caroline cuse

So photography then is about self-discovery, and dedication to your findings. It requires constant questioning, and commitment to your answers. As photographers, we must surround ourselves with our truths and our fascinations. Like Cartier-Bresson, watching and waiting, using his body to pause the perfect instant- or Weegee living in his car with the police radio on, speeding to murders and using his trunk as a darkroom. We figure out our passions so that we can inhabit them. Looking, listening, feeling – we find that we can exist in a secret realm of life. Observation is a skill. Attentiveness to the world and self can sharpen with practice and concentration. We notice, record, rebuild the specific world we inhabit, in order to make it seen. 

Am I a computer, a digital landscape, windows appearing only to fold away, everything built and destroyed in an instant?

Do we need to be recognized to feel that we are real?

What we leave behind, our negative space, is as important as our desires, our directionality. Our identity can be found in the reasons why we forget certain experiences and hold onto others, why we photograph one subject as opposed to another, why we pick a flavor, an outfit, a hairstyle over others. The reasons behind our actions are rooted in our traumas and our joys, in our stories- each small answer having a root, sometimes visible and othertimes impossible to see.

Beauty’s relation to time is also a topic of Schjedahl’s essay. “Truth and beauty are time-bound events. Truth exists only in the moment of the saying of a true thing, and beauty exists only in the moment of the recognition of a beautiful thing. Each ceases to exist a moment later, though leaving a trace.” Can you create a static experience of beauty, or does time sensitivity make something beautiful? Is death necessary for beauty? Do we see the entire cycle of existence- birth, life, death- in the moment that we behold beauty? Does beauty contain and emerge from the knowledge that it was created, and exists, and will disappear?  

Color has been a topic of scientific research and questioning for hundreds of years. Newton asserted that color was a cell-to-cell transmission of wavelength information, while Goethe believed color resulted from the dynamic interplay of light and shadow, like the north and south pole of a magnet. Schopenhauer built on Goeth’s studies of color contrast- which put red in opposition to green, orange in opposition to blue, and yellow in opposition to violet, using afterimages as reference points. Helmholtz and Young introduced trichomatic color vision, declaring that the eye contained 3 types of photoreceptor cells for primary colors, while Wilbrand proclaimed that there were separate visual centers in the brain for light, color, and form. Wittgenstein asked questions about the nature of color in his “Remarks on Colour,” describing features of colors and kinds of colors, with terms such as “metallic” and “luminous,” suggesting that color is not simple or logically uniform. Several of these scientists also studied the psychology of color perception. Commenting on the relationship between the brain and the eye, Goethe said, “visual illusion is neurological truth.” Helmholtz introduced the idea of color constancy: colors constantly fluctuate in wavelength due to differences in light, but our brains “discount the illuminant” and assign fixed colors to objects in order to recognize them and attempt to create stability in a chaotic world of constant sensory flux. Land described color as neither local nor absolute- but rather dependent on a survey of an entire scene and a comparison of wavelengths between each point.  The experience of color is an example of comparison and relativity, in a world where our entire existence is understood on the basis of boundary- where all actions, objects, and sensations are defined by their relationships to something else. Sacks’ “The Case of the Colorblind Painter” explores the link between color and identity. Mr. I, the afflicted painter studied by Sacks, loses his color vision in an accident. Without his ability to see color, Mr. I no longer recognizes his surroundings, which causes him to be unable to recognize his own thoughts. If our identity is the sense or condition of being ourselves, then losing color, which is a crucial element of our existence and cognition, is a loss of our essence, our personhood. He goes through a process of grief- for himself, and for color. First is denial, when he paints in color using labels and believes the color will come back; next anger, rage, resentment, when he is disgusted by flesh and “horrified by the wrongness of everything” - food, dogs, television, museums. Then disinterest in the world; next acceptance, when he begins to lose his memory of color and decides to paint in black and white; and finally renewal, when he turns to art again, when he becomes a “night person,” when he finds new ways to live and identify. Mr. I’s grief process echoes the pattern that many people experience when they lose a loved person. Mr. I, however, experiences this cycle internally, when part of himself is inexplicably gone, snatched away from him, leaving him with an indescribable emptiness. He finds healing in the act of self-retrieval, in both the release and the recapture of passion, in recognition of what he has lost and resolve to find new life.

As a photographer, I’m obsessed with time, with the pursuit of a worthy moment and the ability to capture it, contain it. Am I afraid of loss? Preoccupied with beauty? What within me feels compelled to hold onto time? Is it fear of death, fear of something ceasing to exist? Is it attachment to an emotion? Maybe it’s a need for fantasy, for moments to live beyond their time, or a desire to create an illusion of a time that never happened. Maybe it’s control, the ability to be selective about memory, to frame and curate and choose the time I want to keep.

Fox Talbot’s extensive optics research and experimentation also interests me. A picture is a “succession” or “variety” of lights and shadows on different parts of a paper. Light “exerts an action,” “sufficient enough to cause changes in material bodies.” I’m interested in his personification of light, and inspiried by the idea that light is force, performing a behavior on a surface. Fox Talbot is drawn to prisms and the colors produced by them, and he describes “a ray of solar light refracted by a prism and thrown upon a screen,” which “forms there the very beautiful coloured band known by the name of the solar spectrum.”

As part of my research about the female nude in nature, I’m interested in this self portrait by Imogen Cunningham from 1905. It’s pretty amazing to me that this photograph was taken 111 years ago. I think that women (like me) are still taking photos like this of ourselves, and that we will continue to represent ourselves in nature as long as nature is available to us. Because the image is devoid of signifiers (clothing, objects), it retains its timelessness and sense of universality. It reminds me of a painting, maybe because of the quality of the photographic materials used, maybe because of the composition and subject matter. Photographs like this are fairly easy to create now, with a digital camera and a self-timer, that can be repeated hundreds of times until the perfect shot is attained. But Cunningham was living in a completely different era, when not only were there more technical obstacles in the way, it was also extremely rare for women to be photographers, much less photographing themselves. She took this photo when she was 22, when she studied photography at university to subsidize her education by photographing plants for the botany department. The image itself suggests tranquility, repose, calmness. The pose of the body against the ground may connote a feminine connection to earth, or a sense of hiding - away from human infrastructure or influence. I just looked up some info about the image and found this quote by Cunningham about it : "My first nude photography was a self-portrait in the woods, 1906, on the University of Washington campus. I set it up and jumped into it, and that was it." I don’t pick up on a sense of motion or spontaneous action here, but maybe the “jumping” she alludes to is more a sense of just going for it- intuiting what she needed to do and forcing herself in front of the camera without really thinking a lot about it or premeditating anything. 

These self portraits are by Anne McDonald. I’m posting several as a group because I think that together, they hold a collective energy. I am trying to create a cohesive series of my own self portrait work right now, so I’m inspired by the way that these images work together and show consistency yet variety. In all of the images, environment plays a key role. The subject performs on and within the surroundings, while also becoming part of either a landscape or a dilapidated space. The gestures reflect the formal elements in the frames- some I think more successfully than others. I think the image with the rope, the photo of the fern forest, and the picture with the mossy tree accomplish this best because the poses seem spontaneous and fluid, rather than the more staged and performed gestures in the other shots. The lighting throughout contributes to a mood that suggests fantasy, magic, and imagination. Energetic connection to space is another key concern. The one nude image is perhaps the most interesting to me. The rope attached to the figure connotes restriction, imprisonment, constraint- yet the figure is arched toward the sky in a physical expression of freedom and abandonment. Or is it a gesture of surrender, of acquiescence? Also, where is she? The building is in shambles, ruined- what is she doing there? Within the dark doorway to the left of the figure, there is an opening of light, suggesting more space beyond. As humans we have the natural tendency to create stories, and this image offers many possibilities for narrative. The rest of the images are also interesting, yet I think they are more relevant to this discussion when they serve as examples of a coherent series.  

This image is by Valerie Export. I’ve seen a lot of photos of women lying in nature, connecting to the earth, but this photo presents a women in a city, connecting to urban ground. Her pose shows a bond between her body and the environment, as she relaxes into the curve of the sidewalk and seems to feel and sense the concrete behind and beneath her. Her pose is classical and her form is reminiscent of women who lounge in oil paintings. The relationship between subject and surrounding is not the only interesting aspect of this photograph. The use of color is also noteworty- the entire photo is in black and white, but the curb of the sidewalk, where the woman touches the raised concrete, is red. Maybe the color is used to highlight the point of contact between the woman and the physical space. Maybe it is intended to direct the viewer’s gaze in a loop, suggesting that the woman is part of a cycle, and that concrete landscape is the newest iteration of a timeless earth. I also learned in the first class that Valerie Export is a feminist performance artist, so maybe she is making a statement by placing her body in a gutter, likening herself to refuse. Her pose is so elegant though, and the street looks clean, so maybe she’s intentionally using this lack of obviousness- hinting that women are not overtly discarded. In light of her feminism, the red could represent passion or anger. A red curb especially signals an area that is out-of-bounds, forbidden- or an area where caution is advised. In terms of photography, to me this image is successful as both a record of a performance and also as a composed standalone still image.  

I think this image is operating on a many different levels. Including both the female body and flowers puts the image immediately in conversation with aesthetics and classical ideas of beauty. The photograph chooses to overturn traditional notions though. First of all, the body is situated in an indented rocky part of the earth which looks like it could be a hole dug for a grave. No identity is discernible. You can tell that the body is young though, and healthy. So you have the juxtaposition of beauty and decay, of youth and death. There is a freshness to the image, in the colors of the body and the crispness of the flowers, in the light, and in the moss and leaves scattered throughout the photograph. The body’s posture looks relaxed, yet there’s still tension that signals life. So maybe this image is more about connecting to the ground, and burying one’s self within it symbolically, in order to deepen that bond. Maybe it is about covering oneself, one’s singularity or distinct identity, to become part of something broader and greater and more meaningful- abandoning individuality (symbolized by the face) in favor of the oneness or wholeness of the earth. The body looks confident and assured in its posture- so maybe this union with earth is ultimately more satisfying or peaceful than the life that is above ground. Another possible interpretation is that the person is hiding, camouflaging, using earth and foliage and dirt rocks as shields or protection. I think all of these readings are important to consider in the context of the artist’s life. Anna Mendieta was very interested in exploring the “dialogue” between her body and the earth, of, as she says, “reestablishing bonds” to the ground. I can see her exploration of that relationship in this photo. I think this image brings up the ways that death can represent nature, that referencing death can be the ultimate way to reference something organic, because the inevitability and universality of death is impossible to supersede. 

Candy (at ICP - International Center of Photography)

My neighbor, hangin out on the stoop this evening (at West Chelsea, NYC)

Library day #orientation @nypl @icplibrary

Polaroids from day 1 📷: @diegoramosg (at ICP - International Center of Photography)

Happiest of birthdays to this amazing dude @matthewkfirpo ⚡️ (at Sun Tunnels)