lukitas
second hand noob
Been thinking lately about the aesthetics of pain.
For example in music, joy and dancing is all very nice, but the things that cut the deepest are about pain and suffering : requiems, funeral marches, blues, songs of lost love...
So here is a thread for photos about pain, suffering and loss.
I'll start with the end of an old friend.
Leica M3, Summitar, Tri-X
Leica M2, Voigtländer Ultron 28 f2, Tri-X
For example in music, joy and dancing is all very nice, but the things that cut the deepest are about pain and suffering : requiems, funeral marches, blues, songs of lost love...
So here is a thread for photos about pain, suffering and loss.
I'll start with the end of an old friend.
Leica M3, Summitar, Tri-X
Leica M2, Voigtländer Ultron 28 f2, Tri-X
rhl-oregon
Cameras Guitars Wonders
I spent the last 5 days of my mother's life with her. These are a few of the images I made.
A few minutes after I arrived:
GXR, ZM Planar
On the last afternoon:
*
Rolleiflex 2.8D
An hour after her death:
GXR/ ZM Planar
The final image has to do with my pain, of course. Hers had ended.
A few minutes after I arrived:
GXR, ZM Planar
On the last afternoon:
Rolleiflex 2.8D
An hour after her death:
GXR/ ZM Planar
The final image has to do with my pain, of course. Hers had ended.
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Moto-Uno
Moto-Uno
^Not for the faint of heart. Peter
rhl-oregon
Cameras Guitars Wonders
On Hiroshima-Nagasaki day 2013, a US vet passed around this shard of a sake cup he picked up on the streets of Nagasaki at the end of August 1945. The lens I photographed it with was built in Japan a few years later.
GXR, Serenar 100 3.5
GXR, Serenar 100 3.5
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rhl-oregon
Cameras Guitars Wonders
I made this self portrait to represent the chronic emotional pain of tinnitus. I rarely stage photos, but this one reflects what life is like when silence no longer exists.
GXR, 33 2.5 A12
GXR, 33 2.5 A12
kxl
Social Documentary
Powerful story and photos Robert.
rhl-oregon
Cameras Guitars Wonders
I imagine I missed the parent(s) who left this balloon, note, and Inca lilies by a few hours on January 7 last year. The balloon was still full of breath despite the winter weather.
Fuji GF 670
Fuji GF 670
rhl-oregon
Cameras Guitars Wonders
The pain of belonging nowhere, and seeming unable to do anything about it. This is not far from the hospital's emergency mental health ward, on a street full of students and retail.
GR
GR
rhl-oregon
Cameras Guitars Wonders
Some who belong nowhere simply pick a corner out of the wind and rain and stay there. The man huddled on the right was there for months, each time I passed. Ditto the sleeper on the left. This viaduct was relatively safe, despite trains and traffic round the clock. But eventually the police rousted these people too, who take their pain and illness and insecurity elsewhere.
Kowa Super 66
But some of them can articulate the social manifestation of the problem:
Fuji GF 670
Kowa Super 66
But some of them can articulate the social manifestation of the problem:
Fuji GF 670
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daveleo
what?
Robert, as soon as I saw this thread open, I thought of these pictures that you had posted previously on RFF.
lukitas
second hand noob
Thanks Robert.
Great photos.
Photography is at its best when you forget it's a photo, when the subject speaks louder than the frame.
Thank you.
Great photos.
Photography is at its best when you forget it's a photo, when the subject speaks louder than the frame.
Thank you.
OurManInTangier
An Undesirable
Robert & Lukitas, there are some touching and confronting images you've posted here in what is a very interesting thread, possibly the most interesting one I've seen on RFF in a long time.
When my mother died it was a fairly quick and unexpected time despite the cancer she'd had for some months. I had to make a 100 mile dash, thankfully behind a showoff in a Ferrari pretty much all the way, and I didn't think to take a camera - never even crossed my mind.
Ever since I've always regretted it, not that I'm sure I could adequately put into words why I would want those final images. When my grandfather, a man more like a father to me, died a few months later it was a similar situation ( a phone call in the middle of the night) only with a protracted and execrable death which would have been difficult in the extreme had I tried to make any photographs.
I did decide to photograph my grandmother just three weeks later, upon her return to an empty house after breaking her hip. She just seemed changed, no longer the strong matriarch of my life until then. Whether or not it comes across to others in the photograph perhaps isn't the point, perhaps this kind of image making really is too personal for such concerns - anyway, a very thought provoking thread....and my apologies for so many words in a W/NW thread!
When my mother died it was a fairly quick and unexpected time despite the cancer she'd had for some months. I had to make a 100 mile dash, thankfully behind a showoff in a Ferrari pretty much all the way, and I didn't think to take a camera - never even crossed my mind.
Ever since I've always regretted it, not that I'm sure I could adequately put into words why I would want those final images. When my grandfather, a man more like a father to me, died a few months later it was a similar situation ( a phone call in the middle of the night) only with a protracted and execrable death which would have been difficult in the extreme had I tried to make any photographs.
I did decide to photograph my grandmother just three weeks later, upon her return to an empty house after breaking her hip. She just seemed changed, no longer the strong matriarch of my life until then. Whether or not it comes across to others in the photograph perhaps isn't the point, perhaps this kind of image making really is too personal for such concerns - anyway, a very thought provoking thread....and my apologies for so many words in a W/NW thread!
Brian Atherton
Well-known
Robert, I have had the curse of tinnitus for a few years. Your photo is visceral and really hits the spot.
Thank you also, Lukitas. Your photos are powerful and emotive, and bought back a lot of memories of my own parents in the same situation.
Thank you also, Lukitas. Your photos are powerful and emotive, and bought back a lot of memories of my own parents in the same situation.
rhl-oregon
Cameras Guitars Wonders
I want to add my thanks to our friend Lukitas for starting the thread, which I should have done before my burst of posts.
Simon, don't forget the "W" part of the slash here. "NW" is not a requirement ;-). Words are welcome in W/NW (though I do truly see the existential fatigue and the difficulty of maintaining the living facade in your grandmother's features, with or withough your captions). Indeed, I have been thinking about the conundrum of representing pain in a photograph since Lukitas started this, because it seems to me that unless a photographer portrays a subject by commanding the subject "Show me your pain, NOW," or being ruthlessly on the spot at a public disaster, the photograph tends to show only traces of pain--the moment before its onset, or its aftereffects. Eugene Smith's Minamata series does show a screaming child, but the image that is burned into my heart is the one of the mother cradling her child in the bath with as though all her pain of grief and rage at disfigurement and bewilderment has been totally transmuted in acts of loving tenderness. Pieta, rather than crucifixion.
When I look at my disheveled catalog of images, there's really no depiction of immediate pain in the way you can see it in the work of certain war photographers, or (e.g.) Eugene Richard's great The Knife and Gun Club as he follows E.R. mayhem at Denver County General Hospital. However, Richards' book is 50% text--oral histories, transcribed conversations, Richards' own narrative of doubt, fatigue, anger, admiration for the doctors, nurses, ambulance pros who deal with people wrecking their lives daily or wracked with impoverished illnesses. The image that purely conveys its lyrical moment or implied story without captioning is admirable, but it is only one ideal. The photography that inspired my youth was narrative, social, documentary, political, and its texts, or its voices,were as much a part of its body as its imagery. In any case, in a thread like this, I am grateful to hear your voice and Lukitas's voice and the voices of others writing about what it means to try to depict pain, who is after all one of life's constant companions.
PS Brian, re tinnitus--> I empathize. Some people appear to cope better with it than I do, treating it as a 'nuisance' (the term my physicians use when they don't want to prescribe sedatives or narcotics) rather than experiencing it as a permanent, chronic distress from which one gets small daily reprieves in sleep, periods of satisfying work, and ongoing low background noise (I use fountains, jazz channels, and the announcers/crowds of Barclay's Premier League turned down low while following game's visual ballet for distraction). I guess I'm lucky to be a musician--concentrating & improvising finger work that produces a variety of tones (rather than the one super-high D tone that I always hear) helps...
Simon, don't forget the "W" part of the slash here. "NW" is not a requirement ;-). Words are welcome in W/NW (though I do truly see the existential fatigue and the difficulty of maintaining the living facade in your grandmother's features, with or withough your captions). Indeed, I have been thinking about the conundrum of representing pain in a photograph since Lukitas started this, because it seems to me that unless a photographer portrays a subject by commanding the subject "Show me your pain, NOW," or being ruthlessly on the spot at a public disaster, the photograph tends to show only traces of pain--the moment before its onset, or its aftereffects. Eugene Smith's Minamata series does show a screaming child, but the image that is burned into my heart is the one of the mother cradling her child in the bath with as though all her pain of grief and rage at disfigurement and bewilderment has been totally transmuted in acts of loving tenderness. Pieta, rather than crucifixion.
When I look at my disheveled catalog of images, there's really no depiction of immediate pain in the way you can see it in the work of certain war photographers, or (e.g.) Eugene Richard's great The Knife and Gun Club as he follows E.R. mayhem at Denver County General Hospital. However, Richards' book is 50% text--oral histories, transcribed conversations, Richards' own narrative of doubt, fatigue, anger, admiration for the doctors, nurses, ambulance pros who deal with people wrecking their lives daily or wracked with impoverished illnesses. The image that purely conveys its lyrical moment or implied story without captioning is admirable, but it is only one ideal. The photography that inspired my youth was narrative, social, documentary, political, and its texts, or its voices,were as much a part of its body as its imagery. In any case, in a thread like this, I am grateful to hear your voice and Lukitas's voice and the voices of others writing about what it means to try to depict pain, who is after all one of life's constant companions.
PS Brian, re tinnitus--> I empathize. Some people appear to cope better with it than I do, treating it as a 'nuisance' (the term my physicians use when they don't want to prescribe sedatives or narcotics) rather than experiencing it as a permanent, chronic distress from which one gets small daily reprieves in sleep, periods of satisfying work, and ongoing low background noise (I use fountains, jazz channels, and the announcers/crowds of Barclay's Premier League turned down low while following game's visual ballet for distraction). I guess I'm lucky to be a musician--concentrating & improvising finger work that produces a variety of tones (rather than the one super-high D tone that I always hear) helps...
rfaspen
[insert pithy phrase here]
Tinnitus can be debilitating! Haven't had it (substantially) for quite a while now -- thankfully. It can be difficult to relate to others who do not suffer your invisible ailment just how excruciating and life-destroying it can be. I know. I have a couple of those ailments and very little understanding, even among close family. And forget doctors, even though I'd rather avoid the impairing medications, occasionally the reprieve is needed.
I seem to subconsciously avoid making images that convey pain. Odd, but I just came to that realization now, because of this thread. I need to search my "archives" now...to see if this is truly the case.
I seem to subconsciously avoid making images that convey pain. Odd, but I just came to that realization now, because of this thread. I need to search my "archives" now...to see if this is truly the case.
rhl-oregon
Cameras Guitars Wonders
Links to images I referenced above:
The 2 distinct Minamata images I cited by Eugene Smith:
http://www.fotoeloadasok.hu/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/eugene_smith.jpg
http://museografo.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/w_-eugen-smith-2.jpg/smith_minimata.jpg
from Eugene Richards' The Knife and Gun Club:
http://www.basearts.com/curriculum/masters/Eugene%20Richards/Gun%20and%20Knife%20Club/DSC_3559.JPG
http://smithfund.org/wp-content/oqey_gallery/galleries/1981-richards/galimg/90953920_10.jpg
The 2 distinct Minamata images I cited by Eugene Smith:
http://www.fotoeloadasok.hu/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/eugene_smith.jpg
http://museografo.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/w_-eugen-smith-2.jpg/smith_minimata.jpg
from Eugene Richards' The Knife and Gun Club:
http://www.basearts.com/curriculum/masters/Eugene%20Richards/Gun%20and%20Knife%20Club/DSC_3559.JPG
http://smithfund.org/wp-content/oqey_gallery/galleries/1981-richards/galimg/90953920_10.jpg
lukitas
second hand noob
Thank you dave, thank you robert, thank you simon; thank you brian.
I've read somewhere, that about 60 % have wept to music, and only 10 % to an image. Poetry is supposed to be in between at 30 to 40 %. (I always wonder how they get to those numbers - if they only interview people who read poetry, the sampling must be rather small...)
The Minamata Pietà made me weep. Did so the first time I saw it, again today.
Again, the aesthetics of pain. Bachs' Matheus Passion, Mozarts' Requiem, Chopins' march funèbre, and Howling Wolfs' 'I asked her for water, and she gave me gasoline'.
Pain was the main subject of art, before the industrial revolution. Crucifixions, the Twelve stations of the cross, the Pietàs and martyrdoms.
I can see that the avoidance of pain is a desirable pursuit, but I feel we are ignoring pain to our detriment. Pain is an integral part of life, pain is the negative measure of joy. Pain has aesthetic value, which feels troubling : how do we derive 'pleasure' from pain?
Maybe aesthetics is not so much about pleasure as it is about awe.
Robert, you posed the biggest question : How do you shoot pain? If one is 'lucky', a member of ones family, or a friend will be ill, or dying. It sound obscene, to phrase it like that. Like a perverse Weegee, revelling in blood on the streets, assassinations, accidents and mayhem. How do you not be a leech or a vulture, when approaching tragedy with a camera?
Happily, both Eugenes show it can be done.
I've read somewhere, that about 60 % have wept to music, and only 10 % to an image. Poetry is supposed to be in between at 30 to 40 %. (I always wonder how they get to those numbers - if they only interview people who read poetry, the sampling must be rather small...)
The Minamata Pietà made me weep. Did so the first time I saw it, again today.
Again, the aesthetics of pain. Bachs' Matheus Passion, Mozarts' Requiem, Chopins' march funèbre, and Howling Wolfs' 'I asked her for water, and she gave me gasoline'.
Pain was the main subject of art, before the industrial revolution. Crucifixions, the Twelve stations of the cross, the Pietàs and martyrdoms.
I can see that the avoidance of pain is a desirable pursuit, but I feel we are ignoring pain to our detriment. Pain is an integral part of life, pain is the negative measure of joy. Pain has aesthetic value, which feels troubling : how do we derive 'pleasure' from pain?
Maybe aesthetics is not so much about pleasure as it is about awe.
Robert, you posed the biggest question : How do you shoot pain? If one is 'lucky', a member of ones family, or a friend will be ill, or dying. It sound obscene, to phrase it like that. Like a perverse Weegee, revelling in blood on the streets, assassinations, accidents and mayhem. How do you not be a leech or a vulture, when approaching tragedy with a camera?
Happily, both Eugenes show it can be done.
maggieo
More Deadly
My father was not in pain, but everyone else in the room was.
Easing Dad Out of This Life, May 29, 2011 by Maggie Osterberg, on Flickr
Sue With Dad, May 29, 2011 by Maggie Osterberg, on Flickr
Easing Dad Out of This Life, May 29, 2011 by Maggie Osterberg, on Flickr
Sue With Dad, May 29, 2011 by Maggie Osterberg, on Flickr
maggieo
More Deadly
lukitas
second hand noob
My dad.
My dad was a photographer, and a good one. When I was four, he had a Mamiya c220 with three lenses and a spotmatic. He subscribed to the famous photographers school, with Eisenstaedt and Avedon and Penn as tutors. I owe him.
It may be just the kind of banal picture a mortician might shoot, to put on the cards they print at funerals, but it's my dad, and it hangs on my wall.
My dad was a photographer, and a good one. When I was four, he had a Mamiya c220 with three lenses and a spotmatic. He subscribed to the famous photographers school, with Eisenstaedt and Avedon and Penn as tutors. I owe him.
It may be just the kind of banal picture a mortician might shoot, to put on the cards they print at funerals, but it's my dad, and it hangs on my wall.