I've done a little more exploring at Black & WTF. Most (not all) of the photos seem to fall within one or more of a limited number of definable categories:
- Hijinks (people fooling around or making faces, etc.)
- Visual jokes
- Odd, funny, or unintended juxtapositions
- Unexpected situations
- Things that are too small or too large
- Making light of death
- Weird hair
- Sexual innuendo
- An odd apparatus, machine, or mechanical contrivance
- Inappropriateness
- Animals
- Strange, funny, ironic or unusual signs or labels
- Gender confusion or ambivalence
- Photographic tricks, collages, or pastiches
- Costumes or masks
After looking at a lot of them at one sitting, overall the pictures have a surfacey or superficial character that is initially appealing but becomes tiresome and repetitive eventually. Although they give me more to think about than the ubiquitous scenics that bore me out of my mind, I find them less appealing generally even than the somewhat similar "funny home video" genre, because the video versions generally contain a bit more context and narrative: you understand why the video was being made, and then you experience the unexpected event that transpired instead, which sometimes has a spontaneous character that would be difficult to stage and possibly also difficult to invent. (Although I suppose most of them are just people falling.)
Of course, with so many pictures on the site, there are good and bad pictures in most of the above categories. For instance, this picture goes in the "signs or labels" category...
...But it has a little more to it than most of the others. When Barthes called a photograph "a message without a code," what he meant, I think, was that pictures often tell part of a story very specifically without telling other parts at all; that is, they need context and a certain amount of interpretation for their meaning to become complete. The sign picture above is incongruous, and qualifies as unusual, like most of the others. But it also strongly suggests its context—it was probably a home or a business in a building or location that used to be a brothel but isn't any longer, and the people who live or work there were so frequently bothered by visitors looking for the brothel that a permanent sign dissuading them from persisting was felt to be warranted.
As such, the picture has all sorts of connotations and associations. It suggests the passage of time and the reassignation of real estate for different purposes, the emotions both of the people inside who don't want to be bothered and the state of the possible visitors, and, of course, at a little greater remove, all the associations of lonely people looking for anonymous sex and the people who provide it. It might bring up for the viewer similar situations in their own experience: for instance, I once bought a house where a known drug dealer had previously resided, and the police came by trying to serve warrants half a dozen times before I was finally able to convince them to stop. I could have used a sign explaining the situation on the door, I suppose.
What's most curious to me is that very few of the pictures at Black & WTF have the qualities that I look for in a good snapshot: either that sense of accidental visual grace or compositional felicity that great snapshots can have, or that unexpected whimsical or ambiguous element that adds an implied depth or mystery that in some sense transcends context.
Of course some of them do have something of those qualities. This one, for example, is a nice composition, and has a bit of unintended tension: the man was probably holding on to the tree to help him keep his footing, but it looks partly like he's pushing against it to help it fight the wind. Was it an intentional joke? Or just something the photographer noticed, before or after the exposure? There's that tension, too. But it's an authentic gesture: his aspect is inherent in his person and his situation, not just in the intentionality of the collaborators who made the photograph; you know the wind is real. It has a little less of the jokey quality of the general run of these pictures, and a little more of the quality of the snapshot that works.
Mike
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Original contents copyright 2011 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved.
Featured Comment by Harry Lime: "Believe it or not I'm actually pretty certain that I know where that 'This is not a Brothel' sign is located, because I used to walk past it almost every day when I was working in London. The sign is in Soho on Mead Street and I'm pretty sure that I also took a picture of it at some point.... Soho used to be a red light district, but now it's been gentrified and is home to a large portion of the movie post production business.
"Here is a google maps link. Screen left. Sidewalk. There are three people walking towards camera, one of them is holding a brownish envelope (?). Behind them is a young girl in jeans, who looks like she is on the phone. She has just past the door, which is screen left from her, where the white faced building forms a corner with the gray-green brick faced building. I'm pretty certain that this is the correct location. It's been two years, but I seem to remember that the building is currently occupied by a law firm, which depending on your opinion of that profession may not infer much legitimacy to the accuracy of the sign...."
Mike replies: Now, now, no lawyer jokes. So, do we have any current Londoners who might be able to confirm?
UPDATE from timd: "Checked No. 7 Meard Street this lunchtime: the sign has gone."
Fine watchmaker at work:
Posted by: Herman | Sunday, 20 March 2011 at 04:19 PM
I found the photos unsatisfying too. I think you did a good job articulating why.
Posted by: Ben Rosengart | Sunday, 20 March 2011 at 04:24 PM
Interesting analysis of snap shots. It's great to be able to reliably find good writings about the general subject of photography.
Posted by: Erez | Sunday, 20 March 2011 at 04:32 PM
In my view, when Barthes calls a photo "a message without a code" he really means that photos can be understood by anyone, i.e. their reference (not meaning) intelligible. (If you're referring to Rhetorique de l'Image, Communication, 4/64) The codelessness of a photo has to do with its relation to truth, not to its significance.
Posted by: BuligaS | Sunday, 20 March 2011 at 04:59 PM
You have to admit, that video is funny. If it were a movie, it would be contrived and boring and ultimately stupid (like a Jim Carey film, for instance), but in this case, it is funny. Particularly the last bit when she comes at the cameraman. :)
I was looking at the photos, too, and there is quite a lot of them that elicit a "why's that funny" response. So people a hundred years ago had a different view of things. So what?
What you don't take into account, the categories you listed represent what people still photograph today. Admittedly, it's more of mobile-phone photography than anything else, but they do still show around the same things.
Posted by: erlik | Sunday, 20 March 2011 at 05:15 PM
If the world were to end today, and these pictures were all that remained to depict what it was like to be human, d'you think we would be remembered with any degree of accuracy? As usual,Mike, your posts keep our brains alive. We suffer from the Illness of Expectations, particularly in photography, whether it be our equipment, or our images.
Sometimes it is ok to have photographs as cartoons!
Posted by: ben ng | Sunday, 20 March 2011 at 06:03 PM
The "This is not a brothel" picture instantly reminded me of this entry -- http://esotericlondon.com/2011/03/17/no-274-cleveland-street-w1/ -- over in Esoteric London. In that excellent blog Roger Dean and David Secombe provide wonderful context for their photographs -- usually by quoting some found text. It's the counterpoint between text and photo that makes the whole thing work so well.
Posted by: Peter Marquis-Kyle | Sunday, 20 March 2011 at 06:04 PM
I love that brothel sign! I think I will put one on my door. Should get any visitors chuckling. Maybe I will change my porch light to a red one.
Posted by: Eric Rose | Sunday, 20 March 2011 at 06:04 PM
"Although they give me more to think about than the ubiquitous scenics that bore me out of my mind"
Ah well, different strokes . . . Much as I enjoy TOPE, one of the mysteries to me is how you can recommend so many photographers in "Random Excellence" who present endless pictures of ordinary people doing ordinary things and ordinary buildings in ordinary places.
How anyone can prefer yet another picture of some kids walking down a sidewalk on the street of another '60s suburb, one pushing a bicycle, to yet another picture of beautiful trees hanging over a body of water, in some state of serenity or agitation, is beyond me. /;^>
I especially like the second image because it reminds me of Jacques Tati. I can just see M. Hulot trying to keep the trees in place in the face of a hurricane.
Moose
Posted by: Moose | Sunday, 20 March 2011 at 06:38 PM
Insightful essay, Mike, but I think there's more to that final photograph -- the man holding onto the tree -- than is covered by your comment on composition and tension. I see in it a strong element of "message without a code": the man is leaning into the wind -- if you look closely it appears that he's not trying to keep himself upright, but rather he's trying to keep the tree from being blown over.
It's a 'decisive moment' .... as it might have been portrayed by Harold Lloyd.
Posted by: David Miller | Sunday, 20 March 2011 at 06:56 PM
"one of the mysteries to me is how you can recommend so many photographers in "Random Excellence" who present endless pictures of ordinary people doing ordinary things and ordinary buildings in ordinary places. How anyone can prefer yet another picture of some kids walking down a sidewalk on the street of another '60s suburb, one pushing a bicycle"
Huh? Sure you're thinking of this site? I went through the three most recent pages of the "Random Excellence" category and I have no idea what picture or pictures you're talking about.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Johnston | Sunday, 20 March 2011 at 07:31 PM
Love that video- but it's got my BS detector going. That double whammy is so perfect- and the camera doesn't even flinch.
Posted by: Stan B. | Sunday, 20 March 2011 at 08:47 PM
Sort of similarly, in color, is something I just found. "Graphoscope | A Travelling Photographic Dispensary": http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/lexmachina/graphoscope-a-travelling-photographic-dispensary?ref=spotlight
Posted by: Ray Bliss | Monday, 21 March 2011 at 12:43 AM
I think the second shot is excellent!
Posted by: Avram Levi | Monday, 21 March 2011 at 01:25 AM
Meard not Mead. But yes can confirm. I have the same picture somewhere...
Posted by: patrick | Monday, 21 March 2011 at 04:41 AM
The Google Maps link provided by Harry Lime led me to this photo of 7 Meard St, Soho by Ben.Harper on Flickr...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/22148797@N00/64918875
"Because sometimes a sheet of A4 and some Blu-tak just won't do."
Ain't that the truth.
Robert
Posted by: Robert Groom | Monday, 21 March 2011 at 06:00 AM
David Secombe from Esoteric London here ... nice to see our site referenced in this discussion (it wasn't an inside job I promise!)
You may like to know that the house in your photo - in Soho's Meard Street - used to belong to the artist Sebastian Horsely, who committed suicide a year or so ago. Horsely has a lengthy Wikipedia entry, so I won't rehash all of it it here, but it is a sad and ironic story: he was, in fact, a well-known frequenter of prostitutes, so the message on his door might be seen as a sort of double-bluff.
We are doing a piece on Horsley later this year (we are doing a Soho week) and John Claridge has sent us a fantastic portrait of the artist for this purpose (we are opening Esoteric up to other photographers).
All best, David.
Posted by: David Secombe | Monday, 21 March 2011 at 06:11 AM
The door is 7 Meard Street in London, where the writer Sebastian Horsley lived.
He was a well known frequenter of prostitues.
Posted by: Fred | Monday, 21 March 2011 at 07:34 AM
I think Harry Lime is correct in the location: No 7 Meard Street. I did a quick Google on the text of the sign, and there are a few references, blog posts and Flickr photos. Among the links was an obituary of an artist who lived there at some point in the last twenty years. I hadn't heard of him, but by all accounts an "interesting figure" who underwent a crucifixion for the sake of his ideas on art. Worth a read anyway.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2010/jun/18/sebastian-horsley-obituary
I'm now going to have to give my browser history a deep cleaning to get the text of that Google search out of there. It could easily be very misinterpreted!
Posted by: James | Monday, 21 March 2011 at 08:08 AM
"This is not a Brothel. There are no prostitutes at this address."
These are NOT the droids you seek...
Posted by: Gregg | Monday, 21 March 2011 at 08:44 AM
"This is not a Brothel. There are no prostitutes at this address."
kind of like
"I am not a crook" ?
Speaking of soho bordellos:
When I first moved to NYC in the late 70s I sublet a loft on green street in soho. Every day once an hour a tour group would stop just below our second story window and some guy with a megaphone would go on about a famous brothel, one among 23 on that block along with more than 40 bars. I think there was a famous murder in our building but at that part of the lecture the group had moved up the block. I must have heard that 5 times a day for 3 months.
Posted by: hugh crawford | Monday, 21 March 2011 at 02:21 PM
I've looked at B&WTF before, and pretty much agree with your impression.
I like www.shorpy.com a lot better. I've wasted hours there.
I tried to link to the following picture, but it's too big, or I'm not clever enough. Anyway, it should make you smile.
http://www.shorpy.com/files/images/02308u.preview.jpg
Posted by: Paris | Monday, 21 March 2011 at 07:14 PM
Oops, now the picture comes out too small. What's funny, besides the real amusement on the soldier's faces, is that the guy in front is holding a tiny rabbit.
Posted by: Paris | Monday, 21 March 2011 at 07:19 PM
Yes, B&WTF seems a bit of a mixed bag. I'm sure there are a few film and TV stills in there, plus I spotted a Joel Peter Witkin photo and a couple of images of Yves Klein artworks.
Posted by: Jonathan | Tuesday, 22 March 2011 at 07:22 AM
Someone has already noted that the door pictured, in Meard Street, Soho, was the entrance to a house that contained the apartment of the late Sebastian Horsley, an artist of sorts. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sebastian_Horsley
As someone has pointed out Mr. Horsley was an enthusiastic and vocal consumer of prostitutes, so perhaps this sign is after Magritte: "Ceci n'est pas un bordel."
I first photographed the sign about 7 years ago. In fact two of the doors on this small frontage had similar signs, one simply stating "There are no prostitutes at this address". Which of these two locations contained his flat I'm not sure. Anyone with even a passing acquaintance with the area will not find it difficult to understand why the signs were put up.
The area abounds with all kinds of anomalies; for example nearby Berwick St. Market, characterised by an abundance of prostitutes' walk-ups as well as a selection of fruit and vegetables, has been chosen as the location of an Islamic Centre.
Posted by: roy | Wednesday, 23 March 2011 at 06:00 AM