Topic: | Phenomenology / Street Photography / An Aesthetic Way. |
Posted by: | Chris Jones |
Date/Time: | 01/06/2003 07:22:50 |
Hello, I've been looking for a more meaningful way of living and, by taking a closer look at what I've always already been doing (reading and photographing), would like to offer for discussion the topic of street photography's connection to phenomenology, as a way of bringing about a more meaningful, and consequently aesthetic, way of living. Street photography, practiced by the likes of Henri-Cartier Breson, himslef inspired by the phenomenologic works by Cezanne explored famously by Merleau-Ponty, and Walker Evans, demands "being-there" in its fullest sense. For Cartier-Bresson, whose Zen like work is dotted throughout the www, "the photograph takes you"; you do not take it. Through a phenomenological reading, the sensational surrounds in which the photographer lives inspires him/her into a pressing of the camera's shutter release. It requires of the photographer a move away from a Cartesin split attitude toward his/her surrounds, toward a "body-subject" [M.Ponty] attitude, open to a full intertwining between photographer as subject and street thing/event as object; a Dasein attitude of "letting things be", to the degree where the classic S/O division breaks down. This breaking down is when the phtograph is taken. As a result, (good) street photography, I beleive, is evidence of phenomenological living at its most primordial. To get to this reading of street photography as preeminent site of phenomenological, and aesthetic living, I've read, (and am always reading!): Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenology of Perception. M. Heidegger, Poetry, Language, Thought. M. Heidegger, Basic Writings. The Phenomenology Reader, ed. Dermot Moran & Timothy Mooney. John Dewey, Art as Experience. (I suspect Levinas' writings on responsibilty will also be added to the list, plus a wander back into Nietzsche's writing on explosive subjectivity). This list is always inspired by the the photographic work of Hneri Cartier-Bresson, William Eggleston, Walker Evans and Robert Frank. With Heidegger, I hope to understand the phenomenological street photographic way of the body-subject intertwined with the earth, things and others, at a theological base, where all are intertwined in/with, Light. If anyone's interested, I'd love to discuss any lines of interest in the aforementioned. And by the way, in addition to my writerly research into the above, I follow light round the world taking pictures. I hope to have these available on the www soon. Regards, Chris. |