Richards and David make the point that much of what we would call visual rhetoric is contextualized relative to high culture. Likewise, in the case of photographs, much of what we would call visual rhetoric is contextualized relative to other photographs in what we might call signatures. Given this context, choose one of the two pictures, the one from Lange and the other from Hurricane Katrina. And then: what's the story behind the photo, and what contexts do you see? If others have already written on the photo you have chosen, be sure to include their comments where relevant.
The first picture reminds me of my ex patriot, maybe an uncle, grandfather, etc. who is proud of their country, and found in one of the world wars? The idea of showing just the silhouette of the man too. No facial expression and dark. To represent sadness? The importance of this photo though is not necessarily the older gentleman, but the flag. Notice how it is look like the American flag, but actually has blue strips too? And the stars are red crosses. So, what does this mean? Maybe it symbolizes death of soldiers? Maybe a lack of religion in our nation? The red and white strips usually represent the 13 original colonies, but I'm not sure what the mix of the blue means when mixed all together?
ReplyDeleteThe second photo reminds me of the hoovervilles that are written about in The Grapes of Wrath. Maybe 1930's? Great depression era?
I am so sorry...I just saw Dr. Yancy's 2nd e-mail! Please disregard my posts! I just love blogs!!
ReplyDeleteAlthough Dorthea Lange's life is intriguing and her photos hard not to get lost in, I can only imagine that there are, in fact, two narratives that accompany this image of a mother and her children: the narrative of perseverance and heroism that it tells and the narrative of a New Jersey woman from the Farm Securities Administration that showed up to a California pea picker's camp to take this image during the Great Depression. As Lange documented the suffering of the migrant poor during this era, her images stirred the sympathy and compassion of the wealthy. In doing so, Lange makes viewers sympathetic to the plight of this woman and her family. She constructs a story of their poverty. The image is carefully composed to reflect the message that this woman is not deserving of her poverty. In fact, it seems that the woman and her poverty are almost presented as heroic and victorious. The woman on the right has steadied herself against the desperation and does not seem hopeless, desperate, or completely forlorn as she cares for what appear to be her four children. She and her family are what dominate the foreground of the image, not the desperation and poverty that surround them.
ReplyDeleteAfter looking closer at the image, the woman on the right is recognizable as the mother in what might be the more famous piece that shares the title "Migrant Mother." In this image the woman has a baby on her lap and her two children are turned away from the camera and are resting their heads on her shoulder, one on each side. Here the woman looks steadfastly to the horizon.
In my opinion, both of these images are telling a narrative of America's destined victory over the Great Depression. While this is nice, it also washes over the reality of this woman's suffering. The image makes her into a hero without acknowledging that her life isn't pretty and that the her perseverance had nothing to do with the celebration of the American spirit, but rather the need to survive horrible circumstances and keep her children alive. What if she were not a hero, but only human, would she not also be deserving of help?
The second narrative that this image tells is that of a documentary photographer entering this migrant camp and documenting the lives of those who lived there. I wonder how this migrant in California felt when a woman from New Jersey asked to take her picture. The mother and her family seem to be looking away while the camera is relentlessly staring at them . . .
Perhaps this image resonates and has become an emblematic illustration of some kind of "American Sprit" in large part because it offers no context. Viewers are invited to scrutinize the mother, her children, and her tent . . . the conclusions that they draw from this scrutiny are left as they are because there is no context to direct us otherwise. We have no other information from the image other than the conclusions that we draw -- conclusions that we are led to by Lange's careful composition within the frame. As the image is reused today this enables the new contexts within which it is used to continue shaping the viewer's experience.
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ReplyDeleteI concur with Katie’s idea of the two narratives for the Lange photo, and that the image is a composition built for the creator’s purpose—here, sympathy. The image reflects the traditional notions of women as stationary objects, without agency in their suffering. In their introduction, Helmers and Hill and write that the Ground Zero flag image “must be read for what is absent as much as for what is present” (12). How would this Lange photograph have been received if an adult male character was included? Would his affiliation with this stationary environment cause viewers to lose sympathy (ie “Why doesn’t he go to work?”) in a similar way that viewers would lose their sympathetic response to “Migrant Mother” if too many children were shown? (Richards and David 12). The woman and children pictured worked for the composition as sympathetic victims without agency. Even though the destitute migrant men had little to no power in their situation, an image of an adult male in the context of twentieth century America and the Horatio Alger myth mentality could have swayed an audience away from sympathizing with an adult male in the image.
ReplyDeleteThe Lange image remains a poignant image in a new, contemporary rhetorical situation. Bitzer uses the Gettysburg Address as an example of a text that remains rhetorically active because “some features of the Gettysburg situation persist.” Unfortunately, the Lange image situation persists—there are still displaced, impoverished people. I use Bitzer’s stance to say that the photograph is working in a new rhetorical situation. For example, I’m viewing the photograph now as it is set against my laptop’s wallpaper—a vivid image of the California coast with bright flowers and sailboats and colors everywhere. While the black and white photograph is black and white because of the technical norm of its original time, the black and white of the photograph now appears a dreary contrast to our colorful HD world.
Since I don't remember having seen the photo in the context of Hurricane Katrina before, I guess I have to take Dr. Yancey's word for it (which of course I have no problem doing, I'm just saying that the picture has to be interpreted differently based on that knowledge). Given that context, this photo can remind us a lot about what happened in the aftermath of the devastation of NOLA and its surrounding areas.
ReplyDeleteAt first glance, this picture simply appears to be a back-lit man waving an American flag, which is just about the most patriotic symbol we have -- a phenomenon dating at least as far back as F.S. Key ("the flag was still there," etc.). To look more closely, however, one may soon realize that instead of the stars of Old Glory, we have 50 of the iconic fleur-de-lis(s), symbolic of NOLA's French heritage and, more recently (and popularly/commonly), the N.O. Saints of the NFL. This latter association is not altogether unimportant, as the football team and the city would be equated by the national media as representative of one another throughout the rebuilding process (which despite the recent SB victory by the Saints is still ongoing). Never mind the fact that the Superdome (aka the home of the Saints) was one of two locations where evacuees were told to go and then stranded there for no fewer than 48 hours. The results of which stranding played out as a real-life soap opera on the major news networks and were arguably a major turning point in US politics (Kanye West and Mike Meyers might have something to say about that, too).
It will then dawn on the viewer of this image that not only have the stars been replaced, but the colors themselves (which at first may seem to simply be distorted by the light from behind) have actually been altered, once again to reflect the colors of NOLA's team and global representative, the Saints. If, as I was, you were watching ESPN when the Saints played their first game after Katrina against the Atlanta Falcons on a Monday night in 2006, you might have been convinced by the palpable excitement (and the ensuing thumping the Saints put on the Falcons) that the horror of Katrina had been overcome. This is the bond of the city and its team (for better or worse).
That the unidentifiable and (as I am led by my own understanding of the events of Katrina and my study of the picture) presumably African-American man is holding (waving?) the flag triumphantly suggests themes of survival, hope, endurance, opportunity to rebuild, stubbornness to do same in the face of perpetual threats of repeat Acts of God, etc. The light at his back and the blue break in the clouds at the top of the photo also suggest some heavenly advocacy at play.
I'll briefly mention the equation of NOLA with the entire US by the commandeering of the flag design, which to me says boldly WE ARE ALL NEW ORLEANS.
In sum, it's weird to me (in a culturally critical sense) that you could have told me that this was taken either during the aftermath of Katrina or on the day after the Saints won the Super Bowl and I would have accepted both.
I have agree with Katie's second narrative on the Lang photo and the issue of photographer context. Every time I bring in documentary photos into my classes at least one student will say "wow so that was probably awkward for the photographer" Other times they come to the conclusion that it was simply "rude" of the photographer. One students exclaimed "so what she just went up the them and said 'hey you look homeless can I take some sad photos of you'" While we certainly talk about how that conversation might be rhetorically different, there are still issues of spectacle, the gaze, and exploitation that linger and haunt the students (and me). Do documentary photographers empower their subjects or exploit them? Not only do we need contexts to understand and analyze a photo, but do we also need the context of the photographer and the photo shoots themselves? Can I really enjoy a documentary feature if I am unsure of the ethical decisions the photographer made along the way?
ReplyDeleteOh goodness, did I just ask the photographer to write me a process memo?! It appears to circle back to author agency and the audience's role in creating meaning (and potentially action)...
Nice comments, folks: I look forward to more. A couple of notes.
ReplyDelete1. As Susan Sontag and Jean Berger argue, photos are by definition without context; that's the point, that they capture a bit of a bigger picture, and that we (often unwittingly) provide that context. What we see, in other words, is often a function of the context the viewer provides.
2. The photographer! Funny you should mention him/her. Is the role of the photographer to represent, to construct, to mimic?
3. Documentary and journalistic photography both participate in taking from others. And clearly, there are ethical considerations.
Well done!
It is amazing how both images embody a sense of heroism. Yet, both images represent different types of heroism, and like Dr. Yancy said, without our own context then these images would represent different ideas. I question though if photographer wanted us to get the feeling of heroism though, or if it is more a cry of desperation. I get more the sense of endurance and hope. Endurance because they are clearly surviving, and hope because of the baby and young children. I wonder how this picture was regarded in the 1930s. Was the audience accepting of this? Thinking, "yes, this is what life is like." Or do was the audience almost awestruck by the poverty? Did society look at this picture and feel heroism?
ReplyDeleteThe Lange photo intrigues me for two reasons, neither of which actually has to do with the photo but rather with the photographer, Lange. Like Natalie and Katie, I too am interested in the ethical obligation of the photographer. Or perhaps this would be phrased better as a question: is there an ethical obligation on the part of the photographer? And if there is, would Lange’s actions be considered unethical?
ReplyDeleteIt’s easy to rationalize both sides of the argument. On one hand, this photo captures a very depressing and painfully realistic existence during the Great Depression. Shortly after it and the other photos, such as the iconic Migrant Mother, were taken, they became symbolic of the era, but they were also, as Katie implies, a call to action. The photos not only expose you to this humbling and sobering (in more ways than one) world but also, and perhaps more importantly, force you to think critically about the environment, about the people, and about the circumstances that conspired and thus resulted in this family being there at that moment. In short, the photos invoke empathy (if not also a little anger). Now, the photos are still symbolic, if not more so. They epitomize the Great Depression; in fact, if you go to the “Great Depression” Wikipedia page, the Migrant Mother photo is the icon. Understood this way, these photos are historical reminders and actually seem edifying: the intentions appear just (especially when you learn the photos were the impetus in the federal government sending thousands of pounds of food to the pea-picker camp).
On the other hand, and as Natalie suggests and Katie puts more euphemistically, “Who does this woman think she is?” It’s the same critique that’s commonly assigned to ethnographers, whose presence in nonnative environments, especially impoverished ones, appears a little condescending, tactless, and exploitative. It’s a matter of agency and whether the documenter (or ethnographer) exploits that agency, for from the very beginning, the documenter is the empowered one, despite the “outsider” status. The documenter ultimately decides what to do with the information s/he generates from his/her work. The subject(s), put tersely, are mere guinea pigs who put a lot of faith in these documenters, and sometimes, that faith is misplaced. For instance, what do we think about the fact that Lange promised Thompson, the mother in the photo, that she would never publish the photos? My point, I guess, is that there’s a very fine line in documentary photography, as there is in ethnography, between taking advantage of one’s subject and using a subject to raise awareness. Maybe the former is a necessary evil of the latter.
The other reason this photo intrigues me is the stature of Lange as photographer, a stature she ascertained as a direct result of these photos. Take, as an example, the way the prompt was worded: “Given this context, choose one of the two pictures, the one from Lange and the other from Hurricane Katrina.” Yancey didn’t name the Katrina photographer. That says something, doesn’t it? If you’re familiar with Lange’s work, the second you hear it’s a Lange photo, you immediately have a certain set of expectations; you come to that photo equipped with a different lens whether you realize it or not. We also view this photo through the lens of Migrant Mother; it’s difficult for us not to associate this photo with that one, and throughout this response, I’ve spoken about this photo in terms of the set it belongs to, not about this photo individually.
This is all to say that context does matter, but am I, as Yancey (through Sontag and Berger) suggests, providing that context? I’d argue the opposite: that a photo with such important history necessarily carries a context with it that precludes us from viewing this photo objectively.
O.K. I'm fighting the urge to compare/contrast these photos rather than choosing one to write about. But since there is only one post on the Katrina photo, I guess I'll take that one! This photo challenged me much more than the Lange photo, probably because I have some background knowledge about Lange's work and the Depression/FSA context from prior exposure and several of the class readings. My lack of background knowledge about the Katrina photo made me hesitate to construct a story behind it. Rory discusses this pretty astutely, in terms of how knowing the photographer's name impacts our interpretation of the photo. Rory's comments make me think that not knowing the Katrina photographer's identity gives greater voice/agency to the person in the photo. This is kind of ironic since we can't see the subject's face. . .
ReplyDeleteHmmm. . . my feeling is that since the photographer is unknown (to me) his/her identity/intentions/context do not overtake the subject's in the same way that Lange's do in her photo above. This is curious. My hesitance to construct a narrative behind the Katrina photo probably betrays my unconscious sense that the author's intentions and context are important, and that without knowing them I might get the story "wrong."
However, that's what we were asked to do, so here goes! In the Katrina photo, I recognized the flag's allusion to the American flag, but with different colors and fleur-de-lis instead of stars. I knew the fleur-de-lis symbolized New Orleans, but I had to do some research to figure out that the colors in the flag refered to the Saints football team (yeah, big surprise, I don't know jack about football!).
I've been following other folks' comments on the mother's lack of agency they sense Lange's photo. And I've been thinking about that compared to the Katrina photo. Although the man in the photo is anonymous, his face obscured by shadow, he is active and triumphant flying that flag. We are not asked to pity him, we are inspired by him. Stephen points out that the Saints flag's reference to the American flag says boldly that "we are all New Orleans." I think it also says that the Saints are America's team.
I have to take a different approach. Dr. Yancey wrote in her post that photographs are without context. I am unfamiliar with both photographs and both photographers, and reading the prompt I am at a loss with how to answer. It is only through reading the posts of everyone else (and doing some research, of course) that I even know what they are really photographs of. My gut reactions to the images are wildly off base compared the reality. How can I get in dialogue with the photographer's intentions for photographing an image if I don't have access to what he or she is representing/construing? How can I make judgments about whether the image was photographed ethically? I'm confused about how photographs could not have a context. Doesn't everything? If we are reading images-as-text, then isn't context relevant?
ReplyDeleteThe only context Dr. Yancey gives us for the Hurricane Katrina photo is just that. I wonder what those who chose this photo would have said without this context. Personally, I would have immediately connected it to the Saints, only because I recognize the iconic symbol of the fleur-de-lis in conjunction with the black and gold colors. So, if we have no context, are we obligated to create a context? Can we simply view an image without a context? And what if my context is different from someone else’s? Stephen made the connection between Katrina, New Orleans, and the Saints; however, as Sunny mentions, she knows little about football, so why would she have made this connection? Sunny also reveals that she had to conduct additional research in order to provide context for the image. What if she had not conducted this investigation?
ReplyDeleteIn order to provide some context for this image, like Sunny, I also conducted some preliminary research. Although I recognized the black and gold as the Saint’s colors, I wasn’t sure if those colors represented only the Saints or if they were also signature colors of the city of New Orleans. According to Wikipedia,
“John W. Mecom, Jr., a young oilman from Houston, became the team's first majority stockholder. The team's colors, black and gold, symbolized both Mecom's and New Orleans' strong ties to the oil ("black gold") industry.”
As viewers, is it necessary that we conduct research to attempt to unearth the original context of the image, or will our own individual knowledge suffice? Would my interpretation of the image be less valuable than Stephen’s or Sunny’s had I not recognized the correlation between the flag’s icons and the colors of the Saints?
I am interested in this idea that “photos are by definition without context” and that the viewer constructs context around the image. I would like to play around with this idea by approaching these two images from a different way. I wonder: in what ways do these images delineate “insider” vs “outsider” status upon viewers? If images create insider/outsider status upon viewers, how does this happen? If images do do this (I suspect some/many do), I think both of these images are interesting, but I’ll choose the first one. First, of course, is the central image: the American flag, re-appropriated for a particular purpose. As a Canadian, the American flag doesn’t entirely represent (or has been taught to me to represent) the things that Hill and Helmers talk about in their introduction (in fact, I didn’t know what the different colours represented until I read it). The flag has little emotional value for me (forgive me); it is “merely” the flag of the United States, a space in which there are some “in” and the rest “out”. The central iconic image of the flag means something different to me (and my experiences), yet I am still aware that this context/view is a counter-point to the “standard” narrative of the flag. I am aware of both narratives, and, in this way, I feel keenly located “outside.” In addition, although I can see that this is a re-appropriation of the flag (which makes this photo so fascinating), I cannot entirely guess what the re-inscribed (or patchworked/remixed) values sewn into this flag might be (at least, I feel ill-equipped to do so). The fleur-de-lis, of course, has more weight for me as a symbol representative of Quebecois culture although I am loosely aware of its importance in Louisiana history. Regardless, my connection to New Orleans/Louisiana is very peripheral, and the meaning of the alternate colours elude me as well. If this is an image connected to Katrina, there is a context (pre) built for me via the media of what this image is supposed to mean, and via this canon of knowledge that I also have “witnessed” and “experienced”, I feel sympathy based on a general sense of human compassion and decency (this applies to both photos). But since there is little else to tie me to it, I feel that I cannot get “close” to understanding the context of this image; I feel that I am less emotionally tied to this image than many of you. On the other hand, if it is an image connected to the Saints (and, as Stephen, suggests the two are inextricable), again, I am an “outsider” since: a) I’m a Canadian and I don’t understand football’s tremendous relevance in Americana and b) even if I did understand football culture, I just don’t like the sport (sorry Rory), so again I am an outsider to this community.
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