Sentences on Photography

Torbjørn Rødland

1. The muteness of a photograph matters as much as its ability to speak.

2. The juxtaposition of photographs matters as much as the muteness of each.

3. All photography flattens. Objectification is inescapable.

4. Photography cannot secure the integrity of its subject any more than it can satisfy the need to touch or taste.

5. Good ideas are easily bungled.

6. Banal ideas can be rescued by personal investment and beautiful execution.

7. Lacking an appealing surface, a photograph should depict surfaces appealingly.

8. A photograph that refuses to market anything but its own complexities is perverse. Perversion is bliss.

9. A backlit object is a pregnant object.

10. To disregard symbols is to disregard a part of human perception.

11. Photography may employ tools and characteristics of reportage without being reportage.

12. The only photojournalistic images that remain interesting are the ones that produce or evoke myths.

13. A photographer in doubt will get better results than a photographer caught up in the freedom of irony.

14. The aestheticizing eye is a distant eye. The melancholic eye is a distant eye. The ironic eye is a distant eye.

15. One challenge in photography is to outdistance distance. Immersion is key.

16. Irony may be applied in homeopathic doses.

17. A lyrical photograph should be aware of its absurdity. Lyricism grows from awareness.

18. For the photographer, everyone and everything is a model, including the photograph itself.

19. The photography characterized by these sentences is informed by conceptual art.

20. The photography characterized by these sentences is not conceptual photography.



Initially published in Triple Canopy, Issue #12: “Black Box,” May 5, 2011

Contents

Letter to a wanderer through the city of the instant
Drew Burk

The Alley
Adam Caillier

Breeding Ground
Amy Thielen

I would have no pubes if I were truly in love
Jenny Zhang

SUMP PUMP
Reviewed by Jonathan Thomas

The Problem With The Destruction Of Art Is That It Preserves Too Much
Daniel Spaulding

Jacob’s Ladder on Lined Paper
David Goldes

Empire of the Sun
Stuart Krimko

Empire of Rain
Jacques Rancière

Plein Air Dans La Nuit
John Riepenhoff

Orderly Outsider
Alex Waterman

Ulrich Seidl
Interviewed by Jonathan Thomas

Instagram as Non-Photography
Mohammad Salemy

Sentences on Photography
Torbjørn Rødland

Center Spread
Torbjørn Rødland

Body as Techno Base
Goldberg/Marshall

Studio Visit
Stuart Krimko

On the Way to Hillary Harnischfeger’s Studio
David Norr

Stuart Argabright
Interviewed by
Chris Hontos

THE ATRIUM
Adam Caillier

On Steve Holmgren and Matt Porterfield
Kathie Smith

On Pedagogy, Countercultures, and the Theory of Utopia
Stephen Duncombe and Sam Gould

The Duck
Mark A. Rodriguez

It was a period when cunt was in the air
Jenny Zhang

Celebrating the New Dark Age
David Geers

Song for The Boy We Almost Ran Over
Steve Healey

Issue 14

Issue 13

Issue 12

Issue 11

Issue 10

Issue 9

Issue 8

Issue 7

Issue 6

Issue 5

Issue 4

Issue 3

Issue 2