Dissent Decree

Main Street Estate Shop © Michael Maurer Smith 2009

Carmina and Tony Talk Time and Photography:

“We are the time police, arresting speeders—that’s what we photographers are. We try to apprehend those, this and that in their acts of escaping. And much of what catch we do not realize until much later, if ever. We are collectors, conservators and curators of experience. We are teachers and shapers of our culture,” said Tony

“Oh my god, he’s on a roll today,” thought Carmina. “So Tony, what brings this on?” she asked.

“I’m in a philosophical mood, I guess. I got up around 4:00 a.m. and couldn’t get back to sleep. Something was eating at me. I don’t know what. Anyway, I pulled my copy of Distinctly American: The Photography of Wright Morris from my bookcase, along with Time Pieces—a wonderful collection of Morris’ essays, and I spent the next couple of hours looking and reading and it all got me thinking. Thinking about stuff like, what is the essence of photography? What purpose does it serve? What makes it meaningful and worthwhile? You know, light stuff, no pun intended, he said.”

Tony continued, “I love that Morris was both a writer and a photographer—and that he could see and reveal so much in the humble and mundane—in the residue and remnants of time’s passage. He photographed Nebraska in its flatness and seeming emptiness and yet filled those pictures with meaning—universal and specific. His photographs are often without people but show their effects upon simple objects and the landscape—like the worn pump handle or the lone grain elevator poised against the Kansas’ horizon like a supplicant’s hands in prayer, pointing toward heaven—the presumed guarantor of the bountiful harvest. For me Morris’s work epitomizes the essence of photography.”

“And that essence is what?” asked Carmina.

“The awareness of mortality. It is the realization of our human desire to stop time long enough to absorb and contemplate what’s passing and passed. That is what makes the act of photography so poignant. It is all about the passage of time—extracting and preserving a moment from that flow. It is about the celebration of what was but is no more. The photograph is always memento mori. When it is of a person it is a visual epitaph or will become one. No matter if it is a formal portrait, well lit and composed, or a casual snapshot—it is a record of the past—reference material for the stories of memory, and a resource for the imagination,” Tony replied.

“That’s pretty heavy. But it strikes me that a photograph is more about the present than the past. It’s about how we interpret it. I mean a photograph is only the record of light reflected off a subject’s surface. It reveals nothing about what went on before or after the picture was taken, or what was happening outside the frame. And if the photo is of a person, it reveals nothing of what they were thinking or feeling. It is just a piece of paper with an image on it. Samantha, my 3-year-old niece and I may look at the same photograph together. I will recognize it is of the Taj Mahal. She will not. I will know the Taj Mahal is in India. She will have no concept of India, continents or how far away India is. In effect I will ‘read’ the picture but Samantha will simply see it,” Carmina said.

“What you say is true. However Morris, better than most photographers, knew the respective strengths of the word and photograph and he used each to their best advantage. Like Walker Evans, He thought of photography as a kind of literature—something to be seen and ‘read,’ something to be appreciated aesthetically and intellectually—something to be interpreted formally and contextually.

“Ok. I got it. So, we meet here at the Bean next week, same time?” Carmina asked.

“You bet. Wouldn’t miss it.” Said Tony.

© Michael Maurer Smith 2009