Why does the US seem to produce LF photographers?

[mark blackman]

An interesting buch of opinions. Before we call going away not having actually learned anything, anyone got any facts to backup their assertions?

[Kirk Gittings]

Tim,
But Atget was a virtual unknown at his death in 1927. His influence was minimal until his rediscovery by the modernist photographers and critics later on, primarily Americans. He was not part of some grand French tradition until his improtance was singled out by others later on.

[Christopher Nisperos]

I agree with Kirk Gittings' concise reflection ("Sorry, but it comes from the landscape and is about the landscape") Again, I think it's simply a matter of people photographing the things which are around them. If you turned Ian's question around ("Why does Europe seem to produce photojournalists?") this same simplistic answer tends to hold water: "It comes from war and is about war".

I'll throw in another reason I haven't yet noticed in this thread for why the U.S. might "produce" more LF photographers --or Europe, more photojournalists (if that's even true --or matters): cultural tastes and traditions. As I mentioned above, many French people consider landscape photography as corny, for example. Also, studio portraiture as we know it in the
U.S. (high school senior, family portraiture, etc.) is practically inexistant here ("passportraiture", yes!). School portraits are still mainly groups posed in the playground with a chalkboard or letterboard with the class name, as it has been for over 50 years. A newcomer might scratch his head at this .. but that's the tradition. The population (including photographers) prefers it. The same could be said for the question of "LF/landscape/still life" vs "people pictures", I guess.

Lastly, I'd like to apologize to Tim Atherton and UK friends for not including them in comments about Europe. Obviously, the UK has a long and ongoing tradition of large format photography, with stalwarts such as Gandolfi and Ilford helping to keep the flame alive (as long as we help keep THEM alive as well). As you say, Tim, Atget has never been emulated here as Cartier-Bresson has been, for example. There you go.

[tim atherton]

Kirk,

That was my point about Atget and French photographers - though as for discovery by modernists later on - I 'm not sure how much later 1929 is than 1927... So even though virtually (though not quite) unknown in France at his death in 1927, by 1929/30 his work had already hugely influenced the beginning of what was essentially a significant new strand of photography

[tim atherton]

Btw Kirk

"Sorry, but it comes from the landscape and is about the landscape"... etc

I've never seen it put quite that way before or quite as clearly - excellent!

[Randy_5116]

Or perhaps it is just that the US had a lot more media hype concerning photography than other countries. It is kind of like the old debate as to whether crime, etc is actually higher now than 100 years ago, or has the speed of media and the availability of the vast types, just make it the news spread quicker? If the majority of LF'ers were in the US, then why the hell is it that the majority of LF and medium format cameras are produced overseas. Kinda like the Schneider postings about all the "black/grey market" lenses not being legit sold and/or serviced here. If we have the corner on the LF market, then who the hell is buying all those lenses and cameras produced and sold overseas?

[Henry Ambrose]

Kirk wrote:
"These movements were the first that flourished on native soil rather than copying Europe. These two movements were Abstract Expressionism in painting and the LF aesthetic of the F64 group. Each of these movements were based in and dominated by interpretations of the American landscape. Each of these movements descend from the topographic painting and photographic surveys of the previous century documenting the American West. "

I can get the jump from lets say Bierstadt to f64, no big stretch there. Isn't "Clearing Winter Storm" a photograph of a Bierstadt painting? ; >)

But I don't get the Abstract Expressionism linkage to this discussion. Does anyone care to elaborate on that?

And maybe I don't get that early American landscapes didn't derive from European work since the creators were European. We certainly went our own way from that founding but the fruit didn't fall that far from the tree until f64 - yes?

[Kirk Gittings]

Tim,

I am dredging up old memories of lectures from my classes with Beumont Newhall over thirty years ago. I may be off on some dates.

Henry,

By Mid-twentieth Century there were two American Art movements that had influenced Europe. These two represented to many in the art world the arrival of American Art as a mature force. Both were founded in interpretations of the native landscape. There is significance in the parallel development of F64 and Abstract Expressionism. You can see Steiglitz through his gallery and relationship with O'Keefe and the photographers at the center of this dual vortex recognising and promoting both movements simultaneously. It is an absolutely fascinating period crucial to understanding all that has followed.

[tim atherton]

Evans visited with Berenice Abbott in 1929/30 who had just returned to New York with her trunk full of Atget's work and was totally bowled over. Abbott let Evans use her darkroom where - at the same time - she was beginning work on preserving Atget's prints and plates and printing many of the latter.

Even though some others obviously knew of that (I guess it was easier to keep things quiet before the internet and google), in later years Evans claimed not to have come upon Atget until somewhat later on and almost denied to himself the influence it had been on the most formative years of his work.

It was only much later, during his time at Yale I think it was, that he "owned up" to this and said that when he first laid eyes on Atget's work in Abbott's apartment it terrified him and electrified him at the same time - that it confirmed what he was trying to do, but he realised what he was doing wasn't quite as original as he thought.

[medform-norm]

Funny no one ever mentions that Stieglitz, one of the founding fathers of American LF photography, was the son of German immigrants. His inevitable German upbringing will have influenced the way he photographed as much as the landscape around him. And there must have been hoards of German immigrants involved in photography in the States.

Something else: before WWII Germany had a longstanding tradition of landscape photography. Check for instance the not always politically correct publications Das Deutsches Lichtbild. It was filled with landscapes and many of them resonate the American photos from that era. Maybe through its associations with the German nazi regime, this kind of photography became suspect and therefore not practiced to the extent it was in America in the period after the war.

Kirk's remark about the landscape is only true to a certain extent. Europe has landscapes as impressive as the States. However, I think our relation to this landscape differs immensely. I have lived in the States for two years and have noticed that Americans as a people have a much stronger emotional tie to their landscape and nature than we do in Western Europe. However, I have many friends from Eastern Europe who can be as lyrical as Americans about the beauties of their country side. However, until recently, most of them never had the opportunity to express this love, let alone in LF photography.

Stemming from a Western European background I must admit having a hard time understanding why Americans want to photograph to no end dead trees, sweeping hills and valleys, brooks, waterfalls, streamlets, mountain ranges, deserts, etc. etc.. The repetition and the sheer number of such images are mindboggling to me. This indicates (I suspect) that I lack that certain emotional response to these images, which makes it not only bearable, but also pleasurable to be exposed over and over again to basically the same kind of images.

About the comment that European photography 'comes from war and is about war': I don't feel that nails it down. Of course the aftermath of WWII has shaped our societies to a great deal, since it was after all, a major event. It would have been strange if it hadn't influenced our lives. There are wars and wars and WWII was so much more than a war, it was a breaking point in our cultural tradition, in our values and beliefs, in our trust in human judgement, in our sense of right and wrong and also in our sense of aesthetics. Perhaps that is what one sees reflected in the photography from the past decades. Although I must add that things are very different for the present generations of young photographers, for whom the war is a far away memory. After all, landscape photography is very much practiced again by the younger crowd - and appreciated too by the public.