Aperture Magazine just set me an e-mail

[Brian C. Miller]

For those who complain about how easy the example of this thread might be produced: Ease is no automatic condemnation.

I don't think that the concept of "ease" merits plaudit or pillory, but "schizophrenic" "deconstruction of the medium" does merit quality time at the whipping post.

The series presented to the viewing audience was made as a "deconstruction of the medium," not to present any novel or original concept. We've had better examples of this from the get-go. Come on, an image disappearing from a print is nothing new!

[John NYC]

Come on, an image disappearing from a print is nothing new!

Neither is a photo of a big rock in the foreground of of a beach or forest scene, shot with a wide angle lens on Velvia. Or a rural scene shot in b&w with an old projector lens. Doesn't stop many thousands of people doing it and calling it art.

[Nicholas Whitman]

For those who complain about how easy the example of this thread might be produced: Ease is no automatic condemnation. The reason I asked my question as I did, of those whose ability to eloquently expand my horizons I admire, was to separate the concept from the ease with which it might be produced, or the similarity is has to "test prints". Maybe there was something profound there that I was unable to see, and that all of us who have made what we call test prints have missed all this time. It could be that the sheer familiarity we have with the technique would keep us from appreciating what would be more conceptually powerful to non-photographers.

In other words, I never underestimate the ability of photographers, including myself, to be blinded by technical issues enough to miss the point of a particular concept. I know what I like, but if saying so out loud marks me as just another camera geek then I might decide to keep it to myself (or not). So, I asked.

We should avoid the trap of saying, "I could do that". The fact is, we didn't, because we didn't see the value in doing so. That alone provides no basis for judgment.

Rick "a Philistine, perhaps, but an honest one" Denney

You can cook up a concept about almost anything and sell it with words. To my jaded eye that is pretty common in modern art.

My standard for success in a piece of photography or other visual medium includes: Is the viewer touched by the piece? Is the medium used to advantage to convey the idea?
Can it communicate gut to gut in those golden moments before the brain jumps in to reason the case?

[John Kasaian]

Can photographers be sued for malpractice?

If a photograph is worth a thousand words, then having to use a thousand words to explain a photograph is laughable at best, especially if the photos still don't make any sense after your thousand word description.

If this isn't a comedy skit, those people ought to be embarrassed.

[feppe]

Neither is a photo of a big rock in the foreground of of a beach or forest scene, shot with a wide angle lens on Velvia. Or a rural scene shot in b&w with an old projector lens. Doesn't stop many thousands of people doing it and calling it art.

Your points make enough sense for me to re-consider my initial position on the fading portrait, which wasn't exactly flattering.

[Brian Ellis]

Neither is a photo of a big rock in the foreground of of a beach or forest scene, shot with a wide angle lens on Velvia. Or a rural scene shot in b&w with an old projector lens. Doesn't stop many thousands of people doing it and calling it art.

I disagree. Within the general category of "big rock in foreground of a beach or forest scene" the number of variations is virtually infinite. Literally thousands of photographs can be made within that category, all of which evoke different ideas, different emotions, different attitudes, different levels of appreciation, different degrees of aesthetic pleasure, different purposes, etc. or even if not different, nevertheless provide some form of intellectual or aesthetic pleasure. IOWs, seeing one photograph of one rock in the foreground of one beach or forest doesn't begin to exhaust the photographic possibilities of that general category of photographs.

OTOH, a series of photographs showing the same image gradually disappearing to illustrate an idea, once done has no reason to be repeated. We got the idea the first time around and there's nothing more to be gained by doing it again and again using a different subject since the images have no purpose or value except to illustrate the idea.

[John NYC]

I disagree. Within the general category of "big rock in foreground of a beach or forest scene" the number of variations is virtually infinite. Literally thousands of photographs can be made within that category, all of which evoke different ideas, different emotions, different attitudes, different levels of appreciation, different degrees of aesthetic pleasure, different purposes, etc. or even if not different, nevertheless provide some form of intellectual or aesthetic pleasure. IOWs, seeing one photograph of one rock in the foreground of one beach or forest doesn't begin to exhaust the photographic possibilities of that general category of photographs.

OTOH, a series of photographs showing the same image gradually disappearing to illustrate an idea, once done has no reason to be repeated. We got the idea the first time around and there's nothing more to be gained by doing it again and again using a different subject since the images have no purpose or value except to illustrate the idea.

I'm curious.. Can you list for me all the other techniques that you personally feel once done would then have no (or little) artistic merit if done subsequently?

[Lenny Eiger]

How do I even begin... I'll state the obvious. Post-modernism is pure garbage. Plain and simple. It isn't what photography is about for me - and most of the world. I think there's all the reason in the world to do "projects" and have an intellectual component of one's work. However - to have only a cerebral component and nothing else is boring, at best. What's worse is the folks who like only this kind of work are in charge - everywhere.

I think one has to ask one's self - what is the promise of photography? What does it offer, why would we do it, etc. Our culture over the years has learned that Photography is capable of more than a few things. It can shock, and create a call to action. It can inspire, it can stir one's emotions, it can bring back memories and it can seemingly transport one to somewhere else, at least fleetingly. It's sense of truth, which we all know is false, still works despite that knowledge. There is nothing like a piece of work that is at once authentic and genuine, more true that true, and speaks to things deeper than our everyday chatter.

This promise, far beyond simple recording of what things look like, can be a real contribution to our culture, and our world. To achieve the promise, we have to learn how to be present with what we are photographing. It's a lot of inner work - and it pays off very well.

Post-modernism is not interested in any of this. There is only the cerebral, there is no depth, no interaction (no participation of the viewer) and no emotion. Normal humans, artists and non-artists, indicate in large numbers that they want to be "moved" when viewing a piece of art. That's clearly an emotional word. Emotion is at least half of the emotion/intellect way of looking at things and to turn one's back on it is to simply be stupid, or more to the point, half a person.

Visits by the general populous to museums and art galleries is down. When queried what they want to see, 85% of them said landscape work that inspires and moves.

It's true what others have said, that the art is a reflection of our culture's inability to deal with itself (paraphrased heavily). People who are scared of their own being, or their own emotions, are going to be attracted to this cerebral vision. I've done a lot of reading lately on this trend and I don't think it will get us anywhere. The reading was difficult. I'm not scared of big words, but for crying out loud, someone should let these people know that writing is actually a communications medium, that the goal should be to communicate vs to obfuscate.

I think we need to start a movement to bring Photography back on track. (Maybe re-modernism). There's nothing wrong with having a healthy avant-garde, but having them run the show is having the lunatics run the asylum. For myself, I will continue to work and if I don't get in another gallery ever, I won't care. A long time ago some truly great photographers showed me what was possible and I won't be false to that vision. At the moment, my kid needs braces and I have to make another 5K...

That's my 2 cents,

Lenny


Lenny Eiger
Eigerstudios.com

[Frank Petronio]

I blame the French.

Stupid Philosophers.

Just like the World Wars, if you go back far enough, it is their fault.

[Marko Trebusak]

Sontag relies too much on using a pithy epigram as a starting point, and then erects a vast inverted pyramid on top, often issuing broad brush condemnations of large swathes of humanity, without ever discussing the validity or applicability of her original axiom. She relies on it's sheer quotability to be convincing. She drives me mad..

Thank God, I'm not the only one! Her desire to see just and only people in photographs is one point I can't digest. War photography as her main interest is another one. And her stand that photography is representing reality is another one. I mean there are things beside Railander's pictorial photographs that are not meant to represent "truth, whole truth and nothing but a truth"! Why can't we look at photograph like we look at painting? Why must photo be a "representation of a real thing"?

One problem I have with photography is that it is too insular. The idea that only photographers make valid criticism of photography is a bad one. John Updike's criticism is one example of a writer who is very perceptive about visual art. I personally prefer to read general arts critique and translate the themes and ideas into the photographic world for myself.

As an example, the LRB I referenced above doesn't have much photography criticism. However, its general art correspondents are excellent, and the diary-like contributions of Peter Campbell have taught me an awful lot about how visual art works and is received. When they do touch on photography, the conventions and house style of good general arts criticism ensure a quality result (mostly). For example, Liz Jobey's article on Bill Brandt (here: http://www.lrb.co.uk/v26/n13/liz-job...of-the-decades) is light years better than anything that has appeared in the photographic press - in fact, it was what prompted me to simply give up on photo magazines.

Of all the canonical photographic theory books, Szarkowski's 'Looking at Photographs' and John Berger's 'Ways of seeing' are the only ones that have really touched me. There are any number of books about writing, poetry, painting or just plain living which have been more helpful to my photography than, say, Barthes, who - if you look closely - seems to think all photographs are of people.

Umm, there is not a place in my writing, where I wrote that only photographers can say something about photography? I was probably too deep into Leonardo's "Trattato della pittura", where he is criticizing writers and poems. My bad. Everyone can have an opinion on photographs. But I must agree with you, general art critiques are the ones to follow. Barthes? Do you mean "Camera Lucida"? Ugh...

I'll look at the links you provided. And those two books might be worth to look at. I mean I read John Berger's "The use of photographs". It was interesting, but again: people, people, people and war photography on top of all that. Photo magazines? What photo magazines? I mean there isn't much in Slovenian in the first place, but those in English that I thumb through are just "what to do" magazines, with half of it being occupied by adverts!

Cheers,
Marko