Photographs in Context, II

Reading Charles Cunningham, “To Watch the Faces of the Poor: Life Magazine and the Mythology of Rural Poverty in the Great Depression,” a 1999 article published in the Journal of Narrative Theory. In preparation for discussion, please respond in writing as follows:

1. On pp 283-290, Cunningham explores the significance of the pioneer myth for the political debate over what should be done about farmers displaced by the Dust Bowl. Why, according to Cunningham, did mass media images of rural poverty primarily feature poor whites? How does Cunningham summarize the binary distinction he presents between two contrasting views of poor whites?
2. On pp 290-293, Cunningham shifts to consider the place of African-Americans in the mythology of the American frontier. As you read this section, take another look at Marion Post Wolcott’s photograph, “Jitterbugging in Negro juke joint.” How might Cunningham’s account cause you to reconsider your understanding of the political message of this image?

One Photograph, Two Visions

Looking forward to the essay (due a week from this Wednesday), we need to start thinking about mission: What will your essay argue? What insight will serve as its raison d’être?

Start by sketching out your photograph’s known qualities. What details draw the viewer’s attention? How does the photograph persuade us, and what does it persuade us of? Type this up as a preliminary understanding, pasting that into a comment below.

Then reply to the comment you just created with a second ¶ that presents a deeper insight into the photo’s appeal.

For example, looking at Lange’s “Migrant Mother,” I might start by asserting:

Dorothea Lange’s “Migrant Mother” appeals to viewers’ sense of social justice by calling attention to the squalid living conditions of migrant farm laborers in California during the Great Depression. The photograph’s crisp focus renders the children’s ragged clothes in fine detail. Dirt smears the cheek of the sleeping infant, while two other children huddle around their mother—as if for warmth, or to hide their faces in shame. The mother looks into the far distance, and in her worried gaze we read the anxieties of a life lived under a canvas tarp by the roadside.

You’ll note how this preliminary account gets a lot right. It sums up what a thoughtful commentator might say about the photo at first glance, focusing on surface details that have a big impact on the viewer: the ragged clothing, the children’s huddled posture, the canvas tarp, the mother’s anxious expression. But it also leaves out one key aspect: the woman’s beauty, a quality also notable in the baby’s cheeks and the children’s hair. That incongruity, seemingly inconsistent with the preliminary account, creates an opening for a thesis-level understanding:

Yet, in the midst of this squalor, beauty shines through. The mother’s finely chiseled features, the infant’s plump cheeks, the other children’s gold-flecked tousled hair all appeal on an aesthetic level, encouraging the viewer to linger rather than turn away in disgust, as we might from a less lovely image of poverty. The secret to the success of Lange’s image is not its squalor—a common enough quality in FSA photography—but its beauty.

In prep for class Use the comment box to post a preliminary account of your photograph. Then post a deeper understanding as a reply to the comment you just created (look for the “Reply” link at the lower left corner of your first comment).

Riffing on a Secondary Source

Sontag’s essay, “In Plato’s Cave,” is filled with big claims about photographs and the roles they play in society. Her writing is evocative but complex, so it requires active and attentive reading to appreciate its insights.

The following exercise aims to help you deepen your understanding of a passage by translating her ideas into your own words and fleshing her argument out with an example of your own choosing.

1. Choose one of Sontag’s thought-provoking but dense and difficult sentences (or a short passage)—a passage that you find intriguing but perhaps a bit puzzling, ideally a passage with ideas that could potentially be useful to you in your own analysis of a photo. Type out the original sentence, using quotation marks to signal that these are her words, not yours.
2. Paraphrase the sentence by finding synonyms for all of the key terms. Don’t just go for the gist of the passage (i.e. don’t try to summarize or condense) but instead strive to create a parallel version of Sontag’s original sentence.
3. Repeat this exercise, using a different set of synonyms and reversing the sentence order as much as possible. (This is more difficult, but it will often result in a cleaner paraphrase.)
4. Repeat the exercise, but this time simplifying and condensing her idea in summary form. You might head this version up with “In short, …”
5. Think of a photograph or personal experience that exemplifies Sontag’s point. In a few sentences, describe the photo or experience, making clear how it illustrates Sontag’s argument.
6. Read back through your three paraphrases, noting which version best conveys Sontag’s meaning. Clarity a plus, simplicity a plus (so long as it doesn’t over-simplify—or so long as the simple version is just the starting point for a fuller explanation).
7. Write a stand-alone paragraph that introduces Sontag’s idea and explains it by reference to the example you chose in step (5) above. Feel free to incorporate bits from everything you’ve just written. You may use all three of your paraphrases, or just one—experiment and see what works best for you.

Paste the finished ¶ from step (7) into the comment box below. Then, after posting, post the relevant quotation from Sontag as a “Reply” to your comment.

This exercise is adapted from Writing Analytically, by David Rosenwasser and Jill Stephen.

Photographs in Context I

One way to weigh a photograph’s rhetorical impact is by reference to the situation in which it was created and rose to prominence. This week and next, we will be reading two essays that examine the work of photographers during the Great Depression in the 1930s. The first focuses on Dorothea Lange’s creation of “Migrant Mother”; the second (coming next week) will focus on photographs published in Life Magazine. Both essays are inspiring examples of historical analysis; both also have something to teach us about the complex interrelationship of photographer to subject, and photograph to audience.

Reading James Curtis, “Dorothea Lange, Migrant Mother, and the Culture of the Great Depression,” a 1986 essay published in Winterthur Portfolio. In preparation for discussion, please respond in writing as follows:

1. Curtis’ most startling revelation is that Lange posed her subjects carefully. Make a list of the ways that Lange altered and edited her subjects in the process of creating her masterpiece. Why does this seem to diminish our sense of her work’s meaning? Should it?
2. Is the later history of Florence Thompson relevant to our understanding of Lange’s photograph? Was the photograph diminished or enhanced by the loss of anonymity?

3-¶ Initial Description and Analysis

For class Flesh out two-column notes listing and accounting for details from one of the photographs linked from the homepage of the coursedocs website. If you focus on the same photo as you discussed in the last class session, feel free to use your prior list of details as a starting point.

Aim to collect AT LEAST 20 distinct details. I know that sounds like a lot, but don’t forget that, besides stuff in the photo, you can note details OF the photo: focus, framing, color, exposure. Finally, consider details left out of the photo: what we don’t see but are made to wonder about (as, for example, the father missing from “Migrant Mother”).

Once you have your list, re-order it so as to group related details under headings. Then, in the right hand column, say something about why that heading matters, how that group of details contributes to the photo’s message and/or impact. As we discussed in lecture, grouping details together is known as “strand analysis,” in the sense that you’re identifying and naming the strand that links those details together. For example, in “Migrant Mother” one might group the children’s threadbare clothing, the family’s tent, and the baby’s dirty face under the heading “grinding poverty.”

In lecture, I also mentioned Binary Analysis. We will talk more about Binaries in an upcoming class, but to briefly clarify a somewhat rushed point, a Binary consists of a pair of related but contrasting Strands. In “Migrant Mother,” details from the children might be gathered together under the heading of Vulnerability and details from the mother under the heading of Strength. Thus, rather than discussing both mother and kids together as elements of a single strand, “Responsibility,” we might choose instead to discuss the mother’s Strength and the children’s Vulnerability as separate strands that combine in the binary, “Responsibility.”

Many of the photographs lend themselves to binary analysis. Perhaps most obviously: Tank Man, Segregated Water Fountains, the Lynching in Marion Indiana. So the HW below prompts you to try out both.

To post below Using your two-column notes as a starting point, write a three-¶ sequence as follows:

1. ¶ giving a vivid initial description of the photograph. Open the ¶ with a one-sentence assessment of the photograph’s message.
2. ¶ focusing on one strand of details (or perhaps two closely related strands). Open the ¶ with a one-sentence assessment of how that strand contributes to the photo’s rhetorical impact on viewers.
3. ¶ focusing on a strand of details that stands in contrast to the prior ¶’s focus, thus forming the second half of a binary. Open the ¶ with a one-sentence assessment of how this new strand complicates the photograph’s message.

Susan Sontag: “In Plato’s Cave”

On Photography is a collection of essays written by Susan Sontag in the 1970s and originally published in the New York Review of Books. Sontag is a provocative writer, engaging our attention with startling and often counterintuitive claims about the function of photographic imagery in our society. She writes as a public intellectual rather than as an academic—you’ll note the absence of footnotes or other source citation. Some of her analysis may seem outdated in the digital era, but other points will strike you as truer now than ever before.

For class please read and take three-column notes on “In Plato’s Cave,” the first of the essays collected in On Photography. As we did when you watched The Persuaders for Unit Two, start by writing down quotations in the left-hand column. Then rewrite those quotes in your own words in the middle column, focusing on expressing the author’s ideas in ways amenable to you. Finally, use the right-hand column to record your reaction to her idea—in particular, any plans for applying Sontag to the photographs selected for this unit. As with The Persuaders, don’t be too eager to fill up that right-hand column—leave space for later thoughts and blanks where she has a cool idea but you’re not sure what to do with it.

Our goal in reading Sontag is to gain a vocabulary for talking about photography’s power to inspire an emotional reaction in viewers—as well as its limitations. So be sure to take note of her vital, provocative claims: not just places where you agree with her, but also places where you disagree. Later on, you may want to return to those points of controversy and consider making that issue a focal point for your essay.

To post below Go through the images on the front page of the CourseDocs site and make a tentative choice of a photograph to focus on for this unit. Take 10 minutes to familiarize yourself with the photo.

Make a list of 20 key details (a start on creating two-column notes). Then pick out the two most important facts about the image and use them to craft a 1 or 2 sentence summary of the image’s rhetorical message. Your sentence should express how the photo’s message arises from the relationship between those two really important details.

For example, looking at the image from the last lecture, I might write, “The mother’s worried expression as her children huddle around forces viewers to sympathize with the plight of migrant farmworkers during the Great Depression” (key details set in boldface type). You’ll note that this isn’t a thesis claim so much as a preliminary understanding.

Paste your sentence into the comment box below.

The Silent Eloquence of Photography

Read this passage from William Stott on the visibility of poverty during the Great Depression, as well as this passage from Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath.

For Class Take a minute to look at the image at right. Have you seen it before? What does it say to you? What are the three most vital details in conveying this message? Bring your answers to class — or paste into the comment space below.

Note: the image at right is a high-res scan of the original photo; if you click it, you’ll get a larger version that zooms in pretty far.

In Class Strand analysis. Two-column notes redux.