Week 13 Positive Images
For this weeks zoom discussion we analyzed the text by Jan Zita Grover, “Framing the Questions: Positive Imaging and Scarcity in Lesbian Photographs' (1991)”. Zita expresses her thoughts on photography and explains how it doesn’t always capture the full picture. She explains how there is so much that we don’t see in a picture as opposed to what we do see. Photographs are somewhat a reflection of reality. She also talks about how images can be used to forget as easily as they are used to remember. For example, usually photographs are used in order to remember something important, but by using camera angles you can alter the image to make it look like a different experience than what is was actually happening. Over time you forget the things that aren’t pictured. Things that aren’t documented are more likely to be forgotten.
Images are often used to express the acceptance of something, like the ideal body image. For example, Zita explains how there were images of male and female couples with their pets and furniture and plants living their ideal life style. Images of models with skinny body’s and clear skin frame an “ideal body image” for its viewers. These types of images are frequently photographed and displayed. She then expressed that lesbian sexuality during the 1970s and 1980s just wanted to be seen, accepted, recognized and normalized. During this time, lesbian photographs did not show sexuality because photographers were worried that viewers would not accept lesbian sexuality. They believed that society would not allow these types of pictures and react negatively. So instead they labeled them as pornography and hid them away for a long time, this is also bad because not only does it make lesbian sexuality seem rare but it also feeds into the idea that it is not acceptable for lesbians to be seen by the general public, like a bad word it is frowned upon and unacceptable. There is a difference between pornography and sexuality and I believe that there are ways to separate them. It would have been publicly acceptable to display women kissing or holding hands or to even show tasteful nudity. Lesbian couples could have been portrayed in photography the same ways that straight couples were.
In my photography class we are told to take images with a specific composition in mind. If something is larger or closed to the camera it emphasizes importance of that object. Composition is used to manipulate what the viewer sees. In this reading she expressed that seeing is an unconscious act. Therefor the photographer can manipulate how the viewer interprets an image. Photographs can also be manipulated by taking something out of the image that you don’t want people to see or changing the scene by crating poses before the picture is taken. It is not always captured organically. An example I can think of is smiling for the camera. Usually you aren’t genuinely smiling when posing for a picture. You do it for the picture.
I’ve included a picture of an art work that I believe fits Zita’s writing. It is a painting of two naked women on an abstract red shape, I see them floating on a large watermelon or something similar in the water, and it seems very sexualized by the way they are sitting so close and touching, their exaggerated body features express that it is sexual. This painting displays lesbian sexuality without being pornographic. Although it is not a photograph, I feel like it is a good example. I dropped a link below with more of this artists art work.
I have always thought of a photograph as a moment in time captured, in the most organic sense this is true. However because photography has come such a long way, it is subjective to what people want to see, the part that they want to remember or the things that they want to share. It is easier to forget the things that we do not capture in photography.
Grover, Jan, et al. Jan Zita Grover – Lesbian and Queer Practices- 'Framing the Questions: Positive Imaging and Scarcity in Lesbian Photographs' . 1991, https://lms.hypothes.is/lti_launches .
Hello, I thought your comparison of lesbian photography to a bad word was very insightful. I never thought to compare it to that and its a good way of putting it. I also like how you said that a photograph is organic and how we do things for the picture. I thought the image was also an awesome choice!
ReplyDeleteI love your blog it is very well written and I also really liked the comparison you used in your blog they really helped me get a different perspective on how photography has such an influence on what we want to see. I never thought of the idea of us smiling for an image to be considered a pose but more like a natural response to a photo and I like how you discuss the reading topics in your blog!
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