Photography, Art or What...?
Dr Arm®
again. David said he likes to think of his work as "art" and while I
don't deny him the freedom to do that, I contended that everyone likes
to think of their work as "art", even non-artists like to think of their
work as art sometime, non artists like traffic enginerers, say for
instance.
While I don't intend to trash photography here, I do have a different
definition of what an art is. The "art" that the artist is capable of
producing that separates the artist from the artisian comes from the
ability of the artist to portray his mental vision in a real media
without the use of an intermediary media. This ability is inherent in
the media, not in the artist, though of course one artist may certainly
be better skilled at expressing himself within a media than another.
The unique and important difference here, that makes the art an art, is
the requirement that the vision originate from within the mind of the
artist. Picasso was an artist not because he could paint a bowl of fruit
but because he could reinterpret that bowl of fruit in his mind and
express it in oils.
That just isn't normally possible with photography. Photography depends
on a real scene to develope in front of the camera, either naturally or
contrived, in order to capture the photographic work within the camera.
In other words, one cannot "create" a photograph as one can create an
oil or a sculpture from the vision within his mind. Of course one might
point out that a photographer might create a setting and then photograph
it but the art is in the set creation, not in the photographing of it.
This is not an arbitrary definition of art contrived to exclude
photography that I conjure up for the sake of discussion, but it is the
same line of reasoning that traces an origin back to the work of Alfred
Eisenstadt who was "criticized" as a non-artist in his day even though
he was among the first photographers to point the camera at everyday
events and produce some of the first photojournalistic or candid
photographs that captured mood and emotion. Eisenstadt was innovative in
his day, even though today an eleven year old with a decent camera
could, in theory, produce similar work.
So where does that leave photography? If it is not (directly at least)
an art, the work of an artist, then how about the work of an artisian,
that is to say, skilled manual work that requires a technical sense of
the media involved. If so, then that would make photography a craft. I'm
comfortable with that.
da
Tre'
> If so, then that would make photography a craft. I'm
> comfortable with that.
Different people are comfortable with different things.
In my mind, an image produced with a camera is not necessarily art, or
even a photograph. Most such images are just pictures, and much of
what we see here online are just 'pics'.
I'm quite comfortable with that.
ciao
--Tre'
Texas Patriot
snapshot taken at the beach and a beautifully composed photograph, al la
Ansel Adams. The photographer is doing more than just taking a picture of
an available scene. There a lots of issues to contend with...lighting,
composition, depth of field, exposure, etc. A camera is just a tool, no
different than Picasso's paintbrush. Its how that tool is used that
separates the "art" from the "everyday". Most endeavours can be
considered a "craft" (e.g. acting, hitting a baseball, etc.), but not all
crafts can be considered art. On the other hand, Photoshop can be
considered an "equalizer" since it can be used to turn a crappy photograph
into something special (which may be an art in itself). I can see it
now..."natural" photo competitions, for those that are not
Photoshop-enhanced.
Texas Patriot
snapshot taken at the beach and a beautifully composed photograph, al la
Ansel Adams. The photographer is doing more than just taking a picture of
an available scene. There a lots of issues to contend with...lighting,
composition, depth of field, exposure, etc. A camera is just a tool, no
different than Picasso's paintbrush. Its how that tool is used that
separates the "art" from the "everyday". Most endeavours can be
considered a "craft" (e.g. acting, hitting a baseball, etc.), but not all
crafts can be considered art. On the other hand, Photoshop can be
considered an "equalizer" since it can be used to turn a crappy photograph
into something special (which may be an art in itself). I can see it
now..."natural" photo competitions, for those that are not
Photoshop-enhanced.
Bill Dobbins
the photograph depends on "choice" - choice of subject, type of lens,
time of day, lighting, cropping, what kind of film is used - color
transparency, color negative, different emulsions, or black and white.
Many manipulations can take place in how the film is processed and most
certainly in what choices are made when the print is made. Especially
black and white, where the negative is simply the starting point in
making the print. The evidence for this is how different photographs of
the same subject can be when made by different photographers, and how
much better some photographers are at creating striking and moving
photos than others.
David Hockney would tend to agree with you. He calls the camera a
"cyclops," and the conventional photo a one-eyed view of a subject with
a single, fixed vanishing point. He also points to the fact that photos
tend to be made "instaneously," in spite of the later manipulations of
whatever is captured on the emulsion. He feels some photos can be art,
but that photography itself is a limited medium for serious artistic
photography.
However, Hockney has recently published articles about the fact that the
introduction of digital photography has put the "painterly" choices back
into photography. He says that the 150 year (give or take) history of
photography has simply been an interlude and that now photographers have
the tools they need to develop and shape and image much like painters
have always done. So how this all turns out remains to be seen.
BD
David E Fields
field, shutter speeds and a eye pleasing composition (rule of thirds etc)
is the difference between a snapshot and art in the form of a photograph.
Joe Schmoe and a photographer may look at a field of flowers, Joe will snap
a pic and say to a friend "this is the field of flowers".... a snapshot. The
photographer would look at the field and find many ways to "interpret the
field and use his knowledge and expertise with a camera system and film to
capture it. He may find a single flower, or small group and by using the
tools at his disposal, create an image with a shallow depth of field and
create a stunning shot. In fitness photography lighting, posing, balance
with the background and scenery are not a chance occurrence, they happen by
planning and careful consideration. Even many of the poses come from
direction of the photographer because we are seeing through the lens, and
know how the changes can enhance the photo. I will grant you that a field of
flowers, the cemeteries of New Orleans, many of Earth's natural wonders may
present more opportunities for art, but I think the human body is its own
natural wonder. If photography were that easy then everyone here would be
doing it. Today's cameras would take much of the guess work out for most,
but to quote my favorite photographer , John Shaw, when asked what kind of
equipment he used "it doesn't matter, I have yet to have a camera take a
picture for me".
Thanks for the discussion
David
www.fitness-vision.9f.com
Tre'
> I believe that photography is an art.
Good photography is, bad/mediocre 'photography' (often referred to
nowadays as 'taking pics') is not.
Of course, that's just my personal belief.
> There's a big difference between a snapshot taken at the beach and a
> beautifully composed photograph, a la Ansel Adams.
I agree completely - and it's been my experience that a lot of what
passes for 'photography' in these parts is little than what you
describe in the former.
But lets not give Ansel the key to the city just yet...
> Most endeavours can be considered a "craft" (e.g. acting, hitting a baseball, > etc.), but not all crafts can be considered art.
And even people who claim the title 'photographer' do not always live
up to that name. I'm always quick to point out that I'm not a
photographer, but rather a guy who just presses buttons. There is NO
DENYING that the new digital cameras have made me and many others
appear to be much better picture takers than we actually are. But, as
technology has improved, so, too, have the tools that we use in the
practice of this craft. As a result, the gap between the low-to-mid
level professionals and the eager young hacks has been closed just a
bit.
> On the other hand, Photoshop can be considered an "equalizer" since it can be > used to turn a crappy photograph into something special...
Photoshop does possess great powers, yes.
> I can see it now..."natural" photo competitions, for those that are not
> Photoshop-enhanced.
heh heh
But before you think we new guys to be the 'cheaters' out there, let's
get back to Ansel Adams for a moment (you mentioned him earlier).
Much of the incredible detail in his portraits resulted from the
enhancements he provided once he got into the darkroom to develop his
prints. Adams insisted on maintaining complete technical control from
start to finish in making a photograph.
ciao
--Tre', who occasionally gets lucky behind the camera...
Dr Arm®
>
> Simply taking a picture does not make art, being able to combine depth of
> field, shutter speeds and a eye pleasing composition (rule of thirds etc)
> is the difference between a snapshot and art in the form of a photograph.
Of course it's true, that combining the "rules" as you say produce a
competent photograph. But that's not art. That's where you're going
around the point I tried to make in my post. That stuff is all
"technical", like mixing the right compounds ot obtain a given color, is
technical. Like knowing how long to keep the shutter open for a given
filmspeed is technical, like knowing the RULE of Thirds is technical. It
may contribute to a pleasing aestetic, but it's still technical. All
that stuff is FORMULA and RULE and that is not art. David, you missed my
crux about what art is, by my defiinition of art, or perhaps I just
explained it poorly. Because art, as I used the word, is not the
competent or aestetically pleasing aspect of a piece of work.
> Joe Schmoe and a photographer may look at a field of flowers, Joe will snap
> a pic and say to a friend "this is the field of flowers".... a snapshot. The
> photographer would look at the field and find many ways to "interpret the
> field and use his knowledge and expertise with a camera system and film to
> capture it.
Yes, any schmuck CAN take a pleasing picture, furthermore any schmuck
can interpret what is already there. INTERPRETING what is alreay there
is NOT ART. In fact it's closer to science than art.
Art is not a technical device to capture what is already there. The ART
occurs when a person sees something in their mind and then expresses it
in a technical medium. You have confused art with craft. All these
lovely little devices that you have conjured up do not constitute art.
They constitute other-than-art, such as craft. Aaaaaallow me to go over
it again: when a painter paints a bowl of fruit and that bowl of fruit
looks like the model that he prepared on the table, that is not art.
When an artist paints a bowl of fruit like Picasso painted a bowl of
fruit that is art. (I will consider and possibly grant that arranging a
bowl of fruit in the first place MAY be art, if and only if that
arrangement sprang from the mind and was not mearly a pleasing
arrangement chanced upon and recognized).
Let me say it again. If a photographer goes to Spain and takes a lovely,
tasteful panaromic photograph of Guernica it might be a beautiful and
competent picture, but it is not art. Even if he solarizes it in the
darkroom to create a special effect, it is technique applied to craft,
and that's not art.
But when Picasso painted the horrors of mechanized war against an
undefended civilian population and called it Guernica, it was art, even
though it was not a streetmap of the city. The fact that it was also a
technically competent oilpainting very well added to it's value, but
that aspect of it was not the art. The fact that it was a socially
significant statement added to the value of thea rt, but that also was
not the art.
The art was that this man expressed his feeling in a manner such that
others could experience his deepest feeling, and that is what made it
art. "From the imagination, to the imagination" from the mind to the
mind, that is where the ART is. Or at least art in the strictedst sense,
the way I want to use the word.
Art resides in the creation of the statement that the art conveys, not
in the myriad technical details involved in presenting the crafted
object. The prehistoric rock paintings found in the southwest are art,
even though the artist that created them probably knew nothing of the
natural varnishes that coated the rocks maling his petroglyphs possible.
> He may find a single flower, or small group
If he created the flower then perhaps it was art. If he painted it, as a
realistic representation, or if he took a picture of it, even a
technically competent picture, thenit was not art. The "ART" resides in
the creation, not in a discovery of something preexisting. That's the
very point I am making.
and by using the
> tools at his disposal, create an image with a shallow depth of field and
> create a stunning shot.
That is the technical aspect of that photograph and that is what makes
it a "CRAFT".
Finding a flower and properly photographing it does not make one an
artist, it makes one a craftsman. Since he found it, instead of creating
it, he is not an artist.
The camera, when used by a technically competent craftsperson, captures
the pre-existing image, the only creation is the technical conversion of
light into silver halide, or binary representation. And that's done by
formula so even the art of creating a camera has been taken out of it
once a camera has been once created. Carl Zeiss was more of an artist
than the photographers that used his cromatically corrected lenses,
though more properly he was an artisian also.
> In fitness photography lighting, posing, balance
> with the background and scenery are not a chance occurrence, they happen by
> planning and careful consideration.
Of course they do. And iit wtakes a throughly trained and knowledgable
person to consider all that. That is exactly the definintion of what a
competent technical craftsperson does. Not too much light so as to
saturate the film, not the wrong type of light so as to change the color
balance, not too many objects in the background so as to distract from
the subject....these are all technical details. Nothing wrong with that,
but they are the tools of the craftsman, or the artisian, not the
artist.
> Even many of the poses come from
> direction of the photographer because we are seeing through the lens, and
> know how the changes can enhance the photo. I will grant you that a field of
> flowers, the cemeteries of New Orleans, many of Earth's natural wonders may
> present more opportunities for art,
I grant that the personal nature of "seeing" is an aquired skill, having
the eye of a photographer is not to be taken lightly. But if the scene
pre-exists, then "capturing" it by whatever means, is not "art".
If the scene already exists and you capture the pre-existing image
either by camera, or even by painting it, you are not creating art. You
MAY be creating "ARTWORK" and that would make you an "artisian", but one
is not creating art when capturing when one sees. At least not by my
strict definition and the strict definition that was applied to
Eisenstadt in his day, innovative as he was.
Art is art only when it originates in the mind of the artist. The medium
is only the delevery aspect of the art, and while a technical mastery of
the medium is important and beneficial to an artist, that competancy is
not what makes the art art.
> but I think the human body is its own
> natural wonder.
And if someone had created it out of their mind and their imagination,
then it would be an art. If another person paints or photographs it,
realistically, then that is not art, even if the artisian recognizes the
beauty in that natural wonder. Obviously since it is a "natural wonder"
it wasn't created, was it? Or at least not traceably created, else it
wouldn't be a "natural" wonder. But I'm getting off the subject here.
> If photography were that easy then everyone here would be
> doing it.
Yes, and if flying a helicopter were that easy eveyone would be doing
it.
Yet neither are "art" the way art is defined as a product of the mind
and the imagination. Both are respectable crafts, and both are
respectable professions, both are respectable skills, but neither is
"art".
> Today's cameras would take much of the guess work out for most,
> but to quote my favorite photographer , John Shaw, when asked what kind of
> equipment he used "it doesn't matter, I have yet to have a camera take a
> picture for me".
I have yet to see a helicopter fly itself, within the spirit of Shaw's
statement.
John Shaw's statement underlines what I have tried to present: One
requires much skill to adroitly use a camera, of that there is no doubt,
that skill is a technical skill, of that your post acknowledges several
times over, but a technical skill is not "art", a technical skill is the
knowledge of how something works, and that makes it a "craft" or the
skill of an "artisian", but not art, not in the strictest sense of the
concept of art as a product of the imagination.
da
Hockey Puck
photography. You should call it "Dear Dopey".
-Fôô
BD
Dr Arm®
>
> David E Fields wrote:
>
> > Thanks for the discussion
> > David
> > www.fitness-vision.9f.com
One other thing I did want to add: I hoped it was obvious that my
intention was not to belittle the "craft" of photography", as I see it,
but to point out that by it's very physical characteristics, the
"physics" of photography if you will, it is very difficult to create
"art" with a camera, at least by my very specific and narrow definition
of 'art'. The "art" if an art is involved is in the set creation, at
least as I see it.
Of course, you have every full freedom and privlidge to call an "art"
whatever you desire to call an art without any scoffing from me and if
you feel better by creating "art" with a camera then take comfort in the
fact that I once felt I was creating "art" with an airplane when I used
to fly aerobatics, or at least for me, in my mind's eye, it was "art" to
me at the time.
da
Texas Patriot
get back to Ansel Adams for a moment (you mentioned him earlier).
Much of the incredible detail in his portraits resulted from the
enhancements he provided once he got into the darkroom to develop his
prints. Adams insisted on maintaining complete technical control from
start to finish in making a photograph.
I agree completely. But Adams' ability to achieve the proper level of enhancement to creat the final product would be an art, no?
I've done photography work in the past, mostly scenics for calendars, etc. and local models that were trying to build a portfolio (never could never get the wife to agree to the FBB angle). Its not uncommon to spend a day in the countryside (in all kinds of weather), burn multiple rolls of film, and then end up with one or two slides that may be award-quality. Granted, some of nature photography is based on luck--being in the right place at the right time, etc. But there is still a technical side to it that demands the ability to capture the right moment in time. Its a whole lot different than artistic photographs of BBers. The lighting and exposure must be just right to capture the muscular striations, etc. Most of what is posted in NGs are just 'pics' (you're right).
Dr Arm®
>
> Many photographers would not agree with you. They are aware how much
> the photograph depends on "choice" - choice of subject, type of lens,
> time of day, lighting, cropping, what kind of film is used - color
> transparency, color negative, different emulsions, or black and white.
> Many manipulations can take place in how the film is processed and most
> certainly in what choices are made when the print is made. Especially
> black and white, where the negative is simply the starting point in
> making the print.
But I couldn't agree more with those photographers on the validity of
that list.
All those items in that list, every one, all are the technical
characteristics and choices that the photographer balances, and it's the
technical knowledge and the technical acumen that is the realm of a
"craftsman". Lighting, how long to hold the shutter open based on film
speed, composition and balance, all these choices are technical in
nature even to the extent of being formula. Ansel Adams took the media
out of the realm of "interpretive" long ago with his zone system that
defined the "proper" way to print, that is, to get the most range out of
a particular negative-paper combination. Granted, that technique
requires a developed eye and a working knowledge of the materials
involved but that is the nature of technique, rathr than art, at least
"art" in the strictest sense of the word.
The choice of whether to use color or to be "arty" and use black and
white is similar to the choice of brush for a particular stroke. These
are aspects of skill.
It's interesting that one of the frequent justifications for using B&W
today is that many photogs consider it "arty" but I tend to think that
is because they have more positive control over the range of print
characteristics, and consider it "arty" rather than "art" and that puts
it in the realm of technical or skill.
Photographers that are glad to personally manually print in B&W would
rather pass on manually printing color, prefering instead to capture the
final image in the camera and let it go at that: It's not easy printing
color manually, and most photogs prefer to defer to the "Kodak Prining
Machine" for their color prints, often shooting slides in order to have
a check on the final print color balance. But color printing can be
manually manipulated just as B&W, of course there are more dergees of
freedom and hence more things to go wrong, but maunally printed color
prints are works of beauty as much or more so than B&W prints. Manually
printing involves a high degree of skill, but that's not art. Even the
photographer that chooses to to use extreame darkroom techniques like
solarizing a negative, for instanvce, is applying a skill using a
technique with a known result. That's not the "art", even though it does
demonstrate great skill, any more than using heavy reverb is the art of
creating a musical piece of work. Of course it may be involved in
presenting the art, but techinque is not art, not in the strict senese
that lets us give a purpose to "art".
> The evidence for this is how different photographs of
> the same subject can be when made by different photographers, and how
> much better some photographers are at creating striking and moving
> photos than others.
Some most striking and moving photos were taken by people like
Eisenstadt, Bourke-White, Eugene Smith, Ansel Adams, but these are
images that were captured from real-life. Now I don't belittle their
work but they did not create the emotion, they captured it. And while it
takes a highly trained eye and an artistic nature to recognize the
emotion of the moment, the emotion was not created by the photographer
and art, as I chose to narrowly define it, requires the gerneration of a
thought or expression or emotion in the mind of the artist, rather than
the recognition of the emotion. A good photographer would have take
pictures of the massacre at Guernica that are moving and socially
incisive, a good painter might have painted the horrors as he saw them,
but it is the "art" that the artist Picasso created when he expressed
himself in his work.
>
> David Hockney would tend to agree with you. He calls the camera a
> "cyclops," and the conventional photo a one-eyed view of a subject with
> a single, fixed vanishing point. He also points to the fact that photos
> tend to be made "instaneously," in spite of the later manipulations of
> whatever is captured on the emulsion. He feels some photos can be art,
> but that photography itself is a limited medium for serious artistic
> photography.
I've heard that phase of referring to the camera as "cyclops" before,
though I did not know who to ascribe it to, and it describes very well
the specific definition I was relaying to David. Camera as temporal
"vacuum cleaner" perhaps, is the way I might have said it, drawing up
physical images and representative emotions from the bounty of the
physical world. The process is collective, not creative, at least not in
the strictest sense. Not to belittle the skill and knowledge of the
accomplished photographer, the limitation is in the camera, the tool,
not in the photographer. Being a skilled photographer in no way
precludes the same person from being capable of creating art in a medium
that is traditionally conducive to the creation of art.
>
> However, Hockney has recently published articles about the fact that the
> introduction of digital photography has put the "painterly" choices back
> into photography. He says that the 150 year (give or take) history of
> photography has simply been an interlude and that now photographers have
> the tools they need to develop and shape and image much like painters
> have always done. So how this all turns out remains to be seen.
What goes around comes around, especially when a powerful new technology
is introduced. The digitizing of the craftsman is still in a
transitional phase and will be for the forseeable future. A camera, no
matter how many axis' of variation it acquires, will never have to
ability to move the "head off the subject's neck and into his hands".
It's still a tool for capturing realities.
da
Dr Arm®
Picasso's Guernica, in case you haven't seen it in a while:
Dr Arm®
> But before you think we new guys to be the 'cheaters' out there, let's
> get back to Ansel Adams for a moment (you mentioned him earlier).
> Much of the incredible detail in his portraits resulted from the
> enhancements he provided once he got into the darkroom to develop his
> prints. Adams insisted on maintaining complete technical control from
> start to finish in making a photograph.
Enhancements is a good word to use, to describe Adams prints, it
certainly wasn't gimicks. Ansel Adams didn't use trickery in the
darkroom but he developed a system to take advantage of the full range
of shades available in the photoprint making process.
What Adams did, what he became famous for, was to develope a system that
allowed him to use the full range of tones made available to himk by the
silver halide process, from the dseepest black to the brightest white.
Adams recognized that there was a straight line relationship relating
the scene shades in terms of the available print shades (Adams worked in
B&W, but his system can be applied to color as well with some
modification for color saturation).
What Adams specifically recognized was that the slope of that line could
be changed to take advantage of the full range of tones available in the
final print paper. He called his method the zone system and he divided a
scene into eight zones of lightness to help as an aid in analysing the
range of tones of the scene, from the darkest zone 1 to the brightest
zone 8.
If a scene had low contrast, such that the brightest and the darkest
components of the scene were not at the extreams of the zones then he
would push the contrast of the negative in order to increase that
contrast. Similarly if the scene was too contrasty such that it would
not "fit" onto photographic paper he would reduce the contrast of the
negative in development.
Additionally, during the printmaking, Ansel would change the locations
of intermediate zones so as to enhance the detail in the midranges by
selectively burning in those areas of the print under the enlarger.
da
Dr Arm®
>
> But before you think we new guys to be the 'cheaters' out there, let's
>
> get back to Ansel Adams for a moment (you mentioned him earlier).
> Much of the incredible detail in his portraits resulted from the
> enhancements he provided once he got into the darkroom to develop his
> prints. Adams insisted on maintaining complete technical control from
>
> start to finish in making a photograph.
>
> I agree completely. But Adams' ability to achieve the proper level of
> enhancement to creat the final product would be an art, no?
>
I suggest that the answer is "no", at least not after the very first
time he did it.
What Adams did (see my post to Tre) was to invent a system that would
allow him, to fully utilize the range of shades available to him in the
final print, from the darkest black to the brightest white on the paper.
In my mind the inventing of that system might be considered "art" but
once something is reduced to a system it is no longer "art", certainly
not the "high art" of creating starting from nothing but idea. Instead,
it's a craft, the work of an artisian.
While Ansel Adams photographs are quite beautiful, even artistic, thay
are not "art" at least not by my very strict definition of what "art"
is.
Of course anyone is entitled to a much broader definition of what
constitutes "art" as they can tolerate but I believe the narrow
definition that I use is what gives "art" a purpose.
Furthermore, since Ansel Adams made many copies of his prize
photographs, each one of them done manually, would you consider all
prints made after the first print "art" or not? See?, if you aren't
strict with the definition of "art" then you wind up without a
definition of art or a definition that doesn't give art a purpose in
human existance, other than decoration.
da
Texas Patriot
correct exposure, lighting, film speed and filter selection (just to name a
few) for that specific moment in time is an art in and of itself. I
recently spent two weeks in Alaska on a photo excursion (from grizzlies in
the wild to glacier calving), and getting the proper exposure was difficult
at best, especially in the case of the glaciers. Sunlight glinting off the
ice, the various shades of greens and blues in the ice, and the
ever-changing sun were difficult to deal with. Needless to say, a lot of
bracketing was done and many rolls of film burned just to get a handful of
what may be considered "winners". If it were so easy, then everyone would
get perfect photographs each and every frame. It just isn't so, even with
the technological developments as of late. Its not the arrow, its the
Indian.
Dr Arm®
>
> I guess we can agree to disagree. I tend to think that the selection of the
> correct exposure, lighting, film speed and filter selection (just to name a
> few) for that specific moment in time is an art in and of itself.
Some use the phrase "black art" to describe the skills necessary to
juggle a broad set of diverse parameters.
I
> recently spent two weeks in Alaska on a photo excursion (from grizzlies in
> the wild to glacier calving), and getting the proper exposure was difficult
> at best, especially in the case of the glaciers. Sunlight glinting off the
> ice, the various shades of greens and blues in the ice, and the
> ever-changing sun were difficult to deal with. Needless to say, a lot of
> bracketing was done and many rolls of film burned just to get a handful of
> what may be considered "winners".
Now I would like to see these. How about posting them?
If it were so easy, then everyone would
> get perfect photographs each and every frame. It just isn't so, even with
> the technological developments as of late. Its not the arrow, its the
> Indian.
LOL!
da