Figure 1 – The mythic tradition, Stonehenge at sunrise on the summer solstice 2005, from the Wikimedia Commons and in the public domain.

We have previously discussed photography and the concept of sacred memes.  Clearly, photography can play a central role in the creation of memes.  But, there is another, albeit equivalent, way of looking at the problem.  This is to consider photography as a form of creative mythology.

We also spoke briefly before about Joseph Campbell(1904-1987) and his concept of the protomyth.  Protomyths are stories or myths that keep reappearing in different cultural contexts, indeed stories that seem innate to the human psyche.  I say seem, because the quality of human innateness is a very controversial one.  However, genetic or acquired, nature or nurture, does not really alter the sociological issues regarding protomyths.

Campbell’s magnum opus is “The Masks of God.” This four volume books is a magnificent tribute to Campbell’s ability to make amazing cross-cultural connections.  He begins with “Primitive Mythology“, where he lays out his case for the themes of primitive cultures hunting myths of resurrection, human sacrifice to the mother goddess, and rites of liminal passage and how these have metamorphosed into our modern religions.  Because of when it was written the book offers up a very healthy dose of Freud and Jung and spends a lot of time discussing the interpretation of dreams.  Then Campbell presents the two fundamental religious traditions: “Occidental Mythology” and “Oriental Mythology.”  Finally, and here is our important point for the discussion of photography, he presents the tradition of “Creative Mythology,” of people writing and telling stories, stories that often fit tightly into the molds of the protomyths.  It is not coincidental that James Joyce entitled his great hero myth, “Ulysses.” Bloom is the “Hero with a Thousand Faces.”

Photography is a form of creative expression.  As such, it can be a form of myth-maker – a cauldron and birthplace of memes.  The role of photography in myth making is enlarged by the fact that vision is our dominant sense.  As a myth creator photography is unique.  Despite the phrase that “a picture is worth a thousand words,” photography intrinsically catches little glimpses.  You see a photograph, and yes it tells a story.  However, your ability to read the story accurately closely depends upon your familiarity with the mythic tradition of your culture, and so does your ability to create a photograph. You see an image of a mother and child and you immediately think, “mommy.”  Then you, consciously or subconsciously, relate this image to the mythic filing cabinet in your brain, perhaps to Raphael’s “Madonna of the Chair.”  I prefer consciously myself, because understanding really adds to the enjoyment! So the uniqueness of photography as a creative medium is defined, first by  the power of visual dominance, and second by the fleeting ephemeral character of exposure.

A very striking “MSN must see” picture from July that of a lavender praying mantis camouflaged on a lavender orchid from the Borneo rain forest of Malaysia by Thomas Marent of Minden Pictures/Solent News and Photo Agency.   You might be tempted to label this as “lavender death,” for such it would be for any poor, unwitting insect victim.  But not too fast.  When I was in graduate school, I took a wonderful course in the Neurobiology of Behavior given by the late great Thomas Eisner (1929-2011), Jacob Gould Schurman Professor of Chemical Ecology at Cornell University.  Eisner gave  brilliant lectures in which he pointed out that the color wheel of insects is quite different than our red-green-blue wheel.  They don’t see red, but they do see much more in the violet and ultraviolet.  Flowers tend to provide nice clearly visible little landing pads for pollinating insects.  So why has the praying mantis evolved the matching lavender camouflage?  It is protective and meant to thwart mantis-eating birds.  Oh, and beyond this little lesson in physiological optics, it is a beautiful photograph, albeit a bit scary!

In the twentieth century, street photography came to be defined by pioneers in the genre like New York photographer Bruce Davidson (b. 1933).  Davidson has been a photographer for Magnum since 1958 and he has produced several gritty and highly significant both photographically and socio-historically, photodocumentaries of the twentieth century. The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston recently acquired forty-three prints from his defining photoessay, “East 100th Street,” originally exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City in 1970.

These photographs capture life in what was characterized as one of the “worst neighborhoods” in NYC in the 1950’s.  Davidson began this large format project in 1967, returning day after day to the one block area of East 100th Street between First and Second Avenue in Manhattan’s East Harlem.  Early on in the project Davidson got the inevitable question from a woman on the street: “What are you doing here?” Davidson answered “I am taking pictures of the ghetto…” This he relates was followed by an awkward silence until the woman responded: “Well, what you call a ghetto, I call my home.”

And this is the very point of true street photography, isn’t it?  Davidson’s images epitomize the the media of fine silver gelatin printing.  He is a master.  But more importantly as you slowly walk around the intimate gallery in which the MFA has displayed them, your can not help but smile repeatedly.  These are people whose essential humanity rises above poverty and adversity. Their nobility is in the gestures, a hand touch here, a couple hugging or dancing in front of a jukebox, a mother and infant child, or a strong muscular man holding a little baby on his shoulders.  This was the meaning of East 100th Street.

The exhibit runs through September 8 at the MFA.

My read of “Pictures of the Week” yesterday was totally delightful.  Maybe it’s the glory of summer, but there were more than the one or two that really caught my eye this week.  This image from the “Festival of Colors” in Saint Petersburg, Russia was taken by Dmitry Lovetsky of the AP on July 13th and is, I think just glorious!  Isn’t it refreshing to just see young people just having fun?  And of course, there is that je ne sais quoi Age of Aquarius quality for my generation! 8<}

Yesterday, I was reading my news feed on Facebook and saw a video of a man on a beach being attacked and, sadly, eaten by orca, aka killer, whales.  My immediate comment was “OMG!”  However, then I got to thinking.  Is this real?

Over the years I have read conflicting reports as to whether or not killer whales will actually attack humans in the wild.  I emphasize the term wild since we know of the recent tragic death of a trainer at Sea World, and there is a controversy now about whether these beautiful giant creatures should really be confined to performing circus acts for people in confined aquaria.  What always haunts me is Herbert George Ponting’s description of orcas trying to tip him into the water, while he was photographing on an ice flow in the Antarctic.

The video in question was not amusing.  It purports to show a fellow human being’s untimely and terrible death.  The good news it is a fraud.  Cleverly created (falling under the current definition of Photoshopped, I guess), it is actually advertising footage for “La Sirena,” a retail chain in the Dominican Republic. La Sirena has an advertising character for it’s back to school promotion called “The Lucky Pencil,” and the footage ends with the words: “No todos los lapices dan suerte solo el lapiz la suerte de La Sirena” (Not all pencils give you luck, just the pencil “La Suerte” from la Sirena).

A reader sent me a link to a “The Slate” review of Beth Yarnelle Edwards’ portfolio “Suburban Dreams.”  Actually, I recommend that you visit her website, as well, since there are lots more images than in “The Slate” article.  Well, I have to say that this work is fascinating.  The term “Suburban Dreams” immediately conjures up two mental images: the first is the movie “The Stepford Wives,” and the second is a quote that rings in my head from Sylvia Plath’s “The Bell Jar.” I am shocked to find that at some point I disposed of my copy.  Thank, God, for the internet!

“They had a big, rambling house up the street from us, set behind a morbid facade of pine trees, and surrounded by scooters, tricycles, doll carriages, toy fire trucks, baseball bats, badminton nets, croquet wickets, hamster cages and cockerspaniel puppies – the whole sprawling paraphernalia of suburban childhood.”

Edwards’ goal was to create pseudo candid images.  She observes people that she knows in their homes and other spaces, watches their lives, and when a moment or expression grabs her, she asks them to freeze.  The effect is vivid; the subjects seem almost manikin props or people caught like deer in the headlights.  The pictures immediately remind me of the work of Joel Myerowitz, whose posed photographs often look like candids.  In particular there is “An Afternoon on the Beach, 1983,” a seemingly innocuous image until you look closely and realize that the same people appear several times in the image.

Consider Ms. Edwards’ image “Lorraine.”  What are we to make of this?  It seems more than a picture of a woman on a bed.  There is a story.  We see the crucifixes on the wall, the two telephones on the nightstand, the empty bed and the sad look of the woman on the bed.  Is she waiting for someone?  Is she worried?  Is someone gone or worse passed on?  There is huge pathos here, all captured in a simple “image.”

If you go to her HOLLAND Portfolio and then look at image 5 “Josien.”  Again this seems very innocuous.  But you wonder what is the content of the letter?  I made the immediate association, maybe it’s the Holland aspect of the portfolio, with Jan Vermeer’s “The Love Letter, 1666.”

There is also the wonderful picture (number 3 in the Holland Portfolio) of little Friedo racing down a long white hallway on a scooter.  This is one of those great recurrent mythic themes, the long passageway of birth, moving towards the light, or perhaps it is the rebirth that some primitive cultures create as a rite of liminal passage,  It shows the great joy of youthful motion and is symbolic as much as it is literal.

I have spent a lot of time studying and restudying Beth Yarnelle Edwards’ photographs.  Perhaps this is the greatest compliment that I can pay her.  They are fascinating and beautiful.  And I think that they teach us that complaining that you have nothing to photograph is really only an admission of lack of imagination.  Ms. Edwards has done a wonderful job of weaving complex stories out of seemingly mundane situations.

We recently discussed how the telegraph network really represented the world’s first internet, allowing rapid worldwide communication and the transfer of images.  This past Tuesday marked a critical milestone, the closing of the Indian Telegraph Service after 153 years in operation.  More profoundly, it was the last major telegraph system in the world to shut its doors, making its silencing truly the end of a world era.  This service has been referred to as “Ghandi’s email or internet.”  It was the pulpit from which he broadcast to the world the case for Indian independence from Great Britain.  At its peak in 1985 the service sent 600,000 telegrams a day across India.  It had 45,000 telegraph offices. At the time of its closing the message volume had dwindled to a mere 5,000 a day and the number of offices to seventy-five.

Still we may reflect on the way in which technologies evolve, reach their zenith, and then decline only to be consumed and replaced by something new and better.  There are the long-lived, truly world-defining technologies like the telegraph, the telephone, and the internet, and there are transitional technologies like the eight track tape and the analogue cell phone that are here today and rapidly evolve to something better.

Of course, the word now is “rapidly.”  Technology changes our lives so quickly today that we are continuously in danger of becoming technical dinosaurs and the subject of ridicule by our children – the very children that must,  in the course of time, truly inherit the Earth.

Figure 1 – Photograph of the great British polyglot, explorer, and Arabist, Sir Richard F. Burton, who said: “Starting in a hollowed log of wood — some thousand miles up a river, with an infinitesimal prospect of returning! I ask myself ‘Why?’ and the only echo is ‘damned fool!… the Devil drives’,” from Wikimedia Commons and in the public domain.

We have discussed the early years of photography enough times now: the photographers, their portfolios, the innovations, and the ways in which they changed the world that one cannot help but notice that there is a certain appeal, a particular seduction, to the nineteenth century.  What is this?  Is it justified?

From 1978 – 1981, I had the privilege of being trained by one of the great modern biophysicists, Michael Edidin, at the Johns Hopkins University.  From Michael I learned many important lessons: the proper pronounciation of the word “dissection,” the perfection of scientific reductionism, the quest for passion in science, and not to take myself too seriously.  Michael and I share many common interests and have been lifelong friends.  Not the least of these interests, lay in an understanding that when you needed to abstract yourself from a scientific problem, when you needed to divert your mind so that you could focus, then the best way was to retreat to The Eisenhower Library and bathe yourself in the light of the nineteenth century.

Naysayers will laugh at this love of that century.  They will point to the tragedy of slavery in the nineteenth century, of crushing poverty, child labor, and to what was in essence the bondage of women.  You have only to read “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” “Oliver Twist,”  “David Copperfield,” and “Tess of the d’Ubervilles” or “Anna Karenina,” to know of these tragedies and to recognize the fact that nineteenth century intellectuals and the middle class were concerned and troubled by them.  For us, in our time, the tragedy is not what happened a century and a half ago, but what happens today.  The mark of Cain that we bear is twenty-first century slavery, modern poverty, present day child labor, and the current bondage of women.  The true tragedy lies not in the terrible brutal slaughter of the American Civil War but that we have done it again and again in the intervening 150 years.  Genocide is not a bad memory but a modern day reality.

Figure 2 – Photograph of Sir Thomas H. Huxley , who said: “Sit down before fact as a little child, be prepared to give up every preconceived notion… or you shall learn nothing.” Photograph by W & D Downey, c 1888-1890, from the Wikimedia Commons and in the public domain.

Still we may ask: what is this “retreat into the nineteenth century?”  In science and the intellectual realm the nineteenth century was the time of the great polymaths and generalists.  Through intense mental labor a man could become expert in a broad science like physics and biology as opposed to being, as we are today in science, so specialized that we become myopic in our understanding.  It was the time of great all-encompassing and synthetic science.  A man like Darwin could travel the world, take it all in, and understand.   The nineteenth century was crowded with such minds, minds working in laboratories, toiling in libraries, exploring the unknown world, and innovating in industry.  Morse dreamed of instantaneous communication across and between continents.  In our internet we are the heirs of Morse’s dream.  Daguerre and Niépce  dreamed of capturing light on a metal plate. Today we may still marvel at their faces captured in silver.  They dreamed so many dreams that are today reality.  And I think significantly  that they were ultimately not fearful men and women. They were brave or secure enough to shatter forever the religious dogmas that had enslaved humanity for two millennia.

We “retreat into the nineteenth century,” taking a few moments to reflect on how they worked and the clarity of their vision.  Then we return to the accelerated pace of our own world, hell bent to catch the singularity.  Thus, renewed we may once more dream and create as they did.

Well if you’re looking for true natural fireworks, nothing is going to beat this year’s  eruption of Popocatepetl in Mexico.  Ever since I studied Spanish in high school I thought that Popocatepetl was such a cool word.  This picture by photographer Pablo Spencer for AP/Getty Images taken on the Fourth of July is truly spectacular.  It looks like a color plate from some nineteenth century geology book, or perhaps  a cover illustration for the latest edition of Susan Sontag’s “The Volcano Lover.”

I’ve got to wonder how exactly this image was taken.  Having a dynamic range that goes from stars to lava fire is quite an accomplishment.  And note also, that there’s not a hint of star trails, well maybe just a hint.  I am thinking that perhaps this was done with high dynamic range (HDR) photography.  In any event, the effect is stunning and primordial!