“Photographs do not render reality–realistically. It is reality which is scrutinized, and evaluated, for its fidelity to photographs. Instead of just recording reality, photographs have become the norm for the way things appear to us, thereby changing the very idea of reality, and of realism.”
Teaching Photography In Sabino Canyon (03/07/14) — Image by kenne
Remembering moments from the past —
“Photographs are a way of imprisoning reality… One can’t possess reality; one can possess images– one can’t possess the present, but one can possess the past.”
In 1994, Susan Sontag wrote in Transforming Vision — Writers On Art, edited by Edward Hirsch, on The Disasters of War by Francisco.
“The images are relentless, unforgiving. That is, they do not forgive us—who are merely being shown, but do not live in the house of pain. The images tell us we have no right not to pay attention to pay attention to the crimes of this order which are taking place right now. And the captions—mingling the voices of the murders, who think of themselves as warriors, and the lamenting artist-witness—mutter and wail. The problem is despair. For it is not simple that this happened: Zaragoza, Chinchon, Madrid (1808-13). It is happening Vucovar, Mostar, Srebrenica, Srebrenica, Stupni Do, Sarajevo (1991– ).” Note: The images and captions are meant to awaken, shock, rend. Yet the list of wars continues with Ukraine.
“Here in the words of some of the captions is what they show:
One cannot look at this. This is bad. This is how it happened. This always happens . There is not one to help them. With or without reason. He defends himself well. He deserved it. Bury them snd keep them quiet. There was nothing to be done and he died. What madness! This is too much! Why? Nobody knows why. Not in this case either. This is worse. Barbaria This is the absolute worst! It will be the same. All this and more. The same thing elsewhere. Perhaps they are of another breed. I see it. And this too. Truth has died. This is the truth.”
“Do stuff. Be clenched, curious. Not waiting for inspiration’s shove or society’s kiss on your forehead. Pay attention. It’s all about paying attention. Attention is vitality. It connects you with others. It makes you eager. stay eager.”
“Remembering is an ethical act, has ethical value in and of itself. Memory is, achingly, the only relation we can have with the dead. So the belief that remembering is an ethical act is deep in our natures as humans, who know we are going to die, and who mourn those who in the normal course of things die before us—grandparents, parents, teachers, and older friends.”
“Compassion is an unstable emotion. It needs to be translated into action, or it withers. The question of what to do with the feelings that have been aroused, the knowledge that has been communicated. If one feels that there is nothing ‘we’ can do — but who is that ‘we’? — and nothing ‘they’ can do either — and who are ‘they’ — then one starts to get bored, cynical, apathetic.”
― from Regarding the Pain of Others by Susan Sontag
Tourist In Other People’s Reality (1974) — a caricature of kenne
In 1974 an artist friend I worked with at a publishing company drew this caricature of me trying to include all the things he felt identified with me. For a long time, it hung on the wall in my office(s). One day I used a sharpy and wrote on the glass of the framed poster, “I’m a tourist in other people’s reality,” which sums up my life. I borrowed the line from Susan Sontag’s book (On Photography), “The camera makes everyone a tourist in other people’s reality, and eventually in one’s own.”
— kenne
Pinned on the wall in the drawing is the Edmund Burke quote:
“No men can act with effect who do not act in concert;
no men can act in concert who do not act with confidence;
no men can act with confidence who are not bound together
with common opinions, common affections, and common interests.”
Richardson’s Geranium Wildflower — Photo-Artistry by kenne
If literature has engaged me as a project, first as a reader, then as a writer, it is an extension of my sympathies to other selves, other domains, other dreams, other worlds, other territories.
— Susan Sontag
(I’m currently reading Benjamin Moser’s latest book, “Sontag — Her Life and Work.)
Bee On A Desert Chicory Wildflower — Photo-Artistry by kenne
“The primitive notion of the efficacy of images presumes that images possess the qualities of real things, but our inclination is to attribute real things the quality of images.”
Tourist In Other People’s Reality (1974) — a caricature of kenne
Richardson’s Geranium Wildflower — Photo-Artistry by kenne
Bee On A Desert Chicory Wildflower — Photo-Artistry by kenne
