Yearly Archives: 2014

Picturing misery

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For the last few weeks I mentioned several times how terrible the news and its images have been – photographs of maimed and killed children, no parent should live to see that; photographs of killed parents, no child should live to see that. We talk about being hardened to such sights, which isn’t quite right. It is not that we become hardened by these images. It is that they disconnect us. Our brains reach an elastic limit and literally “turn off” an image, if it just disturbs us too much, if it takes us beyond what we can mentally deal with, beyond our humanity.

Sometimes it takes something more subtle to wrench us back into humanity. Today I came across such an image, a simple, and oh so powerful, photograph by Bulent Kilic for – Getty Images. It shows a Ukranian refugee, crying in in a field with all of her remaining belongings on the ground beside her. This is the defining moment of terror and desperation. For a moment because of the image we become that woman. Look at her luggage. She could be any of us off to the gym or the beach.

And for me, it brought back the most vivid imagery. When I was in elementary school, we went on a class trip to visit the local newspaper, called if I remember correctly “Town and Village.” There were huge press photographs on the walls and the one that disturbed us the most was of a car crash, a man and a woman lying bloodied and dead and a wailing child. The guide assured us that the child was now living with his grandparents. He really didn’t know, and I believed that as much as I now believe that the woman in Kilic’s photograph is now on vacation on the French Riviera. But what we did learn was just how powerful a photograph can be when it appeals to what is fundamentally human within us.

I have spoken three times now of human and humanity.  What this and kindred images remind us is just how shallow these terms can be.  We are a broken species, when our politics, and worse, our religions condone the misery of this woman, a grieving mother, or an orphaned child as “collateral damage.”  What a disgusting phrase!  There is ultimately more defining humanity in Kilic’s photograph than in all our holy books.

 

Kodak Saint Peter at the Pearly Gates

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Mark Twain gave sage advice about the proper way to behave in the afterlife.

“Upon arrival do not speak to St. Peter until spoken to. It’s not your place to begin.
Don’t try to Kodak him. Hell is full of people who have made that mistake.
Don’t ask him what time the 4:30 train goes; there aren’t any trains in heaven, except through trains, and the less information you get about them the better for you.
Leave your dog outside. Heaven goes by favor. If it went by merit, you would stay out and your dog would go in.“

Mr. Clemens was always one to embrace technology.  He would certainly love the vain and narcissistic pursuit of the selfie – the glorification of you.  And there is a subtle point in this reasonably famous quote, and that is the use of the word Kodak, otherwise a brand name, as a verb.  There may be a modernization of this, now that we store our images on “The Cloud.” It was the latter day equivalent of the word Xerox, that being only one brand of copy machine.  And now of course, much to the chagrin of Microsoft, who would rather we “Bing it,” we still “Google it,” even if as yahoos we are actually “Binging it.”  Life does get confusing.

In Twain’s case I believe that his usage belies the incredible rise of Kodak and the popularization of photography.  Of course, with popularization came its sister mediocritization, as we discussed in my recent blog about the pictorialists, who hated this sort of thing.

Fugure 1 -n Koday Picture Spot from Disney's MGM Hollywood Studios, from the Wikimedia Commons and uploaded by Tregowith under creative commons license.

Figure 1 -Kodak Picture Spot from Disney’s MGM Hollywood Studios, from the Wikimedia Commons and uploaded by Tregowith under creative commons license.

Kodak’s dominance of photography through popularization got to the point where you couldn’t go to a scenic spot in the United States without encountering a sign referred to as a Kodak Picture Spot.  “This location recommended by top photographers to help you tell the story of your visit in pictures.” Stand here and you will get a beautiful picture, which by the way you could take to the nearby Kodak store and have it processed.  Oh, and please buy some film while you’re at it.  You wouldn’t want to run out. Figure 1 is an example from Disney’s MGM Hollywood Studios. Kodak ended this sponsorship relationship at Disneyland in 2012.  Which is pretty much when Kodak, the inventor of digital photography cried “uncle” and gave up the consumer photography market.

Of course, anyone who loves photography for the sake of art and beauty abhors this concept, which caters to the view that photographs are essentially trophies.  That’s the least of it.  The more paranoid among us might suggest a certain level of mind manipulation, an attempt to cookie cut as into the perfect customer – to Xerox us into similitude!.

A moment of technological extinction

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Figure 1 -= Jack Baily host of "Queen for a Day" 1945-1964 in a promotional shot. From the Wikimediacommons and in the public domain because it was not copywritten.

Figure 1 -= Jack Bailey host of “Queen for a Day” 1945-1964 in a promotional shot. From the Wikimediacommons and in the public domain because it was not copywritten.

We have spoken before about the relentless demise of broadcast television.  There are so many factors at play. But I believe the most significant demographic is the rapidly declining rate of television ownership by the up and coming generation, my son’s generation.  They download what they want to watch and seek both their image and information content on the internet. And this is a well-educated generation.  Broadcast television is just not sustainable – witness how much time is devoted even on major channels to infomercials and low budget reality shows extinction is near. TV is going the way of the dinosaurs.  Television like those who cling to it are techno-dinos.

Still the rate of the transition is astounding – this because of “the singularity phenomenon.” And it is amazing to watch, because the change is essentially palpable and real time.

This weekend my wife pointed out to me a curious aspect of this metamorphosis. Network news has long given up on news. Breaking news, news flash, news flash. I remember when your heart would stop. At the very least someone had been assassinated. Let me fill you in, the events of reality shows are not news.  A network cannot both create and report the news, it’s kinda like media … Well, anyway it’s not good, it’s not real, and really, really it’s not news.

But what my wife pointed out to me was how much of the television news consists of YouTube clips. I mean how many clips of ducklings being rescued from storm drains can we watch?  I am suspicious that its all the same mama duck – a not too bright mama duck! This morning we had the bear cooling off in the kiddie pool. Yesterday was the bear with hurt from paws walking upright on two legs. At least he’s evolving in the right direction. And then there was the kid with the butterfly landing on his nose. In what way is this “Attack of the Lepidoptera” news?

It’s pathetic. Television is trying to imitate the net. As television moves inexorably towards its demise, it appears to imitate its successor. And the progression or succession is definitely interesting.  First, there were books.  Books were intimate.  There was a one-on-one conversation between the reader and the author.  Then came movies.  The intimacy was lost but there was still the illusion of a close relationship because the images were so vivid and there was still a story being told by abstracted voices.  Then there was television.  Like publishing, television was in a sense elitist and inaccessible.  The key to the whole medium was scarcity.  Three networks controlling everything.It was a one way conversation.  Few people actually achieved an appearance on the TV – few became the “Queen for a Day,” but everyone could aspire too it.

The internet, especially with its social media, changes the playing field.  It is totally accessible.  Upload information, upload misinformation, upload images, upload doctored images.  Anyone can be the monarch of his/her own domain.   This is why talk show hosts and news anchors spend so much time trying to create a sense of being with you in your living room.  It is a chimera.  We are longing for connectedness and, no surprise, we are embracing it in the new medium.  And, of course, we are wondering what is next. That because we have become so used to the rapidity of technological innovation.

 

 

A remarkable social history

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I came upon a remarkable photoessay by Phil Coomes, photoeditor for the BBC that I thought I should share with you.   It is a story about Photographer Charles Fox a photographer, who is is based in Cambodia., and earlier this year he began to collect family pictures he had found in that country, publishing them to Tumblr and his twitter account.

In 2009, Fox met a Cambodian man named Yanny at a London celebration  celebration of the 2009 Khmer New Year.  “Yanny used to show me his old photographs of life in Cambodia after the fall of the Khmer Rouge, he would tell me how his family moved back into Phnom Penh, and how society started to rebuild itself, all of this whilst flicking through his worn family photo albums illustrating his point.”

On his return to Cambodia, Fox began collecting old family portraits to document this period.  He would copy the images, often bleached, chipped, or water-damages and with them he would collect a tidbit of family commentary – enough to get your imagination going, to recollect what you never knew, the story behind these pictures.

Coomes argues, and I agree, that the social history of the twentieth century is written in family portraits.  I think that we may argue the same for the “selfies” of today.  Somehow these too need to be preserved, and it seems the case as well that the little commentaries that we attach on Facebook and other social media are just enough to get our minds going.

Imagine yourself centuries from now at an exhibition about the twenty-first century.  The room is cool and dark, or perhaps the museum isn’t a room but a projected thought and every second or so an image appears a smiling face, or worse the anguished face of a victim of one of our countless wars and conflicts, from so long ago, now made just a bit more familiar, evoking a sense of almost tangible connection..

Remembering being tested

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Figure 1 - Figure 1 - Nixons departing the White House for the last time, August 9, 1974, from the wikimediacommons, taken by a US Government employee and in the public domain.

Figure 1 – Figure 1 – Nixons departing the White House for the last time, August 9, 1974, from the Wikimediacommons, taken by a US Government employee and in the public domain.

Saturday marked the fortieth anniversary of the resignation of Richard M. Nixon.  It was a moment of collective memory.  My wife worked at the time for Harrison M. Trice, who was a distinguished professor or organizational behavior at Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations.  Harry had been convinced that Nixon was going to declare martial law and stay president.  Sound paranoid?  The thing was that Harry had been a graduate student at The University of Wisconsin, when Nixon came with Senator Joseph McCarthy and declared: “We’re going to drive the communists out of this university with whips this thick.” Hmm!  “You’re president is not a crook!”  Except that he was a crook and had precipitated the greatest constitutional crisis in the United States since… Well, since McCarthy.

American’s were desolate.  I was watching a newsreel last night, an interview of a woman, my mother’s age at the time, and she said: “This country is going to celebrate it’s two hundredth birthday in a couple of years.  I want to be proud of America and right now I’m ashamed.”  It was pretty powerful stuff.  But political support for Nixon eroded to the point that Republicans in congress and the senate told him that they didn’t have the votes to stop the impeachment.  And so… The constitution held.  We were both appalled and proud.

There are many images of the day.  But the power of the constitution, of the union, was best represented by the Fords escorting the NIxons to the helicopter which started the Nixon’s journey home (Figure 1).  And then there was a last futile attempt at bravado as Nixon turned one last time, put out his arms, his fingers flashing V’s as symbols of false victory.

Figure 1 - Nixon poses one last time as he departs the White House, August 9, 1974, from the wikimediacommons, taken by a US Government employee and in the public domain.

Figure 2 – Nixon poses one last time as he departs the White House, August 9, 1974, from the Wikimediacommons, taken by a US Government employee and in the public domain.

Of Elmo and childhood memories

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Figure 1 - Automat (in New York City) by Bernice Abbott, 1936. From the Wikimediacommons, taken for the United States WPA and in the public domain.

Figure 1 – Automat (in New York City) by Bernice Abbott, 1936. From the Wikimediacommons, taken for the United States WPA and in the public domain.

First of all, I want to apologize for the blackout of HatiandSkoll messages over the last two days.  As best I can tell we were hacked and security systems functioned properly and shut down not the site but the emails.   Hopefully, the problems is now solved and we can get back to normal.  If you are still having problems please take a moment and let me know.

Yesterday,  was Friday and as usual on week’s end I was looking through “The Week in Photographs” in search of something both appealing and not disturbing.  There seems to be less and less “good news,” which is a pretty sad commentary on our times.  I came across this delightful image by Eduardo Munez for Reuters showing a man named Jorge, who is an immigrant from Mexico dressed as Elmo, resting in New York City’s Times Square, on July 29. I just love the “man-bag” that he is carrying. But then the “bad news”, there have been so many street performers dressed as beloved Sesame Street characters, so many demanding money from tourists, that Sesame Workshop, which owns the rights to characters, is planning on seeking an injunction against the performers.  I can see the headlines now.  “Elmo arrested, Cookie Monster incarcerated.”  Then there will be the images of crying children.  Hmm! Definitely shades of “Miracle on Thirty-fourth Street.”

Oh, and I do always respect copyrights.  They are critical to artistic expression.  It’s just the image that’s so haunting me.

Anyway, my brain started to wander back to chance encounters in my childhood.  One of the magical places that I used to go to with my father was “The Automat”  You may recall Marilyn Monroe singing in “Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend:”

“A kiss may be grand
But it won’t pay the rental
On your humble flat
Or help you at the automat.”

These were cool places, where the food was behind little windows.  You made your pick, put in yours coins (do you remember coins?), and then took out your lunch  For a child, for my sister and I, it was wonderful and just so much fun.  Figure 1 is a photograph from 1936 by Bernice Abbott of a New York City automat taken for the WPA.

But then there were characters as well.  One Saturday in December my father and I sat down only to see Santa Claus getting his lunch and he was kind enough to sit down and chat with us.  What luck for me to have lunch with Santa, simply amazing.

So I do worry a bit about the Sesame Street characters on Times Square.  They may be annoying in their demand for tips.  So don’t tip them.  But they do distract us from more gruesome news and they are the stuff that childhood dreams are made of.

Giant heads

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Figure 1 - Giant head sculpture by Garcia Antonio Lopez, Boston, MA. (c) DE Wolf 2014

Figure 1 – Giant head sculpture by Antonio Lopez Garcia, Boston, MA. (c) DE Wolf 2014

For several years, I have been trying to figure out how to photograph the two giant heads that adorn the entrance to Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts.  These wonderful visages are by Spanish sculptor Antonio López García. They are, as I said, huge and they also are dramatically disembodied.  One’s immediate reaction is to set them against the giant pillars of the museum or have someone stand in front of them.  Both approaches seem to me to be cliche and hackneyed.  And besides, what seems always to draw me in is the intimacy that contrasts the size.  The faces are intensely black, but their shininess gives them magnificent highlights, and the point seems to be the commanding intensity of feature that demands extreme close-up.  So that is what I show here.  But I remain convinced that there is the perfect light and the perfect way to photograph them – that I have yet to find.

We cannot become complacent to war and human suffering

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Figure 1 - Remains of a Buddhist temple in Nagasaki, Japan, September 7, 1945. Image from the Wikimediacommons, from the United States Department of Defense War and Comflict Image Collection, and in the public domain.

Figure 1 – Remains of a Buddhist temple in Nagasaki, Japan, September 7, 1945. Image from the Wikimediacommons, from the United States Department of Defense War and Comflict Image Collection, and in the public domain.

We are so bombarded with images of war and human suffering that we must remember that we can never allow ourselves to become enured to it.  I offer this disturbingly beautiful and haunting image by Cpl. Lynn P. Walker, of the United States Marine Corps taken on September 24, 1945 showing the remains of a Buddhist Temple in Nagasaki after the bombing. 

Hiroshima – August 6, 2014

Nagasaki – August 9, 2014

Rosetta and Comet 67-P Churyumov-Gerasimenko

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When I was younger, I used to get up early, or stay up late, to watch the major space achievements of the day. It is for the sense of moment.  Because while seeing the videos afterwards may still leave shivers, there is nothing more intensely real than “being there in the moment as an eye witness” to a history that is going to transcend our meager lives. Portugeuse exploration began between 1325 and 1357 under Alfonso IV.  This culminated in 1488 when Bartolomeu Dias rounded the southern tip of Africa, to which he gave the name “Cabo das Tormentas” – “Cape of Storms.”  In 1492 Christopher Columbus discovered the “New World.”  The first English Settlement in Virginia was 1607, Massachusetts 1620, discovery of Manhattan 1609.  If you’re keeping track, that’s a span of close to three hundred years.  And the point is that given the length of our lives, we are only privileged to “witness” a very few of the truly significant events.

So yes, if you’re wondering I did get up this morning to “watch” the European Space Agency’s space craft Rosetta rendezvous with Comet 67-P Churyumov-Gerasimenko.  More to the point at 4 am EDT, I watched this attractive, perky, English woman talk about it and stared at a computer screen at Mission Control  in Darmstadt, Germany waiting for the display to peak and then turn downwards – us scientists are easily satisfied!

But really, and most of all, I marveled at such images as this one taken on August 3 from 177 miles.  Truly what an amazing achievement.  As the perky, English woman said: “brilliant!”

When I was young and frequented New York’s amazing Hayden Planetarium, I just might have dreamed of such a thing, but then I put dreams aside for reality, and now they have become reality – which I suppose says something.  I thought this morning about photography and about the meaning of being there, when I am not really there and when the “there” is really not now because of the time lag.  This photograph and all the images and data that Rosetta has and will send back connect us not only to each other but really back to the time of the creation of the planet.  So to the team that dreamed and then spent a decade coaxing Rosetta to its destination, congratulations.  What a truly “brilliant” accomplishment.