2010-10-29

Alpine Pastorals #6 -- Perfect setups. Belvedere.

The recent rarefied posting is mainly due to some doubts about the function of this blog. In the beginning I meant it to be a container of my sparse thinkings on photography (visual ones included), progressively I've started looking for something more appropriate for the kind of media (the blog). I'm still not sure if this really works, but the use of series of successive views, sometimes reordered in editing, lends me to a twofold evaluation. On one side I really like the way this strategy lets me tell about a place, on the other the time span taken by the publication of the entire selection takes a cumbersome dimension given the post intervals; as an example consider that I still have four months left in the "Porta Garibaldi" series of urban landscape detours.

I'm evaluating two possible exit strategies: the first one is to downscale the subject size, it substantially consists in a reduction of the size of the space of interest so to produce a shorter presentation cycle, this short sequence on the "belvedere" is an attempt at it. The second one, not necessarily in opposition to the former, is to start making stronger selections at the cost of loosing the succession of my movements in the targeted landscape. The selection may be more on the photographic side, to the artefact side so to say. This summer I've made a lot of thinking about the opportunity to compress an experience like a drift/dèrive, in a set of autonomous pictures that could stand by themselves alone, but to rely on a single a picture feels unnatural at the moment.

An area where photography really differs from the other kinds of imaging is in the sequence, or better, the relatively easiness, and convenience, to repeat the take. It is not a case, I think, that one of the first significant contribution to the general knowledge coming from photography have been the sequences from Eadweard Muybridge on the Galloping Question

From this post I'm also starting to post an Italian rendering of the text.

La recente rarefazine dei post è in parte dovuta ad alcuni dubbi sulla funzione di questo blog. Inialmente ho inteso il blog come un contenitore di mie riflessioni, disordinate, sulla fotografia,e specificatamente sulla fotografia di paesaggio (espresse anche in forma visiva). Progressivamente ho cercato qualcosa di più adatto al media (il blog). Non sono ancora sicuro che funzioni, ma l'uso di serie di viste in successione, a volte riordinate durante l'editing, mi porta a una doppia valutazione. Da un lato mi piace molto il modo di raccontare un luogo che questa strategia mi consente, dall'altra l'intervalo di tempo richiesto per la pubblicazione diventa ingombrante posto l'attuale frequenza di post; come esempio si consideri che ho ancora quattro mesi di detours nel paesaggio urbano di "Porta Garibaldi".

Sto valutando due strategie possibili per uscire dal problema: la prima consiste nello scalare la dimensione del soggetto, sostanzialmente si tratta di diminuire lo spazio di interesse in modo di ridurre la lunghezza del ciclo di presentazione, questa breve sequenza sul "belvedere" ne costituisce un esempio. La seconda, non necessariamente opposta alla prima, consiste nel fare selezioni molto più stringenti al prezzo di perdere la mia successione di movimenti nello spazio del paesaggistico prescelto. La selezione avverrebbe più sul piano fotografico, sul lato, per cosi dire, del manufatto. Quest'estate ho sovente pensato all'opportunità di concentrare, in un insieme di immagini con una loro autonomia individuale, l'esperienza di una dèrive situazionista, ma basarmi su una singola immagine mi pare, al momento, innaturale. Credo che una delle differenze significative della fotografia rispetto ad altre forme di produzione immaginifica sia nella sequenza. Non è un caso che uno dei primi apporti alla conoscenza generale sia venuto dalle sequenze di Eadweard Muybridge sul Galoppo

7 comments:

Kent Wiley said...

Interesting to hear your thoughts on this, Mauro. I too have let the blog slide for rather a long time, mostly due to my current involvement w/ video projects. They have an inherently longer development time than the afternoon outing which might yield a pic or two that could be posted. I've enjoyed your wanderings, but can sympathize with your desire to speed up the posting phase. I'm still trying to figure out a way to get my derives on video, and make them interesting enough that people would want to watch them.

Mauro Thon Giudici said...

Hi Kent,
I've seen your videos and understand pretty well what you are saying.
The same is happening for me on the photo book side.

Kent Wiley said...

Photo books... Now there's a realm I've not bothered to enter... yet. There is obviously a permanence to them that is attractive, but can you not do the same thing - more or less - with a portfolio in which you can change the images from time to time as your ideas evolve?

Mauro Thon Giudici said...

Kent it is not the permanence that attracts me but the fact that the book may be the object of desire for my audience and not the photo, this leaves me with a greater freedom to organize my content. But a more careful and in depth reflection is needed here. I'll be there on a forthcoming post.

Kent Wiley said...

Good point, Mauro. People don't buy photo books for the photos as much as to have the book itself. I like that: "an object of desire" - which makes me think of the Bunuel film "That Obscure Object of Desire."

Mauro Thon Giudici said...

Ha! Kent, did not made that connection but its interesting enough thanks to point it out.

Leovi said...

Encuadres muy interesantes.