New Topographics 30 years later...

[Lenny Eiger]

Just got out of the time capsule? That eightieish feeling will settle once you have lived in 2009 for a few days... Sevo

In fact, I think I'm stuck in the PhotoSecession. I don't really want to be here...

As to QT's assertion that "I don't think that many of those who call themselves "artists" are unaware of the history of the medium." I just haven't found that to be correct in my experience... I'd be happy to be wrong...

Lenny

[mccormickstudio]

...But looking back, the ideas of exploiting the Western landscape and the sameness of suburban sprawl -- the whole idea that mankind is a blight and the world would be a better place without us -- doesn't that seem to be a safe and quaint topic? Especially when we are confronted with more immediate threats, like "Will I have a job tomorrow?"

So, why do people still shoot this stuff? Hasn't the horse been beaten to death? Isn't it as cliche a notion as "war is bad" and "children are beautiful"?

I'm not sure that the photographers you mention have your said intentions in mind.

It's not that mankind is a blight... I think (in the late 70's) it was more about turning the camera somewhere else to explore a new direction. I've always thought of Shore's summer road trip pictures as a continuation of the great American road trip like Steinbeck's travels With Charley or Kerouac's On the Road. Only shore was writing with the camera - a picture is worth a thousand words, right? From that perspective, he's working in a great American tradition with a new medium.

Alec Soth's recent Sleeping by the Mississippi and Niagara projects are more regional studies in the same mode of working. And interestingly, his pictorial themes develop in the context of these explorations. These themes define the projects, not the banal places or the tired images of the waterfall. The real challenge in these projects is not in the techne - it's in the conquest of defining or revealing something about contemporary life in the process of photographic exploration.

I see huge differences in the work of Shore, Baltz, Gursky, the Bechers, and more recently Alec Soth and Brian Ulrich. The only tradition which binds them is the preference of concept over aesthetic. I think this is a huge crutch in photography, largely misunderstood, and even more difficult in lf with the ability to render extraordinary images with technical skill alone.

Shore's work is about exploring the common places of America under the giggly moniker of Uncommon Places, Baltz is an incredible pictorial compositionalist, The Bechers document a change in ages, Gursky has shown us the immensity of our world and our creations, Struth... I dunno - it's a German thing, Soth shows us love, hardship, and history in the simple images of people in particular places, Ulrich questions how temporal and unfounded our cultural ideals are about commerce and growth economics.

And if they each shot a picture in the suburbs, it wouldn't mean the same thing.

[Gordon Moat]

Reminds me of the many painting classes I took in college. It was all too easy to paint something negative, often to the point that the viewer was fatigued by far too many negatives messages. Portraying irony, humor, happiness, or simply curiosity ... those were challenges. In paintings, I controlled the images, but then it was up to the viewer to decide how to interact with it, rather than simply try to figure out what I was thinking.

I think it is the same way with photography, or at the very least I try to approach it that way. Much as with my paintings, I feel I have accomplished my goals more when I have controlled the images. After that, it is up to the viewer to interact with the results. Obviously each viewer will have a different take on the end results, but I feel all those views are relevant.

This applies to the work of others in that many of those images were not goal driven, beyond the needs of the photographer as a sense of accomplishment. After that it was up to each viewer to decide how they felt. If that failed for some, then visual overload might be the cause. Whether it is Wall, Burtynsky, Gursky, or any of the other big names, they are relevant only so far as they make a connection with viewers, but when they reach near universal appeal they are essentially finished. I think it just as important for people to not like, or criticize works, as it is that viewers get something from seeing any images.

Ciao!

Gordon Moat Photography

[Lenny Eiger]

I'm still thinking about this discussion. It's a good one. I figured out what really pisses me off. No one here, I think the discussion has been rather civil, while disagreeing, and I appreciate it. I look at a Gursky and I see what's in it. I understand the message. I'm less excited at Adams and the Belcher's, but I am ok if they get their share. I am even less excited with the Galen Rowell's of our time, the slick commercial landscape and I could do without Liebovitz. As someone said earlier, I don't care much for someone's transition from a fashion photographer to a slick little snapshot artist.

I respect the brilliance of Caponigro, Weston, Watkins, Cameron, the two Evan's and Robert Frank. And all the rest of them. I also like ManRay and Mholoy Nagy. It isn't that I am so stuck in the past. I think all of great historicals had cerebral and emotional components to their images. In some cases, there was a sappy romanticism, but those haven't endured like the others.

My problem isn't that someone is out there being experimental, and it isn't generally with photographers. It's with the powers that be - at the top - namely the galleries and museums. We are to believe that Mark Klett, who gets top museum shows and hundreds of thousands from the Guggenheim to pursue his craft, is the apex of the art. They go gaga of a camera made out of a tent - like that wasn't done 100 years ago. Or how about that guy who shot that 6-month long exposure of the Museum of Modern Art. Is photography about what exposure you did it at? Last month SF Camerwork gave out their grants. I won't name the person, I don't want this to be personal but she does site studies - like every other photographer on the planet. God forbid you just go somewhere... She photographed the underground parts of the BART subway. All fine, altho all very obvious and boring shots. There was a janitor who watched her back - she went there at night, she's white, etc. She said in a panel discussion I attended that she wanted to appreciate and immortalize this guy. She flips to the next slide and there is a picture of a mop and a bucket. I can't imagine anything being more insulting. Not only was the guy not there, she reduced him to what he does for a living, and she basically indicated that all he was - was a janitor, someone cleaning up, after her, presumably. Someone should kick her in the shins. I don't care how much one wraps it up in writing about one damn thing or another, it stinks. She's the gal who gets the grant? This is what we as a culture, reward?

I went to Los Angeles County Museum(LACMA) a couple of months ago. Large prints of very boring commercial-looking photos of firemen, shot with full studio lighting, all talked about as if it were the next great thing, like there was no one else..

Sorry for the long diatribe. If the next Walker Evans showed up, they wouldn't know it. The museum and gallery shows are all going to very uninteresting stuff I don't even want to bother with. It isn't like there aren't a lot of good photographers. It isn't about conceptual vs what, traditional, whatever, it's that the people running the show are not competent, and certainly not inclusive. At least not out here on the West coast.

For those folks to say "Landscape is over" is rude and ignorant. You want a cerebral component, great, we can all be better, add more layers to our images. I think those places need some more people that actually appreciate photography, and all forms of it...

Just my 22 cents.

Lenny