Another Fine-Art Gallery Closing

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

Denver's longtime fine-art photography gallery Camera Obscura to close after last show - The Denver Post http://www.denverpost.com/movies/ci_17638451#ixzz1HAVwN7EF

From the article: "... Business drastically diminished during the recent recession and has not rebounded since, forcing the decision to close.

'There's just no sales, so I have to face up to the truth,' [the owner] said..."

[RSL]

Slobodan, That's tragic. I've talked with Hal Gould in the past and I'm familiar with the Camera Obscura gallery. It was the best thing going in Colorado, and, in fact, probably the best thing going in the Rocky Mountain region. But Hal's not alone. My next to last gallery in the Colorado Springs area closed this winter and I'm now down to one very small gallery that concentrates mostly on paintings. The only thing keeping that gallery going is teaching. This situation isn't going to change as long as the current economic slump continues, and it's probably going to continue even after that as we begin to feel the effects of the humongous inflation Bernanke and our treasury have created.

[Justinr]

'There's just no sales, so I have to face up to the truth,' [the owner] said..."

The sad fact is that the above can be said of so many other businesses in many areas of commerce not just photography.

I think it's five high street photo studios I have seen hang up their cameras in this part of Ireland over the last couple of years and wedding operators are quoting prices only a third of what they were in the good times. Meanwhile everyone is happy taking shots with their phones and sticking them up on Facebook for like it or lump it social networking on the web is the communication channel of choice for a significant number of people. Quality of content is not an issue that troubles too many of those involved and why should it be, they are empowered by electronics just as serious photographers are, it's not a magic that we can expect to keep to ourselves. Unfortunately the trend tends to diminish respect for what is good, quantity triumphs over quality and the rot spreads upwards. Beskoke photography from a gallery or a cheap print from the furniture store? The former once had a value but why bother when anything cheap'n'cheerful will do.

[Rob C]

By error - and out of total boredom since I can't currently use my photo computer - last night saw me watching a tv show called Electric Dreams, or something similar, the point of it being to demonstrate how technology has changed lifestyle (family) during the past few years.

The point of why that's relevant here lies in a photograph of some pebbles, b/w, up on a wall of the house where the action takes place: one person looks at the shot and remarks: oh, that was so seventies...

I think it has little to do with available money. Money didn't get lost, in a sense of general reality, it just stopped circulating. What I believe has happened is that people have come to think of photography as just another 'so what'?, and who can blame them? On this site, almost by definition, I suppose, we are all photo freaks of one sort or another, but for the rest of the population, why on Earth should it care a hoot about our trivial pursuit?

Rob C

[Justinr]

I would go along with that Rob, I read somewhere recently that the personal savings held by the Irish in Banks is about the same as the supposed national debt, there is money there but nobody is doing anything with it (just as an aside I see that the Irish government has at last started talking tough with the EU over the bond holders). But this is not the only reason for the decline in our craft, indeed there is no one single reason but a combination of factors and there are a couple of recent events that only go to reinforce my negative feelings about the future.

A colleague of my wife got married this weekend at the local church, no photographer was present but there are photos of the day all over Facebook this morning. If she wants an album then she'll just ask for copies of the images that she likes from her friends, saving herself a fair sum.

Secondly another friend on a web foundation course that I am doing is going on to further specialise in the field. In between though she is going to "learn Photoshop and Dreamweaver", just like that! Photoshop is obviously not considered a means to an end but merely another bit of software to be mastered. I have gently tried pointing out that the programme is just a tool to achieve a result which is subjective not logical and therefore you need to have some idea of what you are trying to achieve before setting out, but I fear I wasn't really understood. The Photoshop box will be ticked as 'done' and therefore anything produced by its use must by definition be good.