Alain Briot's Brief Essays

[Rob C]

Me too...

First, there are a few successful landscape photographer here in France, like Yann Arthus-Bertrand ; with YAB the main twist with the classical american landscape is that there is always someone somewhere in the photos (yes, that tiny red speck is an assistant in a red parka freezing alone on the ice shelf while the boss enjoys the helicopter ride ).
But there are very few (YAB, Plisson, and...) , and they are much more in the popular market than in the high-end art market.

Second, I'm not quite sure of that so I'll put it as a question : did the more "sophisticated" landscape styles like the new topographics manage to conquer the european art market?

I'd rather think that here, art is deeply associated with manly creation, and that goes down to the art subject as well. Something natural can't quite be real art in this vision.

Well, YA-B has carved his reputation by flying; anything else he might do is probably just riding on the back of that seminal work.

But I do believe you have touched a very important factor: creations by Man. That's where Man's art comes in as compared with God's art of creation. I said much the same thing some months ago about landscape photography and creativity: to me, rightly or wrongly, all the landscape shooter is doing is framing what God's provided. He isn't creating anything, no matter how much he overworks the subject once it's in the computer. An unpopular credo in the New World, but I think many share that conviction elsewhere. It's far more challenging and interesting to create something from the bare bits and pieces, like the letters of the alphabet are used to make a poem, a novel or a prayer...

Maybe that's why those old photos of the Flatiron (?) building are so interesting; not only as historical documention but as art, too, both in the good photography and the strange construction itself. But, I would exclude anything with that horrid Parisian Tower, the Houses of Parliament, any of that stuff. It belongs to travel brochure illustration, and nada mas.

I have a Philip Plisson book (El Mar, dia a dia; Lunwerg Editores), it has great sea photographs, but I wouldn't classify any of his work as art; it is a form of specialized documentary (for me). I see his son, I think it is, Guillaume, has some shots in the same book.

In the end, I think photo art starts with a blank canvas and only exists after the shooter has put something interesting into that space, turned it this way and that, then finally made up his mind and shot! The photographer gazing out into the over-populated word is not starting with a blank canvas though he might, like me, be starting with a pretty blank mind!

Rob C

[NikoJorj]

I have a Philip Plisson book [...] I wouldn't classify any of his work as art; it is a form of specialized documentary (for me).

That's interesting, and raises a few questions...
Couldn't this kind of "specialized documentary" be applied to eg Ansel Adams, Bradford Washburn or Ed Weston landscapes? I feel they document the mountains in the way not unlike someone like Plisson documents the sea?
And though, the latter did also start with a blank canvas and put a cabbage on a table or a pepper in a tin gutter?
Basically, what I'm asking to myself is - does that excludes art?
Coukld one say one the other hand say that it is not the same level of art?

Isn't art there to document things like feelings and emotions?

[Rob C]

That's interesting, and raises a few questions...
Couldn't this kind of "specialized documentary" be applied to eg Ansel Adams, Bradford Washburn or Ed Weston landscapes? I feel they document the mountains in the way not unlike someone like Plisson documents the sea?
And though, the latter did also start with a blank canvas and put a cabbage on a table or a pepper in a tin gutter?
Basically, what I'm asking to myself is - does that excludes art?
Coukld one say one the other hand say that it is not the same level of art?

Isn't art there to document things like feelings and emotions?

Niko

I think you have just written the same point of view as my own. As far as Adams is concerned, yes, he did exactly the same thing as PP but on the land and without the personal risk of being up in the air where only birds should venture. That he exercised a lot of skill and perseverance in getting a print to look just as he wished is not in dispute, however that mood might have changed over time, but it is not what makes or does not make something art (again, just for me); that’s skill.

People wax eloquent about the magnificent print talents that some ‘star’ art photographers display; I can tell you, they can’t hold a candle to some of the even more demanding skills that in-house printers used to display, day after day, where I began my career. We had to print, in both b/w and colour, photographs of damaged turbine blades, flame tubes etc. etc. where the correct rendition of colour and/or grey tonality was essential to the scientists using the photographs for investigative and/or research motives. There was simply no room for error. Compared with that precision, art photography prints are something to decorate the seaside fun-park. (You can bet the ranch that a lot of ultra hi-fi snaps are currently being made of engine parts at Rolls-Royce!)

Isn’t art there to document things like feelings and emotions, you asked or, rather, suggested.

Of course, and I think that’s where people shooters come into their own, and landscape takes the also-ran prize. With people shots, unless it’s stolen stuff, it is very much the putting onto paper of something that happened between minds. Which, of course, is why models are so vital: only the good can have the natural emotions and then express them physically, and the photographers have to have the connected ability of contributing to the intellectual game and also to illustrate the resulting conclusion from that meeting of minds. That sounds both very difficult, which it is not, and very simple, which it is, to those blessed with the talents.

I’ve tried landscape too - who hasn’t? – but any emotional wow! factor is there because it’s there, not because of anything I, as snapper, have brought to the meeting. It’s the existing glory that instructs the viewer, not the other way around, which is where art begins and ends: human creation. In such situations, landscape, the photographer can only be the editor of the landscape, and that’s hardly creative in the sense of taking that piece of clay and fashioning something with life. All he does is select, and that's pretty basic, within the scheme of things.

Photographing a pepper? Well, I have previously said that I believe the still-life shooter can also be a pretty damn good artist. He starts with just an idea and an empty table top, which is what it's all about.

Of course, one can take the word creative and twist it to mean most anything, as the gallery world proves time after time. But, at root, I think the fraud is always patently obvious.

Rob C

[Dave Millier]

I’ve tried landscape too - who hasn’t? – but any emotional wow! factor is there because it’s there, not because of anything I, as snapper, have brought to the meeting. It’s the existing glory that instructs the viewer, not the other way around, which is where art begins and ends: human creation. In such situations, landscape, the photographer can only be the editor of the landscape, and that’s hardly creative in the sense of taking that piece of clay and fashioning something with life. All he does is select, and that's pretty basic, within the scheme of things.

Photographing a pepper? Well, I have previously said that I believe the still-life shooter can also be a pretty damn good artist. He starts with just an idea and an empty table top, which is what it's all about.

Rob C

Hmmm...

In my own musings, I come to a rather different conclusion. In photography, as opposed to say painting, I find the value to be in rendering found things rather than made things.  For example, I find studio photography, or those photographs that are about deliberately assembling items to express some kind of clever idea, to be contrived and dull. I admire people who make spontaneous photographs from the real world - i.e. people who wander around and suddenly spot an arrangement of somethings (perhaps fleeting) that generate an image that speaks to us. Landscapes are like this (for me). A good landscape shot is not repeatable because it is a rendering of a unique moment...

[Eric Myrvaagnes]

Hmmm...

In my own musings, I come to a rather different conclusion. In photography, as opposed to say painting, I find the value to be in rendering found things rather than made things.  For example, I find studio photography, or those photographs that are about deliberately assembling items to express some kind of clever idea, to be contrived and dull. I admire people who make spontaneous photographs from the real world - i.e. people who wander around and suddenly spot an arrangement of somethings (perhaps fleeting) that generate an image that speaks to us. Landscapes are like this (for me). A good landscape shot is not repeatable because it is a rendering of a unique moment...

Well put, and I agree 100%.

I have been trying to figure out how to reply to Rob on this point, and what I was thinking of posting would go something like this:
"I’ve tried photos of people too - who hasn’t? – but any emotional wow! factor is there because it’s there, not because of anything I, as snapper, have brought to the meeting. It’s the existing glory of the person photographed that instructs the viewer, not the other way around, which is where art begins and ends: human creation," but then I thought maybe I shouldn't. 

Eric

 

[Rob C]

Well put, and I agree 100%.

I have been trying to figure out how to reply to Rob on this point, and what I was thinking of posting would go something like this:
"I’ve tried photos of people too - who hasn’t? – but any emotional wow! factor is there because it’s there, not because of anything I, as snapper, have brought to the meeting. It’s the existing glory of the person photographed that instructs the viewer, not the other way around, which is where art begins and ends: human creation," but then I thought maybe I shouldn't. 

Eric

 

And you'd have been mistaken, Eric.

It's what they do together for the camera that counts, that's the creative bit - and I'm not talking porn here...!

You can make the 'normal' person look special if the magic is there, which is more than reportage will do. More than recording the found object will do. More than shooting the bleedin' sunset will do.

;-)

Rob C

[Rob C]

Hmmm...

In my own musings, I come to a rather different conclusion. In photography, as opposed to say painting, I find the value to be in rendering found things rather than made things.  For example, I find studio photography, or those photographs that are about deliberately assembling items to express some kind of clever idea, to be contrived and dull. I admire people who make spontaneous photographs from the real world - i.e. people who wander around and suddenly spot an arrangement of somethings (perhaps fleeting) that generate an image that speaks to us. Landscapes are like this (for me). A good landscape shot is not repeatable because it is a rendering of a unique moment...

That's a point of view, as you indicate, but I still think that the still-life artist (photographer) who starts with nothing in front of his camera is creating. Whether well or badly is another matter, but he's still creating rather than just framing what's already there, which is the point I was making.

That's not to say that the work of the landscape 'framer' isn't attractive. Take Michael's current cover shot with the cat lens: that's very creative to me because it simply never existed in nature. And better yet, he brought his eye and sense of balance to bear as well. So, he framed, too, but framed something that only existed after he brought his art to the meeting.

Anyway, we've trawled this one quite often before, and it goes nowhere.

Rob C

[Patricia Sheley]

Well put, and I agree 100%.

I have been trying to figure out how to reply to Rob on this point, and what I was thinking of posting would go something like this:
"I’ve tried photos of people too - who hasn’t? – but any emotional wow! factor is there because it’s there, not because of anything I, as snapper, have brought to the meeting. It’s the existing glory of the person photographed that instructs the viewer, not the other way around, which is where art begins and ends: human creation," but then I thought maybe I shouldn't. 

Eric

 Arnold Newman....Lillian Bassman

[Rob C]

Arnold was good at portraits, and Lillian so good at fashion that she dumped it for many years at the moment when the hairdressers, makeup artists and stylist took rôles at centre stage. Her contention, as mine, was that they were superfluous to the artistic interaction of model, camera and photographer.

In other words, they destroyed artistic integrity.

I think she did make eventual, sporadic kinds of vague and token returns at some recent(ish) period...

Part of the problem of making an association with the idea of the subject being the reason for the greatness of a photograph is that, by default, such a stance couldn't logically preclude the best/worst efforts of the paparazzi, either. And not much of their oeuvre would rate as art, though it certainly seems to be very marketable. Like enormous photographs of blocks of apartments, for instance. Even like piles of bricks. Or dirty, unmade beds.

Speaking of which, after I'd wasted most of the morning at the keyboard, I went to the bedroom to get to the loo and pee - as one needs to do, from time to time - and I noticed that I'd not even made up the bed. I gave myself a stern lecture about priorities, did what had to be done, and then reverted to keyboard mode. I can depend on myself to act in atavistic mode every time. But at least the bed wasn't dirty. One up on the galleries.

But, reverting to the topic, being associated with famous subjects is also a very mixed blessing in some ways. Look at Bailey: every book or article about him seems to feature Mick Jagger in a fur hood, the Kray brotherhood, actors or some other noted characters of the 60s period. Snowdon and Lichfield, both excellent snappers too, were ever haunted and taunted with envious jibes about royal associations and success.Yet, all three could shoot spots off most of the rest.

Rob C