Subtext

Critiquing Individual Photographs within a Collective Consciousness

Andre Ruesch

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9781138886063
• eBook ISBN: 9781317502241
• Topic: Art
• Subtopic: Photography

Subtext invites and encourages personal and blatantly subjective responses to photographs and analyzes the drivers behind them. During decades of participating in critiques as both student and teacher, André Ruesch has become convinced that it is the personal response to work that connects us in the most visceral and meaningful way. This book aims to encourage and educate viewers how to read and understand photographs on a deeper level, honoring and validating their responses to photographs. This book seeks to vitalize students in the photography classroom. Rather than a dense tome of theory, this is an accessible guide to taking individual ownership of—and enjoying—the visual experience.

To be visually literate is comparable to being linguistically literate. Such literacy is necessary to engender a deeper understanding and valuation of culture: both types of literacy create, enrich, define and historically document the expression of one individual to be shared by all.

FIGURE 1.1 Untitled. © Rigby Kelly

CHAPTER 1
The Velvet Hammer

The Potency of Elements

 

Featuring work by Rigby Kelly

CONSIDER THE FIRST IMAGE that we will be exploring here. The takeaway from this image is how the arrangement of the utterly familiar or commonplace can lead to a very powerful and not immediately obvious narrative. The image under consideration contains benign elements—or so it seems at first glance.

What is it? It is a black and white film photograph. Yet, before we take that statement for granted, it is important to remember that many photographs no longer correspond to what we generally assume them to be. They could have been manipulated, composited, or scanned. Digital, postproduction alterations are commonplace and are often very subtle in photography today.

This does not mean that we have to encounter every photograph with distrust, looking for signs that it is not purely mediated through the lens. It simply means we should take into consideration that all images can easily be manipulated. Even the lens-mediated, black and white film photograph, which is largely unaltered relative to other types of photographic images, is, in fact, heavily manipulated.

Every photograph represents the exclusive perspective of its maker and that maker's viewpoint from one very particular position in three-dimensional space—most often during a fraction of a second. Choices made during development and printing further emphasize or de-emphasize elements in the image. Choices are continuously being made by the photographer, some barely conscious, others in a much more considered and deliberate manner, with the result that the viewer's experience can be subtly, and sometimes substantially, altered.

What Are We Looking at?

It appears to be a young woman, photographed from behind who has used a teabag to tie her hair. Many viewers might stop right here. We seem to have an almost “innate” need to understand and to process information. In fact, this is one of our primal survival mechanisms and we bring this same urge to the virtual experience of an image. It appears that we are more adept at rationality as opposed to emotionally processing visual imagery. This is why we don't jump out of the way when we see a ferocious tiger coming toward us in a photograph, yet we can feel deep grief when we see an image of the same desecrated predator, skinned for the beauty of its fur.

It is this empathy that makes the image above so powerful for me and so loaded with meaning. None of us can truly divorce ourselves from our experiences, the time we live in, and our increasing global awareness and collective consciousness. Things that are in the ether exert so much power on us.

Identify the Elements

The image under consideration here consists of only five elements: hair, string, fabric, paper, and tea. Arguably, these elements are benign on their own, but they can become volatile in combination.

Let's be slightly more precise: dark hair, thin string, creased fabric, gossamer paper, and dried tea leaves. The string, the paper, and the tea are collectively known as a “teabag.” An entire compendium could be written about tea, its various geographical origins, its leaves and blossoms, its historic and cultural significance and the traditions for serving it from the Japanese tea ceremony to afternoon tea and crumpets. If we get into the symbolism of “reading the tea leaves,” the Boston Tea Party and the contemporary “Tea Party” movement, that could be an entire other book.

Contextual Meaning of the Elements

It is quite possible that you are discussing an image similarly charged with historic, contemporary, and global meaning in class and now it is your turn to say something, but all of the above has already been mentioned. Rather than feeling daunted, the elements approach can be used to great effect. After all, there are only five elements and we haven't really dealt with them as such. What is hair? What is string? What is fabric? What is paper? What is tea?

Do they have anything in common? If so, what is it, and frankly does it matter? They all grow and age, they can all be burnt, cut, and boiled. Now you may be understandably concerned about where this is going and just how volatile any possible point can become. The simple way in which this image addresses vulnerability and transience is where the power resides for me.

The hair suggests youth—it is dark and long but it seems slightly unkempt and not recently cut or styled. The teabag has no label and therefore no identity. The fabric is about as nondescript as a crumpled up, monochromatic curtain and seems to be predominantly utilitarian—more along the lines of a hospital gown or drab uniform. Not much to go on, but that is where the image sources all of its power for me. I say “for me” because this process of interrogation also involves you. You may be considering a completely different amalgamation of these elements and this is just as valid and important as any other subjectivity, including my own.

Demonstrating the periodic table approach in this case leaves me with the teabag. It is after all the most complex and processed element in the image. Yes, the gown, if cotton, is also equally processed and if it is an artificial fiber, even more so. And it too has a string, though hidden in the collar of the bunched up fabric. Nevertheless, the teabag is the brightest part of the image and therefore the element the eye is most drawn to.

How Can the Image Be Interpreted?

Based on the approach above, I arrive at this interpretation. What is a teabag then? It is a one-time, one-use product. What could that mean in the context of an anonymous young woman? Sadly, human trafficking is one of the scourges the world is steeped in. The destruction of the individual is as shameful as the lack of resources allocated to this reality. The one-use analogy is intensified by what is most highly prized in that market, virginity. The unlabeled teabag becomes a label in itself. It says only two things: unused and unidentified. It is in this simple statement that the image finds its power and collective condemnation and becomes so powerful.

Chemical elements, if combined in a certain way, can become potentially unstable until their nucleus and orbiting electrons find balance. This quiet image talks about imbalance—morally, ethically, and legally, to say the least. Just as we can't see morals or ethics, or indeed atoms, we know they exist and impact everything in physical existence and possibly more. This image has the audacity to engage this entire discourse by proxy. It works like a velvet hammer. The soft surface makes the blow only more crushing once it is recognized.

Kelly's image speaks very softly in this instance. As many of us have experienced, it is often the quietly spoken word rather than the screaming diatribe that cuts the deepest. The shocking truth is mentioned in an almost casual, yet utterly determined way. Imagine an anti-human-trafficking campaign. How would you address the issue visually?

Conclusion

By selecting a few highly effective elements that say everything necessary without hitting the audience over the head, Kelly allows for expansive interpretations in a very successful way. The grainy quality of the print and lack, in some areas, of depth of focus suggest a possibly surreptitious printing of the image under less than ideal circumstances. This could be a message in a bottle. The nature of the print therefore supports the narrative. Were it a perfect, glitzy studio-generated image, much of the visceral impact would be “sanitized,” probably displaced, and, ultimately, lost.

I have found this to be a basic but very effective way to deconstruct any image. Hopefully, this simple deconstruction will help you engage the other images as we move along.

Assignments You May Want to Challenge Yourself With

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• Human trafficking

• (Self-) portraiture

• Surprise element

• Melancholy

FIGURE 2.1 Untitled. © Vanessa LeRoy

CHAPTER 2
The Personal Galaxy

The Symbol

Featuring work by Vanessa LeRoy

WHAT HAPPENS IF YOU MAKE the image in a studio setting?

What Are We Looking at?

We have moved from black and white into color and the studio. Glitzy and ineffective? I don't think so. I have included this image here to counter my own point in the prior chapter for two simple reasons. First, don't agree too readily with anything anyone says and, second, the proverbial rules can always be broken.

Identify the Elements

This image could also be said to consist of a very few elements: skin, paint, and an impenetrable dark background. For the image to be glitzy the lighting would have to be adjusted to fill in the shadows, to be “brighter”—the flag should be a near perfect replica, and the body would need to stand straighter.

Contextual Meaning of the Elements

Instead, we are confronted with a frayed flag, as if time and the elements have ravaged it. The painted flag immediately unleashes an onslaught of associations: the body has been branded; the stars and stripes, Old Glory; Black Lives Matter, the aftermath of disproportionate police shootings; incarceration, poverty and prejudice; life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; the first African American president; slavery, stolen lives and displacement, to name but a few.

How Can the Image Be Interpreted?

As in the previous image, this can be thought of as a portrait of an individual or of a culture. It can be thought of as documentation—a photographic genre that used to be well defined. Genres are increasingly morphing, changing, and becoming hybridized as never before. Other than for submission to a contest or juried show such labels seem increasingly irrelevant but are still worth knowing about because of the anthology that has defined photography for so long.

The American flag overwhelmingly labels the black torso. Black skin and the flag, elements around which many people experience great personal and social sensitivity, are simultaneously presented to the viewer. Some may respond by feeling the skin is being desecrated. Some may think it is the flag. Why? The photograph of the young man might merely symbolize support for a favorite sports team in a hot stadium. But the absence of other fans and more importantly body language contradict this notion. The light is somber, the body seems vulnerable, and although we can't see the hands, we know they are in front of the body and are visible. There seems to be more resignation than tension in the body, as if in capitulation. He, possibly, might be cuffed.

Of course we will have differing responses to what we see and the catch-all argument against anything mentioned above is that it is pure speculation or project...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Quotes
• Table of Contents
• IV Foreword: An Interview with Patrick Nagatani by Ryoichi
• V Acknowledgments
• VI Introduction: For Whom This Book is Meant and How to Use It
• VII Prologue: The Periodic Table
• 1 The Velvet Hammer: The Potency of Elements
• 2 The Personal Galaxy: The Symbol
• 3 Just Fashion: A Question of Identity
• 4 Nike and the Butterfly: The Reversed Stereotype
• 5 Staying in Line: Conductivity
• 6 Politics: The Metaphoric Landscape
• 7 Henry’s Tale: The Photographic Fable
• 8 Moment by Moment: Elapsed Time—Eadweard Muybridge Revisited
• 9 The Drowned Gun: Time as Poetry
• 10 Split Again: The Reversed Connection
• 11 The Other Half: Water and Air
• 12 The Original: Please Touch the Art
• 13 The Tyranny of Borders: The Fractured Elements
• 14 The Holy Rosary: Belonging
• 15 A Conversation with God: The White Elephant in the Room
• 16 Superstructure: Conflation
• 17 Lady Like: Body Language
• 18 Recycling: The Image Ecology Approach
• 19 Appropriation: Reinterpretation
• 20 Dad: Titled versus Untitled
• 21 Speed and Stoicism: The Nature of the Elements
• 22 Reflection: The Literally and the Figuratively
• 23 Sky View: Upside Down
• 24 Blood is Blood: Assumption
• 25 Hypnagogia: Viewpoint
• 26 Harmonia: Rendering the Invisible
• 27 Snap: Breaking Point
• 28 Recognition: The Need for Invisibility
• 29 Big and Small: How We Give Thanks
• 30 Ammo and a Happy Meal: Be Theatrical
• 31 The Spider and the Net: Catch and Caught
• 32 Dirty Jobs: A Deceptive Comedy of Errors
• 33 What is to Come: Dreaming
• 34 The Angel and the Wasp: The Order of the Elements
• 35 In the End: Censorship
• VIII If Lost or Lonely: Get Your Work Out There
• IX Epilogue: Florence +The Machine
• X Quick Reference: Featured Artists in Alphabetical Order