ambiguity arises not from the first message but from the second, the disconinuty from the moment recorded and the moment of looking p89
"All photographs are ambiguous " p 91
disconinuity always produces ambiguity, sometimes not obvious.
photograph beg for an interpretation, which words usually supply
The photograph, irrefutible as evidence but weak in meaning, is given a meaning by the words
POWERFUL TOGETHER
"could this ambiguity suggest another way of telling?"
representation "is indeed like a trace" p93
'the material
relation between the image and what it represents (between the marks on
the printing paper and the tree these marks represent) is an immediate
and unconstructed one' p93 b4
"in
itself the photograph cannot lie, but, by the same token, it cannot
tell the truth; or rather, the truth it does tell , the truth it can by
itself defend is a limited one." p97
p116 - 'it was a rationalist illusion to beleive that in dispensing with
religion, mysteries would be reduced. What has happened, on the
contrary, is that mysteries multiply. Merleau-Ponty wrote:'
We must take literally what vision teaches us, namely that through
it we come in contact with the sun and the stars, that we are everywhere
all at once, and that even our power to imagine ourselves elsewhere...
borrows from vision nd employs means we owe to it. Vision alone makes us
learn that beings that are different, "exterior", foreign to one
another, are yet absolutely together, are "simultaniety"; this is a
mystery psychologists handle the way a child handles explosives. """"
"In every act of
looking there is an expectation of meaning. This expectation should be
distinguished from a desire for an explanation. The one who looks may
explain aftewards; but, prior to any explanation, there is the
expectation of what appearances themselves may be about to reveal." p117
photographs are a way to show that an event has occurred, but does not
have the capacity to explain why, how, or what feelings were involved.
http://blog.lib.umn.edu/wardx278/1300/2007/10/appearances_john_berger.html
Simon Johnson
www.thephilosophicalphotographer.co.uk
reminders of Berger
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