[SpecialK]

My point, based on numerous posts I've seen primarly in the Beginner's Corner, is that one must be careful not to fall prey to the notion that merely switching to manual mode is some sort of automatic ticket to better photographs.

That, and spot-metering :-)

[johnmflores]

Why?

A great image stands alone without any reference to time or place or dark political motives.

I would bet you could show this to a pre-literate mother in the jungles of highland Borneo and she would "get it" immediately.

I for one think that context is necessary for understanding an image. Images after all aren't created in a vacuum, and the context of the image and the context of the viewer impacts what is seen.

Here's an interesting story about these famous Depression-era photos from the context of the subjects...

http://www.theatlantic.com/video/archive/2010/03/dust-bowl-days/37195/

[Mike Cash]

It would seem to me that if your image needed words for understanding than perhaps you were using the wrong medium for what you wanted to convey?

It wasn't a matter of medium. It was a matter of my mistakenly assuming that my audience possessed the cultural knowledge to understand the photograph. The assumption was based on the fact that they are all natives of the culture and of an age that one might reasonably assume they would know about the subject. It struck me odd that someone such as myself.....a foreigner....should instantly recognize the significance of the scene while not a single one of the natives were sufficiently aware to spot it.

Since the end of WWII there has been a very significant shift in Japanese burial practices. Prior to that period burials were all either solo graves or, as in the case of the photo I posted, graves of couples. Buddhist tradition dictates that people receive from their temple a post-mortem name, which is what is carved on the stone. As the name can only be received after death the blank space on the left side of the stone loudly screams out that one half of the couple is not present. The western equivalent would be finding a gravestone with the couples names engraved and no death date carved for one, despite the birth date (or apparent age of the stone) clearly indicating that the missing spouse must by now be long dead. The modern practice is to have one large family tomb with the cremated remains of a number of family members all interred together. The names of those interred are then carved into a separate stone adjacent to the tomb. Several generations and various relations may all be in there together (each in their own separate urn, of course). Typically older solo/couple graves are incorporated into the new(er) family tomb, with appropriate carvings indicating their inclusion and with their old stones moved to and clustered alongside the new tomb. As the people who viewed the photo were all of an age to presumably have at some point been involved in the moving of such old graves to a new tomb my assumption that they were sufficiently familiar with their own cultural practices to understand the photo was strengthened. Unfortunately, my faith in people being aware of their own cultural practices was misplaced. Over the course of 26 years living here, though, I have on numerous occasions had a chance to observe instances of outsiders being more informed and aware of some aspects of Japanese culture than are the Japanese themselves so the experience wasn't exactly novel.

[johnmflores]

It wasn't a matter of medium. It was a matter of my mistakenly assuming that my audience possessed the cultural knowledge to understand the photograph. The assumption was based on the fact that they are all natives of the culture and of an age that one might reasonably assume they would know about the subject. It struck me odd that someone such as myself.....a foreigner....should instantly recognize the significance of the scene while not a single one of the natives were sufficiently aware to spot it.

Since the end of WWII there has been a very significant shift in Japanese burial practices. Prior to that period burials were all either solo graves or, as in the case of the photo I posted, graves of couples. Buddhist tradition dictates that people receive from their temple a post-mortem name, which is what is carved on the stone. As the name can only be received after death the blank space on the left side of the stone loudly screams out that one half of the couple is not present. The western equivalent would be finding a gravestone with the couples names engraved and no death date carved for one, despite the birth date (or apparent age of the stone) clearly indicating that the missing spouse must by now be long dead. The modern practice is to have one large family tomb with the cremated remains of a number of family members all interred together. The names of those interred are then carved into a separate stone adjacent to the tomb. Several generations and various relations may all be in there together (each in their own separate urn, of course). Typically older solo/couple graves are incorporated into the new(er) family tomb, with appropriate carvings indicating their inclusion and with their old stones moved to and clustered alongside the new tomb. As the people who viewed the photo were all of an age to presumably have at some point been involved in the moving of such old graves to a new tomb my assumption that they were sufficiently familiar with their own cultural practices to understand the photo was strengthened. Unfortunately, my faith in people being aware of their own cultural practices was misplaced. Over the course of 26 years living here, though, I have on numerous occasions had a chance to observe instances of outsiders being more informed and aware of some aspects of Japanese culture than are the Japanese themselves so the experience wasn't exactly novel.

Not surprising, really. Newly minted US citizens probably know more about US history than those who last studied it in grade school. Likewise, transplants with an open mind see and remember things as adults that locals long ago forgot in classrooms. That, I guess, is the dividing line between the culture of a society and its history...

[jimH]

Not surprising, really. Newly minted US citizens probably know more about US history than those who last studied it in grade school. Likewise, transplants with an open mind see and remember things as adults that locals long ago forgot in classrooms. That, I guess, is the dividing line between the culture of a society and its history...

That's interesting! As I get older, I get more aware of my ancestry and where I came from. When I was younger, it was always all about myself and what was affecting me.

When I got "older" I began to be more aware of those who came before me and more interested in them and all that they encountered in their lives. I'm always mystified by those who have no knowledge, or interest in those who came before them and their lives.

It would seem to me that they are missing something very essential to their own lives by not being aware of or interested in the lives of their fore-bearers. After-all, we are who we are somewhat as a result of who our ancestors were and their experiences, whether we realize it or not.