Ian Shaw 513626 Assignment 2

Photography 3 | Contextual Studies 1

‘Keeping it unreal’

Literature Review & Dissertation Proposal

Contextual Studies

Assignment 2

Ian Shaw

Student ID# 513626

27 February 2021

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Photography 3 | Contextual Studies 2

“…at every level, photographic images

are fraught with ambiguity” (Clarke, 1997)

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Introduction

A century ago, Hereford photographer Alfred Watkins set in motion a topographical debate

that remains unresolved to this day. The cause was his theory of ‘leys’ – prehistoric

“trackways used by traders and others marked out…from hill to hill and points in between”

(Shoesmith, 1990: P.124). The scientific community rejected his theories as pseudoscience

(Feagans, 2018) and respected archaeological journal Antiquity “even refused to include a

paid advertisement” (Shoesmith, 1990: P.132). Despite this, they captured the public’s

enthusiasm and ‘became something of a countryside craze in 1927 (Daniels, 2006) and took

on a metaphysical dimension in the 1970s through the esoteric writings of John Michell.

Their popularity endures to this day and, as a consequence, metaphysical belief continues to

vie ambiguously with scientific evidence.

Fig 1. The St Michael Ley. (2020)

Photography is of course similarly conflicted, being “a manipulated medium, despite the

protestations by news photographers of complete objectivity” (Mullen, 1998). Its Indexicality

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pollutes any attempt at pure expression by an artist, whilst all endeavours to record a faithful

facsimile are imbued with the taint of the photographer’s visual and aesthetic preferences.

Through research, I aim to explore photographic ambiguity through literary roots, the

writings of photographers and existentialist philosophers such as Simone de Beauvoir, I will

draw parallels between the ambiguous nature of Watkins’ leys and other earth mystery lines

with photography, using this vehicle to argue that photography’s time is now - if only we can

“become ‘multilingual’ in all the competing philosophical worldviews” (ibid), rather than

seek to resolve to a singularity the inherent ambiguity of photography’s true nature.

Alfred Watkins

Alfred Watkins (1855-1935) began work for his father’s brewery which afforded him

opportunities to get to know the local landscape intimately (Michell, 1970). He also had a

keen interest in photography and was awarded the Royal Photographic Society’s Progress

Medal in 1910, putting him amongst such revered company as Man Ray, Steichen and

Stieglitz (RPS, 2021). He invented and manufactured various pinhole cameras and exposure

meters (Watkins, 1920; Shoesmith 1990) making him a respected Hereford “miller, brewer,

archaeologist, photographic innovator and inventor” as well as “leader of public opinion”

(ibid). Set against this rather traditionalist persona, Michell and Shoesmith explain how he

“perceived the existence of the Ley system in a single flash” (Michell, 1970: P.xvi) while out

riding his horse, suddenly becoming “aware of a network of lines, standing out like glowing

wires” (ibid: P.xv). He went on to publish several books on the subject, including The Old

Straight Track and The Ley Hunter’s Manual in response to a growing public appetite for

adding “a new zest to field rambles” (Shoesmith, 1990: P.135), advising seekers that “to

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prove…a Ley by photography, at least three points must be shown in alignment” (Watkins,

1927: p94).

The view over Atlantis

Watkins’ work gained renewed public attention from mentions in Michell’s 1969 work The

View Over Atlantis, whereupon Leys became “firmly entrenched in the popular imagination”

(Charlesworth, 2010). A more spiritual engagement with the earth blossomed through

emerging ‘New Age’ and neo-pagan communities (Hutton, 1999), helping Leys, earth energy

lines and geomancy to become “the largest group on the archaeological fringe in Britain”

(Williamson and Bellamy, 1983: P.185).

Groups such as the British Society of Dowsers have since detected innumerable lines linking

megalithic sites and other notable locations. Some span the width and length of Britain, such

as the Belinus Line running like an axis from the Isle of Wight to the northernmost tip of

Scotland (Bitcliffe & Hoare, 2012). In the 1980s, Hamish Miller and Paul Broadhurst

confirmed through dowsing in The Sun & the Serpent that separate ‘Michael’ and ‘Mary’

energy lines weaved their way along the entire St Michael Line (the UK’s most famous Ley

traversing England at its widest point) like the two serpents on Zeus’ Caduceus (Miller &

Broadhurst, 1989).

Fig 2: A Caduceus (2020)

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People who have walked these lines speak convincingly of becoming able to ‘sense’ these

energies to the extent that they learn to navigate them without even the aid of dowsing rods or

a map (Booth & Kriya Arts, 2020). My late father, a plumber, similarly used dowsing rods to

determine the location of underground pipes, saying “I’ve no idea how these work, they just

do!”

The established scientific and archaeological communities dismissed all such lines as “a

collection of illogical arguments” and “one of the biggest red herrings in the history of

popular thought” (Williamson & Bellamy, 1983: p146). But not everything can be explained

by science. Even Williamson and Bellamy conceded that “there are a few Leys which really

are impressive” (ibid: p.195). Michell went so far as to assert that the truth was to be found

by approaching it the opposite way round, in that energy lines and Leys “can be confirmed

scientifically, but its first discovery must be by other methods” (Michell, 1973).

Ambiguity and the photograph

Photography is of course no stranger to such a paradoxical concept as a singularity of truth.

“Originally considered a way to objectively represent reality” (Mullen 1988) points to André

Bazin’s declaration that “the photographic image is the object itself” (Bazin in Trachtenberg,

1980). These echo how in the 19th century photography was seen as “an automatic recording

device that required no interpretation” (Warner Marien, 2014: P69) and Delaroche’s

infamously succinct complaint that “from today, painting is dead!” (ibid: P.405).

But it didn’t take long for the new visual medium to be used for artistic expression through

the pictorialism movement (Soutter, 2018: p38). By the early 20th century Stieglitz was

exploring how “subjects from the most exalted to the most banal are transformed into

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pictures by the special properties of the photographic medium” (ibid). Stieglitz and others

since have demonstrated that the photograph now holds an aesthetic just as vividly as it can

hold a document, making its true nature as ambiguous as Watkins’ Leys. As Soutter claims,

“photography has never been one medium, but many” (Soutter, 2018: p.155).

Despite all of this, a search for the word ‘ambiguity’ within the index pages of photographic

textbooks offers surprisingly few results. Berger’s proclamation that “All photographs are

Ambiguous” (Berger, 2013: P.65) seems to lead the charge, while Clarke points supports by

describing the very first photograph as an “ambiguity” and “not so much an image as an

archaeological fragment”, referring to the poor technical quality of Niépce’s View from a

window at Gras (1826)’ and inferring a fitting sense of mystique upon it (Clarke, 1997: p12).

Fig 3. View from the Window at Le Gras, (1827)

Clarke also uses the word to describe Mapplethorpe’s Apollo (1988), a monochrome

photograph of a statue of the Greek god – in a sense ‘the ideal’ of what a portrait should be,

yet not actually a portrait of a real person at all. By the same logic, he points to the self-

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portraits of Cindy Sherman which are ‘fed by a consistent sense of ambiguity and self-

questioning’(ibid: p119) in that they are Sherman, but never actually look like Sherman. He

goes on to assert that any portrait photograph is ‘fraught with ambiguity’ on account of its

‘aesthetic, cultural ideological, sociological and physiological’ interactions (ibid: p101).

He goes on to reference a self-portrait of Richard Avedon, highlighting how the portrait

‘declares as it questions its terms of reference’ (Clarke, 1997: p121). The photograph shows

Avedon part concealing his own face with a mask against a plain white background.

Detached from the historical norms of portraiture through the choice of background and

resulting loss of external context, and also by Avedon’s part-concealed literal identity, can we

reliably determine who this is a portrait of?

If ambiguity is so ubiquitous in photography, yet writers often shy from using the term, we

need to explore what ambiguity is, and by what synonyms it travels instead.

Defining ambiguity

William Empson produced the most authoritative literary criticism of Ambiguity in his book

Seven Types of Ambiguity, first published in 1930 and analysing “alternative reactions to the

same piece of language” (Empson, 1949: p.1). Along with metaphor and multiple metaphor –

familiar semiotic devices within the language of photography – he also highlights “when two

or more meanings are resolved into one” (ibid: p.48) and a single word representing different

things at the same time. Other types categorise the author’s confused state at the point of

writing - intentionally or otherwise - and empty statements where the reader/viewer must fill

in the gaps, amongst others. He explains them in the sequence of “stages of advancing social

disorder” (ibid: p.48).

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Fig 4. Thein suggests ambiguity can be created through withholding 'resolving power', such as in blur. (2021)

Ming Thein is one contemporary photographer who has embraced ambiguity in his work,

citing “resolving power, spatial arrangement and conscious exclusion” as the three methods

of achieving it (Thein, 2015). The first of these leverages the literal nature of the photograph

and the inability to ‘see’ something (through lens blur or being too small to resolve by the

sensor or film grain). ‘Spatial arrangement’ deals with the “implied limitation to the

composition delineated by the edges of the frame” (ibid). It can be positive and negative, for

example by hinting at something occurring outside the frame, or “forced empty space in the

centre” (ibid). Conscious exclusion refers to selective omission (i.e., cropping and framing

mean that, from the viewer’s standpoint, something does not exist which causes problems

when someone who was present points out the ambiguity upon viewing the resultant image

Magnum photographer Stuart Franklin explores the role of the caption in photographic

ambiguity, arguing it to be more than “the Faultline that some feel has opened up between art

and photojournalism” (Franklin, 2018) while also being “no guarantee of clarification”

(ibid). Quoting Leonard Freed’s view that: “…ambiguity is one of the great strengths of

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photography; Everything else, he insisted, was propaganda” (ibid) he contrasts this with

Rosler’s challenge on Susan Meiselas’ Nicaragua in that the victims’ “moving testimony

about atrocities…omits all mention of political convictions” and “fuzziness about details”

(Rosler, 1981).

Citing Berger, Frankin adds support to his claim “that ambiguity arises out of discontinuity

(Berger, 2013: p.64), and as such should be added to Thein’s growing list of facets, “as

exemplified by Eliott Erwitt” (Franklin, 2018). Erwitt was a photographer whose “many shots

exude an air of mystery – often arising from a sense that there is a bigger drama occurring

beyond the frame” (O’Hagan, 2021). But conversely, Berger felt that the ambiguity “does not

reside within the instant of the event photographed” at all, but within the “abyss between the

moment recorded and the moment of looking” (Berger 2013: p.64).

Natural ambiguity

Aligned with Sartre’s work on existentialism, the 20th century philosopher and feminist

Simone de Beauvoir saw ambiguity as part of the human condition “for as long as there were

men” (de Beauvoir, 1947: p.6). De Beauvoir argued that the adolescent reacts in various ways

to the shock of transcendence from a structured, predictable world of childhood to discover

the more ambiguous “human character of the reality about him” (ibid: p.42). She argues that

the only way out of this is to find freedom within this ambiguity, rather than to chase an

unattainable perfection or truth. She cites Sartre’s description of Charles Baudelaire as an

example of how “one stubbornly maintains the values of childhood…in order to be able to

trample upon on them” (de Beauvoir, 1947: p.57) and concludes that man “must at last

accept his subjectivity” (ibid).

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Does a similar “burning rancour” (ibid) attributed to Baudelaire sit behind Williamson and

Bellamy’s “complete refutation” (Charlesworth, 2010) of Leys? Charlesworth examines

Watkins’ theories from a photographic standpoint and determines, like de Beauvoir, that “it is

only by not taking sides” (ibid) that we can “understand how photography works in a

situation of epistemological ambiguity” (ibid). Describing both sides of the argument as a

“struggle over belief” (ibid), Charlesworth sets out to propose improvements to the

established semiotic model of:

Referent (subject) Signifier (photograph) Signified (viewing and meaning)

His issue is that, despite being the “orthodox model of photography…it cannot

simultaneously accommodate the views of Watkins’ critics” (ibid). Charlesworth argues that

the Signified happens “elsewhere and time and in a different geographical space” (ibid) -

echoing what Berger referred to as the ‘Abyss’ (Berger, 2013: p.64). Upon viewing the

photograph, the viewer assumes the existence of a second Referent “which may or may not

have a relationship” (ibid) with the original referent. There is a gap of perception, in every

photograph, dictated by the viewer looking at an icon (i.e. the second referent, resembling the

original referent in some form) in lieu of an indexical original Referent from the

photographer’s standpoint.

Conclusion Berger, de Beauvoir and Charlesworth together present a framework where opposing

interpretations of Watkins’ Leys can – and arguably should – coexist.

Contemporary writers on the future of photography also appear to underline the need for

Mullen’s ‘multicultural’ approach. Richin recognises the need for “reliable and meaningful

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media” (Richin, 2009: P.184) while suggesting that the democratisation of photography can

provide for “malleability and overlap” (ibid) if obstacles can be overcome to “transform this

moment into an age of enlightenment rather than a permanent war on terror” (ibid).

However we approach it, the binary opposition created by Watkins where society

metaphorically stands on one side or the other of his problematic Ley lines, shows no sign of

being resolved to a singularity a hundred years on. The question facing photography, which

is, after all, “a product of human labor, a cultural object” according to Damisch (Damisch,

1978), is whether we can celebrate its inherent ambiguity to better enjoy the unknown

journey towards de Beauvoir’s promised freedom.

2,062 words (incl. quotations, excl. citations).

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List of illustrations

Fig 1. Ancient Wisdom (2020) The St Michael Ley. At: www.ancient-wisdom.co.uk

Fig 2: Anon. A Caduceus (public domain) (2020)

Fig 3. Joseph Nicéphore Niépce (1827) View from the Window at Le Gras, by 1827

(manually enhanced version by Helmut Gersheim, 1952). Public domain image. At:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/View_from_the_Window_at_Le_Gras#/media/File:View_from

_the_Window_at_Le_Gras,_Joseph_Nicéphore_Niépce.jpg

Fig 4. Untitled. Ian Shaw. (2021)

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References

Alfred Watkins - Herefordshire Photographer (2013) Directed by Brown, D. At:

https://youtu.be/t81ZISDPz9k (Accessed 06/11/2020).

Alfred Watkins 1910s - Film41154 (2015) Huntley Film Archives. At:

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Ancient Wisdom: St Michael (2020) At: http://www.ancient-wisdom.com/stmichael.htm

(Accessed 09/08/2020).

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Resources 26 (2) pp.131–145. At: https://doi.org/10.1080/01973761003750666

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et al Trachtenberg, A. (1980) Classic Essays on Photography. (5th ed.) Sedgwick, ME:

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