Depth of Field

POP 5 (2) pp. 123–129 Intellect Limited 2014 Philosophy of Photography Volume 5 Number 2 © 2014 Intellect Ltd Encyclopaedia. English language. doi: 10.1386/pop.5.2.123_7 ENcycLOPaEdIa Koray Değirmenci Erciyes University Depth of ield The notion of depth of field refers to the way in which spatial depth is represented through depth of focus in cinematic or photographic images. The significance of depth of field with respect to the cinematic representation of space, and the philosophy and aesthetics of the cinematic image, has stirred considerable controversy in the existing literature. Somewhat surprisingly, however, the issue has yet to be subject to substantial critical analysis in debates on photography. In this context, one can note that whilst the much more often discussed category of photographic indexicality rests on the model of camera obscura and its monocularity, the representation of space through reduced depth of field and the resulting narrative form of photography is more closely associated with binocularity. These two aspects of representation comprise the inner contradiction of photography or the dialectic of photographic representation, depending on how one defines photography: either as an (iconic) index or an art form, respectively. Throughout debates about photography’s uniqueness, much has been said about the medium’s immanent ‘realism’ that renders it fundamentally different from other image forms, such as painting. Such immanence invokes claims to a particular form of contiguity between the referent and what appears as image on a photographic surface; namely their indexical relationship, wherein the object 123 Koray değirmenci photographed is inscribed in the photographic image. In such conceptions, the photographic surface has been regarded as a vestige, trace, imprint or index of the ‘real’. Famously, Sontag contends that a photograph is ‘not only an image (as a painting is an image), an interpretation of the real; it is also a trace, something directly stencilled off the real, like a footprint or a death mask’ (1990: 154). And Bazin has it that ‘the photographic image is the object itself’, thus essentially defining photography as an ‘extension’ of the presence of an object (i.e., its material part or continuum) rather than merely a ‘mirror of reality’, which is another oft-cited metaphor for photography (1967a: 14). Further, variously oriented conceptualizations of photography as a trace that emphasize indexicality have been echoed by numerous theorists and represent a very common perspective on photography. This discussion does not set out directly to problematize the notion of photographic indexicality in classical debates on photography. However, that there are some implicit presumptions behind the claim of photographic indexicality and the central significance attributed to it within the conception that photography is unique among other visual forms. Indeed, the theoretical accounts of photographic indexicality rest on at least one of the following assumptions: •฀ There is an affinity between so-called ‘normal vision’ and camera vision. This assumption forms the basis of photography’s merit as a ‘certificate of presence’ (Barthes 2010: 87) or a purely realistic medium. •฀ Closely related to the first assumption is the conception of photography as effectively free from human mediation, an idea that has haunted debates on photography since its invention. Within this notion lies the consideration of photography as a natural phenomenon rather than an artifice. •฀ Photography is the most authentic medium due to its indexical character. Even the most precise realist painting, with its meticulous replication of fine details, radiates less authenticity than a poorly posed, fuzzy black and white photograph. Given these assumptions, I argue that the problem of photographic indexicality becomes muddled when photography is reconsidered with respect to its historical relationship with the Renaissance perspective, its construction of allegedly ‘normal vision’, and the monocular model of the camera obscura paradigm. I will address this through discussion of Jean-Louis Comolli’s claim that depth of field serves to reconstruct normal vision as outlined in the Renaissance perspective that also echoes the broader paradigm of apparatus theory in its conceptualization of apparatuses (i.e., cinema and photography) as ideological although they were constructed as neutral, naturalized or otherwise taken for granted. I will go on to claim that while photographic indexicality depends ontologically on ‘pure’ object representation, which is theoretically only possible given an apparently infinite depth of field, the representation of space emerges within a relatively reduced depth of field that conceptually excludes the presence of indexicality. I contend that these two modes of representation constitute an inner contradiction of photography vis-à-vis the very conditions of photographic indexicality’s existence. 124 depth of ield 1. Arnheim associates the ‘mechanical reproduction of reality’ with photography throughout his text. The following is a salient example: ‘the film will be able to reach the heights of the other arts only when it frees itself from the bonds of photographic reproduction and becomes a pure work of man’ (Arnheim 1957: 213). 2. The significance of reduced depth in Arnheim’s theory becomes especially clear in his discussion of King Vidor’s The Crowd. The artistic capacities of reduced depth to create more effect than in real life are readily apparent in this film (Arnheim 1957: 63–64). 3. Surprisingly, Bazin regards shallow depth of field as a style unique to photography and likens it to montage: ‘The soft focus of the background confirms therefore the effect of montage, that is to say, while it is of the essence of the storytelling, it is only an accessory of the style of the photography’ (1967b: 33–34). The notion of depth of field refers to the way in which spatial depth is represented through depth of focus in cinematic or photographic images. Technically speaking, a shallow depth of field allows a relatively smaller portion of space to come into focus, while a broader depth of field brings a larger spatial plane into focus. The notion of depth of field resides at the centre of Rudolf Arnheim’s account of the ontology of film as a prominent representative of classical film theory. In his Film as Art (1957), he rejects the idea that the effect of film can be described as either two- or three-dimensional, thereby assuming a provocative position with respect to film’s ontological qualities. For him, the effect of film is something in-between: ‘film pictures are at once plane and solid’ (Arnheim 1957: 12). Arnheim’s account of film aesthetics (as art) is further entrenched in his nuanced distinction between film and reality: film should have nothing to do with the mechanical reproduction or copy of reality1; rather, it should transform images into meaningful forms, a quality or function that permits film’s classification as art. In fact, reducing depth is one of the most effective ways in which film can: differ from mechanical reproduction of the world; and produce a unique surface that is distinct from the flatness of paintings.2 For Arnheim, this particular means of representing space earmarks film as art. Furthermore, in his view, reducing depth is one of the technical ways by which to create the effect of what he calls ‘partial illusion’ whereby audiences ‘[accept] the screen world as being true to nature’ (Arnheim 1957: 15). It is termed a ‘partial’ illusion because the objects and events on-screen can be perceived as real objects and simple patterns of light at the same time (Arnheim 1957: 29). Depth of field represents a central, constitutive aesthetic element for André Bazin as well. Specifically, in Bazin’s account, it occupies a privileged position among other technical means such as filters or lighting; that is, Bazin does not regard depth of field as merely another technical tool but rather ‘a capital gain in the field of direction – a dialectical step forward in the history of film language’ (1967b: 35). Indeed, Bazin praises the utilization of large depth of field (or ‘shot in depth’, as he says) in particular directors, including Orson Welles and William Wyler, which for him ‘brings the spectator into a relation with the image closer to that which he enjoys with reality’ (Bazin 1967b: 33–35, see also 1967c: 35, 38). Moreover, while montage seeks for ‘unity of meaning of the dramatic event’ and excludes the ‘ambiguity of expression’, depth of focus reintroduces ‘ambiguity into the structure of the image’ (Bazin 1967b: 36). In contrast to Arnheim who deems reduced depth (or, technically speaking, relatively shallow depth of field) a precondition for film to be considered an art distinct from the mechanical reproduction of reality, Bazin considers large depth of field or shot in depth to be a constitutive element of a realist aesthetics of cinema.3 As a prominent proponent of apparatus theory, Jean-Louis Comolli places Bazin and other advocates of realist aesthetics in an idealist camp. In his view, they classify technical devices including depth of field as neutral or natural notions in the aesthetic evolution of cinema (Comolli 1986: 423). For him, however, cinematic technique cannot be conceptualized apart from its economic and ideological 125 Koray değirmenci dimensions. In line with the theoretical framework of apparatus theory, Comolli contends that the use of ‘deep focus’ (i.e., large depth of field) and ‘close-up’ cannot be accounted for through technical aspects alone; instead, he suggests that economic and ideological factors are much more significant. Further, he criticizes ‘idealist’ film theories on the grounds that they consider ‘technical processes as a “reserve”held somewhere independent of systems of meaning (histories, codes, ideologies) and“ready” to intervene in signifying production’ (Comolli 1986: 431). The ‘technical ideology’, his coinage referring to these theories, conceptualizes technical practice outside these systems of meaning and as a cause of ‘producing effects of meaning in a film text’, thus rejecting the idea that the technical process is a construct of the ‘signifying systems, histories, and ideologies’ (Comolli 1986: 432). Particularly relevant here is Comolli’s attempt to ‘deconstruct’ the notion of depth of field in relation to the ideology and systems of meaning in his criticism of Jean Mitry. As Jean Mitry remarks, only 35- and 50-millimetre lenses were used prior to 1915, which explains why shots at the time were static; due to lighting limitations (i.e., because the lenses must be significantly stopped down in order to generate large depth of focus), ‘each different shot required a different setup’ (Mitry 2000: 59).4 Yet Comolli poses a critical question vis-à-vis this claim: why were ‘these “medium” focal lengths used during the first twenty years of cinema?’ (1986: 433). In response, he claims that these medium focal lengths were exclusively capable of constructing spatial relationships that corresponded to ‘normal vision’. Being inscribed with the codes of analogy, these lenses produced the impression of reality. He applies similar logic to the relationship between large depth of field and perspective: as preconditions of creating artificial perspective, depth and stratified planes made it possible for characters to move ‘perpendicularly’ on the screen. For him, this artificial perspective (coupled with the deep focus that made it achievable in the first place) constitutes ‘the pictorial and theatrical codes of classic Western representation’ (Comolli 1986: 434). Given these considerations, one can argue that the cinematic/photographic image, thought thus far to manifest from the ‘normal vision’ of the scopic regime of modernity, is marked by two competing and seemingly contradicting modes of representation with respect to indexicality and depth of field. The first is the form that operates within a monocular model in which depth of field extends theoretically to infinity (thus aligning with the model of camera obscura). Here, the eye is a function of ‘Gaze’, to borrow from Norman Bryson’s account of the monocular. Monocularity suggests a disembodied eye that can behold objects, positioned within different levels of depth but situated on the same plane in accordance with perspective principles, at one and the same time. Norman Bryson’s distinction between gaze and glance is illuminative as an example of how this notion of the ‘disembodied eye’ operates within the model of monocularity: In the Founding Perception, the gaze of the painter arrests the flux of phenomena, contemplates the visual field from a vantage-point outside the mobility of duration, in an eternal moment 126 4. Comolli refers to the original French edition of Mitry’s text and mentions only the issue of depth of field without addressing his observations of the directors’ limitations with respect to the design of the shots. depth of ield of disclosed presence; while in the moment of viewing, the viewing subject unites his gaze with the Founding Perception, in a perfect recreation of that first epiphany. Elimination of the diachronic movement of deixis creates, or at least seeks, a synchronic instant of viewing that will eclipse the body, and the glance, in an infinitely extended Gaze of the image as pure idea: the image as eidolon. (1983: 94, original emphasis) Thus, monocularity has played a constitutive role within the ocularcentric paradigm of modernity and the association of a physical eye and mechanical lens thereof. What Bryson terms the ‘synchronic instant of viewing’ is only possible with a disembodied singular eye conceptualized as ‘static, unblinking, and fixated, rather than dynamic, moving with what later scientists would call “saccadic” jumps from one focal point to another’ (Jay 1988: 7). The concept of photographic indexicality operates ideally through a medium in which objects appear on the same plane of focus (theoretically in an infinite depth of field) and disembodied eye that follows the logic of Bryson’s notion of the Gaze. Though seemingly paradoxical, the monocularity in photographic indexicality conceptually requires an infinite eye viewing synchronically from the same vantage-point, a model that one might call polycularity or pancularity. This pancularity constructs the indexical image as a ‘pure idea’, or eidolon. The second mode of representation is similar to that proposed by Arnheim as being in-between two- and three-dimensionality. This mode is modelled on binocularity, which rests on the assumption of a shallow depth of field. Here, the eye is a function of ‘Glance’, to allude once more to Bryson. The Gaze might be conceptualized as a ‘surface’ upon which traces of all objects in front of the camera are ‘engraved’ with perfect clarity and no loss of sharpness. With the Glance, though, space (rather than objects) is given privilege in the moment of representation; only particular objects are represented within shallow depth of field, thereby rendering photography a storytelling or narrative device. Unlike the ‘realism’ of the former, the latter mode of representation highlights spatial depth as its primary mode. In other words, the photographic image oscillates between the representation of objects and space within different utilizations of depth of field; thus, these two modes of representation correspond to the ‘indexicality’ and ‘conceptuality’ of photography, respectively. The notion of photographic indexicality presupposes a basic condition: the photographic objects leave unique traces on the photographic surface within a theoretically infinite depth of field that provides ‘full clarity’ for each object such that eye can follow the ‘traces’ of each object synchronically within the act of Gaze. If the notion of indexicality is to be understood within infinite depth of field and a corresponding mode of object representation, then photography accordingly becomes an unmediated and ‘natural’ act. Although such a position appears paradoxical, conceiving a photograph 127 Koray değirmenci as a trace or an (iconic) index that makes it unique among other visual mediums rests on the ideology of camera obscura. The depth of field in the camera obscura is theoretically infinite as well; that is, despite its basis in monocularity, the camera obscura operates through infinite numbers of eyes viewing objects at one and the same time from a shared vantage-point. It is thus that photographic indexicality, along with the logic of the camera obscura, relies on ‘polycularity’ or ‘pancularity’. By contrast, with a shallow depth of field, the photographic image tends to become a dramatic form within which only particular objects on the plane of focus are represented clearly amidst other objects. Additionally, spatial depth takes precedence over the representation of objects.5 To put it another way, the existence of photographic indexicality that rests in theory on two-dimensionality maintains a paradoxical relationship with the form through which spatial depth and three-dimensionality are represented. As soon as the photograph begins to represent spatial depth, the model of binocularity and three-dimensionality is at work; when it ‘flattens’ space to be a ‘pure’ object representation it becomes indexical at the expense of being monocular and two-dimensional. If we do not confine realism solely to the representation of objects, then two forms of photographic realism are tied to monocularity and binocularity, respectively. When photography becomes a narrative or a dramatic form, it becomes a ‘pure’ representation of space. The photograph, then, takes a conceptual form in which objects that are not in plane of focus are theoretically absent while objects in focus are given primacy. However, the camera obscura theoretically retains traces of all objects with ‘perfect’ clarity while representing space not in terms of depth, but by the positions and sizes of the objects in relation to each other. Thus, the model of vision constructed by a central or linear perspective is conceptually identical to the ‘photographic seeing’ that requires an infinite depth of field. The central problem at this point emerges from the fact that indexicality, as an element that renders photography unique among other visual mediums, is practically impossible within this conceptualization. No optical device, including camera obscura, has an infinitely small aperture (or hole) that allows for infinite depth of field. Yet the indexicality paradigm that seems to operate through ‘pure’ representation of object tends to neglect the dialectic between these two forms of photographic representation, thereby overlooking the representation of space as its counterpart. Although it is a central and constitutive technical element in photography, the notion of depth of field has not been subject to substantial critical analysis. This short discussion has attempted to demonstrate that a primary reason for this is born of the fact that the (iconic) indexicality of photography has long been tied to the ideology and logic of the camera obscura and the representation of objects, rather than an attempt to understand the space thereof. 128 5. Here, the difference between cinematic image and photographic image should again be emphasized with respect to the representation of space. In cinema as a moving image, the representation of space can also be made possible by the movement of characters perpendicularly on-screen within a large depth of field or, alternatively, by changing depth of field in a particular sequence. This is not possible in photography, however, which is why the representation of space is currently thought to depend on a shallow depth of field. depth of ield references Arnheim, R. (1957), Film as Art, Berkeley: University of California Press. Barthes, R. (2010), Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography (trans. Richard Howard), New York: Hill and Wang. Bazin, A. (1967a), ‘The ontology of the photographic image’, in Hugh Gray (ed.), What is Cinema Vol. 1 (trans. Hugh Gray), Berkeley: University of California Press, pp. 9–16. —— (1967b), ‘The evolution of the language of cinema’, in Hugh Gray (ed.), What is Cinema Vol. 1 (trans. Hugh Gray), Berkeley: University of California Press, pp. 23–40. —— (1967c), ‘An aesthetic of reality’, in Hugh Gray (ed.), What is Cinema? Vol. 2 (trans. Hugh Gray), Berkeley: University of California Press, pp. 16–40. Bryson, N. (1983), Vision and Painting: The Logic of the Gaze, New Haven: Yale University Press. Comolli, J. L. (1986), ‘Technique and ideology: Camera, perspective, depth of field’, in Philip Rosen (ed.), Narrative, Apparatus, Ideology: A Film Theory Reader, New York: Columbia University Press, pp. 421–443. Jay, M. (1988), ‘Scopic regimes of modernity’, in Hal Foster (ed.), Vision and Visuality, Seattle: Bay Press, pp. 3–23. Mitry, J. (2000), The Aesthetics and Psychology of the Cinema (trans. Christopher King), Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Sontag, S. (1990), On Photography, New York: Doubleday. contributor details Koray Değirmenci is Associate Professor of sociology at Erciyes University. He has published on photography, music and urban sociology in several journals and edited books including South African Journal of Philosophy, Turkish Studies, International Review of the Aesthetics and Sociology of Music and The Aesthetic Dimension of Visual Culture. His first book, Creating Global Music in Turkey, was published by Lexington Books in 2013. Contact: Erciyes Universitesi, Edebiyat Fakultesi, Sosyoloji Bolumu, Kayseri, 38039, Turkey. E-mail: koray@erciyes.edu.tr Koray Değirmenci has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work in the format that was submitted to Intellect Ltd. 129