Choose a passage from Calvino’s story. Briefly comment on it
19 thoughts on “Comments on “The Adventure of a photographer””
”The minute you start saying something, ‘Ah, how beautiful! We must photograph it!’ you are already close to the view of the person who thinks that everything that is not photographed is lost, as if it had never existed, and that therefore, in order really to live, you must photograph as much as you can, and to photograph as much as you can you must either live in the most photographable way possible, or else consider photographable every moment of your life. The first course leads to stupidity; the second to madness.”
The passage from “The Adventure of an Photographer” by Calvino tells us about a possible motive why we so obsessively are trying to capture life either through photography, novels, music or movies. We try to conserve our memories and the emotion associated with the memory. And why do we do that? Memory is a very hard thing to measure, what’s is a true memory? And how do we know that the memory and associated emotion will stay untouched in our brains? We don’t. And maybe that’s why we are finding different ways to challenge our brain’s plasticity.
Recently I read an interesting article ”Scientists Experiment With Reworking Memory in Mice” by Gautam Naik, The Wall Street Journal 2014/08/27. Following is an extract from the article.
”The researchers established that the “where” of a memory is encoded in cells found in a brain structure called the hippocampus, while the “emotion” linked to it —whether one feels good or bad about the place—is embedded in a brain area called the amygdala. The two parts of the brain are connected.
The MIT team wanted to see if it could change the association between the “where” of the memory and the “emotion” linked with it. To get there, they used a cutting-edge technique known as optogenetics, which uses light to control brain cells that have been genetically sensitized to it.
In the case of the mice, a fiber-optic cable was inserted via a tiny hole in the animal’s skull, allowing a laser beam to be fired through the wire to activate individual neurons in the brain.
They began by giving one set of male mice fearful memories (via a small electric shock to the foot) and by providing other mice with pleasurable memories (by allowing them to interact with female mice). By firing the laser into the mouse brain, the scientists could identify the specific cells that were activated when each of the two memories were formed.
That was followed by a “place-preference” test. A laser was fired to the mouse brain when the animal entered a designated area, which activated the previously identified brain cells. When this was done, the fear-conditioned mice moved away from the target zone, while the pleasure-conditioned mice lingered in that area longer because they recalled the positive memory.
The next day, the fear-conditioned mice were placed in a different area. There, they were allowed to interact with female mice, while the fear-associated memory cells were artificially stimulated with the laser. The scientists hoped that the pleasurable exposure to the female mice would rewire the males’ previously fear-conditioned circuits.
To test this, the male mice were returned to the original target zone. When the laser was again used to stimulate the neurons, they now lingered longer in the target zone. This indicated that their original fear-conditioned circuit had been changed to one associated with pleasure.
The researchers said they were able to do the opposite as well—change a pleasurable memory in mice into one associated with fear”
“Emotion is intimately associated with memories of past events and episodes, and yet the ‘valence’ – the emotional value of the memories – is malleable” said the study’s senior author Prof Susumu Tonegawa
As the Prof. Tonegawa said above, memories are connected with emotions and they are malleable. In some way we know that everything is in constant motion and we try to pause life in different ways, for example through photography. The passage I choose from Calvino is a sharp observation how we try to pause and capture memories but we will always fail due to the brain’s plasticity.
“The line between the reality that is photographed because it seems beautiful to us and the reality that seems beautiful because it has been photographed is very narrow.”
The passage I’ve chosen is taken from the same paragraph as the one Fanny posted above, and I appreciate her perspective on memory and its influence on our desire to capture certain moments. Similarly, I feel that our personal perception of beauty is significant in our desire to remember and capture moments. However, it seems that only focusing on beauty skews our reality by giving more weight to one side of the spectrum of human experience. As well, in our society beauty standards have been, and continue to be, significantly shaped by the images that we see, which then influence our ideas of what is considered beautiful.
At this point in the story, Calvino is saying that all moments of experience are worthy of capturing – the whole spectrum of human emotion, not just the chosen joyful moments. By giving emphasis to every moment, they all become beautiful. Perhaps, ultimately, there is beauty in all things and photographs help us to remember that. Yet at the same time, images are not the ultimate truth and photographs can help bring our gaze back to reality to have an embodied experience of beauty beyond the limits of a photograph.
To me the most striking element of Calvino’s piece was the idea that in order for photography to be a worthwile pursuit it must seek complete documentation of the world.
“Photography has meaning only if it exhausts all possible images.”
This was interesting for two reasons
-That is relates to both medium and subject. If one was documenting their life by painting, would same argument (everything must be captured to create an accurate record) be made? If either the medium or the objective (complete documentation) is changed, would the same argument be defensible?
– It is interesting that this argument was made before the time of digital photography and the ease with which photos are now made and shared. Instagram, for example, is designed to make it possible for any and all moments to be shared easily and broadly, which was not quite so possible to Antonino.
In fact, I believe it is possible to argue that Antonino’s obsession with capturing every moment is not beneficial, but detrimental to photography as meaningful documentation. In line with the basic ideas of Pablo Boczkowski’s News at Work, I would propose that having so many photographs taken with such frequency reduces the diversity and value of photographic images. To have so many images at our disposal creates a constant flood of visual stimuli, which can lead to (consciously or not) imitation and repetition of things we have seen, and a general decline in work with an experimental or personal quality, in much the same way that Boczkowski supposes that the rush to produce more competitive, eye-catching versions of the same news stories prevented the Buenos Aires newspapers he studied from bringing truly unique perspectives of searching for new facts.
What truly interests me about Calvino’s story is how it raises this topic – “in what amount and with what deliberation should photography (in this case) be produced?”
With the onset of digital media this question is more relevant and more examined than at any previous time in human history, but Calvino raised it before this era.
To me that is the most compelling element, and something which intrigues me to look at his work and beliefs more closely.
I agree with you comparing photography to painting regarding Antonino’s comment of ‘exhausting all possible images’. I think this argument Antonino brings up with in the story is only understandable within photography world rather than any other artistic medias. Especially when it comes with digital photography which makes you possible to take so many pictures even in few seconds, before arguing if Antonino’s obsession with capturing every moment is beneficial or what meaningful documentation of photography is, it is necessary to think of what ‘exhausting all possible images’ means to Antonino. I think Antonino’s meaning of exhausting all possible images does not only include photographing someone or something always, exclusively, at every hour of the day and night as he says on page 47, but also includes photographing the absence of Bice, the changes of light and shadow, a completely empty corner of the room, his stuffs on the floor, photographs in the newspaper, and even his own photographs ripped by him in the end. For him all possible images he thinks of and photographs are started with one person, Bice, but later they are expanded into portraying his domestic objects; his needs to record on compulsion, love, obsession, despair, and memory with Bice and later domestic objects once he seems to get over a break up with Bice. But another interesting thing we shouldn’t forget about Antonino is that he begins to tear up the photographs with Bice or without Bice and piles them on newspapers when he comes to think of meaning of photos to the others like these photographs news photographers take. Because he thinks that true, total photography is a pile of fragments of private images against the creased background of massacres and coronations, he finally takes a photo of his own ripped photographs on the newspapers. His last possible image is a photograph of his own photographs. For him, I think all these processes are his way of finding all possible images he could think of and photograph within his abilities, ideas, and limitation of immobility as he says, which we can say ‘within his reality’.
Why would photographs loose value when there are too many of them?
Do words do? We recurrently use the same words and yet it always seems possible to find our own voice
“This was the portrait outside of time and space that he now wanted; he wasn’t quite sure how it was achieved, but he was determined to succeed.”
I found this part interesting for two main reasons,
Firstly, he knows what he wants and this is very important.
Secondly, he got what he wants but he wasn’t sure how?
Now when I mix this section with other passage (line between different reality) it becomes more interesting!!
Was that portrait express reality or not?
If yes, do we have reality outside of time and space?
And if not, why he was looking for that?
Last but not least, beauty is based on time and space but he was looking for something without them!!!!
Of course I don’t have answer for them and they make this article difficult for me.
It is interesting how Antonio becomes a photographer from a non-photographer as we discussed in the last class, but it is also interesting what processes he is exploring to create images with a camera and why he takes those processes(his reason of taking those processes).
From these three comments I am posting below, I see what would make Antonino different as a photographer from the rest of people(his friends for example). This difference is also his reason of taking the process he goes through with photography; for him photography has a meaning only if it exhausts all possible images. —-
“For the person who wants to capture everything that passes before his eyes,” Antonino would explain, even if nobody was listening to him any more, “the only coherent way to act is to snap at least one picture a minute, from the instant he opens his eyes in the morning to when he goes to sleep. This is the only way that the rolls of exposed film will represent a faithful diary of our days, with nothing left out. If I were to start taking pictures, I’d see this thing through, even if it meant losing my mind. But the rest of you still insist on making a choice. What sort of choice? A choice in the idyllic sense, apologetic, consolatory, at peace with nature, the fatherland, the family. Your choice isn’t only photographic; it is a choice of life, which leads you to exclude dramatic conflicts, the knots of contradiction, the great tensions of will, passion, aversion. So you think you are saving yourselves from madness, but you are falling into mediocrity, into hebetude.” (line 7-25 p.44)
“It isn’t just a matter of Bice,” he answered. “It’s a question of method. Whatever person you decide to photograph, or whatever thing, you must go on photographing it always, exclusively, at every hour of the day and night. Photography has a meaning only if it exhausts all possible images.” (line 3-8 p.47)
“Having exhausted every possibility, at the moment when he was coming full circle Antonino realized that photographing photographs was the only course that he had left-or, rather, the true course he had obscurely been seeking all this time.” (the last 6 lines p.47)
After reading the story especially with those three comments above, I have come to ask myself two questions;
the first question is what processes (possibilities) a person who wants to be a photography artist should experience to create images? I have been always thinking of what would make one’s photo an art work especially when almost everyone in the world can take a photo with a digital camera or even a phone. As for the images I’ve made with my camera so far, I’ve been closer to Antonino’s friends who are fathers (I’m a mother of one boy). Not like other artistic medias, photography is something everyone can easily attempt, but we understand there is difference between photography artists and the rest of people. Because of the processes he goes through with a camera to prove his own meaning of photography, I think I can consider Antonino as a photography artist or at least a photographer who attempts to be an artist like an art student. Antonino thinks that the rest of people like his friends insist on making a choice when they take a photo. He thinks it is a choice of life, which leads the rest of people to exclude dramatic conflicts, the knots of contradiction, the great tensions of will, passion, aversion, that he isn’t afraid of including in his photos to exhaust all possible images of photography, which makes him different from the rest of people including his friends and even me. I think it is important to have my own meaning of photography, which I can’t define yet. So I don’t know what processes I should take(or experience) to create images with a camera yet. To be honest with you, I’m very confused about photography now. When we consider Antonino’s meaning of photography – exhausting every possible image-, we have now more possibilities of the image in the digital world. So here comes my second question; what are all possible images Antonino would try with his digital camera and photo editing software if he were living in the 21st century-the possibility of the digital image. I’m sure he hasn’t come full circle with digital images yet unlike he did in the story which was written before the time of digital photography.
From your comments the question remains: what makes a photograph artistic?
Which among Antonino’s photographs were artistic and which were not?
What does ‘artistic’ mean? (Note that Antonino/ Calvino uses the term ‘meaningful’)
Meaningful = artistic?
An artist is a person engaged in one or more of any of a broad spectrum of activities related to creating art, practicing the arts, and/or demonstrating an art- from wikipedia
so here, since we’re talking about a photography artist, her or his art media should be photography. As for Antonino, although I can’t see his works, the reason why I consider him as an artist or artist to be or a serious photographer is because all the processes he goes through to find his own meaning of photography and prove it are the same process one would take to be an artist. When he calls people like his friends ‘the rest of you’, he is making clear that he is different from them about photography(attitude, meaning, and the way he practices with photography), and I think I agree with him. He is different from many people like his friends or me. Most people take a photo to capture a moment and appreciate(or remember) that moment with a solid proof(a photo) in the future, but an artist creates art, practices art, and demonstrates art. Antonino here in the story really tries to create art, ‘perfect image’ ‘ideal image’ of the girl. He practices and demonstrates art, finding his own objects, subject matters, and meaning for his photography. I like his last performance of taking a photo of his own photographs after ripping them. He is different from his friends or many of us.
And talking about ‘art’ or ‘artistic’ is another thing. It is a big issue for me to define or study ‘what is art(or artistic)’. Without seeing one’s works, we can’t say if he is a great artist or terrible artist, but again at least all the way Antonino goes through with photography is different than what many of people would go through with photography.
In this short story, Calvino attempts to demonstrate that the motivation to take a photograph is not to document reality but to produce an image of your ideal by framing a part of a moment in your life in a certain way through photography. Initially Antonio was reluctant to use the camera which was so popular among his friends. His relationship with photography starts as an “activity that to him seemed so unexciting , so lacking in surprises” to “in any case, was a passion difficult to put up with” which then seemingly led to inevitable obsessive and possessive nature over Bice.
The passage or part of the story that stood out to me the most where Calvino describes family photography in the part where he describes “In the passion of new parents for framing their offspring “. Antonio, a bachelor, feels isolated and excluded from family photography of his friends. He usually the “outsider” who takes photos for the groups of families and friends. He is accused of making bad jokes where he would accidentally decaptitate members of the family in the photographs. He describes how parents wish to capture every moment of their child growing up so as to produce an model image or idealized version of a moment by framing a moment of your life in certain way through photography by stating “…the photograph album remains the only place where all these fleeting perfections are saved and juxtaposed, each aspiring to an incomparable absoluteness of its own”.
‘to produce an image of your ideal by framing a part of a moment in your life in a certain way through photography’ -how are photographs different from memories?
Are our memories a selection of good moments?
How can we then see the works of war photographers?
What is the role of photography then?
“It is only when they have the photos before their eyes that they seem to take tangible possession of the day they spent, only then that the mountain stream, the movement of the child with his pail, the glint of the sun on the wife’s legs take on the irrevocability of what has been and can no longer be doubted. Everything else can drown in the unreliable shadow of memory.”
I feel this passage illustrates the need for photographers to capture as many moments as they possibly can. When Antonino states that “everything else can drown in the unreliable shadow of memory”, I believe the author is commenting on photographers’, or just society’s, fear of forgetting memories or missing out on the ability to look back on these events, so we often try to document as much as we can. The author is saying almost commenting that if we don’t capture these moments, did they really exist? I believe this also creates the issue that if we are so occupied with the task of capturing moments, are we fully experiencing those moments?
Hi Brandon, I also thought of the issue that you’ve brought up here. I also wonder if we are so occupied with the task of capturing moments, are we fully experiencing those moments? This question was what Antonino thought too when he criticized these ordinary people(family guys for example) who tried to capture every moment of their life. Once we take a photo of something or someone in some place, this moment can be captured in a form of solid proof, a film but when we get another solid proof which can be a piece of a photo in Calvino’s story, it already becomes past and we enjoy this proof of our past in the future. So in this context there is no present. Our present are occupied with the task of capturing moments as you’ve questioned and also as Antonino thought. This philosophy of being aware of present fully is so much like Chinese Tao. That is why I sometimes don’t carry a camera with me to enjoy the journey itself when I travel. But we also should think of this issue from the point of view of a photographer(serious photographer, maybe photography artist or artist to be). Once Antonino becomes a photographer, and even before he becomes one, he talks about taking at least one picture a minute, from the instant he opens his eyes in the morning to when he goes to sleep. One’s life can be only fulfilled with photographing(capturing) when it comes with being a photography artist. To a photography artist, I think, all the process like finding an object(or a person or landscape) or the moment of life to photograph, focusing a camera lens on the object, and developing a picture in a darkroom are(were) parts of his or her life. For photography artists, I think, capturing a certain moment (or pressing a button of their camera) is a way of living in the present.
Brandon and Yoon: This is an interesting dilemma: if we don’t capture the moment it can be considered not to exist or at least lost forever; yet if we embrace the task of capturing every moment, we cease to live in the present- we end up leaving only in the past
For Yoon the solution seems to be in the differences between photographers and the rest of people: ‘people’ should live in the present where for ‘photographers-artists’, it is that act of photographing that makes them live in the present
How are they different? How does that changes now in our current situation, when everyone is a photographer?
When I have a chance to take a photo of my boy performing a play or singing a song on the stage, I always hesitate if I should take a photo of him as I give up watching him fully. It is kind of painful to see him only through a small camera lens when it comes with videotaping, so my mind struggles even more. But mostly I end up taking some photos of him or videotaping him anyway. In this case, taking a picture of him is not actually for me to appreciate his moments(age of 2, age of 7, or so) in the future, but it is to show him his moments after the event or in 10 years or so.
With my little sacrifice of not being able to enjoy the present fully, if my boy can see himself in a photo I take when he finishes the performance or in the future, I think it is worth it.
As you said, almost everyone is a photographer nowadays. So we have a choice how much we’ll sacrifice our present moment for the future. Yes, it is a dilemma. As for photography artists, as I said before, they’re not really giving up enjoying the present when they take a photo because photographing is their life. Many of photography artists, I’m sure, love the moment itself of taking a photo . As for many of people who are not creating art, they have a choice. Everyone can find his or her own answer for this dilemma; how much they’ll sacrifice their present moment for the future; what moments they’ll store in their brains(memories) or what moments they’ll capture with a camera. For some people it is important to see or touch a tangible evident of their past, but for some people it is not. Since everyone can be a photographer easily now, we have more choices in our life style. No one in the world would take a photo of every moment of his or her life. You can choose how much time you’ll spend with a camera and how much capturing a moment(present) with a camera for the future is important to you.
In the reading “Adventure of a Photographer” I found it interesting how the main character of Antonino forms his beliefs on the medium of photography and what it should express. He starts off being quite skeptical of photography shown in the way he talks about families photographing on e another and trying to capture the ideal moment through their photographs. His friends getting upset when he ‘ruined’ photographs by making the lens “veer to capture ships or the spires of steeples, or to decapitate grandparents, uncles, and aunts. He was accused of doing this on purpose.” By the end of the story he instead becomes rather engaged in the subject of photography and develops his philosophies around it yet they still refer back to this passage in my opinion. He wants to capture everything through his photographs , not just what people normally want to capture. He is interested in not only his subject but when she ends up leaving he even takes pictures of the pictures. He has changed his actions in relation to the subject however not the philosophy itself in my opinion the philosophy remains the same and that is why he has difficulty with the subject of photography, at wants, “to get all this into one photograph.”
I am also intrigued by this notion of “capturing the moment.” The protagonist struggles with what compels all his friends to take photos so much of the time, but not all the time. Does the act of taking a photo detract from the experience itself? This notion is especially relevant now that everyone is a photographer. Why do people try to capture a moment? Art memory, sharing online? I would argue that there is indeed a difference between the photographer that sets out with their camera to make images that day, the one documenting their family, and the one who snaps them on their phone and shares them instantly online. If ones main focus is the creation of an image, conceptual or otherwise, then this act describes the experience itself and there is no detracting from it. The photographer that insists on “capturing memories,” however, is making a conscious decision to capture specific moments, in this way attempting to curate how the experience should be recalled. Memories, although they appear as images in our minds, do not function this way. However, it is part of the human condition to keep mementos to jog ones memory and remind them of the proverbial “arrow of time”. More recently, the cell-phone instagram photographer takes an image with the intention of sharing it with people online. How one portrays themselves on social media has a huge impact on people’s opinion of them. This photographer, consciously or not, is influenced by this. The result is images or a collection of images that are, like the “memory capturing” photographer, curated, but not for oneself to look back at later, instead it is for other people to see almost instantaneously. This can (often) result in a need for “likes” on photos for validation, and causes people to strive to take the photo that makes them look the most attractive, the most fun, the most interesting, etc. In my opinion, this kind of photography detracts the most from the experience itself, as people become less and less present in the moment and more concerned about how many likes the photo of the experience might get later, to the point where their lives are dictated by the “postworthyness” of experiences.
”The minute you start saying something, ‘Ah, how beautiful! We must photograph it!’ you are already close to the view of the person who thinks that everything that is not photographed is lost, as if it had never existed, and that therefore, in order really to live, you must photograph as much as you can, and to photograph as much as you can you must either live in the most photographable way possible, or else consider photographable every moment of your life. The first course leads to stupidity; the second to madness.”
The passage from “The Adventure of an Photographer” by Calvino tells us about a possible motive why we so obsessively are trying to capture life either through photography, novels, music or movies. We try to conserve our memories and the emotion associated with the memory. And why do we do that? Memory is a very hard thing to measure, what’s is a true memory? And how do we know that the memory and associated emotion will stay untouched in our brains? We don’t. And maybe that’s why we are finding different ways to challenge our brain’s plasticity.
Recently I read an interesting article ”Scientists Experiment With Reworking Memory in Mice” by Gautam Naik, The Wall Street Journal 2014/08/27. Following is an extract from the article.
”The researchers established that the “where” of a memory is encoded in cells found in a brain structure called the hippocampus, while the “emotion” linked to it —whether one feels good or bad about the place—is embedded in a brain area called the amygdala. The two parts of the brain are connected.
The MIT team wanted to see if it could change the association between the “where” of the memory and the “emotion” linked with it. To get there, they used a cutting-edge technique known as optogenetics, which uses light to control brain cells that have been genetically sensitized to it.
In the case of the mice, a fiber-optic cable was inserted via a tiny hole in the animal’s skull, allowing a laser beam to be fired through the wire to activate individual neurons in the brain.
They began by giving one set of male mice fearful memories (via a small electric shock to the foot) and by providing other mice with pleasurable memories (by allowing them to interact with female mice). By firing the laser into the mouse brain, the scientists could identify the specific cells that were activated when each of the two memories were formed.
That was followed by a “place-preference” test. A laser was fired to the mouse brain when the animal entered a designated area, which activated the previously identified brain cells. When this was done, the fear-conditioned mice moved away from the target zone, while the pleasure-conditioned mice lingered in that area longer because they recalled the positive memory.
The next day, the fear-conditioned mice were placed in a different area. There, they were allowed to interact with female mice, while the fear-associated memory cells were artificially stimulated with the laser. The scientists hoped that the pleasurable exposure to the female mice would rewire the males’ previously fear-conditioned circuits.
To test this, the male mice were returned to the original target zone. When the laser was again used to stimulate the neurons, they now lingered longer in the target zone. This indicated that their original fear-conditioned circuit had been changed to one associated with pleasure.
The researchers said they were able to do the opposite as well—change a pleasurable memory in mice into one associated with fear”
“Emotion is intimately associated with memories of past events and episodes, and yet the ‘valence’ – the emotional value of the memories – is malleable” said the study’s senior author Prof Susumu Tonegawa
As the Prof. Tonegawa said above, memories are connected with emotions and they are malleable. In some way we know that everything is in constant motion and we try to pause life in different ways, for example through photography. The passage I choose from Calvino is a sharp observation how we try to pause and capture memories but we will always fail due to the brain’s plasticity.
Yet the question remains: Why do we need memories?
And given the implications of this experiment, Can we do without them?
“The line between the reality that is photographed because it seems beautiful to us and the reality that seems beautiful because it has been photographed is very narrow.”
The passage I’ve chosen is taken from the same paragraph as the one Fanny posted above, and I appreciate her perspective on memory and its influence on our desire to capture certain moments. Similarly, I feel that our personal perception of beauty is significant in our desire to remember and capture moments. However, it seems that only focusing on beauty skews our reality by giving more weight to one side of the spectrum of human experience. As well, in our society beauty standards have been, and continue to be, significantly shaped by the images that we see, which then influence our ideas of what is considered beautiful.
At this point in the story, Calvino is saying that all moments of experience are worthy of capturing – the whole spectrum of human emotion, not just the chosen joyful moments. By giving emphasis to every moment, they all become beautiful. Perhaps, ultimately, there is beauty in all things and photographs help us to remember that. Yet at the same time, images are not the ultimate truth and photographs can help bring our gaze back to reality to have an embodied experience of beauty beyond the limits of a photograph.
To me the most striking element of Calvino’s piece was the idea that in order for photography to be a worthwile pursuit it must seek complete documentation of the world.
“Photography has meaning only if it exhausts all possible images.”
This was interesting for two reasons
-That is relates to both medium and subject. If one was documenting their life by painting, would same argument (everything must be captured to create an accurate record) be made? If either the medium or the objective (complete documentation) is changed, would the same argument be defensible?
– It is interesting that this argument was made before the time of digital photography and the ease with which photos are now made and shared. Instagram, for example, is designed to make it possible for any and all moments to be shared easily and broadly, which was not quite so possible to Antonino.
In fact, I believe it is possible to argue that Antonino’s obsession with capturing every moment is not beneficial, but detrimental to photography as meaningful documentation. In line with the basic ideas of Pablo Boczkowski’s News at Work, I would propose that having so many photographs taken with such frequency reduces the diversity and value of photographic images. To have so many images at our disposal creates a constant flood of visual stimuli, which can lead to (consciously or not) imitation and repetition of things we have seen, and a general decline in work with an experimental or personal quality, in much the same way that Boczkowski supposes that the rush to produce more competitive, eye-catching versions of the same news stories prevented the Buenos Aires newspapers he studied from bringing truly unique perspectives of searching for new facts.
What truly interests me about Calvino’s story is how it raises this topic – “in what amount and with what deliberation should photography (in this case) be produced?”
With the onset of digital media this question is more relevant and more examined than at any previous time in human history, but Calvino raised it before this era.
To me that is the most compelling element, and something which intrigues me to look at his work and beliefs more closely.
I agree with you comparing photography to painting regarding Antonino’s comment of ‘exhausting all possible images’. I think this argument Antonino brings up with in the story is only understandable within photography world rather than any other artistic medias. Especially when it comes with digital photography which makes you possible to take so many pictures even in few seconds, before arguing if Antonino’s obsession with capturing every moment is beneficial or what meaningful documentation of photography is, it is necessary to think of what ‘exhausting all possible images’ means to Antonino. I think Antonino’s meaning of exhausting all possible images does not only include photographing someone or something always, exclusively, at every hour of the day and night as he says on page 47, but also includes photographing the absence of Bice, the changes of light and shadow, a completely empty corner of the room, his stuffs on the floor, photographs in the newspaper, and even his own photographs ripped by him in the end. For him all possible images he thinks of and photographs are started with one person, Bice, but later they are expanded into portraying his domestic objects; his needs to record on compulsion, love, obsession, despair, and memory with Bice and later domestic objects once he seems to get over a break up with Bice. But another interesting thing we shouldn’t forget about Antonino is that he begins to tear up the photographs with Bice or without Bice and piles them on newspapers when he comes to think of meaning of photos to the others like these photographs news photographers take. Because he thinks that true, total photography is a pile of fragments of private images against the creased background of massacres and coronations, he finally takes a photo of his own ripped photographs on the newspapers. His last possible image is a photograph of his own photographs. For him, I think all these processes are his way of finding all possible images he could think of and photograph within his abilities, ideas, and limitation of immobility as he says, which we can say ‘within his reality’.
Why would photographs loose value when there are too many of them?
Do words do? We recurrently use the same words and yet it always seems possible to find our own voice
“This was the portrait outside of time and space that he now wanted; he wasn’t quite sure how it was achieved, but he was determined to succeed.”
I found this part interesting for two main reasons,
Firstly, he knows what he wants and this is very important.
Secondly, he got what he wants but he wasn’t sure how?
Now when I mix this section with other passage (line between different reality) it becomes more interesting!!
Was that portrait express reality or not?
If yes, do we have reality outside of time and space?
And if not, why he was looking for that?
Last but not least, beauty is based on time and space but he was looking for something without them!!!!
Of course I don’t have answer for them and they make this article difficult for me.
It is interesting how Antonio becomes a photographer from a non-photographer as we discussed in the last class, but it is also interesting what processes he is exploring to create images with a camera and why he takes those processes(his reason of taking those processes).
From these three comments I am posting below, I see what would make Antonino different as a photographer from the rest of people(his friends for example). This difference is also his reason of taking the process he goes through with photography; for him photography has a meaning only if it exhausts all possible images. —-
“For the person who wants to capture everything that passes before his eyes,” Antonino would explain, even if nobody was listening to him any more, “the only coherent way to act is to snap at least one picture a minute, from the instant he opens his eyes in the morning to when he goes to sleep. This is the only way that the rolls of exposed film will represent a faithful diary of our days, with nothing left out. If I were to start taking pictures, I’d see this thing through, even if it meant losing my mind. But the rest of you still insist on making a choice. What sort of choice? A choice in the idyllic sense, apologetic, consolatory, at peace with nature, the fatherland, the family. Your choice isn’t only photographic; it is a choice of life, which leads you to exclude dramatic conflicts, the knots of contradiction, the great tensions of will, passion, aversion. So you think you are saving yourselves from madness, but you are falling into mediocrity, into hebetude.” (line 7-25 p.44)
“It isn’t just a matter of Bice,” he answered. “It’s a question of method. Whatever person you decide to photograph, or whatever thing, you must go on photographing it always, exclusively, at every hour of the day and night. Photography has a meaning only if it exhausts all possible images.” (line 3-8 p.47)
“Having exhausted every possibility, at the moment when he was coming full circle Antonino realized that photographing photographs was the only course that he had left-or, rather, the true course he had obscurely been seeking all this time.” (the last 6 lines p.47)
After reading the story especially with those three comments above, I have come to ask myself two questions;
the first question is what processes (possibilities) a person who wants to be a photography artist should experience to create images? I have been always thinking of what would make one’s photo an art work especially when almost everyone in the world can take a photo with a digital camera or even a phone. As for the images I’ve made with my camera so far, I’ve been closer to Antonino’s friends who are fathers (I’m a mother of one boy). Not like other artistic medias, photography is something everyone can easily attempt, but we understand there is difference between photography artists and the rest of people. Because of the processes he goes through with a camera to prove his own meaning of photography, I think I can consider Antonino as a photography artist or at least a photographer who attempts to be an artist like an art student. Antonino thinks that the rest of people like his friends insist on making a choice when they take a photo. He thinks it is a choice of life, which leads the rest of people to exclude dramatic conflicts, the knots of contradiction, the great tensions of will, passion, aversion, that he isn’t afraid of including in his photos to exhaust all possible images of photography, which makes him different from the rest of people including his friends and even me. I think it is important to have my own meaning of photography, which I can’t define yet. So I don’t know what processes I should take(or experience) to create images with a camera yet. To be honest with you, I’m very confused about photography now. When we consider Antonino’s meaning of photography – exhausting every possible image-, we have now more possibilities of the image in the digital world. So here comes my second question; what are all possible images Antonino would try with his digital camera and photo editing software if he were living in the 21st century-the possibility of the digital image. I’m sure he hasn’t come full circle with digital images yet unlike he did in the story which was written before the time of digital photography.
From your comments the question remains: what makes a photograph artistic?
Which among Antonino’s photographs were artistic and which were not?
What does ‘artistic’ mean? (Note that Antonino/ Calvino uses the term ‘meaningful’)
Meaningful = artistic?
An artist is a person engaged in one or more of any of a broad spectrum of activities related to creating art, practicing the arts, and/or demonstrating an art- from wikipedia
so here, since we’re talking about a photography artist, her or his art media should be photography. As for Antonino, although I can’t see his works, the reason why I consider him as an artist or artist to be or a serious photographer is because all the processes he goes through to find his own meaning of photography and prove it are the same process one would take to be an artist. When he calls people like his friends ‘the rest of you’, he is making clear that he is different from them about photography(attitude, meaning, and the way he practices with photography), and I think I agree with him. He is different from many people like his friends or me. Most people take a photo to capture a moment and appreciate(or remember) that moment with a solid proof(a photo) in the future, but an artist creates art, practices art, and demonstrates art. Antonino here in the story really tries to create art, ‘perfect image’ ‘ideal image’ of the girl. He practices and demonstrates art, finding his own objects, subject matters, and meaning for his photography. I like his last performance of taking a photo of his own photographs after ripping them. He is different from his friends or many of us.
And talking about ‘art’ or ‘artistic’ is another thing. It is a big issue for me to define or study ‘what is art(or artistic)’. Without seeing one’s works, we can’t say if he is a great artist or terrible artist, but again at least all the way Antonino goes through with photography is different than what many of people would go through with photography.
In this short story, Calvino attempts to demonstrate that the motivation to take a photograph is not to document reality but to produce an image of your ideal by framing a part of a moment in your life in a certain way through photography. Initially Antonio was reluctant to use the camera which was so popular among his friends. His relationship with photography starts as an “activity that to him seemed so unexciting , so lacking in surprises” to “in any case, was a passion difficult to put up with” which then seemingly led to inevitable obsessive and possessive nature over Bice.
The passage or part of the story that stood out to me the most where Calvino describes family photography in the part where he describes “In the passion of new parents for framing their offspring “. Antonio, a bachelor, feels isolated and excluded from family photography of his friends. He usually the “outsider” who takes photos for the groups of families and friends. He is accused of making bad jokes where he would accidentally decaptitate members of the family in the photographs. He describes how parents wish to capture every moment of their child growing up so as to produce an model image or idealized version of a moment by framing a moment of your life in certain way through photography by stating “…the photograph album remains the only place where all these fleeting perfections are saved and juxtaposed, each aspiring to an incomparable absoluteness of its own”.
‘to produce an image of your ideal by framing a part of a moment in your life in a certain way through photography’ -how are photographs different from memories?
Are our memories a selection of good moments?
How can we then see the works of war photographers?
What is the role of photography then?
“It is only when they have the photos before their eyes that they seem to take tangible possession of the day they spent, only then that the mountain stream, the movement of the child with his pail, the glint of the sun on the wife’s legs take on the irrevocability of what has been and can no longer be doubted. Everything else can drown in the unreliable shadow of memory.”
I feel this passage illustrates the need for photographers to capture as many moments as they possibly can. When Antonino states that “everything else can drown in the unreliable shadow of memory”, I believe the author is commenting on photographers’, or just society’s, fear of forgetting memories or missing out on the ability to look back on these events, so we often try to document as much as we can. The author is saying almost commenting that if we don’t capture these moments, did they really exist? I believe this also creates the issue that if we are so occupied with the task of capturing moments, are we fully experiencing those moments?
(Sorry for the double post!)
Hi Brandon, I also thought of the issue that you’ve brought up here. I also wonder if we are so occupied with the task of capturing moments, are we fully experiencing those moments? This question was what Antonino thought too when he criticized these ordinary people(family guys for example) who tried to capture every moment of their life. Once we take a photo of something or someone in some place, this moment can be captured in a form of solid proof, a film but when we get another solid proof which can be a piece of a photo in Calvino’s story, it already becomes past and we enjoy this proof of our past in the future. So in this context there is no present. Our present are occupied with the task of capturing moments as you’ve questioned and also as Antonino thought. This philosophy of being aware of present fully is so much like Chinese Tao. That is why I sometimes don’t carry a camera with me to enjoy the journey itself when I travel. But we also should think of this issue from the point of view of a photographer(serious photographer, maybe photography artist or artist to be). Once Antonino becomes a photographer, and even before he becomes one, he talks about taking at least one picture a minute, from the instant he opens his eyes in the morning to when he goes to sleep. One’s life can be only fulfilled with photographing(capturing) when it comes with being a photography artist. To a photography artist, I think, all the process like finding an object(or a person or landscape) or the moment of life to photograph, focusing a camera lens on the object, and developing a picture in a darkroom are(were) parts of his or her life. For photography artists, I think, capturing a certain moment (or pressing a button of their camera) is a way of living in the present.
Brandon and Yoon: This is an interesting dilemma: if we don’t capture the moment it can be considered not to exist or at least lost forever; yet if we embrace the task of capturing every moment, we cease to live in the present- we end up leaving only in the past
For Yoon the solution seems to be in the differences between photographers and the rest of people: ‘people’ should live in the present where for ‘photographers-artists’, it is that act of photographing that makes them live in the present
How are they different? How does that changes now in our current situation, when everyone is a photographer?
When I have a chance to take a photo of my boy performing a play or singing a song on the stage, I always hesitate if I should take a photo of him as I give up watching him fully. It is kind of painful to see him only through a small camera lens when it comes with videotaping, so my mind struggles even more. But mostly I end up taking some photos of him or videotaping him anyway. In this case, taking a picture of him is not actually for me to appreciate his moments(age of 2, age of 7, or so) in the future, but it is to show him his moments after the event or in 10 years or so.
With my little sacrifice of not being able to enjoy the present fully, if my boy can see himself in a photo I take when he finishes the performance or in the future, I think it is worth it.
As you said, almost everyone is a photographer nowadays. So we have a choice how much we’ll sacrifice our present moment for the future. Yes, it is a dilemma. As for photography artists, as I said before, they’re not really giving up enjoying the present when they take a photo because photographing is their life. Many of photography artists, I’m sure, love the moment itself of taking a photo . As for many of people who are not creating art, they have a choice. Everyone can find his or her own answer for this dilemma; how much they’ll sacrifice their present moment for the future; what moments they’ll store in their brains(memories) or what moments they’ll capture with a camera. For some people it is important to see or touch a tangible evident of their past, but for some people it is not. Since everyone can be a photographer easily now, we have more choices in our life style. No one in the world would take a photo of every moment of his or her life. You can choose how much time you’ll spend with a camera and how much capturing a moment(present) with a camera for the future is important to you.
In the reading “Adventure of a Photographer” I found it interesting how the main character of Antonino forms his beliefs on the medium of photography and what it should express. He starts off being quite skeptical of photography shown in the way he talks about families photographing on e another and trying to capture the ideal moment through their photographs. His friends getting upset when he ‘ruined’ photographs by making the lens “veer to capture ships or the spires of steeples, or to decapitate grandparents, uncles, and aunts. He was accused of doing this on purpose.” By the end of the story he instead becomes rather engaged in the subject of photography and develops his philosophies around it yet they still refer back to this passage in my opinion. He wants to capture everything through his photographs , not just what people normally want to capture. He is interested in not only his subject but when she ends up leaving he even takes pictures of the pictures. He has changed his actions in relation to the subject however not the philosophy itself in my opinion the philosophy remains the same and that is why he has difficulty with the subject of photography, at wants, “to get all this into one photograph.”
What would be the correct position? What would be the solution?
I am also intrigued by this notion of “capturing the moment.” The protagonist struggles with what compels all his friends to take photos so much of the time, but not all the time. Does the act of taking a photo detract from the experience itself? This notion is especially relevant now that everyone is a photographer. Why do people try to capture a moment? Art memory, sharing online? I would argue that there is indeed a difference between the photographer that sets out with their camera to make images that day, the one documenting their family, and the one who snaps them on their phone and shares them instantly online. If ones main focus is the creation of an image, conceptual or otherwise, then this act describes the experience itself and there is no detracting from it. The photographer that insists on “capturing memories,” however, is making a conscious decision to capture specific moments, in this way attempting to curate how the experience should be recalled. Memories, although they appear as images in our minds, do not function this way. However, it is part of the human condition to keep mementos to jog ones memory and remind them of the proverbial “arrow of time”. More recently, the cell-phone instagram photographer takes an image with the intention of sharing it with people online. How one portrays themselves on social media has a huge impact on people’s opinion of them. This photographer, consciously or not, is influenced by this. The result is images or a collection of images that are, like the “memory capturing” photographer, curated, but not for oneself to look back at later, instead it is for other people to see almost instantaneously. This can (often) result in a need for “likes” on photos for validation, and causes people to strive to take the photo that makes them look the most attractive, the most fun, the most interesting, etc. In my opinion, this kind of photography detracts the most from the experience itself, as people become less and less present in the moment and more concerned about how many likes the photo of the experience might get later, to the point where their lives are dictated by the “postworthyness” of experiences.