Journal

Cartier-Bresson, more than ‘Decisive Moments’.

May 5, 2017 By TC

Is there anything left to say about Henri Cartier-Bresson (“HCB”) ¹ that has not already been said? Perhaps not. A Google search of his name returns more than 5 million results in half a second. But I can’t help feeling that there is more to be said, especially after reading a recent review by Sean O’Hagan on the re-issue of the ‘Decisive Moment’. I have been looking at HCB’s photographs since my Dad introduced them to me in the early 1960’s and still now, after 50 years, they demand attention in a way that O’Hagan doesn’t seem to understand.

We may quietly agree with Gaby Wood when she writes, “The reason his photographs often feel numbly impersonal now is not just that they are familiar. It’s that they’re so coolly composed, so infernally correct that there’s nothing raw about them, and you find yourself thinking: would it not be more interesting if his moments were a little less decisive?” But Wood and O’Hagan, to name just two from countless many, make too much of this ‘decisive moment’. “It cements an idea of photography that is no longer current but continues to exist as an unquestioned yardstick in the public eye: black and white, acutely observational, meticulously composed, charming”, continues O’Hagan.

But we have to look beyond picking off ‘black and white, acutely observational, meticulously composed’ features to really appreciate HCB. The thing about many HCB pictures is that it’s the totality of expression that gives them an extraordinary hold on us. As HCB recognised:

“In a photograph, composition is the result of a simultaneous coalition, the organic coordination of elements seen by the eye. One does not add composition as though it were an afterthought superimposed on the basic subject material, since it is impossible to separate content from form. Composition must have its own inevitability about it” (my emphasis).

The composition provides a door through which vision is intensified ², perhaps a door into the “optical unconscious” transporting us from daily clock time into internal (Bergsonian) time. It is interesting that Cartier-Bresson referred to André Breton’s idea in L’Amour Fou, that there is a continuous inter-play between our unconscious and what we see and that we see “coincidences” when the unconscious is made to work. ³ This ‘surreal’ quality is evident in this photograph, reminding us perhaps of 1 Corinthians 13-12 … ‘for now we see through a glass, darkly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; but then shall I know, even as also I am known’:

The power of HCB to induce both reflectivity and reflexivity is evident. Perhaps Kant came closer than anyone to understanding the transcendental principles involved in apprehending not just perceptual shapes but that which represents a purposiveness in ‘the form of a thing’ ⁴ as non-conceptual, but it is to Merleau-Ponty that we turn to the idea that we are deeply ‘intermingled’ with objects …“Perception … is the background from which all acts stand out, and is presupposed by them.” ⁵

We walk through life comfortable with the every-day and familiar. Conscious awareness acts as a backlighting for life’s concrete experiences and events. However, as Merleau-Ponty reminds us … “perception hides itself from itself… it is of the essence of (awareness) to forget its own phenomena thus enabling ‘things’ to be constituted.” ⁶ Because of some incongruity in the world’s usualness, we bring direct awareness to the unusualness, when prompted. Our perceptual cognition moves to the foreground because we are surprised and not exactly sure what we see. The always-already perceptual field is called into question and we must give attention to what otherwise we would not need to. Merleau-Ponty: “(it) slackens the intentional threads which attach us to the world and thus brings them to our notice….” ⁷.

It is this ‘prompting’ that is so evident in HCB’s photographs.

Take HCB’s photograph of the Village of Aquila, Abruzzi below. In this complex picture we have strong diagonals that transport attention backwards into the picture and forwards to the foreground; we have in the foreground the gestalt principle of similarity in the pairs of people; we have distinctive figure/ground relationships throughout the picture; we have the internal framing effects of the railings dividing the picture up into comprehensible units; we have the overall framing that includes the words ‘ORA PRO NOBIS’ (‘pray for us’). Despite its compexity, we take the scene in immediately. The whole is other than the sum of its parts – a thought embodied in perceptual form – and the thought for me is one of bondage and the inevitability in the lives of these people. ⁸

We can miss much in HCB by overly fussing over ‘decisive moments’. To be sure, every cliché has a kernel of truth, but what makes HCB so fascinating is the psychological depths invoked by his mastery of pulling together form and content in a way that prompts attention – the geometry of his work. ‘Decisive Moments’ are only a part of the HCB story. Of course, as O’Hagan says, Frank, Eggleston, Meyerowitz and Winogrand took street photography into new pastures, but it is wrong to say that … ‘(Cartier-Bresson) cements an idea of photography that is no longer current’. O’Hagan misses the point about HCB. His pictures have the power to complete us.

References to HCB photographs: 1) Valencia; 2) Siphonos 1961; 3) Sardinia 1962; (4) Berlin Wall 1962; 5) Abruzzi, Village of Aquila 1951 ↩
“Street Photography – from Atget to Cartier-Bresson, Clive Scott; I B Tauris, 2009, 49 ↩
Cartier-Bresson, L’imaginaire d’apres nature, Cognac: Fata Morgana; 1996 ↩
Kant, Critique of Judgement, Intro. v111, 31 ↩
Merleau-Ponty, ‘Phenomenology of Perception’, x–xi ↩
Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenology of Perception P. 58 ↩
Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenology of Perception, xiii ↩
David Davies – “How Photographs Signify”, in ‘Photography and Philosophy – Essays on the Pencil of Nature; edited by Scott Walden, 2010 ↩

Bystander: A History of Street Photography

November 3, 2016 By TC

This book has come in for quite some criticism, perhaps because it explicitly purports to be a ‘history of street photography’. Carefully researched and source-referenced historiography it probably isn’t, but it would be unfair to dismiss this book just in these terms as there is much in it of value.

Writing a history of something as amorphous as ‘street photography’, which is more an attitude than a genre, has its challenges, but Westerbeck does a pretty good job. It’s gratifying that the book starts where it should: Paris. The response to Baudelaire’ peculiar take on photography and the growing synergy between street photography and impressionism and street painting in the turn of the century melting-pot Paris surely laid the foundations to much that was to follow: Atget and the photography of the street; surrealism that was to find later expression in Brandt and Cartier-Bresson; humanism through Doisneau, Erwhitt; realism through Brassai and thence to the ‘gritty realism’ of Frank, Klein and Winogrand.

And it’s here that the book falls down for me. Despite a promising start, the book does not really get to grips with the various ‘flavours’ ( I won’t say ‘schools’) of street photography. We get the odd glimpse at an attempt to analyse developments, such as the chapter on the ‘Chicago School’, but proceeding chronologically through time to the 1980s acts more show discontinuities rather than similarities. It would have been better to have traced the history of street photography through the lines of influence and against developments in the wider world of the arts and society. The sense of separation that the writers accord to street photography, separate from the context of social developments, means that we don’t really get a sense of street photography’s place in our culture, its worth.

Despite this however, I enjoyed the many anecdotal reflections, particularly from Meyerowitz, a photographer who I deeply admire. Well worth a read.

Knut Skjærven

October 28, 2016 By TC

Blow Up © Knut Skjærven

Of course, good photographs should at one level speak for themselves, as this wonderful photograph by Knut Skjærven does. But, I venture to ask, why do they?

There is so much else to a good photograph than the sum of its components.

It has nothing to do with beauty or the specific content of the photograph or the tonality or indeed any individual ‘property’ of the image, although these things contribute. They may be necessary but they are not sufficient. These things attract your attention, but they do not in themselves give you an aesthetic experience. The individual qualities of the photograph invite you to sit at the dinner table but you don’t get to taste the delicious food by doing nothing more.

The aesthetic experience occurs when you become engaged in recreation with the photograph. This is actually quite complex, but as the philosopher Alfred North Whitehead said “…the only simplicity to be trusted is the simplicity to be found on the far side of complexity.”

At first, there is the encounter with the photograph as an object of experience, pre-cognitive if you will. Then there is a physical feeling – the photograph is objectified as being the subject of the feeling; a relationship of distance is recognised. This gives rise to a conceptual feeling which is the subjective reaction to the physical feeling, the distance. Other emotions and memories enter the arena of experience and thereby a relationship to the photograph evolves. It starts to become part of you. A fresh feeling emerges from the contrast between the ‘conceptual feeling’ and the ‘physical feeling.’ Finally the resulting relationship is contrasted once again with the ‘physical feeling’ giving rise to a ‘completed unity’. The energy behind this process, called ‘Concrescence’ by Whitehead, is causa sui, that is, self-generated.

At heart, therefore, is an interplay, a recreation, between the photograph and you such that the photograph establishes a you that is different in some way from the you of a moment ago. The extent to which this happens depends upon the ability of the photograph, acting as a whole, to set up the aesthetic experience.

And this particular photograph is very successfully at setting up such an aesthetic experience. We can analyse the components of it that create something ‘other than the sum of its parts’, of course, but the end result is that it is complete in-itself – causa sui.

So, yes this image speaks for itself at one level. But it opens up much more if you are quiet and listening.

Presidio – Stephen Shore

October 28, 2016 By TC

A picture that stops me.

Gerry Badger identifies Shore with the “quiet photo”. To a certain extent he is right, (although Shore has bridged many genres in his long career). For me his images are particularly compelling because they start quietly, but get louder like an underground train approaching at speed.

You look down this street. Telegraph post shadows cut across, suggesting a divide. The dog checks your thoughts. The man stands there, unmoving, passive and staring. The fence hems you in. It is late evening. What to do? A moment of doubt opens.

Beachy Head by Tony Ray-Jones

October 28, 2016 By TC

A young man and woman embrace, seemingly oblivious to everyone around them. They are intimate and gentle, locked into a private world – a love affair, a love scene even. A very private act in a public space. But although the lovers hold centre-stage, the photograph is not principally “about” them.

We see the other trippers looking out of the frame, presumably at Beachy Head’s chalk cliffs. Their faces betray unease. Everyone is quiet, pensive and above all avoiding the love scene that is playing out, as though there is an unspoken agreement at work – an act of collusion. Very English! “No sex here please, we are British”!

So the photograph is about the relationship between the lovers and the other trippers. The lovers with life-unlived, care-free; the trippers with life-lived, care-worn.

But that’s not all. A parallel scene is being played out:

“Photography is the process of rendering observation self-conscious” Berger explains, “What it shows invokes what is not shown”. ¹. What is shown is clear: the lovers and the travellers, (the “also-rans”). But what is not shown? The lovers have a different destiny to the travellers. The two groups are bound to different fates. From premises, consequences flow. The lovers look forward in time, entwined within a common fate. The travellers look back, remembering their own past experiences which are now unfolding before them in the guise of the lovers, momentarily halting the remorseless succession of moments. The former with Future; the latter with Past. We see ourselves as simultaneous members of both groups. With a foot in each camp we are caught between them, between past and future: outside of time and place.

Understanding a Photograph by John Berger; Penguin 1967; ISBN 978-0-141-39202-8

Intersections by Josef Koudelka 1976

October 28, 2016 By TC

Uninterminable sameness. The road travels straight and up, beyond and over (to a difference, perhaps?). The man seems unsure. He is at a crossroads, but is turning to the right. Deep down he realises it is already too late for change.

A wonderful picture by Koudelka.

What is it about film photography?

September 19, 2016 By TC

I am a film street photographer, inspired by my father’s deep appreciation of Cartier-Bresson and particularly Robert Frank back in the 1960’s. In the early 2000’s, like many, I drifted away from film and plunged into digital photography, excited by the prospect of digital’s instant gratification, feedback and editing ease. So it seems counter-intuitive that a street photographer would turn back to film. Surely the benefits of digital make it eminently suitable for street photography?

The turn to film happened slowly. I started to miss the analog way that I had been brought up with: the increased complexity of electronic photographic systems seemed to place extra distance between me and my photographs, putting more distance between the subject (me) and the object (my world). I looked back nostalgically to the ‘look’ of black and white film, to the simplicity of film cameras and to the ‘craft’ of film and print development. I even missed the sheer effort required to make a good picture. Results that flow from hard work seem more valuable than those easily gained.

One day when clearing out some stuff from my barn I re-discovered two old books: Barry Thornton’s ‘Elements’ and his ‘Edge of Darkness’ – neither had anything to do with street photography. I opened one of them and was immediately reminded of the time that I had spent in the darkroom at Inversnaid Photography Centre in Scotland (now sadly gone) in the 1990’s with André and Linda Goulancourt. The books took hold of me and through them I reconsidered Fay Godwin’s landscapes (which still hang on my wall), John Blakemore’s still life studies, Caponigro’s shadow details and many other photographers too numerous to mention. One thing led to another.

These people ‘made pictures’ rather than ‘took photographs’. There is a big difference, well understood by still life and landscape photographers, but not by street photographers. There was an eye for the subject, to be sure, but there was an equal eye to the photograph as an object of aesthetic intention. A photograph is more than what is being photographed.

As a result of reading Thornton I started to question my own street photography where, as is common across the genre, the concern is more with story-telling and message and less with the aesthetic qualities of a photograph as an object. There are some exceptions to this, but not many. My street work had gone down a cul-de-sac and I turned to film to find my way back out.

Street photography is particularly prone to a predilection with message as it is message that defines the genre. But should there not be much more to a good street photograph than message? The emphasis on ‘capturing the moment’ at the expense of form pushes street photography into an endless fix of gimmicks, special moments and ‘do you get it?’ photographs.

Many march to the drum of Cartier-Bresson’s ‘decisive moment’ in an unquestioning way without understanding what he meant by the phrase. He said, “To me, photography is the simultaneous recognition, in a fraction of a second, of the significance of an event as well as of a precise organization of forms which give that event its proper expression”. It is the convergence of the special event with a photographer’s vision that is crucial. The photographer must see the elements of composition and the effect of framing in the process of alignment before ‘the decisive moment’ occurs. Vision and anticipation are central. The relationships of form serve to intensify vision.

The essence of street photography lies in anticipating a set of relationships ahead of a moment, as if surfing the crest of a temporal wave. Agility is often the decisive factor. It is probably the most difficult type of photography. But an interesting situation does not make a good street photograph – much more is needed, particularly intelligent framing so that the relationships within the frame act out their parts in an orchestrated way, almost as if the photographer is also the conductor. It is not by chance that many great street photographs have been made using cameras with optical viewfinders as opposed to electronic screens – one can simultaneously focus on the inside of the frame whilst being aware of approaching developments outside the frame.

And so I started to look for a different way, wondering whether the medium itself, film, could play a bigger role in eliciting the dialogue between photograph and viewer that I seek, a relationship which classic film street photographers took for granted. Thornton’s book played a big part in this conversion but I also studied the work of Stieglitz, Brandt, Minor White, the work of great cinematographers such as Vilmos Zsigmond and Greg Toland, Japanese aesthetics and much else.

So here are two thoughts on film photography:

The first has to do with film’s ‘filmic quality’. The look of film is different to one produced digitally, or so the argument goes. Indeed to underscore this, add-on apps have been created specifically to allow photo editors to approximate this filmic quality, whether it is through grain, colour, resolution, dynamic range or some other parameter. Some argue that the filmic effect is down to film’s grain texture (random shapes), which is different to a digital pixel (rectangular). But there is debate over this. Irrespective of the actual reasons, I do think there is a difference in look when a photograph is printed. This difference tends to be lost when the photograph is scanned into a pixel format, as you would expect, despite the best emulating efforts of add-on apps. Don’t misinterpret me, digital photograph quality can be stunning, but it’s different.

A photograph’s potential to add distance between a viewer and a photograph is important in explaining how a photograph is experienced. At first blush, added distance or separation might seem a disadvantage; one might think that the photographer’s intention should be to stimulate greater immersion on the part of the viewer, not greater distance. But a photograph that retains ambiguity, either in its composition or through the effect of its medium (for example film; black and white) draws a viewer further in. Here, filmic quality is an advantage, (whether you believe that it is inherent to film or a feature of photographic style).

So my first thought: A film photograph creates a different relationship between a photograph and its viewer, notwithstanding digital’s ability to emulate filmic qualities. (If it didn’t why would ‘filmic apps’ exist?). If you add to this the physical effect of a medium or large format camera, then the effect is multiplied. The inherent qualities of film propels the viewer into a different state, a door into ‘Reality’s Unconscious”, to borrow a phrase from Benjamin.

My second thought involves the merits of learning a physical craft like film picture making. Exploring the relationships between exposure, film type, film developer, dilution, temperature, time and agitation and so on affords a sense of ‘ownership’ of the final photograph in a way that digital can’t easily reproduce. No doubt producing a beautiful digital picture can be satisfying, but the black-box nature of the equipment and its software that intervenes between the moment of shutter release and the final image robs the photographer of something precious: deep participation.

Digital technology seems to alienate us from the means of production rather than help embody photography as part of an extension to ourselves. Not only do we have to run the treadmill of continually upgrading cameras and software but more importantly we don’t feel we play as much of a part in creating a photograph as we would like. At times it feels like we are incidental. The trend in computer-camera design is towards automatic functionalism and ‘style menus”. Our mobile phone editing apps urge us to choose between ‘drama’, ‘grainy’, ‘retrolux’ and so on. Choice is pre-packaged, modularized, made easy. We are funneled down decision-trees: Landscape or Portrait? Colour or B&W? Grunge, Vintage or Noir? Etc.

Film photography on the contrary, enables a greater sense of embodied extension. We are not channeled down specific routes. We work within constraints of course, but our options are not bundled into tight compartments. And of course a film camera will work in almost any condition, as the Apollo missions showed. Not much to go wrong with a mechanical Hasselblad 500.

And of course within the analog process, chance often sparks an inspiration. I am reminded of Thornton’s photograph “Loch Arklett, April evening”, taken with SL66/HP5+ and developed in Perceptol 1:1. A mistake in calculating dilutions led to a new visual insight for him and a marvellous picture. The result gave him something new, another page to his arcane manual.

So here is my second thought: the business of making a film photograph to the stage of print, can set up an entirely different creative dynamic within the photographer than that involved in digital picture taking and processing. The film photographer’s deep participation in an analog physical process, more akin to the haptic tasks that humans have evolved to deal with, provides a sense of union with the final photograph, a fruition of the different senses at work. The photographer Casey Orr says it well: ‘For me the problem doesn’t lie with the production values or quality of the final images which are exciting and staggering, but I worked well with the rough and tumble of a reliable, simple and mechanical tool; glass, metal and wood – often tossed in my backpack, wrapped in a tea towel’. The difference has to do with the involvement of the senses and the body.

I am not one to argue that film photography is in some sense better than digital. The argument seems sterile to me. Great street photographs are being taken on digital equipment. The crucial ingredients of a good photograph remain the same, irrespective of medium: vision, composition and production. But film photography is quite different: what differs between the two is the role acted out by the photographer. In one, the photographer skilfully (or not) presses buttons and things happen in an expected way according to embedded computer code or a decision tree; in the other the photographer is an alchemist skilfully (or not) playing with chemicals, light and paper, delighting in his tactile world. The two feel very different. This must have consequences.

Barry Thornton, who died in 2003, an alchemist-photographer par excellence, spent his life in deep contemplation of light and shade. His command of his medium, film, enabled him to not only to faithfully print what he saw in his mind’s eye, but also to transcend the subjects of his photographic eye and make objects of exquisite beauty. His work is an inspiration to me as I try to make street photographs that transcend those very streets.

What is the point of Street Photography?

August 29, 2016 By TC

Most serious street photographers have probably attempted to map out the different styles and approaches that make up the genre of “street photography”, even if only to better understand which particular style they ‘fit into’. That is, if they have a style. And, no doubt, many give up in the attempt. A useful style classification is difficult to construct since any underlying principle is soon found to be limiting, as this early attempt by me shows:

One could look to subject matter: for example photographs that show facial expressions or eye contact between people, or wet pavements or photographs that depict architectural vistas.

Another principle might emphasise the technical approach: for example the use of flash or a very wide lens, or high grain.

Or, following classical Indian aesthetics, one might classify styles by the psychological effects that the photographs have on a viewer: for example comedy, fear, ambiguity or narrative.

Another approach would be to reflect on the communicative approach: abstract, surrealist, observational, dramatic and social commentary.

No doubt we could construct further classifying principles if we were to think harder.

But great street photographs combine several of these principles together in order to achieve an effect. The attempt to consciously pick a style in order to have the effect that you seek is an essential part of success. Although it will quickly run you into a cul-de-sac, classification is an essential thought process on the road to success. By asking the simple question: “what is the point of your own street photography?” one hopes to understand what effect you seek to achieve and thereby the best route (style) to delivering that.

If Street Photography is to go beyond the banal ‘do you get it?’ type of photograph, its proponents need to have strong, clear and bold ideas like those shown by the likes of Steve McClaren, Trente Park and Richard Bram. This entails a good deal of introspection. A good starting point is to ask yourself ‘What is the point of your street photography’? I seem to ask myself this every time I venture out with camera.

In search of a classic photograph

August 4, 2016 By TC

I went out recently, film camera in hand, specifically in search of a ‘classic’ photograph. I happened on this scene in which the man’s hat, coat and briefcase would give me that ‘timeless’ look, helped of course by TRI-X film.

I think this would have been difficult, but not impossible, to create using digital equipment. It’s the combination of the grain with the slightly faded greys.

On pushing film

July 16, 2016 By TC

I often come across film photographers who delight in ‘pushing’ film, that is, setting the ISO settings on the light meter (either the camera’s or a separate meter) to a higher number than the speed of the film being used. So, for example, if Tri-X is being used, the camera’s ISO setting will be set to 800 or 1600, rather than the 400 of Tri-X. Of course, pushing film is a valid technique if you are prepared to accept the consequences as part of an overall artistic approach, but I sometimes wonder whether many photographers fully understand what these consequences are.

For the digital photographer relying on the automatic exposure algorithms built into the camera, setting a higher ISO speed may make perfect sense in certain situations: dim conditions would lead to the camera ‘compensating’ so that either shutter speeds are reduced (leading to blurred moving objects) or lens are ‘opened’ (reducing depth of field). Dialling up the ISO setting allows images to be taken in dim conditions but at the cost of picture artefacts (graininess for example).

But the situation for film photographers is different:

Firstly, a film photographer is committed to an ISO setting for the whole film, because the compensation required for the exposure during the film development stage has to pertain to all the images on that film (as the film is processed as a whole). Street photographers encounter a very wide range of light conditions in a short time, unlike for example landscape photographers. The correct exposure values on the shady side of a street on a sunny evening can be 4 stops different to the conditions on the sunny side of the street. So to ‘push’ a 36 film roll is unlikely to be right for a street photographer working the whole street.
Secondly, film manufacturers tend to over-rate box film speeds. Many tests have shown that film box-rated at 400, say, is better exposed at 320, or even 200, say. Quite why this is the case, I don’t fully understand other than to suppose that manufacturers think that photographers prefer to buy higher box speeds.
Thirdly, for some with manual mechanical cameras, the whole question is irrelevant. I use a film camera with no light-meter, and hence the camera is neither making any compensation on my behalf nor is it indicating a combination of settings to give a ‘correct’ exposure value. The only light meter is my eye. If I am dealing with a very wide range of exposure values, as on bright evening with deep shadows, I have to decide whether to expose for the shadows and let the bright areas fall where they may during film development, expose for the bright areas and let the shade ‘black out’, or travel some happy path between the two. If there is a very big range of exposure values, then I would probably overexpose and under-develop the film to try to tame the range.
Finally, artistic intention has to play a part, even for street photographers. There is a three-way trade-off between speed, graininess and sharpness. The selection of film type, exposure, developer type and developer time and agitation has a big effect on contrast and how sharp the image appears.

So, I don’t agree with the advice often set out for street photographers to push film (see for example Eric Kim). Sure, if you want that high contrast grainy grundgy look that seems so popular in today’s street photography, then fine, nothing wrong with that. Also, if you are into hyper-focal settings, then fine. But, then you would probable be better off with a completely automatic point and shoot digital camera, as this is really all you are doing with hyper-focal settings.