Jerving's 13 ways

Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Black and White Photograph

Ryan Jerving

Jerving’s dense and sometimes overly obfuscating prose articulates what has been taken for granted for a long while: the messages, implicit and explicit represented by photography. Jorge Luis Borges once wrote (in Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius) that mirrors were “abominable” because they multiplied mankind, addressing a paradox that photography too, represents. Just as reality is framed by a mirrors edges, unreal space lying unseen unless the viewer shifts their position, so does photography create illusion, reproducing images of only so much of mankind, leaving the viewer in the unenviable position of viewing a static, unchanging image: no matter whether the viewer shifts to the left or the right, the image remains the same, the window into the reality that a photograph purports to express is as illusory as the left-right-handedness of a reflection in a mirror.

Jerving’s polemic makes sense of this problem, reducing its disparate elements to thirteen distinct points of analysis, taking back, in a way, control over what we see in a photograph. In a metaphorical manner, his ways of looking help us to lift the camera from the photographer’s hand and cast around with it ourselves as we try to return a photographic image to its original context, not its originally intended representation, whether conscious or unconscious, of artifice. In some ways Jerving suggests more: his arguments could be no less than call to begin looking at the world in a new way, too.

We examined the implications of Jerving’s thirteen ways in class and I’m not sure that this blog is the place to look at an image and demonstrate that I can bring the same critical eye to bear upon a photograph of my choosing. However, for practice: I will briefly describe one of the most iconic photographs of my youth and perhaps in modern exploration, the photograph of Robert Scott’s party at the south pole.

Image from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Scottgroup.jpg

The photograph is quite simple, taken by a string attached to the shutter, showing the five explorers posed in a group to document their arrival at the pole as a form of proof and a demonstration of accomplishment. To this extent, then, the photograph serves a purpose beyond itself: it is intended from the outset to convey a particular message, capturing a staged moment. It is tightly framed, showing only what it must: the explorers against a background of white. There is no suggestion that the frame is cropped but the interesting and ironic point to be made is that the photograph is famous because of where it was taken and what happened afterwards, not because it positions the subjects within a recognizable location. The fact that they are at the south pole at all is only borne out by their haggard and exhausted expressions. The photograph could have been taken anywhere with snow and cloud. The men are also framed purposefully, in a very ordered manner, three standing behind two seated almost creating a “W” shape with their bodies. There is nothing special about this pose, nor does it suggest any particularity about the relationships of the five men to each other. The shutter was pulled more than once, however, and in other photographs the positions of the men are slightly different: it must have been difficult to hold a pose at the south pole in 1912, for many reasons.

Scott wrote in his diary, upon discovering that his party had been beaten to the pole “Great God! This is an awful place.” In this respect, the photograph places the men directly in their historical context. There is no sense of camaraderie in the photo; each man is essentially alone, dealing with loss, exhaustion, and cold in the traditional uncomplaining stoic manner. Their situation is emphasized by their costumes, full winter clothing so thick as to render their bodies shapeless, their hats pulled down as close to their eyes as possible. Some of them smile slightly, although none had anything to feel happy about: they were over 800 miles from safety. Perhaps by design, perhaps not, the figures of the men fill the frame, with flags fluttering around them. It is a close up of the men that pays no attention to their context outside the frame. Again, what is being documented is their hardship and heroism.

The camera angle is level, the standing figures do not tower over those sitting, and the lighting is, of course, natural. The camera is very much a narrator. The men smile for it and regard it equally, aware that it is serving as a witness to their achievement, however pyrrhic. At it was taken, photograph served as a portrait of a group of men who came together to attempt the unknown. But the men knew they were filling their diaries and taking pictures for posterity and would have had concerns, not yet fears, for their safety.

It is perhaps because they died that the photograph has attained its status as an iconic image, in a line of iconic images of hardship taken by people who did not know whether they would live to share it: Shackleton’s ship encased in the ice, Mallory and Irvine setting off to climb Everest, the Uruguayan rugby players stranded in the Andes, and more, images that tell more because of the history they represent and the extraordinary reality they captured. I don’t know. Jerving’s thirteen points are a start for this kind of analysis and perhaps I picked a difficult image to which to apply such a method. But, point taken. There is a lot to talk about in almost every photograph.