“The text of the photo-essay typically discloses a certain reserve or modesty in its claim to “speak for” or interpret the images; like the photograph, it admits its inability to appropriate everything that was there to be taken and tries to let the photographs speak for themselves or “look back” at the viewer” (516).
In being told to take a position on this very controversial issue, I didn’t know whether I agreed, disagreed, or both with W. J. T Mitchell’s claim that photographs not accompanied by text speak louder than photographs with text accompaniment. Many photographs are accompanied by text or some type of explanation as to what the photograph is about or the story behind it (e.
g. museums and art exhibitions), because of this Mitchell’s claim would often be looked at as wrong and would arouse many controversial and argumentative questions. When you take a closer look and give deeper thought to the claim you will notice that it is very true and I totally agree with Mitchell. I think Mitchell’s claim can be best understood from James Agee and Walker Evans, Let Us Now Praise Famous Men. I agree with Mitchell in his views that photographs with no text allows for a deeper understanding of the photo, for you to link the text and image with your own understanding and that text limits the “reading” of the photograph. An in-depth understanding of a photograph is the ability to look at what is there and to also look past what is there.
The Term Paper on Understanding Slavery
A poignantly moving tale of a woman’s courage and determination in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl undoubtedly serves as an inspiration for those who endeavor to rise beyond their initial station in life on the way to achieving one’s dreams. Though the author claims it to be a historical account, it could easily pass off for a work of fiction in the ...
What do you think the person in the photograph is going through? What does it represent? How can the photograph relate to you, your life and your experiences? I think that these are just a few questions that should be asked and answered when trying to “read” or gain an understanding of a photograph (your own understanding).
Agee and Evans try to get this point across by not providing text with the images so your “reading” of the photograph will not be hindered by text that could and would influence your thought. As Mitchell states, “The photographs are completely separate, not only from Agee’s text, but from any of the most minimal textual features that conventionally accompany a photo-essay: no captions, legends, dates, names, locations, or even numbers are provided to assist a “reading” of the photographs” (517).
In not providing any of these things Evans and Agee make it hard to connect the photographs with the text ” it resists the straightforward collaboration of photo and text” (519).
I think this resistance is needed and very essential when trying to fully “read” a photograph and understand it. Personal associations are essential when trying to link photo and text. Because this collaboration is so difficult to achieve the only thing left to do is to try to link them by relating them to one’s self and life and also looking at the details of the photograph (e. g.
facial expressions, clothing, etc. ) and coming up with you own understanding or “reading” of them. As Mitchell states, ” The second is the intimate fellowship between the informal or personal essay, with its emphasis on a private “point of view”, memory, and autobiography, and photography’s mythic status as a kind of materialized memory trace imbedded in the context of personal associations and private “perspectives”” (516).
What Mitchell likes and what Agee and Evans focus is, is to try and achieve this “reading” without being invasive or intrusive. Many would probably argue that even in trying to let the pictures speak for themselves, the reader would become invasive and intrusive. Although this is true, Agee and Evans try to undercut surveillance by not providing text with the image, which would be totally invasive and intrusive for them to try and explain these people’s lives.
The Essay on Walker Evans Great Depression
Documentary projects The Great Depression, which began with the stock market crash of 1929 and lasted for the next decade, was a time of desperation and disorientation in America. In an effort to bring the country back on its feet, President Roosevelt initiated the Farm Security Administration (FSA) project. Photographers were hired and sent across the United States to document Americans living in ...
Evans, Agee and Mitchell believe in no categorizing, pigeonholing, labeling, or judging. As Mitchell states, “what gives us the right to look upon her, as if we were God’s spies” (522).
I think the resistance of Agee’s text and Evans images are meant to deliberately prevent easy collaboration, therefore the linking of image and text is extremely difficult but is not meant to be linked but to stand alone as separate “readings.” What if we were looking at photos with text accompaniment? Would we then be able to fully “read” the photograph? No, the text would strongly influence our thought when trying to understand and relate to the photograph. Mitchell states that ” there is the root sense of the essay as a partial, incomplete “attempt”, an effort to get as much of the truth about something into its brief compass as the limits of space and write rly ingenuity will allow. Photographs, similarly, seem necessarily incomplete in their imposition of a frame that can never include everything that was there to be, as we say, “taken”” (516).
I really like that fact that in Agee and Evans, Let Us Now Praise Famous Men they have the photographs in the front without context and when the reader or viewer finally does get to the words or text they are in “Book Two”, meaning the photos were “Book One” and they have already “read” them. I also like the fact that Agee and Evans allowed their photographic subjects to pose themselves. I think that photos with text accompaniment limits the “reading” of the photograph and also hinders the “reader’s” creativity and critical thinking process. In conclusion, ” The “taking” of human subjects by a photographer (or a writer) is a concrete social encounter, often between a damaged, victimized, and powerless individual and a relatively privileged observer, often acting as the “eye of power”, the agent of some social, political, or journalistic institution. The “use” of this person as instrumental subject matter in a code of photographic messages is exactly what links the political aim with the ethical, creating exchanges and resistances at the level of value that do not concern the photographer alone, but which reflect back on the writer’s (relatively invisible) relation to the subject as well and on the exchanges between writer and photographer” (515).
The Essay on Thomas Roma Walker Evans
The retrospective exhibits of Walker Evans: Simple Secrets and Thomas Roma: Intimate City on display at the International Center of Photography present a cross section of each photographer s works. Thomas Roma, an active photographer, shows his interpretation of Brooklyn through a six series narrative. The Walker Evans exhibit, made possible by the Marian and Benjamin A. Hill Collection, takes a ...
There is a clear imbalance of power here and I agree with Mitchell because I believe that his theory or views on photographs and text tries to cut back on this imbalance of power..
