Woolf as a photojournalist

My friend took this photo when we were at a coffee shop one day. This couple was just sitting down together talking and laughing over the books they were reading. (Photo: Abbie Mills)

As soon as we began talking about how Virginia Woolf gives us small snapshots of her characters in her novel Mrs. Dalloway, there was only one thing that I could think of--photojournalism.

Perhaps it was only because of my slight obsession with photography that the buzzword "snapshot" caught my attention during class that day, but whatever the case I think that Virginia Woolf's writing style and photojournalism share several similarities.

As we learned in Woolf's essays, she thinks that a novel isn't a novel unless it is intensely focused on the characters in the novel. She expresses her annoyance at Edwardian writers by saying 

"They have looked very powerfully, searchingly, and sympathetically out of the window; at factories, at Utopias, even at the decoration and upholstery of the carriage; but never at her, never at life, never at human nature" 

This is a beautiful picture of street lamps
in Romania, but it doesn't tell much of
a story. (Photo: Nat'l Geographic)

A great deal of photography is having good-looking photos of objects or landscapes. Of course these photos are beautiful and amazing to look at, but these photos do not seek to ask or answer questions of human existence. They merely look nice, much like how Woolf is saying that Edwardians' writing looks nice but doesn't capture the depth of humanity. 

"Life is not a series of gig lamps symmetrically arranged; but a luminous halo, a semi-transparent envelope surrounding us from the beginning of consciousness to the end," says Woolf in another essay on writing fiction. 

Photojournalism recognizes this too. Life isn't an artistically arranged bouquet of flowers, and it isn't edited to perfection either. Life is about the people on this planet, the decisions they make, the things they create, and the interactions they share.

I love this photo of a family dinner where
the relatives are laughing and joking
with each other around the table. Photos
like this capture the emotions involved
in everyday life and then you, as the viewer,
also share in those emotions.
(Photo: Julian Smith)

Photojournalism captures human activity in a way that can both tell a story and challenge the viewer. Photojournalism is all about capturing the action--emotions, expressions, and movements. The instructor for a  photojournalism class that I took during Agora Days once said, “Look out for and capture the moments--that’s what makes photojournalism interesting.”

And indeed, it is what makes photojournalism interesting. For those captured moments are moments that reveal our character and our humanity. Photos like these can create bonds of recognition between people who have never even seen each other because many times we share more similarities than we first assume. There's something about being able to understand where another person is coming from that allows us to respect each other so much more.

When I see this photo I get a feeling
of happy contentment. Perhaps it's
because seeing this embrace reminds
me of hugs that I have shared with
people that I care about. Remembering
those hugs establishes a connection
between my life and the actions of
those in this picture
(Photo: Nat'l Geographic). 

The camera can only pick up so much, it's up to the viewer to decide what they see in a picture. Often times, when looking at photos, you get bombarded with emotions that then turn into thoughts and memories. Memories and thoughts that can either challenge your values and change your character, or impart a happy nostalgia and sense of wonder. These emotions reveal your own character to you when you look at dramatic photos.

Photojournalism also gives us glimpses into the darker sides of human nature with pictures of war and suffering. These pictures make the struggles of people all around the world all the more real to us. 

This picture of a mother and
her son in the aftermath of
the atomic bomb on Hiroshima
is a solemn reminder of the
unrelenting pain of war.
(Photo: Life Magazine)

Through Woolf's characters in Mrs. Dalloway, we see not only the outwardly respectable appearances, but also the complicated and conflicting emotions that go on behind the scenes in the minds of the characters. We see several sides to Clarissa and Peter, and we are privy to most of the thoughts and resulting actions of the characters in the book. Nobody is perfect, and Woolf's characters are certainly no exception.

Woolf's obsession with uncovering human nature to make more realistic art (in her case the art of the novel) could have made her a great photojournalist, but I'm glad she stuck with writing.

Although two different mediums, one writing and the other photography, both Woolf and photojournalists have the responsibility to accurately portray human emotion and character through their art for their respective audiences. Through both photojournalism and Woolf's novels, we learn what it means to be a part of this vast world full of unique human beings.

Tabasco ties

My dad's large selection of colorful ties. Note the childhood favorites of mine. 

When I was little my family lived in a small house, so the options for a game of hide-and-seek were few and far between. One had to get very creative when playing such a game, especially when your siblings also knew the house like the back of their hands and thus knew every nook and cranny to search.

The choice spots for hiding were (in order of hiding expertise required): the cupboard under the bathroom sink, inside the dress-up clothes trunk, and behind the row of ties in my parents' closet.

Alas, I have given away my favorite hiding places and now have lost all further hide-and-seek games if I play with any of you, but this story does have a purpose in this blog post other than revealing my closely guarded secrets to winning this childhood game.

In The Mezzanine my favorite footnote of the entire book is on page 27. It's a rather lengthy footnote (as Baker's footnotes go), but it is my favorite footnote because of all the ideas and emotions that this footnote contains. It's a footnote! It's supposed to be boring, additional information, right? Wrong.

At first Howie describes his love for glass doorknobs and the click-click noises of the turning signals in cars, but then he turns the footnote into an interesting explanation as to why he loves glass doorknobs so much. It's as if he's also discovering for the first time that the reason he loves glass doorknobs is because his father hangs his ties on doorknobs. Howie and his father share a love for quality ties, and in this footnote Howie seems to realize just how meaningful of a memory one doorknob can bring back for him.

I found this passage endearing. I loved getting to see Howie's character through his interactions with his dad and his fond memories of his dad's odd habit of hanging ties on doorknobs. Another reason why I loved this footnote so much was because it brought back a memory of mine from my childhood--the hide-and-seek games where I hid in my parent's closet.

--------------------

My sister squints her eyes shut and then starts counting very fast.

"1, 2, 3, 4,"

"Not so fast!" I yell, annoyed.

"5, 6, 7, 8," she says, even faster just to spite me for pointing out her cheating habit.

"If you're going to go that fast then at least give me 'till 30!" I shout over my shoulder as I dash to the closest hiding spot--the closet in my parents' bedroom.

I run in, shut the door as fast as I dare, and sit and wait for her to find me. I look around and the only interesting items in the closet, other than my mother's shoes, are my father's ties. He has the typical boring business ties. The blue, gold, and red are lined up next to each other (the green one is gone to work today), but there are better ties on the rack that stand out to my childish curiosity.

I rub the fabric of the tie where Charlie Brown is chasing his runaway kite as I glance at the tie covered in Tabasco bottles. I wonder to myself what exactly Tabasco is, and observe that the bottle looks like it could hold something alcoholic, but that would seem scandalous for dad to wear on a tie, so I'm left to ponder what the bottles contain and why they're worthy for a tie design¹.

I'm just moving on to the horribly orange and purple UT tie when suddenly the closet door is slammed open allowing bright light to stream in around the shadow of my sister's curly blonde head.

"Found you! You're it!" My sister giggles, as if she knew I was there all along.

I walk away from my hiding place, trying to look calm and collected, confident that I would beat her in round two.

I found her under the bathroom sink.

---

^{1. It's now 10 years later and I still have no idea why anyone would want a tie with bottles of Tabasco for a design. I think that my dad used to have a mild obsession with the condiment. He would pour obscene amounts of red hot sauce on any food item--from green beans to meatloaf, there was nothing that Tabasco couldn't make better. I think it was because the extra spice made it easier for dad to swallow his vegetables, and therefore provide a good example for his children at the dinner table. Except nowadays, instead of Tabasco sauce, all of his children spike their food with horrible mounds of ketchup. Coincidence? I think not.}

Maybe Aurelius was wrong

Here are three of my favorite examples of how artists rework trivial objects in life to make them into beautiful art projects.

Similar to how Nicholson Baker is able to write a book out of one lunch hour and make it interesting and relatable, these artists take commonplace items and habits and express them in a way that makes you appreciate the beauty of even the simple things in life.

Cerise Doucède's Égarements and Quotidien

Yayoi Kusama's Obliteration Room

Giuseppe Colarusso's Unlikely project

The artistic qualities of a fork

I think my most successful photo from my experiment was this photo of three forks and a spoon.

The class discussion today talked about how The Mezzanine turns the mundane, trivial, everyday consumer items into art by putting "a blank wall" around them--much like how a museum displays its art. 

By isolating the objects and talking about them in detail, Howie is forcing us to focus only on the object. He rants about straws, paper towels, and even garbage trucks. Somehow, he turns these commonplace items into objects of wonder and curiosity. Howie says that he wants to "set the escalator to the mezzanine against a clean mental background as something fine and worth my adult time to think about," and I think he succeeds in getting the reader to think more creatively about day to day life. 

This point of the book, and the discussion in class, reminded me of a photo experiment that I did last winter. 

I'm not a photographer by any stretch of the imagination, but at one point last year I really wanted to try out a homemade light box for my food blog that I was writing for nonfiction writing class. The goal was to make the food items look even more delicious by casting more light onto them, because usually well-lit subjects make a better picture. 

I found that taking pictures of the food was so much fun that I started grabbing things in the kitchen, and I found that when these trivial objects are placed on their own in the light box you suddenly see colors and shapes that you hadn't noticed before. And, now that I think about it, my use of the light box was similar to Howie's discovery of the rusted railroad spike in the well-swept garage. 

For example, the blue on the Earl Grey tea packet stands out in one picture, and so do the colors of the twisty straws in the next.

 Most of the time, when I make tea I don't even study the packet at all because I promptly discard it, but on it's own the packet is suddenly fascinating. I begin to notice that the packet is made of this papery plastic material. I also notice the shadows its crinkled shell casts, the fading color of dark blue and black on the design, and my ultimate betrayal of the "please tear here" instructions.

The twisty straws also become intriguing because they remind you of the swirly motion that occurs as you drink liquid through them. The white milk twists and turns, and your eyes cross as they look down your nose to examine the effect the twisty straw has on the drinking time of the liquid (only a few hundredths of a second more drinking time than using a regular straw). 

Howie would probably go into great detail about why and how twisty straws came into existence, but I'll save the extensive footnotes for another time. 

If you're interested here are some the shots that I came up with: 

Of titles and other things

Ray Bradburry, "Byzantium, I come not from,"

Byzantium, I come not from,
But from another time and place
Whose race was simple, tried and true;

As boy
I dropped me forth in Illinois.
A name with neither love nor grace
Was Waukegan, there I came from
And not, good friends, Byzantium.

And yet in looking back I see
From topmost part of farthest tree
A land as bright, beloved and blue
As any Yeats found to be true.

So we grew up with mythic dead
To spoon upon midwestern bread
And spread old gods’ bright marmalade
To slake in peanut-butter shade,
Pretending there beneath our sky
That it was Aphrodite’s thigh…
While by the porch-rail calm and bold
His words pure wisdon, stare pure gold
My grandfather, a myth indeed,
Did all of Plato supersede
While Grandmama in rockingchair
Sewed up the raveled sleeve of care
Crocheted cool snowflakes rare and bright
To winter us on summer night.
And uncles, gathered with their smokes
Emitted wisdoms masked as jokes,
And aunts as wise as Delphic maids
Dispensed prophetic lemonades
To boys knelt there as acolytes
To Grecian porch on summer nights;
Then wen to bed, there to repent
The evils of the innocent;
The gnat-sins sizzling in their ears
Said, through the nights and through the years
Not Illinois nor Waukegan
But blither sky and blither sun.

Though mediocre all our Fates
And Mayor not as bright as Yeats
Yet still we knew ourselves. The sum?
Byzantium.
Byzantium.