A total eclipse of the sun is a rare phenomenon. In ancient times it was understood to be an omen or portent.  Herodutus reports that an eclipse halted a battle between the Lydians and Medes, noting that  “when they saw the onset of night during the day …[t]hey stopped fighting, and both sides became eager to have peace.” Would that it had the same effect in contemporary times.  Superstitions of one sort or another continue, of course, particularly in tribal and polytheistic cultures, but from the perspective of the so-called “modern” world an eclipse is a natural event that manifests what we might call the “sublime,” an awe-inspiring spectacle, simultaneously beautiful and foreboding; as a sublime object a total eclipse commands our attention even as we know that looking at it directly is forbidden lest we risk losing our sight altogether.  And more to the point, we almost always take the dare.

There was a total eclipse of the sun that crossed nearly half of the earth last week, cutting across most of East Asia from India to China and lasting for nearly seven minutes  And we looked.  Not directly, of course, but through various media that filtered our vision.  Those in the direct path of the eclipse relied on indirect projection, smoked glass, exposed slide film or x-rays, and all other variety of solar filters.  The rest of us have had to rely on photographic representations such as those available at The Big Picture to satisfy the desire to look at the forbidden object.

Viewing an eclipse through a camera’s lens or a view finder can be no less dangerous than unmediated observation (and maybe more so to the extent that it telescopes and magnifies the view), but that doesn’t seem to have deterred the various photographers who alternately took pictures of people viewing the eclipse and pictures of the eclipse itself.  Interestingly enough, pictures of the eclipse are divided into two categories, those that feature various stages of the eclipse itself without any external reference points (as with the photograph above) and those that locate the eclipse against the silhouette of various cultural backgrounds, such as in a statue of Chairman Mao in Hubei Province.

Such photographs are interesting allegories for the naturalizing mystique of photography itself: a technology that presumes to separate the viewer from the thing viewed at a safe distance, even as it creates the illusion of being there.  So we can presume to view (and in viewing to experience the “beauty” and “pleasure” of)  a solar eclipse—or other manifestations of the sublime such as wars and catastrophes—without the risk of wound or demise.  Of course here the silhouette of culture against nature emphasizes the illusion and thus reminds us of the real  distance from the thing we are viewing, both physically and technologically. What we need to remember is that photographs don’t always foreground their artifice, and therein lies the true risk in what we dare to see.

Photo Credits:  Saurabh Das/AP Photo; Stringer/Reuters

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Whether traveling or just hanging out at the beach or barbeque, summer is thought of as a time to actually look at the world.  You might be watching an ant working at a giant crumb, or boats bobbing in the harbor, or accidental patterns in the crowd at the ball park, but you are looking at something instead of merely scanning as you would when going about your business.

Photography can do the same: not merely record the world but bring one to see it anew, if only because one is looking for more than a few milliseconds and without a specific objective in mind. So it is that we might value the image of a water droplet on a leaf or of ice cream clouds in a blue summer sky. But there is more than one way to open the doors of perception.  Like this:

This big, vibrant image is of a hot air balloon being inflated at the 13th European balloon festival at Igualada, Spain.  But is it a photograph of a hot air balloon or of a mandala?  Both, of course, and for some viewers other analogies may come to mind, say of an enormous Japanese umbrella.  Part of seeing slowly is letting one’s imagination come into play.  Even so, the mandala struck my mind as surely as the photo struck my eye.

But what kind of mandala is this?  It would seem to be an accidental pattern more than a sacred object.  Taken from another angle, the balloon would have looked much more deflated or conical or uninteresting, yet here the perfectly symmetrical form is perfectly centered to focus perception.  The mandala is created not so much by the balloon but by the photographer.

That said, the photograph does nothing to draw attention to itself.  The focus in entirely on the archetypal design.  That form is not quite complete but, better yet, emerging smoothly from the ground into its own space.  The ascension into an all-encompassing form is marked further by its relation to the figure in the center, who is dwarfed but not harmed by the larger power that he serves.

Come to think of it–and to look again–he could almost double for a priest performing a ritual.  Perhaps there is a sacred dimension to this image of cosmological coherence after all?  Art and nature are unified in a single design that induces serenity while offering an aperture to the inner light of a transcendent reality.  The response to the photograph would be just what could be induced by ritual use of a mandala: a more contemplative state of mind.

Which you might need when looking at this:

This is from a photo-essay at The Big Picture on the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) under consruction by the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN). The caption read: “View of the CMS (Compact Muon Solenoid) experiment Tracker Outer Barrel (TOB) in the cleaning room. The CMS is one of two general-purpose LHC experiments designed to explore the physics of the Terascale, the energy region where physicists believe they will find answers to the central questions at the heart of 21st-century particle physics.”  True enough, but it’s still a mandala.

I would not say it is a particularly serene mandala, however.  The machine looks angry–as if it were some cybernetic monster from a sci-fi flick, its tentacles lashing to and fro, all garish colors of a vital but alien biology, a gaping maw, and somehow I also sense both fire and frenetic ants.  If it were a deity, it would be one representing voracious nastiness and other unsanctioned pleasures.  But, of course, it is not that, and this is not the place to allude to Frankenstein and moralize about scientific overreaching.  Instead, look again, longer, and see the unity of art and nature. Consider how the photographer has created another mandala for you, and other that may be a bit more challenging than some of the others.  Or, one that can allow us to think about the not so serene parts of who we are, individually and as a civilization.

Two mandalas, each unique and yet the same, for you to use as much or little as you wish.  As if on a summer’s day, with all the time in the world. . . .

Photographs by Susi Saez/EPA and Maximillien Brice/CERN.

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A great deal of heat was generated over the Bush administration policy of censoring photographs of military coffins being returned to the US from Iraq and Afghanistan.  (Actually, the policy had been in effect since the first Bush administration in 1991, but it was renewed by W.  The policy was changed in December 2009.)  The criticisms were justified, of course: democratic governments are supposed to be transparent; wars should not depend on public ignorance of their costs; military sacrifice can not be properly honored if hidden.  On the other side, defenders of the status quo had argued that the images would fuel controversy about the war.

Now that the coffins are back in public view, however, the impact of the photographs seems to be far less than anticipated.  (Some day governments will learn that the best strategy is to hide things in full view.)  In fact, the result has been a big yawn.  That may be why photographers now are doing something far more interesting that playing supporting roles in a conventional standoff.  Instead, we are being shown something else.

This image from the UK is, not surprisingly, a model of ritual observance.  The coffin of a rifleman killed in Afghanistan is being carried to a hearse during a repatriation ceremony at RAF Lyneham in Wiltshire, England.  The flag-draped coffin forms one point of a triangle completed by the enormous transport plane centered in the vanishing point and the hearse in the left foreground.   (The vectors are marked by the line on the tarmac, the wing/coffin and tail/two figures standing at attention.)  The set also composes a rectangle as the plane appears to be the same length as the distance between hearse and coffin.  The rectangle creates a strong sense of order and stability, while the triangle directs the meaning of the event from the foreground on earth through the plane to the blue sky beyond.

Thus, the photograph completes the work of the ritual practice being depicted.  The viewer is being asked to acknowledge two transitions: the soldier’s remains are being brought from a foreign battleground back to the motherland, while his soul can be imagined as already winging its way from earth to heaven.  Fittingly, the coffin is neither in the plane nor the hearse; the soldier is neither completely within the institution of the state nor transferred to the family.  He is now forever in between and somewhere else.  The institutions remain, here in idealized form: the large, impersonal, powerful plane that is nonetheless beautifully self-contained and standing at ready, dedicated to service of the individual citizen; and the small, familiar vehicle is also beautiful because built to human scale, carefully polished, designed to handle loss, and part of everyone’s fate.

Obviously, that story is too good to be true.  Rituals are not merely fictions, and they don’t contain only good news.  What struck me most about this photo is not the precise positioning of the ritual objects but rather the terrifying isolation being displayed in plain view.  Note how nothing is connected except by the invisible vectors of visual design.  Each element of this social setting stands in complete separation from the others–including the viewer from the scene itself.  In place of any connectivity, we see the open tarmac, flat landscape, and immense sky.  You can imagine heaven, just as you can imagine the nation, but the photograph also suggests the the story of this death is radical isolation.  That soldier is forever separated from those who knew him, and that loss contributes to greater separation among all those within the community.

Nor is this the work of one photographer, or a British rather than American tableau.

This photograph is from Delaware, probably at Dover AFB.  A Navy team stands at attention before  a coffin that has arrived from Afghanistan.  Here you see basic elements of the military ritual in the first photograph, albeit in much more humble fashion.  The coffin is partially hidden, the state how is represented by a delivery van, and the sailors’ service uniforms suggest a working class destination.  Most important, however, is that we again see human isolation amidst a vast emptiness.  Here, in fact, that comprehensive absence can’t be contained by ritual forms.  The scene is, sadly, all too revealing.

Perhaps this is the real challenge of showing the coffins.  The basic question is not whether to criticize the war or support the troops, but rather how to cross the distances that already separate everyone in the human community.

Photographs by Adrian Harlen/Reuters and Mark Wilson/Getty Images.

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Today nocaptionneeded.com celebrates its second birthday.

There is a lot to be said for the Web, but virtual parties are not likely to be high on the list. Even so, we’re still here and somewhat amazed about that, and still growing and somewhat amazed about that.

As we did last year, this is a time to say “Thanks” and to take stock.  Thanks to all our readers, and not least to those who take the time to comment.  We don’t always like what you say, but you don’t always like what we say, and that’s what we should expect from an honest and engaged discussion.

We also want to pause a moment and take stock.  If you would like to give us any advice, now is a good time to do it.  What works and what could be improved?  What might be added?  Where should we be headed?  Advice might not be heeded, especially given our limited resources, but it always is appreciated.  You can comment below or email us at rhariman@gmail.com and lucaites@indiana.edu.

We’ll be taking two weeks off from posting—first, to lead a week-long seminar at the Rhetoric Society of America’s summer institute for scholars, and then to get of out of Dodge for awhile.  Both should provide additional context for our assessing what we do here, and we’ll continue to read our mail. . . .

See you July 6, as we start another year at NCN.

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The riveting images and real time coverage of the events in Iran this week are about as good as it gets for those who celebrate public demonstrations on behalf of progressive social and political change.  The power of the people is there to see, as are the democratizing effects of modern media technologies when they are used to organize and amplify what is happening on the street.  The interlocking institutions of authority and corruption begin to look like the walls of Jericho, cracking as they are about to come tumbling down.

May it be so, but let’s not forget that the media also features one story at a time.  There always are other protests, other causes, other appeals to the international community that are, have been, or will be overlooked.  Equally important, perhaps, is the recognition that most protests are frail things that seem pathetic at the time and inconsequential thereafter.  Most important, we should celebrate the fact that people protest anyway.

When it rains, for example.

This photograph from a demonstration in Tbilisi, Georgia captures so much of the dismal side of dissent.  A single hand strives to hold plastic sheeting together to keep out the rain that is ruining the demonstration.  It’s hard to make your case in the public square when you can’t be seen and no one is going to be there anyway.  The hand is all that remains of the citizen, who is reduced to a small act of self-preservation.  So much for the will of the people.  The sheer vulnerability of the protester is emphasized further by the white sheet, which could as well be a burial shroud.  And yet he lives, and waits for another chance to stand for his cause.

As does this demonstrator in Jakarta.

This might be titled the activist’s very bad day.  He has gone to considerable trouble to make a statement–body paint, a performance that will have been scripted and rehearsed, all to be presented before an audience who probably couldn’t care less.  Yet he, too, is a study in fatality: white as a corpse, looking as if beaten, nakedly vulnerable, and alone but for his fatigue and discouragement while the public looks elsewhere.  It was Earth Day in Indonesia, which has a terrible environmental record including 70% deforestation and some of Asia’s worst air pollution.  Let’s hope that next year things go better.

Heroism can’t be the staple of democratic dissent.  I won’t for a minute belittle those who are standing up to brutality today, but let’s not forget the many others who have been keeping up the struggle in other settings.  They, too, keep the spirit of democracy alive, and they do it by withstanding humiliation and failure.  Heroism is a rare and beautiful thing, but for those bad days, a different kind of courage may be required.

Photographs by Shakh Aivazov/AP and Mast Irham/EPA.

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The new media have been giddy with their up-to-the-minute coverage of the events in Iran this weekend.  Direct comparison, compliments of Twitter, with CNN’s poor showing made the contrast all too obvious: The new media reports coming out of Tehran were equivalent to CNN coverage of the 1991 bombing of Baghdad.  Better yet, the “revolution” unfolding today had erupted because Mousavi supporters had been able to text around state censorship of major media networks.  Add to this the early photographs of hip, attractive students showing V signs and you might think that the whole thing was one big Obama rally.  Except for this:

This guy got nailed. Broken nose, for sure, and maybe some teeth.  His protest is over for the day.  You can see how the injury has refocused his attention down to a single zone of pain and perception, the single preoccupation of holding his body together, the single act of getting himself to a safe place.  The cloth that he is using to staunch the blood does additional work for us, as it can imply that he might want to weep, not for himself but for his cause, or that he might want to hide his face in shame, not from the blood but from the larger stain created by his government as it makes a sham of a democratic election.

But this is not the time for symbolism.  As the government and its vigilantes are becoming increasingly violent, images (and videos) like this probably will become more prominent in the next day or two.  With that, viewers are going to have to adjust the frame that was created by the initial news coverage online.  Don’t get me wrong: I’ve been devouring reports by bloggers, Twitter feeds, and Facebook pages, all via various online aggregators.  Even if some may be caught up a bit too much in promoting their own role in making history, the new media definitely are a part of the story.  But the heart of the matter is that people have been putting their bodies on the line.

And let’s not forget that history still is being made the old fashioned way–by brutally beating people.  Note this report on anti-Mousavi thugs from Samson Desta, a reporter for CNN (!), as printed at the Huffington Post: “They were plain clothes, carrying baseball bats. They were carrying metal pipes, and they were just beating up anyone that was that was in that area. Today, I went to a second protest…probably the most violent that I’ve seen, that we have seen.  . . . No uniforms but they had weapons such as metal pipes, and they were actually just driving around, intimidating people, beating up people, anyone that was in the street, anyone that was in the road, anyone that dared to chant “Mousavi, Mousavi,” they were beating them senseless.”

Baseball bats, metal pipes, and blood.  All we see here is the blood, which is but a trace of the violence.  But it is a vital sign.  Let’s not support the protesters because they are young and beautiful and connected; they should be supported because they are willing to risk all that for democracy.

Photograph from Getty Images/Huffington Post.  Currently 41 photos of the demonstrations and reprisals are available at The Big Picture.  Unfortunately, the point I’m trying to make here is vividly evident in the arc from the first image to #41.  The list also includes another photograph (#16) of the man shown above.  NCN readers may remember other posts on showing blood, including this one.

UPDATE:

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Credit:  Mr. Fish

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