From a Photograph, a pact: the hunter and the hunted!

[Asher Kelman]

*Actually it goes for both variations: praying and preying.

http://www.openphotographyforums.com/forums/showthread.php?p=12026#post12026

It is important that we are open to interpretations of photographs that transcend the confines of the actual captured scene. I appreciate that out of Dierk's excellent critique, comes a remarkable dichotomy of the "hunted" and the "hunter".

This is a fascinating subject derived from a photograph, the fruit of "critique". That is part of the reason for art after all.

In my view, "praying" signifies recognition of and submission to an authority. This appears essential to mammalian social organization.

Wolves in a pack recognize and submit to their chain of command. Human tribes use it as an economical way of controlling the culture, thoughts and tribute of all its members. This extends to satellite settlements so that there is increased chance of cohesion, mutual aid and continuation of authority. "Preying" is the threat against which our prayers are directed: a please for protection.

We make a bargain to praise and to show submission, trust and obedience. In return we can hope for an ample share of sustenance and protection.

So it appears that prayer is part of our biology!

Asher

 

[Ray West]

Hi Asher,

I do not quite understand where you want to go with this, but 'pray' is derived from Latin, 'precari', entreat; and mantis is I believe from the greek word for 'prophet' (only gleaned from a dictionary) The insect is named a 'praying prophet' - merely because it holds its forelegs in a position suggestive of hands folded in prayer. Afaik, not all human supplicants would hold there hands in such a manner, and maybe if the insect had been originally observed and catalogued by a different person from a different culture at a different time, it may have been named differently. 'Prey' is also derived from Latin, 'praeda', booty. Now, as the early romans may have derived their language, or at least some words from elsewhere, it was quite possible that they 'entreated for booty'.

I have no personal knowledge of wolf packs, but I am familiar with foxes, at least in the UK. There were two identifiable types, the hill fox, a sleeker thinner animal, compared to its cousin, the lowland fox, the redder one with the bushy tail. Since about 1920, a third distinct type has evolved, the urban fox. Its coat is different, its facial markings are absent, its skeleton is different. It has evolved, adapted to skavenging in refuse bins and so on, as much of the uk country environment has changed, removing most of the traditional food sources for its country cousins.

If you contrast the change in the fox, with that of the badger, it is amazing. The badger has not changed in millions of years of evolution. It has front claws designed for ripping apart armadillo type creatures. At the moment, it survives in some instances on urban foraging too, but its natural food available today is far different than 'what it was designed for'. Oddly, nothing eats a dead badger, crows, rats, nothing.

Look at all the variations in the domestic dog, how quickly it has been cross bred, usually with disastrous results, thanks to shows like 'Crufts', and other financial reasons. The dog family, foxes and wolves included are very adaptable, the wild wolf pack works for the wolves, but in other situations, they would probably adapt to some other way of survival, the ones that didn't adapt, would die off.

It is understandable, but mistaken, to reduce human attributes and behaviour to those of other species, just as it is equally misguided to raise animal attributes to human levels. The major differance is that we have some choice in what we do, we have a certain amount of free will, we can to a certain extent control our environment. Animals usually have to obey instincts.

With our freedom, however, comes responsibilty. The second part of the last sentance is often forgotten, but that is the covenant.

Best wishes,

Ray

 

[Nill Toulme]

Maybe, maybe not:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A46793-2004Nov12?language=printer

Nill
~~
www.toulme.net

 

[Ray West]

Hi Nil,

Maybe, maybe not:

directed at Asher, me, the article you linked to, or what/who, does it matter? The washington post article shows how far some folk have evolved since the fifteenth century, - not very far, really.

Best wishes,

Ray

 

[Dierk Haasis]

testing the forum

Strange, I am unable to post a reply to Asher and Ray here - and I cannot find anything unusual in my text. I get an error about 'Precondition failed', anybody?

 

[Asher Kelman]

This is a test of the ability to quote Ray

Hi Nil,

directed at Asher, me, the article you linked to, or what/who, does it matter? The washington post article shows how far some folk have evolved since the fifteenth century, - not very far, really.

Best wishes,

Ray

This works so maybe Dierk, try clearing your cache!

 

[Ray West]

Dierk,

We have one of Baldrick's cunning plans - if we can see an argument coming, one that you will win, we lock you out.... we have the means.

Beast wishes,

Ray

 

[Asher Kelman]

Hi Asher,

I do not quite understand where you want to go with this, but 'pray' is derived from Latin, 'precari', entreat; and mantis is I believe from the greek word for 'prophet' (only gleaned from a dictionary) The insect is named a 'praying prophet' - merely because it holds its forelegs in a position suggestive of hands folded in prayer. Afaik, not all human supplicants would hold there hands in such a manner, and maybe if the insect had been originally observed and catalogued by a different person from a different culture at a different time, it may have been named differently. 'Prey' is also derived from Latin, 'praeda', booty. Now, as the early romans may have derived their language, or at least some words from elsewhere, it was quite possible that they 'entreated for booty'.

So at this point we all agree with the meaning of the words!

...............If you contrast the change in the fox, with that of the badger, it is amazing. The badger has not changed in millions of years of evolution. It has front claws designed for ripping apart armadillo type creatures. At the moment, it survives in some instances on urban foraging too, but its natural food available today is far different than 'what it was designed for'. Oddly, nothing eats a dead badger, crows, rats, nothing.

How about a fresh one?

Look at all the variations in the domestic dog, how quickly it has been cross bred,

The domesticated dog have been selctively bred, that explains their diversity.

......mistaken, to reduce human attributes and behaviour to those of other species, just as it is equally misguided to raise animal attributes to human levels. The major differance is that we have some choice in what we do, we have a certain amount of free will, we can to a certain extent control our environment. Animals usually have to obey instincts. /

We are not attempting to "reduce" human behavior to that of animals, but rater to compare, since we are, after all the conceit and delusion, just that: animals!

We share instincts with other animals some more so, some, to a lesser extent. Most of our behavior is defined by instincts. These basic driving forces are the ingredients for complex adaptions and culturally nuanced mixtures. These occur in response to every changing roles and learned behaviors that we must have our instincts atuned to.

The instincts, however, are the multiple engines which, despite all the thought, philosophy, palm pilots and magazines, drive us from the time we are born to our last breath.

With our freedom, however, comes responsibilty.

I would rephrase it, as I would argue whether or not we are indeed "free".

Without our relative power and apparent freedoms, we could better manage ourselves and the resources we squander.

The second part of the last sentance is often forgotten, but that is the covenant.

What covenant? Did you mean, "that would be a good covenenant"?

To my point, I wonder if our penchant for praying comes from the animal instinct to crawl in submisson to a powerful pack leader in order to survive and even be rewarded.

We photograph all this. I'm just wondering about the meaning, since Dierk brought it up.

asher

 

[Ray West]

High Asher,

Covenant as in 'agreement', but with a bit more 'strength?' behind it. Its a basic rule for most systems, in particular distributed processing. i.e. you're free to get on with whatever you want, provided you do certain things. In a book by Douglas R Hofstadter ('Godel, Escher, Bach'), he points out the service that the ant eater does to the ant hill, how the ant hill communicates to the anteater which ants to consume as the ant eater approaches. Although I think ant hill life is not quite like that, there is certainly two entities involved in bee keeping, for example. There is a difference in behaviour of the individual bee, and the behaviour of the hive as a whole. I am uncertain as to what level of emotion an individual bee can have, but If you mess with the hive at the wrong time, it gets pretty bad tempered. Recent studies show that the hive is substantially chemically driven. If necessary the wolf pattern will change, and was it a pack or a lone wolf involved with raising Romulus and Remus?

For many people, they are as free as their mind allows them, the greatest prison is in your mind. I think there are instincts, survival, food, etc., which are important, but once the basic needs are satisfied, there are other opportunities. As humans, we have developed some higher levels of communication, a method of learning non instinctive things. We probably applied that knowledge to suppress the competition from the rest of the animal worlds - we still do. When dogs are well fed they sleep, maybe play a bit, but mainly sleep, conserving energy for the next hunt. They do not learn to read and write. But in truth, I'm not so sure if we have, at a nation level, progressed much beyond marking out our territory by pissing on the tree stumps. (I have this mental picture, of troops invading, with tea urns, waterproof pants and boxes of diuretics)

wrt badgers, I googled re. finding what ate them, I found this http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/badgers.php which doesn't exactly answer that question, but gives an indication of the higher levels of communication achievable by us humans, if we really try, but maybe this gives a better idea of a badger feast, http://www.badgers.org.uk/badgerpages/eurasian-badger-08.html. However, in general, down this way, nothing eats them.

Best wishes,

Ray

 

[Dierk Haasis]

i

[T]ry clearing your cache!

Was empty after restart of Opera; upon closing it my cache is automatically cleared. See my private e-mail (PM through forum was equally impossible).

With our freedom, however, comes
responsibilty.

No, that's 'With great power comes great responsibility'. Now, where
did I lay my spinners?*

I find it interesting that good old literary devices - like irony -
still work in spite of them being overly underused in the past decade
(think Friends or Seinfeld). The footnote giving Asher
some new thoughts was not much more than a play on words based Both words do actually describe mantids well - animals preying
on other arthropods in a posture reminding us of praying.

The English common name is actually a more than needed to express the idea of the insect's posture, since 'manteos' has been chosen as the root for the name of the group because of the same
posture - prophesying going hand in hand with meditation or, as it is
called among Christians praying.

*for those young ones among the audience, only in the
movies does Spider-Man have a natural way to produce his net, in the
comic books the brilliant scientist Peter Parker developed mechanical
sprays and various chemical mixtures suited to every purpose of
netting.
---------------End---------------

For reasons beyond me the forum software declines to take this

The was one word it would not take! I tried typing it all myself and saw the problem you had and am flummexed!

"pleonasm"

 

[Dierk Haasis]

Shouldn't Asher know what 'covenant' maens? And the case you, Ray, put up is quite clear, two sides to one equation, one side a priviledge, the other an obligation ['responsibility' being the value; coincidentally a synonym]. One could interpret your sentence as the bottom line to Rousseau's Social Contract.

 

[Asher Kelman]

High Asher,

For many people, they are as free as their mind allows them, the greatest prison is in your mind. I think there are instincts, survival, food, etc., which are important, but once the basic needs are satisfied, there are other opportunities.

The covenant is weakened when there's an endless supply of stored food. Humans make higher level complexes of basic low level primal emotions into higher complexes, cultural constructed in the forms of "romantic love", religiousity, politics, Oxfam, even story telling, by creating artificially, new or "neo-primal" needs to for which satisfaction can now be sought. Still the engine to drive these new quests come from harnessing the primal drives to hunt, nurture, to mate and to feed.

Still, we practice and have refined some most instinctive sets of behaviors, deception and deceit to ourselves and to everything around us. From cosmetics to fine clothes, from diplomatic activity to foreign aid, we use these skill on a daily basis.

Photography in breaks through all these illusions and delusions. We may be fascinated by perfect women in Vogue or be seduced by lip gloss, but one picture of torture, coffins or dead civilians brings reality.

Look what happened with the Rodney King police beating video. Photography, IMHO is one of the major safeguards we have to lying about everything we do.

Besides my love for beauty and nature, its the power of the lens for everything we do that fascinates me. These are the two aspects of photography that drive my efforts. Plus, I must admit, it is an excellent art medium and fun!

So to use your term, Photography is now part of the new covenant.

Asher

 

[Asher Kelman]

Dierk, as you can see I inserted your post. The one word it couldn't take was pleonasm! Since it takes it now or in quotes in that post, I don't understand. just gues that particular post might have had some illegal character in there or HTML that screwed things up!

Asher

 

[Ray West]

Hi Asher,

Most of photography is a lie. Video is a bigger lie. At the physical detail level of capturing a 3d view on a 2d surface, to colour, to foreshortening of distance with zoom lenses (thinking wild life films here) to the deliberate post processing/video editing that takes place. Virtually every time a portrait is made, a small lie is created, the photographer says this person looks like this, when in fact they often don't. If a landscape is taken, then colours are adjusted, details sharpened, whatever, to enhance a particular 'effect' the photographer is after.

wrt dead civilians, etc., it depends 'whose side they on', and it was not so long ago, here, on opf, that there was some discussion re how some of those photos/videos were faked.

As an individual, we may take photos for our own pleasure, but as soon as someone else is involved, we tend to adjust what we do, to suit their pleasure. When governments and media companies get involved, then it is more likely that the results will be even more adjusted.

Primarily, photography is a tool. It is used in many different ways. If, in the end it is a benefit to mankind, or not, remains to be seen. We are pretty clever, as a breed, but still very tribal.

Best wishes,

Ray

 

[Asher Kelman]

Hi Asher,

Most of photography is a lie. Video is a bigger lie.

Well that is fine for truth in newreporting for beginners, and in the limted way you have framed photography it is true, except why give the camera human motivations and conceits?

However, we can negate all the misinformation by having more photography. Getting photographs from all angles and then the ruth will emerge.

wrt dead civilians, etc., it depends 'whose side they on', and it was not so long ago, here, on opf, that there was some discussion re how some of those photos/videos were faked.

Ordinary people are not busy falsifying news to sway public opinion.

we tend to adjust what we do, to suit........ governments and media companies ....... more likely.... results will.... adjusted.[]Quote]

Well, photography is a means of communication. As with speech, we select what to disclose or publicise. That is covered in rules of privacy, common sense, expediency and the goals e support.

So why should photography be used differently?

Primarily, photography is a tool. It is used in many different ways. If, in the end it is a benefit to mankind, or not, remains to be seen. We are pretty clever, as a breed, but still very tribal.

We are merely animals. However, we do have the ability to make our behavior more responsible. I believe a great majority of the population is unaware of the realities of the world around us. It's fine to think that peas come from cans and chickens from the supermarket and gas from a pump!

However, lack of knowledge and immersion in entertainment really puts all at a disadvantage.

A fieldmouse knows about its world. Otherwise the species would not survive one day! However, in our mega-societies, most of us have no idea of what is going on in our neighborhood.

Photography can inform, that is my positive hope and feeling.

Asher

 

[Ray West]

Hi Asher,

I will agree with you, that photography can inform, and that is your positive hope and feeling. You agree with me wrt media distortion etc., as far as I can tell. I never gave a camera any human attributes, I said that photography was a tool. The bit about cans of peas and field mice, knowledge etc., is different, I'm not to sure if I agree or disagree. Maybe I have to get a bit of paper and draw a line...... wait four days ;-) I think there is a contradiction in there.

Best wishes,

Ray

 

[Dierk Haasis]

Most of photography is a lie. Video is a bigger lie.

We should be a bit more careful. What you say is a slightly watered-down version of the rather pointless universal that we are unable to capture reality at all [probably because there is nothing like reality]. 'Watered-down' because you use 'most' and not 'all'. Since, however, your sentences imply that the medium is the messenger, I have to chime in.

Apart from the usual exceptions to take - a tool is a tool, not a moral agent - I have more trouble with the underlying message that just because any one individual is not capable of capturing the whole of reality, the result is a lie. Equally troubling is the implication that humans and their perceptions are outside of reality - we are not.

I am convinved it is not possible for any individual to grasp all of reality. That's why we invented [and greatly discussed] something many of us call 'science' or 'scientific method', which is not about ultimate knowledge but about questions. We pose a question towards reality in such a way that a clear answer is logically possible [= we go for falsification]. This is done by everyone everyday, even by die-hard evangelists, born again Christians or orthodox Jews and Muslims. We have an unlimited amount of questions, and the observations and experiments based upon them form an image of reality.

This image is not just the hard facts, it is the perceptions and interpretations of many people. Only when we put all this together, evaluate singular claims [are differing observations reconcilable, are claims mutually exclusive, are they productive] we close in ever more on what reality really is.

Photographs and moving pictures are part of this, as are novels and poems. We are unable to experience the exact same perceptions and feelings of another [human] being at any given moment, we instinctively know we can only come close by examining our own past experiences. So humans invented art, a way to represent reality as an individual experiences it*.

No doubt, photography, motion pictures, video, the written word, all have been used and will be used to spread lies. It doesn't follow that everything is a lie. Actually Ray's further remarks point to the limitations of photography rather than any moral implication. The fact he mentions them, and most humans know about them [instinctively more than educationally] shows that the lie in photography is not inherent. To the contrary, exactly these limitations are a way to prove the lie if there is one.

In my experience lying needs two agents, both in a sense, actively pursuing the lie:

- intent of the liar [without intent it's not a lie but an error]
- intent of the belied one

Yes, people want to believe in lies, even those hurting them in the short run (let alone long run).



*No, I am definitely not equalling art with representational.

 

[Ray West]

Hi Dierk,

wrt my ref to photography is a lie, it was in response, at least in my mind, to Asher saying it 'breaks through all these illusions and delusions'. I used 'most', because in a relatively few certain instances, photography, to all intents and purposes can almost, very nearly, capture 'the truth', within its limits of 2d, colour, etc. - a photograph of a photograph, for example, but I was thinking more about technical illustration, forensic work - but even there certain features are emphasised.

wrt reality, it depends how you see it, whether you are on the inside, looking out, or the outside looking in. being on the boundary, looking both ways can be confusing...

The whole problem, is communication. I take a long time, trying to phrase what I say, to use simple words, make things clear in my mind, write them down, then people either mis-read entirely what I was saying, make assumptions, and things go off on a tangent (never understand why they don't go off on a cosine, being as they often come back again ;-). and of course, I do the same with whatever I read. This is using a communication method - writing, thats been around a fair while, but layered onto a fairly new transport medium, the internet. Look at all the garbage you can read, is there more truth, or more lies? Now, take graphic art, from the time of cave drawings, or before, scratches in the dirt, to now, digital cameras everywhere. Is there more truth, or just more images? 'Pictures of dead people' do not bring reality, its being dead that brings reality. (partly quoted from an earlier post of Asher's)

'this is not a pipe'

Best wishes,

Ray

 

[Asher Kelman]

"This is not a pipe" of Magrite, is an example of a question to reality, like thirst motivates and then drives a quest for water.

I'll start a new post on the subject of the value of even "Dishonest photography: the Magritte Conundrum".

http://www.openphotographyforums.com/forums/showthread.php?p=12189#post12189

So here we can continue with the original thread on interpretation of pictures, even animal pictures in a context of human activity, cultures, feelings, imperatives and values

Asher