Final Image Discussion: Using the Elements of Photographic Language to Read David Taylor’s Working the Line

SUBJECT, CONTENT, AND FORM

Throughout this text I have referenced photographic language to written language because both are used to structure specific contents into a coherent form to communicate about a particular subject or subjects. We might not always fully comprehend what the author of a book or photograph intended, but using the key components of the artist’s language thoughtfully to describe the work’s contents can bring us closer to understanding.

Along the Tijuana River, San Ysidro, California.

A Single Image within a Series

Just as image contents within the same frame relate to one another, a group of images—called a series—about the same subject also interrelate, informing one another to help deepen and broaden our understanding of the subject. Each image builds on the next to form a more complete picture of the subject. Perhaps there are several subjects interconnecting at different levels, and perhaps there is a range of legitimate interpretations, but overall a series should bring us closer to an accurate understanding of the subject than the single image can.

Along the Tijuana River, San Ysidro, California is one of several establishing images within David Taylor’s series. In it we see a formidably armed man peering through a viewing hole in a border fence between California and Mexico. The two primary contents of the image—the man and the fence through which the landscape is seen—indicate a central theme. Taylor intentionally adopted a vantage point to include the large weapon used “in defense of” the narrow line of land, revealing a significant part of one side’s stance on his subject.

Image Content

By describing image contents and how they’re captured using photography’s technical and compositional elements, we more fully understand and more richly experience “the whole picture.” There is no such thing as digging too deep into image contents and how the elements of photographic language delineate them.

Awaiting Processing, Arizona.

What contents can you identify in this photograph, Awaiting Processing, Arizona, and which specific elements of photography act upon those contents? Two men with dark brown skin are sitting on a steel bench in front of a window. One man looks down and is slightly blurred due to his movement during a longer shutter speed, and the other is hunched over, holding himself in his own arms. But what else do you see? If you interpret the direction of the blur, it looks as though the first man is shaking his head, looking downward dejectedly. The other man, whose expression we can see, appears disappointed, isolated, and perhaps even sick to his stomach. Looking deeper still, we notice that both men are wearing American apparel, one with a star-spangled red-white-and-blue motif “United States” T-shirt and the other with New York ball cap with an additional “NY” on its brim. So what does all this description of content offer us? It adds up to tell us something about these men, who they are, where they come from, or where they might be going. With some outside knowledge of the situation or within the context of the series, it might also indicate why the men are wearing so many American logos, and why they seem disappointed with the place they find themselves when the image was made. This highly informative depiction is possible because Taylor combined a long list of photographic elements: solid framing of carefully selected image contents, perfect exposure density, a tripod with a shutter speed just long enough to blur an important aspect of moving content, critical focus on his subjects, and research into the types of images he would need to tell the larger story.

ELEMENT 1: FRAMING

As our first photographic element, we discussed the frame. Within it photographers arrange the three-dimensional world onto a two-dimensional picture plane, and they use juxtaposition within that plane to intertwine the image contents. This, along with visual variety, allows photographers to crate a sort-of “meta view” of image content, and what that content denotes about their subject. Framing is the “sentence structure” of photographic language, giving us the ability to encapsulate the meaning of our work.

Office Work (shared desk), Texas.

Fingerprinting, Arizona.

Drugs, Texas.

The Macro View

In the image, Office Work (shared desk), Texas, a desk covered with paperwork leads our eye back to barn-side paneling covered with more paperwork and an officer sunken in between. The arrangement of the frame (an overlapping picture plane) and the mountain of paperwork in the room relative to the size of the primary subject—the officer—are overwhelming. This is the macro view, pulled back from the details to frame a bigger picture, allowing us to contextualize more information. In this case, it seems to denote that the job is too large for the person (by extension all the people) doing it.

The Micro View and Cropping

Through the previous macro view, David Taylor paints with large brushstrokes a significant aspect of the whole story, though it provides few of the details that make the story personal. Within a series, the micro views add visual variety to balance the macro ones; they are up close; providing information that more remote views cannot, and in their relative scale (magnifying image contents) can even become confrontational to viewers. The blue gloves in, Fingerprinting, Arizona, jut toward us, the forward hand appearing larger due to wide-angle lens distortion, making the process of being fingerprinted feel even more uncomfortable. By moving in close, Taylor brings us the details, bringing what seem like remote issues very close to home.

But as we discussed, framing isn’t only about what to keep in; it’s about what to keep out, both for aesthetic and communicative reasons, as well as for practical ones. People are cropped in rather unusual ways in these images, their faces intentionally excluded from the frame. These crops might seem conspicuous, but not when you consider the content of the images, and the nature of the subject they address. His framing and cropping in both Fingerprinting, Arizona and Drugs, Texas, does two things: they lead our eye straight to the primary subject of the photographs (fingerprinting and drugs), while simultaneously protecting the identities of the people in the images. Through sophisticated cropping, Taylor gives us the right information in the right configuration to understand what he left out and why, while simultaneously attending to the practicalities of photographing official agencies.

Mural (with border fence), Sonora.

Juxtaposition

Mural (with border fence), Sonora. We’re in the desert, and we come upon a former dwelling’s empty shell with its roof caved onto the floor and a still-vibrant (oddly enough) mural painted on an interior wall. Sounds pretty banal, until you look at the juxtapositions within the frame and interpret what they communicate. First, this is no ordinary scenic mural; it’s a contemporary political landscape, it’s content depicting the border fence, as well as what could reasonably be a Border Patrol helicopter hovering above. The painted landscape is juxtaposed with the actual landscape in which it exists, their horizon lines meeting in parallel because of the photographer’s vantage point, serving to flatten the picture into a somewhat static plane, and suggesting that our perspectives on the landscape are mirrored reflections of our relationship to it.

Using Multiple Frames

We know that several images can work to inform one another within a series, but what about when several images are placed in proximity to one another to create a singular meaning? We can make multipanel panoramic images, diptychs or triptychs, or we can montage images together. These are a few of the methods we discussed, but there are numerous ways to create, configure, and look at multiple frames. The photographic elements are not limited to the scope of this text; their potential and the excitement of using them come from taking the basic concepts and expanding on them in innovative ways to communicate new meanings.

Grid view of 12 border markers from David Taylor’s The Line.

An Alternate Configuration of Multiple Frames

Just what is “the line”? What is its physical shape, and what indicates to us that there is one? Like all political boundaries, the line is a demarcation of possession or control, denoting similarity and safety for the particular group within it. But in terms of the land it divides, no real line exists; it’s invisible, so we need to look at color-coded maps to see them. So then, how can we stand out in the land and see it? One way is to travel to its signifiers—the border monuments that dot the line along the United States and Mexico.

These 12 border monument images, which belong to a larger group documenting all the border monuments along the international boundary west of the Rio Grande, are not usually presented in this fashion. I configured them for the purpose of this discussion and to provide a more inclusive look at David

Taylor’s faceted approach to his subject. One way these images do exist is as an accordion-style printed foldout accompanying his book, Working the Line. But for me, photographing all of the border monuments west of the Rio Grande creates a kind of typology of “the line” that looking at one of them or a few of them does not. These straightforward images of border monuments juxtapose their similarities and differences, contextualize them within their immediate landscapes, and indicate their diminutive scale against the borderline itself. In addition to that, as a linear exploration they provide a means of visually “connecting the dots” of locations that are in reality very far apart, thereby outlining “the line” of the border itself.

ELEMENT 2: APERTURES, Focus, AND LENSES

Viewer attention is focused according to what we most clearly see in an image, and photographers control that focus, combining it with depth of field to maintain attention on the primary subject while allowing us to relate it to the rest of the frame’s contents. Focus clarifies, lack of focus obscures, and because of the nature of photographic language, there are appropriate times to use each. Beyond focus, it’s lenses that allow us to get where we need to be—whether it’s a wide view of a cramped space or a magnified view of a faraway place—focal length grants us the proximity we need to frame the photograph we want.

Border Monument No. 198, Desierto de Altar/Yuma Desert.

Broad Depth of Field

Documentary work by nature is generally intended to be informative, and conscious use of broad depth of field allows viewers to get the most information we can. Most all of David Taylor’s work has extremely wide depth of field, including this panoramic image of a border monument overlooking a vast landscape. His use of a large-format view camera on a tripod supposes his ability to use longer shutter speeds to establish this needed depth of field. In this image, Border Monument No. 198, Desierto de Altar/Yuma Desert, the details reveal one lone cluster of dwellings within a formidable expanse that offers no shelter from the sun and no water for survival. The buildings look nearly abandoned, and only a few soitary cars travel along the road in the distance. Without a printed image border, the expanse seems endless; nonetheless, we realize that innumerable people have trekked across it hoping to survive the journey and begin a new life.

Young Man with Backpack Scars, Arizona.

Wide depth of field isn’t only beneficial in expansive landscapes; it’s useful for more intimate views as well. In this image, Young Man with Backpack Scars, Arizona, David Taylor uses it to describe the foreground backpack scars on one Mexican would-be immigrant while maintaining sharp text on the Border Patrol vehicle in the background. Having all relevant contents from foreground to background clearly focused allows viewers to form solid relationships that can’t be made otherwise, because shallow depth of field provides a kind of inherent hierarchy. Because of his use of vantage point he also protects the anonymity of the young man.

Kilo Vehicle Interior, New Mexico.

Wide-Angle View

How is the depth of this tight space in the image Kilo Vehicle Interior, New Mexico, squeezed into one frame? It’s done with the use of a wide-angle lens. Particular lens focal lengths are as critical as vantage point to making our images contain the contents we need them to. In addition to allowing us access to the vehicle’s interior, this wide-angle view includes its significant details—rust, dust, trash, water jugs, the number of seatbelts—all relating to the vehicle’s purpose and its passengers. While much of this series takes place in the wide-open desert, the human interaction happens much closer, and images like this place viewers inside the first place many illegal immigrants who don’t quite make it across find themselves in. The close view and the details it reveals allow us also to feel the discomfort of being in this dark place.

ELEMENT 3: SHUTTER SPEEDS: TIME AND MOTION

Photographs capture moments in time, but how their contents relate the duration of exposure to the static media creates dramatically different visual and meaningful results. Use of blurred time (long shutter speeds) to show passage of time, frozen time (fast shutter speeds) to suspend action in time, or static time (nothing moves) allows photographers to delineate a sense of how time engages the image contents, and communicate the temporal significance of the subject.

Frozen Time

In Seized Marijuana Bales, Arizona, David Taylor captured three Border Patrol agents, in midglance, midspeech, and midstride, to fix in time a moment that has now passed. The motion in front of his camera was continuous, happening before and after the image was made, but Taylor chose this particular decisive moment to release the shutter, activating the frame and creating an image filled with some of the disparate movements that define this job.

Seized Marijuana Bales, Arizona.

Blurred Time

Border Monument No. 244. An international borderline monument stands still as a sentinel as time passes by, indicated through streams of light from cars driving past during a long exposure. The exposure also allows the streetlights to flare out like stars in the sky, leading our eye along a diagonal line to converge with the border fence inside the perceived depth of the picture plane. If the camera had moved during the exposure, the monument would be blurred as well, and the stark visual contrast created by control of this photographic element could not exist. This image also provides a solid example of the importance of the final element of photography—materials and processes—to the effectiveness of his images. The intense color contrast created by mixed lighting conditions and his color materials adds tension to the image about the passing of time alongside political boundaries.

Border Monument No. 244.

Departure, Texas.

Blurred Time

In the photograph Departure, Texas, David Taylor again uses a long shutter speed, but not for aesthetic reasons or to juxtapose motion with static content. His purpose in addition to creating a feel for hastily moving into the day’s work, is again to conceal the identity of a Border Patrol agent. This time, rather than creatively cropping his features, Taylor adds visual variety by using the slow shutter speed in relation to the subject’s speed and direction of motion to blur him. With the camera on a tripod and no other moving content, he can control how this element affects selective parts of the image.

ELEMENT 4: THE AGGREGATE IMAGE

Photographic objects are made of substrates and substances that hold the image. All photographs have them, but not all photographers use them as a communicative tool in their photographic practice. Decisions about whether to use color or black and white, heavy imperceptibly fine grain, and so on are there to help convey a subject. Use of color for this documentary work carries connotations of photographic truth and accuracy, enriches the viewer’s experience of the story, and captures subtleties while drawing attention to the details.

Detention Cell (with sarape), New Mexico.

Materials and Processes

Throughout Working the Line, color becomes highly descriptive, whereas black and white would be more emotive; it leaves less to the viewer’s imagination and fills in gaps that could be misconstrued or overlooked. In the image, Detention Cell (with sarape), New Mexico, a small serape Mexican motif blanket is isolated by stark empty space; it literally provides the only real color in the frame, and that color is what enables us to immediately recognize its cultural pattern. That the blanket, awaiting a detainee, is relegated to a corner and surrounded by white on all sides is a metaphor indicative to the lives of many Mexican immigrants who will or will not manage to make it across the border.

Presentation

Photographs reproduced in books are informative references, but as we know photographs are objects that exist in the world, and as such the way you see them here is not the ideal way to experience them. Images here allow us to see and consider the actual work, but are not substitutes for experiencing the actual photographs.

David Taylor’s Working the Line exists in the world in two forms, as a gallery exhibition and as a hardbound slip-cased book. Working deals with the people whose lives are entwined through the politics of the border, and The Line documents all of the monuments along the international boundary of the United States and Mexico west of the Rio Grande. The images from Working are complemented by a unique presentation of The Line. Its extremely long accordion-style pullout with all the border monuments arranged in a double-sided line is a fitting presentation for the concept he grapples with here. I would urge you, as with any photography, to see the work installed in a gallery or museum setting, and to hold the book and its pullout, The Line.

Like the work of most photographers, David Taylor’s images are not about the elements of photography; he uses them as writers use grammar—to make a statement, elicit emotions, and enlighten. And as with literary works, a range of reasonable interpretations exist for images because they all have connotative meanings in addition to their denotative ones. Also, we each bring to them our own unique perspectives, and we experience the work in different contexts that affect the way it’s received. A person who is educated in photographic history will bring a different perspective (not necessarily a better or more accurate one) to viewing images than someone who is not. A person who comes across a box of images in an estate sale, for instance, would likely interpret their meaning differently than if they came across the same images in a museum, or accompanying a magazine article, and so on. Still, the elements of photographic language provide a tremendous amount of objective insight to understanding them.

In images, as in texts, there are as many intriguing questions asked as cogent answers provided; these are inherent to the nature of all powerful statements across all media. David Taylor’s Working the Line is no exception; the questions that arise from viewing his work are as intriguing as the images themselves. What’s important is to try to understand them, to ask our own questions, to add relevant input to the dialogue surrounding them, and to apply the knowledge we’ve gained through looking at them to strengthening our own photographic practice.