Is the Narrative Clip art?

How to use the Narrative Clip and App from Narrative on Vimeo.

It's time to geek out on photography, again.

When Mr. Mitchell brought up the Narrative Clip in class the other day I was intrigued by the idea of carrying around a camera that constantly shot photos. I was also a little bit creeped out by it. I somehow thought that once you wore it that it became a permanent fixture and you never ever took it off (Turns out, if you put it in your pocket it shuts off.).  After doing a bit more research, the Narrative Clip sounds like a fun idea--though it isn't without it's downfalls. 

The actual specs of the camera say it's only 5mp quality. Current iPhone camera quality is 8mp, so this narrative clip takes pictures about the same as older and more annoying android phones. Most of your indoor photos will end up looking grainy because of the low light, and in general the lower quality makes for worse editing and cropping. The clip takes a square photo, much like taking a shot for Instagram. But, apparently there are some lenses you can buy to help with the square picture issue. [Examples of photos taken with narrative clip: A, B, C]

One of the major downsides to technology like this is that it makes everyone too self aware that they're taking photos. This then makes every living moment of their lives a potential "Facebook moment," as I'll call it, a moment when you think to yourself "Oh, this would make a good [insert social media tool name here] post! This would get tons of likes from my friends!" Thus usually motivating you to take out your phone and get the perfect shot, and then upload it with a witty caption. You're no longer living your life for you, but instead you're living life for the 560 friends you have on Facebook, the 60 followers you have on your blog, and the 120 people who subscribe to your YouTube account. Smartphones already do this to some extent today. Humans long to mean something, and social networking gives us a chance to be whatever hero we want to be--we can sculpt our own image. Social media is a wonderful invention, but it can be overused to the point where you base your life's worth off of what your internet persona is and not the life it's reflecting.

On the other hand, the Narrative Clip can be an amazing way to document important moments in our lives. It would be so cool to have a few people wearing this at a wedding, a birthday party, or a family reunion to collect more personal pictures of the events. You could wear the narrative clip on traveling trips too. For someone who is horrible at journaling during trips (There's always something more interesting to be doing!), this tool would be invaluable for capturing all the small moments and details of being in a new country. The GPS would also come in handy with a map of your travels.

The Narrative Clip is a fun idea, but I would argue that the photos it produces aren't necessarily works of art.  The only way for the Narrative Clip to be art is if the user has a specific artistic purpose for the photos captured. You lose the art of photography when it becomes this automatic and monotonous snap of a photo. There is no artist behind it--it's just an empty box taking a photo every thirty seconds. Yes, some photos will turn out cool looking, but they aren't art. It's like when people see weird post-modern art and go "I could do that in kindergarten! That's just a blank canvas and a string attached to it!" The answer is, no, you couldn't. 

Art has thought and meaning behind it. It isn't the robotic reflex that the Narrative Clip turns it into. The art of photography is setting just the right manual settings on the camera, positioning it to get the right shot and frame the object in the photo, and hitting the shutter at just the right moment. The artist looks through the viewfinder and sees something beautiful or fascinating that they can give meaning to. Others look and see only a "Facebook moment" and the 20 notifications waiting for them after they upload their shot. 

History and photojournalism

This photo of a baseball player popping some bubble gum reminded me of Tateh's silhouettes. Sanchez says that the silhouettes are full of empty space that can be interpreted however the viewer sees fit. Here, the editing gives the photo a crisp black and white look and draws your eye towards the bubble.  (Source: Michael Holahan)

One of the panel presentations given on Ragtime talked about  Jesús Sánchez's article "Doctorow's Ragtime: A Breach in the Frame of History." In this article, one of the many things that he discusses is the use of photography and images to define the past, and how those also are limited just like textual histories. 

"Texts, as well as pictures, construct an alternative world which will never reach the referential realm, since they are based on the absence of that which they seek to represent. [...] Besides their inherent failure as truthful representations, the history captured in the pictures, silhouettes and moving pictures is further confined by the unidirectionality of the artist's perspective."

I haven't quite figured out what Sánchez means by pictures being based on an absence of what they seek to represent, but I do see many comparisons between historical narrative and photojournalism--both share artistic qualities and limitations as a form of information. I've spent a while trying to think about how postmodernists would criticize photojournalism as a form of historical documentation, and basically what I've discovered is that photojournalism is just another form of narrative.

Sánchez points out that both textual narratives and photographic narratives are told with the artist's perspective or worldview. He says that this is what is so troubling to Theodor Dreiser in Ragtime is his search to find the perfect angle at which to view the world, and so he constantly turns in his chair longing for new perspective. Photojournalists and historians are also constantly turning like Dreiser--looking for new perspectives and ideas through which to view the past and the present. Narratives are limited by an artist's worldview, but this perspective is always changing. 

The photographer had to anticipate
this man's fire breathing so that they
could take the picture at just the right
moment (Source: Sanjeev Syal)

When you have a camera in your hand, you have to be constantly physically turning around. You have to see the action before it happens so that you can capture crucial moments on camera. It is these moments of action--from the brief flickers of emotion on someone's face, to the winning score in a sports event--that will tell the story. The entire point of photojournalism is to create a pictorial narrative of current events throughout the world. Whenever I was assigned on a photo project I would ask myself "what is the story I am trying to tell?" When you go into a project with a specific vision for what kind of story you want to tell, then you can focus on taking pictures that will support that narrative. You can anticipate what kind of shots you will need. Or, alternatively, you can take thousands of pictures, and then in editing fit several into a story and a coherent photo essay. Either way, successful photojournalists give meaning to their work by telling stories with sets of pictures, much like how historians give meaning to primary sources through narration and analyzation.

Here, the lines created by the praying
people draw your eye to the blocked 
traffic, giving a sense of how important
religion is to these people if they stop
in the middle of the road just to pray at
the right time (Source: Probal Rashid).

Similar to the historical fiction novel, photojournalism is an art that uses creativity to present a story, and sometimes it's this creativity that makes the message more powerful. Photographers use lines, patterns, colors, and the rule of thirds to frame images in such a way to draw your eye in a path on the photograph. The message of a certain picture can be changed or emphasized by a simple crop edit. The way that the photos are edited and framed help the viewer see what kind of story the photographer is trying to tell, much like metaphors and other writing techniques are used in historical novels.

In this picture your eye immediatly
goes to the face of Obama which is 
set in the rule of thirds, and then you 
see that the background is a picture of
a deindustrializing  American town.
The irony of this photo in that Obama
ran his campaign on the slogan
"Change," and yet this town is still
suffering. (Source: Jacob Ehrbahn)

 Finally, many times the photojournalist will create a photo essay to expose or comment on social conventions or political brokenness. There are many powerful photo essays that follow the journeys of people in the army, families trying to pay for health care, small town farmers struggling, and just about any other social problem you can think of. These photo narratives make others' struggles more real to us, and seeing a real face behind the story has more meaning than any editorial article written on the same subject. Yes, there can be many possible interpretations to a single photo, and yes, there will always be bias and certain perspective behind every photo essay, but that doesn't mean that we should disregard all photojournalism, just as we shouldn't disregard all historical narratives. Photojournalism, historical fiction, and historical narrative, all strive to give meaning to our lives by interpreting our past. Understanding that these are interpretations of the past, will then help us create our own individual meanings for our collective history. 

Here are some other photos I found that give powerful visual commentary on the struggling lower classes in America, much like how Ragtime's ironic narration inspired sympathy for the poorer classes. Instead of outright saying "Look at all these people and all these statistics that show how unjust this balance of wealth is," both Ragtime and photographs like these show the injustice through irony.

I'm sure this homeless man would be content with simply "enough." (Source: Humans of New York)

The irony of this poster during the Great Depression (Photographer: Dorothea Lange)

A homeless man prays over his food at a dining hall--note the framing of the photo with the American flag in the background. (Source: Jacob Ehrbahn)

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There are countless other examples that I could have included. If you are more interested in the subject here are a few links to get you started:
Examples of photo essays
More historical photography
More photojournalism

Creative Project: Antoinette's Insanity

For my creative project this semester I decided to use photography to illustrate Antoinette's experiences in her attic prison. I chose to have an all dark background, with minimal colors in the actual pictures, to accentuate the dramatic scenes and thoughts that Antoinette experiences. The body language and facial expressions in the photos are the main focus. Another reason for the black background is because of Grace Poole's quote that calls Antoinette "that girl who lives in her own darkness." 

I decided to put the photos where Antoinette explores outside of the attic in black and white because to the outside world Antoinette is only a forgotten ghost. 

These photos were all inspired by actual quotes in the novel. 

(Thanks to Allie Hartman for being such a patient and amazing model, and thanks to my sister and my mother for helping me arrange the lights and the props.)

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"But above all the thick walls, keeping away all the things that you have fought till you can fight no more. Yes, maybe that's why we all stayed -- Mrs Eff and Leah and me. All of us except that girl who lives in her own darkness." (Rhys 178)

"I'll say one thing for her, she hasn't lost her spirit. She's still fierce. I don't turn my back on her when her eyes have that look. I know it." (Rhys 178)

"In the end flames shoot up and they are beautiful. I get out of bed to watch them and to wonder why I have been brought here. For what reason? There must be a reason. What is it I must do?" (Rhys 179)

"So there is still the sound of whispering that I have heard all my life, but these are different voices." (Rhys 180)

"When she is snoring I get up and I have tasted the drink without colour in the bottle. The first time I did this I wanted to spit it out but I managed to swallow it. When I got back into bed I could remember more and think again. I was not so cold." (Rhys 179)

"There is no looking-glass here. and I don't know what I am like now. I remember watching myself brush my hair and how my eyes looked back at me. The girl I saw was myself yet not quite myself. Long ago when I was a child and very lonely I tried to kiss her. But the glass was between us -- hard, cold, and misted over with my breath. Now they have taken everything away. What am I doing in this place and who am I?" (Rhys 180)

(This is one of my favorite shots, aside from the abysmal photoshop editing, because I love the way it shows the current Antoinette remembering her past Antoinette through a mirror. The image of the looking glass pops up several times throughout the novel, so I was even more excited to try out mirror photography.)

"Then I open the door and walk into their world. It is, as I always knew, made of cardboard. I have seen it before somewhere, this cardboard world where everything is colored brown or dark red or yellow that has no light in it. As I walk along the passages I wish I could see what is behind the cardboard." (Rhys 181) 

"She met another girl and the second girl said, 'Have you seen a ghost?' -- 'I didn't see anything but I thought I felt something.' -- 'That is the ghost,' the second one said and they went down the stairs together." (Rhys 182)

 (For this photo I did everything I could to make Antoinette look as much like a ghost as possible.)

"I took the red dress down and put it against myself. 'Does it make me look intemperate and unchaste?' I said. [...] But I held the dress in my hand wondering if they had done the last and worst thing. If they had changed it when I wasn't looking. If they had changed it and it wasn't my dress at all -- but how could they get the scent?" (Rhys 186)

"Time has no meaning. But something you can hold like my red dress, that has meaning [...] The scent that came from the dress was very faint at first, then it grew stronger. The smell of vetivert and frangipanni, of cinnamon and dust and lime trees when they are flowering. The smell of sun and the smell of rain." (Rhys 185)

"I let the dress fall to the floor [...] I looked at the dress on the floor and it was as if the fire had spread across the room. It was beautiful and it reminded me of something I must do. I will remember I thought. I will remember quite soon now." (Rhys 186-187)

"I wished to see it clearly so I lit all the candles, and there were many. I lit them carefully from the one I was carrying but I couldn't reach up to the chandelier. I looked round for the altar for with so many candles and so much red, the room reminded me of a church." (Rhys 188)

(The quote here is taken from Antoinette's nightmare, so I tried to make the photo dream like. Here, she is sleeping among many candles, seemingly floating in mid air. )

"I waited a long time after I heard her snore, then I got up, took the keys, and unlocked the door." (Rhys 190)

"I was outside holding my candle. Now at last I know why I was brought here and what I have to do." (Rhys 189)

"There must have been a draught for the flame flickered and I thought it was out. But I shielded it with my hand and it burned up again to light me along the dark passage." (Rhys 189)

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.

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: