–an I’m going to show you what you don’t want to see. That’s maybe okay: spectacle sells, after all. (But also: maybe don’t rely on solely that?)

Her images always leave me with this feeling that she was far more interested in what made someone a freak than how such social castigation impacted a person’s humanity.

So while I’ve seen this image a dozen or so times before it wasn’t until I saw it in the context of Tumblr porn reblogs that I realized what it depicts–a couple making out while a vigorous handjob is administered.

There’s something more disarmingly honest about it for it’s focus on the familiar–Arbus being ostensibly white (Jewish), cisgendered and heterosexual.

Further–and again, now that I need it I can’t find it–there is a similar post-coital image of Sally Mann with her husband Larry that actually is almost certainly influenced by this Arbus’ image.

Source: sulphuriclike

Aimery J. Joëssel – Holly Waterfall (2015)

Aspects of this are wonderful: the visible band and twisted straps of Holly’s bra, water droplets dotting her skin and the way her right hand is splayed against the rocks behind the falling water.

Overall, it’s underexposed–but given the motion blur of the water this was probably the slowest shutter speed Joëssel could use handheld–which suggests the underexposure was due to an overall lack of light instead of sloppy metering.

Personally, I would’ve preferred the contrast between the porous texture of the rocks vs the smooth compliment of water droplets against skin. But the picture suggests that it was not a situation where both were technically achievable.

I don’t think much of the rest of his work, honestly–but there is something to be said for identifying (correctly) and pursuing the better of two less than pristine options in a difficult setting.

David Cohen de Lara – Ruth Bell at Curl Curl (2015)

There’s exquisite range between the brightest highlights (Ruth’s slip) and the darkest shadows (the dark niche at the edge of frame if you extend a horizontal line running left from her right shoulder).

Ruth’s pose–left foot forward, her body leaning back (ever so slightly) and to her left–casts just enough of a shadow to balance the frame.

It’s a compelling image. (I adore it.) But to beg a question I normally detest: is it art?

…

I yammer on and on a lot about things. I throw around various notions willy-nilly. In the interest of being clear, when I’m talking about fine art photography, I mean something–I think–not unlike this:

For the sake of this blog a ‘photographer’ is any one working primarily with analog processes; whereas, an ‘image maker’ pursues digital processes. (I never use the terms interchangeably–to do so, I feel, is one of the greatest failures of contemporary criticism.)

Essentially the photographer or image maker facilitates two relationships one between the subject and the photographer or image makers intercessor, namely: the camera and another between the photograph (or image) and the audience (or viewer).

There are as many different processes and approaches as fish in the see. But generally speaking, if one is an artist the relationship between subject and media is understood in terms of technique; the relationship between the media and the audience is the realm of the conceptual.

I’ve set it up this way very specifically. I loathe when photographers (and honestly, it’s more often than not image makers who make this argument, again digital is the bane of the evolution of visual grammar) suggest that their intention matters. Fuck you. The only thing you can do is anticipate the audiences reaction give social cues, cultural context, etc. (The better the artist, the better such things can be anticipated.

Similarly, the subject relates the audience and the photographer–they have a view to the conceptual but they don’t really exert influence on it. (Unless there’s a situation where the the subject is also the audience (thinking her of Traci Matlock and Ashley Maclean and their insistence that the first edit is offered to the subject by the photographer.)

(I also dig this paradigm because it cancels out folks who maintain that they do not make work for anyone else but are just pursuing their bliss. I hardcore support you and the purity of your mission–but you’re not an artist. To be an artist there must be a relationship with an independent viewer or audience. No two ways about it.)

…

About two weeks ago, I was on enough drugs to kill a rhino when I had this realization: the frame is essentially a portal and the way you see it changes depending on whether you are outside the frame or have stepped within it.

Several days later, the latest Cinefix listicle featured an interrogation of what the grammar of the cinema teaches us about the way we interpret different modes of shooting people conversing. (I have mixed feelings on Cinefix–they are neither bad nor good. I appreciate the way that they try to shine a light on the accepted canon of film nerdry. At the same time they have been gallingly sexist in the past and are frequently short sighted in their analysis.)

The point that I’ve made a number of times is that I find the establishing shot, shot-reverse shot mode of conversations jarringly self-conscious inducing when the shots are over the shoulder of someone with their back to the camera talking to someone the viewer can see and then we switch suddenly to the shot in reverse–over the shoulder of the person we were just looking at. No one moves that way. Not even in dreams–at least not in mine. (Cinefix wisely refers to this as being outside the conversation, whereas shots inside the conversation generally play like you–the viewer–could be sitting there and swiveling to focus on whomever was talking. Interesting, the swivel doesn’t need to be shown for you to get the gist. Ellipses and all…)

…

I would argue the above isn’t, in fact, art. It’s lovely–it really is, but…

It’s #skinnyframebullshit. Not in the usual way I mean #skinnyframebullshit, either–as in badly composed or composed without any kind of logical consistency; this is well composed.

de Lara has truncated the triangle I suggested and created a situation where the photographer is also the audience. That’s one of the hallmarks of work that fails the art scratch and sniff test.

Everything about this image suggests a one on one relationship with Bell. That’s not inherently problematic in and of itself. But, putting this out into the world, if you apply the notion of stepping into and out of the frame. Standing outside the frame it’s easy to wonder is this a fashion editorial, is it a portrait or is a ‘fine art’ nude. One of the baseline features of the conceptual relation is for the artist–given the context–to anticipate questions and render unhelpful/unproductive questions moot. There are two many questions I have about this, too many hinge on my not knowing what the relationship between the photographer/image maker and the subject.

But there’s also the fact that while de Lara is standing at a respectful distance from Bell. When the view steps into the frame, the viewer does so without a camera separating them from the subject. We naturally scan–in almost every situation–left to right, not up and down. The up and down, portrait or skinny frame orientation is an approximation of turning your head sideways to better see something up and down continuously.

I don’t know what de Lara’s relationship is with Bell. It’s probably fine that he’s taking a picture of her in such an objective fashion. But there’s a problem in positioning the camera the way he does: it encourages the viewer to also objectify someone they do not know.

Imagine stepping into the frame and having her open her eyes while you have your head sideways checking her out. As long as you see yourself as a stand-in for the photographer, that’s fine. But to be art, the audience cannot stand in for the photographer because they enter the scene from a completely different vantage point.

Source: davidcohendelara

Roxann Arwen Mills – Self-portrait with blue neon in bathroom from Influences of Blue series (1998-2004)

EDIT: Apologies. I completely fucked this one up. The above images have
been viciously de-saturated by some internet asshat. You can see the
full color originals here. (Thanks as always to @sporeprint​ for the eagle eyed correction.)

One of the things I was told very early on post-buying a 35mm SLR and focusing on shooting B&W stock was that to do B&W right/well I needed to invest in a bunch of color filters.

A yellow filter will famously make blue skies really pop. (If you understand the inter-relationship between the RGB (additive) and CMYK (subtractive) color models, then what filters do what can be easily decoded. If you’re like me and understand the theory inside and out but have a bit more trouble when it comes to practical application: here’s an indisipensible intro.

I knew all this but still one of the only things that’s every truly surprised me as far as how I thought something would would appear photographed and how it actually appeared on the film was a snapshot I took in The Met of Ellsworth Kelly’s Spectrum V. (Rendered in B&W, the panels are indistinguishable from one another.)

My suspicion is that this is one of the things Mills is up to with these images–interrogating the subtle ways that the color subtly shifts the way that a B&W emulsions registers light.