Discussion - Is Context Important?

[KenC]

There seems to be a theme here, expressed at least to some extent by many who've posted here, that an image should stand on its own and one that evokes more feeling or reaction with a title or text or other supplied context (aside from what the viewer brings - cultural symbolism, etc.) is somehow a lesser image. I have two problems with this: (1) there is always a context supplied with the photo - whose photo it is, how it is presented or shown, etc. (I know some who've commented on here have mentioned this), and (2) sez who??? - any one of us can have an opinion on this, but what difference does it make? If someone defines what a good image is, and they create one that does not fit their own definition, are they then obliged to trash it? If they see an image made by someone else that does not fit their definition, yet their initial response to it is positive, do they have to pretend they don't like it to be self-consistent?

 

[Derrel]

I just wanted to pop back in and add a quick comment about my earlier statement about images standing on their own, etc.

A good image can stand on its own. A good image with a good caption can take flight. A good image with a great caption can soar!

Anyway, just wanted to toss that thought into the mix.

 

[amolitor]

(2) sez who??? - any one of us can have an opinion on this, but what difference does it make?

Sure, anyone can have an opinion, all I'm really doing is expressing mine. There are loads of different theories to choose from, if you don't feel like making up your own. I find the others to lead to unsatisfying consequences (well, to be exact, to more unsatisfying consequences than my take on it does, there's unsatisfying stuff down every path it seems)

If someone defines what a good image is, and they create one that does not fit their own definition, are they then obliged to trash it?

Good lord I hope not!

If they see an image made by someone else that does not fit their definition, yet their initial response to it is positive, do they have to pretend they don't like it to be self-consistent?

There's a difference between "I like it" and "I think it's good". One of the reasons my approach is so appealing to me is that when I like something, I can just like it. If I *react* to something in an interesting way, and if I suspect that other people will, generally, tend to *react* to it in a similar interesting way, then I say "I think it's good". There's no judgement anywhere in here about whether something should be trashed or not. Why do I use the word "good" here, when I clearly mean "evocative"? Well, I happen to think that the point of art is to BE evocative. So, all I really mean when I say a photograph is "good" is that I think it's successful as art, it creates (I think) reactions in viewers which are interesting (to the viewer).

 

[jaicatalano]

You make a very good point(s). Should we care? It depends on those that are presenting their work and what they look to get out of it. There are only a select group on here that actually care. Even when I read harsh comments you can feel the respect for their craft or passionate hobby.

 

[skieur]

The statement, "a good image will stand on its own,".

Yes, and the reverse of that is "a poor image needs a context."

I agree completely.

skieur

 

[unpopular]

**** you, skieur, and the modern horse you rode in on!

seriously though, I completely disagree with this statement.

 

[skieur]

A typical "amateur" response. My horse may not be modern but it is much more "professional" and more "experienced" by decades than yours.
Seriously your view would not be taken seriously by any of the photographers that I work with or associate with.

skieur

 

[bratkinson]

"Beauty is in the eye of the beholder".

We've all heard this at least a million times. What constitutes a good picture to me likely isn't a good picture from your perspective. Hey, different strokes for different folks.

In terms of context of a picture, in my estimation, pictures have any of a number of "purposes" in my book. Recording a memory, such as a wedding, or a vacation to Timbuktu, or whatever. Some of these can be shot with a very 'sentimental' mood...lighting for example, or the bride looking at a picture of her deceased grandmother, etc.

Some images are there to record posterity...photojournalism, if you will. Think of the Berlin Wall toppling, or the final "farewell wave" of departing president Richard M Nixon.

Other types of images are to provoke us, either favorably or unfavorably. How many of us remember like it was last week seeing little John-John Kennedy saluting his fathers casket as it went down the street? Or the soldiers putting the US flag atop Mt Suribachi? Or the firemen putting the flag atop the ruins of the World Trade Center? Those are once in a career photographs of one in a million photographers.

And then there are context situations that I am intentionally trying to 'relay' or 'capture' in the photo that others clearly see it. One of my favorite shots is one I took in downtown Chicago on a summer day last year with a crowd of 30 or so pedestrians waiting for the WALK light with 4 or 5 big, orange Interstate highway DETOUR signs on a pole to their immediate right. There was also zero traffic on either street at the intersection. The contrasting colors and contrasting 'statement' of the picture still strike me. Do I like it? Yes. Do you? I really don't care. As mentioned above by others...what I like is what I like. What you like is what you like. There may be concurrence, but certainly not on everything.

 

[amolitor]

The argument that not everyone likes everything, so who cares if you don't like my work is a bit of a cop-out.

Work that you do for yourself, great, love it, enjoy it. I don't have any interest in taking that away from anyone. If I don't like a piece of your work, who cares? I'm just one guy.

If nobody likes a piece, or has any sort of interesting reaction to it, then it's simply not very good. You are welcome to love it, there's nothing wrong with that. Perhaps it evokes a cherished memory for you, maybe you love it because you made it. That's all fine. It's still not very "good".

 

[manaheim]

I think I feel like it's worth parsing this a little further, having re-read the OP.

There's levels or degrees of context. It would be absurd to suppose that an alien being, with no exposure to human culture whatsoever, would "get" the greatest of our photographs, or indeed any of our art. So, there is at least the shared context that every human shares with every other human required. Beyond that there's degrees of literacy, which might reasonably be required to "get" a lot of art -- you have to have experienced some art somewhere, maybe read some books. Maybe you really need to be steeped in western european culture and its offshoots to get some thing. A "Christ Figure" to select the favorite symbol of all high school english teachers, is likely to be almost meaningless to some people walking this earth.

When I say that a good image should be capable of emotional power all by itself, I am probably, implicitly, assuming that it is being viewed by someone familiar with western european culture and its offshoots, someone who is socio-economically lower middle class or wealthier. The viewer, in broad strokes, I assume to be rather like me. What should NOT be necessary is image-specific context, like the name of the photographer, the date on which it was taken, details about the subject matter, and so forth.

Where one draws the line in "degrees of context" is pretty arbitrary. Allow me, if you will, to further re-write my notion of a good image:

"A good image should be capable of emotional, evocative, power in many of those people who view it if they have access to some rough approximation of the surrounding cultural milieu."

That's a hell of a mouthful, innit? This is a subject that's interesting to me, and I want to be precise. Sorry about that.

Someone mark a calendar. I agree with every word here.

I was going to respond to this (awesome!) thread with some words of my own, but amoliter has literally said everything I wanted to say.

 

[pgriz]

I started the thread because in a number of discussions of images, the context of the image changed perceptions of what that (or those) image(s) were about. As many posters noted, a good image "should" stand on its own. And for many images (landscape, macro, portraiture, wildlife, abstract) which deal with primarily the visual aspects, that is generally sufficient. But when it comes to images of situations or people, the context often provides a fuller picture of what is going on. Images of events, groups, and some street photography, usually benefit from us knowing the background (context) to the images. Does it diminish the image if we don't know the context? Not necessarily - but it helps to interpret what we are seeing.

Amolitor very perceptively links our understanding of images to the cultural milieu within which we are immersed, and of which we are for the most part unaware. Part of our cultural baggage is reliance on symbols as shortcuts to more complex ideas. But this reliance is a double-edged sword that cuts both ways - it allows quick processing of ideas and meaning, and it also obscures the meaning behind the symbols. Propaganda relies on the power of symbols to arouse emotion and prevent examination of the underlying premises. Marketing imagery taps deeply into the cultural symbology to push the buttons that influence our behaviour. Same goes for political imagery. Knowing the context to the images serves as a reality check on what we are seeing - do we trust the view that the photographer (or imagemaker) is trying to get us to accept?

Posters also discussed the characteristics that affect our perception of the "goodness" of an image. Knowing that an image was taken by a famous photographer, for instance, tends to skew the perception due to our reverence for authority figures (not always, and not for everyone, but it is there). Knowing the subjects also affects our feelings of the image since we transfer the feelings we have towards the subject(s) to the image (also known as mommy/daddy goggles). Incorporation of certain symbols has the effect of transferring the person's perception of those symbols to the image (as in images of flags, religious icons, symbols such as swastikas, certain brand names, etc.). Post-processing the images also has the effect of creating a different reality - which may be perfectly fine if the end result is essentially decorative, but may be very damaging if it distorts our perception of reality (think of doctored political images).

I do agree that a great image should be able to stand on its own. But there is often more to it than the image itself, and knowing the context allows us to verify if we (should) trust what we are seeing and what we are feeling.

 

[2WheelPhoto]

The statement, "a good image will stand on its own," is one of the most often-repeated half-truths in photography. And I say that NOT to be controversial, and NOT out of malice, but simply because it is a HALF-truth. The statement is almost a cliche, and it ignores a HUGE aspect of human behavior, and fails to address the entire issue of HOW "images" are actually presented, and how they are actually consumed.

I saw it on several "suchandsuchphotography" FB blogs, so it just has to be "full-truth"!?

 

[amolitor]

Great points, pgriz.

I tend to view photography as "art" and "not art" but I've been mulling over the fact that there's many purposes to a photograph.

A news photograph might be art as well (see Magnum) but its original intent is to illustrate a story. If it has meaning divorced from its content, that's probably just a happy accident, the entire raison d'etre of the image is to talk about its immediate context, all the stuff that's just outside the frame literally and figuratively. Fashion is arguably a bit like art in that it is usually trying for a pretty abstract evocation, but what it's evoking is something very specific, sales-oriented, and not generally "enlarging of one's humanity" or whatever it is we want art to do. Again, it could be art, but that would be a happy accident. And so on.

I need to mull these things over a bit, hopefully without vanishing down some rabbit hole of classifying photographs into 12987987 overlapping types.

 

[pgriz]

This discussion also intersects with a long-standing arguement in the arts community about whether to link the motives of the art-maker (painter, musician, choreographer, film-maker, etc.) to the art. Should the art piece be seen in isolation (as we argue that a great image should be seen), or should it be seen as a thread in the fabric of creation of the artist? Suppose, for instance, that you hear a piece of music, and you feel it is absolutely sublime and evokes tears of emotion in you. Then you find out that the music was composed by a mass murderer. Do you dissociate the creator from the creation? Some argue that the created piece now has its own existence, and should not be tainted by the notoriety of its creator. What if the inspiration for the music came from the dying screams of the murderer's victims? How do you react to the piece knowing that background?

This speaks to the reality that the world is much more messy and complicated than we would like it to be, and that moral and ethical judgements often mix with the esthetic ones. This also intersects with the commercial interests - how much importance do we place on the motives behind the creation of a beautiful art piece? If the art piece was created by a starving artist in some unheated loft, compared to one created to the pampered daughter of a billionaire, would knowing the source help or hinder our appreciation of the works? What if it was commissioned by an company infamous for committing acts of great environmental damage, trying to whitewash their reputation with the artistic community? Knowing about the genesis of the art piece (ie, the context within which it was created) seems as important to me as seeing the end result.

 

[amolitor]

Conceptual art, and similar theories that place the artist (process, intent, etc) more front and center are not things that appeal to me.

I get that important work has been done in these ways, frequently political or social commentary. I agree that it's.. a "thing".. and it might even be art. It's certainly not all of art, it's not art that I particularly like, and I find that these ideas lead to logical conclusions that I dislike. Sometimes the commentary that the piece makes is powerful and important. Sometimes desperately important. There are sticky question that arise quite quickly, though:

What happens when we lose the provenance of a piece? Does it lose it's art-ness? If I am illiterate, or visually impaired and cannot read the text next to the elephant dung nailed to the wall that tells me about the artist's intent, is the piece not "art" for me, but it is "art" for the sighted? These, and a million related questions boil up quickly, and I don't like my answers to most of them. The result seems to me pretty intellectually unpalatable.

Obviously there are people who are perfectly ok with it -- not everyone who loves Conceptual Art is a moron, surely many of them have asked themselves some of these questions (which are not subtle, at least some of the questions that arise are perfectly obvious). These people are evidently OK with the answers. Who am I to fault them?