Candid
Photography, and the Meaning of "Real-Life"
by Len Bernstein © 2001
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Like
so many others, I love candid photography. It’s an adventure to walk down the
street not knowing just what I'll encounter or the emotions I'll have. But what
candid photographer hasn't experienced having a subject object to his or her
picture being taken? People may be suspicious of a photographer’s motive.
They’re concerned about not being shown in a true light.
As a matter of fact, if we want to be honest with ourselves as
photographers, we’ll ask, "As I try to capture people in a candid,
un-posed moment, do I hope to find meaning in them or to make them look foolish
and weak?"
Photography
aside, when someone says, "Let me be candid with you," why is it that
we pale? "Telling it like it is" has long been associated with a
relish for pointing out the imperfections of others--seeing
"real-life" as seedy and senseless.
This was the type of "honesty" I used to pride myself on until
Eli Siegel, the founder of Aesthetic Realism, asked me in a class, "Can you
tell the difference between candor and brutality?" I couldn't.
In fact, I often made comments that were thoughtless and mean, because I
didn't perceive the feelings of other people as being real, like my own. I'm
learning to be kinder and more exact, and I am indebted to Eli Siegel for making
this transformation possible.
We
can think that finding flaws in others (as well as making up a few along
the way) distinguishes us and even hones our creative edge. But the
desire to make less of people in order to build ourselves up is hardly original.
It is, I learned from Aesthetic Realism, ordinary, dreary contempt, which has a
terrible effect upon our lives and makes for candid photographs that
distort and trivialize a person's value. The opposite of contempt is good
will, which Mr. Siegel defined as “the desire to have something else
stronger and more beautiful, for this desire makes oneself stronger and more
beautiful." The study of good will is a domestic and international
emergency, because it is the one pursuit that can lead people to be truly kind
to each other. It will also make
the difference between photographs that add to an understanding of humanity and
those that mock it. As a photographer and critic these last twenty-six years,
I've seen that wanting to have "something else stronger and more
beautiful" through my own perception is the ultimate in self-expression.
There is nothing more original or avant-garde.
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The
candid photographer, trying to see people and things as they truly are, will
inevitably find meaning that takes in the whole world.
Eli Siegel explained why when he stated: "In reality opposites are
one; art shows this." I feel immensely fortunate to be studying this
principle, and to know it illuminates what every photographer deeply hopes to
accomplish. For example, when I saw
"Two Couples on West Broadway," I felt instinctively that it was a
chance to show something about the way men and women have been for and against
each other in a way that has caused anguish.
Two people can hug, like the couple on the left, and still not be too
interested in knowing each other. Later, their resentment can show through in an
argument, like the couple on the right. Usually, we see the hugs and the
arguments as unrelated, but here we see them at the same time, as both couples
share the picture frame and are joined through the circular industrial spool
that’s being used as a seat.
A
great education in art and ethics takes place in the professional classes for
Aesthetic Realism consultants and associates that are taught by Class Chairman
Ellen Reiss. In one of these classes, Reiss asked me about my brochure for a
recent exhibition, which included the photograph, "2nd Avenue Deli,"
and I began to learn more deeply what had stirred me when I ran to capture this
dramatic tableau. “Do you think
sometimes a person can be having a tremendous experience, having something
affect him enormously, and people all around are unaware of it?” she asked me.
“Yes,”
I answered. “I was very surprised
that the people were so oblivious to this man. Clearly he'd been through
something, and there were his shoes on the ground in front of him.”
“Do
you think he also seems to be in a state of great humility?”
“Oh,
he is. It's almost prayerful the way his head is bowed.”
She
elaborated. “It almost seems like
he's offering up those shoes...in some way feeling he doesn't deserve to have
them. Maybe they're off because his feet hurt. I imagine something like that is
so, but it also seems as though he is saying 'they shouldn't be of me.'...and
then [there are] persons around seeming rather complacent.”
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In
this same class discussion, Reiss asked about another photograph, "Man and
Two Boys," which is very different, because here people show interest in
each other: "What is the relation of all the details in this photograph to
something like form? Do they help [or] interfere with seeing composition?"
She went on. "Composition can
be of different kinds. How much the dispersed can be shape is
being looked at more and more in all the arts. But even as you have two hands
meeting in the middle, do you think there is something more dispersed in
this?"
I thought a moment. “Yes,
there is. I've always been very affected by the moment, the meeting between
these people, and also questioning the composition.”
She
used my response to explain. “This
matter of the immediate content and then the structure [is] central in
photography. Do you think that when
[this man] was a little boy this was the kind of work he hoped to be doing when
he was older?"
Answering
“no,” I realized I could have been clearer about what was affecting me in
this scene and had more feeling for this man's life.
I am learning that if we don't put a limit on how much empathy we can
have for people, we’ll make better choices when a split-second decision is
called for, including choices about photographic technique and composition.
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In
"Man Greeting Bird at War Memorial," the man is once again reaching
out, but here I think the relation of feeling and composition is better. The
setting is sober, but it also has a lift. Dressed in black, the man leans
against a tall stone monument and is observed by three sparrows--two on the
ground and one that he greets with an outstretched hand as it hovers and
flutters, representing the freshness of life itself. As he bends with humility,
the man is joined visually to the monument's bright edge that rises like a shaft
of light. Then, a part of a tree peeks out from behind the monument, its bare
branches extended like the fingers of a hand in a gesture to the sky that seems
to both echo and approve of the man's action.
As we
are out and about with our cameras, we may see something that stirs us, and yet
we may hesitate to approach and photograph it. For example, if we felt that
taking a photograph of people in a certain situation might have a bad effect on
them, it would be good will to put the camera down. But we can also hesitate
because we’re afraid to experience more feeling and respect. It’s not always
easy to be sure of our motives, but the more we question ourselves, the more
confident we will be--in photography and in life!
Assignment:
Photography
doesn't begin with the camera; it begins with how we see all the time. And so,
before going out to take pictures, ask yourself these questions about someone
you know: "Would he or she like the way I have them in my mind? Do I want
him or her to be ‘stronger and more beautiful’?" Every person can benefit from the kind and crucial question
Eli Siegel asked me, "Can you tell the difference between candor and
brutality?"
Think about these questions in relation to the people you meet during your photographic travels. Don’t settle for your first answers. Keep digging. The effort will not only affect the sincerity of your photographs, which is a tremendous thing in itself; it will also determine whether you yourself will be “stronger and more beautiful,” and who doesn’t want that?
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This article in its entirety is Copyrighted © Len Bernstein, 2001
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Len Bernstein has been photographing since 1974 and studied with Nancy Starrels in The Honoring Eye workshop at the Aesthetic Realism Foundation in New York City [http://www.AestheticRealism.org]. He began his study to teach Aesthetic Realism with Eli Siegel and continues his education in classes taught by Ellen Reiss, the Class Chairman of Aesthetic Realism. His photographs are in private and public collections including The Brooklyn Museum, The Baltimore Museum of Art, and Bibliothèque nationale de France. You can visit his website at http://www.LenBernstein.com
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