Quote Originally Posted by StoneNYC View Post
The photo is powerful, very, it's wonderful...

The fact that it's john Lennon, and that it's the last photo of him ever and he died the same day or what-not, yes it makes it way more powerful...

Just like that tintype of Phillip Seymour Hoffman is way more powerful since he died right after, there are many more powerful images in the set of tintypes, much better images,…….



And the
Funny you should use the tintype of Philliip Seymour Hoffman as an example of lauding context when in fact for me it is the negative connotative epitome of many of the points highlighted in this discussion about Close's work. A celebrity photographer, Victoria Will, gets the assignment to shoot celebrities digitally, decides on a whim to watch some youtube videos on wet plate work, buys pre-made kits from Bostick and Sullivan before heading out to Sundance, uses her celebrity to sell the idea and then proceeds to shoot plates for the first time that I wouldn't show privately, much less publicly. Everything wrong with how to use access to a unique opportunity and in the process make not bad, but horrible work from a craft perspective and for me even an art perspective. And then due to an awful event in a celebrity's life, the photograph is lauded for somehow tapping into Seymore Hoffman's last days of turmoil. Give me a break. If I were Katie Couric, Maggie Gyllenhaal, and Kurt Russell I would sue her for slander those plates are so horrific. When context, OR PROCESS, OR FORMAT SIZE, becomes THE ONLY REASON a photograph has value then the photographer has failed on so many levels as to be embarrassing. Kirk said it best earlier, that pushing boundaries and breaking rules can be exhilarating, exciting and filled with art--but you have to have mastered the rules, the craft first so you can be their master, not have that dynamic of mastery reversed and be at the whim of context or interpretation, or format size to hope your work has merit. My kid puts every subject dead center in his photos, he's twelve, and I can assure you he's not 'creating tension' in the composition. The example of the tintype work by Victoria Will, a twelve year old equivalent, who's brought the work home from art class and is hoping you will be her mommy and put it on the refrigerator. Its awful work that is only cool because Wet Plate is hot right now and the in alternative process. I've said this before and unfortunately will probably feel the need to say it again--I can't wait for Wet Plate to become more mundane so that it can assume its rightful place as one form of photographic syntax that when used properly can convey a visual language that is meaningful because the artist used its properties with skill and vision. The same can be said of 20 x 24 big camera work, or Polaroid materials or any combination of those tools. But if you use those tools for the sake of the tools like the example above then you are manipulating status, or craft to hide your lack of artistic vision and you are no different than the musician that has one hit and then spends his/her entire life trying to repeat work. The tintypes referenced above fit many of those characteristics and are low hanging fruit at its worst.

Monty