Lorna Simpson

When I first started reading this piece and looked at some of the pictures in the reader I had no idea that Lorna Simpson was a Black woman. I don't know if that was the intention of the writer or if it should have been obvious to me, but it is interesting to me that I assumed otherwise, or that the writer didn't make it obvious--probably because it is important to the essay that we recognize her struggle with interpreting race, gender, etc. in her photography. I thought the first part about the two Morrocan women thought provoking because we have never really discussed the idea of how a photo is affected when the subject disapproves of the photographer. For me it seems the photographer has always been behind the scenes, or creating works of fiction where they would automatically be allowed to take theses pictures. It rivals the confusing feelings when we see works of Sherrie Levine, where we wonder if this photograph "should've" been taken. The picture of the Morrocan women also makes me wonder about the truth of a photo, because when we look at this picture the look of "I don't want my picture taken" could be mistaken for "I'm not happy with my life." Or they could be one and the same. Most people probably take for granted that the photographer was an intermediate in creating that image, but reading this and examining the photo makes us think about that.

The writer talks about how Lorna Simpson wanted to "detach" herself from the camera. This is an idea I haven't thought about and is particularly confusing to me. The early writers that we read seemed to whole heartedly believe that we were detached from the camera, stating it was a machine that replicated nature with absolutely no subjectivity. Simpson, and most others, seemed to feel differently. This probably goes hand in hand with her wanting to get away from "documentary photography." She wanted the camera to "...betray its clandestine undermining of the body..."(301 of R) I am confused as to what she means by this. In this section the writer discusses her piece Wigs, in which there are individual photographs of wigs printed on felt, and a sense of the lack of a body. A detachment of race and gender from something personal. Perhaps these two detachments go together. She wanted to detach her race and gender from her photographer-self. Maybe she felt that documentary photography was too subjective even when it was trying to express human truths. By detaching herself from the camera she felt could reveal more truth.