Deutsche Börse Prize 2015 nominees announced

[Diego Pigozzo]

Well, I'll admit that I have not seen all the entries in order to answer that question properly, but if the best they have is what is referred in the Guardian article, I would have declared the contest deserted

What kind of photo do you think should win?

[elliot_n]

I popped in to The Photographers' Gallery at lunchtime. It's a great show - four very different artists, all deserving of the prize. I think Zanele Muholi will win it. She's showing 60 portraits, each printed 2ft x 3ft, displayed in a grid. Her subjects face the camera with a calm, unflinching gaze. These are no more 'passport photos' than the work of August Sander or Richard Avedon. The book (for which she has been nominated) is also on display. It contains hundreds of portraits and many personal testimonies (mainly on the subject of 'curative rape'). Yes, you need to read some of the stories to understand the full import of the work, but I don't think this invalidates the project.

[NancyP]

Well, finally a comment from someone who has seen the exhibition. Thank you.

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

OVERLOOKED AT WORLD PRESS PHOTO, DANIEL BEREHULAK WINS 2015 PULITZER PRIZE IN FEATURE PHOTOGRAPHY

[NancyP]

Well deserved.
I may indulge in a bit of home-town boosterism and point out that the breaking-news Pulitzer went to photographers (multiple) of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch for coverage of Ferguson.

[spidermike]

Now that is a set worthy of any competiton headline

[elliot_n]

A good review:

http://www.disphotic.com/review-the-deutsche-borse-prize-2015-at-the-photographers-gallery/

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

Or, to put it another way, the photos are snapshots which provide a little illustration to the text.

[Isaac]

Except that everyone brings their own context with them when they look at a photograph, so something has to be done to anchor the context --

"No photograph should need a caption, but every photograph must have one."

("One of Life magazine's great picture editors, Wilson Hicks…")

[elliot_n]

There's more to photography than sight gags.

Both the Ebola story and the South African homophobia story need words as well as pictures.

[Jeremy Roussak]

There's more to photography than sight gags.

Both the Ebola story and the South African homophobia story need words as well as pictures.

The South African story needed words, certainly; but did it need pictures?

Jeremy

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

...Both the Ebola story and the South African homophobia story need words as well as pictures.

Right... for instance, if I saw this I would have had absolutely no clue what's going on (if I lived under a rock, that is):

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

The South African story needed words, certainly; but did it need pictures?

Perhaps, but not those. If someone captured the attacks, or the aftermath, injuries, then yes, it would help the story. Showing model-like youths hardly helps. The equivalent in the Ebola story would be if they showed that 8-year boy in his picture-day school photo.

[elliot_n]

Right, if it bleeds it leads.

For me it's not so clear what is going on in that picture (is the boy dead?)

I'd also question the ethics of some of the pictures (e.g. this one, and also the delirious 16 year old girl, photographed three hours before she dies.)

But it's a powerful story, no doubt.

[NancyP]

One can also argue that members of stigmatized groups deserve to be seen as they would like to present themselves, as well as being seen as "problems". Both are valid, and the balance is useful. Speaking of which, Book Forum had a recent review/essay on Gordon Parks and one of his extended photoessays in Life magazine.

[jjj]

It is quite obvious by now that you and diegopig are consistently trying to derail a discussion about issues into a discussion about MY "issues," whenever your arguments are weak. I won't be dragged into that mud.

No the mud being discussed is what you like to sling at others. It is germane to as you seem to have an anti-gay agenda and seeing as the photos being discussed are a reaction to such bigoted and ignorant behaviour......
Basically if someone won't simply come out and say they are not a bigot [when asked directly] against say blacks, jews or in this case gays, then that is as much an admission of guilt as them saying 'Yes yes I am a bigot'.

[jjj]

I don't know if you have read any of Tom Sharpe's humorous novels but a common central theme is a weak timid man being led into comic situation by his infatuation for a strong minded woman. Way back in the 90s he was being interviewed by an art critic and the jist of the discussion was:
Critic: what are you trying to say about society and the relationships between men and women
Sharp: nothing
Critic: surely you must be. All your books have the same basic plot
Sharp: I am not saying anything about society
Critic: you must be saying something
Sharp: Why? I am writing books around a theme I find funny and it seems other people do as well
Critic: but you must be saying something about these relationships because it is a recurring theme
Sharp: No. If you want to read that is OK but that is not why I write these books. I write them because I find the theme funny

That reminds me of some pompous prose captioning a Mapplethorpe photograph in a recent retrospective. The caption was alluding to some great meaning and depth as to why the subjects were positioned as they were in the photo. It never occurred to them it may simply have been because it looked good, which it did as the positioning made for a nice composition.
Critics seem to want to find a deeper meaning to artists work as they hope that makes them look smart and they overlook a major, if not the major reason people create art - to create something that others like or find pleasing. Even those who like to create so called 'difficult work' appreciate the minority who do like their work, despite it not being populist.

[jjj]

The way I see it is:

• I take a photo of a landscape
  I don't think pylons are thically pleasing so I remove them
  I now have an attractive image of a landscape

The way you see it is:

• you are removing ugly features
  there fore you are creating a fantasy landscape
  therefore you are making a political statement

The issue I have with that reasoning is that you are ascribing to me a motive that I never had.
Now you may take that image and use it to prove a point to someone else but that is not the reason I took the photo.
Some may also say that I am 'being political' wihout realising it. Personally I find that idea patronising in the extreme and is one common to many with a politically philosophical approach to life.

When people talk about other's motivation for doing things, what they normally reveal is their only own reasons for doing 'xyz', which may have nothing to do with the reasons of the people they are commenting on. For example.....

Mike,
You captured the essence of PC liberalism quite nicely. First they re-define what "being political" or this or that term means (to them), then they assign it to you, whether you meant it or not (they always know better), then they attack you for it, and ultimately they'd try to destroy you, "starve you to death," etc., if they can.

No Mike did not. He simply explained a common problem when humans of any background, whether it be political, cultural religious judge others by projecting themselves and their motivations onto others.
Just as your post simply reveals you have anti PC/Liberalism biases and pretty much nothing else.

Due to people second guessing me all my life and with very few exceptions getting it completely wrong, I quickly learnt never to assume that my reasoning for doing something may be the reason others do something.

[jjj]

I popped in to The Photographers' Gallery at lunchtime. It's a great show - four very different artists, all deserving of the prize. I think Zanele Muholi will win it. She's showing 60 portraits, each printed 2ft x 3ft, displayed in a grid. Her subjects face the camera with a calm, unflinching gaze. These are no more 'passport photos' than the work of August Sander or Richard Avedon. The book (for which she has been nominated) is also on display. It contains hundreds of portraits and many personal testimonies (mainly on the subject of 'curative rape'). Yes, you need to read some of the stories to understand the full import of the work, but I don't think this invalidates the project.

Nice to see an informed as opposed to a knee jerk response, whether positive or negative.
Something I said on in another thread was that before you pass judgment on any art, it is important to see it in the flesh and in the context as the artist intended it. Also...
"....because reproductions rarely do any art justice. I recall seeing a war photo in a the Manchester Art Gallery a few years back, one that  I'd seen it several times in magazines before that, but didn't do that much for me. But seeing the actual print with it's rich tonality gave the photo a depth than was missing before and it was now a powerful and quite moving image. So go see some Gursky in the flesh, so at least then you can dislike it accurately.  "

[Isaac]

Basically if someone won't simply come out and say they are not a bigot [when asked directly] against say blacks, jews or in this case gays, then that is as much an admission of guilt as them saying 'Yes yes I am a bigot'.

https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/loaded-question