Category Archives: stuff i think about

it wasn’t bad

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It wasn’t bad, the final episode of Game of Thrones. It was, as always, beautifully filmed; there were some wonderful, genuinely touching emotional moments and it provided a sort of emotional closure for most of the major characters. I can’t say enough about the acting of Peter Dinklage, particularly in the second most critical scene in the episode, and especially because that entire scene made no sense whatsoever.

It wasn’t bad. But let’s remember what Cersei told Eddard Stark in Season One:

“When you play the game of thrones, you win or you die. There is no middle ground.”

It wasn’t bad, the final episode. But it tried for the middle ground. It didn’t try to win; it tried not to lose. It tried to be safe. And the result was — not bad. The result was insipid.

It wasn’t bad, but the behavior of the characters lacked internal consistency. They behaved in ways that contradicted seven earlier seasons. Let’s start with the scene I mentioned a moment ago, in which Tyrion, shackled and unkempt, addresses ‘the most powerful people in Westeros’. Remember, he was imprisoned for betraying his queen and was only spared immediate execution because she was assassinated.

Why was Tyrion addressing anybody at all? The context of the scene suggests they ordered Grey Worm to bring both Tyrion and Jon Snow to appear before those powerful people, but why was Grey Worm following their orders at all? Why did Grey Worm even allow those powerful people into what was left of the city, when they were, for all intents and purposes, beseiging the city? It makes no sense. It was clear Daenerys wanted Tyrion executed — why didn’t Grey Worm just execute him? And why, when Tyrion tells those people they should choose a king or queen, did Grey Worm support that decision? The entire scene makes no sense whatsoever.

Condemned Prisoner Decides Future of Westeros.

Tyrion tells the assembly, “There’s nothing in the world more powerful than a good story.” He then says, “Who has a better story than Bran the Broken?” It’s a good line, and Dinklage delivers it beautifully. But it makes no sense. It’s not just that Bran’s story isn’t as powerful as Arya’s story, or Sansa’s, or even Sam Tarly’s story. It’s that Bran’s story isn’t even Bran’s story. He was just there for it. Bran’s story is the story of Hodor, and Osha the wildling, and Jojen Reed and his sister Meera. Bran’s story is the story of all the people who helped him escape and kept him alive. It wasn’t his fault, but Bran was just a passive passenger in his story. To say his is the best story makes no sense.

And let’s not forget that when Bran became the Three-Eyed Raven, he apparently became at least semi-omniscient. He knows what has happened and, it seems, what will happen. He doesn’t try to influence events. Or maybe he can’t influence them; we don’t know. But it means he knew thousands would be slaughtered at Winterfell, and tens of thousands would be slaughtered in King’s Landing. He knew all those folks would suffer and die in order to create a situation in which he would be named King of the Seven Kingdoms. He knew all that and said nothing to minimize the slaughter. And despite that, none of those powerful people had a problem with him as king. It makes no sense whatsoever.

In his speech, Tyrion states, “From now on rulers will not be born, they will be chosen on this spot by the lords and ladies of Westeros to serve the realm.” Why is Tyrion, a condemned man, deciding by himself how the future rulers of Westeros will be chosen? He asks Bran, “If we choose you, will you wear the crown?” If WE choose you? Why does Tyrion have a voice in the decision? Yes, he’s presumably the head of what’s left of House Lannister, but he’s also a condemned prisoner. He not only murdered his father (and his lover, but women characters have been pretty expendable in this show), he’s betrayed two queens–his sister and Dany. These are not commendable qualities. It makes no sense whatsoever for ‘the most powerful people in Westeros’ to let him make such important decisions. The entire scene makes no sense.

Survived Joffrey, Survived Cersei, Survived Littlefinger, Survived Ramsey, Got Her Crown.

It’s not just that scene, though. Throughout the episode, several primary characters behave in ways that simply aren’t internally consistent with their character development to that point. Consider Ser Brienne (whose story is more powerful than Bran’s, by the way). The one defining characteristic of Brienne is her rigid adherence to a code of knightly honor and duty. She swore fealty to Sansa (“I will shield your back and keep your counsel, and give my life for yours if need be. I swear it by the old gods and the new.”) and Sansa accepted it. But Brienne abandons her duty to Sansa and becomes King’s Guard to Bran. It makes no sense.

Sam Tarly (whose story is also more powerful than Bran’s) only wanted to read books and learn stuff. As a member of the Night Watch he was sent to Oldtown to become a maester, but absconded from the Citadel with some stolen books. Why? To travel (with Gilly and a baby) all the way back north to Castle Black in order to inform Jon Snow that he was actually the true heir to the Iron Throne. Sam also insisted Jon tell Dany who he really was. But despite his friendship with Jon Snow, despite the fact that his insistence that Jon reveal his rightful place on the throne, despite all that, in the last episode Samwell suddenly decides NOT to stand up for Jon as the rightful King of the Seven Kingdoms? And, in fact, is the very first to cast his support for Bran as King? It makes no sense.

Bronn (another story more powerful than Bran’s) is a low-born, whore-mongering, duplicitous sell-sword who openly supports whoever will pay him the most. He’s given Highgarden (for betraying Cersei by not assassinating Tyrion and Jaime), the castle once belonging to House Tyrell. Okay, that makes some sense in the context of the show. But in the last episode he’s also made Master of Coin and given a seat on the Small Council? No, that makes no sense whatsoever.

Daenerys. Throughout the show, she’s been a wonderfully complex, multi-faceted character. At times utterly pragmatic, at times compassionate, always driven, always concerned about the less powerful. Until the final episode, when she inexplicably turned into a Harlequin romance character. She’d just spent a few hours riding her dragon, immolating tens of thousands of people — which I suspect is hot, dirty work. But somehow she appears relaxed, clean, her hair perfect (who dresses her and does her hair post-massacre?). The fierce woman who’d always tried to protect ordinary folks is suddenly channeling Cersei Lannister: the ordinary people don’t get to choose what’s good for them. You can make an argument that Dany deliberately chose to slaughter an entire city in order to convince the rest of the realm to stand down. That would be horrible, but internally consistent to the character. We saw her do something like that when she crucified the Masters of Meereen. But in this final episode, she decides the little people of the world shouldn’t have a choice in their lives? It makes no sense whatsoever.

A Girl Has a Ship and Heads West.

Jon Snow, born to brood. Loved two women and a dire wolf; betrayed both women for the sake of his personal notions of duty and honor. He was the most consistently inconsistent character. I was okay with that, because he seemed completely unaware he was being hypocritical. He encouraged Mance Rayder to bend the knee to Stannis, saying the survival of the wildlings was more important than his pride. But he himself refused to bend the knee to Stannis because of his duty to the Night Watch. He also refused to bend the knee to Dany — until Cersei said she’d only support the war against the Dead if Jon Snow, as King of the North, agreed not to choose sides. Then he bent the knee to Daenerys, at the worst possible time, because of his own notions of duty and honor. His inconsistency is annoying, but completely in character.

The same is true of the other remaining Starks — Sansa and Arya. Sansa stands up for the North and demands it be an independent kingdom, and Bran agrees (an immediate display of royal nepotism that doesn’t seem to bother any of the others). Arya sets off to go someplace nobody has gone before. Those were wonderful story arcs, and they remained wonderfully consistent and in character.

Betrays Two Women, Gets Re-united with His Direwolf.

Most folks, I suspect, aren’t going to care if the final episode made sense or not. They’ll mostly either hate the ending because it wasn’t what they wanted, or they’ll love it because it was predictably bittersweet. Sure, Dany gets murdered by the man she loves and trusts, but it’s presented in a way that’s supposed to make us feel sad for poor Jon Snow.

But the Iron Throne got melted, and that was nice. Tyrion is Hand of the King for the third time, which is nice. Sam gets the maester gig at King’s Landing, also nice. Brienne gets to write Jaime’s name in a logbook and fudge his record so it doesn’t reflect how reliably awful he was, and that’s nice. Bronn can afford the best brothels, nice for him. Jon is reunited with his direwolf, very nice. And, of course, Sansa and Arya get to fulfill their dreams, which is exceedingly nice. So it’s not an unhappy ending. And did you notice, as Jon is leading the wildlings back north of the wall — a blade of grass growing through the snow. Winter, it seems, is over.

It wasn’t bad, the final episode. But it could have been much much better. And as insipid as it was, the final episode can’t diminish what was a powerful and compelling television series.

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Mount Doom and the Tuscan Sun

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It’s not always this simple:

“Begin at the beginning,” the King said, very gravely, “and go on till you come to the end: then stop.”

It sounds like good advice, and if you’re a White Rabbit giving testimony in a jurisdiction in Wonderland, it apparently works quite well. It may also apply to some writers when they’re working on a story. But it doesn’t work that way for me.

Begin at the beginning. Yeah, that bit works. The beginnings of stories are always easy. Always. A cool idea or premise for a story pops into your head, you’re excited by it, you’re enthusiastic and engaged, and you bang it out. Then, of course, comes the long, dull, grunt work of actually writing the middle of the damned thing. Doesn’t matter if you’re working on a novel-length manuscript or a short story, the middle chunk is like Mordor without the dramatic scenery. Enthusiasm isn’t going to get you to Mount Doom. The middle is a slog. It’s work. The middle is where most stories give up, curl into a ball, die a slow lonely death, and are never heard from again.

But hey, if you can gut your way through the middle, you can usually cobble together some sort of ending for your story. A lot of writers (me included) like to come up with an ending before we actually start writing. We may not actually use that original ending, but having an ending in mind when you begin can give you direction and a bit of momentum, which is handy when you’re wondering how much farther Mount Doom is.

But endings can be tricky too, because there are almost always a LOT of possible endings to any story. I mean, after you’ve hauled your story all the way to Mount Doom, do you just chuck it into the first fiery chasm you come across? There may be a better, more satisfying fiery chasm just down the path, right?

Here’s the thing: you’re probably never going to find the perfect fiery chasm. So usually you pick the one you think will work the best, and you chuck the ring in, and go on to your next story. Unless you’re like me. Sometimes you’re just not really happy with any of the fiery chasms; there’s nothing particularly wrong with them as fiery chasms, but they just don’t feel right. So you just park the ring in a drawer and forget about it, hoping that some day you’ll think of a better fiery chasm. So to speak.

An almost entirely unrelated image from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (because I feel like I need to include an image in every blog post…sorry).

Why am I nattering on about this? Because back in November of 2017 I couldn’t come up with an ending I liked for a short story. And I wrote about it (sorta kinda, in a rambling blog post). The story is about a part-time burglar who steals a Leica and later gets in trouble with the police for shooting photos in a park where kids are playing. Since it was just a short story and I wasn’t in urgent need of funds, I set the story aside and forgot about it.

Until earlier this year, when I got involved in an online discussion that tangentially related to a scene in the movie Under The Tuscan Sun. After that discussion, I took a walk, and on that walk I realized that what my old burglar-turned-photographer story needed was a connection to that movie. Which, okay, I realize sounds nuts. But I thought about it, went home and rewrote much of the story with a totally new ending, and tossed the ring into the fiery chasm.

Yesterday I got a note from the editor of Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine saying a contract for that story will be showing up in my mailbox by the end of the month.

The moral of this story? The King’s advice to the White Rabbit isn’t always good advice. Sometimes you need to begin at the beginning and go on until you decide the fiery chasm is all wrong, then wait for Diane Lane to invest in real estate in Italy.

window treatments of winterfell

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Look, it wouldn’t solve all the problems of Westeros, but a LOT of the pain and suffering and angst that takes place in Game of Thrones could have been avoided if the Starks had installed window treatments in the keeps of Winterfell.

A nice set of pleated drapes, maybe a panel pair with a modest valance, a simple opaque panel — hell, even an old tarp would have enough. It would have prevented Bran from peeking in the high window on the First Keep. If he hadn’t peeked in the window, he wouldn’t have seen Jaime shtupping his sister. If Bran hadn’t seen that, then Jaime wouldn’t have had to push him off the window sill, plunging him (okay, how far did he actually fall? Let’s see, the books say the First Keep was the original stronghold of Winterfell, so it likely wasn’t the tallest keep in the castle — but it still would have been taller than the walls, and according to the books the inner walls were 100 feet tall, so let’s say Bran had to have fallen at least 115 feet — holy crap, that’s a LONG fall) around 115 feet to the ground.

Oh c’mon, you’d have peeked too.

Because he survived that long fall (which is improbable but certainly possible; when I was a medic I had a patient who’d fallen about that same distance off a water tower, and he survived…well, for a while), Bran was a threat, because he might tell folks he’d seen Jaime and Cersei boinking. Which meant they had to send an assassin to whack him in order to protect their secr…wait. Wasn’t it Littlefinger who sent the assassin? Why would he do that? I mean, how would he know Bran saw the Lannister siblings making the beast with two backs? And how would whacking Bran benefit Littlefinger? That doesn’t make any sense.

Never mind. Ignore that whole assassination business. My point, if you can call it a point, is that if the Starks had just tacked up a ratty old tarp or bodged together a pair of shutters in the First Keep, then they’d have saved themselves a LOT of fuss and bother.

A nice set of drapes and this wouldn’t have had to happen.

Like I said, it wouldn’t have solved all the problems of Westeros. Ned would have still gone to King’s Landing. And regardless of Winterfell’s window treatments, he’d still probably have lost his head. And yes, okay, the curtains wouldn’t have made a lick of difference with that whole Daenerys–Dothraki–Mother of Dragons business.

But there’s a pretty good chance that if the First Keep had a pair of curtains, Hodor wouldn’t have found himself north of the Wall and eaten (wait, does the Army of the Dead eat the folks they kill? No, I don’t think so; I think they just sort of tear them to death, which is pretty nasty, isn’t it) killed by dead folks. So there’s that. That’s worth the cost of a pair of curtains.

And yes, I know this is silly and a waste of time, but it was either this or think about Comrade Trump and his attacks on democracy and rationality.

knuckles is back

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I have a moderately well-regulated disorganized life. That’s not as contradictory as it sounds, probably. What I mean is I sort of depend on a few daily routines that keep me somewhat disciplined in order to do the stuff I need/want to do. But those routines contain a lot of latitude for things that are unplanned, distracting, silly, random, fun, purposeless, and/or serendipitous. One result of living that sort of life is occasionally different parts of my life carom into each other.

Here are the various bits of my life that have bounced up against each other recently:

  1. It’s winter, and we’ve had like 40 inches of snow in something like three weeks, and I’ve been unable to take my normal daily walk. I have time on my hands.
  2. Because of 1. I’ve been playing GeoGuessr more often.
  3. I recently had a discussion in which I defended the concept of appropriation in art.
  4. I remain stupidly attached to the pseudonym Knuckles Dobrovic.
  5. The Knuckles Instagram account was currently idle, since I’d finished the second Knuckles project.

Those bits all came together and stuck, which is why I’ve started appropriating Google Street View images from GeoGuessr and turning them into a new Knuckles project. (Just to recap, I came up with the alias Knuckles Dobrovic about five years ago when I decided to dip my photographic toe into Instagram; first I photographed Things On A Table, followed by Double Exposures of My Feet.) I’m going to repeat something I’ve already repeated once before (and will probably repeat again), something I wrote at the completion of the first Knuckles project.

I’ll probably come up with some other sort of project, simply because I’ve grown fond of the name Knuckles Dobrovic. I realize that’s a stupid reason. I don’t care. I’ve no objection to doing things for stupid reasons.

gsv #1

Yeah, so here are the first images of the new Knuckles project. It’s not remotely an original idea. Actual artists have been using Google Street View (and I’m just going to start calling it GSV because I’m that lazy) as source material for years. I’m okay with the idea not being original. Sometimes creativity isn’t about finding an original idea; it’s about taking an existing idea and smooshing it into a form that’s your own.

Here’s the thing: every photo project is defined by its parameters–by some sort of unifying theme. Some folks doing GSV work take a classic street photography approach, some rely on New Topographics surface mapping, some treat it as landscape photography, some concentrate on the interactions between people on the street and the GSV camera.

gsv #2

So the first thing I had to do was to decide on my own project parameters. I spent a couple of days thinking about this stuff because I tend to think too much about just about everything. I always begin by making things ridiculously complicated, then whittling the idea down to something fairly manageable. Here are my basic parameters.

1) Rely on the randomness of the GeoGuessr app to find GSV scenes. The problem with that, of course, is that sometimes (well, often) the app will drop you in a location that’s utterly devoid of anything interesting. You can waste a lot of time noodling around for some scene worth capturing. On the other hand, that’s part of the attraction–coming across unexpected stuff.
2) Look for scenes that are ordinary but visually interesting. A lot of GSV artists seek out the dramatic or the weird or the otherworldy–car crashes, rural sex workers, odd graffiti, a particular color palette. I wanted to find mundane moments that still caught the eye.
3) Transform the image. Just some quick and dirty Photoshop grunt work. Square format, black-and-white. Get rid of the GSV directional markers and the Google trademark.
4) But not too much. I didn’t want to hide the fact that these are GSV images. So any other artifact of the GSV camera–weird angles, disrupted lines, blurred areas–remain.

That’s it. Once I’d decided on those parameters, I went noodling through the game to see what I could find.

gsv #3

I didn’t find much. It turns out that noodling around in GSV in random parts of the world is a lot like going on a photo-walk. There’s a whole lot of stuff that isn’t very interesting to look at. A boring stretch of road in Andalusia is as uninteresting as a boring stretch of road in the Australian outback or a boring stretch of road in central Russia. Playing GeoGuessr as a photo project feels different from playing GeoGuessr as a game. The fun part of it as a game is trying to solve the ‘Where the Fuck Am I?’ puzzle. As a photo project, where you are isn’t at all important; the only important thing is what you can see wherever you are.

gsv #4

Another problem quickly became apparent. When you DO happen to find something fairly ordinary but still visually interesting, GSV doesn’t necessarily give you a good angle to photograph it. In real life, you have control over your position. If you need to take a few steps to the left, if you need to squat down, if you need to get closer or farther away, you can do that. In GSV you only get what GSV gives you. For example, I saw some kids playing on a swing set on the outskirts of a small village in Estonia (okay, on my computer screen I saw an image taken mechanically by the GSV camera of kids playing on a swing set), but the kids were largely obscured by a tree and a recycling can. It was an interesting human moment, but it wasn’t a visually interesting image. If I moved forward in GeoGuessr, a hedge hid the kids; if I moved backward, a house was in the way. There was simply no possible way to turn that human moment into an interesting photograph. This is what happens when you let a robot do a photographer’s job.

gsv #5

On the other hand, the impersonal, un-engaged, dispassionate GSV has mapped around ten million miles in 83 countries. Ain’t no photographer gonna do that. In that ten million miles, there are bound to be a LOT of things worth looking at. So if you are stupidly persistent and pathologically curious and live a moderately well-regulated disorganized life that allows you to piss away a few hours now and then in an endeavor that has no real value except your own amusement, there’s a decent chance you’ll get to see some of those things.

ADDENDUM: Because I’m a self-promotional dunderhead, yesterday I completely forgot to include a link to the Knuckles Instagram account.

a few simple rules

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I was pushing a loading cart holding maybe ten heavy boxes and an ironing board down the hallway of ‘senior living center’ (it’s a long story, but irrelevant to this post) when an old guy using a walker came tottering down the hallway with a small homely mixed breed dog that was suffering from some serious sinus issues. I stopped the cart, smiled at the guy, and said “Now that’s a fine-looking dog.” He smiled and chuckled and thanked me. Told me the dog’s name. Said, “He’s friendly,” which I took as an invitation to lean down and pet the wee creature, who was largely indifferent to the entire situation.

My friend, who was pushing a smaller loading cart, gave me a familiar WTF look as we started moving again. I said, “Always compliment a person’s dog. The dog’s don’t care, but it makes their owners happy.” She said, “Is that like a rule of life?”

Always compliment a person’s dog.

I decided that it was. Or should be. And here are a few more basic rules of life.

— Always compliment a person’s dog.
— Don’t block the aisle with your shopping cart.
— Apologize when you’re wrong.
— Don’t wear blackface.
— Hold the door open for everybody.
— Vote.
— Tip your server, even if the service is poor (because these folks are always overworked, get paid very little, are often abused by their customers, and sometimes they make mistakes like everybody else).
— Read at least a few paragraphs after the headlines.
— Tell the people you love that you love them.
— Tell the people you like that you like them.
— Push your damn chair in when you leave the table.
— Check the batteries in your flashlight.
— Don’t argue with stupid people.
— Park between the lines.
— Don’t judge people for the TV shows they watch, or the books they read, or the games they play, or the music they prefer, or the god they worship, or the clothes they wear, or the food they cook, or…just don’t fucking judge people.
— Refer to folks by the names they ask you to use even if you don’t understand and even if you think it’s stupid.
— Say ‘hi’ to strangers now and then.
— Try new foods, even if they sound/look gross.

Say ‘hi’ to strangers now and then.

Okay, that’s not a complete list. And maybe they’re more like guidelines than rules. And they’re my guidelines; they don’t need to apply to anybody else. I figure you’ve probably got your own. But these work for me.

a short list of things I’d like to see in 2019

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In no particular order:

— The Great British Baking Show with Paul Hollywood as a contestant. Let’s see how he likes that.
— A movie car chase in which the police officer doing the chasing decides it’s just not worth the risk to the public and just stops.
— The return of home milk delivery in glass bottles.
— Playgrounds for adults, so you could go play on a swing for half an hour without other adults looking at you like you’re some sort of pedophile.
— Louis CK continuing to perform in comedy clubs…and the entire audience standing and walking out.
— A remake of Killing Eve with all the same actors but with a plot that wasn’t phenomenally stupid.
— Donald Trump and his family of grifters and traitors in handcuffs.
— Universal health care in the US.
— Universal selective service in the US. Not necessarily military service, but a couple years of compulsory national, state, or local service.
— George RR Martin admitting he’s sick to death of GoT and acknowledging he’s never going to finishing the last books, so everybody should just watch the HBO show and be satisfied.
— More respect for bollards.
— A harsh, severe, punitive tax on houses with pointless gables and extraneous dormer windows.
— Brett Kavanaugh busted for DWI.
— Gun owners actually held accountable for their guns.
— Actual usable pockets in women’s clothes. It’s 2019, for fuck’s sake.

I’m sure there’s other stuff, but this is all I could come up with while waiting for the coffee to finish becoming coffee.

What about you? What would you like to see in the coming year?

susan sontag annoys me from the grave

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Two or three times a year I’ll open up Susan Sontag’s 1977 collection of essays On Photography and read a few pages. I usually do it when I’ve finished reading another book and I want a breather before starting something new. I’ll open it to some random page, read for a bit, then close the book and mutter “Susan fucking Sontag.”

The thing is, Sontag/On Photography 1) always makes me think and 2) always annoys the hell out of me. Always. Always and for a dozen different reasons. The main reason, though, is that she’s usually entirely correct. Nobody likes a person who is always right. This is what stuck in my mind last night:

To photograph is to confer importance.

That’s Susan Sontag for you. Six words, and there it is. Six words, and she confronts you with a notion that ought to be self-evident but isn’t always. Six words, and she lays out a way to both shoot and understand photography. To photograph a thing is to confer importance on that thing.

That’s not to say what a person photographs will be important to anybody other than the photographer. It only means that by making the decision, consciously or intuitively, to isolate one chunk of reality and photograph it is a way of stating that particular chunk of reality has personal value for the photographer. It’s saying “This little chunk of reality is deserving of my attention, however fleeting that is.”

To photograph is to confer importance. Sontag illustrates that notion by discussing a photograph made by Edward Steichen in 1915 — a photograph of a couple of milk bottles sitting on a tenement fire escape. When I say Sontag illustrates the notion by discussing the photograph, I mean exactly that. Any other writer and any other book on photography would have included Steichen’s photo to illustrate the point. But not Sontag. That’s another annoying thing about her and On Photography: there are NO photographs in the book. None at all. If you want to see a photograph Sontag is talking about, you have to go find it. Which I did.

steichen_milk_bottles

Instead of showing the photo to make her point (which, if you recall, is to photograph is to confer importance), Sontag chooses to illustrate the concept by — and I’m not making this up — quoting from Walt Whitman’s preface to the 1855 edition of Leaves of Grass:

Each precise object or condition or combination or process exhibits a beauty.

It is annoying as hell to quote a poet to explain a photograph. But yeah, as usual, she’s entirely correct. Each precise object exhibits a beauty and to photograph a precise object is to confer importance to it. Remember, Steichen shot that photo in 1915. Photography at that point in time was cumbersome and expensive. Steichen couldn’t just notice the milk bottles and take a quick snapshot of them. He had to set up a tripod, attach a large boxy camera to it, compose the image beneath a shroud using a screen in which the image appears upside down and reversed, then calculate the exposure. And all that takes place before the labor involved in developing the film and making a print. Taking a photograph in 1915 was a lot of work.

So yeah, to photograph was damned sure conferring importance. You don’t subject yourself to all that fuss and bother unless the precise object exhibited a compelling beauty. So Steichen was faced with a question. Milk bottles? On a fire escape? Really? And his answer was, yes, really, milk bottles on a fire escape!

This sort of photo is common now, but in 1915 it was revolutionary. Now, with digital imagery, a photographer can piss away hundreds of photos on milk bottles on fire escapes without any concern or thought. So even if we agree that Whitman is right and every precise object exhibits a beauty (and I’m not about to argue against our boy Walt), we have to ask if Sontag is still right. Does photography still confer importance?

I kind of want to say no. I want to say no partly because if modern photography requires absolutely no training and is subject to anybody’s passing whim, how can it confer importance on anything? I also want to say no just because Sontag continues to annoy me, even though she’s been dead for a decade and a half.

I kind of want to say no, but I can’t. Even if a digital image requires less commitment to the subject and the process, the decision of what and how to photograph remains the same. Here’s a photo I shot recently on a walk. It took maybe ten seconds to notice, to compose, to adjust the exposure, and take the photo using my cellphone. Maybe fifteen seconds. Then I was back to walking.

It probably took hours for Steichen to photograph his milk bottles and make a print of it. It took me only a moment to photograph a shed in somebody’s back yard. But the fundamental process is exactly the same. You observe the precise beauty of a thing, you isolate that thing in a lens, and you confer personal importance on it by photographing it.

Susan fucking Sontag. She annoys me from the grave.