Mark Z. Danielewski, 2000 — Chapter XIX
Zampanò studies why Navidson went back to the house: not madness, but the wish for a better picture. A long meditation on his photography.
Edward Weston (1886–1958) was an American photographer known for sharp, formal images of nature, shells, peppers and nudes. Sontag's epigraph answers his idea that a photographer should learn to see the world as pictures.
XIX Contrary to what Weston asserts, the habit of photographic seeing—of looking at reality as an array of potential photographs—creates estrangement from, rather than union with, nature.
A large ordered group or display of things.
XIX Contrary to what Weston asserts, the habit of photographic seeing—of looking at reality as an array of potential photographs—creates estrangement from, rather than union with, nature.
The state of being made distant or unfriendly; loss of closeness.
XIX Contrary to what Weston asserts, the habit of photographic seeing—of looking at reality as an array of potential photographs—creates estrangement from, rather than union with, nature.
Susan Sontag (1933–2004) was an American writer and critic. Her book On Photography (1977) argues that a camera turns the world into pictures and can push the viewer away from real life.
The epigraph says the habit of seeing reality as possible photographs creates distance from nature, not union with it. It frames the whole chapter's doubt about images.
XIX Contrary to what Weston asserts, the habit of photographic seeing—of looking at reality as an array of potential photographs—creates estrangement from, rather than union with, nature. — Susan Sontag On Photography **Nothing of consequence” was how Navidson described the quality of the film and tapes rescued from the house.
Hi 8 is an older analogue video format; 16mm is a small motion-picture film gauge. The chapter reviews the earlier explorations of the hallway and their poor image quality. Exploration #5 will be Navidson's careful solo film of the house itself.
He was really unsatisfied.’’409 In the eyes of many, the footage from Exploration A offered an exemplary first-look at what lay down the hallway.
So good it serves as an example.
He was really unsatisfied.’’409 In the eyes of many, the footage from Exploration A offered an exemplary first-look at what lay down the hallway.
Three invented schools of criticism, cited across the book, that explain Navidson's return to the house as possession, self-destruction, or a hidden social good.
Zampanò says all three miss the plain reason: Navidson was unhappy with his pictures and wanted a better one.
One of the things The Kellog-Antwerk Claim, The Bister-FriedenJosephson Criteria, and The Haven-Slocum Theory never consider is Navidson’s aesthetic dissatisfaction.
An invented critic and book (Group Home Publications, 1994). Lookner's blunt line is that Navidson went back simply to “get a better picture.”
But as Deacon Lookner smugly commented: “We mustn’t forget the most obvious reason Navidson went back to the house: he wanted to get a better picture.”4!° While the narrative events up till now have proved an easy enough …
Took over a place or role that belongs to another.
… most obvious reason Navidson went back to the house: he wanted to get a better picture.”4!° While the narrative events up till now have proved an easy enough thread to follow, they have also usurped the focus of the film.
So strong it can almost be touched or felt.
Until Exploration #5 there was never a true visual meditation on the house itself, its terrifying proportions and the palpable darkness inhabiting it.
Made very angry.
The few fragments of usable 16mm and video tape incensed Navidson.
Belonging to the basic nature of a thing.
In his opinion, very few of the images—even those he was personally responsible for—retained any of those fantastic dimensions intrinsic to that place.
For Exploration #5 Navidson orders high-speed film, bright flashes, magnesium flares (which burn with an intense white light) and rents a thermal camera that sees heat. He keeps the plan secret from Reston.
All of which begins to explain why in February and March Navidson began to order high speed film, magnesium flares, powerful flashes, and even arranged to rent a thermal video camera.
An invented filmed interview with Billy Reston, one of Zampanò's main sources. Here it reports Navidson's first cut of the rescued footage and his deep dissatisfaction with it.
409The Reston Interview.
So interesting that it holds the whole attention.
He preferred the dictates of survival when, faced with enthralling danger, he was forced to rely on nothing else but his own keenly tuned instincts.
Zampanò defends photojournalism against the charge that its images are luck, not art. He compares the photographer to a marksman and an athlete whose skill looks easy only because it is fast.
Under those conditions, he consistently produced his best work. Photojournalism has frequently been lambasted for being the product of circumstance.
Attacked with harsh criticism.
Photojournalism has frequently been lambasted for being the product of circumstance.
Relating to meaning in language or signs.
In fact rarely are any of these images considered in terms of their composition and semantic intent.
Speed; quickness.
In photojournalism the celerity with which a moment of history is seized testifies to the extraordinary skill required.
An invented New York gallery owner. His quote sums up the insult Navidson's work receives: “he just shoots what happens.”
As New York City gallery owner Timothy K. Thuan once said: Will Navidson is one of this century’s finest photographers, but because his work defines him as a “photojournalist” he suffers to this day that most lamentable of critical denunciations: “Hey, he just …
Very bad and to be regretted.
Thuan once said: Will Navidson is one of this century’s finest photographers, but because his work defines him as a “photojournalist” he suffers to this day that most lamentable of critical denunciations: “Hey, he just shoots what happens.
A public statement of strong disapproval.
Thuan once said: Will Navidson is one of this century’s finest photographers, but because his work defines him as a “photojournalist” he suffers to this day that most lamentable of critical denunciations: “Hey, he just shoots what happens.
Break through a barrier or defence.
Only very recently has the detection of a formidable understanding and use of frame balance inherent in all of Navidson’s work begun to breach the bias against his profession.
The Pulitzer Prize is a major American award for journalism and the arts. Navidson's prize-winning photo shows a starving Sudanese child, called Delial, with a vulture behind her.
This clearly echoes a real photograph: Kevin Carter's 1993 image of a Sudanese child and a vulture, which won the 1994 Pulitzer. Carter later took his own life; the book keeps the name Delial and Navidson's guilt in the reader's mind.
Consider for the last time the image that won him the Pulitzer Prize.
An invented critic and popular 1970s book (Shambhala Publications is a real publisher). LaRue lists seven “incarnations” of the artist: Explorer, Surveyor, Miner, Refiner, Designer, Maker, Artist.
The footnote mocks her followers for producing nothing, and jokes they should trade the seven stages for the twelve steps of Alcoholics Anonymous.
4!2See Cassandra Rissman LaRue's The Architecture of Art (Boston: Shambhala Publications, 1971), p.
American Heritage is a real American history magazine; the article and writer are invented. The title echoes the folk song “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?”
43, Evan Sharp snapped: “LaRue fanatics would do well to trade in their seven stages for twelve steps.”
Of a warm sandy brown colour.
Near the centre, in crisp focus, squats Delial, bone dangling in her tawny almost inhuman fingers, her lips a crawl of insects, her eyes swollen with sand.
The claws of a bird of prey.
Illness and hunger are on her but Death is still a few paces behind, perched on a rocky mound, talons fully extended, black eyes focused on Famine’s daughter.
ARTnews is a real art magazine; the UCLA professor and article are invented. Snyder imagines how a different framing would turn the viewer into a distant audience behind glass.
Or as associate UCLA professor Rudy Snyder speculated: “We would be turned into an impartial audience plunked down in front of history’s glass covered proscenium.”4!3 Instead Navidson kept the vulture to the left and Delial toward the middle, thus purposefully leaving …
The proscenium is the arch or frame at the front of a theatre stage that separates the players from the audience. Snyder uses it for the glass that would keep the viewer at a safe distance from Delial.
Or as associate UCLA professor Rudy Snyder speculated: “We would be turned into an impartial audience plunked down in front of history’s glass covered proscenium.”4!3 Instead Navidson kept the vulture to the left and Delial toward the middle, thus purposefully leaving the entire right portion of the frame empty.
The front arch of a stage that frames the players and faces the audience.
Or as associate UCLA professor Rudy Snyder speculated: “We would be turned into an impartial audience plunked down in front of history’s glass covered proscenium.”4!3 Instead Navidson kept the vulture to the left and Delial toward the middle, thus purposefully leaving the entire right portion of the frame empty.
With a sad, longing feeling.
Leffler reacquainted himself with Navidson’s picture in a recent retrospective, he wistfully commented: Tt seems people should complain more about this empty space but to my knowlThere are seven incarnations (and six correlates) necessary to becoming an Artist: 1.
A form or stage in which something appears; a version of a thing.
Leffler reacquainted himself with Navidson’s picture in a recent retrospective, he wistfully commented: Tt seems people should complain more about this empty space but to my knowlThere are seven incarnations (and six correlates) necessary to becoming an Artist: 1.
Separate the good or useful part from the rest (from separating grain from chaff).
This is what is meant by ‘Miner.” § Fourth, you must have the patience to winnow and process your material into something rare.
Sight and Sound is the real film magazine of the British Film Institute; the critic and column are invented. Leffler argues that the empty right of the frame is not empty: it holds Navidson himself.
When Rouhollah W. Leffler reacquainted himself with Navidson’s picture in a recent retrospective, he wistfully commented: Tt seems people should complain more about this empty space but to my knowlThere are seven incarnations (and six correlates) necessary to …
A gnomon is the part of a sundial that casts the shadow, and in geometry the shape left when a smaller square is cut from a larger one. Leffler means the empty space is the shape of Navidson's presence, marked by his absence.
The emptiness there is merely a gnomonic representation of both his presence and influence, challenging the predator for a helpless prize epitomized by the flightless wings of a dying child’s shoulder blades.
Shaped like a gnomon; marking a thing by the space it leaves or the shadow it casts.
The emptiness there is merely a gnomonic representation of both his presence and influence, challenging the predator for a helpless prize epitomized by the flightless wings of a dying child’s shoulder blades.
Was a perfect example of.
The emptiness there is merely a gnomonic representation of both his presence and influence, challenging the predator for a helpless prize epitomized by the flightless wings of a dying child’s shoulder blades.
Relating to adrenaline; a sudden rush of energy or fear.
Perhaps this is why any observer will feel a slight adrenal rush when pondering the picture.
Where a diagram of the photograph should be, the page shows only broken marks. A footnote from the Editors notes that Zampanò was blind and could not supply a real diagram of a picture. The image of Delial stays a blank.
Though this is still all dark work, at least one aspect of the photograph’s composition may have had direct political consequences: Delial is not exactly in the centre.
Sontag is real, but no “Revised Edition” of On Photography (Anchor Books, 1996) exists. The book invents a quote in which she mourns that Delial's nearness made her seem “still within our reach.”
As Susan Sontag sadly mused many years later: “Her proximity suggested to us that Delial was still within our reach,”"4!5 See diagram: RCRrYeKee oo ee ee eee) 416 4!4Rouhollah W.
Said in a thoughtful way, as if thinking aloud.
As Susan Sontag sadly mused many years later: “Her proximity suggested to us that Delial was still within our reach,”"4!5 See diagram: RCRrYeKee oo ee ee eee) 416 4!4Rouhollah W.
An invented critic and book (Chronicle Books is a real publisher, 1985). Cafiso notes that “the finest act of seeing is necessarily always the act of not seeing something else.”
Zampanò ends on the point that Navidson always put another person between himself and death; the return to the house removes that other, leaving only his own life at risk.
As photo critic M. G. Cafiso maintained back in 1985: Navidson’s all consuming interest in people—and usually people caught in terrible circumstances—always puts him in direct conflict with death.4!7 As previously mentioned in Chapter XV, Navidson never photographed scenery, but …
Placing something between two other things.
… people—and usually people caught in terrible circumstances—always puts him in direct conflict with death.4!7 As previously mentioned in Chapter XV, Navidson never photographed scenery, but he also never photographed the threat of death without interposing someone else between himself and it.