WEEK 2. Looking: Photography & Observational Drawing

"the line that is drawn is one that moves." (Gray, 1971:9)

How well do we actually see when we look? Is our perception filtered through our own experience?

When we were asked, why should anthropologists be concerned with the visual? My initial thoughts, based on my experience with filmmaking, were that we should be concerned with the visual because I believe that what is seen cannot always be said. There are layers of meaning that can be construed from an image, of course as the age old adage goes ‘a picture speaks a 1000 words’. It is this ineffableness that attracts me personally to image making.

To look at my previous film work, it becomes obvious that I like to anonymise the figures in the frames. I usually dissect, cut and distort bodies. It is an intentional practice, the figures in the images represent an idea, they are open to interpretation but my framing and editing is suggestive of the story I wish to tell.

When we consider image making in anthropological practice, it is a common misconception to think that those images of life represent a certain truth about the subjects within them. But it could be argued that the anthropologist is also framing and editing based on the desired story they which to tell.

Questions to think about from Lecture 2:

To what extent can we maintain a distinction between photography as ‘taking’ and drawing as ‘making’?

To take a photograph, to make a drawing? To make a photograph, to take a drawing?

With drawing there is usually notable time taken to construct the picture. This time gives the opportunity to build a relationship with the person in front of you as moments for conversation and two-way interaction arise. To be drawn in some ways is to be admired. (I'm thinking of the film 'Portrait of A Lady on Fire' which I watched around the time of this lecture). To draw someone or something is to look intently and continue to shift your gaze back and forward between your drawing and the subject. Re-looking, noticing changes, shifts in movement. Zoning in, forensically on the detail of the subject. Depending on the skill on the artist, it's likely that the picture won't look exactly like the subject. What is created in a subjective representation based on the experience, skill and tastes of the drawer.

With taking a photograph or indeed a video, the camera mediates and in some ways acts as a barrier between observer and participant. I would question whether the camera can be ignored and whether, particularly with video, what you get is an accurate depiction or a slightly staged or performed scene? The camera in this sense becomes part of a performance between researcher and participant, who are also performing. To take a photograph, in some respects but not all, is a quick process. It could be argued that the photographer does not look as intently as an illustrator would at the subject. Again of course this is not always the case!

It is possible for the camera to convey emotion (sympathy, empathy, disgust?) by the use of camera angles, perspective, lighting etc. Stylistic choices which also acts as mediator between the subject and the viewer. This reminds us that when we engage with any material created by another individual, we are seeing a world through their eyes. The image is made behind the camera, so to speak.

How might the camera be more effectively used in anthropology if approached in the same way as drawing?

Can photos or video be to drawing what drawing is to walking in Tim Ingold's opinion in Lines: Chapter on Drawing, writing and calligraphy? Where “drawings like walking can be seen as a form of wayfaring" – meaning the process of moving through the world in an improvisatory way. If so, then to draw with a camera (Edwards, 2015) is to follow your eye and the action and trace a path or a journey that is carved by the life that unfolds around you, as you document. Going into an environment without preconceived ideas about what it is you wish to capture. Letting the action guide you. The camera can be seen as an eye, an "extension of the senses.” (Grimshaw & Ravetz, 2015: 262). This path like the “leading lines,” described in Ingold's chapter– "embody in their very formation the past history, present action and future potential of a thing."

Notes on an argument for visual anthropology

• "The social act of image making" (Grimshaw & Ravetz, 2015)

• “opening up meditative space around a subject” (Grimshaw & Ravetz, 2015)

• "Anthropology being ‘seen’ rather than read." (Edwards, 2015)

• Critiques - Photography in anthropology and the act of trimming out the ‘excess’ information through framing. (Edwards, 2015). Manipulating narratives

• Willingness to relinquish control over editing - film finding its own form

Ideas of trace___________lives extending beyond the duration of the film___________life goes on when no one is watching

Watched:

Beautiful Colour – Amanda Ravetz

Notes:

• An observational documentary of learning disabled artist Ian Partridge at work

• Just draw. The act of unselfconsciously picking up the pencil and drawing

• Thoughts I’ve had previously when thinking about my sister the unselfconscious artist. She is extremely productive.

• Love that sound of sharp pencil drawing on a hard surface – sensory pleasure

NIISHII: Night Worlds – Saranya Nakak

Notes:

• The cameras presence

• The children staring curiously at us, in the same way we stare curiously back

• That gaze that’s hard to break

• How electricity is changing their lives

• “The light ghost” – night duty, the superstition

• The real stories behind the superstitions

• The cinematic focus on the light with stories overlaid

• Women walking at night is mentioned – not encouraged, socially frowned upon. Husband and wife conflict of opinions regarding this – the cameras presence and the opportunity for truth and confession

• The embarrassed smiles

• “traversing realms of experience, imagination and time.”

Learning Lab Observations:

Nikon Camera blind sketch

- "relying on the edges" - to guide me round, omitting the detail or at least confusing it and getting it in the wrong place.

Workshop Notes:

First Task

We were asked to take photos – one normal, one distorted (moving), one heavily edited.

I took one picture of outside my window to show where I was in the world (as I had only meet the class online via Microsoft Teams thus far), and the last two of my face editing and distorting the images beyond recognition. I am not actually taker of selfies but for some reason my mind drew a blank when we were asked to take pictures of something. I guess the task made me think of material culture and realise that I am not so object orientated, what I am really concerned with is identity and the multiple interpretations of it.

Second Task

Based on a task from Causey's - 'Drawn To See', we were asked to select an object to draw.

I chose a Nikon film camera. We were instructed to draw the object but conceal the page we drew on with a cloth, effectively drawing blind, unable to see the image we were producing (see image above). As I drew, I noticed that I tried to cling to the edges of the object, drawing the outline meant not having to deviate so much from the page. My spatial awareness of the paper meant I could proportionally place the image with relative ease. However when it came to adding detail, I was required to leave the peripheries and find the centre, which was not so easy to do. The result is an image distorted and inaccurate but still recognisable as a camera. A disruption of seeing, causing slippery perceptions.

Thoughts:

Can you convey your own emotions, thoughts through your image? Or will people feel their own?

The act of:

Taking a photo - trying to convey a message. Framing.

Making a drawing - trying to make understood what is drawn.

It's all about interpretation. Drawing (image making) is a translation from subject to eye to mind to hand and this opens up space for interpretation. What will be produced on paper is not always predictable. But it cannot be denied that what has been produced is unique to you, seen through you and your experience and even your muscle development!

Sketch made whilst listening to Taussig's 'I Swear I Saw This'