On 10/28/10 6:50 AM, Damian Sutton wrote:
> Sorry Mike, but I feel bound to take this up, as I feel it gets to very cor=
> e of the problem that visual studies (film, media, photography studies) has=
>   with notions of transparency.
>
> There simply isn=92t, and has never been, a photographic image which is =93=
> unretouched and unprocessed=94. This is firstly by virtue of the fact that =
>   the photographic image itself is a translation or encoding of the material=
> , even at its most basic chemical or digital level, and that code has to ha=
> ve a system in order to be made intelligible. This encoding relies upon pre=
> set parameters which are defined by the culture which discovered or invente=
> d photography, and which has put it to use  =96 firstly to be able to judge=
>   the success of the process, and then its intellectual value.
Not sure what you mean by encoding. There is a many-to-one 
systematically mechanical chemical/optical values from the source to the 
film. It is true that different films will have different mappings (e.g. 
high or low contrast) and that the optical characteristics of the lens 
used would also affect the geometry of the mapping. Not sure how much 
choice there was about the first: just getting the physics and chemistry 
in place was hard enough. I doubt, for example, that Talbot was making a 
cultural choice for some of the low contrast images he got. In any 
event, transparency isn't affected by such variables, whether chosen or 
imposed by technological factors because once the initial parameters of 
the image the causal relation to the source remains unmediated by human 
intentionality.

The choices -- of film, framing, exposure, etc. -- themselves are of 
course intentional but, on my way of dealing with this (not sure of 
Walton's), this is handled by the counterfactuals. In a way unlike any 
non-highly-systematic handmade image the photographer generated 
depiction would be identical to an image (say of Obama) generated 
generated by non-intentionally by a camera somehow non-intentionally set 
to the same parameters (and aimed identically, etc.). Compare this to a 
case where there is an explosion in a paint factory and by an amazing 
coincidence a canvas gets covered with a perfect copy of a 
representational painting of Obama. In the case of the accidental 
photograph it would still represent Obama in a way analogous to the 
fossil's still representing the animal that was causally implicated in 
its production; but because Obama played no causal role, mechanical or 
intentionally-mediated, in the painting it is in fact not a 
representation of Obama (although I guess a secondary intentional act 
could appropriate it to have such a function).

True that early pictorialist photographers adopted stylistic conventions 
-- chiaroscuro lighting, soft focus, etc. -- that mimicked (not very 
well: the sort of soft focus you get from a camera lens or by kicking 
the tripod seems specifically photographic rather than painterly) but 
those include matters of parameter choosing of the sort mentioned above. 
The transparency claim does not suggest that produced photographs are 
impersonal. About ten years ago I gave a paper at a little conference on 
philosophy and photography in Newfoundland organized by Scott Walden 
that included Walton, Lopes and others in that tradition and found that 
the local photographic community were livid because they interpreted the 
transparency claim as suggesting that photography left no room for 
creativity. It was hard to convince them that there was no such 
implication. Whether the image is left circular or cropped by film or 
sensor into a rectangle, the causal mapping of physical values remains a 
physical process rather than application of a human mediated code 
(though a systematic coding procedure applied consistently enough could 
be as much a reliable information conduit as a photograph even if, 
because of recognizability issues, it ceased to be depictive. Along with 
fossils you might think of photographs as akin to gas guages, 
altimeters, the sort of information conveyors that Dretske discusses.

I wonder whether some assumption of the conventionality of depictive 
images is at play here? But hey, pigeons are said to be able to 
recognize some images and I don't think that they master any pictorial 
conventions. Not denying that there aren't conventional stylistic 
variants in depiction just that they need to work within the parameters 
established by the brain's recognitional capacities. Bring a kid around 
a very encyclopedic museum and she'll pick on what stuff is depicted 
without having to master a new convention in every room. But that's a 
whole other can of worms.

j
> Photography was a new medium like any other; it was defined by, rather than=
>   adopted, the desires of its host culture. I say defined because I disagree=
>   with Bolter/Grusin on this. Hence early photography was judged by rules of=
>   composition, framing, selection, detail and practical use developed around=
>   the cameo portrait, Rembrandt and Corot (or possibly Lorraine). We still h=
> ave some of those today with the rectangular frame in film and photography =
> (the real image is, of course, circular, as were the first Kodak images), a=
> mongst other cultural parameters drawn from the wider visual, non-photograp=
> hic arts. So even a =93rotten disposable camera=94 is culturally shaped, ev=
> en if that cultural inscription seems outwardly to be feint or remote.  Of =
> course, this inscription continues with =93smile-finder=94 software and ons=
> creen guides to taking good (i.e. Cultural acceptable) pictures. What we mi=
> ght ordinarily see as a marker of plain or unprocessed may actually be the =
> product of a complex transhistorical process of inscription onto the materi=
> al of the camera and other apparatus. Not least because the marker is just =
> that =96 a signifier.
>
> Historically, since the 1800s there is almost no precedent for a photograph=
> ic process being anything other than a tool for the picturesque (I say almo=
> st because some examples exist of Talbot and others using photography for i=
> nventory, though this was likely considered after the practicality of the p=
> rocess was assured =96 it was nevertheless desired as an automatic method o=
> f inscribing the selectivity of the artist=92s eye). Even more recent proce=
> sses which are used only for measurement in the natural sciences, and are n=
> ot expected to have an image appreciable by the public at large, still requ=
> ire a system within which they become intelligible and usable.
>
> So what we are really dealing with, I think, is how the practical use of te=
> rms such as =93transparency=94, =93actual=94, =93record=94 (or, dare I say =
> it, the real), is affected by this. For example we might argue that common =
> sense suggests that the cultural determinants of photography and the pictur=
> esque are so feint that no one would realistically connect the disposable c=
> amera with the =93picturesque=94 anyway. Most people would accept a simple =
> snapshot to be =93real=94, even if this is really based on a principle of =
> =93naivety=94, rather than objectivity. So we can create a comfortable area=
>   within which we can discuss, say, the rhetoric of documentary filmmaking, =
> or the appearance of the real in digital cinema.
>
> However, when we are discussing the ontological or phenomenological I don=
> =92t think we are in such a safe place at all. No matter how groundbreaking=
>   or influential Walton=92s article is (and I think it is great), it relies =
> upon the safe place of discourse to try to explain the unsafe universal in =
> photography. This is an interesting point in relation to John=92s: I think =
> the incisive quality of Chuck Close=92s work is not that it demonstrates th=
> at transparency exists no matter how much physical labour is involved in th=
> e transcription (Close methodically transcribes the photograph onto the can=
> vas), but that there is no such thing as transparency =96 Close=92s overt p=
> hysical labour points to the whole process of photography is physical encod=
> ing, no matter how light or easy the labour appears to be. The same can be =
> said for some paintings by Richter.
>
> For those following this thread, you can see more about Close at the Housto=
> n site: http://www.chuckclose.coe.uh.edu/life/index.html. Walton was writin=
> g about his photo-realistic transcriptions of the 1960s and 1970s, particul=
> arly his self-portrait (1967-68).
>
> Oh balls, this is really long now, you wanted a rant, didn=92t you?
>
> Best
> Damian
>
> On 28/10/2010 04:44, "Frank, Michael"<[log in to unmask]>  wrote:
>
> if i might intrude here =96 i suspect the issue at stake is the degree to w=
> hich an object [any object] is a record of some actual historical event or =
> person . . . it=92s the quality of the object as evidence that matters most=
>   . . . for this reason photographs =96 at least entirely unretouched and un=
> processed photographs =96 are ontologically transparent, in that you can se=
> e through them to some other thing that of which they are a record  . . . a=
> nd this is true, no matter the visual quality of the photograph
>
> put it differently:  a brilliant oil portrait of X might show you exactly w=
> hat X looked like, but you could only know that if you already knew what X =
> looked like; otherwise you=92d have no way of knowing whether the portrait =
> was accurate . . . OTOH even a rotten disposal camera shot of X would provi=
> de real evidence of what X looked like; it would be visually poor but what =
> it did reveal would have an ontological transparency completely unavailable=
>   to the painting
>
> m
>
>
> From: Film-Philosophy [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of =
> Dan Barnett
> Sent: Wednesday, October 27, 2010 11:04 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: FILM-PHILOSOPHY Digest - 27 Oct 2010 to 28 Oct 2010 - Special =
> issue (#2010-295)
>
> John writes:
> Transparency here really doesn't have anything to do with perceiving the
> screen/frame as phenomenal window or to any kind of looking-like
> relationship between image and object (except maybe to the extent some
> notion of looking-like might be involved in being a picture at all).
>
>
>
>
> Sorry John, I just don't get it. What exactly do you (Walton) mean when you=
>   claim that the transparency is ontological?
>
> The causal relationship with the sensor isn't really that different than
> the relationship with film (though maybe the use of Bayer arrays makes
> digi images that use them a bit harder to describe). I'd think that
> post=3Dprocessing of selections, whether through analog dodging and
> burning or digital curve adjustments the like, compromises transparency,
> though I don't think global adjustments do (for the same reason that
> exposure, framing, etc. do not). Actually I think Walton has claimed
> that mechanical systematic painting procedures, somewhat like that used
> by Chuck Close, would maintain transparency.
>
>
>
>
> Here I just simply disagree. Any pixel can be replaced and everybody knows =
> it. It's not a matter of complexity of description, it's a matter of the fu=
> ndamental nature of the image.
> Cultural conventions change. And the conventions around the digital image h=
> ave made the transparency suspect.
> db
>
>
>
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>
> --
> Dr Damian Sutton
> Reader in Photography
>
> Department of Art and Design
> School of Arts and Education
> Middlesex University
> Cat Hill Campus
> Chase Side
> Barnet, Herts.
> EN4 8HT
>
> Tel. (0)208 411 6827
> Homepage: http://damiansutton.wordpress.com
>
> *
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