This is a particularly interesting look at how William Mortensen made a photograph, realized it wasn't to his liking, and then re-worked it three (!!!) more times until he got it "right." From the point of view of creating images with intention, I find this admirable and very much "of his time."
Looking at the state of photography at the time William Mortensen wrote the following piece I see what was considered "serious" photography was very much intentional. "Pictorialism" nothing if not intentional. Consider the works of Clarence White (that great American photographer who taught and influenced so many people), Karl Struss (and his fabulous quartz lenses), Heinrich Kühn (whom I feel was something of a complex person to try and understand), Constant Puyo, Celine Leguard (whom I feel was an absolutely wonderful but largely unknown photographer), Robert Demachy (President of the Camera Club of Paris), and Leonard Missone (whom I feel was a wonderful "romantic" photographer), as well as many others. All produced "intentional" works.
I begin to understand how the photographic "purists" of Group F64 came to oppose those who had by now become the "old guard" of Pictorialism. Growing up in southern California I took up photography at a time when the war had been settled and the "purists" had won. At least on the west coast of the USA, that is. I knew nothing of the outside world, such was the narrowness of my view of things.
Going back and reading the actual events that led to the war of west coast photographic ideals is rather instructional for me. Getting to the source of the matter is enlightening. In a broader context this war was actually relatively minor. St. Ansel is not necessarily revered outside the USA any more than, say, Robert Doisneau or Henri Cartier-Bresson are elsewhere. In fact, this last little war might have been a minor incident that put a period on the end of the photographic pictorialist sentence.
However, there is something enduring from this dust-up for me that echos into the present. That is William Mortensen's references to craft, art, art school educations, and how this can help inform out "intention" in photography. Most of us don't go to art school to learn the details Mr. Mortensen describes. So what exactly did he propose? Simply to be aware of what one is doing? To learn more about ones chosen craft? To lead a deeper, more informed life through art? To understand not only what a person is doing, but why? These things and more? There's more than a bit to "chew on" here.
--------------------------------------
The fact that they deal selectively with their picture material is the thing that most definitely and immediately distinguishes the Creative from the Realistic group in present day photography. It is not merely a convenient mark of difference, but a sign of diametric opposition of ideals. Since the principle of selection is so fundamental a part of the non-realistic creed, it has seemed good to devote a complete article to the exposition and demonstration of this principle. I realize that, to those who are already in accord with the Creative group, much that I shall have to say will seem a needless labouring of the obvious; but too many people are still supinely accepting the early judgment on the camera, that it is not an art medium, but simply an instrument of record and documentation.
In setting up selectivity as a basis of distinction, I am not ignoring the fact that the Realists do exert a certain degree of selection - as indeed all persons miust who use a camera at all. Naturally they select subject matter, lenses, photographic materials, exposures; but all their selection is pointed toward securing a picture that shall be thoroughly non-selective - that shall be a complete objective replica, in photographic terms, of the subject. Quite different is the place and function assigned to selection by
the Creative school, for whom it dominates all phases, processes and stages in the making of the picture.
Selection, it is important to realize, is not a mere artistic abstraction but something that is almost a Vital Principle, not only in art but in all the processes of life and growth. We live by means of the selective functioning of our bodies: each organ and part selects
from the breathed-in air, from the food we eat, from the blood stream those things needful for its sustenance and development. Thought is a matter of selective dealing with the swift and disorderly stream of consciousness. Darwin, seeking an explanation of the evolution of higher forms of life from lower, named as the key principle Natural Selection. Life is a selective process: when we stop selecting we stop living. Selection as it manifests itself in art is not a mere casual picking and choosing of the things that the artist likes, rut an of ten-times laborious searching for the perfect expression of
an idea. Every work of art is thus the fruit of an evolutionary process rather than a spontaneous creation. So selection in art bears a curiously Darwinian aspect. In its early stages, an art work presents a "struggle for existence" of conflicting ideas, forms and lines, wherein the artist most judge which is the fittest to survive. As the work develops, numerous variations and mutations insinuate themselves into the problem. With these again the artist must assert his god-like prerogative, relentlessly destroying the weak, the common-place, the superfluous, the irrelevant. Often the original aspect of the conception is completely altered.
The selective process is inseparable from all artistic endeavor because art functions in terms of significant unity while reality manifests itself in terms of outwardly meaningless diversity. The artist senses, behind the shifting, confusing world of appearances, a fundamental unity, relation, meaning and purpose. To make these evident is his task. His tools are few and inadequate; his -".aerials, the gaudy gim cracks of everyday sense experience. With these scant tools and these banal materials he must try an intimation of the entities he has glimpsed behind the curtain. So in dealing with his materials he works always from the accidental to the significant, from the complicated to the simple, from the many to the one, from the thing to the symbol.
The cameras manner of "seeing is vastly different from the eye's. While the visual angle of the eye is much wider than that of the camera, its range of attention is much narrower.
Thus the literal vision of the camera greatly exceeds that of the eye. which is inclined to see only that which it wishes to see. noting the essential points and ignoring or subordinating the minor ones. The camera, however, diligently records trivialities along with important matters. But. in concentration and focusing of mental energy, the artist's manner of seeing surpasses the normal manner as far as the eye surpasses the camera. Hence it is doubly imperative that photography learn to avail itself of selection to the same comprehensive degree that the older arts do: by this it must stand or fall as an art.
Otherwise we must concede that the camera has no more artistic potentiality than a gas-meter, and that its finest flower is a photostat.
Leaving aside such obvious (and to this article scarcely relevant) fields for seleciton as the choice of subject matter, photographic materials and equipment, the principal stages in the creation of a picture that are amenable to selectivity are the following: (1) dealing with the subject, (2) lighting, (3) projection printing, (4) special processes, (5) final adjustments. Selection at the arious stages is accomplished through the use of controls. Control in the past, and in the common mind, is largely associated with the removal of warts, wens, wrinkles and similar deformities which afflict unhappy mankind, and with the correction of over-exposure and under-development which afflict the careless photographer. The true function of control, however, is not this negative one, but a positive creative one of building a picture through selection.
Let me touch briefly on the function of control as it is manifested in each of the five stages just enumerated. The posing of a model involves delicate psychological problems.
The status of the photographer is somewhat that of a stage director: while he dominates the situation, he must manage to create and maintain an emotional rapport and sense of cooperation between himself and the model. A purely passive model, no matter how accurately he or she follows direction, is limited in usefulness, and a disinterested model is, of course, quite hopeless. But when this understanding does exist, there sometimes occurs that happy experience of an intuitive flash in which the model spontaneously creates the very thing that the artist has been groping for.
Lighting control, of course, goes far beyond the purely mechanical requisite of providing adequate illumination. It governs the tone value of the subject relative to the background, and determines whether a picture is high or low in key. Emotional and dramatic qualities, as well as mood, are largely established by lighting. It also bears an important relation to composition: the changing of a light may completely alter the
balance and emphasis of a picture.
Control during the process of projecting the negative is accomplished in several ways. Through local printing are achieved delicacy of drawing, the precise placing of accents, and the corresponding elision of non-essentials. Through "dodging" the accurate distribution and balance of tone is secured. Through distortion, general or localized, forms become more expressive and escape from purely literal connotations. Through montage fresh emotional values are created by the repercussion on each other of the emotional associations of two or more images.
Certain special processes recommend themselves because of their amenability to control. These are bromoil, the paper negative, and carbro. Of the three, bromoil is the most subject to control and carbro the least. Indeed the possibilities of control in the bromoil process are almost unlimited: local values may be freely altered, distracting detail deleted, significant lines emphasized, and backgrounds added. In respect to control, the paper negative is but slightly more limited than bromoil.
The final operations of control embrace sundry mechanical and chemical adjustments made on the finished print or transfer. Of these the simplest and most generally practiced is the operation of "spotting". Here likewise are included various toning processes: Russian crayon sauce, dry -pigment toning, and local chemical toning. Mechanical or chemical intensification of high-lights also may be employed at this stage. Analagous to the above methods of control, which are applied to prints, is the "pouncing" with soft ink on a freshly pulled bromoil transfer. Control at this stage should properly limit itself to adjustment and refinements of a structure already well established. Too drastic control at this point is apt to be disastrous.
In addition to these five stages of control, there is a sixth control - a sort of super-control that dominates the selective process through all
the operations of making a picture. This is the picture idea. Toward the
concrete realization of the picture idea are directed all the operations, processes and manipulations through which selection is achieved. The photographer envisions his picture idea in photographic terms. So in his use of controls, though he may selectively modify, intensify and eliminate, he will be careful to retain the integrity of the original image. To allow ample scope for selection he will not limit himself unduly in the matter
of film, but take a generous number of variants of the basic idea. A picture idea of magnitude or subtlety will probably not attain its final form in a single "shooting". Rather, it will evolve through a number of intermediate stages, as the implications of the idea become clearer to the artist.
To illustrate the principle of selectivity in actual operation I have included a series of pictures done at various times, all of them dealing with the theme of Lazarus. The story of Lazarus, the man who was dead and four days in the tomb and then returned again to the world of living men, is one that makes great appeal to the imagination. What memories did Lazarus bring back from the grave? Was he happy or reluctant when
aroused irom his long sleep? Was he changed, and how did other men regard him that had been dead? It was a favorite theme of medieval painters, and such diverse authors as Robert Browning, Leonid Andreifi and Eugene O'Neil have been attracted to it. Pictorially. the idea suggests mystery, drama, and powerful characterization. Also, I discovered, it involves many problems.
The first picture will be recognized by some as a scene from Cecil B. de Mille's well-remembered production The King of Kings, on which I served as "still photographer".
In the preparation of this production no effort or expense was spared to make it completely authentic in costuming and background. Hollywood's best talent was assembled to act the roles, and technical experts were constantly on the set to check all details. Here it might seem, was an ideal opportunity to secure a magnificent pictorial result. That such a result was far from being secured is obvious from the picture (Lazarus I). Although it affords a fair record of the bare facts of this particular scene, it has little to recommend it pictorially. Two things contribute to the failure: first, it is a picture of drama rather than a dramatic picture; second, various faults are introduced by in composition (which I shall presently point out) are introduced by my choice of a wrong camera angle.
The first point is an important one, for it concerns a problem which always must be dealt with in presenting a dramatic subject in pictorial terms. A dramatic moment consists not only of action but of reaction. Reaction is the inevitable result of action and follows it in time. To present action alone gives a sense of incompleteness, like a snapshot of a
person walking, with one foot eternally suspended in mid-air. To simultaneously present action and reaction in the same picture produces a feeling of incongruity and results often in the division of interest. Hence drama in pictures should have a passive quality, with emotion predominant and action quiescent or suggested as either on the point of beginning or just ending. In the picture under discussion, there is a subtle conflict between Lazarus' action and the reaction of the crowd in the background. As seen on the screen there would be no such conflict because the time element would there be made evident, with reaction following action.
As to the faults in composition due to my ill-chosen camera angle, they are so numerous and so patent that I will point out only a few of the more glaring ones. In the first place, the figure of Christ is awkwardly placed in the mathematical center of the picture. Compositionally, Lazarus' extended hand occupies the most emphatic point in the picture, and takes on thereby a ludicrous over-significance. The line of the drape falling
from Lazarus' head is cut by the dark mass of the head in front of him. There is a bad division of the darks in the costume of the woman kneeling at Christ's feet si confusing.
The static mass of heads in the background is vaguely Finally, there is a very definite dilemma as to picture interest. Which is the principal figure? Christ commands interest by his position, stature and lighting: Lazarus commands its equally by his gesture.
(These reproaches, I wish to make very clear, are leveled only at my own attempt
to catch the pictorial quality of this scene in a still picture, and not against the interpretation given it in dramatic terms in this truly great production.
Discovering this print some years later "among my souvenirs", and realizing that it was a good opportunity bungled, I determined to have another try at the subject. At this time, of course, none of the elaborate costumes or settings, and none of the high-priced actors were available. So I posed a number of my friends on a Southern California hillside under a late afternoon sun. For costumes, sundry ragbags were ravished of their contents, and various portieres disappeared from their accustomed places.
Even at first glance Lazarus II is seen to be vastly better pictorially than the earlier effort. There is much more sense of organic relationship ship between the various elements that comprise it, with a certain flow of line from one figure to another. The placing of the heads forms an interesting pattern. The question of dominance is more clearly answered than in the first effort. The second picture is definitely about Lazarus: lighting, placing, and the attention of the other actors make this clear.
However, it still falls far short of the potentialities of the situation. It is still conceived in a literal spirit, there is a certain smugness about it, and, all in all, it is inclined to resemble a Sunday School card. There are numerous flaws in composition. The drapery of the figure at the left is badly arranged and gives little intimation that there is a body beneath it. The placing of white drapery and arm produces a distracting V-shaped configuration over Lazarus' head. The right arm of Lazarus is so lost in shadow that it leaves him without visible means of support, and his legs are awkwardly cut at the ankles by the bushes in the foreground. The figure at the extreme right is so placed and lighted as to attract more attention than it merits. Christ's face is darker in tone than the face of the woman at his right shoulder, producing a confusion of planes.
Some of these defects could have been remedied had I wished to make a bromoil of the subject. But it so missed touching the central mystery of the situation that I determined to leave it as it was and make a fresh trial. On consideration it seemed best, since Lazarus was my theme, to omit the figure of Christ, as it was bound, no matter how much subordinated pictorially to still preempt attention. For the third venture I came indoors
again, working with studio lights in front of a white background, under circumstances permitting the utmost in control. Lazarus III and Lazarus IV represent variant versions of this trial.
In Lazarus III is seen an attempt to compromise with the elimination of the Christ figure by simply showing his hand set in opposition to the darkness of the tomb in the lower left hand corner. This proves better as an idea than as a picture, for there is some difficulty in interpreting the unconnected hand, and the mind is apt to make an unsuccessful effort
to assign it to the woman at the right. Possibly, if Lazarus' right arm had been more extended toward the lower left corner, this opposition would have been better emphasized. At any rate there is far less of a literal quality about this interpretation than the preceding ones. Giving the figures in the background slight modifications of the same pose, and placing their heads high in the picture, creates a formalized, slightly Byzantine feeling. There is one objectionable feature, eliminated in other transfers made of this subject, which I have allowed to remain in this one, because it furnishes a very clear instance of the difference between the eye's way of seeing a thing and the camera's way of seeing it. I refer to the clasped hands beside Lazarus' right ear. To the eye, at the time of taking the picture, they looked simply like - clasped hands; but the camera saw and recorded them as a sort of disembodied artichoke. Elimination of this equivocal object greatly improves the composition, not only by relieving the mind of irrelevant speculation as to what the thing is, but by taking away from the confusion of too many hands in the upper part of the picture, and by giving greater isolation to Lazarus' face.
Lazarus IV, though less formalized than the third version, is on the whole a simpler rendering. Concentration of interest is assured by removing the last vestige of the bodily presence of Christ, save as it is intimated by the upward glance of Lazarus' eyes. The tonal qualities are broad and simple. The lighting gives a faint hint of the mystery and wonder that belong to this moment. Despite the undetailed black of the figure at the
right of the picture, it is, I believe, the best interpretation so far.
But I was, and still remain, very dissatisfied with it the implications of the theme were so vast and my rendering of it so feeble. Thus far, I realized, I had been toying with the accidental edges of the theme and missing the center of it completely. Despite successive simplifications, my conception was still anecdotal rather than pictorial. at it, I determined to represent nothing but Lazarus So, for my final try - mortal man triumph-
ant over mortality, dragged down by the grave, but lifting his face to the light. To do this, it seemed, but four things were needed: a man, an emotion, a background, and an attribute or symbol. Lazarus V is far from satisfying me; but at last the theme begins to speak in direct pictorial terms, and to grope toward something universal and symbolic in-
stead of contenting itself with the mere telling of a story.
The future potentialities of photography, when it shall have achieved a fluent use of the selective methods proper to it, are undeniably impressive. Up to now, the principal obstacle that has stood in the way of an adequate understanding of selectivity and its application to photographic processes is the fact that too many photographers are lacking in appreciation of basic art traditions. Having arrived at their status as photographers by hard technical study, or having graduated into it from the amateur snapshooter class, they are apt, when dissatisfied with their own work, to dig deeper and deeper into technical subtleties and mechanical complications. Instead of blaming themselves, they blame their cameras, or their lenses, or their developers, and fly for help to manufacturers' catalogues and scan them feverishly like hypochondriacs on the trail of a
new patent medicine. Not corrected lenses, but a corrected viewpoint, is their need; not new developers, but new ideals.
I am not suggesting that every photographer should be a graduate Academy or of the Beaux Arts: specific art training is only to a limited extent useful in photography.. What am suggesting I of the Pennsylvania. What I am suggesting Beethoven and Brahms is that a knowledge of Beethoven and Brahms is perhaps more important to the photographer than a knowledge of Hurter and Driffield, and that an appreciation of Goethe may take him further than an appreciation of Gamma-factors. Let him frequently desert his darkroom for the symphony hall, the art gallery, or the library. Here he may learn the essential unity of the artist's way of doing things, and come to realize that, as a potential creator, he is the inheritor of all the up-gathered beauty that all creators before him have given to the world.
----------------------------------
Of all the ladies on Olympus (as Pompilius the Younger tells us), none had such lovely jewels as Venus*. These she owed to the labours of her crochety but devoted mate, Vulcan. Far into the night he would toil in his grimy workshop, drawing out the recalcitrant gold, silver and bronze into forms of unbelievable intricacy and complexity, set with carnelian, chalcedony and chrysoprase cunningly fitted and curiously engraved. After weeks of such effort he would bring to her a basket brimming with chains, carcanets, tiaras and brooches.
"Here," he would say smugly, setting it before her, "are a few little gadgets that I knocked out in a leisure moment."
Promptly she tipped the basket over and fingered the contents critically.
"Kind of nice, aren't they?" said Vulcan, expectantly.
"Now what," said Venus, holding up something between thumb and forefinger, "is this obscene object?"
"That," said Vulcan, keeping a firm grip on his dignity, "is a chain."
"To hitch horses with?" said Venus.
"That chain," Vulcan replied, in a tone of mortal hurt, "has a hundred links, and I spent an hour on each link, chasing and inlaying a tiny pattern."
"Well, of course, your time's your own."
"But look at the detail. No one ever got so much detail in so small
a space before."
"Dear me," said Venus, laying it aside. She examined other articles with obvious distaste.
"Really, Vulcan," she said at last, holding up an object that dangled, "for a married man you do have the strangest ideas."
"My dear," said Vulcan patronizingly, "I do not think you appreciate the labour that goes into each of these things. That pendant, for instance, has ten thousand separate pieces of metal in the setting alone."
"But it looks exactly like a cabbage."
"It is a cabbage," said Vulcan severely.
"Dear me," said Venus.
She glanced rapidly through the pile, laying each piece aside with an elaborate disillusioned sigh or a sadly tolerent shake of the head.
Finally Vulcan could stand it no longer. "Very well, madam," he said, "I shall not trouble you further. Never again will I try to make anything for you. Never."
With a magnificent gesture he started to sweep up the tangled pile.
"Wait," screamed Venus. "What is the little one on the bottom of the basket?"
"That?" Vulcan stared. "Just something that I hammered out of a bit of waste metal. I forgot to throw it back into the melting pot."
"But it is beautiful!" She swooped upon the little ornament, put it on, and surveyed herself in the glass with great satisfaction. "Beautiful," she murmured. "Darling, you are so clever." She smiled at him. "And you have such a cute smudge on your nose."
( Pompilius at this point inserts the Latin equivalent for a row of
asterisks.)
"Darling," said Venus, "you have messed my hair terribly. Where are you going?"
"Oh," said Vulcan. "I just have one or two little ideas in jewelry that I want to work out."
* I don't think it was intended the way I read it, but I couldn't help but think of Diderot's "Les Bijoux Indiscrets."
