At the risk of raising a collective yawn (and with the encouragement of two positive comments from readers of my last effort) I crave your indulgence as I launch once again into the globosphere my musings with…..
GLOB 2
KLUNK, KLIK…..I’M IN THE PIC
In April Jean and I were in Valencia for a visit to the ballet (Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring, which, choreographed by the famous Nijinsky, the dancer not the horse, created a riot at its first performance in 1913 - however, that is a digression from my story unless I can cunningly weave it in a bit later.) The following morning, Sunday, (the performance started at 9 pm so we indulged ourselves and booked in at a hotel) we visited the National Ceramic Museum where a wonderful exhibition of modern ceramics had opened: about 250 pieces from the over 1,000 donated by Adolf Egner, a German collector living in Spain. Work of the highest quality mostly by German, French and British studio potters, some of the latter we can claim to have met, and have our own very modest collection of; Mary Rich, Hillary Brock, and of course John Leach, grandson of the famous Bernard, plus my most treasured small pot by Lucy Rie.
Well we were resting our feet in one of the five galleries devoted to the exhibition, watching a long video of the collection, when (and now, if you are still with me, I am getting to the point) a young woman came in and snapped a piece of ceramic wall sculpture (with her camera, that is, I don’t mean she literally snapped a piece off! Good God - Keep up at the back there! ) She then handed her camera to her boyfriend/husband/whatever who proceeded to snap at her (photographically - I can’t comment on their domestic relations) standing with her back to this exquisite piece. A few minutes later a young man repeated this performance but this time as a one man show, contorting himself, his back to a different wall piece and with camera at arms length pointing in the general direction of his face, he snapped away hysterically (or it might be historically if his intention was to preserve this moment for the benefit of future grand children, who knows.)
And that is the point: who does know? If anyone out there does, please let me in on it! Not that I am thinking of ‘doing it myself’ and seeking tips on how to lean back without falling into the shrubbery while squinting into the viewfinder of a wonkily held instamatic (have you ever noticed people doing that while trying to compose the picture instead of simply taking a step back?) No, it’s just that to me the whole exercise is inexplicable! What I would really like to know (in moments of philosophical musing, that is, I am not losing sleep or missing mealtimes through perpetual worrying at this knotty problem; or when be-devilled by some habitual practitioner of this modus existenci intruding him/herself into my view, otherwise I probably couldn’t care less) is: why do people seem to have this wild desire to thrust themselves into the picture and in front of any beautiful view, any elegant or historical knick - knack, any and every famous or infamous work of art (not the un-famous of course, who would be impressed by that?) It is many years (about 34) since I saw the Mona Lisa, and it was bad enough then as I struggled for a glimpse over the shoulders, under the raised arms and between the massed bodies of a small crowd of clickers, flashing their cameras at the reflective bullet-proof glass that protected the smiling lady. Nowadays I believe that it is so bad that your time in front of Leonardo’s masterpiece is strictly limited - presumably to the time estimated to be necessary for your partner to stride up to the picture, turn her/his back, for you to compose the snap and press the shutter release and for her/him to return to your side. The other great target for the snap happy art tourist is of course Michelangelo’s David, where prominently displayed NO FLASH notices are constantly ignored. The truth is I suspect (and have had confirmed when getting into conversation with some ‘flashers’) that some people don’t know how to turn it off, let alone when and when not to use it.
And here I feel another digression coming up: on a trip to Egypt we went one evening to a light show projected onto the Temple of Abu Simbel where I got so irritated by the flashing cameras that I stood up in my front row seat, turned to the assembled audience and advised the snap crazy to stop wasting their film. (This was in pre-digital days so it would have been some time before they got their misty unsatisfactory results back from the printers and wondered what they had been doing wrong.) It was a splendid show depicting the history of ancient Egypt in colourful images sweeping across the face of the temple. As we wended our way back through the desert night to our liberty boat I stopped to speak to a very nice (and obviously intelligent) young German lady who I had met on our cruise, and who worked in Cairo. She was about to take a photo of the colourful final image left in place on the temple so, noticing that the flash light on her camera had automatically popped up, I reminded her to turn it off. She said that she didn’t know how to do that so I advised her to put her hand over it.
On the boat the following day she was sitting with her colleague and they called me over and asked for an explanation of what I had been getting at; so I had to point out what I thought was glaringly obvious: that you can’t take a picture of a light effect by adding more light to it! (How many people have I seen taking flash photos of sunsets and firework displays?) And that in any case a flash on an instamatic only reaches about twenty feet so all it would do is illuminate the desert floor and fuzz out the image.
Once, on a bus trip around central Spain, we lent a camera to a young couple who had forgotten to pack one. (This was in our pre-digital stronger days when, as keen members of the Watford Camera Club, we both went around with bulky camera bags loaded with an SLR a selection of lenses and an instamatic for back-up.) We thought they just wanted a few shots of Barcelona but, evidently bereft of any means of recording their holiday, they kept it for a week. They had the film developed and showed us the results. Out of 36 pictures there was only one which didn’t have either him or her, mostly her, with her back to the view (the ‘object of desire’ quite clearly intruding on the desirable object) coyly staring into the camera.
The Japanese are the worst offenders. Umbilicaly connected to their cameras, I sometimes wonder if they follow them out of the womb like some sort of techno afterbirth. (“Oh, no; He no complete; he got hamera missin! “As inscrutable paternal smile turns to look of oriental horror - followed by a sigh of relief “Oh, here come now, now he hOK. “) Once, on the terrace at Versailles, I witnessed the usual scenario: a young (admittedly very pretty) Japanese woman posed on a wall with her back to the sweep of magnificent gardens; its fountains and sculptures taking second place in the picture, as though this eye candy view screamed out for the intrusion of the human form for its completion.
But definitely my worst experience of this intrusive obsession during my short time on this planet (and this is the real cause of this sudden eruption of long festering bile) was during a visit to the Musee D’Orsey last summer in Paris. Most of the galleries were relatively quiet and free of the menace, and the odd clicker for the most part respected the no flash photography signs; but were I to be gifted with the foresight and writing skills of Dante I would reserve a special place in Hell for such kind as we encountered in the Cezanne and especially the Van Gogh galleries. There it was certainly a different picture. As I stood in front of some of the Dutchman’s most famous images, in a very crowded room, I was elbowed aside, had cameras thrust over my shoulder and young women cavorting for their boyfriends, backing up to the world’s great artworks, while the hapless guards kept repeating the litany of no flash please- not permitted. Why any form of photography is permitted without a special permit (and with a good enough reason - I know because I had get one once in Tate Britain) is beyond me. And it is also beyond me why anyone would want an off colour shaky amateur snap when a postcard of a perfectly professional job is obtainable at the bookshop (as I abruptly told some young German as I pushed his camera from in front of my face.) In any case they only want pics of the pictures that they have seen reproduced countless times in all the books on the subject.
And here perhaps we come the nub of the matter: perhaps they have to be seen to be in the picture themselves; standing in front of Van Gogh’s yellow house, snuggling up to Mrs Cezanne. Is it no more than an aid against the fallibility of memory, a billet-doux to the coming generations or a proof to themselves and to the rest of the world that they were there? Is it the only way to let the generations to come to know of their brief appearance: a tiny nick on the walls of infinity? A stitch in the tangled fabric of existence? A positive mark bobbing on the turbulent river of time? A scream of defiance in the face of the unbearable littleness of being: I woz (most definitely and defiantly) ‘ere!
Why do some people need such proofs? Do they fear being labelled liars by their friends and relatives? Are their memories so fallible that they will forget where they have been for their holidays, or do they need some tangible evidence that it really was them outside the coliseum, or awestruck in front of Michelangelo’s ‘David,’ and not some playful doppelganger wandering the sylvan glades of their minds? Maybe, in the uncertain and perhaps apocalyptic times in which we find (or perhaps never find) ourselves, these wandering souls need constant reminders of their existence. Or is it that in our modern cult(ure) of the media: of tele drama and conceptual art (the idea is the thing), of cyber-space networking and phone-text relationships, the picture is truer than the experience, the record more real than the reality.
If I searched through the dusty boxes and the dozens of computer files of photos that the adorable spouse and I have accumulated over the more than thirty years that we have been together I doubt that I would find more than a dozen in which either of us featured; and then it would be principally a portrait rather than a figure in (or, more realistically described as imposed on) a landscape, Why do it? I know (or think I know) who I am. If I should trip down memory lane, turn up an old photo, I want to see the view, the Pyrenean village clinging to the hillside, the statue in the square, the magnificent relic or more likely the unusual angle, the strange markings on the wall that caught my eye. I want to be reminded of what was and still maybe. I do not want an image of myself showing what I looked like twenty, thirty, however many years ago; staring back and reminding me of how old, lined, raddled and addled I have become. I see that when I glance furtively and as briefly as possible in the mirror every morning…
Technology is wonderful and has enormously enriched us, although I do wonder if the exponential increase in the amount of recorded images has resulted in a comparative decrease in the level of interest that they generate, and the amount of time and real engagement we are prepared to give to the contemplation of both art and nature. In other words more can only mean worse. We now have the means to mark every moment, to transmit our transient thoughts to whoever may be listening with the aid of one technical gismo or another.
But perhaps I do protest too much. Perhaps I am sounding a trifle (or more probably very) smug, a bit ‘superior’ maybe. Let the surging masses record their travels in the way they like; as long as they do it more than a good arms length from me.
Here endeth the lesson.
Well we were resting our feet in one of the five galleries devoted to the exhibition, watching a long video of the collection, when (and now, if you are still with me, I am getting to the point) a young woman came in and snapped a piece of ceramic wall sculpture (with her camera, that is, I don’t mean she literally snapped a piece off! Good God - Keep up at the back there! ) She then handed her camera to her boyfriend/husband/whatever who proceeded to snap at her (photographically - I can’t comment on their domestic relations) standing with her back to this exquisite piece. A few minutes later a young man repeated this performance but this time as a one man show, contorting himself, his back to a different wall piece and with camera at arms length pointing in the general direction of his face, he snapped away hysterically (or it might be historically if his intention was to preserve this moment for the benefit of future grand children, who knows.)
And that is the point: who does know? If anyone out there does, please let me in on it! Not that I am thinking of ‘doing it myself’ and seeking tips on how to lean back without falling into the shrubbery while squinting into the viewfinder of a wonkily held instamatic (have you ever noticed people doing that while trying to compose the picture instead of simply taking a step back?) No, it’s just that to me the whole exercise is inexplicable! What I would really like to know (in moments of philosophical musing, that is, I am not losing sleep or missing mealtimes through perpetual worrying at this knotty problem; or when be-devilled by some habitual practitioner of this modus existenci intruding him/herself into my view, otherwise I probably couldn’t care less) is: why do people seem to have this wild desire to thrust themselves into the picture and in front of any beautiful view, any elegant or historical knick - knack, any and every famous or infamous work of art (not the un-famous of course, who would be impressed by that?) It is many years (about 34) since I saw the Mona Lisa, and it was bad enough then as I struggled for a glimpse over the shoulders, under the raised arms and between the massed bodies of a small crowd of clickers, flashing their cameras at the reflective bullet-proof glass that protected the smiling lady. Nowadays I believe that it is so bad that your time in front of Leonardo’s masterpiece is strictly limited - presumably to the time estimated to be necessary for your partner to stride up to the picture, turn her/his back, for you to compose the snap and press the shutter release and for her/him to return to your side. The other great target for the snap happy art tourist is of course Michelangelo’s David, where prominently displayed NO FLASH notices are constantly ignored. The truth is I suspect (and have had confirmed when getting into conversation with some ‘flashers’) that some people don’t know how to turn it off, let alone when and when not to use it.
And here I feel another digression coming up: on a trip to Egypt we went one evening to a light show projected onto the Temple of Abu Simbel where I got so irritated by the flashing cameras that I stood up in my front row seat, turned to the assembled audience and advised the snap crazy to stop wasting their film. (This was in pre-digital days so it would have been some time before they got their misty unsatisfactory results back from the printers and wondered what they had been doing wrong.) It was a splendid show depicting the history of ancient Egypt in colourful images sweeping across the face of the temple. As we wended our way back through the desert night to our liberty boat I stopped to speak to a very nice (and obviously intelligent) young German lady who I had met on our cruise, and who worked in Cairo. She was about to take a photo of the colourful final image left in place on the temple so, noticing that the flash light on her camera had automatically popped up, I reminded her to turn it off. She said that she didn’t know how to do that so I advised her to put her hand over it.
On the boat the following day she was sitting with her colleague and they called me over and asked for an explanation of what I had been getting at; so I had to point out what I thought was glaringly obvious: that you can’t take a picture of a light effect by adding more light to it! (How many people have I seen taking flash photos of sunsets and firework displays?) And that in any case a flash on an instamatic only reaches about twenty feet so all it would do is illuminate the desert floor and fuzz out the image.
Once, on a bus trip around central Spain, we lent a camera to a young couple who had forgotten to pack one. (This was in our pre-digital stronger days when, as keen members of the Watford Camera Club, we both went around with bulky camera bags loaded with an SLR a selection of lenses and an instamatic for back-up.) We thought they just wanted a few shots of Barcelona but, evidently bereft of any means of recording their holiday, they kept it for a week. They had the film developed and showed us the results. Out of 36 pictures there was only one which didn’t have either him or her, mostly her, with her back to the view (the ‘object of desire’ quite clearly intruding on the desirable object) coyly staring into the camera.
The Japanese are the worst offenders. Umbilicaly connected to their cameras, I sometimes wonder if they follow them out of the womb like some sort of techno afterbirth. (“Oh, no; He no complete; he got hamera missin! “As inscrutable paternal smile turns to look of oriental horror - followed by a sigh of relief “Oh, here come now, now he hOK. “) Once, on the terrace at Versailles, I witnessed the usual scenario: a young (admittedly very pretty) Japanese woman posed on a wall with her back to the sweep of magnificent gardens; its fountains and sculptures taking second place in the picture, as though this eye candy view screamed out for the intrusion of the human form for its completion.
But definitely my worst experience of this intrusive obsession during my short time on this planet (and this is the real cause of this sudden eruption of long festering bile) was during a visit to the Musee D’Orsey last summer in Paris. Most of the galleries were relatively quiet and free of the menace, and the odd clicker for the most part respected the no flash photography signs; but were I to be gifted with the foresight and writing skills of Dante I would reserve a special place in Hell for such kind as we encountered in the Cezanne and especially the Van Gogh galleries. There it was certainly a different picture. As I stood in front of some of the Dutchman’s most famous images, in a very crowded room, I was elbowed aside, had cameras thrust over my shoulder and young women cavorting for their boyfriends, backing up to the world’s great artworks, while the hapless guards kept repeating the litany of no flash please- not permitted. Why any form of photography is permitted without a special permit (and with a good enough reason - I know because I had get one once in Tate Britain) is beyond me. And it is also beyond me why anyone would want an off colour shaky amateur snap when a postcard of a perfectly professional job is obtainable at the bookshop (as I abruptly told some young German as I pushed his camera from in front of my face.) In any case they only want pics of the pictures that they have seen reproduced countless times in all the books on the subject.
And here perhaps we come the nub of the matter: perhaps they have to be seen to be in the picture themselves; standing in front of Van Gogh’s yellow house, snuggling up to Mrs Cezanne. Is it no more than an aid against the fallibility of memory, a billet-doux to the coming generations or a proof to themselves and to the rest of the world that they were there? Is it the only way to let the generations to come to know of their brief appearance: a tiny nick on the walls of infinity? A stitch in the tangled fabric of existence? A positive mark bobbing on the turbulent river of time? A scream of defiance in the face of the unbearable littleness of being: I woz (most definitely and defiantly) ‘ere!
Why do some people need such proofs? Do they fear being labelled liars by their friends and relatives? Are their memories so fallible that they will forget where they have been for their holidays, or do they need some tangible evidence that it really was them outside the coliseum, or awestruck in front of Michelangelo’s ‘David,’ and not some playful doppelganger wandering the sylvan glades of their minds? Maybe, in the uncertain and perhaps apocalyptic times in which we find (or perhaps never find) ourselves, these wandering souls need constant reminders of their existence. Or is it that in our modern cult(ure) of the media: of tele drama and conceptual art (the idea is the thing), of cyber-space networking and phone-text relationships, the picture is truer than the experience, the record more real than the reality.
If I searched through the dusty boxes and the dozens of computer files of photos that the adorable spouse and I have accumulated over the more than thirty years that we have been together I doubt that I would find more than a dozen in which either of us featured; and then it would be principally a portrait rather than a figure in (or, more realistically described as imposed on) a landscape, Why do it? I know (or think I know) who I am. If I should trip down memory lane, turn up an old photo, I want to see the view, the Pyrenean village clinging to the hillside, the statue in the square, the magnificent relic or more likely the unusual angle, the strange markings on the wall that caught my eye. I want to be reminded of what was and still maybe. I do not want an image of myself showing what I looked like twenty, thirty, however many years ago; staring back and reminding me of how old, lined, raddled and addled I have become. I see that when I glance furtively and as briefly as possible in the mirror every morning…
Technology is wonderful and has enormously enriched us, although I do wonder if the exponential increase in the amount of recorded images has resulted in a comparative decrease in the level of interest that they generate, and the amount of time and real engagement we are prepared to give to the contemplation of both art and nature. In other words more can only mean worse. We now have the means to mark every moment, to transmit our transient thoughts to whoever may be listening with the aid of one technical gismo or another.
But perhaps I do protest too much. Perhaps I am sounding a trifle (or more probably very) smug, a bit ‘superior’ maybe. Let the surging masses record their travels in the way they like; as long as they do it more than a good arms length from me.
Here endeth the lesson.
Whew, I’m glad I got that off my chest! I feel a lot better now.