RE: [Leica] Suzy Q, again

[Paul Chefurka <Paul_Chefurka@pmc-sierra.com>]

>-----Original Message-----
>From: Peterson Arthur G NSSC [mailto:PetersonAG@NAVSEA.NAVY.MIL]
>Sent: Tuesday, September 26, 2000 4:16 PM
>To: 'leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us'
>Subject: RE: [Leica] Suzy Q, again
>
>I should think he was "snipping a lot of context"---like the 
>whole rest of
>her book.  But I'd suggest that these thoughts are not "facile," and so
>rather than seize upon ways in which we may see them as "dismissive and
>contemptuous" or even "enraging," we should do better to give 
>Ms. Sontag the
>benefit of the doubt and to consider ways in which what she 
>took the trouble
>to write might make some perceptive sense (regardless of 
>whether we come to
>agree with it).
>
>:-)
>
>Art Peterson
>

OK Art, let's take a look at them, then - as presented, suspended in a void.

>"There is an agression implicit in every use of the Camera." 

That thought echoes Mackinnon and Dworkin's assertion that "every act of sex
is an act of rape".  I just don't buy the idea that taking copy pictures of
a newspaper (to set up a convenient strawman) is an act of aggression.
Aggression against whom?  The newspaper?  Myself?  So, if not every use of
the camera is an act of agression, then the assertion above is false.

>"Recently, photography has become almost as widely practiced 
>an amusement as sex and dancing..." 

So what?  People like taking pictures.  There doesn't seem to be a point
here.  And I'd like to see some numbers to back up the assertion.

>"A way of certifying experience, taking photographs is also a 
>way of refusing 
>it-- by limiting experience to a search for the photogenic, by 
>converting 
>experience into an image, a souvenir."

I have two problems with this one.  first, she doesn't define what kinds of
photography she means when she says "taking pictures".  There are all kinds
of photography for which the idea that they are a refusal to experience is
simply absurd.  While I have seen evidence that for a few people
photographing a scene replaces experiencing it ("It's the Sistine Chapel,
dear - videotape the ceiling and we'll look at it back home", for most
people photographing is a method of fixing the experience both in their
minds and on a more permanent medium.  Whether that counts as "certifying" I
don't know, but it sure doesn't amount to "refusal" in my book.

>"it would not be wrong to speak of people having a ' compulsion' to 
>photograph: to turn experience itself into a way of seeing."

People?  What people?  Everybody?  Dedicated photographers? Uncle Joe and
Aunt Hattie?  My folks just went on a 6-week trip to Ukraine and Austria.
They shot three rolls of film in that time.  Hardly compulsive, and I think
they're more typical of than not.  Now Winogrand - yes, he was compulsive.
But he was hardly representative of "people".

>"Needing to have reality confirmed and experienced enhanced by 
>photographs is 
>an aesthetic consumerism to which everyone is now adicted." 

Here I take issue with the judgement inherent in her terminology.  I would
agree that photographs can confirm reality and enhance experience.  But her
use of the words "needing" and "addicted" means she is judging the mental
and emotional state of people.  In order to even start thinking about such
an outlandish notion, I'd need to see some evidence that this need and
addiction is anything but a figment of her febrile imagination.

There - a comment on each point.  It would have been easier just to type
"Bullshit", because that's what each of those comments really means.

Paul