Time

I recently read Stephen Shore's book "The Nature of Photography". He talks about all sorts of different things which I always understood but didn't use the same language. Things like, flatness, frame, time, and focus. Time is an interesting portion of the nature of photography. Photography is the only place where we, humans, can see time. Time is broken down into three values. Frozen time, still time and extruded time.

Frozen time is like a photograph of Michael Jordon in mid-air just about to slam-dunk a basketball. Or even that photo we have all seen of a drop of water going into some more water. You know the one. Or a bullet going through a balloon. You get the picture!

Still time is like a photograph of something that's, well, not moving, but not frozen, just sitting there. A portrait for example or a still life of fruit. Pretty easy to understand.

Extruded time is basically blur in a photograph. You've seen a waterfall taken with a long exposure and it looks all smooth and silky. It took time to make the image. Could be a half a second or thirty seconds. If it is blurred it qualifies as extruded time.

It got me thinking. Did we humans ever have the concept of frozen time or extruded time before 1839 when the invention of photography was almost simultaneously announced by Henry Fox Talbot in England and Daguerre in France. It's easy to understand the concept of still time. Almost any painting could qualify. Maybe even frozen time with paintings of an action. But extruded time or even blur, did we see it before photography could show it to us? I wonder.

I made a photo the other night, that shows extruded time. I used a classic symbol, the American Flag because it is immediately identifiable even if it is blurred or even out of focus. It's that strong of a symbol. Here it is.