René Burri

Die März-Ausgabe zum 70. Geburtstag von DU ist René Burri gewidmet, nein, nicht ausschliesslich, doch hauptsächlich; sie erscheint mit zwei verschiedenen Titelbildern.

Fällt der Name René Burri, denke ich seit meiner Zeit in Brasilien immer an sein São Paulo-Bild, Männer auf dem Dach, aus dem Jahre 1960. Sieht man sich dieses an (ja, ich spreche von mir), fragt man sich nicht mehr, ob Fotografie Kunst sei, man weiss es. Genauer: man ist sich gewiss, dass Fotografien wie diese zweifellos Kunst sind. Früher jedoch, als ich mich oft in Kuba aufhielt, dachte ich bei René Burri immer an seine Aufnahme von Che Guevara, aufgenommen in Havanna, 1963. Blättere ich nun durch dieses ganz wunderbare DU-Heft, gibt es neben den beiden gerade erwähnten Bildern, noch ein paar andere, von denen ich annehme, dass sie mir wohl künftig in den Sinn kommen werden, wenn der Name René Burri fällt: die Arbeiterfamilie in Brasilia aus dem Jahre 1960 etwa, oder der ägyptische Militärkonvoi am Mitlapass in Ägypten (1967), oder die Feuerwehrübung in Tokio (1972), oder ...

Warum mich gewisse Bilder erreichen, warum sie mir bleiben, vermag ich nicht wirklich zu sagen. Sicher, ich kann Vermutungen anstellen und im Falle der gerade erwähnten Aufnahmen erkläre ich es mir mit Burris Auge für Komposition, seiner Fähigkeit des Einrahmens. Dieser Mann versteht zu sehen und das meint, dass seine Augen nicht nur passiv aufnehmen, sondern aktiv gestalten. Und zwar auf eine Art und Weise, die mich anspricht und, da bin ich mir recht gewiss, wohl nicht nur mich.

Man findet nicht nur tolle Bilder in diesem prächtigen Heft, man findet auch Texte. Etwa eine DU-Zeitreise mit René Burri und Dieter Bachmann, von 1988 bis 1998 DU-Chefredaktor, in dem sich unter anderem der Satz findet: "René und die Fotografie sind sozusagen nicht unterscheidbar." Und auch auf diese schönen Ausführungen trifft man da: "Wahrscheinlich gibt es zwei Arten von Reisenden. Die einen denken sich in der Fremde immer nach Hause. Unter diesen sind viele Schriftsteller, und so bedeutende wie Gottfried Keller oder James Joyce. Die anderen müssen immer dort zu Hause sein, wo sie gerade sind - das sind die ewigen Migranten, und mit ihnen die Reporter, und sehr oft die Fotografen. Omnia sua secum portans: Sie tragen alles auf sich, was sie brauchen. Ich würde mich nicht wundern, wenn es das Wort burri in irgendeinem Hopi-Dialekt geben würde, und es würde 'unterwegs' bedeuten."

Und dann gibt es da noch ein tolles Interview, das die "Kulturjournalistin und Publizistin" (warum nicht einfach Publizistin?) Daniele Muscionico mit René Burri führte, das ich nicht zuletzt deswegen toll fand, weil die Fragerin den Leser mit bildreichen Einsprengseln an der Atmosphäre teilhaben lässt, in der sich die beiden unterhalten haben.

Neben einem vollständigen Faksimile der Erstausgabe von Burris Klassiker "Die Deutschen" gibt es noch drei weitere Texte zu diesem Ausnahmekönner im Heft - "Galerie der nicht geschossenen Bilder" (Erinnerungen Burris an Bilder, die er hätte machen können, doch nicht gemacht hat, ergänzt mit gescheiten Bemerkungen zum Fotografieren von Brigitte Ulmer); "Duckling breast with oranges" von Guido Magnaguagno, ehemaliger Vizedirektor am Kunsthaus Zürich, der - zerschnipselte Bilder einer zerschnipselten Welt kündigt ein Zwischentitel treffend an - ziemlich wild in der Gegend rumschwadroniert und dabei auch beim Collagisten Burri landet sowie aufschlussreiche Aufzeichnungen über den doppelten (schwarz-weiss/farbig) Burri.

www.du-magazin.com

Inszenierte Wahrheiten

Die Annahme, dass Medien, wenn sie es denn wirklich wollten (und einige wollen das in der Tat und geben sich auch ent­sprechend Mühe), die Wirklichkeit abzubilden vermöchten, wird zwar allgemein angenommen, ist deswegen jedoch noch lange nicht wahr. Wahr ist, dass die Medien die Wirklichkeit, die in den Medien vorkommt, erst schaffen. Sie tun dies, zuallererst, indem sie auswählen, was sie zeigen wollen und, vor allem, was sie nicht zeigen wollen. Sie definieren Bezugspunkte, stellen Ordnung und Sinn her, geben Kontext vor. Die Realität wird ersetzt durch eine Medienrealität – und diese wird zu einem Selbst­gänger, da sich die Medien vorwiegend daran orientieren, was andere Medien machen.

Hans Durrer

Inszenierte Wahrheiten

Essays über Fotografie und Medien
Rüegger Verlag, Glarus/Chur 2011

Umfang: 122 Seiten, broschiert
Preis: Fr. 24.00 / € 15.50 (D)
ISBN-Nr.: 978-3-7253-0966-5

The Bedouin Temper

Enough has been said of the Bedouin ethos to make us understand one additional juxtaposition which it impresses on the Bedouin mind, and which found its way from there into the Arab mind in general. The juxaposition is that of activity-passivity. The typical Bedouin's life alternates between relatively long periods of passivity, of spending all day in what the Italian mind, with a similar appreciation and inclination, considers the "dolce far niente" "the sweet doing nothing," and brief spurts of frantic activity best exemplified by the ghazw. The Bedouin temper is characterized by sudden flare-ups, which can easily lead to violence and even murder, followed by remorse and long periods of tranqulity, inactivity, almost apathy. This alternation between two poles has been observed and commented upon by numerous students of the Arabs, for it is characteristic not only of the nomads but also, although to a lesser degree, of the settled people, villagers and city dwellers alike. Even in semi-Westernized Arab society, in a generally friendly gathering, such sudden, violent outbursts of temper occur not infrequently, but they cause only a momentary flurry, since everybody knows they mean nothing serious, and that the even flow of give-and-take will return after what normally proves to be but a short interruption.

Raphael Patai: The Arab Mind

World Press Photo 2011

On 11 February 2011, the jury of the 54th World Press Photo Contest selected the picture shown on the cover of Time magazine below as the World Press Photo of the Year 2010.

On 1 August 2010, I had posted the following:

The cover of Time magazine's issue of 9 August 2010 shows a shocking picture of an 18-year-old Afghan woman whose nose was hacked off as punishment after she fled an abusive husband, we learn from the photographer Jodi Bieber. In fact, not only her nose was cut off but also her ears.

Next to the picture there is the headline (that serves as a caption) that says: "What happens if we leave Afghanistan".

The columnist Tom Scocca, on the Slate website, called the picture "gut-wrenching" but suggested that "a correct and accurate caption would be 'What is still happening, even though we are in Afghanistan'".
I couldn't agree more.

-------

I now feel like adding a postscript for I've just come across "What's right with this picture?" by Susie Linfield's piece in Dissent magazine:

"... it is bad faith of the worst sort to argue that withdrawal would somehow help the women of Afghanistan; or would rescue them from lives of almost unimaginable pariahdom, misery, poverty, physical pain, poor health, ignorance, and degradation; or would not take away even the minimal gains that have been made. Equally bad, I think, is the pretense that a “deal” with the Taliban won’t somehow come at women’s (and children’s) expense. Let’s at least call barbarism by its right name—which is just what the Time photograph did."

I do agree, this is exactly what the Time photograph is all about. Yet the text next to the photograph ("What happens if we leave Afghanistan") is an entirely different story. There is no doubt in my mind that withdrawal would clearly not help Afghan women; there is however equally not a doubt in my mind that the Nato governments clearly did not send their troops there because they care about Afghan women. And so, when Susie Linfield asks "What's right with this picture?" the answer is: everything - and the World Press Photo 2011 award is well deserved. It is the caption that is wrong, it should have read: this is what is happening in Afghanistan.

Mitch Epstein

"If the photographer is able to capture the momentum in which the accidental reveals something fundamental, his photograph will not only describe a singular event; it will also, at its best, become a document of universal relevance. The photographs by Mitch Epstein definitively possess this double transparency: they are, to a great degree, typical of their time, not only due to the motifs they depict, but also because they reflect the atmosphere and social climate of the moment in which they were made", writes Christoph Schreier in "Structure and Contingency in Mitch Epstein's Photographic Work".

Okay then, let's take a look at the photograph on the cover: does it really reveal something fundamental, is it a document of universal relevance? After having spent quite some time with this shot, in different moods, during the day and at night, I'm not so sure. In fact, I'm at a loss whether this photo (it shows the Hoover Dam Bypass Project, Nevada, and was taken in 2007) reveals anything more than it shows: an unfinished highway bridge somewhere in the mountains.
Stephan Berg, who wrote the essay "Empathy and Distance", disagrees: " ... the astonishing thing about Mitch Epstein's large photo series American Power (2003-08) is that everything these images want to say can actually be seen in them. The subtexts of this series are not claims that need to be brought to the photographs from the outside; instead they find their correlation directly on the image surface."
Well, judge for yourself.

By the way, don't get me wrong, I do like this picture - for the simple fact that it pleases my eyes.

Photographs are often considered comments on situations/events and, of course, sometimes they are, and quite obviously so - just think of the pics that showed people celebrating on the Berlin Wall the night it came down. More often, however, we need context explainers to enlighten us about the significance of what is unfolding in front of our eyes: they rarely talk about the feelings they've experienced when looking at, and into, the photographs they are elaborating on, instead they let us know what we do not see but will have to take into account in order to understand what our eyes our showing us - so they claim. Such texts (together with an interview with Mitch Epstein) can also be found in this tome.

My approach is different: photographs attract me or they don't. My interest in exploring the ones that do not speak to me is almost zero which is why I concentrate on, and spend time with, the ones that appeal to me. Let me give you an example from "State of the Union"
It strikes me as a very intimate pic, I perceive the two young girls in their bikinis as vulnerable in these surroundings although the two guys (they look like cleaners) do not appear to be threatening. On the other hand, they do not seem to leave the two girls alone either. Why don't they move on and let them do their phone call unobserved? Or do they somehow belong to the girls? Could it be that one of the girls (are they sisters, are they friends?) needed to urgently call home and the two men had shown them where the phone was? Idle speculation. We can't know what we are looking at if the photographer doesn't tell us how the photo came about. Yet the intimacy, the vulnerability, the fragility that many of the photos in this tome (especially when humans are shown in their not so natural surroundings) radiate, can be felt by everyone, I believe - and that is a remarkable achievement.

PS: I've sent the above text to the San Francisco photo-artist Emelle Sonh and then the following exchange ensued.

Emelle Sonh:
I think the freeway photo on the cover, along with the book title is not only clear, but blatant to the point of being cliché. The State of the (U.S.) Union is not going anywhere ... is broken, has inadequate energy to continue "making roads" - a path - America, famous for it's cars - no more freeways being built - if you drive on this abruptly unfinished road as though the freeways of old America were the strong routes they once were ... you will fall off the end ... maybe fatally so ... Bold blatant visual image to my mind.
The girls and guys is more ambiguous, though maybe with a larger image, I could feel more in it. I don't necessarily feel the girls' vulnerability, but the interpretation of this one could go in many directions. A title might help, as you often say. This is a good example of "there is no right answer when viewing images" and so long as it is not used to sell coca-cola, I am fine with the ambiguity.

Hans Durrer:
I think you're right in regards to "blatant to the point of being cliché" but would still argue that all this is brought to the picture ... what is there is still nothing but an unfinished bridge. I guess my different stance has also to do with my refusal to simply go along with other people's implicit (and too often clichéd) assumptions. In other words, if this guy had in mind what you (probably rightly) assume he had there would have been definitely many more ingenuous ways to illustrate that ... a car stuck in a pothole, for instance, or whatever ... ....

Emelle Sonh:
I agree the photo is of an unfinished freeway - period. We bring interpretation/meaning - always... and, I also agree that the blatant, cliched expression of his idea was not very imaginative, deep or subtle ... or layered ... personally, I'd prefer the pothole - at least less obvious expression of the obvious - American Decline.

Mitch Epstein
State of the Union
Hatje Cantz, Ostfildern 2010

Photographing Starlings

A flock of starlings gather over the derelict West Pier in Brighton.
Photographer: Mike Hewitt/Getty

Even as an ardent birdwatcher, I'll confess that a single starling is a rather drab sight. But you can capture stunning images of starlings if you see them in a new light. In summer, the drabness of their dark plumage melts away to reveal an iridescent show of greens and purples. In winter, the birds a completely different look as the plumage becomes spangled with white spots.

In my opinion, the best way to see starlings is just before dusk when flocks – known as murmurations – gather in autumn and winter skies for one of our most celebrated wildlife spectacles. Sometimes up to 1 million birds - from a radius of 20 miles - join vast flocks that twist and turn against the fading light, creating a pageant of ephemeral, ever-changing patterns - like smoke on a breeze.

Many of the birds will have travelled to the UK from Scandinavia, or even Russia, to join starlings that have nested in the UK. Starlings gather in huge flocks to spend the night in safety in reedbeds, or on buildings, such as Brighton pier. It's always been a slight mystery to me why these birds put on such a prominent display before roosting for the night. The primary aim of creating a large flock is to confuse predators, such as peregrine falcons or sparrowhawks: so, why do starlings advertise their presence so obviously?

The ecologist in me says they are probably encouraging others into the roost site, creating an ecological advantage for the starling's survival. However, my fun-loving side yearns to believe that starlings put on a Red Arrows show just because they can.

These spectacles happen at specific sites across the UK from October to early spring, allowing anyone with a camera, or even a mobile phone to capture an impression of this aerial ballet. However your image will strip away most of the sensations that you felt at the time; the chattering of a million calling birds; frost nipping at your nose and toes; or perhaps the scent of distant bonfires.

So how do you create an image that best captures the impressions of the event? Firstly, think about the location. Try to position yourself on the eastern side of the action. As the sun sets in the west, standing facing the sunset will allow you to include the sun, or sunlit clouds, as a backdrop for your composition. Even on a cloudy day, the light in this part of the sky will be brighter and will last for longer after sunset.

Think about how you frame your picture; including a distant church spire; a line of trees; or some other feature on the horizon will lend your picture a sense of scale and also a sense of location. You could also include other spectators for added human interest. Consider whether you want to capture a single image or create a sequence of pictures. Locking the camera on a tripod could enable you to take a set of pictures with the same framing. Including the same foreground while capturing the different patterns of the swirling flocks is one way of trying to describe the choreography of these.

Photographers with a little more technical know-how might want to create more impressionistic images. You have a choice where you can use a fast shutter speed to freeze each bird or use a slow one, allowing the movement of each bird to register as a streak across the frame.

However you choose to capture the event, be sure to take a few minutes to soak up the atmosphere of the event before the birds tumble from the sky and settle down for the night.

Grahame Madge: 'Flocks of starlings make for spectacular photographs' in the Guardian, 1 November 2010

Geschichte der Photographie

"Geschichte der Photographie" baut auf der George Eastman House Collection auf, deren photographische Sammlung insgesamt über 400,000 Artefakte verfügt. Da es unmöglich ist, diese alle in einem Band zu versammeln, bietet "Geschichte der Photographie" einen thematisch und chronologisch geordneten Überblick.

Das Museum im George Eastman House wurde 1949 gegründet. Es war - nach Walton Sipleys "American Museum of Photography" - das zweite, der "Photography" gewidmete Museum, sein erster Kurator war der Photographie Historiker Beaumont Newhall.

Ein ungeheurer Reichtum an vielfältigstem Bildmaterial, erläutert und ergänzt mit höchst informativen Texten, zeichnet diesen Band aus. So erfährt man etwa, dass in ihren Anfängen die Photographie in Ägypten in der Hand meist wohlhabender Amateure sowie "Individuen wie Louis de Clercq und Maxime Du Camp, die offizielle oder halboffizielle Unterstützung von verschiedenen staatlichen oder wissenschaftlichen Stellen erhielten", gelegen hatte, doch in den 60er und 70er Jahren des 19. Jahrhunderts begannen Einheimische aktiv zu werden. So besass der Ägypter J. Pascal Sébah von den 1870er bis in die 1890er Jahre eines der grössten Photostudios in Konstantinopel und schickte regelmässig Photographen los, um ägyptische Sehenswürdigkeiten aufzunehmen. "Die fortgesetzte Präsenz der von Einheimischen geführten Ateliers, die aufgrund ihrer Vertrautheit mit den Bräuchen und Sprachen des Landes Zugang zu Orten hatten, der herumreisenden Touristen und Photographen nicht gewährt war, vergösserte den Bestand an Bildern aus diesen Regionen."

Étienne Jules Marey
Chronophotographische Studie eines Mannes beim Stabhochsprung,

1890-1891

Im Kapitel "Welt der Tatsachen" liest man dann den Satz, der wohl auch heute noch für die meisten von uns, und trotz unseres Photoshop-Wissens, Gültigkeit hat (jedenfalls gefühlsmässig): "Ihre vermeintliche Authentizität verlieh ihr {der Photographie} den Nimbus eines wissenschaftlichen Beweises." Und im Kapitel "Photographie im öffentlichen und im privaten Leben" erfährt man, dass Victor Hugo, weil er Napoleon III öffentlich angeprangert hatte, zusammen mit seiner Familie von 1851 bis 1870 auf der Insel Jersey im Exil leben musste und dort, zusammen mit seiner Frau Adele, ein Album mit 41 Photographien zusammenstellte, als Geschenk für die Tochter von Hausgästen, die sie beherbergt hatten. Man lernt aber noch weit mehr in diesem Kapitel, etwa, dass oft Haustiere photographiert wurden oder dass es im viktorianischen England meist Frauen waren, die Photoalben zusammenstellten oder ... die Fülle an Interessantem, Spannendem und Anregendem ist eindrücklich, nicht zuletzt, weil, so lesen wir: "In keinem anderen künstlerischen Medium haben Amateure einen solch bedeutenden Beitrag geleistet wie in der Photographie."

À propos Kunst: Julia Margaret Cameron, die erst im Alter von 49 Jahren zur Photographie gekommen war und sich mit Porträtaufnahmen einen Namen machte, wird im Kapitel "Künstlerische Ambitionen" mit dem Satz zitiert: "Es ist mein Bestreben, die Photographie zu veredeln und ihr den Charakter und die Wirkung einer Hohen Kunst zu sichern, indem ich das Wirkliche und Ideale verbinde und trotz aller Verehrung für Poesie und Schönheit nichts von der Wahrheit opfere." Wer wissen will, wie das in der Praxis aussah, findet Informationen dazu hier.

Mein persönliches Lieblingskapitel ist "Das photographierte Objekt". Hier finden sich unter anderen die wunderbaren Aufnahmen von Edward Weston (1886-1958). Zu meinen Favoriten gehören das Tomatenfeld von 1937 und die Dünen von Oceano von 1936, aber auch Tina Modottis Frau von Tehuantepec und Imogen Cunninghams Magnolienknospe (beide von 1929), Alexander Rodtschenkos Moskau von 1927, László Moholy-Nagys ... doch Halt, Stopp, bevor ich jetzt noch alle anderen in diesem instruktiven Band versammelten Aufnahmen aufzähle ...

Geschichte der Photographie
Von 1839 bis heute
Taschen, Köln 2010

Should we look?

In "Warsaw, Lodz, Auschwitz", one of the chapters of her recommendable The Cruel Radiance, Susie Linfield remarks that "it is probable that no state and no army have ever been as intent on self-documentation as the Nazi state and the Nazi army: a well equipped propaganda team of writers, photographers, and filmmakers accompanied every German unit sent to the front. And, far from home, Nazi soldiers met likeminded folk who shared their twin interests in taking photographs and tormenting Jews."

Many of these photographs still exist. Should we look at them, or should we not?

There are critics who say we should not. In the words of Susie Linfield: "These critics, who might be called the 'rejectionists,' claim that such photographs - taken, obviously, without the victims' consent and designed to degrade - are not just documentations of cruelty but are the acting-out of cruelty. In this they are surely right. What makes their stance problematic, however, is their further insistence that to look at such photographs, as opposed to taking them, can only revictimize the victims and recreate the original crimes. In their view, we are all Nazis now - or will be if, like Lot's wife, we dare to look backwards at things we shouldn't."

Not my view at all. Firstly, I do not like (and do not need) to be told what I should look at. Secondly, I'm not in favour of censors who will decide what I can see and what not. Thirdly, no, I will not look a every picture just because I can - why anyone, for instance, would want to witness a beheading on the internet is beyond me.

Probably more compelling reasons for not giving in to the rejectionists' view are offered by Susie Linfield: "Why can we not see through these photographs and regard them as revelations, rather than fortifications, of fascist values? Why can we not view these images actively and critically rather than in mute, stupid obedience?"