Carrie Mae Weems.
Revisiting Carrie Mae Weems’s Landmark “Kitchen Table Series”
By Jacqui Palumbo Aug 19, 2020, 10:20AM
I think [the series is] important in relationship to Black experience, but it’s not about race,” Weems told W magazine in 2016. “I think that most work that’s made by Black artists is considered to be about Blackness. Unlike work that’s made by white artists, which is assumed to be universal at Carrie May Weens makes a valid point. I relate to this particular situation. where it’s not about race and it’s more about as in what everybody deals with. As in the context, mother and daughter, wife, and husband, taking care of the responsibilities, all races, all people deal with these situations or problems.It is not set to one particular race which leaves them to be an outcast. Carrie May Weems “Table talk series” it’s like an opening into a secret of common human interactions. It compared it in the aspect that many people can relate to these particular events.
Another annotation that Carrie May Weems specifically mentions. “I knew that I was making images unlike anything I had seen before, but I didn’t know what that would mean,” she told W. “I knew what it meant for me, but I didn’t know what it would mean historically.”
For me, this significantly shows how humble she is, Carrie May Weems had came to the conclusion that she may, or may not have an impact in the Art world or culture. Generally she took photos, but she didn’t realize the impact it would leave on society, or how far it would stand as an exemplary example of acceptable art.
“I knew that I was making images unlike anything I had seen before, but I didn’t know what that would mean,” she told W. “I knew what it meant for me, but I didn’t know what it would mean historically.”
Susan Sontag excerpt from On Photography
When reading this particular passage on Susan Sontag excerpt on photography. Has provided a series of epiphany reactions. For me one of the main things that click was her explanation of the realization of the impact of photography.
It is not for the keen ear. It is a more of a complex explanation that requires someone to take an understanding or an approach thinking outside the box. When reading her Photography excerpt from her online site. The explanations provided are a scientific interpretation of what it means to capture an image. Her in-depth explanation also coincides with facts of reality.
Susan Sontag- ”Even when photographers are most concerned with mirroring reality, they are still haunted by tacit imperatives of taste and conscience.”
The immensely gifted members of the Farm Security Administration photographic project of the late 1930s (among them Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange, Ben Shahn, Russell Lee) would take dozens of frontal pictures of one of their sharecropper subjects until satisfied that they had gotten just the right look on film -- the precise expression on the subject's face that supported their own notions about poverty, light, dignity, texture, exploitation, and geometry. In deciding how a picture should look, in preferring one exposure to another, photographers are always imposing standards on their subjects.”
For me, this is a scientific explanation of how photography can be used to provoke a reactionary ethos feeling, on the viewer.
Unfortunately, since some particular photographic examples can be staged or set up. For photographers waiting for the exact moment in time. As stated by
Susan Sontag, “Although there is a sense in which the camera does indeed capture reality, not just interpret it, photographs are as much an interpretation of the world as paintings and drawings are.
Those occasions when the taking of photographs is relatively undiscriminating, promiscuous, or self-effacing do not lessen the didacticism of the whole enterprise. This very passivity -- and ubiquity -- of the photographic record is photography's "message," its aggression.”
It may be hard to interpret photographs with out a bias standpoint. To trust whether or not certain photos are from a genuine moment in time, or if the photographer has set such a scene. It is solely left up to the viewer to determine if it’s a credible photograph and source.
When taking into account Susan Sontag’s excerpt. Factual reality and Scientific Psychological theories are used to understand the reason behind capturing a specific view. Susan Sontag mentions that sometimes photographers or artists, can take advantage of the moment in time. Or as well as capture a view from a pre-set perspective. Which intern may lead to their visual bias approach, or have a bias impact on the viewer.
Susan Sontag Continued, “Images which idealize (like most fashion and animal photography) are no less aggressive than work which makes a virtue of plainness (like class pictures, still lifes of the bleaker sort, and mug shots). There is an aggression implicit in every use of the camera.
This is as evident in the 1840s and 1850s, photography's glorious first two decades, as in all the succeeding decades, during which technology made possible an ever increasing spread of that mentality which looks at the world as a set of potential photographs. “
A Photographer’s perspective can appropriate the subject that a photograph has captured. While discussing subjects that may be viewed as taboo from others. With a photograph, for some minds they are plagued with curiosity.
Through capturing the unknown in a set of images. The viewer maybe tempted to further investigate the subject. With that being said we may be blinded with implicit biases. If the photographer has intentionally set up the image.
Susan Sontag has mentioned, ”The immensely gifted members of the Farm Security Administration photographic project of the late 1930s,
(among them Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange, Ben Shahn, Russell Lee) would take dozens of frontal pictures of one of their sharecropper subjects until satisfied that they had gotten just the right look on film -- the precise expression on the subject's face that supported their own notions about poverty, light, dignity, texture, exploitation.”
To further conclude what Susan Sontag explains. Photos left to the interpretation of the viewer can influence a person’s perception on a particular subject. capturing the exact experience or intent they wanted to bring context to. Which may lead to bias interpretations.
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