“What is it about this world that demands an image?”

[squirrel$$$bandit]

Yowza. I think Jarrett should be honored here. He's brilliant, an historic performer, and he is known for not sticking to repertoire. The kind of thing he does, he needs to concentrate to do, and if he says no cameras, then he deserves no cameras. I can't see any other way of looking at that situation--people should be honored to be able to hear him play live at all. Especially given his history of illness that has at times prevented him from playing.

In general, though, I think a good picture of an artistic performance can help you remember the emotion of the moment, and if the musicians don't mind, and you don't block other people's view of them, then it's perfectly fine to take pictures. Personally, I tend to feel as though taking photographs distracts from my enjoyment of live music, so I don't do it. But that's just me.

 

[user237428934]

I am reminded of the androids in "Blade Runner", who, having been implanted with false memories to serve their 3-year lifespan, were also given a handful of snapshots that also correspond to their false memories. These snapshots served the purpose of reinforcing a sense of (in this case false) nostalgia.

I think there's an element of this with us non-androids, as well.

~Joe

How do you know that you are a non-android?

 

[bmattock]

...if he says no cameras, then he deserves no cameras.

I quite agree. His venue, his rules.

...people should be honored to be able to hear him play live at all.

Pfft. He puts his pants on one leg at a time. He should be honored if I decide to spend my money to listen to him play and then put up with his childish antics. Which, by the way, I wouldn't. I don't pay people to verbally abuse me. I prefer physical abuse, you get more for your money.

Personally, I tend to feel as though taking photographs distracts from my enjoyment of live music, so I don't do it. But that's just me.

Sometimes I go to listen, and sometimes I go to take photos.

 

[bmattock]

How do you know that you are a non-android?

Funny, I was thinking the same thing. "My name is 905, and I've just become alive..." - the Who or "We're all clones, all are one and one are all" - Alice Cooper sprang immediately to mind. These are the things that Phillip K. Dick and Harlan Ellison used to have great fun with.

 

[phc]

Leaving Keith Jarrett, live performance, Bob Dylan, my next-door neighbour and Joe Stalin out of it for a minute, the question is an extremely pertinent one.

And, if you don't know the answer, if you don't know why you're pressing the shutter, each time you do it, then sit back and think about it for minute. It'll make your pictures better.

Cheers, Paul. (Who is going to do just that. With a glass of Drambuie.)

 

[MCTuomey]

i've recently read that Alberto Giacometti once said, "One never sees things, one always sees them through a screen."

regarding Keith Jarrett's request not to be photographed, if anyone asks not to be photographed, i don't photograph.

his question about our need for images: that's a tall order. it does seem to be insatiable. we often prefer images to real life, certainly those who exercise great influence seem to do so.

 

[MCTuomey]

Now that Mr Eastman has succeeded in putting a camera into everyones hands they have become an integral part of our culture; as has motion picture as well, which means we are at the stage that if there is no image; it didn't actually happen. This is why he took the picture. To prove the concert existed and he was there.

carlsen, i've just learned that one of the founders of Doctors Without Borders said the following, along the lines of your thought: "Without photography, masscres would not exist."

overlay the idea that today the image is nearly infinitely malleable in post-processing. the image no longer proves the event - it can prove anything. aaiiieeeeee ...

 

[bmattock]

overlay the idea that today the image is nearly infinitely malleable in post-processing. the image no longer proves the event - it can prove anything. aaiiieeeeee ...

It never did. Photographs were faked from the first days there were such things. Cut-n-paste pastiches were made of paper negatives and early prints, and double-exposure 'spirit photography' was all the rage for some time.

The hand-wringing lamenting for lost days of innocence that never existed gets old after awhile.

 

[MCTuomey]

my point is not a lamentation, though it sounds that way. sorry to add to your perception of a surfeit of hand-wringing over lost innocence.

another try: my point is we seem more and more to have an insatiable dependence on images to validate concepts, plans, actions. and the truth of an image is more malleable than ever. which is something of an inferno, in my limited way of seeing things.

perhaps this is why the author of the 2nd commandment sought to forbid the making of any image, in some interpretations. it may contribute to idolatry, or something like it.

 

[bmattock]

Fair enough. Perhaps I might just add that part of the human condition seems to be agonizing over why we are the way we are - if not hand-wringing over lost innocence, then certainly asking why it is that we 'demand images' and how awful it all is. I could show a little more patience - it appears that not only do we as a species demand images, but we demand to know why we demand images. Which I frankly do not get, but that's my problem, I suppose.

 

[ruben]

I don't think I am to add much here to the already said, but my interpretation of the musician rudeness is that the very question he publicly asked came out of his guts. Hereby the rudeness. As a musician he expresses his best feelings with music. Photograhers express ourselves with pictures. As B. Mattock said early in this thread, comunication is a human need of survival since the dyno times. All arts are a sublimation of human comunication.

Let's forgive the musician at his weak moment, thinking what would happen to each of us at the moment of extreme concentration to obtain a great image we were suddenly anoyed by something bringing us to pitfall a great moment.

Most of the chances are that most of us will not be as rude as the mentioned musician, and still I have known a certain fellow with 5 Leicas in his jacket, an extremely high class image maker, misbehaving towards people at the time of picture taking as if he was trying to play the flute while surrounded by a crowd of nervous cattle.

So we all are not saints either.

Cheers,
Ruben