American flags everywhere - end of architectural photography as we know it?

[Richard Boulware]

The end of architectural photography as we know it? Gimme a break! You have the opportunity to record a snap-shot in time. Building were built by people, with an idea and a spirit. Today, you have an even more evident expression of mans spirit...as expressed in a spirit of patriotism. This adds character and emotion to any building which you would photograph. If you want natural architecture head for the Grand Canyon. That's Gods architecture. If you want mans architecture, take it as it is, and love it. Part of photography is the use of symbols which give greater meaning and depth to the photograph. They are around you now...in abundance. If you don't get the message and are not interested in capturing this unique moment in time... Take up wood-working. Your're in the wrong hobby/business. With respect.

[darter]

I worked as an assistant on an archeological dig of an historic American house site. One morning we returned and found that someone had moved some rocks around and placed some old junk under them. It was intended to fool the archaeologist into thinking he had found some significant new artifacts. It was a stupid stunt and I thought it ruined the site. I was very surprised when the archaeologist started drawing and cataloging the new feature and catalog in the same way as the pre-existing part of the site. When I asked him why since it was obviously bogus he said "it is part of the site and its use." To me it was a very powerful message about what is authentic and accepting the chaotic juxtaposition of past and present. I suggest that Sandy reconsider the illusions that he/she is living under and how that is impacting his/her work. The attitude that flags or other recent elements in a picture is somehow "inauthentic" or a disturbance of normal "timelessness and flux" makes me think that his/her work is really a wistful and sentimental conception. That is fine if that is the kind of work he/she is aiming for, but it is shallow as hell.

[Kevin Kemner]

Wow,

I almost posted to this thread earlier. I'm glad I didn't because I was pretty hot about the Flag issue. So hopefully I won't inflame anyone but here are my thoughts. First let me say that much of my career has been as an architectural educator and critic. Photography is a very serious passion. Ok, my thoughts.

Like an above post I am 42 years old. My parents generation, my grandparents generation, and my great grandparents generation wera all veterans. I grew up in a small midwestern town.

Flags were flown daily at all communal institutions. e.g. banks, schools, and yes gas stations. Everybody flew flags on all the public holidays, such as the 4th, President's day (although I remember when it was individual's birthdays, Veteran's day, etc. The flag was very important to my family and my family's friends. There was nothing unusual about seeing flags adorning buildings and to read your concern that this will be an in-authentic time strikes me as either ill informed about a greater portion of America or as aesthetically pre-determined.

Savannah is not a real town in the sense that tourism is its primary source of income and the image of the city is its primary resource. There are ordinances protecting the downtown squares of Savannah (the most historic portion) and in this sense Savannah should be regarded the same as colonial Williamsburg. Both are incredibly beautiful cities, however, both embody carefully constructed commercial images. In this sense they are not synthetic (resulting from natural growth and development).

Living towns and main streets will always be the outcome of the range of tastes of the people who live and work there. In this sense they are dynamic, changing seasonally, economically, and aesthetically. The drippy lights that Sandy decried are an incredibly moving sight during the holiday season in my home town. For me a project hoping to document the main streets of America would not be based on a pre- conceived aesthetic desire, rather would celebrate the present, complete with its kitsch, bad taste, messiness, pride, and inherent beauty.

Anyway, those are my thoughts.

[Sandy Sorlien]

Hi again, it's Sandy the original poster. So you don't have to guess at the proper pronoun to use, I'm female.

It's been an invigorating discussion -- the occasional abuse is helping me solidify my resolve when it comes to what I must photograph. We are all undoubtedly experiencing uncertainty about the future now. But I am firmly convinced that it is more important than ever to keep making pictures of America. I do not consider this a trivial matter.

I gotta say, however, that some of you have an awfully narrow view of what photography can or should do. If I don't want to record changing events, I should take up another medium? There are plenty of fine photographers reacting to changing events and a lot of them are working for daily newspapers or weekly news magazines. You don't need me to do that. What I do have is a very firm sense of what has been disappearing from America (call that a long-term changing event if you want) and a distinct vision of how to portray those places. Yes, I do go out with an idea of what I want to say. It could be argued that a photographer, artist, or writer who goes out without any ideas and simply reacts uncritically to whatever is in front of her is the one who is shallow.

The problem with the flags, for me visually, is not their symbolism but their sameness. I am definitely including flags in some pictures, and of course there were flags up before September 11. But now I fear every picture will include a flag. The towns I have visited this week have put them up on every light post so that the streetscape panoramas are going to look rather similar whether in Kutztown, PA or Bisbee, Arizona. This is also my objection to the dribble lights. Sure, they look pretty at night around Christmastime. (In the daytime they look ridiculous, like you've hung plastic six-pack holders all along the roofline.) But in my neighborhood at least, so many people have these lights, and leave them up all year, that the street looks like a lighted mall, every avenue the same. When I was a kid, in December we drove or walked around different neighborhoods to view the Christmas displays - all different colors, different sizes, different configurations, fantastic! Can you imagine a family doing that now to look at all the white dribble lights?

Kevin, one thing I am not is ill-informed about the greater part of Anerica. I have traveled alone, slowly, to all fifty states, none of it on interstates. What strikes me the most is that over the past twenty years America's delightful diversity of regional architecture and the idiosyncrasy of personal expression has been inexorably subverted by mass tastes in culture, imposed on us by television and advertising and greed. Homogeneous subdivisions, all houses the same, the same bland designs sold all over the country. The same banners and lights and flags on front porches and town streetlamps. Oh, don't get me wrong, I am happily including signs and window displays and crazy kitschy stuff in my Main Street photographs! I've already done a book on unadorned architecture -- this one will be different, that's why I chose Main Streets. I just don't want it all to look the same.

Cheers, Sandy

[dukespeed]

Taking ourselves a little too seriously, they are just pictures and it has been done numerous times.

[andy ongun]

I had to deal with this last week for a commercial building, and noone had the access key for the area to remove the flag up front (it was covering the front part of the building.) A bit of photoshop work and it is gone!!!

[jim_2073]

Sandy, I figure you already know these things but I am not quite willing to give up yet. Yes, there are many photographers trying to capture the flag. Our newspaper had a feature spread where there were many perfectly ordinary images of flags. None of them captured much of the spirit that hangs with them. But you must work with a large format camera and if we have learned anything on this forum it is that large format photography, and large format photographs are different. A large format photograph of a flag adorned street may reveal a deeper underlying emotion. Furthermore the additional contemplation required for a large format image by the photographer may reveal additional content not offered by quicker formats. And still further someone with your obvious background and study of these very American ideas and environments will explore these themes of American streetscapes in a very unique fashion whatever the format. It is precisely because of the depth of your travels, experience, seriousness and methods that we can hope you will reveal something about this that can only come from you. We, and you won't know unless you try. My wife tells me she saw a feature on tv about a veteran war photographer who happened to be at the World Trade Center that day. She says his photoraphers were vastly better than anything else, more beaufifully spiritual and mourning. His experience taught him how to say exactly what he thought and felt and exactly what needed to be said. We can understand the experience differently because of his work. He was the exact right person at the right moment. Perhaps you are as well. Who better than you to show us what so many flags mean across all 50 states in so many communities, to reveal a symbolic unity among all of our differences. Please don't assume you are not without thinking and feeling about this opportunity to express something from within you that may need to be said to all the rest of us. I don't know what your photographs will say but please bring your careful attachments and large format vision to the flag draped American streetscape. Who knows there may be a book in it. Please, I hope you understand, I think this is a very special time and requires some very special photography. May we each contribute. And when you visit Lexington, look me up on my lovely street.

[Mike Kravit]

Hello Sandy,

You wrote:

"Before the attacks, I felt somewhat the same way about the increased appearance of those stupid dribble lights and colorful cartoon flags on houses and big redundant banners on Main Street streetlights. For those of us who love architecture, it is frustrating to see older neighborhoods start looking like shopping malls, everybody with the same kind of decorations, covering up the indivudual character of their houses."

As an architect I can tell you that we regularly incorporate those big redunant "banners" into our design concepts. They are colorful, playful, decorative and create a sense of scale and space. They are part of the festive feel of towns, squares, and villages. They portray society and societal concepts.

I suggest that by photographing the flags at this time you "are" photgraphing America. America in a time of string emotional out crying, anger, sympathy and empathy. I am please to have my projects photgraphed with banners and flags. Architecture does not exist exclusive of people, art, and society. Architecture is part of society and reflects the state of society at a particular point in time.

Go out and make your photoghraph. I hope that 10, 25, or 50 years from now you can look back and realize that you photographed America at a very important time in her history. Just like Timothy O'Sullivan, George Tice, And Paul Strand to name a few, each generation has those moments that define the period. This may one of them. Press on and do what you do.

Good Luck, Mike

Michael J. Kravit, AIA Architect/Photographer

[Hans Berkhout]

I still have not absorbed the full impact of the disaster. I am sorry for all who lost friends, family, their footing.

However if/hen the flags are gone, you'll still have the white plastic lawn/patio chairs to deal with- in the USA, Italy or Iceland, where ever you may be shooting. Place them on IX if they are clean.

Good luck.

[Stephen Vaughan]

As a contributor from the UK, I would like to add to this thread just to say that the American flag can be seen very prominently here too. In the small suburban town, south of London, where I live, the flag has been flown on the side of buildings, in windows and cars. We even see lots of people wearing clothes with the American flag on the front, or 'New York New York' on the back. On the whole I feel that this is not a sign of aggression to an enemy, but a valuable symbol of our shared grief, sympathy and common humanity. We must try to carry on with our normal lives, but it is difficult to know what 'normal' is after such an event. History doesn't always progress at a slow relentless pace. It often veers dramatically off course, and our lives, culture, art, architecture and way of seeing the world around us shifts accordingly. Though any photography outside the immediate events may seem a trivial occupation right now, I suspect that photographs made by those who work with the steady gaze of the view camera, not just in the immediate turbulence, but in coming months and years, will create work of historical and philosophical importance. We all document the world around us, and yes Sandy, we do need you to record this time in YOUR way.

Wi