Luminous Landscape Forum
Site & Board Matters => About This Site => Topic started by: pearlstreet on August 03, 2016, 12:35:02 pm
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Great article, Neal. I had a few email conversations with a young man who posted "art" he had entered and won prizes for which was savagely criticized on the Fred Miranda Landscape Forum. I told him in our conversations that the problem I had with much of the art coming from mfa photography programs was that it was so bad technically. I remember how startled he was by that comment...I was startled that he was startled!
But that seems to be the trend with art in general, not just photography. After all, everybody can't call themselves an artist if it requires talent and skill and effort. Just put some sand on the floor in the middle of MOMA and call it art and write an incomprehensible artist's statement.
I think maybe this article would be better without accompanying photographs. Love your work, but I found it distracting in this context - as if I was required to compare it to something that isn't also presented - just a thought.
Thanks for the thoughtful article.
Sharon
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The issue I've had lately (over the last few years) is people on social media posting photos along with certain titles/text that are overly dramatic or a 'deep thought'. It's as if every dang photo they post has to have some deep, meaningful title/thought. I don't get it. I keep thinking to myself, why can't a good photo just be a good photo and that's it? Do we really have to save the *&!$@ world with every picture? Ok, sometimes people will do a project and they want to post thoughts about those specific images and what they're all about...but a lot of what I see is just plain nonsense and I want to vomit or just yell at the screen when I see it :-) So anyway, I pretty much quite the social media scene. I'd rather just focus on photography for my own personal use/enjoyment and put those images on my own site (where it's not possible for anyone to comment on my photos).
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I think the photography world (and pretty much the entire world) would be a little bit better if we all paid a little less attention to what others are doing or not doing.
Art is so subjective that it is difficult to have any meaningful discussions as to quality. Specific techniques can be evaluated and argued about, but the what constitutes good or bad art is impossible to objectively determine... for the very good reason that we can't objectively define what is and ain't art.
Even techniques can be subjective. My out of focus shot may be crap to you, but I think it is a good abstract. Your Dutch angle may portray a tension to you but to me it is poor technique. Who is right? We both are.
Some of the pictures posted just on this site are some of the worst dreck I have ever seen... but to the artist/photographer, it represents something special to them. Who am I to criticize? They did not take the photograph for me.. they took it for them.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder as some dead guy once said. So is art, in my opinion.
Perhaps the best option is for every artist to ignore every other artist. :)
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I think the photography world (and pretty much the entire world) would be a little bit better if we all paid a little less attention to what others are doing or not doing.
Art is so subjective that it is difficult to have any meaningful discussions as to quality. Specific techniques can be evaluated and argued about, but the what constitutes good or bad art is impossible to objectively determine... for the very good reason that we can't objectively define what is and ain't art.
Even techniques can be subjective. My out of focus shot may be crap to you, but I think it is a good abstract. Your Dutch angle may portray a tension to you but to me it is poor technique. Who is right? We both are.
Some of the pictures posted just on this site are some of the worst dreck I have ever seen... but to the artist/photographer, it represents something special to them. Who am I to criticize? They did not take the photograph for me.. they took it for them.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder as some dead guy once said. So is art, in my opinion.
Perhaps the best option is for every artist to ignore every other artist. :)
I don't know...no NY Times Book Review, no Siskel and Ebert. :-) I know what you mean, judge not kind of thing, but I think there is a place for high standards. I went to an exhibit of Pulitzer Prize photos in Dallas. Each one was a stunner - and while the text often enlightened, the photos stood on their own as powerful images. Not a unfocused, blown-out, photo of nothing in the bunch.
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I saw this from David duChemin this morning..
http://davidduchemin.com/2016/08/a-little-more-defiance-please/
Alan
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It's an inevitable consequence of trying to turn something very simple into something very complex.
There's nothing to photography - there never was. All you had to do was read the brief camera manual, find somebody with a darkroom, and hey presto: you knew what it was about. That experience either moved the Earth for you or it left you cold. If the former, then you set out on the long road to personal discovery, made lots of lousy prints and then it clicked, and you got it.
So you could print well. But nobody said that made you a great photographer. There never were many great photographers - just zillions of mediocre ones who could get by. This is fairly obvious if only by the fact that we can research and find the same names cropping up over and over again. Were there in fact zillions of good ones, the ones we think of as great masters wouldn't have been tall enough poppies to show. And ditto painting and all the rest of the graphic arts.
All photography is is the medium.
Whichever branch of art we play in, it's the art factor, our ability as artists that makes us stand out or not, not the medium.
Digital has just cut short the learning curve that was film. Devoid of that pair of technical obstacles that demanded a modicum of dedication, digital promises instant gratification without the period of grace where you discovered if it was really all worth the time and the tears; you reach mediocrity very quickly indeed today.
Also, with more education and more money floating around in education, it allows lots of 'students' to spend critical years doing nothing much more than ego tripping. That these same students have possibly also had a deeper education in English language and literature permits them to stretch a lot of boundaries. In my day, professional photography was a closed world of which few knew the slightest thing, and cared even less. A professional was the chap who photographed babies and weddings and took your passport pictures. The worlds of Mad Av and industrial photography were entirely unknown to the public consciousness. Who was Richard Avedon? I'm not joking: few would have had the slightest idea back in the late 50s. Roll on the 60s and it's all change: the new train's in the staion. All at once everybody knew who David Bailey was even if they had never held a copy of Vogue in their hand.
Photography had come of age. It had climbed out of puberty and was the sexiest ticket in town; it could get you laid as much as your appetite could stand; it could get you all around the world and you never again had to pay for a holiday; it could make you richer than anybody else in your social circle. What was not to like?
In the UK at least, photography wasn't thought of as 'fine art' at all; the first galleries I can think of were 'sponsored' efforts, concentrating on worthy studies of the poor and depressingly derpressed in the industrial wastelands of a changing Britain. You could see them as political extension, socialism on the wall, if you will.
Then came the commerical ones like Hamilton's and a new interest was sparked by the fashion magazines, lifestyle magazines and the inevitable influences from across the ever-narrower Atlantic.
With its transistion from being, broadly, nothing but hobby or commerce, it morphed into art, where and when there suddenly were no limits. Anything and everything could go, and it did. Photographers who would once have been jailed for their photography suddenly held exhibitions and became big ticket players. Galleries grew rich off their transgressions. It could, and will, only end in tears.
Of course the general run of work is going down the pan; where else can it go? The top was reached decades ago, and some of the same guys and gals active in the 60s are still cutting-edge today. You can only be the first up Everest one time. For a newcomer, it must be terminally depressing to know you will never match the magic of what's gone before you. You can only be a clone, a prostitute, a hunter for the money. In essence, no better than the professional so many of these 'artists' despise. Sweet irony.
Rob C
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Wonderfully stated Rob even if don't agree with your conclusion. In many ways I think today is the golden age of photography, that more good work (and bad) is being produced by more people than ever before.
It's a big tent and there's room for everyone, always has been.
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Two points. To engage with, and share our creativity is a deep human characteristic. Taking into account the fields where this happens (music, sculpture, novels, ceramics etc), how come the technically and intellectually challenged have gotten so far in the visual arts? It's not just in photography. Same goes for the critics in general.
Secondly, living in a small town in the south of New Zealand, when I get to visit cities I tend to pig out on the galleries. Recently in Paris I saw a retrospective of the photographs of the Sudanese photographer Seydou Keïta. That they were technically superb went without saying. But what came through was the humanity of the subjects, and by inference, the understanding that there was a real human being behind the lens. It reminded me that the bar was set by Julia Margaret Cameron around 1870.
Then there was the more contemporary stuff. That it was without technical merit almost went without saying. I could go with that if there was something else going on. But what struck me was the emotional coldness so much of the work. It had all the joylessness of a brain without a body.
David
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I saw this from David duChemin this morning..
http://davidduchemin.com/2016/08/a-little-more-defiance-please/
Alan
For every photographer or writer who shuns the limelight, there are legions posting galore a lot of garbage these days.
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This video explains (or rather illustrates) few things even better, including the "extensive explanations" bit:
Modern art insults me (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sN9iJCZ5Il8)
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In many ways I think today is the golden age of photography
I've been saying precisely that for a few years. Never has it been easier to produce superb images and never have so many been so enabled.
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Thanks for the interesting article. It seems to me that good photography is in some ways is timeless. However, today I feel this pressure to come up with good work immediately as opposed to editing my work over the last 25 years.
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Great article. I generally find all art that is better written about than viewed unsatisfying.
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Good article and food for thought. One of the challenges I have is to find the elusive "good work" from the mass of work that gets easily published today: social media, instant news. We are flooded and saturated with visual media by the second, and it is hard to step back, and really find the good stuff out there.
I find it useful that some photographic projects, or documentary ones, are captioned, so to speak, to provide some context. When good text goes along with good photos, it is a nice experience for the viewer.
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Quote from the article
But, and this is my main point, the photographs often aren’t very good. It’s as though photography has been sublimated to a necessary part of the total, that the words are the priority and the photographs somehow are ancillary or secondary and therefore not needing much attention. This resides perilously close to using the photographs as illustrations, really another field entirely.
I couldn't agree more and I echo the comment that this is a trend that applies to art as well. As an example I went to an exhibition by the renowned artist Gabriel Orozco at the Tate Modern in London in 2011. One of his exhibits was an unadorned and empty cardboard shoe box placed on the floor. People kept picking it up and handing to to the attendant stating that someone had thrown this rubbish away. Eventually the museum had to post a guard next to it who pointed visitors towards some printed words on the wall.
Enough said
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I wouldn't subscribe to a blanket banishment of text with photography.
When I was producing calendars I would sometimes include a little sentence or two along with the photographs. I remember that for one regulare client, I did that for one year and thought I'd drop it the next. To my surprise, the client was most put out, and told me that I simply had to write something to go along with the images. I asked him why, and he replied to the effect that whilst nobody in the Group understood what the hell I was on about, they liked it anyway.
(http://www.roma57.com/uploads/4/2/8/7/4287956/6769207_orig.jpg)
For this page, I'd penned something about Flying Purple People Eaters which was a reference to a popular song. I'm sure that the client had never heard it - he was into classical piano, which he also played; however, it made his version of Pirelli that little bit different. Suited me just fine!
I still enjoy using captions - I think every image in my webs¡te has one; in some cases I use them because I want the viewer to connect with what I was intending to express. (I'm not really interested that much in what others may or may not see; it's my vision that I'm concerned about.) In other instances I'll just supply location information...
But yeah, this is now all within my website; were I to be offered a show, after recovering from the shock I'd certainly not concern myself with captions because in that ambience I'd think them superflous and somewhat irrelevant. However, a panel with brief, general informational content about the pictures and myself would be fine.
Rob
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I thank you all for your comments on my piece "A Disturbing Trend", both pro and con. I only sought to promote the discussion. One comment on the criticism of the pictures being included: This was Kevin's suggestion as LuLA is a photography site so we picked (arbitrarily) some of my work for inclusion.
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I saw this from David duChemin this morning..
http://davidduchemin.com/2016/08/a-little-more-defiance-please/
Alan
I don't agree with his first part. There are many reasons why a photographer may choose not to share his or her work. I only like to share my photographs with people I actually know in real life and even then I don't share everything. I share more with my family then I do at our photography club for example.
If a complete stranger thinks my photograph is great, or a complete stranger thinks my photograph is crap, means exactly the same to me... that being I don't care.
I do care about the opinions of people I know and who I have respect for. I have to confess I don't really understand the appeal of posting photographs and garnering opinions from complete strangers. But, evidently a lot of people do and that's great for them. I used to post a small number of my photographs publicly on Flickr but quickly asked myself "why?" So I decided to only allow friends to access my files and soon stopped using Flickr and just exchanged photographs with my groups.
So despite Mr. duChemin's opinion, people may choose not to post their photographs not out of fear of rejection about their photograph, but due to apathy about complete stranger's opinions about their photograph. Some photographers may just choose to share their photographs with a select group of people they actually know.
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Another couple of thoughts about photography - especially street, and education vs buying into it, and motivation. I thought it fitted neatly here.
http://leicaphilia.com/a-totally-free-leicaphilia-street-photography-seminar/
Rob
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As a former commercial and fine art photographer active in the late 1960s and early 1970s and a recent graduate with an MFA in Photography (2014) I've experienced the disconnect between image and stated intent as well as the lack of technical quality in the work of at least some of my classmates and peers. In order to graduate I had to produce a research paper of considerable length and complexity at least peripherally related to my images. I wrote a dense screed on memory, place and aging better suited to a degree in psychology or sociology and got away with it.
There's often IMHO a disconnect between a contemporary "conceptual" artist's intent as expressed in captions or an accompanying essay and what the image would seem to express. Further, the more esoteric the discussion, the greater the disconnect appears to be. I'm less certain about the issue of lack of technical quality; it's important to me but, as long as it's intentional, I can look past it in the work of others.
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I've been saying precisely that for a few years. Never has it been easier to produce superb images and never have so many been so enabled.
There are two sides to it, which I think is the point Rob was making: it's never been easier to make competent images. But it's never been harder to get them noticed, unless you have pre-existing fame. If Quentin Tarantino had a gallery show tomorrow, it would be a sell-out, whatever the photos were like. It wouldn't be about the quality of the photos, either way (I have no idea if he takes photos, they'd probably be quite good, but who knows?).
Just look at the recent fuss over the painting that Lucien Freud denied was his. Basically, he was saying it was crap, he didn't want it associated with him. The back story was that it was aquired from his student days by an enemy, in order to embarrass him. In other words, because it was crap. It has been estimated at around $300k.
However, for a bit of humility it's as well to remember that these sort of "this modern stuff is all crap" comments have been applied to all the artists most people now consider great, by the established technicians of the day. It may be that none of us are any smarter than them ;)
Rob: I'm stealing your line about reaching mediocrity quickly :)
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I don't usually join in public debates about this kind of issue as they never resolve anything - and one can be so much more satisfyingly, and less responsibly, provocative in private discussions with friends and colleagues !!
However as photographers we should not beat ourselves up too much about "the way things are going". This trend is not a 'photography" issue per se. Those of us who attempt to also function in other media have exactly the same issues there.
I was appalled when a few years ago a really quite prestigious art school dropped 'life and figure studies' as a compulsory subject because of 'curriculum pressures' but maintained as one the writing of 'Artist's Statements' (the very things that introduced Neal Rantoul argument in this article ). It seemed to me then ( and still now) that they were in danger of being criticised - fairly - in exactly the way that he is outlining in this article ... greater concern for the perceived context and the artist's intent than for the artistic content.
My own view, for what it is worth, is that for any work which might be considered to be 'Art' the amount of explanation necessary for it's understanding, and perhaps, appreciation should be minimal at most - otherwise it is primarily social or political comment ... and even then should be able to stand on it's own feet ... my examples to bolster my argument ... Guernica, the WW1 paintings of John Nash, the photographic images of Robert Capa and Dorothea Lange to name but a few.
I seek not to convince or convert but merely to restate an opinion which is currently much out of fashion but merits a return to favour ... I hope.
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Thanks Neal. I'll be 69 very soon and have had the same experiences with MFAs, MFA photography and MFA artists in general.
No, it's not because we are old. Let me start by saying I went to art college (not university) from 1967-1971
and studied an 'extension' year 1972-1973 That was five years for a diploma only, not a degree.
My training was in the Bauhaus tradition in which art and it's various techniques, including photography,
were taught very much as trade-craft or technology. While 'conceptual' art was by then an established practice
the work and its execution still seemed to come first and the heavy theory and criticism was left for later or for others.
Having lost the taste for it after leaving art school, it's been decades since I've been able to read or listen to most 'art-speak'.
I have friends I consider talented artist yet I can't listen to then talk about art, especially their own.
I don't think I am alone in opining that art school and not a credential generating university is the place to teach
and learn the trade of artist and its required techniques like photography.
The artist Carl Andre never said much more than something like, "Art must exist as a social fact."
Though he is often considered a 'conceptualist', and by some a minimalist, his big, heavy sculptural 'things'
are not minimal in scale and exist as material and objects alone; things without need of accompanying text.
As a student in the '60s and early '70s, my first serious photographic influences were people who in one case
were photographers mistakenly cast as conceptual artists and in the other a conceptual artists who
was often cast as a photographer. Bernd-Hilla Becher and Edward Ruscha.
Both the Bechers and Ruscha produced photo work, though very different in look and intent,
that could be taken on its merits as image and object alone.
The Bechers trade-craft and technique as photographic image makers and as it has been
imparted to others in their teaching, all very much in that Bauhaus trade and technique tradition,
has produced some of the best art photography and art photographers of the last 50 years.
No Neal we're not old. It's just that we've seen a lot and lately too much of it has been text.
My bifocals, please! Help me find my bifocals!
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As a young undergraduate in 1967, I was invited - along with the entire student body - to enter the Uni's Student Art Exhibit. I was so provoked by the then-current trend of non-figurative 'art' I did not understand that I decided to show my cynicism by submitting rubbish. I took the separated lids from my baked bean cans/tins and stuck them with tape to a purple card. There was, thankfully, no textual explanation required - just my name. I submitted my opus
For whatever reason, the piece was accepted
As it hung in the gallery for two weeks, the sticky tape dried and the lids started to fall off one by one. Perhaps at the moment of lids hitting floor it became art
I was contacted by the Curator to execute repairs :o
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Thanks Neal. I'll be 69 very soon and have had the same experiences with MFAs, MFA photography and MFA artists in general.
No, it's not because we are old. Let me start by saying I went to art college (not university) from 1967-1971
and studied an 'extension' year 1972-1973 That was five years for a diploma only, not a degree.
My training was in the Bauhaus tradition in which art and it's various techniques, including photography,
were taught very much as trade-craft or technology. While 'conceptual' art was by then an established practice
the work and its execution still seemed to come first and the heavy theory and criticism was left for later or for others.
Having lost the taste for it after leaving art school, it's been decades since I've been able to read or listen to most 'art-speak'.
I have friends I consider talented artist yet I can't listen to then talk about art, especially their own.
I don't think I am alone in opining that art school and not a credential generating university is the place to teach
and learn the trade of artist and its required techniques like photography.
The artist Carl Andre never said much more than something like, "Art must exist as a social fact."
Though he is often considered a 'conceptualist', and by some a minimalist, his big, heavy sculptural 'things'
are not minimal in scale and exist as material and objects alone; things without need of accompanying text.
As a student in the '60s and early '70s, my first serious photographic influences were people who in one case
were photographers mistakenly cast as conceptual artists and in the other a conceptual artists who
was often cast as a photographer. Bernd-Hilla Becher and Edward Ruscha.
Both the Bechers and Ruscha produced photo work, though very different in look and intent,
that could be taken on its merits as image and object alone.
The Bechers trade-craft and technique as photographic image makers and as it has been
imparted to others in their teaching, all very much in that Bauhaus trade and technique tradition,
has produced some of the best art photography and art photographers of the last 50 years.
No Neal we're not old. It's just that we've seen a lot and lately too much of it has been text.
My bifocals, please! Help me find my bifocals!
There they are - on top of your head!
I'm not even sure that photography needs to be taught in art schools at all. As I've already indicated, it's the easiest thing in the world to learn - the difficulty lies in thinking like an artist. And in my mind, that is something that's naturally in you or it is not.
What can and should be taught, is Photoshop. It's got little to do with old photography, and in fact works the other way around: I got to grips with all the Photoshop I need because I already understood wet printing. I see no reason to imagine it works in the opposite direction. Digital is the future, whether I like it or not. I couldn't, in all good faith, advise anyone to learn wet printng today. That's painful for me, but I have come to realise that's how the cookie has crumbled.
Rob
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As a young undergraduate in 1967, I was invited - along with the entire student body - to enter the Uni's Student Art Exhibit. I was so provoked by the then-current trend of non-figurative 'art' I did not understand that I decided to show my cynicism by submitting rubbish. I took the separated lids from my baked bean cans/tins and stuck them with tape to a purple card. There was, thankfully, no textual explanation required - just my name. I submitted my opus
For whatever reason, the piece was accepted
As it hung in the gallery for two weeks, the sticky tape dried and the lids started to fall off one by one. Perhaps at the moment of lids hitting floor it became art
I was contacted by the Curator to execute repairs :o
Obviously, the Cuarator didn't 'get it'! The art was growing by virtue of it's transformation into pure energy (kinetic).
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You can only be a clone, a prostitute, a hunter for the money. In essence, no better than the professional so many of these 'artists' despise. Sweet irony.
Of course the notion of the artist as respectable is a very recent notion. When Monet was painting Olympia he was quite disreputable, not to mention Lautrec hanging out in the Can-Can palaces and brothels, as did Henry Miller many years later.
But the greatest irony was that just after reading this, I received a message from a friend who is, among her other professional activities, a prostitute. She assumes the title fully... and she needs promotional photos (she's using selfies and they're crap). She's also the first person to offer actual payment for my work: she understands honest cash business. Should be fun to shoot some honest and pragmatic erotica :)
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I very often have the same reaction when I see a modern photographic exhibition. So I feel your pain.
But I suspect the reason we are seeing/feeling what we are seeing/feeling is embedded in your own writing. It's true, it has never been easier to make photographs. The technology has made this a more democratic form of art. The playing field is leveled for everyone. And, ironically, it is this reality that has made the art of photography more difficult than ever! With all the imagery and photographers out there, it is simply far more difficult to get you work seen/noticed/consumed than ever before. It's same for music.
I suspect this is why folks are adding words to accompany their images. It is their attempt to enhance the over all project. Perhaps it wasn't required in the past but, for some, it certainly is today. At least they feel it is worth a try.
When I stop to think about it, it's not really the addition of text, per see, that bothers me. I have seen work where the words and the images add up to more that the sum of the two. Rather, it is the fact that more often than not, the text together with the image still don't speak to me. But that is the beauty and mystery of art....it's in the eye of the beholder.
And when it comes to your comment about the narcissistic nature of a lot of contemporary work, I think a lot of photography has always been inwardly focused. Its just that the addition of text makes this "self" much more obvious.
I think we should all simply take a breath....give everyone the time and space to do whatever it is they feel called to do. If you like it....great. If not....move on to what does moves you.
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Bravo Neal,
You have hit/pounced on something that has been very disturbing to me as well. I have been a voracious reader of books by 'professional' photographers always looking for that bit of inspiration. To be brief I can sum my experience in these pursuits in three categories:
1.) Really pedestrian photographers with excellent speaking and writing skills that put a glossy patina on their work.
2.) Really competent photographers who completely embed themselves in the cliche' locations and embellish with wordsmithery.
These first two are most likely to conduct 'trophy' workshops for people with more money than talent and/or artful discernment.
3.) True photographic artists who come from a background in brush and canvas studies which they bring to their art.
On balance most of the best work I have seen comes from category 3 plus a limited group who speak in captions rather than chapters, but whose photos speak volumes.
Gerald Rowles
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I agree totally with Neal, and not because I am turning 70 in a few months. Let us judge and react to a photograph based on its content and composition. Also its technical value. And as Cartier-Bresson said, 'The anecdote is the enemy of photography.'
Someone recently asked me if I was an artist, and I replied that I was a photographer. Let's not talk about the picture, let's just react to it in our own way.
Red Slater
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The issue I've had lately (over the last few years) is people on social media posting photos along with certain titles/text that are overly dramatic or a 'deep thought'. It's as if every dang photo they post has to have some deep, meaningful title/thought. I don't get it. I keep thinking to myself, why can't a good photo just be a good photo and that's it?
Ming Thein does that. And he's not very good at it. Spoils it for me. Instead of a very good photo, we are left looking at amateurishness and 'trying too hard'.
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Looking back in 10 or 20 years, we will probably label this as typical for this period in time.
If take a look at the body of work of the German artist Gerhard Richter he seems to be a kameleon. He goes along with whatever was the fad of the period (and displaying great mastery of painting techniques).
I was recently at an exhibit of art of the 80s. Most of it is superficial, meant to be ironic and with really shine and poor materials. Also the photographs of that period all look superficial, advertising like in bold colours and harsh flashlight. It doesn't age well. The irony doesn't resonate anymore, because our context has changed so much.
Some of the rock stars of photography of that time did commercial work mainly. Super models, Vogue shoots. If you look at it with 2016 eyes, it is obvious who really had a knack of capturing an image and whose work was driven by gallery owners driven by money. I think we should label that Benetton photography ;)
These days, art seems to be art for a selected group. It is almost like it wants to separate itself from the tsunami of imagery. I think that now is the moment in time where we have more photographs available and shared than ever before. It seems as artists don't know how to react on this abundance and are closing themselves out and retract into a circle of 'contextual explained art', only accessible for those who are knowledgeable about this proces.
On the other hand, it sometimes leads to very refreshing and fun art. Here in Rotterdam, I saw a project of a Dutch artist. She had written an email to young male artists in the Rotterdam art scene who she thought matter. She wanted to make a pair of trousers for them, designing them in collaboration and portray the artist in their working context with the trousers. The trousers themselves were on display too.
The photographs were made by a photographer she works with. It worked. You did not need to study a lot of text, just the short email she wrote and the rest was self explaining. I was not familiar with the work of any of the male artists portrayed, but the photographs were wonderful. It said so much about their personalities. And their vanity somehow showed. The fact the collaborated with the artist on making the trousers somehow dropped a barrier, or a defence, when portrayed. The trousers were just the middle men to get to another level of connection in the photograph.
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Tom Wolfe wrote a short book (100 pages) in 1975 on this precise subject, The Painted Word.
It is a truly timeless must-read for anyone who interfaces with the "Art World".
You could think of it as a mental vaccination
against the infection of useless verbosity surrounding any artwork.
It lifts the covers, removes the scales, cleans the windshield, etc., etc., etc.......
Professional art critics and gallery owners hate this book with a passion.
It is still available from Amazon, $13. I cant recommend it enough!
My copy is old and falling apart from being read so many times over the years.
I often exhibit my work without any labels whatsoever and I definitely think
an image should be able to offer a visual reward without text, otherwise it is lacking.
best to you.....
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Thanks Truesmith!
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Love your article. Stirring it up is fun. Double bubble toil and trouble. I agree with you, and I already am over 70. Here's my take on it. There's a lot of crap out there. Social media is sort of like the laterals on a septic system. All the crap eventually settles out and ceases to stink, and go away. There's also a lot really stunning photos out there, a lot by accident. Accident's happen. That good stuff just floats around out there in the ozone on Pinterest, Facebook, etc., and probably never will go away, unless all of Al Gore's predictions come true. So what. Enjoy them for what they are. If people consistently pay money for your photographs, that's pretty good sign they are good. If not, they're probably not. If you don't want or need the money and just give you photos away, you may want to visit their homes and see where they hang them or don't hang them. Might be an indicator....just a thought. I like to play a funny game when I am out shooting, especially if I have the big lens and a tripod. People invariably ask me, "are you a professional?" If I answer yes, they hang around and start in with, do you have a website, where do you sell your work, what is your speciality (an odd question when I am shooting landscapes, but that's probably me just thinking like a smart ass). If I say no, they walk away. How do I decide what to say? Totally random. Sometimes I say "I'm a professional amateur." That usually gets a deer in the headlights look. It's fun.
People who describe wines and works of art crack me up. I prefer, "it tastes really good" and "wow, that's a great shot." Susan Sonntag wrote some of the most boring drivel about the horror of using the word "shot" when speaking about photography. I bet she was not any fun at a party and I have never seen any of her photographs. Has anyone? People who think more of themselves than the subject on which they are speaking seem to have no sense of humor. None of that here, friends. Only some of those dopey articles you hyperlinked to.
I digress.
Peter Lik is a lightning rod, outdoorsman extraordinaire, a master marketeer, a real magician, an enigma. He also takes pretty good photographs.
Josef Sudek had one arm, carried a gargantuan view camera and survived the nazis and WW2. He also took pretty good photographs.
Suzie Millenial take some interesting shots with her iPhone and posts them on Pinterest. She's lucky and some of them are pretty good.
I'll bet Peter, Josef and Suzie all have/had a pretty good sense of humor and manage/managed to have fun.
Let's not take ourselves too seriously and by all means, get out there, shoot away, and have fun.
ps
I do sell my photographs, in a gallery; I don't have a website, don't use social media...well, I text and use Flikr, and the prints I have given away to friends, hang in their living rooms, offices, bedrooms, and bathrooms.
One friend never put it up after praising it, asking for it, and getting it, free. They are no longer a friend.
pps
I leave you with my favorite photography quote:
"You are in service of the end, which is the print. The print is in service of your voice, which is what you want to say, which is why you took the picture in the first place." -Vincent Versace
He takes really good photographs and has a wicked sense of humor.
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I'm confused about the photographs accompanying the essay. Are they the authors? Are they examples of this new photography being critiqued?
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When I worked in photography in the 1940s, it was considered a trade or craft. When I returned to photography
after retiring in 1990, I was surprised to see it considered as an art form. I then got a BFA in photography. I still use a
black and white film camera, but now scan the negatives before treating them with Photoshop.
Photo Essays in Black and White-
www.efn.org/~hkrieger
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I find it is hard to understand, to put it politely, most photography I see hung at galleries in Southern Ontario. Most are technically unworthy of presentation. Content is often confused, complicated or simply unfocused or purposeless. What I don't get is that how commercial establishments that need to sell these photographs for a profit are surviving? What do the buying public, collectors see in these forgettable works?
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Thanks for the article. Seems I am not the only one observing the trend.
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For a while I've been saying that the definition of modern art is any picture that requires 1,000 words to explain it.
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Humility is an admirable trait, but an overabundance of it can and will lead to self-doubt. I suffer from this condition. I sometimes see work that photographers display and think why is that worthy of any attention. Then I think, well, they might think that of my work too. People write me checks to shoot photographs and video, but self-doubt has probably limited my ability to market my work. Someone commented on an image I'd posted elsewhere the other day. I looked at their work and it had hundreds of thousands of views to my mere thousands. I think part of the wall of text issue might have been born of the need to attract search engines in the age of internet art. Photographers who are able to write to attract search engines and enhance their search rankings get more views and more views mean more commercial success.
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I remember reading once some very candid comments by people who win juried contests and get their work in galleries around the country and are well known in certain circles. They win contests but their work doesn't sell. One lady said she had spent thousands of dollars traveling to her different exhibits and didn't make a dime in sales...Another guy had won numerous awards - zero sales. They were refreshingly honest about the whole process.
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Well it may be a trend to have more written content, but I do not see it as disturbing. I don't have to read it, I can just look at the image, if I so desire, or if it is not something that appeals to me, I can ignore the whole thing. So why is it disturbing? It is because it does not fit your way of looking at art or photography or the world? I get it, and maybe it is not disturbing to me because I am not pushing 70, only pushing 60. I try to look at all of it, and find something that is likable and/or enjoyable and to change my view perspective to see what I may be missing.
I think one of the reasons there is more text, is that society today is extremely visual, everything is in your face so to speak. You are pounded with visuals all the time, so maybe the trend is make them more interesting by providing a means of explanation or maybe a way of stimulating the imagination in a way that is not possible with just visuals. The concept of text and writing is fast becoming lost, most youngsters cannot spell with a damn because they are so used to texting and taking shortcuts with words and messages. There is a degree of impatience that is just becoming so pronounced. It seems that few take the time to enjoy, rather they are always trying to be fast and impatient.
So I see the trends now as a fad, to be replaced by other trends and then more old farts will come along and say how it was when they were young, "oh we had it rough then, the youth of today just don't understand....." (humor-vague reference to MP skit). Maybe as we get older we fear change more, maybe it makes us uncomfortable, outside of the box we have drawn and chosen to live inside.
I see it not as good and bad, just something different, and we are able to choose to look or not look, or I guess to criticize it if that is your desire.
Alan
As a side note; interesting how many posters in this thread have very few forum posts. I know my post count is not all that high but I have been here for a long time, just an interesting observation.
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Tom Wolfe wrote a short book (100 pages) in 1975 on this precise subject, The Painted Word.
It is a truly timeless must-read for anyone who interfaces with the "Art World".
You could think of it as a mental vaccination
against the infection of useless verbosity surrounding any artwork.
It lifts the covers, removes the scales, cleans the windshield, etc., etc., etc.......
Professional art critics and gallery owners hate this book with a passion.
It is still available from Amazon, $13. I cant recommend it enough!
My copy is old and falling apart from being read so many times over the years.
I often exhibit my work without any labels whatsoever and I definitely think
an image should be able to offer a visual reward without text, otherwise it is lacking.
best to you.....
I bought the book for my Nook, and I second your appreciation. I enjoyed it enough that I grabbed the sequel on architecture, From Bauhaus to Our House.
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...
You are pounded with visuals all the time, so maybe the trend is make them more interesting by providing a means of explanation or maybe a way of stimulating the imagination in a way that is not possible with just visuals.
...
... and then more old farts will come along and say how it was when they were young...
...
I'm one of those old farts (just past sixty), and I'm tempted at times to follow your suggested path. Then I blush, remembering the sins of my youth, and shut up.
I'll agree that added text can enhance a presentation--the way the story's told. Let Us Now Praise Famous Men would be ungenitured* if Agee's text were removed, even though Frank's photographs are fascinating. This sort of text adds to a complete presentation.
What I don't like is text that explains allegory. "I chose to deliberately mis-focus to demonstrate societies' failure to consider the plight of the winged water pigeon," is the kind of text that I detest. If a photographer has to explain their technique for me to understand their work, then I figure that the effort is a failure.
Tom
*I'm told that "ungenitured" is a nonce word created by Willie Shakespeare and has few, if any, other uses in text. Now that I've used it, perhaps it will gain a tick in usage counts on Google. :D
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In addition to studying photography, I have a degree in music. In music when you give a composition a descriptive title or include descriptive text it's called program music. Think of Peter and the Wolf that has narration throughout or Prelude to the Afternoon of a Fawn which simply has a desriptive title. I find these to be perfectly acceptable and useful for the listener. I think what is disturbing is the inflated, self-aggrandizement and huge volume of big, arty words thown at perfectly capable viewers in an effort to justify a work as art.
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I find it is hard to understand, to put it politely, most photography I see hung at galleries in Southern Ontario. Most are technically unworthy of presentation. Content is often confused, complicated or simply unfocused or purposeless. What I don't get is that how commercial establishments that need to sell these photographs for a profit are surviving? What do the buying public, collectors see in these forgettable works?
That is a subjective opinion which might not be agreed on by someone standing next to you and viewing the same photographs. Your unworthy view might be someone else's worthy view and that is why they sell.
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Quote
"That is a subjective opinion which might not be agreed on by someone standing next to you and viewing the same photographs. Your unworthy view might be someone else's worthy view and that is why they sell."
Yes the subjective opinion is key here. Years ago, I went to a local photography club with a friend and we both liked the rejected shots and disliked the ones given prizes. Ultimately this only means that one persons choice isn't necessarily always anothers.
Dave S
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Dear Neal -
I was so happy to read your editorial! I've felt the same way since I graduated from college 35 years ago and chose to get a Masters and teach at the community college level rather than get a PhD and subject myself to the inbred nonsense of academia. I loved the actual literature I read in college, and despised much of the critical theory about it. From what I could tell, doctoral students had to study critical theories about critical theories about literature, not literature itself. Ugh. I see the same disease at most Art department faculty shows at the university level - strange assemblies of non-art held together by extensive explanations of the "discourse" it was engaging in. Hey buddy, if you want to discourse, use your mouth or your word processor...it ain't art if you have to explain it.
As James Joyce wrote, any art or language dedicated to creating a specific response in the audience/viewers is pornography, not art. Think about it.
I do believe that some aesthetic theory is important, however, as a tool to help us recognize and clarify our artistic vision. Jay Maisel's book "Light, Gesture, and Color" helped me begin to articulate my own aesthetic goals and values, which I currently call "Light, Gesture, and Implication." Light, color, shape, composition, and "something else" seem to me to be the essence of good photographs. A lot of photographers get "pretty" pictures with the first four qualities, but if there's no mystery or story or surprise, it's a dead image (or just a documentary image).
Thank you for pointing out the Emperor's new clothing!
Paul Hawkwood
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Great article.
Having graduated at the end of 2015 with an honors in photography, I read this article with great interest. I agree with its sentiment, having had to write my own thesis combined with practical work. I did quite well, and gave masters some serious thought to the point where I wrote a proposal, but ultimately decided against it sending it. I find the current climate in universities where photography and other visual art is concerned, constrained to a narrow band of what might be considered accepted thinking. It's not necessarily the student's fault either, it's the hoops they're made to jump through to get the degree.
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..it ain't art if you have to explain it.
any art or language dedicated to creating a specific response in the audience/viewers is pornography, not art. Think about it.
if there's no mystery or story or surprise, it's a dead image (or just a documentary image).
Paul Hawkwood
Excellent points. Inarguable, all of them.
I'd humbly add to Mr Joyce's comment that, in addition to pornography, it could be advertising - a medium perhaps not quite so ubiquitous in his time.
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I liked Orleans, MA and Georgia Kudzu 2015, and thought it was consistent with the New Topographics "movement". I also liked Buffalo, NY; a nice color-form study.
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(http://[img])[/img]i find that most people, intelligent and otherwise frequently miss the point about what makes a formal creation of any type... a photograph
a drawing a piece of music or dance meaningful and ultimately valuable
clive bell wrote several essays in the early part of the 20 c that would be a place for the average uninitiate to begin their journey across the bridge from just looking.... to seeing
an excellent discussion of a widespread problen so thanks
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Wonderfully stated Rob even if don't agree with your conclusion. In many ways I think today is the golden age of photography, that more good work (and bad) is being produced by more people than ever before.
It's a big tent and there's room for everyone, always has been.
+1 - Great response, Rob.
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Quote
"That is a subjective opinion which might not be agreed on by someone standing next to you and viewing the same photographs. Your unworthy view might be someone else's worthy view and that is why they sell."
Yes the subjective opinion is key here. Years ago, I went to a local photography club with a friend and we both liked the rejected shots and disliked the ones given prizes. Ultimately this only means that one persons choice isn't necessarily always anothers.
Dave S
That is one of the reasons I don't quite understand the concept of a photography competition... or any type of art competition.
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Facts check – Dresden booming.
Your point is well taken but ironically, I am not sure that you would wish to end the article with falsified information. Not to take anything away form the horror of war (but was that quote really necessary?), Dresden booming estimated deaths are ~25,000, certainly not “in the hundreds of thousands”. German government ordered its press to publish a falsified casualty figure of 200,000 for the Dresden raids, were city authorities at the time estimated no more than 25,000 victims – no need to carry on falsified information, we get plenty of that (and bad photos) on a regular basis.
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I would tend to agree with the general notion that a lot of art is disappointing, and that verbose intellectualization frequently fails to compensate for the disappointing quality of the work. On the other hand, I hate to generalize; there are plenty of exceptions out there proving the rule. Each artist needs to be considered on their own merits.
I think that that past trends toward reducing the role of things like craft and beauty in art was partly due to a particular variety of snobbishness that tries to distance itself from these qualities to ensure that only elites will appreciate the work. In this view of creative work, craft might be seen as too blue-collar, and beauty too populist or old-fashioned, so it is safer to simply reduce or eliminate the influence of these considerations in favor of opaque intellectual constructions. These intellectual constructions may or may not be interesting in themselves, either way, they may also serve as an additional barrier to entry, maintaining the exclusive nature of the artwork. There is a typical historical irony here, because many artists were initially drawn to the stripped-down qualities of modern art movements partly as a reaction against previous elites. Plenty of crumby art has been made in the name of craftsmanship and beauty too.
I am not sure modern technological advancements makes it easier to make great images. It certainly makes it easier to make polished-looking images, and it makes it possible to make them much more rapidly, but working faster does not necessarily mean working better, if you know what I mean.
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Neal,
I just saw this, so I'm joining the conversation late. Thanks for sharing your insight and I agree with your assessment of the current standard of quality. Whenever I speak to aspiring photographers, I make a point to emphasize the importance of mastering the technical side of photography (as well as the business side). I suggest that the better a photographer's technical knowledge, the greater his or her ability becomes to capture their vision. My impression has been that the technical, problem-solving side of the industry is not heavily taught, likely because it is not as fun. Most professional photographers run into at least one or two technical or logistical challenges on every shoot. Some mid-level photographers find themselves involved in projects that they may not be qualified for, from a technical standpoint.
Years ago, I was asked to bid on a project for an architecture firm. After perusing their portfolio, I determined that I would be unable to produce the level of quality they were accustomed to. I regretfully passed on the project, in the efforts to maintain a positive relationship with this client. Years later, I was able to produce the level of quality they wanted. In some case, waiting for greater technical experience pays off.
I recently shared my views with Juliette Wolf-Robin (National Executive Director American Photographic Artists). Her response was very positive and specific as to the efforts she is making to seek out qualified judges and photographers for future APA photo contests. "Qualified" in the context of our exchange referred to quality-minded professionals, who are qualified to judge what makes an image technically and artistically good. I find the "quality" issue is a recurring issue in the industry, and I don't know of a solution beyond educating both new art buyers and aspiring photographers, to strive for excellence.
Mike Baxter | Baxter Imaging LLC
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When Monet was painting Olympia he was quite disreputable, not to mention Lautrec hanging out in the Can-Can palaces and brothels, as did Henry Miller many years later.
Hi GrahmBy, I'm sure you made a typo...It was Manet that painted Olympia, not Monet. It's only one letter, but a world of difference.
Peter
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In very few words, this article does an excellent job summing up my feelings. I couldn't have said it better!
It is so discouraging to see low quality work and poor compositions on display at top notch galleries and museums, while quality photography gets brushed aside. With this said, I feel honored to have received the Michael Riechmann grant earlier this year. I promise that my resulting photos will live up to your standards Michael. I only wish that you had lived long enough to have seen them.
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I agree it is a disturbing trend. But for many years we have seen the same in conceptual arts. Uninvolving or uninteresting work pretentiously presented with a long text to explain how thoughtful it is, and why it is therefore worth your deep attention - and "understanding".
I just came back from Berlin (Germany) where I saw a video interview with Berenice Abbott (do the young know her work..?). At one moment she said something like - quoting from memory - If it is worth photographing then photograph it. If not, then write about it... !
Otto2
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I too will be 70 in a couple of months. I started shooting when I was 10, (which is when, out of necessity, I built my first darkroom.) About 8 months ago, I gave a lecture at The Center for Photographic Art (Carmel, CA) on this very subject. The lecture was an expanded version of what you covered. It missed some of your points, and included others you didn't. It begins with some history of art and photography; carries on thru that 20th century, and into (my personal devil) postmodernism. Then it concludes with some of my thoughts on how to look at fine art (not conceptual) photography.
The talk was well received (there were some famous names in the audience that night) and resulted in several requests for the text of the talk, so a month or so ago, I put it in a PDF.
it may be downloaded here: Yeah, but is it Art? (http://transfer.pronet.link/transfers/Yeah-but_is_it_Art-.pdf)
It's nice to see that I'm not alone in my opinion, and yours was very well expressed.
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I blame higher education being forced to justify how money is spent . The only way they can do do this is to follow the "publish or perish" model . That has now filtered down to be pressure on students to justify their wok i the same way. The majority of educators are and always have been muddling dunderheads whose thinking is no less muddy than the Mississippi River. That should not surprise or shock anyone as it is true of all groups of humans you care to look at.
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I blame higher education being forced to justify how money is spent . The only way they can do do this is to follow the "publish or perish" model . That has now filtered down to be pressure on students to justify their wok i the same way. The majority of educators are and always have been muddling dunderheads whose thinking is no less muddy than the Mississippi River. That should not surprise or shock anyone as it is true of all groups of humans you care to look at.
A self-perpetuating situation, then?
Muddled "educators" (hate that word - job description) must inevitably produce muddled graduates...
I always thought that the only muddle-headed amongst us were the third-tier-and-below snappers; had no idea that the rest of humanity was also plagued with failures! I no longer wish to fly.
;-)
Rob
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it may be downloaded here: Yeah, but is it Art? (http://transfer.pronet.link/transfers/Yeah-but_is_it_Art-.pdf)
It's nice to see that I'm not alone in my opinion, and yours was very well expressed.
Wonderful!
Of course I disagree with a couple of details: I think Barthes and Foucault (in that order) were wonderfully analytical thinkers about the mechanism of social construction of values: they encouraged that the questions be asked, but I don't think they bought into the facile universal response that was post-modernism. Similarly, while Philip Glass and Jackson Pollock questioned the prevailing codes, they certainly weren't trying to say there was no possible evaluation of art. I'm reading Glass's autobiography and he's a man very sure of his objective merit!
The irony is that by demonstrating that parts of society that have always relied on useful myths (religion, social hierarchies, psychological norms, the gatekeepers of art) they opened the door to attacks on the most securely objective aspects, ie the physical sciences and the worst irrationality (Lacanian psychiatry).
Now the economic hierarchies and religions are resurgent, but 40% of the French population believe that vaccines are dangerous. But they still trot down to the chemist who sells them homeopathic cures, and a leading US politician can say that he doesn't care about facts, it's what people feel that counts. And the art "system" is far more elite than it ever was, since the criteria for entry are now completely arbitrary. I guess it was supposed to become a lottery, which is a valid system in which there is no individuality, but it reverted to intellectual nepotism.
You could say that post-modernism demonstrates the fact that simply destroying a moral order you like typically leads to it being replaced with one that is even less desirable.
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"Since photos are treated like words, they represent an intellectual concept, albeit one with recognition instead of thought. As with postmodernism, it is the act or subject within the image that carries the artistic importance, while the actual quality and skill with which
the image itself is created is still irrelevant and without aesthetic value"
-Tracy Valleau
Hence Andy Warhol's definition of a good photo: "in focus and with someone famous in it"
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Just thinking a little more on this, the "craft" criterion may be part of what is underlying the move back to film, particularly MF, by trendy young photographers: a statement that "I choose to use film because it demands more skill," regardless of whether it is better or even different to what might be achievable with digital.
Shades of JFK:
"We choose to use film in this decade and to do the developing, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept"
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"Since photos are treated like words, they represent an intellectual concept, albeit one with recognition instead of thought. As with postmodernism, it is the act or subject within the image that carries the artistic importance, while the actual quality and skill with which
the image itself is created is still irrelevant and without aesthetic value"
-Tracy Valleau
Hence Andy Warhol's definition of a good photo: "in focus and with someone famous in it"
That's as true today as it was yesterday.
It's just another natural barrier standing in the way of everybody trying to get somewhere in pro photography.
If you can't work with the "right" models and expose yourself in the required magazines, then your chances of climbing that ladder are pretty slim. I suppose it's why some people work with people they can't stand: they have to associate to exist.
I really wonder what Mr Warhol thought about his factory hands. Guess I shall never know.
Rob
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Just thinking a little more on this, the "craft" criterion may be part of what is underlying the move back to film, particularly MF, by trendy young photographers: a statement that "I choose to use film because it demands more skill," regardless of whether it is better or even different to what might be achievable with digital.
Shades of JFK:
"We choose to use film in this decade and to do the developing, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept"
On the face of it, this could appear to ring true, but for one thing: film was not difficult. It was just another thing to learn, and a pretty simple task at that; hell, I learned how to do it!
I'd venture to suggest that, from my personal point of view, it is far more difficult (and boring) to have to pick up Photoshop techniques. I find that I learn - and remember - as much as I really, really need to know for everyday processing, and whenever I have a special need, then I look it up or ask for help here, and somebody (my Jim Dandy often lives in Chicago) comes to my rescue.
However, those rare events/needs, or rather their solutions/ways to handle them are almost instantly forgotten and, should they arise again, I have to hunt back through pages of e-mails to rediscover what to do. In other words, I find contemporary photography to be anything but intuitive, and its ways highly unwilling to stay within my useable memory bands.
With film photography as with its route to paper, there was little to learn; what you did require was the ability to grasp its intuitive nature and ride with your feelings: from knowing when/what not to shoot, right down to making a print, you had to decide early on what was worth bothering yourself with and spending your money on, too.
Perhaps those last few required choices were what made the difference: you edited on the spot in your head, and not in the camera or on the contact sheets; the contact sheets let you decide which good shot was the right one for the task. That's why pro shooters' contact sheets led uninformed observers to think they were all the same shot: no, they were not - they were versions of the same one, build-ups, choices that were made after the concept had been understood.
I have little idea of how the amateur film shooter worked pre-digital. My amateur days were spent trying to get into the pro side of it rather than much else; in fact, I shot very little other than a few young women, an experience that made me realise that it was going to be all about rapport. I wasted time messing about changing developers and films, not realising that you had to standardise to learn anything about either the film or the processing of it. Seems so obvious now, but it wasn't then. Only when I did break into it and get a photography job did I discover that the reality was that everything was made as standard as possible, which is partly why all of those guys in the photo-unit taught me so much: get good with one or two things; that covers pretty much all you'll ever need. Then, work at it - which as a job was not a choice to avoid if one wanted to stay employed!
I guess it comes down to familiarity with the process; film was simple where digital is endlessly complex, and expensive in unforseen ways.
Rob
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It's sufficient that it looks hard... :) Using some old Russian 6x7 with a shutter that sounds like the slamming of a Lada door helps the perception...
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So if film isn't hard enough, how about instant lithography?
https://media.giphy.com/media/x8Xr9E2XfBmIo/giphy.gif
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So if film isn't hard enough, how about instant lithography?
https://media.giphy.com/media/x8Xr9E2XfBmIo/giphy.gif
Is there any cachet in it, though?
Walking backwards for Christmas is difficult enough to do, if difficulty is key, but alas, no kudos to be found in that endeavour.
Rob
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It seems there is some, at least at the "feel good about yourself and make a little money." I can't help thinking that few would pay for these prints if they came out of an inkjet:
http://theonlinephotographer.typepad.com/the_online_photographer/2016/09/print-offer-two-beautiful-original-platinum-prints-by-carl-weese.html
(Carl, if you're reading I'm sorry, personal opinion and all that).
On the other hand, it's all pert of the battle that Bob Carlos Clarke described:
"After 30 years as a photographer I can say this business has got harder, more callous, less open and much more competitive. In the 1960s, photographers ranked just behind rock stars in terms of image. Now they’re way down the list, behind brawling footballers and provincial DJs."
I quite admire Sally Mann's photos, and I suspect I'd like them just as much if she'd shot them on digital or 35mm film... but maybe the fact they were on wet collodion got her over the potential barrier and into galleries... and otherwise we'd never have heard of her?
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It seems there is some, at least at the "feel good about yourself and make a little money." I can't help thinking that few would pay for these prints if they came out of an inkjet:
http://theonlinephotographer.typepad.com/the_online_photographer/2016/09/print-offer-two-beautiful-original-platinum-prints-by-carl-weese.html
(Carl, if you're reading I'm sorry, personal opinion and all that).
On the other hand, it's all pert of the battle that Bob Carlos Clarke described:
"After 30 years as a photographer I can say this business has got harder, more callous, less open and much more competitive. In the 1960s, photographers ranked just behind rock stars in terms of image. Now they’re way down the list, behind brawling footballers and provincial DJs."
I quite admire Sally Mann's photos, and I suspect I'd like them just as much if she'd shot them on digital or 35mm film... but maybe the fact they were on wet collodion got her over the potential barrier and into galleries... and otherwise we'd never have heard of her?
Regarding the prints: I don't get a thrill out of the subject matter, so regardless how well produced, shot by anyone I already admire, it wouldn't ring my bells.
Bob CC: have you read the Simon Garfield biography? A bit newspaperish in execution, but quite a few interesting marital interviews thrown in.
Sally M: I could be mistaken, but weren't her original images all printed the traditional darkroom way, the 'antique' method coming along later?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5EiW9KIZy-c
The above offers what I find an interesting video about her work. You may already know it, in which case apologies!
Rob
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Thanks Mr. Rantoul for the great article!
Here is a quote from Brandon Stanton (Humans of New York), one of the most popular photographers on the web:
"A lot of the quality in my content comes from the caption. The most popular photos are, meh, average. I messed them up. But then afterwards I’ll be having a conversation with a person and they’ll give me a great line. A great quote can really carry a bad photo."
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The talk was well received (there were some famous names in the audience that night) and resulted in several requests for the text of the talk, so a month or so ago, I put it in a PDF.
it may be downloaded here: Yeah, but is it Art? (http://transfer.pronet.link/transfers/Yeah-but_is_it_Art-.pdf)
This has been a very useful reading for me. Thank you Mr. Valleau!
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Thanks Mr. Rantoul for the great article!
Here is a quote from Brandon Stanton (Humans of New York), one of the most popular photographers on the web:
"A lot of the quality in my content comes from the caption. The most popular photos are, meh, average. I messed them up. But then afterwards I’ll be having a conversation with a person and they’ll give me a great line. A great quote can really carry a bad photo."
And if you look only at the photo and don't read the quote then you can only judge the quality of the photo by what you see within the photo?
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My academic background included a healthy dose of liberal arts and science before enrolling in art school (1978-82), where I earned a BFA in studio art. If it hadn't been for a couple of exceptional instructors, I'd have succumbed to the pseudo intellectual clap trap propagated by the fine art faculty. ... I eventually attended an excellent institute of technology where I earned an MS in visual studies. Upon completing my studies, I mostly held jobs involving the fusion of commercial art and technology
I took a twenty-five-year break from making fine art. I lost interest in art as a vehicle for exploring experiential reality. I didn't miss it.
It wasn't until health issues forced me into early retirement that I began taking pictures purely for the sake of art. When I look at my student work, I see a lot of the DNA that is in my current work.
Disturbing trends are as old as humanity. There are hacks and their are masters in the arts, sciences, business, and the trades. It is inspiring to seek out the masters and disregard the hacks.