Nostalgia as a contemporary concept of history

[Nescio]

Last night I couldn’t get asleep and found this interview with Stephen Mayes, director of VII Photo Agency and ex World Press chairman:
http://www.wired.com/rawfile/2012/11/stephen-mayes-vii-photography/all/

First thought: another crap read on how modern all things are and inevitably must be. Second thought, after the first read, is that Stephen Mayes makes some points, but... at least to me, they’re more descriptive than “photosophical”.

SM states that social network photography - read Instagram - is all about immediacy; a photographical “here and now” experience. But hasn’t this always been the case? Perhaps “here and now” has become a much narrower time space and only refers to an emotional adrenaline shot taking place on a specific moment. But the word (or perhaps still a brand name) Instagram seems to be a lexical twist of the Kodak Instamatic. Then he goes on about the unobtrusiveness of the cell phone. That, to say the least, sounds very familiar, especially on this forum.

So basically, I don’t agree with SM that “digital changed the very nature of photography”. To me the change is more about quantity than about quality, apart from the time aspect. If any, it seems this “change” has much more to do with a shift in social values in a broad sense than with a revolution in picture taking. Haven’t we been going from one revival to the other for the last 2 or 3 decades?

And all these crappy filters you can use with Instagram appeal to some sort of nostalgic feeling. Does that mean that history, as something worth to understand or to interpret the past or even as something to learn from has been replaced by an emotive representation of the past? Has nostalgia become a contemporary concept of history?

Please feel free to shed some light into my dark brain!

Nescio

 

[mfogiel]

Digital has definitely changed photography. I remember the guy in my preferred photo shop, when I lived in Milan, said, that with the advent of autofocus small sensor digital cameras, the most dramatic change he has seen, was that suddenly most of his customers' photos were acceptably sharp...
The second dramatic change has been the elimination of film processing. Unless I have some specific timetable for a photograph, the average time it takes me to process, scan and edit a roll of film is probably a month - with digital, you make the photo, and you virtually "have it" instantly, be it on your phone, pad or computer.
As far as nostalgia is concerned, this has always existed - just imagine what kind of nostalgia must have had people, who were born in 1880-90, and went through the 2 wars - when they were 60 and they were recalling their young years ( era of Franz Josef), it was like if they were going back to the times of Roman Empire. I think the Instagram "filters" are in part a fad, and in part an attempt to escape colour photography, which in my opinion, has been injustly liberated for the use of the (photographically) uneducated masses, and is oppressing our eyes with its utter banality.

 

[Joakim Målare]

This may be a little off the subject, but the phrasing below caught my interest.

... with digital, you make the photo, and you virtually "have it" instantly, be it on your phone, pad or computer.

And maybe that's it in a sense - that you "virtually have it", but rarely for real. Perhaps the nostalgic filters are an expression of what it was like when you did create history in the very concrete way of negatives on film, and prints delivered with it from the developing service.

Perhaps it's a unconscious symptom of an era bound to be erased without evidence of its intent - a subtle warning that the information age is coming to an end?

I'm thinking large, but isn't that what makes it fun? ;-)

The digital workflow doesn't appeal to me anymore, mostly because it isn't 'for real'. Perhaps others begin to feel the same?

 

[Nescio]

fmogiel, thanks for posting!

Of course digital has changed photography. But up to its very nature? Personally I don't think so. My question on nostalgia had nothing to do with whether it existed before or not - the word itself is no newspeak and has many variants in other languages like saudade or morrinho - but if somehow it's taking over our sense of history and turning into "a" experience of something past as a value in itself and not in the context of a past that has been "experienced".
This is more or less what I understand of what SM calles the fluidity of images.

Nescio

 

[RedLion]

I'll offer a hypothesis:

The democratic mass sharing of charged imagery (images) via cell-phone photography and social media is a phenomenon of the collective psyche becoming aware of itself.

Welcome to the Photocalypse.

 

[Nescio]

I'll offer a hypothesis:

The democratic mass sharing of charged imagery (images) via cell-phone photography and social media is a phenomenon of the collective psyche becoming aware of itself.

Welcome to the Photocalypse.

Photocalypse, eh? The last one to leave has to turn off the light?
On the other hand, terminology wise, i'd prefer it to call collective narcissism... Sounds like a nice paradox to me.

Nescio

EDIT: This is not new either, only the scale on which it happens is. Take a soccer or baseball stadium full of self awareness as an example. What has changed is, perhaps not the nature, but the immediacy and volatility of what makes a community.

 

[Nescio]

@ Joakim

Perhaps it's a unconscious symptom of an era bound to be erased without evidence of its intent - a subtle warning that the information age is coming to an end?

The question, I think, is not about making or at least recording history, but if people nowadays actually care if there ever will exist anything beyond the immediate experience of shooting and posting a shot (both words to be taken literally).

Nescio

 

[Pickett Wilson]

Nescio, I think you and I are thinking along the same lines. I just don't think most people care for real nostalgia anymore. All these folks snapping billions of photos have no concern about retaining them to look back on. They are simply snapping their present to share in the present.

I can understand some of that. I've never had any interest in old family photos.

 

[Nescio]

Nescio, I think you and I are thinking along the same lines. I just don't think most people care for real nostalgia anymore. All these folks snapping billions of photos have no concern about retaining them to look back on. They are simply snapping their present to share in the present.

I can understand some of that. I've never had any interest in old family photos.

PW, that's exactly my point. Nostalgia isn't what it used to be anymore. In itself, there's nothing wrong with happy snapping & sharing. But my concern is about the difference between experience and contemplation (for lack of a better word) as such. Not that any of the 2 is intrinsically better, but I'd like to know or understand what this change is all about. And my impression is that changes as pictured by SM are not as profound as suggested.

Somehow - and now the old fart in me goes on its soapbox - all these contemporary tech revolutions remind me of 18th century Europe. Real change happened afterwards with the French and the industrial revolutions, but the seed was sown long before.

 

[Pickett Wilson]

We are just snapping too many photos in the present to have time to look at those from the past. I suspect there will come a period of time, though, when people finally get tired of snapping photos constantly and photography becomes dormant for a while, to be "rediscovered" after a decade or so.

 

[Nescio]

We are just snapping too many photos in the present to have time to look at those from the past. I suspect there will come a period of time, though, when people finally get tired of snapping photos constantly and photography becomes dormant for a while, to be "rediscovered" after a decade or so.

Just as I have some friends playing with collodion printing techniques, which has become rather fashionable these days (remember I live in Barcelona, always behind the surf 😉).

Analogue photography often is compared with painting, as it hasn't disappeared either, but in fact it's more like copper etching.

Nescio

 

[jsrockit]

They are simply snapping their present to share in the present.

I agree with this.

 

[Roger Hicks]

This all strikes me as being a bit like buying a 'souvenir' of a place you never visited, or an event you never attended (and indeed which may have occurred long before you were born), as a sort of attestation of continuity and commonality.

For example, in about 1979 my brother (born in 1953) bought a souvenir mug of Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee (1897). This turns the ephemeral (an event) into the tangible and durable (an enameled mug), but when everyone who was alive at the time of the Jubilee is dead the mug becomes a sort of meta-souvenir.

Now we have the intangible (a photo on a screen) presented as if it were a picture of a vintage meta-souvenir, partaking slightly of a past that the owner experienced (possibly imperfectly) but felt compelled to re-create as if it were something of historical importance.

This is hazy, I know, but I feel as if I am groping towards an idea which may be quite illuminating, and which is quite close to the OP's question.

Cheers,

R.

 

[Nescio]

This all strikes me as being a bit like buying a 'souvenir' of a place you never visited, or an event you never attended (and indeed which may have occurred long before you were born), as a sort of attestation of continuity and commonality.

For example, in about 1979 my brother (born in 1953) bought a souvenir mug of Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee (1897). This turns the ephemeral (an event) into the tangible and durable (an enameled mug), but when everyone who was alive at the time of the Jubilee is dead the mug becomes a sort of meta-souvenir.

Now we have the intangible (a photo on a screen) presented as if it were a picture of a vintage meta-souvenir, partaking slightly of a past that the owner experienced (possibly imperfectly) but felt compelled to re-create as if it were something of historical importance.

This is hazy, I know, but I feel as if I am groping towards an idea which may be quite illuminating, and which is quite close to the OP's question.

Cheers,

R.

As for now, some notable cleaning marks, but nothing that affects the image, as long as it is free of fungus...

Nescio

 

[rhl-oregon]

Although its subject and claims concern photography, perhaps what's beneath the surface or in the shadows is the evolution of collective video: the increasing accessibility and permanent cycling of screen images of the world, ourselves, our perceptions, of which good photographs and the New Sepia (New Kodachrome?) of instagrams constitute freeze frames and momentary pauses for meditation. More of these 'acceptably sharp happy snaps' are viewable by more people than ever before, and though mere quantitative production and consumption are part of a long industrial-revolution-nightmare from which many of us are trying to awaken, I like the populist spirit that may, without meaning to, be creating a Family Album of Gaea. Steichen's 1955 Family of Man exhibit generated not only a vastly influential anthology of photographs (my childhood introduction to some of the greats, and I expect for some of you as well), but an ethos of bearing witness to human commonality that can show us how to look (and live) beyond race, class, gender, age, violence, or whatever other ills or evils you care to list.

My definition of nostalgia: the past without the pain. A weakness for sentimentalizing people, places, things, events, coupled with a willingness to overlook difficulties, contradictions, destructions. Some earn nostalgia by living through enough awfulness and disappointment to deserve quiet images of unviolated landscapes, animal peace, macro-daffodils; most are old enough to have outlived many if not most of their own pretensions as well. They deserve the Voltairean 'cultivate your garden' retreat, or the spectacle of Monet's water lilies apart from the lifelong discipline it took Monet to reach that apex of expressive serenity. I don't expect them to be artists, or to care for any form of photography that is not serene. (I don't expect them to care for instagrams either, even if they adore their kids or grandkids who produced these throwaway images.)

Where narcissism comes into this, for me, has more to do with inexperience, youth, the passion of individuation; the need to be absorbed by and register what the growing self sees, feels, tastes, without special concern for how it fits within the rest of existence. It afflicts childhood and youth more than other ages, and why not? they're beautiful and immortal and trying out roles--and some of the role-playing involves imagining what life will be like when they're older. What memories will they cherish, what phenomena will persist in the visual cortex? My earliest photographs were bad coastal sunsets over the Intracoastal Waterway and barrier islands of the Carolinas; they'd have been sharper (and less disappointing!) if I'd had the Tessar in that recent Nokia smartphone, but I was trying to grasp an image of mortality and mystery and ineffability without knowing how, or what it was or would be, and without anyone older and technically sound enough to help me separate the pre-nostalgic, narcissistic urge to represent mortal feelings from acquiring the skill to make an image that was not a muddy obscure cliche of browns and blacks and umbers.

The instagrammers will grow. Some will increasingly discern and care for the better and best images in Flickr-world, and get the mentoring or self-taught skills to contribute something meaningful and memorable to the Family Album of Gaea; some will get kitties and babies and nice vacations in Bali and fill their computers like shoeboxes with happy snaps. The wonderful thing about being part of this forum is being with masters and mentors and lifelong pupils, and finding nothing to fear from the happy snappers. At worst it's the visual compost from which, nevertheless, the most astonishing images emerge to teach us how to see, what to live for, and how to bear witness to those things before we have to let go of them all.

Excuse my excesses--I have the flu, like a superfluity of muddy coastal sunset images inside me!-- and and it weakens my resistance to philosophical generalizing. Plus it's a day off from university administration, and the luxury of thinking and feeling and typing in bed is a delicious respite from the decidedly unvisual, unmetaphorical, unphilosophical boredoms of that world. Looking forward to more thoughts on this thread. Thanks, Nescio, for starting it. (Go Barca.)

 

[willie_901]

I agree with this.

So do I.

Also, digital imaging's increase in output does not exclude the possibility that quality has increased as well. I'm assuming the OP was refering to aesthetic quality instead of technical quality.

Suppose 1% of the population has the innate talent to produce aesthetically superior photographs. And 1% of those have the time, determination and drive to develop their gift. The more people have access to convenient photography, the more likey it becomes that quality results increase simply because more people are doing photography. Unfortunately the quality is hard to winnow from the tsunami of lesser quality photography. But not everything on Flickr is crap.

Digital cameras are not good for photography because there are more photographs. It is good for photography because there are more people developing their ability of self expression via photography.

 

[Nescio]

So do I.

Also, digital imaging's increase in output does not exclude the possibility that quality has increased as well. I'm assuming the OP was refering to aesthetic quality instead of technical quality.

Suppose 1% of the population has the innate talent to produce aesthetically superior photographs. And 1% of those have the time, determination and drive to develop their gift. The more people have access to convenient photography, the more likey it becomes that quality results increase simply because more people are doing photography. Unfortunately the quality is hard to winnow from the tsunami of lesser quality photography. But not everything on Flickr is crap.

Digital cameras are not good for photography because there are more photographs. It is good for photography because there are more people developing their ability of self expression via photography.

Dear Willie,

1: No I wasn't. (EDIT: Not that I don't have my opinions, but this wasn't my point. Discussing emotive impact is already tricky enough. Talking about aesthetics would only complicate the discussion. But perhaps I can put it this way...) I've nothing against Terry Richardson but I definitely don't like the icon Terry Richardson has become.
2: I'm sorry, but art never ever has anything to do with statistics. Especially when discussing a fashion medium. Of course that doesn't mean everything that comes out of it is crap by definition. It's like no. 1: if the medium is the message, it's just that, a message, but not necessarily art.

And though it's difficult to see the forest between the trees these days, that isn't anything new either. Now it's about overkill, before it was a matter of access.

Nescio

 

[rluka]

SM states that social network photography - read Instagram - is all about immediacy; a photographical “here and now” experience. But hasn’t this always been the case? Perhaps “here and now” has become a much narrower time space and only refers to an emotional adrenaline shot taking place on a specific moment.

Taking another example is the texts in Twitter.
Even the search in Twitter is not indexing texts from last week because the data is just too huge and not so important. The important tweets are re-posted in news site anyway.
It’s like GAS but for information instead of gears, and there’s no shortage of supplies or high price to control that impulse to throw in and get information.

I believe the argument about having it too easy to create and spread pictures. Even the decent pictures would become boring if there’s too much to see. It's that feeling of been there done that, except when you see the rare exotic pieces showing up.
Not just Flickr or other social media, photography community websites also have so many pictures uploaded, both by those needing attention and those who just do it because they can. Social activities like choosing and appreciating other members' works over the contact list of thumbnails also exposed someone to the deluge of pictures.


Personal opinion about the Instagram filter.
The “sauce” (look) of Instagram and Lomography pictures are usually more potent to me rather than the “meat” (content). It’s a tool to bring up an emotion about the (idealized) “good ol’ days” when the world doesn’t feel like it’s in such hurry and becoming lost in deluge of new happenings.
I personally never lived that time but it’s this evoked emotion that’s more important than the story in the picture itself. Or, it can be said, more often the priority is reversed and the content is just the icing on the cake for the looks.

Of course, the looks also quickly bring the picture into something different than what the eyes could normally see.

 

[peterm1]

Nostalgia.................ah they don't make nostalgia like they used to!

 

[tunalegs]

We tend to love to misuse technology for nostalgia's sake. I remember the album Switched On Bach, which is wonderful. The interesting thing about it is IIRC the liner notes had a little interview with W. Carlos, and they expressed the advantage of being able to create completely new sounds with synthesizers that were not possible with traditional orchestral instruments. However from that point on it seems everybody was obsessed with making synthesizers sound as much like those instruments as possible, instead of using them to realize the full potential of the synthesizer to create new sounds.

Instagram + filters is simply using new technology to produce something that reminds us of old technology. Dare I say it - the Monochrom is basically the same idea, really just a use of new technology to approximate the look of an old technology. Funny eh?

Photography also went through Pictorialism, which is more or less the same thing. Using a new technology to approximate the looks/effects of older mediums.