Take, for example, an abandoned Olympic sized swimming pool: at one point, the contours of the object took shape in the exact manner in which they did as a consequence of human labour, i.e., through a process of deliberate decision making, indeed through an innumerable series of choices, both on a large-scale (e.g., design) and at the micro-level (e.g., paint application). And yet, over time, nature intervened, dissolving those artificial contours. The end result – which is to say, more correctly, the point at which the photograph is taken – is an object with a strange kind of beauty, and thus a photographic image-object worthy of contemplation. At least, the hope is that some measure of that strange beauty found in the object by the photographer has been successfully captured and translated into the photographic image, through careful attention to formal composition.   

But note, further: this interplay between human creations (the “artificial”) and the mechanics of nature (the “natural”) need not be represented so bluntly as in a photograph of a derelict, decaying swimming pool. Take a building put up against the sky by an architect, a “skyscraper”. The architect challenges the sky, seeking to impose the architect’s “vision” of how this particular bit of space (this segment of our visual spectrum) should appear. And yet, the sky responds in turn, by refusing to stand perfectly still as the building’s backdrop, for it has its own, ever-changing moods (its weather, among other variations) that continually illuminate and re-illuminate the building’s façade, thus varying its image, its appearance-to-us. Likewise, the electrician criss-crosses our urban skies with wiring, and yet the sky somehow overwhelms these cuts. And, likewise again, the construction worker, supported by a colossal infrastructure of machinery and labour-power, hoists massive steel beams up over one paved expressway to create another atop, which in turn solidifies and strengthens the intricate latticework of the very infrastructure that made each expressway possible. And yet, very quickly, the constructor’s steel beams and concrete slabs themselves become covered by a latticework of rust and mildew. Again, I think there is a peculiar kind of beauty to be found (made?) here.

Of course, the photographer’s goal (my goal) is not always or necessarily to capture and exhibit the beauty of this interplay between artifice and nature (whether seen as a conflict or a harmony of sorts). Alas, moments of beauty are exceedingly rare, and our capacity to make them determinate through the fixing action of photograph-taking is quite limited. The photographer’s more humble vocation, thus, is simply follow through on his/her inquisitiveness about the objects that surround us, then to invite the observer to a moment of contemplation (of the object fastened within the photograph, as chosen by the photographer), and only then, perhaps, to induce and to foster an experience, a perception, of beauty. Some few photographers go beyond even this, and somehow manage to present us with images that approach the sublime.

But how does photography, photography in particular, manage to achieve this? In contrast, that is, to all other art forms. I think it must have something to do with this: the nature and mechanics of photography are such that the photographer is highly constrained in the range of choices he/she is able to make in producing the photographic image. This is because the photographic image is itself highly constrained by the captured object, indeed by the external world as a whole.* The sculptor, the painter, the musician, and even less the author, let alone the poet – each of them do not have such constraints as the photographer. (Consider this: the author-poets’ boundaries are, ultimately, only those of imagination and language itself … what a vast resource!)

The essence of photography is this limitedness, both in terms of the source material for image-making and, thus, the photographer’s capacity for choice. This is also the greatness, the “genius”, of photography: the photographer is, ultimately, severely constrained as to how the object will present itself through the fixing-action of the photographic image. (Hence my personal tendency to avoid extensive digital manipulation, which otherwise greatly expands the photographer’s possibilities; my lament, here, is that the digital age, by vastly extending the photographer’s decision making range, has made non-manipulation a choice in itself, a deliberate decision not to manipulate, and has therefore undermined what, in my view, is the core characteristic of photography.) Again, consider this: the photographer aims to achieve within the bounds of a (typically) square frame what the novelist may explore within the expanse of the book binds. For the photographer, the object will almost always exceed the boundaries of the photographic frame, whether that object is a mere physical thing (as in formalistically oriented photography that focuses on composition) or an emotion (as in the substantive photography of the documentary mode, or portraiture).

What is remarkable, and what makes for truly astonishing art in the photographic form, is that some few photographers are able to capture and encapsulate the object, as a whole in itself, despite the otherwise severe constraints of photography. They are thus able to hold the object up for us to contemplate as a true object of beauty and, very seldom, the sublime.

Naturally, I don’t count myself among them. But anyhow, I dare to present you, the observer, with my (always provisional) efforts … do please enjoy.

Attila Ataner
Toronto, Canada
June, 2008

* To the extent that I presuppose that photography remains an essentially “representational” medium, my views here are rather orthodox. I realize that contemporary theories of art (or at least certain branches thereof) have sought to dissolve and eventually overcome certain familiar dichotomies – in the main instance, between subject and object, the internal and external, or the observer and the (thing) observed, and so on. Nevertheless, I personally find it difficult to think clearly about photography without resorting to some such dichotomies, and so proceed as if they are not inherently problematic, knowing full well they may be.