Is stitching the future of photography?

[paulr]

the future of photography? No. If nothing else, photography doesn't have a single present or past. I can't see why the future will be any different.

This answers the original question, as far as I can tell.

But the tangents are interesting.

[Gordon Moat]

I'm not suggesting it's not creative. If I look down on it, it's only because I do it for a living too ...

My point about it being a function and not a medium is that virtually ANY medium can be employed in the function of graphic design. This isn't meant to suggest there's no potential for creativity (quite the opposite, it would seem ... ) but that it doesn't make sense to say that something is Design at the exclusion of it being some other medium. If it's design, it's usually going to be some other medium as well.

Okay, glad to see another designer on this forum.

Profitability isn't what makes something commercial art. If you draw a woman in a dress with the intent of selling the drawing, that's not commercial. If you do with intent to sell the dress (presumably because the dress maker is paying you), then that's commercial.

What this implies is that when Chris spent $180K on two projects, it was done purely as speculation . . . scary thought at that, no matter what financials resources he had prior to getting into that. I understand the speculative nature of many fine art photographs, but I would like to imagine that Chris had some idea of getting a good return on his expenditure. Of course, that is something only he can answer.

My guess is that prior to spending that $180K on those projects, he had some reasonably good idea of what sort of images would sell, and that he would get back most of that money (and hopefully generate a profit). That seems more like the thought process of someone involved in a commercial venture, than someone purely speculating.

This is somewhat similar to galleries guiding artists to produce certain styles of thier works. The idea is that what sold previously can be a guide to what might sell in the future. We might call that an educated guess, or we could just imagine that there is less speculation. So that might leave two other questions: is Chris doing fine art as a commercial venture; and does he have enough guidance and experience to avoid pure speculation, thus minimizing risk?

Ciao!

Gordon Moat
A G Studio

[tim atherton]

That's what it seems to me. The only point being that the tension you create when someone can't tell if something's "real" or not is going to be a significant part of that person's experience of a photograph. This is a good thing if that's what you want them to be grappling with. But if you're trying to get someone to look at some nuance of landscape, they might face a real stumbling block if their attention is on what level of trust they can extend to the image -- if it's a photograph as they understand it, or something else. if they're comfortable that they see what they think they're seeing, or if they're suspicious that they're being tricked.

actually, I don't think so - I think people as whole are actually more sophisticated with regard to photography than we often give them credit for, more open minded (and possibly more cynical...)

[tim atherton]

the other thing that struck em about the Sugimoto work is that in almost every respect you could describe it as documentary

[tim atherton]

But if you're trying to get someone to look at some nuance of landscape, they might face a real stumbling block if their attention is on what level of trust they can extend to the image -- if it's a photograph as they understand it, or something else. if they're comfortable that they see what they think they're seeing, or if they're suspicious that they're being tricked.

actually, I think it's the more blatant example of the "lies that landscape photographers tell" that bother people - you know, getting to Yosemite and finding there is a fraking great highway full of RV's or a Walmart sized parking lot in front of what you always though was a pristine view. Or the carefully avoided power lines and pylons or cement factory beside that desert or beach view you had set your heart on seeing based on a photographs in Nat Geo etc

http://www.hidinginplainsight.mobi/2...semite_19.html

[paulr]

actually, I think it's the more blatant example of the "lies that landscape photographers tell" that bother people ...

I don't know. Are these the lies that bother people, or the lies that they insist on being told over and over?

It might depend on which people. There are plenty of sophisticates who will yawn (or puke) if you make them look at yet another dishonest, anachronistic, irrelevent Ansel wannabe image. But for every one of them, there are probably a hundred people who refuse to look at anything else!

But even with sophisticated viewers, I still believe that a certain amount of photography's power lies in the promise that in some way, what's being shown is actually there. It might not be the whole truth, the undistorted truth, or nothing but the truth, but a photographic truth ... some kind of optical correspondence with reality, that gives the image a different kind of power than a painting or a sculpture has.

Conceptual works like Sugimoto's (and possibly even staged fantasy work that goes back over a hundred years) play with this power, and even in some cases make it the subject of the image. Playing with it isn't the same thing as betraying it or dismissing it ... which some do by presenting radically altered realities as if they were unaltered. The risk of this, as I see it, isn't that people will be duped. Rather, it's that their expectations of a photographic relationship to reality will be eroded down to nothing ... and through this gradual erosion, photography will lose much of its power to pervasive cynicism.

[GPS]

Stitching is just another tool. It is the beginning, end and future of absolutely and unequivocally nothing.

Hmm. Absolutely? Isn't it then a beginning of yet another tool? Or a beginning of yet another photographic technique? No,absolutely and unequivocally the beginning of nothing! Hmm.

[chris jordan]

Gordon, here are some thoughts on your question about whether I have "enough guidance and experience to avoid pure speculation, thus minimizing risk."

I frequently receive guidance from practical business-oriented people who urge me to minimize risk, examine target markets, make a 5-year-plan, focus on product branding, etc., all in the name of increasing my safety in the world. Whenever I hear that kind of advice I feel the same way I feel when listening to a fundamentalist Christian: there is a sense of total disconnect, and it is very difficult to bridge the gap. My own path (which I am not advising anyone to follow or copy, it's just what I do for my own reasons) goes intentionally in exactly the opposite direction of what is practical, wise, sensible and business-like. For me the degree of risk involved in an artistic project is a good gauge of its integrity.

As far as I can tell, adhering to the desire for security always leads to a watering-down of the creative spirit. It can be very subtle and unconscious, and for me it takes constant self-examination and course-corrections to make sure I am not leaning that way. On one end of a continuum of risk are the artists who take few risks, safely repeating the same commercial success for years on end; and on the other end are those who risk everything with each new body of work, viewing each success as an indication that it is time to move on to something new. I don't know where I stand on that continuum, but I do know that I have great respect for those who can evolve their work despite the possibility of commercial failure.

[Rory_5244]

Well said.

[Gordon Moat]

. . . . . . I don't know where I stand on that continuum, but I do know that I have great respect for those who can evolve their work despite the possibility of commercial failure.

Hello Chris,

Thanks for posting that. Seems to me that you have the balance correct. All the best for your future.

Ciao!

Gordon Moat
A G Studio