Is it art, but is it also dead?

[Rob C]

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2017/oct/12/wim-wenders-interview-polaroids-instant-stories-photographers-gallery

Rob

[RSL]

Took me a while to stop laughing when I got the climate panic notice. They're so subtle about their political leanings. I'd never have guessed where they stand.

[Rob C]

Took me a while to stop laughing when I got the climate panic notice. They're so subtle about their political leanings. I'd never have guessed where they stand.

You got me there: what climate was Wenders talking about? Can't find it in the interview. All he seems to be talking about is photography, Polaroids, photographers and actors who also took photos, and how things were better back then...

Rob

[RSL]

No, I got to that. When I first brought up the page the bottom half was covered with a wild cry about the end of the world coming through climate change. It disappeared as soon as I clicked again.

[Ivo_B]

It’s not the first time you can not stop laughing about something you don’t understand.

[Jeremy Roussak]

It’s not the first time you can not stop laughing about something you don’t understand.

Ivo, if you have something useful to contribute, do it. Simple abuse is not acceptable.

Jeremy

[Ivo_B]

Ivo, if you have something useful to contribute, do it. Simple abuse is not acceptable.

Jeremy

Can you also give this kind of comments in threads where more complex abuse is displayed?

🧐🤐

[Rob C]

Come on guys, the thread offers a lot more opportunity for appraisals and reappraisals of the photographic world we are currently living through than derailment into personal rancour, which is pointless, because everybody thinks themselves right, always, even if proven otherwise.

If this shit continues it will mean we will have reached and dipped into the vanishing point, the black hole of resignation, both of interest and from the forum.

Can we give photography and the subject a chance?

Rob

[rabanito]

Can we give photography and the subject a chance?

Rob

+1

[D Fuller]

“It’s not just the meaning of the image that has changed – the act of looking does not have the same meaning. Now, it’s about showing, sending and maybe remembering. It is no longer essentially about the image. The image for me was always linked to the idea of uniqueness, to a frame and to composition. You produced something that was, in itself, a singular moment. As such, it had a certain sacredness. That whole notion is gone.”

Was it, for Wenders, ever essentially about the image?

For me, as a filmmaker, Polaroids were a kind of journaling—references to which I could return as I thought about how to craft a scene. The iPhone now does that for me, but in that context it is still about showing (others) and remembering (myself). (Sending is just a way of showing.)

I think what’s gone (and what I miss) is the artifact. Giving someone a Polaroid, or having a stack of them to peruse was very different from emailing an image or viewing a web gallery. But none of those are essentially about the image in the way photography as art or photojournalism or even advertising is.

[Martin Kristiansen]

Some people like stuff and they like to collect it. I stream all my music, read books on a kindle and stream all movies and shows. I’m not sure about meaning in artifacts. It can be quite interesting I guess but it seems to me it’s mostly just nostalgia, another mental affliction. We collect stuff we don’t really need and think it our stuff then we die and our stuff moves on to a new owner. Who owns and who is owned.

We enter with nothing and a few later we exit with nothing. I see no sense in accumulating stuff as a way of giving meaning to life.

[rabanito]

We enter with nothing and a few later we exit with nothing. I see no sense in accumulating stuff as a way of giving meaning to life.

Memento ergo sum.
My surroundings help me to remember -> to be.
At least this is how I perceive it

[KLaban]

I'm not a collector but have a passion for stuff. My areas of interest are eclectic, ranging from Moroccan and Algerian pottery, twentieth century Cornish ceramics and ethnic, tribal and outsider art. None of the artifacts I own impart meaning to life, but rather their physical presence enhance said life.

Unlike the ancient Egyptians I have no intention on taking my artifacts with me.

;-)   

[Rob C]

I'm not a collector but have a passion for stuff. My areas of interest are eclectic, ranging from Moroccan and Algerian pottery, twentieth century Cornish ceramics and ethnic, tribal and outsider art. None of the artifacts I own impart meaning to life, but rather their physical presence enhance said life.

Unlike the ancient Egyptians I have no intention on taking my artifacts with me.

;-)

Stuff: living the past three or more years intent on moving home, all my stuff is regularly - every six months or so? - examined with an eye to being dumped. Instead, I always end up just like Lucy Jordan: rearranging the flowers cupboards, everything inside still retained.

[Rob C]

Was it, for Wenders, ever essentially about the image?

For me, as a filmmaker, Polaroids were a kind of journaling—references to which I could return as I thought about how to craft a scene. The iPhone now does that for me, but in that context it is still about showing (others) and remembering (myself). (Sending is just a way of showing.)

I think what’s gone (and what I miss) is the artifact. Giving someone a Polaroid, or having a stack of them to peruse was very different from emailing an image or viewing a web gallery. But none of those are essentially about the image in the way photography as art or photojournalism or even advertising is.

Yes, but showing a print is a quite different experience for both the person showing and for the viewer. A print is and feels real, just like a transparency or negative feels real and a digital file never will. For that matter, I never felt a Polaroid was worth showing. I never produced one that didn't suck, the best coming as tests on the back of a 'blad. I felt they were so poor I stopped testing.

It's exactly what you say later, when you refer to the artifact. I feel you are in some dispute with yourself there, or I have just not understood you properly.

Rob

[Peter McLennan]

Yes, but showing a print is a quite different experience for both the person showing and for the viewer. A print is and feels real, just like a transparency or negative feels real and a digital file never will.
Rob

Absolutely. 

I challenged a group of high school students with that topic recently: "What is a photograph?"  They agreed (eventually) that a screen image had less photographic value than a print.

Polaroid cameras were tremendous fun in those dark ages before images magically appeared on the back of the camera. I once worked with the famous American cinematographer Michael Chapman.  Since Polaroid (usually SX-70) cameras were omnipresent on film sets for record-keeping reasons, they were always available for less forensic and more experimental uses.  Mr Chapman and I used them continually to entertain ourselves during down-time moments on set. 

"The last bastion of real photography", he called them.

[D Fuller]

Yes, but showing a print is a quite different experience for both the person showing and for the viewer. A print is and feels real, just like a transparency or negative feels real and a digital file never will. For that matter, I never felt a Polaroid was worth showing. I never produced one that didn't suck, the best coming as tests on the back of a 'blad. I felt they were so poor I stopped testing.

It's exactly what you say later, when you refer to the artifact. I feel you are in some dispute with yourself there, or I have just not understood you properly.

Rob

Well, you may have misunderstood me, or for that matter, I may have misunderstood Wenders, but I don’t feel in dispute with myself. 

I take Wenders to mean that a photo today is a way to show someone something—an idea, a place, a costume, or to remember it yourself. The digital image is just a medium to that end. But really, so was the Polaroid in the way a filmmaker used it. (At least this filmmaker.) It was just a form of journal. The photo had no importance; only the information mattered.

But when i look back, as I do from time to time, it is much more pleasurable to look at a box of photos or polaroids than a folder of digital images. So I agree with you that the experience is different with the “real” photo. That’s what I meant in talking about the artifact. But in the way we used Polaroids in the course of filmmaking, that only seems true in reflection, when the artifact becomes important for different reasons than the original purpose of the image.

An aside—when I was a young man, I was a designer and photographer. I did good work, but made very little money. I was hired to do a year-long television project, and produced some award-winning work, but at the end of it, coming back to my studio, I had nothing I could hold in my hands. I missed the prints or the stack of annual reports one got at the end of a job. So I swore off television for a time. The printed work was just more satisfying. (At least until I was offered three times what I was making to go back to doing TV)

[RSL]

All this is exactly why for a couple decades I've printed my better stuff on 8 1/2 x 11 double-sided sheets and comb-bound the prints in books. I've framed a lot of my stuff. In fact, the house is full of 17 x 22 prints in 23 x 28 inch frames, but once we move into assisted living the comb-bound books will be what's left. My kids have most of the earlier books, but I have the ones dealing with our history, and the current stuff I'm shooting. The books are easy to work with.

[Peter McLennan]

... but at the end of it, coming back to my studio, I had nothing I could hold in my hands. I missed the prints or the stack of annual reports one got at the end of a job. So I swore off television for a time. The printed work was just more satisfying. (At least until I was offered three times what I was making to go back to doing TV)

Heh.  I know just what you mean.  Many years working as a camera operator and second unit DP has left me with little but a dated demo reel. (and a healthy bank balance)  Now in retirement, it's prints that give me the most satisfaction.  And now, most recently Blurb books. Now, that's fun!  Pays even less than landscape.

Love your work.  The Osram PR piece is marvelous.

[Peter McLennan]

All this is exactly why for a couple decades I've printed my better stuff on 8 1/2 x 11 double-sided sheets and comb-bound the prints in books. ...The books are easy to work with.

I just reached that exact conclusion a few days ago, Russ. Comb-bound small print books.
What's your favourite double sided media?  My Epson L805 would love to know.