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Thread: How is a photographer's work too "commercial" ?

  1. #21
    Michael Alpert
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    Re: How is a photographer's work too "commercial" ?

    It's the "too" part of the initial question that is hard to define. After all, Eugene Atget was a commercial photographer; Walker Evans did very fine work for Fortune magazine. In fact, the only photographers that can avoid some sort of commercial enterprise (either through the sale of prints to collectors or museums, or direct commercial labor) are those who have another livelihood or have inherited wealth.

    What is being questioned is not the fact that photographers need to eat but the aesthetic qualities of their finished photographic prints or images. Along with previous contributors to this thread, I feel that the "too" comes in at the point that commitment and personal responsibility ends. It's when the "soul" (or "spirit" or any other analogous word) of the photographer seems disconnected from the work. (Of course, there is much terrible/soulful and worthless/sincere work in the world! But that's a separate question.) Finding the measure for "too commercial" is both a matter of personal aesthetic judgement and more broadly based cultural determination. There are standards here: the measure for this sort of thing is not arbitrary; but neither is the measure an absolute.

    A few weeks ago, I purchased a copy of the recent edition of "Solitude of Ravens" by Masahisa Fukase. For me, Fukase's book embodies what people who want photography to be genuinely artistic (and not "too commercial") are seeking.

  2. #22
    multiplex
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    Re: How is a photographer's work too "commercial" ?

    what kirk wrote ..

  3. #23

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    Re: How is a photographer's work too "commercial" ?

    Quote Originally Posted by QT Luong View Post
    From time to time, a photographer's work is dismissed (in art circles) as being too "commercial".

    What I am wondering is what does that exactly mean ?
    It means that the person doing the accusing is jealous of the other photographer's success.

  4. #24

    Re: How is a photographer's work too "commercial" ?

    Perhaps the best indicator might be to look at some personal work that the photographer achieves that is never intended to be sold, and see how similar or different it is to what was shot for the money. Many many fine photographers make money from their photographs, and some of them also make significant images that they have never thought about being for money.

    I've worked around some very successful professionals who took the attitude 'why would I bother picking up a camera if I'm not going to get paid for it?'

    Fritz Gruber who founded Photokina told me if I really cared about my photography, just work at any other job and concentrate on my personal work in my own time. 'Course I never had the sense to follow that kind of advice..... oh well

  5. #25

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    Re: How is a photographer's work too "commercial" ?

    Ansel Adams use to shoot for Boys' Life and Scouting Magazine for a dayrate. He's too commercial for my blood. HA!

    Walker Evans not only shot for Fortune Magazine, we worked as the Photo Editor of Fortune Magazine, and retiring on a Time/Life pension. Too commercial for me.

    At least Mary Ellen Marks has her husband to rely on to pull in the big bucks as a documentary film maker. HA!
    When I grow up, I want to be a photographer.

    http://www.walterpcalahan.com/Photography/index.html

  6. #26
    runs a monkey grinder Steve M Hostetter's Avatar
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    Re: How is a photographer's work too "commercial" ?

    Quote Originally Posted by Walter Calahan View Post
    Ansel Adams use to shoot for Boys' Life and Scouting Magazine for a dayrate. He's too commercial for my blood. HA!

    Walker Evans not only shot for Fortune Magazine, we worked as the Photo Editor of Fortune Magazine, and retiring on a Time/Life pension. Too commercial for me.

    At least Mary Ellen Marks has her husband to rely on to pull in the big bucks as a documentary film maker. HA!
    don't forget the murals for the US parks deptment

  7. #27

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    Re: How is a photographer's work too "commercial" ?

    Quote Originally Posted by Jim Graves View Post
    Very subjective obviously ... and loaded with class/taste/cultural landmines ... but to me art/photography becomes "too commercial" when the artist goes over-the-top adopting (or abusing) a style to pander to viewers ... with pander being defined as catering to the lowest tastes of others.

    In art, the classic, for me at least, is Thomas Kinkade ... extremely popular but so visually jingoistic as to remove his work from legitimate art:



    In photography, again just for me, the only thing I routinely dislike and feel often steps over the line of image adjustment is the supersaturated unnatural colors frequently seen in nature photography. We all adjust our images, from darkroom dodging/burning/filtering to adding some color pop in Photoshop ... and where the line is ... who knows.

    There was earlier buzz on this site about Annie Leibovitz ... and without a doubt, she is unashamedly a commercial photographer who stages, postures, and pushes her subjects to get impact ... one good example:



    But that is the nature of her work and I find her photos fun and interesting without pandering to the lowest common denominator of taste.

    This is the best explanation I can recall having read or heard. I absolutely detest Kinkade's work, for exactly the reasons you provide here. It's sort of like... Al Jarreau, who, in my opinion, panders to the "smooth jazz" crowd in his studio albums nowadays (post All Fly Home). The live albums, however, evidence his fluency and mastery of the art of vocal jazz. The point after All Fly Home is where I consider him having "gone commercial".

    Please pardon the very likely obscure (to most of the audience here) musical reference. It's just that I've loved All Fly Home since high school, and am still waiting for another studio recording in that vein!

    But then again, like an anus, everbody has an opinion...

  8. #28
    In the desert...
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    Re: How is a photographer's work too "commercial" ?

    What Walter Calahan said.

  9. #29

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    Re: How is a photographer's work too "commercial" ?

    What is considered commercial and what is considered... whatever else, is very subjective. For example, the following photograph was criticized due to the fact that the subject is wearing shorts (underwear). The criticism came from a local photojournalist who, in my opinion, knows very little about art. Much of his criticism was related to images being, in his view, lacking of any commercial (e.g. advertising) potential. Although the image was produced for purely artistic purposes (i.e. fine art), I think that the limitation placed on the image's potential for use in advertising reflects the limitations of the creativity of the source.

    Of course, I won't be so vain as to say that I never take criticism personally; I think that is impossible when it comes to an artist responding, verbally or internally, to criticisms of his work. I have a problem with the nature of the criticism, not the critique itself. For instance, saying you'd rather see her nude is one thing. Saying the image is less effective because she is wearing an article of clothing is quite another. You have a right to dislike the image. No one has a right to determine what the subject matter, or the handling of the same, by the artist should be.

    I got into a (another!) heated argument at an art opening about a year and a half ago because someone remarked to me that Annie L. should have shown blah blah blah, as opposed to what she decided to include in the exhibit at the Detroit Institute of Arts. What really bothered me is the fact that, in my less than humble view (I've been drawing for a loooooong time), the source of the criticism was possessed of very little, if any, artistic acumen. Ill founded criticism is bad enough; when it comes from the artistically unendowed, well, that is a horse of a different color! :-)

    I don't like Kinkade's work, but I will defend his right to produce it to the last drop of your blood.

  10. #30

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    Re: How is a photographer's work too "commercial" ?

    FWIW, cobalt, I think the photograph in this case is improved by the shorts, and I am a fair fan of The Nude. The shorts make it interesting.

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