Abstract Documentary Photos? For Real?

The image I found most engaging out of the current exhibition at the Center For Creative Photography, The Edge of Vision: Abstraction in Contemporary Photography, was Charles Lindsay's Carbon (Untitled). It appears at first to be a landscape, perhaps a moonscape, complete with greyscale mountains and celestial bodies in the sky above what seems to be a horizon. Then, at second glance, it appears microscopic, maybe skin particles or dust. Then, at last, I'm left feeling confused, finding no reference to scale or location, but somehow feeling a kind of familiarity, as if the image is of something I see daily. 


The image is black and white, but what it lacks in color it makes up for in texture. I dont recall a swatch of solid white or black, or any space void of hairish specs producing a rough texture. I feel like I could go hiking on the hill-like forms, and stand in awe at what apear to be spires. I feel isolated looking at it.
If this image can be considered a documentary photograph, it can only be documenting the creation of itself. My first impression is that, like a lot of contemporary artists, Lindsay is more concerned with the process of creating images than he is with the meaning the end product conveys to it's viewers. It could also be that Lindsay is commenting on, perhaps documenting, the macro and micro scales that humans are exposed to in modern times.


As to the process used to create this image I know only that it required Carbon emulsion and glass transparencies, and I think that a lot of experimentation was necessary to perfect it. I certainly don't see myself applying such a technique anytime soon. 


Truthfully, I found most of the work in the exhibit a little bit too conceptual. Photography for me is about the end image and it's effect, both on the viewer and on the creator. If I have to understand and value the creator's intent before being able to understand and value the image, then I feel cheated, as though the creator could have taken the picture of anything and instilled the meaning after the fact; I feel like a child too easily fooled by cheap magic tricks. That being said, in multimedia presentations there is a place for such abstract images. In cases where the context is implied through text or narration at the same time that the images are being digested by the viewer, concept oriented, abstract images can be useful and powerful. But in this particular exhibit I feel most of the images could not stand on their own, without further explanation.

Response Three: War Photographer

Last night I watched War Photographer, a film documenting the photographic techniques and methodology of renowned photographer James Nachtwey. I found his images striking and depressing, as necessarily dictated by his chosen subject: war-ravaged individuals, families and cities. But his method is certainly the only way to go about photographing such a subject. He is imbedded not as a journalist, but as a protestor, victim, and active participator in the conflicts he documents, and in being so immersed he is permitted by those involved to capture incredibly personal images.

To say his work, and I mean all of it, is 'emotional' would be a horrible understatement. It has to be, war is always emotional, but I feel that that is the essential part of all of his photos. Technically speaking the images are superb, flawless even, but what makes them exceptional war photos is the readily accessible dose of heavy, disturbing emotion that comes through to the viewer. Be it agony or distress, hatred or longing, it's usually quite obvious what the person is feeling, and what Nachtwey sought to capture by opening the shutter. Shooting in black and white 35mm film, usually with a shallow depth of field, helps to isolate the expressions of the subjects against the usually chaotic backgrounds of his war-tattered locations. 

While I find his ability to capture images of war in a respectful way astonishing, I know for a fact that I am incapable of doing so. There is absolutely no way I could be present during a battle, any battle, and not trade my camera for a firearm. I feel that while right and wrong are not always clearly distinguishable, degrees of right and wrong are, and were I in the streets surrounded by gunfire, the scale of injustice from my perspective would be tipped to one side or the other and thus my camera would become deadweight. Because I know this, and because I like breathing, I will never becoming a war photographer by choice.

Even though I never intend on doing specifically what he does, I feel there is a lot I can learn from James Nachtwey that would help me in any documentary photographic endeavor. In order to capture his images he is required to be friendly, honest and most importantly careful. By 'careful' I don't mean cautious for his own safety's sake, I mean he acts with great concern for all those involved. He approaches his subjects empathetically, taking nothing for granted, which I feel is not only the sole way to respectfully capture an image of someone who lives in spite of unspeakable hardship, but is the best way to capture an image of any event or individual. 

A Picture Requiring No Words Whatsoever

Project Progress

Here are a few short videos and a couple of photos I am presenting as preliminary studies for my final project. The videos as a whole each serve a different purpose than that of my project, but the clips used for them are material I would certainly use in accomplishing the final. I have yet to capture any audio worth presenting. The videos also have a very broad focus, encompassing climbs and activities that wont necessarily fit into my final project once I narrow it down. Again, these should be considered preliminary studies.

Jewel Thief from Dustin Payne on Vimeo.

Mt. Lemmon High Line, Wilderness of Rocks from Dustin Payne on Vimeo.

Project Proposals

For this Documentary Photo class most of the semester is going to be spent working on one long project. Here are two distinct proposals detailing how I may go about accomplishing this project.

Proposal One: New Climbs in the Old Pueblo

This project would involve interviews with and portraits of the most active of Tucson's rock climbers, meaning those who are either repeating hard older climbs or are establishing new routes and boulder problems. I would select around five climbers who are pushing the limits on rock around Tucson, interview them about their current projects, and photograph and record video of their attempts. Since some of the climbs are unclimbed and/or newly developed lines, while others are routes first climbed in the 1960's, there will be quite a bit of interesting back-story to every one of them.

While I'm hoping to create a multi-media presentation including audio and video of the interviews along side still photos and video of the climbs themselves, I also hope to create diptychs to represent each climber comprised of a portrait of them and an action shot of the climb they are working on completing.

I have photos already of some of some of these climbs and their climbers from previous sessions taken this last year, and some video as well. The series of portraits would be an entirely new endeavor and require the most work I think.

As far as gaining access for the interviews of each climber, I have the great opportunity of working at the rock climbing gym here in town as well as being a tucson climber for the last two or three years. Some of the climbers I know very well, some of them I climb with on the weekends. Others however, mostly the ones who never climb in the gym, I have never even spoken to and it will require some prying and pleading to be invited to accompany them on their climbing trips; and that is my greatest concern with this project. Cost for this project, aside from printing it, should be negligible.

I hope to get pictures videos and interviews about the following climbs

-Jewell Thief - Climbers: Ryan Theodore, Aaron Mike, Ian Evans

-No Climb for Old Men or Righteous Beast - Climber: Joe Kreidel

-Jailbreak - Climber: Joe Shiefman

-SLR - Climber: Clay Mansfield

-Any old project by - Climber: Eric Richard

Proposal Two: A Series of Tucson Ride-Alongs

This project would be an expose of the work involved in policing the streets of Tucson. I would shoot both stills and video for this multimedia project, and record extensive audio using my iPhone or tape recorder. I would accompany at least two different officers during different shifts and in different parts of the city, one in the southeast and one in central Tucson.

It's difficult to say how this project would turn out, as I have absolutely no idea what crimes would be encountered on each ride-along. And because in the case that a crime would require an investigation my photographs and other materials would be seized by law as evidence. In these cases I simply would not capture any media.

Obviously gaining permission to take a camera with my on a ride-along, and to do so multiple times will require some effort. Also, each ride-along would require 8 hours of my time, which may mean only four days of shooting throughout the semester, and thats assuming I'd be allowed to go on multiple.

The only research I have done into this project so far has been done at my work, Rocks and Ropes. A TPD officer named Nick and his wife have been climbing regularly there, affording me many a story and several invitations to join him on a ride-along. I have asked him about this project before and he seems to be excited about the idea, he also said he would get me in contact with some other officers who might be willing to escort me and my camera around the streets of Tucson.

Assignment One: Leaving On A Space Ship

Click here to go to my first project.

Film Response: Angela Singer's Importance

Just this morning I watched a movie called For Memory's Sake that I found kind of depressing. The film documented, in a short 30 minutes, the photographs of Angela Singer. Having no formal or technical education in the craft of photography, she taught her self how to expose film at a young age and continued taking photos throughout her life. Most, if not all of her subject matter is personal in nature; she takes photos of everyday occurrences, family gatherings, her son's gravestone, the slow death of her husband to pancreatic cancer. And according to her, most of her pictures were taken within 20 miles of her house. She photographs incessantly, daily, and does so simply for the sake of memory. She says in the film, "I don't go to the mailbox without my camera."

From my perspective this kind of cataloging of everyday images is exactly why point-and-shoot cameras were invented. For her purpose, of preserving the innumerable moments in her life, her method of photographing constantly is perfect. I however, don't share Angela Singer's therapeutic need to photograph everything I adore or appreciate. I write instead.

Unlike Angela Singer's daughter, who narrated and directed the film, I don't like to think about her photography as "a way of coping with domestic life." I like to think at least, that Singer was celebrating life, domestic or not, with every picture she took. To some extent we are all escapists, seeking that little bit of solace or retreat that enables us to cope with the rest of the day. But in the end I hope that photographs, especially the thousands that singer took memorialize her life, don't exist solely as a means of "coping."

The photos that Angela Singer took are important to her, that's why she took them. I think that curators and critics viewing them will naturally imbue meaning into them, most likely meaning which Singer herself never intended. The true significance of the photos is usually something only she, and possibly her immediate family can understand. While I admit this is not always the case, especially not so in the photos she took over the course of her husbands death, most of her photos lack an easily readable purpose. And I have to say, for example, I don't see the point in collecting pictures of every birthday cake she blows the candles out on.

In short, I don't think that the pictures are important outside of being Angela Singers personal archive. The importance of her photos is much greater to those who experienced the captured moments with her than it is to most of the public. Furthermore, people who don't know Singer, but who lived in the same town will find them more significant than any outsider who comes to see them. For me, here in Arizona they are not very significant.