Photography as Material Medium Photography as Material Act

John Tagg: Photography as Material Medium Is the materiality of the apparatus a difference than makes a difference? Is the materiality of the object a difference that makes a difference?

"In photographic history, there is no preparatory Ur-form," no gradual evolution, no apparent childhood, no incremental progression (Marien 1, 2).

First daguerreotype (Daguerre). First daguerreotype including people. Daguerreotype ( s) a single unique (nonreproducible) image on a copper plate with a polished silver coating that yields, even by twenty- first century standards, an amazingly clear and detailed image.

Wet plate cameraPrint/wet plate negative. Collodion (Wet Plate) Process: 1860s-1870s The process used a glass plate coated with collodion, a sticky solution that when combined with a solution of silver nitrate became light sensitive. The plate was dipped in silver nitrate just before exposure and then immediately developed, a process that required rapid access to a darkroom. Portable darkroom

Andre Adolphe-Eugene Disderi Eight carte de visite portraits of an actress [Goddess William Tell], ca 1860 Carte de visite, uncut sheet

Dry Plate Process: 1880s-1960s Hearalded in the photographic press as "one of the most noteworthy epochs in the history of photography" (qtd. in Newhall 124).

"You press the button - we do the rest." Kodak (1888) The Birth of Snapshot Photography

Vilem Flusser: Photography as Material Act Is the experience—the act—of taking a photograph a difference that makes a difference?

Three Aspects of Photography as Material Act Flusser aims to understand the act of photographing as it unfolds at a social event (287), and he does this by reflecting on the “gesture” of photographing (also translated as the gesture of photography.) Ultimately he zeroes in on three “aspects”: A first aspect is the search for a place, a position from which to observe the situation. A second aspect is the manipulating of the situation, adapting it to the chosen position. The third aspect concerns critical distance that makes it possible to see the success or failure of this adaptation. 286

First Aspect: The Search for Position Before he can look for a good position, the photographer must therefore have a goal so that he can perceive the situation. Of course it can be seen from his gestures that this view is theoretical, for in the course of his search he can change his goal at any moment. He sets out to photograph the smoke rising from the pipe, and as he is looking for a suitable angle, is surprised by the face of the smoker. In fact there is a double dialectic in play: first between goal and situation and then among the various perspectives on the situation. The gesture of the photographer shows the tension between these intervening dialectics. In other words, the gesture of photographing is a movement in search of a position that reveals both an internal and an external tension driving the search forward: this gesture is the movement of doubt. To observe the photographer’s gesture with this in mind is to watch the unfolding of methodical doubt.

Summation: The Search for Position For the present purposes it is enough to say that we are concerned with a series of theoretical decisions in relation to the test situation, that the situation is therefore a movement of methodical doubt, and that its structure is determined as much by the observed situation as by the apparatus as by the photographer, so that any separation of the named factors must be ruled out. We can add that it is about a movement of a freedom, for the gesture is a series of decisions that occur not in spite of, but because of the determining forces that are in play. 289

Aspect Two: Manipulation Step One: Separate photography from objectivity: In order to examine the second aspect – manipulation – we need to forget any objective knowledge we may have regarding the act of photographing.... Such an objective description, which could be called a ‘scientific observation’, reduces the gesture of photographing to a laboratory operation. It must be forgotten, not because it’s ‘wrong’ but because it does not include what we see in the gesture. Step Two: Examine the gesture of photographing as a series of choices, or manipulations “to observe a situation is to manipulate it, or to put it another way, observation changes the observed phenomenon It is equally the case that to observe a situation is to be changed by it. Observation changes the observer.... The photographer cannot help manipulating the situation. His very presence is a manipulation. And he cannot avoid being affected by the situation, he is changed by simply being there. The objectivity of an image (an idea) can only ever be the result of manipulation (observation) of one situation or another.

Third Aspect: Self-Criticism (Reflection) Reflection therefore forms part of the photographer’s search and his manipulation. It is a search for himself and a manipulation of himself. In fact the search for a position belongs to the search for himself and the manipulation of the situation to the manipulation of self. And vice versa. Two forms of reflection: 1.Reflection of the future: The camera has a mirror, and when the photographer looks into it, he sees how his picture might be. He sees possible pictures and as he looks in this futurological way he chooses his own picture from those available to him. He rejects all the possible pictures except this one and thereby condemns all the other possible pictures, except this one, to the realm of lost virtualities. In this way the gesture of photographing permits us to see, concretely, how choice functions as a projection into the future. This gesture is an example of the dynamic of freedom. For it shows that criticism (the use of standards to measure possibilities) embodies this dynamic of freedom. 291

2. Reflection of self In another meaning, ‘reflection’ is a mirror for looking at ourselves as we make decisions. I don’t know whether there are cameras with such mirrors, but it would be easy to build them, for some of the photographer’s movements give an impression that he is looking at himself in such a mirror. Using this mirror (whether material or immaterial) he sees himself photographing. In this way he draws himself into the situation. 292 So our problem is not continuous reflection; it is about deciding when to stop reflecting so as to be able to switch over to action. Although we know the void (‘nothingness’), we examine it not for itself, but only to be able to photograph better. For us reflection is a strategy and not surrender of self. The moment the photographer stops looking into the reflecting mirror (whether real or imaginary) is the moment that will determine his picture. If he stops too early the picture will be superficial. If he stops too late, the picture will be confused and uninteresting. It will be penetrating and revealing if the photographer has chosen a good moment to stop reflecting. Reflection therefore forms part of the photographer’s search and his manipulation. It is a search for himself and a manipulation of himself. 292

To sum up, the observations stated here are sufficient to formulate those questions about photography that reach the heart of the problem: photography as a gesture of seeing, of ‘theoria’. 293