What is lost in the digital age ?

[Lenny Eiger]

We've been in a cultural era marked by artists strongly influenced by questions raised in the postmodern era (1960s through 1990s or so) but that have been summarily rejecting most of the answers. The results have been eclectic, with many of them embracing emotion, others going down different paths.

It's a bad bet to listen to people who aren't photographers about photography, especially philosophers. I read Roland Barthes tome (and Kuspit and Berger, and Fried -yuck-, etc. ad nauseum) about photography. He describes a portrait scenario and misses the entire point by a full hundred miles. He understood nothing, yet everyone wanted to follow him. I don't mind the questions, but to paraphrase one of my teachers when I was younger, I want better questions.

I love that everyone has a camera. Why should a medium only be available to the wealthy? Why should it only be available to the "serious?" Or the indoctrinated?

This isn't about money or privilege for me. I have some expensive cameras, but also some cheap ones. No $50,000 backs. I see nothing wrong with making cyanotypes, or gum bichromate, which are dirt cheap. It should be accessible. However, this question is not about access, but about what should be valued. Do I want to deprive families of their snapshots? Of course not. However, if there is to be something called Art at all, then it has to have people who attempt to do more with it than someone who might want to remember something, but has no time for the sport. Speaking of sports, we have a whole economy based on people who can shoot a basketball, for example. We like to see someone doing something well. They define what the word "well" means. Its no different in Art. Certain people study the endeavor and try and do it artfully, with some skill and style, and on occasion, some consciousness.

I'm not convinced that the work getting canonized today is shallower than the work of earlier eras. Pop Art emerged in the 1950s; Szarkowski started collecting actual snapshots in the 1960s, the height of po-mo snark and appropriation was in the 1980s. Much of the photography from the 19th century is more labor intensive, but doesn't strike me as more profound than this work. Staging a sodden, gauzy scene from mythology isn't necessarily more thoughtful than Piss Christ.

I could do without Henry Peach Robinson as well. however, find me a portrait as good as a Julia Margaret Cameron in your pile of snapshots and I'll be impressed. In fact, I'm sure its there, if there are enough snapshots to look at. However, there are people that can do it every time. There are even people who can do it with purpose, who have something to say. If they are successful in expressing themselves, the rest of us can learn something. I'm tired of talking about the weather.

And all that noise is just noise.

Lenny

[paulr]

Lenny, I'm not a fan of Camera Lucida either. That was Barthe's amateur effort; I can't even make a meaningful connection between the ideas in that book and the ones in his good books. On semiotics he was brilliant; on photography he was mostly a waste of time ... unless you happened to be interested in the narrow aspects of the medium that interested him. To my earlier point, you're bringing up a book that came out over thirty years ago. By someone outside of the world of photography who didn't exert much influence on it. And who died that same year.

What are the postmodern trends you see now?

I still don't understand why lots of people having cameras has negative implications for art. So there's more noise. Just as there was more noise in 1910 than in 1880, and more still in 1970. Once upon a time photography belonged almost exclusively to wealthy, educated, white, European or American men. Props to Julia Cameron for finding a way in. And apologies to 99% of the participants here, because I assume this describes the LF forum demographic pretty well even a century later. I just don't think that's healthy.

Literature hasn't suffered just because we allowed literacy to be bestowed upon the non-noble classes. Quite the contrary ... much of the most interesting writing I've seen in English over the last two decades has come from African and South Asian and West Indian countries that used to have illiteracy rates approaching 100%. How awesome that those doors have been opened, if only a crack. And that pencils are cheap.

I think in addition to all the people taking pictures for fun and frivolousness, there are also more people than ever making photographs as art. There are certainly more people studying photography in art programs than ever before. Those programs are a favorite target for people who like to make negative generalizations and knock down straw men—but in reality there's an enormous variety of work being done by students. Whether or not the samples you see are to your taste says nothing about the seriousness behind it. No one goes into $100,000 debt for a degree that offer few prospects for financial rewards without being dead serious about the subject.

[Lenny Eiger]

I still don't understand why lots of people having cameras has negative implications for art. So there's more noise. Just as there was more noise in 1910 than in 1880, and more still in 1970. Once upon a time photography belonged almost exclusively to wealthy, educated, white, European or American men. Props to Julia Cameron for finding a way in. And apologies to 99% of the participants here, because I assume this describes the LF forum demographic pretty well even a century later. I just don't think that's healthy.

I think in addition to all the people taking pictures for fun and frivolousness, there are also more people than ever making photographs as art. There are certainly more people studying photography in art programs than ever before. Those programs are a favorite target for people who like to make negative generalizations and knock down straw men—but in reality there's an enormous variety of work being done by students. Whether or not the samples you see are to your taste says nothing about the seriousness behind it. No one goes into $100,000 debt for a degree that offer few prospects for financial rewards without being dead serious about the subject.

Your point is taken. I don't really want to go thru the whole postmodern thing at the moment. It's time to go to sleep.... and I get really annoyed. Read David Fried (from last year) about how its not ok to take a photo of someone that is actually looking at you (or the camera). There shouldn't be any contact whatsoever. The Becher's are the most important thing to happen to photography in the last 50 years? I could go on... but I won't. We can drop it.

What I see as missing is not that so many people take photographs. I don't really mind. It's the commoditization of art. Its the fact that there is a lack of appreciation for for what photography can actually do, in human terms. There is a thread here, by Heroique that asks the question whether you can learn anything about a photographer from their work. About half of the people participating think the answer is no. To me, there is something missing there. Why wouldn't they think so? Is photography so much about nothing? Where have they learned this?

It's like Walmart. If that's all there is, then people will think that it is the container for the possibilities that exist. They won't know that there is pottery beyond the crap that passes for same at the store. They don't know that there are other choices in the arts other than those awful oil paintings they sell. There is nothing in that store that is create from an artful intent. There is no quality. It's like Martha Stewart or the factory painter Kincaid. If you look at Stewart's colors they are all corporate. There are great colors in the world, but hers are just a bit muted so that ordinary people will buy them. Its insidious. Yet millions think she hung the moon. It's because they don't know there is another choice. Another choice is not accessible. That's the problem. Quality of life is lower. Man is not judged by the quantity of what he knows, but by the quality of his questions.

I say you won't know what a portrait is unless you look a Dorothea Lange, a Walker Evans or an August Sander. There are other things to consider. If you want to be a portrait artist you should look at 100 different artists from the entire History. Here in California I have spoken to numerous photographers, some with their own galleries, that never looked at a single book of photography other than Ansel Adams. Regardless of how good Ansel may or may not have been, that's a sure way to pigeon hole your own style into a monochromatic one. Can you imagine only listening to one kind of music - and then trying to be an original as a musician? You will fail.

Photography has tremendous capability to mirror and enhance the human experience. That's why most of us are here. Let everyone who wants to take photographs. However, let's continue to develop the fine art. The worst thing about post modernism is that it wanted to dismiss everything that went before. That will not work. One can not build a house from the roof down. It must have a foundation. Who was it that said, "There is no Art without History?" (I heard it from Bill Irwin, of Pickle Family Circus, don't know if he originated it.)

Commoditization dismisses history, quality, exquisiteness and artfulness. When you can get an image for 20 cents, or free on the net, why buy one for $1000 from an artist. Facebook will tell you that everything is a photo, even if it isn't. Where is the photography. Where are the artists that are pushing the limits or what photography can do? They are hidden by this noise. It isn't people taking more pictures, its our culture falling apart.

That's my 2 cents...

Lenny

[patrickjames]

Paul, you could give 10,000 people a camera and maybe, possibly, perhaps, one person could produce something worthwhile over a small period of time, much less over a long period of time. There are billions of cameras in the world today, but how many great photographers with an interesting view are there? At this point everyone has a camera. There are 350,000,000 people in the US alone. Can you name 35,000 great photographers? 3,500? 350? Maybe 35? The democracy of photography does not produce a significantly larger percentage of great photographers any more than the availability of pencils or paint produces more great artists, or the availability of law degrees produces great lawyers or the availability of engineering degrees produces great engineers. The great art comes, sometimes, in the dedication and in the ability to do it. The argument to the contrary is weak to nonexistent at best. If you believe in the contrary, give someone a camera that has no proclivity for the métier and see what they produce beyond luck. The monetary viewpoint is also weak. I know many a person who has no money, yet produces beautiful work. Commercial photography will always favor the rich by it's nature from what I have seen in my life, but artists don't depend on money. Great artists will rise despite the lack of it if they are good enough.

I hate to call complete bull$shit on several of your points, but I am afraid it is true.

No one goes into $100,000 debt for a degree that offer few prospects for financial rewards without being dead serious about the subject.

Stupid people with egos do. I have met them. In fact most people that spend that much money on a degree do out of sheer ignorance or utter stupidity. Look at the statistics. A very few percentage of any graduates, whether it be a BFA or MFA, ever make a living as an artist, but maybe a few percent more do so as a teacher. The reality is that very few end up profiting from the degree. Far more who don't have a degree but have the ability end up making a living at it. I guarantee that I can name more great photographers that don't have a degree than you can name that do! The straw man is in your arguments, not in real life. If it was real life, they wouldn't be straw men!

[Jac@stafford.net]

No one goes into $100,000 debt for a degree that offer few prospects for financial rewards without being dead serious about the subject.

If only that were true. In particular, those in a liberal arts college seem to have some aversion to work, and a proclivity to posing in order to appeal to their peers and to none in the practicing arts, except criticism. They want to graduate in four years all wound-up and prepared to instantly enter into some kind of employment. Four years is not long enough to achieve expertise, but it is long enough to learn insular behavior.

[Drew Wiley]

Heck, Paul, just about every student I ever knew (and there are tens of thousands of them in this university town) went into debt over a hundred grand without a clue what they want to do. Maybe a handful will land a job in what they actually studied. Art students are the most scatterbrained of all. But at least they acquire skills in how to cleverly arrange pepperoni slices atop the pizzas they'll be making for the next thirty years trying to pay their loan off, while they still live with their
parents.

[Kirk Gittings]

You guys ability to insult large portions of the population with little to go on but your personal bias is astonishing. Yes of course there are students like the ones you describe, but for every one of those there are hard working, intelligent, creative, worldly, streetwise, entrepreneurial kids that end up doing amazing things-just great people that are nurtured in those programs. Heck I have former photo students that (besides doing photography) are doing aids research in Africa, setting up a HABS program in China, owners of fine restaurants, owners of great breweries, galleries to name a few. Your broad brush is demeaning and inaccurate. The best skill you can get from an art school is not some employable technique (though that is useful) but enhanced creativity which will help you in whatever you do.

[Jac@stafford.net]

You guys ability to insult large portions of the population with little to go on but your personal bias is astonishing. [...]

I will stand upon my own thirty-year experience in higher education, before that ten as a news and magazine photographer, and four as a steel worker.

[Lenny Eiger]

If only that were true. In particular, those in a liberal arts college seem to have some aversion to work, and a proclivity to posing in order to appeal to their peers and to none in the practicing arts, except criticism. They want to graduate in four years all wound-up and prepared to instantly enter into some kind of employment. Four years is not long enough to achieve expertise, but it is long enough to learn insular behavior.

I have a Masters degree in the Fine Arts (Photography). By your definition I should be a total louse. In fact, I don't know anyone that works harder than I do to feed my family and get my daughter to college (altho' many work just as much). I'm with Kirk on this one, you're just being offensive...

Lenny

[emmett]

Well Paul, the new director of the SFMMA (after an extremely nasty coup) is from NYC. I sure hope he doesn't bring a lot
more Warhol and polka dots with him..

SFMOMA's director has been at the museum since 2002 and he isn't from New York, he's from your area.