Why it may good that photography isn't a fine art

[paulr]

"The tools open to a photographer in terms of transforamtion are pretty limited, and only really only allow us to "transform" what we are recording by realtively small degrees and not really in substance."

this is the old discussion of whether photography can be considered a plastic medium. some of the most convincing arguments in favor of it have pointed to the essentially infinite range of interpretations afforded through transformation. This demonstrated by the experiment of a room full of people to photograph the same flower. When comparing the range of expression possible through drawing vs. the range of expression possible through photographing, you are comparing two infinities.

however: even this argument concerns itself only with straight photography. the photographic process offers unlimited means of manipulating the world, many of which go well beyond transformation. These include, of course, photographs of any subject that is created or manipulated for the camera. Think of Julia Margaret Camerron, Man Ray, El Lisitsky, Joel Peter Witkin, Pavel Pecha, Francesca Woodman, or even Harold Edgerton.

Even the idea of trying to apply composition to photography strikes me as strange ... Berger makes the point that form and composition are not the natural domains of photography, but it always struck me that they are inseparable from photography. As Szarkowsky once commented, photography is the one medium where form and content are synonymous (I would say music is another example; the closeness of photography and music is one thing Berger and I agree on. Stieglitz too ...). The act of photographing, in the straight sense that Berger limits himself to, is the act of using the photographic frame (physical and temporal) to bring form to a subject. Berger suggests that we merely record the subject, but I think he's too quick to dismiss the HOW of recording a subject, and the ways we judge a picture, and the role that form plays in bestowing meaning upon the subject.

His assertions that photography has no language of its own (as painting does) and that the formal arrangement of a photograph explains nothing (in other words, photographic form=decoration) suggest to me that he hasn't looked hard enough at enough different kinds of photographs.

[Eric Rose]

Sontag initially spouted the same stuff but later recanted.

[tim atherton]

"His assertions that photography has no language of its own (as painting does) and that the formal arrangement of a photograph explains nothing (in other words, photographic form=decoration) suggest to me that he hasn't looked hard enough at enough different kinds of photographs"

he's really quoting Barthes there and his photography as "message without a code" and his assertion that photograpy and appearances have at best what he calls a half-language (which Berger elsewhere goes on to assert is actually what gives photogorpahs their strength and power)

[paulr]

I'm not surprised that's Barthe's idea. I always thought Barthes had interesting things to say about literary criticism, but the essay of his on photography that I've read (Camera Lucida) left me with a similar odd sense that the guy needed to look at some different pictures.

[Jim Rice]

I'm sorry, Tim, I've always admired your contributions to the forum, but here I go:

This is a fine example of why I rarely read criticism.

Berger loses me in the fourth graph when he asserts that photography is infinitely reproducible. While that can be the case, try asserting that to the many alternative (i.e. hand made) process workers out there. I also find the "property value" argument simply baffling.

I can't find a point at all in the fifth graph. I'll leave it to others more discerning than myself to interpret that one.

Oh, but in the sixth "(Unless we include those absurd studio works in which the photographer arranges every detail of his [sic] subject before he [sic] takes the picture) [corrected puntuation]. Composition in the profound, formative sense of the word cannot enter into photography." Well yes, photographs are not composed unless, of course, they are.

The seventh graph is the merest assertion without conceptual back up that I have had the opportunity to read in some time. And I have had some pretty crappy opportunities.

To me the eighth and ninth graphs are inseperable. The photographer isolates time while the (presumably artist and certainly not infinitely reproducable) movie director manipulates it. Now there's a distinction that has eluded me all this time.

I must admit that by this far into the piece my eyes had pretty much glazed over.

Forgive me, but this kind of stuff always makes me roll my eyes.

[Jim Rice]

Two amendments:

Appearently the man's name is Barthe (I told y'all that I don't read stuff like this) and Paul said it much better than I did anyway.

[paulr]

Tim, as much as I consider the article a troll (not by you ... by Berger. that Bastard!) I for one hope you keep the articles coming. I don't want to generalize about criticism any more than i do about art, and there's no reason to think i have to agree with something in order to get something out of it.

Do you have anything on The One True Faith?

[Jim Rice]

Excuse my ignorance......does troll mean stirring up shit?

[clay harmon]

To me, reading the vast majority of photo critics is akin to visiting the monkey house at the zoo. Very busy, very loud, but all in all they don't get much accomplished outside of pleasuring themselves and amusing the observers.

[Jim Rice]

I wasn't particularly amused. ;=)

Oh hell, yes I was.