Table Of Contenti
Kairos
Phenomenology and Photography
by Chan-fai Cheung
with essays by
Hans Rainer Sepp and Kwok-ying Lau
Zeta Books
ii iii
To
Jennifer, Felix, Katie, Joyce
Kairos:
Phenomenology and Photography
by Chan-fai Cheung
© Chan-fai Cheung, 2009
First electronic edition, 2010
All rights reserved. No part of this publication
may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or
by any means, electronic or mechanical, including
photocopying, recording, or any information
storage retrieval system, without permission in
writing from the copyright holder.
ISBN 978-976-1997-54-4
Design and Layout:
Samyu Graphic, Ivy Ling
Editor:
Esther Tsang
Publisher:
Zeta Books, Bucharest
www.zetabooks.com
iv v
Contents Preface
Preface v
The Reality of a Photograph:
Chan-fai Cheung’s “The Photographer. In Kyoto” vi
Hans Rainer Sepp
The Greek has two concepts of time: chronos ( ) and kairos Phenomenology and photography are two of my passions in life. The
( ). Chronos refers to sequential or linear time, hence chronology, essays and photos in the following pages are the results of my applying
Interplay between the Visible and the Imaginary:
Notes towards a Phenomenological Approach to Photography x the measurement of time past, present and future. Kairos, however, means phenomenology in photography. I am conscious of the phenomenological
Kwok-ying Lau the right time, opportune and seasoned time. It refers to the right moment, seeing in photography and through the decisive moment, a photographic
the perfect time, the critical “now”. Chronological time is the existential phenomenon is let to be appeared and seen. Most photos, once so taken,
[ I. General ]
horizon from which we organize our life. Time, whether we are conscious can never be taken again at the same time and same place. In fact, a photo
Phenomenology and Photography: of its flow or not, determines our life as living from the past through the cannot be taken twice. Surely it can be reproduced and copied indefinitely
On Seeing Photographs and Photographic Seeing 002
present into the future. “All are in flux”, said Heraclitus. But there are but the original photo remains the only piece out of kairos.
Photographs 010
important moments in our life that are so decisive that our life changes
[ II. Doors and Windows ] its course, irrevocably and irreversibly. These are moments of kairos, the Here I must express my sincere gratitude to my best friends, Hans Rainer
time that is taken and grasped by us to act on a determination. Perhaps Sepp and Kwok-ying Lau for their contributions of the essays included in
Separation and Connection:
our life has been so changed for better or worse. But we do not know, this volume. Hans Rainer’s meticulous analysis of my photo taken in Kyoto
Phenomenology of Door and Window 094
Photographs 102 because life is different after that decisive change and we cannot compare is a wonderful demonstration of applying phenomenology; whereas Kwok-
the otherwise. ying’s theoretical reflection on photography through phenomenological
[ III. Funerary Sculptures ]
literature deserves once again my admiration for his philosophical mind.
Eros and Thanatos: Erotic Sculpture in Cemeteries Photography is a play of time and light. The amount of time allowing Without their contributions, this book would not live up to the title:
—Meditation on Love and Death 124 light to get into the camera determines the quality of the photograph. The phenomenology AND photography.
Photographs 132
speed meter of the camera is commensurate with chronological time. Hence
most photographs are taken as records of external events. However, if Last but not least, I have to thank Ms. Esther Tsang, the editor of this
[ IV. 30,000 Feet from Above ]
photography is seriously considered as art, then the clicking of the shutter volume, for her patience and professional expertise to actualize this
30,000 Feet from Above 164
by the conscientious photographer for a particular phenomenon through his project. To Ms. Ivy Ling and Mr. Billy Ling, I thank them sincerely for their
Photographs 166
photographic seeing is what Cartier-Bresson called “the decisive moment”, art work and enthusiasm for this book.
Descriptions of Photographs 184 i.e., kairos. All creative photographic works are products of kairos. 22 October 2009
vi vii
The Reality of a Photograph Hans Rainer Sepp
Chan-fai Cheung’s “The Photographer. In Kyoto”
In 2006 the Hong Kong philosopher and photographer Chan-fai Cheung second one: The photo of the photographer shows how the photographer The conflict means: When this photo is a multiple exposure there must not
shot the photo “The Photographer. In Kyoto”. This amazing photo has the shows a picture of an interior, and this interior shows within the frame of be parts without traces of such exposure, otherwise it would be a mixture
effect of a visual labyrinth. What do we see? Let us analyze this picture in its glass door a third picture that shows the photographer again. between a photomontage and a multiple exposure. In fact, there are parts
five steps. without any multiple exposures: the background of the photographer itself,
And there is a triangle, beginning from the closed right eye of the the motorcycles, and the stonewall. But this could be objected by the
[ First Step ] photographer and extending its two edges to the head of the woman and argument that the reason why we cannot see traces of a double exposure is
to the double of himself, the photographer. This triangle cuts the top of that the background is so intensively lighted up by the sun. Thus the thesis
The photo shows the dark blurred image of a man, probably the photographer,
the pyramid that the second photo, the picture within the picture, forms of a pictorial conflict cannot be verified sufficiently.
who is standing in a street and is shooting a photo. But one cannot see
so that just this area of the whole picture catches our eyes first. Only
his camera because a second picture is exactly at the place where the
after that we might pay our attention to other details, to the interior, and And the enigma? The enigma concerns the double photographer. The
camera should be. This second picture shows a pin-sharp interior with a
also to the surrounding where the photographer himself stands: the street presence of this double will be not yet clear enough referring to the
person, probably a woman, sitting or standing by a table, with a bag and a
behind him; the two motorcycles on the curb, leaning on a big wall of possibility of a multiple exposure. The first photographer is a picture of
mass of waste packaging near to her. We cannot see that the photographer
hewed ashlars bathed in bright sunshine and partially covered with green. a photographer, but the second one is not simply a picture of him. The
holds up his camera but we see this second picture that he presents by
second photographer, the photographer “behind” the glass door, actually
his raised arms. This picture is bathed in light: Behind the person we see
[ Second Step ]
does not stand outside of the door. What is really outside is the blue vase,
a door and a window of glass, and the sun is shining in. This interior is
surrounded by the orange colored frame of the door and the window so that Is this first attempt to describe what we see already satisfactory? It is and the second photographer rather looks like a ghost who rises out of this
the whole gives the impression of a shining square box, which is exactly worrying that we do not yet know why we realize that the photographer wonder lamp. He is obviously a shadow, a reflection. Then it is cause to
the contrary to the “black box” of a camera. However, the interior of this appears twice in this photo. And what are the relations both between assume that there are two different authors of these two photographs: The
second picture is not limited by the orange frame; it has a foreground and pictures one and two as well as between pictures two and three? We have first photographer is shot by another person who photographs him while
also a background. to explain why there are two more photos within a photo because it is not he is photographing; and the second photographer is a mirror image of the
normal that a photographer does not hold up his camera but a photo in first photographer who is photographing himself—at all a very peculiar
The things in the foreground gradually disappear into darkness. We can which he appears. To answer these questions three solutions are possible. constellation for a double exposure.
only recognize in parts two tables and chairs; on the tables are small
dishes, cups, pots, and a lot of wrapped paper. Right at the bottom part of First, one could say that this is a kind of photomontage (we exclude the Nevertheless, this could be a reliable trace to get onto a third solution:
the floor are patterns of round circles. The foreground opens at the lower case that this photo is simply a result of a digital manipulation). The Perhaps not only the second photographer is a reflection, maybe the whole
edge of the bright box and runs up to us who are watching this all. At the picture of the double of the photographer (picture three) is pasted into interior is reflected. But what is the stuff that reflects? When the interior
same time it flows over the open jacket of the photographer and loses itself the picture of the bright box (picture two), which is in turn pasted into is a reflection that appears on the first photographer, between them there
in the area where the floor of the interior, the pants of the photographer the photo (picture one) itself. However, this explanation does not really must be a reflecting medium, be it a glass wall, a big window. Then the
and the street where he stands are merging into one another. This second work: We saw that the bright box located before its background continually photographer is looking from outside through a window, and we, from
photo, the photo within the photo, forms a pyramid with the illuminated disappears into a foreground that blends with the photographer himself and inside, see how the inside behind us is reflected in the windowpane in
box as the top and the patterned floor as the base. At the centre of the top his surrounding. In addition, not only the open jacket of the photographer front of us, and through the transparency of the glass we can see both, the
is the female person absorbed in her work. but also his raised arms overlap the whole of the second picture, and only photographed photographer and “on him” the subject that he takes. The
the bright light of the box gives the impression that its contour separates invisible glass medium is a borderline that both acts as a mediator between
Behind the woman, in her background, we see through the glasses of the this picture from its surrounding. the inner and the outer and separates the outer from the inner.
door and the window a lighted up place with a big blue vase and some
traces of green trees. However, in the middle of this bright area a dark Second, if this is not a photomontage because there is a overlapping of However, one important question is still unanswered: Who does take
shadow of a human being appears on the door, just behind the head of several pictorial levels, then it could be a double or triple exposure. Indeed, the photograph of this photographer? Or is even the photographer
the woman. This figure has the same contours as the photographer. Does the parts where pictures one and two are overlaying each other could be also a reflection? Does he photograph himself? And is also the second
he appear twice in this photo, not only in the first picture but also in the the result of multiple exposures. However, there is a pictorial conflict, and photographer still a reflection—of the first one, and then a reflection
second one? Obviously he does. Then there is a third picture within the furthermore a pictorial enigma that may be not explained by this model. within the reflection of the interior? How is the first photographer able
viii ix
to reflect himself and at the same time to take a picture of reflecting normally occupies the glass of the window and prevents to get a look inside. [ Fifth Step ] the 60th anniversary of his birth. But at the moment he photographed
his reflection within a reflected interior? This is a bewildering situation. Photography is a robbery of light—by shifting light to a certain area of a this picture he presented a part of his existence to the presentation of
Let us get ready to begin again, starting with the thesis that the first photographically confirmed reality that coincides with the interested eyes What is real? The photographer—standing in a street, in front of a stonewall this photography. This picture has withheld also his existence—not as a
photographer is a self portrait. of the photographer. The moved light constitutes the motif, which is the and motorcycles—and his mirror image in the background door alike are reflected one but as the absolute real point of his body, the “zero point
subject that will be focused as an object constituted by the “objective”, reflections. Real—of course real in the photo, meaning “not-reflected”—is of all orientation” (Husserl) as a real one that says: The photographer was
[ Third Step ] i.e., the lens, “the camera’s eye”. only the interior. Real in this sense are also the blue vase behind the glass here, in his own flesh. So the photo is a document, an evidence for the
door and the few traces of green one can see through the glass window. fact that there was a real living person who took it. This is the evidence of
However, in order to understand that this is a self portrait we have to try
[ Fourth Step ] These things encircle a private outside in contrast to the interior as the a real life that cannot be fixed by any means, it is the invisible that I am.
the big coup, a Copernican revolution: We totally retrace our position. The
business area of the shop—an outside which is marked off by a small inner The author of the photo is living flesh, and his action is an expression of
starting question could be: When all what we see is the result of reflections, On the contrary, the subject, i.e., the object for the eye of the camera, is
are there parts in this photo that are not reflected? Of course, when really a subject living in its own world and getting its own light by a lamp courtyard so that the mirror image on the glass door is caught in a private his living body. While the other cannot actually be grasped because she is
the photographer is a reflection, his background behind him, the whole hanging from the ceiling. The female person we see is lost in thought and area, between the inner and the outer of such a private space. always ahead, always the absolute outer, I cannot visualize myself because
ensemble of the street, motorcycles, stonewall, must also be reflected. Are work. Though she is surrounded by two shadows, she is not bothered by the I am originally, in my innermost mode of living, in my flesh, and the other
there areas of no reflection? fact that in this moment she is fixed by the shutter release of the camera. However, this real (not-reflected) zone of the photo is not actually real— is beyond to me because he or she is also living in flesh.
Maybe the subject plays the stronger part of this drama: Even though the it is only a photo of a real entity. We have to distinguish two different
Visualizing the new situation one must say that the function of the camera tries to seize the subject, it gives the impression of unassailability modes of being real: such that is meant, signed, pictured, photographed That it is not possible to visualize the act of any doing, particularly of
transparent glass wall is kept on: It is reflecting. But what it reflects is as if it can escape or has already escaped from being grasped by the etc. as “real”, and such that is beyond of such kinds of “sense” the photographing in itself, is no reason to resign. On the contrary, this fact
not longer the interior, it is the photographer himself. And this is the shutter. So one could say, that the same invisible glass window, the pivot factum brutum itself. A photo (and a picture at all) cannot show such a guarantees the access that every picture realizes, the specific perspective
big turn: We are not standing within the house any more. We are now of this all, is able to unveil the subject as well as to protect it before brute real since it is a picture of this or that; only the picture itself, the that every picture is, in a word: the limitlessness of setting up limits of
outside, becoming so to call the eye of the photographer who is taking a unveiling. This is the borderline where all begins and all will end, this is piece of paper, canvas or stone, is as such real in the second sense. It borderlines by every click of the shutter of the camera, over and over again.
photo of himself. The viewer of this photograph is exactly at that place the visible-invisible double of the camera’s eye and its transcending to its follows from this that the other who is visualized in this photo cannot The transparency of the camera’s eye shuts the pure real being of the person
where the real photographer stands, and he sees how the photographer is subject—the border of photographing: the power of grasping a real object be actually caught by it because photography has basically no capacity whose eye is looking through the camera. It also opens a worldly situation
photographing himself, how his figure will be reflected by the pane of glass and at the same time the impossibility of getting it as an actually real one. to seize a real being. where the other person appears—an area of an in-between where I and
in front of him that also reflects the background behind the photographer. the other can encounter—by pictorial means, by means of understanding.
However, what the photographer catches sight of what is behind the glass This paradox describes the existential situation of the photographer: Only Is this the whole relationship to reality? Only the negative result that a Thus the unique, single real being in my flesh causes the constitution of a
is not a reflection. It is real, real in the context of the photo: That is the in such situation where he encounters the other, he or she can experience photo does not present real things though itself is photographed by a real unique situation of time and space—now, in Kyoto.
whole interior. We and the photographer are looking through the glass his or her border—as the basic condition of photography. Cheung’s
person? One could also ask: Is all in the photo what the photo belongs? Or
at an interior with tables, chairs, dishes, cups and pots, and at a female photograph shows this all in one. It shows how the eye of the camera Compared with the pictorial time and space the preceding temporality and
is there something that is neither in the photo nor outside in the sense of
person in front of a glass door at the other side of this room. But this is transcends to the other and how it will be reflected back to itself, so the place where I am in my single flesh fall silent when the screen of the
the real surrounding of the photo-world? Is there an entity that is in and
not the end: The look passes along this line and culminates in the shadow that the photographer encounters himself in a way that he encircles his
picture opens. My real bodily singularity disappears, and remains as the
out—paradoxically outside at the inner side, on the border that the living
in the glass, the second image of the photographer. The glass door reflects subject without the ability to seize it really because the other and his own
necessary origin of that what we can see and what we can make visible.
body is? Of course, one could say, the other person, the woman, who is
the photographer a second time, so that his reflections encircle the inner surrounding are the only real (not reflected) topics in this picture. And
Itself is invisible, but not invisible as the shadowed counterpart in relation
represented in this photo, is actually a living person who lives at this time
area from both sides, and the inner is real. even a little nuance more: Since the second shadow of the photographer
to a visible horizon of meanings. Rather it marks the absolute ending, and
at this place etc. But this is not an answer to the question indeed since
which turns up on the glass door behind the real person is a reflection at
beginning, the radical outer of every being-in-a-world that is always built
the real living other belongs to my present surrounding, even when she is
The big turn we did results firstly in a reversal of the inner-outer-relation the inner side of the windowpane, one could say that the photographer has
of sense. In its radical absence—and ab-sense—it is still here, in this
regarding the standpoint of the viewer, and secondly in a changing of put himself in prison, that is in the shining box as the counterpart of the actually not here and will be out of my disposal in principle.
kairos, seized by this photo of “The Photographer. In Kyoto”.
real and reflected elements: The reflected zones becomes reality, and the black box of the camera. The transcending intention of the photographer
real areas prove to be reflected. The photographer is nothing else than a will be stopped only by its own mirror image—and nevertheless, he is not The only one who is neither within the picture nor outside but so to say at
reflection, a shadow. His reflected figure is unsharp and dark: He holds narcissistically looking at himself in the mirror because the camera’s eye the borderline of the picture itself is—the photographer, the real person
himself back, he is only a function of making visible, he unveils the pin- presents the other, but the other as a such who has evaded the sphere of who really stood in this place at this time in Kyoto. Of course, Mr. Cheung Hans Rainer Sepp is Senior Lecturer at the Faculty of Humanities, Charles
sharp centre of the inside by his body who robs the outside light that the photographer’s influence. is still living today—thank goodness, so we can congratulate him on University Prague.
x xi
Interplay between the Visible and the Imaginary Kwok-ying Lau
Notes towards a Phenomenological Approach to Photography
What is a photographic image? Since the invention of photography in tableau” is invented to draw attention to the parallelism between the pictorial It is surely impossible to tackle any of the above-mentioned questions in seems close to that of an object of imagination. However, as the young
the 19th century the technological support to produce and the media to effect of a photograph and a painting or a drawing. In short, photography is any depth in a short essay. These pages can only provide some hints from Sartre has demonstrated in his brilliant work The Imaginary, an imaginary
realize a photographic image have gone through tremendous changes. In no longer considered as serving a merely realistic and documentary function. the author’s own reflections out of a phenomenological approach. First of object can be given without any reference to a perceptual object. “The
the digital age today, photographic images appear more and more through But where does the artistic aspect of a photograph reside? Without doubt all, if a photographic image is an artwork capable of being indefinitely characteristic of the intentional object of the imaging consciousness is
an “immaterial medium”. This renders the status of a photographic image this resides in its possibility to awaken pleasure, imagination and emotion: reproduced, this shows that though the appearance of a photographic that the object is not there and is posited as such, or that it does not exist
more ambiguous, if not more enigmatic. What is the difference between a in short, in photography’s power to affect. By awakening imagination and image depends on a chemical or electronic medium, it is not an object of and is posited as nonexistent, or that it is not posited at all.”4 Thus an
photograph and a drawing or an etching? Is the function of a photograph emotion, a photograph has also an affective function: It can serve as a the real order, but an ideal unity. As shown by Husserl in the First Logical imaginary object is the result of an act of purely spontaneous production.5
plainly journalistic and serves no more than the reproductive representation calling, theological (calling of divinities), political (calling of justice), Investigation, the ideality of any meaning formation resides precisely in its In other words, it is the productive result of the subject’s act of freedom.
of an external world which is a reality in itself? If so, a photograph is meant moral (calling of compassion), or ecological (calling of Nature). What is the being indefinitely repeatable.3 By virtue of its repeatability, an object of But the photographer can never enjoy freedom in the same manner. Not
primarily to fulfill a truth function. But what kind of truth does a photograph relation between the representational, artistic and affective functions of a ideality is a unity in plurality: It bears within itself the identical eidetic only the photographer has to depend on technological support to produce
carry? Is it a propositional truth of scientific nature in the form of one-one photograph? Is there any tension between these functions? In any case, structure of the object through an infinite number of empirical or actual a photographic image, a photograph can never be realized independently
mapping between the compositional elements of the photographic image the multiple functions of a photograph show that photography is neither species. It is this character of ideality of the photographic image which of the sensible and visible world. However, a photographic image is
and the things of the world themselves that these elements are supposed purely an object of contemplative life (vita contemplativa), nor that of an provides the ontological basis for understanding a photograph’s character never entirely reducible to what is merely visible on the surface of the
to capture and represent? Or can this truth function only be fulfilled by the active life (vita activa), to use these well-known Arendtian terminologies of unity in plurality. Thus in spite of its possibility of being reproduced photograph. What is originated from the visible world on a photograph is
assistance of the viewer’s gaze and the viewing subject’s narrative which to describe this state of affairs. If a photograph is an artwork capable indefinitely by technological means, a photograph can retain its uniqueness. always ready to open an imaginary world. We perform an act of perception
is deployed not only according to what is visible and present, but also of being mechanically reproduced indefinitely, it has no more uniqueness. when a photograph is placed before our eyes, but the affective effects of
according to what is invisible and absent from the photograph itself? If However, given uniqueness is one of the traditional defining characteristics Now if we consider the mode of consciousness providing access to the photograph guide us away from the merely visible and the imaginary
this is the case, a photograph has a hermeneutical dimension not limited of artwork, why a photograph being deprived of its uniqueness can still photographic image, we will find that it is neither an act of pure perception intervenes. The photographer and the photographic spectator are for sure
to what is seen by the naked eye at the present moment, but carries with be considered as an artwork? Last but not least, what is the ontological nor that of pure imagination, but somewhat in between. A photographic a being-in-the-world in each case. But the world is never reduced to what
itself some sort of intentional depth to be unveiled by the viewing subject. status of a photographic image which renders it possible to carry along with image never appears in the way of a perceptual physical object. A perceptual is merely given by the visible. The horizonal structure of the world always
Pursuing along this line of thought, it will not be difficult to discover itself so many seemingly contradictory characteristics and functions? These object appears necessarily by way of adumbration, i.e., perspectival invites us to go beyond the merely visible. The horizon is the place where
further that a photograph also carries a deconstructive dimension: The are some of the many questions underlying the pioneering works of Walter givenness in which only certain sides of the perceived object are given the imaginary is called to take up the relay baton of the visible. That is why
photographic image can also be read as the interplay between moments of Benjamin1 and Roland Barthes2 in their quest to understanding photography. at one time while some other sides can be given only through subsequent considered from the standpoint of genetic phenomenology, the mode of
presence and absence, of revelation and simulacrum, of consciousness and temporal unfolding with the help of our bodily movement. Thus the unity of consciousness of photographic vision is the interplay between perception
the unconscious, of identity and difference within a certain pictorial space. a perceptual object is always only presumptive. For the perceptual process and imagination, in which the visible calls into action the imaginary. It
1 Walter Benjamin, “Das Kunstwerk im Zeitalter seiner technischen Reproduziertbarkeit”, first
All these mean that photography has its own mode of temporality and English translation as “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction”, in Illuminati- is a teleological process completed only in the ideally infinite unfolding of is neither pure perception nor pure imagination: It is a hybrid mode of
spatiality irreducible to the temporal and spatial order of physical reality. ons, ed. Hannah Arendt, Eng. trans. Harry Zohn (London: Fontana Press, 1973), pp. 211–244. temporality. A photographic image is never given by adumbration. Its unity consciousness.
New and different versions of this classic article exist and are translated into English: “The Work
of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility: Second Version”, Eng. trans. E. Jephcott as a visible object is given entirely at one stroke, no temporal unfolding
On the other hand, photography is more and more considered as a kind of and H. Zohn, in Walter Benjamin: Selected Writings, vol. 3, ed. Howar Eiland and Michael W. is needed. In this respect, the mode of givenness of a photographic image
Jennings (Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2002), pp. 101–133;
artwork in its own right. This can be witnessed by the increasing reception “The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility: Third Version”, Eng. trans. H. 4 Jean-Paul Sartre, L’imaginaire: psychologie phénoménologique de l’imagination (Paris: Gallimard,
of photographic exhibitions in important artistic institutions and museums Zohn and E. Jephcott, in Walter Benjamin: Selected Writings, vol. 4, pp. 251–283. 3 Edmund Husserl, Logische Untersuchungen, Zweiter Band, I. Teil, I. Untersuchung, §11 (Tübin- 1940), p. 25; The Imaginary: A Phenomenological Psychology of the Imagination, Eng. trans.
2 Roland Barthes, La chambre claire (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1980); Camera Lucida: Reflections gen: Max Niemeyer, 1980), pp. 42–45; Logical Investigations, Vol. One, Investigation I, §11, Jonathan Webber (London & New York: Routledge, 2004), p. 13.
in the West since the last decades. At the same time, the term “photographic
on Photography, Eng. trans. Richard Howard (New York: Hill and Wong, 1981). Eng. trans. J. N. Findlay (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1970), pp. 284–286. 5 Sartre, L’imaginaire, p. 26; The Imaginary, p. 14.
xii xiii
If perception is at the origin of the epistemological attitude, imagination of adherence to the truth of the perceptual faith underlying the natural However, when the invisible, the absence or the unconscious are awaken the gloomy background and the luminosity of the faces of the mother-
is that of the aesthetic attitude. With the double or hybrid nature of the attitude. in the narrative of the viewing subject, the imaginary intervenes actively. son pair, symbolizing the unfailing force of hope overcoming a past of
mode of consciousness of photographic vision, we can understand why It is then possible to speak of the poetics of photography: The imaginary darkness through the unconditional love exemplified by infinite maternal
photography can at the same time fulfill the journalistic function, which However, when we suspend our belief towards the truth value of the is activated in a narrative which unfolds itself in a temporality of its own care. For my own part, this photograph testifies to the highest degree
plays essentially a realistic and documentary role, and the artistic function, photographic image, when we turn our attention to the balance between right. That is why when Roland Barthes employs the binary concepts of to the critical-political function and the artistic-poetic dimension of
which calls into play our faculty of imagination and the aesthetic attitude luminosity and shade, the spatial configuration, the pattern of graphic studium and punctum to build up his quasi-phenomenological theory of photography.
which accompanies it. In the terms of Sartre, imagination is precisely “the elements, the effect of contrast or harmony between the colours, the photography, such a theory is limited to the stage of static constitution.
great ‘irrealizing’ function (fonction ‘irréalisante’) of consciousness and its impression of stillness or movement, the interplay between foreground and When Barthes stresses that the temporality of a photograph is limited Before closing this very brief attempt at a phenomenological elucidation
noematic correlate, the imaginary”.6 background, and the mode of pictorial composition, etc. which appear on to the past, it seems that he is unaware of the dimension of genetic of photography, I must express my admiration and gratitude towards
the photograph, we have performed an epochē with regard to the natural constitution in phenomenological research. It is genetic constitution Chan-fai Cheung, the author of the present album who is at the same
Consistent with the teaching of Husserl on the basic epistemological attitude. By disregarding whether the photographic image corresponds which, if not completes, at least supplements static constitution. time an accomplished photographer and a phenomenological philosopher.
function of perception, Merleau-Ponty reminds us that each act of to something really existing in the world, we change our attitude into Being one of my best friends, closest colleagues and phenomenological
natural perception is sustained by a “perceptual faith”, which is an act of an aesthetic attitude. In Husserl’s terms, this is an act of “imaginative Let me illustrate my propos by an example of my own experience of comrades, Chan-fai guided me through his numerous personal photographic
adherence to the perceptual world and the things perceived, an act “that modification (imaginative Modifikation)” in which “judgements are passed photographic vision. I saw an exhibition of journalistic photographs in exhibitions to the way to discover the artistic-poetic dimension of
knows itself beyond proofs”.7 That is to say, an act of natural perception in a certain manner, but they lack the character of genuine judgements: we the mid-1980s in the Georges Pompidou Centre in Paris. Nearly a quarter photography. This short essay is dedicated to him at the occasion of his
bears with itself an unshaken belief that the world and the things of the neither believe, deny or doubt what is told us—mere ‘imaginings’ replace of a century after visiting this exhibition, only one photograph among 60th birthday.
world which lie before its eyes exist beyond doubt, and that is why they genuine judgements. Such talk must not be taken to mean that imagined probably a hundred or more shown during this occasion remains in my
are also beyond proofs. Husserl calls this basic attitude underlying natural judgements here take the place of actual ones. We rather enact, instead of mind now. However, each time when I recall it, it is as vivid as if I
perception the natural attitude.8 If we stick to this natural attitude when a judgement affirming a state of affairs, the qualitative modification, the just saw it yesterday. I recall neither the name of the photographer, who
we see things in the world, we believe that the things seen are real and neutral putting in suspense of the same state of affairs, which cannot be is Japanese, nor the title of the photograph. On this black and white
exist in themselves beyond doubt. It is this attitude that a journalistic identified with any fictional representation (Phantasieren) of it”.9 This is the photograph is a Japanese woman, in her 40s or 50s, face to face with her
photograph appeals to: It aims to persuade us to believe in the natural attitude underlying an aesthetic judgement, i.e., a contemplative attitude handicapped son who has the head and the trunk of a young adult but
truth revealed by the photographic image. Theorists who emphasize the which is unaffected by the epistemological interest but lends oneself to the limbs of an infant. They are bathing in the same basin of oval shape
social and political functions of photography appeal precisely to the act be affected by the sense of pleasure generated by this “irrealizing” view. situated in a dark and spacious background. According to the caption
Viewed under such an aesthetic attitude, the photograph now reveals provided, the young man is born deformed as the result of his mother’s
itself as an artwork. exposure to radiation released by the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima
6 Sartre, L’imaginaire, p. 11; The Imaginary, p. 3.
on 6 August 1945. The face of the son is more or less without expression.
7 Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Le visible et l’invisible (Paris: Gallimard, 1964), p. 48; The Visible and the
Invisible, Eng. trans. Alphonso Lingis (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1968), p. 28. When the photographic vision pays more attention to the pictorial However, the mother’s face is full of tenderness. This photograph strikes
8 Edmund Husserl, Ideen zu einer reinen Phänomenologie und phänomenologischen Philosophie, elements of the photograph, its spatial dimensions are privileged. me by the sharp contrast between the barbarism of the atomic bombing
I. Buch, Allgemeine Einführung in die reine Phänomenologie (Tübingen: Max Niemeyer, 1980),
and the humanity of an aging mother’s love for her invalid son, between
§30, “Die Generalthesis der natürlicher Einstellung”, pp. 52–53; Ideas Pertaining to a Pure Phe-
nomenology and to a Phenomenological Philosophy, First Book, General Introduction to a Pure the particularity of this historic event and the universality of maternal Kwok-ying Lau is Professor at the Department of Philosophy, The Chinese
Phenomenology, Eng. trans. F. Kersten (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1983), §30, 9 Edmund Husserl, Logische Untersuchungen, Zweiter Band, I. Teil, p. 490; Logical Investigations,
love, as well as the poetic effect brought about by the contrast between University of Hong Kong.
“The General Position which Characterizes the Natural Attitude”, pp. 56–57. Vol. One, pp. 645–646.
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[ I ] General
