It is quite often possible to hear judgement that the good photo speaks for itself and doesn’t need any explanations. So it so, yes not absolutely. As any other unduly categorical thought, this expression doesn’t take into consideration great variety of nuances.
I.
St.-Petersburg. A winter palace. Visitors slowly transit on gallery 1812 [1]. For the majority of them it is important to feel only the general atmosphere of a palace before an input in the Big throne-room. Sights smoothly slide on portraits of strangers. Whether probably under such circumstances to estimate art properties of one separate taken image? The answer depends on many additional factors. If, say, the guide for an instant draws attention of group to any portrait, some words about the represented person will tell, will tell about the author, etc. perception instantly changes. Сиюминутность both fugacity pale into insignificance, and of spectators details and prominent features of the specific image for some time take hold.
The portrait is a genre which often demands a context. Quite often to understand and estimate it to the full, it is necessary to know, who and under what circumstances is represented on it.
However, the accompanying text is important and for other genres. Words can’t make the image neither it is better, nor is worse. But they can affect perception essentially.
The bad guide can spoil impression of the most remarkable exposure while good — often clears up interest at the most indifferent audience. Why the Word plays so important role for us? Who knows … Perhaps, what it was in the beginning?
II.
About the family photochronicle often speak as about a genre interesting only for a narrow circle of persons, connected to the represented people family, friendly or other bonds.
For the author of these lines the family photo is something большее. After all as a matter of fact it differs from the picturesque portraits hanging in many museums and galleries a little. It, unconditionally, can be interesting and to wider audience. But under one condition: audience should interest not only the visual work of art, but also history, to which given product serves (can serve) as an illustration or addition.
On the properties, the family photo, is close, on the one hand,To a graphic portrait, and, on the other hand, to newspaper репортажной illustrations, till the end of uncovered only in a combination to the explanatory text.
Art and technical imperfection of house photo albums in many cases are with interest compensated by documentation and possibility of a live tangency to a transient course of time.
The grandmother of the author of these lines (a photo 1), has led all war at the front, but never told about the front past. But she was always ready to tell set of other remarkable stories on the most different subjects. In them never was shreds назидательности. And its each story was full of live figurativeness and warm-heartedness. The love to art prose the author of these lines in many respects connects that in the early childhood he could listen to these surprising and fascinating stories.
Photo 1. My favourite grandmother,60th years of the last century,The author of a photo is unknown Often, having heard similar explanations, the listener starts to peer more steadfastly into this not too original photooperation, trying to see in the opinion of the woman elderly and unfamiliar to it all those details which are informed it in the form of words.
Photo 2. The great-grandmother of the author in a surrounding of grandsons,The Moscow studio, the middle of 30th years of the XX-th century
In many cases of the torn vast explanations it is not required. For awakening of spectator interest and offset of accents in perception enough only short explanations in the signature to a photo, and even simply only one signature. So the photo 2 can be interesting, for example, to that concerns to receive by then when people all family still went to studio of the photographer a photo in a family album.
III.
Very often eyewitnesses of any events, having seen somewhere «a documentary photo in art handling» can’t hide irritation. Sometimes their feelings will be transformed and to open perturbation. In similar cases many eyewitnesses put incomplete in many respects amateur pictures considerably above “artly-reportazhnyh” settings as the facts of life for them where as are more important than esthetic properties of a picture.
Many people appreciate a photo not as the tool for creation of artistic images, and as objective means of reflection and reality fixing. Such people feel at once any falseness, any lie and resolutely condemn. In all similar cases the explanatory text becomes nonseparable from the photo.
But not any text approaches for the description. The words accompanying the image, should be not less sincere and truthful, than visions with which they form a single whole.
One of visitors of a site in the letter to the author tells:
«My grandfather, Zhuravlyov Alexey Maksimovich, 1918 of the river, the main occupation — the bookkeeper, was engaged фотолюбительством since 1936 Its first camera,« the Tourist », has been acquired through the Mail order. The theory and photobusiness practice studied independently, in a settlement Pribalhashstroj barrack (nowadays Balkhash) in Kazakhstan. Printed from plates, illuminating their candle in a hen house (the electricity was only in a barrack). I apply the post-war pictures made the grandfather roughly in 1956-57 Normal photos on storage, made under normal conditions for Balkhash — the strong wind, a shining sun — transfer that invincible aspiration of the person to the best which has helped these people to be saved and live life, DESPITE. Here so. Thanks to interest of the grandfather to a photo now somehow it is possible to imagine that life which is embellished by nothing».
Photo 3. Balkhash. 1956-57 © A. M.Zhuravlyov
Photo 4. Balkhash. 1956-57 © A. M.Zhuravlyov
IV.
The text plays a crucial role not only in an amateur photo. Quite often it is important accent, and even a full element, in operation of the recognized master.
Photo 5. Death of the soldier-Loyalist. Spain. 1936 the Author: Robert Kapa
In the famous photo which was removed by R.Kapa, «Death of the soldier-Loyalist» (Robert Capa, Death of a Loyalist Soldier, Spain, 1936) many find this or that esthetics and beauty. For one is a beauty of a human feat, for others — beauty of a composition and the graphic decision. So, Chog-ho Ю writes [2]: “Photo” Death of the soldier-Loyalist »is one more good example of how the horror of death can be shown in the fine and arranged image. The displaced composition and falling turning point testify that the photo has been made осознанно, instead of on good luck».
The author can’t agree with similar words in any way. In its modest judgement to speak about an esthetics here it is not absolutely pertinent. The strongest influence of this image on the spectator is in many respects connected not so much to beauty, how many with the additional information containing in the signature: «Death of the soldier». Be it “Attack” or «On fronts of Spain» — there would be our perception invariable? Still we would rank this operation as world masterpieces? We as though perceived this photo if beforehand didn’t know, what only some instants prior to descent of a lock of the camera the represented person was full vital energy and had the diversified feeling and emotions, and after a second his soul has already abandoned this frail world?
Who knows … But nevertheless it is thought, what exactly fixing of the moment of loss of the person gives to this operation shrillness and lifts it to level of philosophical judgement.
The text can play an important role and when we deal not with so dramatic plots.
Photo 6. Anri Matisse’s portrait, 1944 the Author: A.Karte-Bresson
So, having seen for the first time the photo of Bressona presented on a photo 6, the author of these lines, is remembered, has thought: «Likely, it is any Asian grandfather from Bukhara or Samarkand. Behind a window of its dwelling for certain there is the small garden separated from dusty and stuffy street by a deaf high fence». When the author has read the signature under a photo, the Bukhara spirit has instantly disappeared without a trace, and Central Asia has immediately given way in perception of France.
* * *
Fine arts products in which perceptions the text plays an essential role, aren’t worse at all than self-sufficient art images. Like many other art forms, the photo can be independent and independent, and can be and a component of more difficult art decision. So, for example, in a motion-picture the photo appears in a surrounding of the text, music, the director’s decision, no less than still many other concomitant circumstances.
The photo is not obliged to be not so such someone what it wants (and-or can) to present. It only means, the tool … As to use it — everyone is free to solve.
LINKS
1. Military gallery of 1812 in the Winter palace. The virtual excursion.
2. Chog-ho Yu (Alex Yu). Aesthetics of Photography: Combining the Viewer’s and the Artist’s Standpoints (Printed in (2004) Art Criticism, 19 (1), 63-74)
APPLICATION-REFERENCE
Grandson A. M.Zhuravlyov has sent to the author the text recovered by the grandfather on storage of an old poem:
Mum Toshe has presentedThe camera.The device such good —Will remove all successively.— Well, It is lovely, rise прямее,Smile more cheerfully,In the device here look,I remove — time, two, three!Ah-jaj-jaj, tell on favor,What is it has turned out:It is lovely with a bow, песьи ears … — I didn’t change a plate,All one plate has removed!
The request to respond all to whom the author of this children’s rhyme and-or the full original text is known. Thanks.