Contemporary Photography boom - digital or b&w?

[paulr]

"collectors tend to buy "names" and the "names" in photography for all of the 19th century and most of the 20th centuries were b&w photographers."

and related to that ... old usually means more valuable. old and dead usually means much more valuable. color photography's only been around for a few decades as a serious art medium; digital versions less than that. it will be a while before there are a competitive number of names, and then old names, and then dead names. but you can be sure the collectors are waiting.

[Joe Davis]

I have heard the lastest colour materials are much better than they used to be, but weren't the colour dyes used in C prints fugitive? Even cibachromes prints can shift colours if it is exhibited for a long time.
What do the collector's do if the colour prints begin to shift? Would that be a factor for collectors choosing more B&W prints over colour prints?

[Rob Vinnedge]

Yes, I read the article the other day and was intrigued with the author's reference to various opinions from the photographic community. But I was also quite irritated by the misleading tone of the article, which suggests that photographers will have to "adapt or be left behind", because digital is taking over, Nikon has discontinued film cameras, Agfa and Ilford have lost markets, and Kodak has discontinued B/W paper.

The author does cite Susan Bright, who predicts a revival of B/W photography, and he does note that "traditional B/W still dominates the fine-art photography auction market." However, he completely ignores the groundswell movement toward alternative photographic processes and ultra large formats - not to mention the companies that now support this movement, such as Ilford, Kodak, Bergger, Schneider, Fuji, and all the distributors and large camera manufacturers who are now making their appearances. I certainly do not appreciate the suggestion that "Film will likely be the next to vanish, if the rest of the industry follows the example of Nikon....."

It seems to me that Artnews caters primarily to those interested in art forms other than photography (perhaps I'm wrong). I would really like to see the magazine offer its readers an expanded view of the current state of fine art photography. Let them (the readers) know that pixels and "pigmented ink" are not the only ingredients left in the making of fine art photographs.

[consolidated from duplicate thread - QT]

[paulr]

"It seems to me that Artnews caters primarily to those interested in art forms other than photography (perhaps I'm wrong)"

magazines like artnews cater to the high end of the art marked, broadly defined. they don't specialize in photography by any means, but as sandra phillips points out in this article, photography has become absolutely central in terms of importance and influence in the larger world of artists and dealers and collectors.

"artnews" is a pretty accurate name for the magazine .. it's about what's new, what's big, what the trends are. medform-norm is right that the article is like a marketing report. for people in the business--and at this level it's big business--marketing reports are pretty relevent.

how can you argue with "adapt or be left behind?" photographers have been facing that proposition ever since they first depended on manufactured materials. the modernists' switch to silver when platinum papers were discontinued was an adaptation. so is switching from kodak paper to something your friend makes in the garage. it doesn't have to mean embracing the latest process or gizmo, although for many it will be just that.

"I would really like to see the magazine offer its readers an expanded view of the current state of fine art photography"

i think this article does just that. it would be hard to pack a wider range of oppinions on the state of photography into so few paragraphs.

[Rob Vinnedge]

paulr,

I very much agree with Sandra Phillips that photography is a central element in the contemporary art world. I feel that an article featured on the front cover of a major art magazine entitled PHOTOGRAPHY - WHAT'S HOT should include all the major trends and not mislead the public into believing that the digital world is going to supplant the analog. I take your point that this a marketing report, incomplete though it may be.

I also agree that adaptation has been the theme throughout the history of photography. Woodward's final statement, "From now on, adapt or be left behind." implies, first, that we have never done so, and secondly, that we must now get used to the idea of digital replacing film. In my mind, this is erroneous.

I stand by my wish that the magazine offer an expanded view of the current state of fine art photography. A major photographic trend is completely overlooked in this article.

[tim atherton]

"However, he completely ignores the groundswell movement toward alternative photographic processes and ultra large formats"

thing is, I'm not really sure how much art photography is really being done with ULF or alternative processes - exept maybe for Sally Mann (and she gets a mention) or a few others?

[Rob Vinnedge]

Well, check out 1ststreetgallery.com or 21stphotography.com (which features Sally Mann platinum prints, by the way). These are two locations that promote alternative processes. There are many more. Many of the people who are spending thousands on large cameras and large sheet film from Kodak, Ilford, Bergger and others, and who are buying gallons of potassium chloroplatinite from Bostick & Sullivan have high artistic ambitions. They are starting to surface with great regularity.

[tim atherton]

21stphotography.com - those are all the usual suspects I would include in my list of "a few others" - most well established and been doing this for a good time now.

1ststreetgallery.com doesn't seem to work?

[Rob Vinnedge]

Sorry, 1streetgallery.com.

[paulr]

the question is, is this subculture of or ulf and alternative process photographers doing work that curators and critics see as contemporary and culturally significant? or is it people using century-old tools and doing work with a century-old esthetic?

there are certainly examples of ulf and alt process work being embraced by the world that artnews caters to--sally mann, as you mentioned, and lois connor. but i'm not sure i see evidence of a of groundswell movement in their work.

not to say that there won't be one. but there seem to be many more examples of people like todd papageorge, who in spite of lack of enthusiasm for the idea, has decided to get an inkjet printer rather than to coat his own paper. a lot of people are more interested in getting down to the business of image making--and adopting the new tools and materials that come along is often a more efficient path than adopting the more labor intensive tools of the 19th century. photographers of ansel adams' and edward weston's generation overwhelmingly made the same choice. when the platinum papers vanished, they were pissed! and they did have the option of coating their own, but mostly they chose to buy the silver paper and just get on with it.