Contemporary vs. traditional

[David Spivak-Focus Magazine]

In reading an interview with curators Bill Hunt and Sarah Hasted of the Hasted Hunt Gallery in New York City, I read a great deal of discussion about the contemporary photography market today. When I looked at many examples of that contemporary work, I found it completely different than what you see in several other magazines and even many of your websites.

How would you define a photograph as being "traditional" and how would you define a photograph as being "contemporary?" From what I'm seeing contemporary not only has to do with the time period work was created in, but also the style of the work...

[QT Luong]

A photograph is deemed "contemporary" if it fits into the current norm,trend or sensibility for what photographic art is. This has all to do with the style, and doesn't have much to do with the date. Some of the work done by photographers such as Eggleston in the 70s is being published for the first time now, and fits right in. An excellent survey of the many current trends is provided in the book by Charlotte Cotton, The Photograph as contemporary art (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0500203806/alargeformatphot).

As the publisher of a magazine dedicated to photographic art, why don't you tell us your opinion first ? Is the interview on-line ? This would help orient the discussion.

[Paul Kierstead]

You should check out things like dance, where you have "contemporary dance" and "modern dance". One might think from a semantic point of view they are the same thing, but not at all. Quite different, in fact.

*I* associate contemporary photography at least somewhat with the move away from photography as expression of beauty (in the art world, not photojournalism of course). But I have no formal or structured knowledge or opinion of the photographic art world. Mostly I enjoy taking pictures; I'm not even in any particular rush to see the results. Is that not an anti-contemporary view or what?

[Maris Rusis]

The world of photography is constituted into two parts and Johannes Faber, dealer in Vienna specialising in classic Modern photographs, has put it as well as anyone: “Collectors of classic modern photography are a different group. They focus on the image, quality, and surface of the print (sic), whereas the contemporary market is about content and size.”
The Art Newspaper, Issue 3, The Year in Review 2004

In general the driving energy for contemporary photography comes from curators, gallerists, dealers, and artists on the make. Of course there are exceptions but most of this cohort are not knowledgeable about photography and could not be considered friends of the medium. Their agenda is more about career advancement, job security, and pecuniary gain.

These custodians of contemporary photography tend to be oblivious of the conundrum posed by the number of curatorially lionised photographer who have no active contact with the photographic medium? The conceptual element of the picture is the quality stressed rather than the actual execution. Again when the putative artist is not the actual maker an unasked question remains. If the “photographer” is merely the commissioner of the work of an anonymous artist down at the processing laboratory then who is the real creator, the actual thinker?

The contemporary genre seems to embrace a trend, uncritical, uncaring, or ignorant, to declare any picture originating from any camera-work a photograph. This includes such diverse species as a press print, ink-jet print, or a monitor display. And it doesn't seem to matter how far downstream the picture is in the chain of production. If there is a camera at the front end then everything down from there is a photograph.

Sometimes not even a camera is relevant. I recall a conversation with a very "contemporary" senior curator of photography at the Australian National Gallery. I asked "What is a photograph?". And the reply came without any perception of irony or doubt "A photography is whatever I say is a photograph".

As predictable as clockwork the avant garde of contemporary photography seems to speak only one visual language: large size colour pictures displayed as if they were paintings. Maybe this trope has particular appeal to hopeful collectors who do not have much money but can afford a big one if not a good one.

The virtually universal preoccupation with big colour, I believe, hints at a coarsened aesthetic. Robert Hughes, the famous arts writer put it this way "In colour photography nothing is easier to feign than the marks of intense emotional or intellectual experience".

The picture making arts have many pretenders to authorship particularly under the banner of "photography". These "photographers" tend to be supported by an industry, both commercial and academic, that remains allergic to genuine scholarship. Again I recall an opinion from a senior curator, "Jeff Koons is acknowledged as an important contemporary photographer. I'm not going to question that. My department is going to run on world's best practice."

Jeff Koons may or may not be a photographer but his status as such might garner more credibility via critical assessment than through uncritical acceptance. I am cynical enough to opine that contemporary photography is often a circus where pretenders to photography are acclaimed by pretenders to scholarship.

It may not be clear what “Contemporary Photography” really is but it appears to have the characteristics of a self healing belief system that is unaffected by criticism or objective analysis.

If you have read this far you will know which side I am on. Classic modern photography, by way of contrast with the contemporary stuff, is close to what fine photography has always been. It offers a rich experience for people who love rarity, singularity, fully realized handcraft, fine materials, archival durability, coherent scholarship, and interesting content. It remains worth looking at.

[David Spivak-Focus Magazine]

Thank you, Maris Rusis. A very well thought out post... I would love to hear from someone who who is a fan of contemporary photography... such as Alec Soth.

[Hector.Navarro]

Bravo Maris!

[Merg Ross]

Eloquent, Maris! Beautifully written and to the point. I could not agree more with your conclusions.

Thank you,

Merg


http://mergross.com/

[jhogan]

>>>"A photograph is whatever I say is a photograph".<<<

Substitute the word "art" for photograph. Substitute the word "intention." Substitute the word "meaning." Substitute the word "perception."

Maybe you're trying to define something that can't be so easily defined.

When it comes to "art," what do words mean, anyway? In my language, or yours, or one neither of us understands?

[MIke Sherck]

Most lucid thing I've read today. It won't make you popular in some circles but I'm glad you wrote it!

Mike

[Jim Galli]

Bravo Maris! Thank you.

[John Kasaian]

A beautiful and well thought out observation Maris---thank you!

[Colin Graham]

For me contemporary (modern, whatever) is positively expressed by the very things you rail against. Striving to keep an open and tolerant mind about new work and ideas, and challenging some fairly bewildering notions about the 'chastity' of material and tools. My own work does suffer from it's own shortsightedness, but it's not from lack of trying, and I hope to keep challenging myself by whatever means available to me, in and out.

But I have to ask: what is 'classic modern' if not traditional?




The world of photography is constituted into two parts and Johannes Faber, dealer in Vienna specialising in classic Modern photographs, has put it as well as anyone: “Collectors of classic modern photography are a different group. They focus on the image, quality, and surface of the print (sic), whereas the contemporary market is about content and size.”
The Art Newspaper, Issue 3, The Year in Review 2004

In general the driving energy for contemporary photography comes from curators, gallerists, dealers, and artists on the make. Of course there are exceptions but most of this cohort are not knowledgeable about photography and could not be considered friends of the medium. Their agenda is more about career advancement, job security, and pecuniary gain.

These custodians of contemporary photography tend to be oblivious of the conundrum posed by the number of curatorially lionised photographer who have no active contact with the photographic medium? The conceptual element of the picture is the quality stressed rather than the actual execution. Again when the putative artist is not the actual maker an unasked question remains. If the “photographer” is merely the commissioner of the work of an anonymous artist down at the processing laboratory then who is the real creator, the actual thinker?

The contemporary genre seems to embrace a trend, uncritical, uncaring, or ignorant, to declare any picture originating from any camera-work a photograph. This includes such diverse species as a press print, ink-jet print, or a monitor display. And it doesn't seem to matter how far downstream the picture is in the chain of production. If there is a camera at the front end then everything down from there is a photograph.

Sometimes not even a camera is relevant. I recall a conversation with a very "contemporary" senior curator of photography at the Australian National Gallery. I asked "What is a photograph?". And the reply came without any perception of irony or doubt "A photography is whatever I say is a photograph".

As predictable as clockwork the avant garde of contemporary photography seems to speak only one visual language: large size colour pictures displayed as if they were paintings. Maybe this trope has particular appeal to hopeful collectors who do not have much money but can afford a big one if not a good one.

The virtually universal preoccupation with big colour, I believe, hints at a coarsened aesthetic. Robert Hughes, the famous arts writer put it this way "In colour photography nothing is easier to feign than the marks of intense emotional or intellectual experience".

The picture making arts have many pretenders to authorship particularly under the banner of "photography". These "photographers" tend to be supported by an industry, both commercial and academic, that remains allergic to genuine scholarship. Again I recall an opinion from a senior curator, "Jeff Koons is acknowledged as an important contemporary photographer. I'm not going to question that. My department is going to run on world's best practice."

Jeff Koons may or may not be a photographer but his status as such might garner more credibility via critical assessment than through uncritical acceptance. I am cynical enough to opine that contemporary photography is often a circus where pretenders to photography are acclaimed by pretenders to scholarship.

It may not be clear what “Contemporary Photography” really is but it appears to have the characteristics of a self healing belief system that is unaffected by criticism or objective analysis.

If you have read this far you will know which side I am on. Classic modern photography, by way of contrast with the contemporary stuff, is close to what fine photography has always been. It offers a rich experience for people who love rarity, singularity, fully realized handcraft, fine materials, archival durability, coherent scholarship, and interesting content. It remains worth looking at.

[Mark Sawyer]

My compliments and agreement to Maris as well. I printed aout a hard copy for future reference.

...with the caveat the "classic modern photography" was once "contemporary photography" too. I'd be fascinated to see how the academic art world remembers early-21st century contemporary fine art photography in a hundred years time...

[Eric Biggerstaff]

Maris,

Outstanding, thank you.

[Paul Kierstead]

I have to be honest; with all due respect to Mr. Rusis and his admittedly well written comment, it sounds mostly kind of bitter to me ("particular appeal to hopeful collectors who do not have much money but can afford a big one if not a good one."?). Idiot gallery owners and curators do (edit added, kind of important, this "not") not affect the quality of the work and should not be a reflection on contemporary photographers. Additionally, "fully realized handcraft, fine materials, archival durability" is photography wankery IMHO; photography issues for photographers. I'm tired of photography for photographers. It is interesting that looking over the Landscape thread on this very forum gave me a breath of fresh air.

[paulr]

Well, Maris, I think that's a pretty sweeping generalization. Pages could be filled with counter examples.

I also find that a lot of the artists working in photography today are as happy to distance themselves from Photography (with a capital P) as you'd be happy to distance them. Hence people calling themselves "artists who work with photography," or other kinds of awkward constructions, to show that they came to the medium from somewhere else, rather than than having been nurtured in the bosom of Ansel and Weston.

But they do not comprise the whole contemporary photography world. There are big trends, but also many smaller ones. When most curators are hesitant to define photography, it's not out of an arrogant position like "it's whatever I say it is" ... it's more out of a sense of humility. They've seen curators in the past make limited definitions, and quickly get burned by their shortsightedness or narrow scope.

Personally, I think it might be helpful to look at contemporary photography in terms of whether or not it has roots in traditional photography. Some does and some doesn't ... a lot of contemporary work is more connected to painting from the 80s, or video art from the 90s, than to photography of 30s. This work may not be my personal preference, but I can't imagine why there's anything fundamentally wrong with it.

Meanwhile, the work that I think people here call traditional work ... that is, work that's being done today, but that conforms to the values of the Modern period ... I think we can safely call retro. It's not responding to the world of today; it's responding to the work of yesterday that was responding to the world of its own time. There's nothing wrong with this, either--but I think it's naive to expect curators to find this kind of work particularly relevent.

[Colin Graham]

Well said Paul.

[Mark Sawyer]

Meanwhile, the work that I think people here call traditional work ... that is, work that's being done today, but that conforms to the values of the Modern period ... I think we can safely call retro. It's not responding to the world of today; it's responding to the work of yesterday that was responding to the world of its own time. There's nothing wrong with this, either--but I think it's naive to expect curators to find this kind of work particularly relevent.

I'd hope that people could see beyond the surface of a print to what it's saying. My visual, emotional, and intellectual responses are my own, and relevant to my own life and times. To dismiss them as "retro" because I might appreciate an old pictorial lens, or print in an old f/64 style, is parallel to dismissing an author's work for his handwriting.

I know there's a school of thought that the world doesn't need another aspen tree picture, but whether it needs another giant C-print copy of a cigarette ad is just as suspect...

[Gordon Moat]

Odd that the sense of traditional means repeating the past, as in the emphasis of craft over content in far too many examples. How many pictures (snaps, or photos) do we need of Half Dome? (note: sarcasm)

I can honestly view some of the work of Adam's and Weston, et al, and be bored out of my mind, yet this is surely traditional. I can also look at so-called contemporary, and find it to be utter crap, or over-inflated hype.

Just because it is B/W landscapes or nature morte, done completely as chemical processes, rarely garners greater praise amongst non-photographers. As stated above, photography for photographers does not suggest progress, though I think it does fit the retro or nostalgic ideal of traditional.

One could view the colour images of Burtynsky's beautiful images of ugly places, or Gursky's ultra-large views of the mundane, simply on their face value, or as judgments upon their subject matter. In another way, what Richard Prince does is almost satire, yet that view is often missed by the viewers and critiques.

Scale and relative scale are tools used in painting, and that approach is one reason for some contemporary photos to end up so large. Yes, there is crap being printed large for no purpose than to be large, but we could look around an just as easily find crap B/W (large and small) images of a more traditional approach. The concepts of painting can be used in contemporary photography, and can be effective, but they can just as easily be worthless effort.

Tools, methods, technique, choices can make you a well polished craftsman, but are such individuals any better as artists than as image mechanics? How you make prints does not make you a photographic artist any more than my choices of paints and brushes makes me a painter. There is a need to step away from the tools and techniques, and consider the intent of the images, whether they are paintings, B/W, or colour photos, or even something as unusual as video.

Traditional: the intent is to emulate the methods of the past, usually the more distant past than the more recent past; hopefully to remind the viewer of the past, or reinforce the perceptions of the past.

Contemporary: using combinations of new or old methods in ways not previously attempted, or rarely attempted, with the intent of creating new thoughts within the viewer, often relating to more contemporary issues, or more recent time periods.

Your own efforts can be guided nearly as much by what you like, as by what you do not like. Completely dismissing any images only serves to make one more narrow minded.

Ciao!

Gordon Moat Photography (http://www.gordonmoat.com)

[gbogatko]

Traditional: Things done "then" or done using "then" methods. Easier to say "this is good because..." or "this is bad because..." as there is an extensive body of prior art with which to compare the item in question. Value relative defense of criticism is difficult.

Contermporary: Things done "now" using "now" methods. Harder to say "this is good" or "this is bad" as the body of prior art is not very extensive. Value relative defense of criticism is easier ("that's just your opinion" as a defense of criticism carries greater weight).

Avant Guarde: Things done "now" using completely new methods newly discovered. Statements of "this is good" or "this is bad" are impossible as there is no previous body of work with which to compare the item in question. Value relative defense of criticism trumps everything as no opinion can possibly carry any more weight than any other.

There are, of course, squishy areas inbetween (using old methods in completely new ways for instance) but this is pretty much the outlines.

===========

Only time determines worth.

George

[David Spivak-Focus Magazine]

Traditional: Things done "then" or done using "then" methods. Easier to say "this is good because..." or "this is bad because..." as there is an extensive body of prior art with which to compare the item in question. Value relative defense of criticism is difficult.

Contermporary: Things done "now" using "now" methods. Harder to say "this is good" or "this is bad" as the body of prior art is not very extensive. Value relative defense of criticism is easier ("that's just your opinion" as a defense of criticism carries greater weight).

Avant Guarde: Things done "now" using completely new methods newly discovered. Statements of "this is good" or "this is bad" are impossible as there is no previous body of work with which to compare the item in question. Value relative defense of criticism trumps everything as no opinion can possibly carry any more weight than any other.

There are, of course, squishy areas inbetween (using old methods in completely new ways for instance) but this is pretty much the outlines.

===========

Only time determines worth.

George

Could you name 3 photographers who you feel are Avant Guarde so I can see an example of what you're talking about? The line is certainly blurred between AG and Contemporary.

[David Spivak-Focus Magazine]

Could you name 3 photographers who you feel are Avant Guarde so I can see an example of what you're talking about? The line is certainly blurred between AG and Contemporary.

Let me give you a for instance:

Bruce Barnbaum, while extremely well-known and well-respected by many, is a traditional photographer.

Would you consider Alec Soth or Muzi Quawson to be contemporary or AG?

[gbogatko]

I don't travel in the Art world, so don't know the people you are talking about.

The thoughts that led to the definitions were from my music background, having gone thru the 70's and 80's in that dismal game. I've tried to keep them generic as a starting point. Thus Barnbaum is 'traditional' because he uses tools and methods that have a long tradition of use to produce a body of work that can be compared with much that has gone before.

Sally Mann of "Deep South" is certainly in the squishy part. She uses traditional equipment to produce an AV result. The earlier parts of the book are suseptable to criticisms of sloppyness when viewed from the purely traditional viewpoint, and from that viewpoint, a value relative defense would carry less weight. The latter parts of the book are more in the AV realm because there's not a large body of work to compare them with, so one must wait and see

If the latter parts are compared with the early pictorialists, they're at worst sloppy but mostly just ordinary. Compared with more recent painted expressionism, they're less sloppy. Compared with her own previous efforts, I think they fail -- but "that's my opinion" and is thus squarely in the value relative realm -- but again, one must wait and see. Fail because given the first part of the book, they don't seem to belong.

George

[gbogatko]

>> Would you consider Alec Soth or Muzi Quawson to be contemporary or AG?

As I previously posted, I don't know them. However you can answer your own question by asking yourself if their body of work is "recent" in tone, but still within a wider genre, i.e. their work is generally similar within a popular current genre.

gb

[gbogatko]

>> Would you consider Alec Soth or Muzi Quawson to be contemporary or AG?

I went and looked. Contemporary. It's the "thing" now to do what Walter Evans was doing earlier, but now in color.

If you want something more AV, look at Emil Schmitt, for example here:

http://www.emilschildt.com/POLYMER&#37;20-%20SILLE2.htm

(new things with new techniques), or John Wallst here:

http://www.artlimited.net/image/?id=40157&lg=en

Again, new things with new techniques.

[Gordon Moat]

Avante Garde:

http://www.lorettalux.de/

http://www.thomasdemand.de/

Many more, though these are a good way to not be contemporary. I suppose Cindy Sherman might fit that, though she has been around long enough to have contemporaries doing similar work.

Maybe that's a definition: Avant Garde: work not be emulated by many others.

Ciao!

Gordon Moat Photography (http://www.gordonmoat.com)

[gbogatko]

Consider the following:

"Mr. X, the well known avant guarde Y"

and

"Mr. X, the well known contemporary Y"

Which one sounds like an oxymoron, or advertising fluff.

gb

[David Spivak-Focus Magazine]

Avante Garde:

http://www.lorettalux.de/

http://www.thomasdemand.de/

Many more, though these are a good way to not be contemporary. I suppose Cindy Sherman might fit that, though she has been around long enough to have contemporaries doing similar work.

Maybe that's a definition: Avant Garde: work not be emulated by many others.

Ciao!

Gordon Moat Photography (http://www.gordonmoat.com)

I'm a *HUGE* fan of Loretta Lux. I remember seeing her show at the Yossi Milo Gallery in New York back in 2006. I don't, however, consider her AG. Only because she's been around for a while and her style, while contemporary, isn't new. Same thing for Thomas and Cindy.

[gbogatko]

>> Maybe that's a definition: Avant Garde: work not be emulated by many others.

AG: work not well known enough to be emulated, but will be once it's discovered. Then it becomes contemporary.

gb

[sun of sand]

The writer that gets to fill pages with stuff that exists but doesn't mean much
The artist looking for a way to align themselves
A buyer looking for a short-term investment

Who else cares about these terms

I don't define them
They really don't exist in my vocabulary

[zigi georges]

An interesting viewpoint put forward by Maris. I am interested in the last paragraph on what constitutes "classic modern photography". You mention things like hand crafted and durable. These seem to be intuitively reasonable requirements. However, I wonder just what is this "coherent scholarship" that is required to make a photograph "worth looking at"? Also, does it mean that if a photograph is not accompanied by reams of coherent scholarship it is to be delegated to the rubbish bin as a non-photograph?

I have always thought that photography was a refuge from the highly intellectual approaches of science, for example; a refuge from over-intellectualisation into the more indeterminate world of the intuitive side of the brain that is more aware, in a pictorial mode, of the subtleties of our existence. After all, if intellectual scholarship can explain all, what is the reason for a photograph?

Ineresting view. Thanks. Zigi georges

[Gordon Moat]

Maris provides the counter-point against modern methods and efforts. The idea is that one needs to toil in a specific manner in order to qualify as traditional. Maris eloquently puts forward the case for effort as a validation of intent and image. This leads (some of) us to question whether methods and materials define a photograph, or whether the content can exist without explanation.

When I use a modern transparency film with a circa 150 year old lens, is that contemporary or traditional . . . or avante garde? I don't process my own film, though I know how to do E-6 processing. If I used a modern camera, spot meter, densitometer, and modern B/W films that I processed on my own, could I claim I was traditional? Would I need to only shoot landscape images in B/W to be considered traditional? If I did those same landscapes in colour, would I then be considered contemporary? Where do we draw the lines?

Ciao!

Gordon Moat Photography (http://www.gordonmoat.com)

[Mark Sawyer]

Perhaps it all comes down to whether one believes fine art parallels the Woody Allen Theory of Relationships, that, "like a shark, it always has to be moving forward, because if it stays in the same place, it dies."

So art is blessed or doomed to be always moving forward, perpetual progress with no particular goal in mind, just the need to be in motion.

And the traditionalists among us can look at our own work and observe, as Woody did, that "what we have here is a dead shark..."

[paulr]

I'd hope that people could see beyond the surface of a print to what it's saying. My visual, emotional, and intellectual responses are my own, and relevant to my own life and times. To dismiss them as "retro" because I might appreciate an old pictorial lens, or print in an old f/64 style, is parallel to dismissing an author's work for his handwriting.

I don't think the distinction has much to do with surfaces or techniques. There are photographers like Sally Mann doing very contemporary work with traditional materials and methods; she must feel that those tools best serve her work. Atget in his own day used materials and tools that were completely old fashioned and anachronistic. It didn't stop his work from being cutting edge.

Likewise it's not about subject matter. Friedlander showed us that it was possible to revisit old warhorse subjects, like yosemite valley and the tetons (in black and white, no less), and show us things about the world we haven't seen before. There's a special kind of virtuosity in that, I think. He's able to find something new in something we've seen a million times.

If I look at a picture and the strongest impression I get is of the work the photographer has seen, rather than of the photgrapher's experience of his or her own world, then I get the retro vibe. Retro means looking backwards ... it means celebrating old work and old ways of seeing. It's comfortable and easy, but not generally capable of illuminating the world we live in, or of challenging anyone to see in a new way, or of letting an artist share any first-hand responses to the world.

[JW Dewdney]

I think the big irony of the situation is that the sort of standards people are using to define 'traditional' were, in fact, radical, cutting edge and very challenging for their time (weston's peppers, for example, stieglitz, strand, evans, etc...) - and were EXACTLY the kind of work the 'traditionalists' are complaining about here. It's innately political, isn't it?

[JW Dewdney]

I believe in craft. I believe in putting LOVE into your work - but I also believe in challenging yourself, your vision, your 'way of being' at every moment. Whatever results from that can only be good. Simply trying to emulate a photograph because it represents a well-trodden canon - even if your technique is really great is just pedantic. Unless you're using it to get somewhere else... in my opinion.

[Mark Sawyer]

I agree with Paul and others who recognize the tools and even the craft are not the message, (though the messenger certainly plays a part). But in the mad rush "forward" (whichever direction that might be), use of traditional tools becomes an indicator of traditional vision, regardless of what the artist is really seeing and saying.

And in the "avante garde/contemporary" circles, I think there's often a perception that a traditional vision is simply lost in the past. My own feeling is that vision is personal, and how one sees in their work is different from what one says in the work.

Then again, there are some who simply appreciate their craft or enjoy their vision as goals in themselves, and these people may be in any camp, so it's hard to say...

[David Spivak-Focus Magazine]

As the publisher of a magazine dedicated to photographic art, why don't you tell us your opinion first?

To be as inspecific as possible, traditional photography is designed for you to look at the technique used in creating the photograph and less about what the photograph is of. The subject matter is secondary, the technique is primary. Contemporary does not need to always be color and traditional does not need to always be black and white. With contemporary, it's the exact oppiste - technique is secondary, subject matter is primary. I site any of the f64 founding members as a perfect example of this. I think about 99% of the photographers in this forum care more about the tecnique and the art of printing the photograph more than they do the actual subject matter itself. With contemporary photography, well there's always some sort of underlying message in the subject. As an example of this as Raphael Dallaporta's autopsy photographs. A series of vital human organs were photographed and an explanation was given to them as to why that human being died and any stories surrounding it.

But to understand other genre of photography, we first must understand WHY the two exist. Why does someone spend a great deal of time in the dark room trying to perfect a gelatin silver print of a still life photograph of fruit in a bowl and why would would someone photograph autopsy photos and label it art? It's a simple explanation for the traditional photographer: Create a gorgeous subject with a pain-staking process in which there can be no flaws. The entire process of printing the photograph is an art form in itself and it can take decades to master this process. On the flip side, the subject matter and the story behind the subject matter for the contemporary photographer is the most important. Whether it be photographs of an autopsy or a series of photographs detailing the bloody slaughter of pigs for grocery store production, the contemporary photographer has a story to tell.

In addition, there are exceptions to every rule. Jock Sturges is an exception to the first rule, where technique of printing is equally important to the subject matter. His photography is not considered "contemporary." Most of Sturges' newer work is all digital. His older work was 8 x 10 negatives printed onto Oriental Seagull warmtone FB papers. Another example of exceptions would be Alec Soth. To the casual eye, Soth's work is irrelevant and bland. To the trained eye, Soth's work evokes underlying stories behind each of his photographs. However, Soth has been known to be nearly obsessive over how his photographs are taken. Soth's camera, a breadbox-sized R.H. Phillips and Sons 8 x 10 Compact camera from the late 1980s makes gorgeous, diamond-edged, almost painting-like pictures. It is the story behind the photographs though that really make his work popular. Each of Soth's photographs have a different story behind them.

Some other exceptions to the contemporary rule would be Jill Greenberg. Technique is extremely important, otherwise there wouldn't be a photograph. Her photographs relay a hidden meaning though that requires explanation. End Times, for example, photographs of young children crying, is to convey her feelings for the Bush administration and Christian fundamentalism. Loretta Lux also uses children, allbeit more intentionally. Her photographs of children and the technique she uses is extraordinarily important - otherwise there wouldn't be a Loretta Lux. However, there is a deeper meaning behind her photographs. Innocence, trust, fear, you name it.

[Eric Biggerstaff]

Well, not sure if I can agree with much of what you wrote David. I know a number of very well regarded and respected "traditonal" photographers and I doubt many would agree that technique is the goal and subject matter is secondary. What the photograph "is of" is very important and the emotional response is very important as well. I think this is true of all good photographs, traditional or contemporary. Technique is used to enhance the emotional response, here again this is true of "traditional" or "contemporary". Any photograph that has emotion and meaning goes beyond the technique used to create it.

Remember, there are many horrible contemporary photos just as there are many horrible traditional photos (I knnow, I make a ton of bad ones). Good ones move a viewer beyond the subject and touch an emotion, poor ones do not. I can look at Lorretta Lux and be bored to tears, then I can look at Paul Caponigro and be moved to tears. Depends on the viewer and their emotional make up.

You note there are exceptions to every rule, true, but why have rules? Either the photo works or it doesn't. You mention Soth, and note his camera "makes gorgeous, diamnond-edged" pictures. Well, the camera is not creating this, Soth's great technique is creating this. He understands his tools and can use them to create the image he wants.

You also note that working in a traditional darkroom can take years to master. This too is correct, but becoming a great digital printer can also take years to master. Both printing processes are an artform and both require the artist to spend long hours perfecting their methods and techniques.

I find much of the current trends in "contemporary" photography boring and bland, large prints with little emotion behind them (but then I find most color work sort of boring unless it is fairly abstract). But like most trends, they change over time. At some point, large color work will be "out" while somthing else will be "in". It is just the way life is. Time will tell if we view Loretta Lux in the same way we view Edward Weston, or if a Soth image resonates with the same intensity of emotion that "Moonrise, Hernandez" still does 60 years after the image was made.

What can be a challenge for many in the art world is that they have never worked in a darkroom and made an image. They have never composed on a ground glass. They have never worked hours on an image in Photoshop. They really don't understand the process or the emotion and have never mastered any technique.

I would really recommend doing some of these things, buy an LF camera and take a workshop. Go spend a few days in a darkroom and make a print. Even if you don't want to master any of these things it will give you a deeper appreciation for both "traditional" and "contemporary" photography.

As I write this, I am looking at a lovely 16X20 Jock Sturges print of a little girl holding a great big frog. Just a simple, innocent image made in a "traditonal" manner that will still bring as much enjoyment to me 20 years from now as it did the day I bought it. It rings true because of the emotion it contains, not because of the technique used to creat it.

[Paul Kierstead]

\
What can be a challenge for many in the art world is that they have never worked in a darkroom and made an image. They have never composed on a ground glass. They have never worked hours on an image in Photoshop. They really don't understand the process or the emotion and have never mastered any technique.


They also haven't painted, sculpted, written a poem or book or played an instrument. Doing these things may well increase an appreciation for the craft, but I don't see how it alter the view of it as "art". In fact, it may very well be a detriment.

If an understanding of the craft is require to appreciate the work, I'd think it would seem to be a failure as a creative work. It reminds me of those musicians who play "flawlessly" but have no spirit, or the painters who make perfect strokes but cannot seem to make an original work.

[Gordon Moat]

Emphasizing craft is purely marketing. If any work of art cannot stand on its own, without explanation of process, then I challenge the notion that it is compelling. That has nothing to do with whether or not I like a work of art.

I can make my own canvases, mix my own paints from raw materials, and even make my own brushes. However, it is more important for me to reach an end result, than it is to emphasize those aspects, and I enjoy the convenience of paints in tubes and ready-made high quality brushes (I still stretch my own canvases, but from bought components). In photography, I can do all aspects of darkroom work, yet I choose to pay labs to develop and print for me, with my direction. The end result is my goal, not the process of getting there. Unless I state something about process, the person viewing one of my paintings or photographs has no idea what effort I put into each work, and I don't think it should matter.

Ciao!

Gordon Moat Photography (http://www.gordonmoat.com)

[paulr]

But in the mad rush "forward" (whichever direction that might be), use of traditional tools becomes an indicator of traditional vision, regardless of what the artist is really seeing and saying.

Yeah, I think that's definitely a risk. Especially when people aren't looking all that closely at the work. I think I've been branded as an "old fashioned" photographer more than once, because the prints I showed were warm toned black and white and had a kind of retro esthetic to them. Now--those people might be right about me, but their reasons for leaping to that judgement strike me as superficial, and could easily lead them to some wrong conclusions.

On the other hand, there are plenty of counter examples. 8 or 9 years ago it seemed like all the blue chip galleries were showing contemporary platinum and palladium prints that were superficially victorian looking. Linda Connor was among the first contemporary bigshots to revive that esthetic; artists like Robert and Shana ParkeHarrison continue with variations on it today. Possibly their stature helps get them seen as contemporary.

Of course, whether the work in question really IS contemporary is up for grabs. But I'm talking more about impressions right now.

[paulr]

To be as inspecific as possible, traditional photography is designed for you to look at the technique used in creating the photograph and less about what the photograph is of. The subject matter is secondary, the technique is primary.

I thnk that's being way too specific. Way, way too specific ... it discounts probably the majority of what most us would consider traditional.

If you look at the discussions and correspondence among the f64 people, most of their concerns were philosophical. They were talking about the nature of being, of form, of "quintessences," of the state of humanity in (their) contemporary world. Strand was an ardent socialist; Weston a formal modernist and eventually a late modernist; Minor White was a theosophist mystic; Walker Evans was an activist documentarian; Stieglitz reinvented himself at least a half a dozen times, but each invention was centered on philosophy, not craft. In all these cases, these artists used their mastery of craft in service to their visions. Except maybe for Evans, who you could argue never mastered craft nor cared much about it.

From the same general time period you can look across the ocean to the European modernists ... the surrealists, the constructivists, the expressionists, the socialists, the futurists, the Bauhaus school, the superficially retro and uncategorizeable Atget ...

How many of them could you say put craft before vision?

[jnantz]

How would you define a photograph as being "traditional" and how would you define a photograph as being "contemporary?" From what I'm seeing contemporary not only has to do with the time period work was created in, but also the style of the work...

i would guess that "traditional" photography has to do with imagery and methods
that speak about the photography of days gone by.

in the same way, i would guess that "contemporary" photography doesn't
pat on the back the "olde guard"

[Chris Jones]

What an interesting, polite and civil discussion this is making it a pleasure to read.

From my viewpoint this question is one of the big issues that seems to confront not only photography as art, but all the arts and in this era it seems far more insistent and urgent. I suspect what this entails is a heightened awareness, or perhaps more accurately, a far more intense and heightened encounter with history and so far, without any satisfactory resolution then what other eras may be able to express.

I generally get put into the contemporary box not so much as a photographer but as a poet and I have reached that more mature age when I begin to question what this may mean, whereas earlier it didn't worry me. (I was once called a Postmodernist, that was a worry.) My choice of media; 35mm, super 8, video and now 4x5 monorail and Mamiya TLR monochrome prints, I cannot alone see as an answer. I could stretch this further by questioning also why a poet instead of photographer? This is usually resolved as poet and media artist and yet I can remain contemporary with a monorail instead of computer multimedia. (I dropped multimedia simply because of the time it takes to learn software, deciding to stick with what I know, so may well return?)

So how may contemporary practice think images, it could be asked. To begin, it is simply no longer possible to think in terms of value judgements (in the strict sense rather then more colloquial usage) so what could be termed concerns become not a judgement but a way of thinking or a pragmatics, which is to say a pragmatic aesthetics which asks how can it be done. This entails a type of approach which is dialogic (using a term provided by M. M. Bakhtin's theory of the novel) whereas tradition has no need to enter into dialogues with other areas of thought but is able to sustain itself as a tradition and a way of producing images. In poetics it could be said that tradition can maintain itself as a monologue, whereas the idea of contemporary I am thinking about cannot, needing to be in some sort of dialogue with a variety of recent thinking. This is how I see the relation between photography, poetry and prose novels which I also write. What I am saying here is not that new, the idea of prose novels, poetry and photography as a dialogue can be traced back to the Beat writers and photographers and back to Christopher Isherwood and WH Auden. So, it follows that the monorail view camera using black and white film and silver prints cannot alone signify tradition and instead can be as contemporary as computer graphics and multimedia.

While traditionalist may live without the need for dialogue and be perfectly self sustaining, this cannot also be so for contemporary practice which needs to be able to make a dialogic link with what is termed traditional which means being at least conversant with the zone system, for example. So a value judgement (referring again to aesthetic theories) cannot be made here. It seems to me that traditional practice also is unable to make such a judgement. The question then seems to be one of concerns and this reminds me of Minor White's respectful concern for the snapshot aesthetics of Gary Winnogrand and Lee Friedlander, where White thought that the zone system placed the body of the photographer into the image more successfully then their practice. Of course, I am free to disagree or not accept this solution provided by White and seek another. So approaching tradition again, it seems that it has to be constructed or invented as a type of fiction which can sustain itself. Contemporary practice also needs fiction which can sustain it as a practice but this fiction is simply one of being a different way of approaching how images can be thought, that is as dialogic, rather then the monologic of tradition.

Better stop here before I write an entire book. Anyways, just giving back some of what I am thinking about in terms of how I seek another solution to a common problem.

[Gary L. Quay]

A few years ago, I attempted to get into a juried exhibition at a local gallery / workspace that had as a jurist the photography curator for the Portland Art Museum, if memory serves me correctly. I won't name the gallery. I didn't get into the show. I was somewhat bemused by the Willamette Week's (a local weekly newspaper) critique of the show a few days after it opened, which stated (I'm pararhrasing here), "Blurry, poorly composed, and self-important. Haven't these people heard of beauty?"

I don't pay attention to what's in or out, though. My subscription to American Photo ran out years ago. I think of myself as a traditional photographer, mostly due to the subject matter I choose, and my methodologies. I compose the way a landscape artist composes, even when I work with models. I want that strong foregrounds and the inverted 'V' lines that seem to give the image movement. I tend to think that comtemporary photographers don't concern themselves with such things, but maybe I'm confusing "contemporary" with "avante garde."

--Gary

[john borrelli]

I think contemporary photography is a reaction against what its proponents perceive as content that is at its core a reflection of an escapist's paradigm.

[cobalt]

The same thing is going on in the art world in general. What is art? What the artist says it is? Bullshit.

A few points to consider:

I think the fact that Mapplethorpe was what one might call a gifted classical photographer. Oddly enough, it is his work whose content was more controversial in terms of content that appears to be his claim to fame. Artist turned... contemporary artist...:-)

I read an article once on story illustration (i.e. making comic strips). The gist of the article was that it is much easier to support bad illustration with good writing than it is to support bad writing with good illustration.

Sally Mann famously made haunting images using glass many here would consider less than pedestrian, no meter, and an ancient view camera. Doesn't matter what the technique was, art was produced. Artist.

While shooting the Detroit International Jazz Festival this summer, I was constantly approached by press pass wielding "photographers" who were more interested in the fact that I was making photographs with a Hasselblad, and insisting that I was some sort of luddite because I don't want a digital back for it, than the business that they were supposed to be about. (Annoying as hell, pain in the ass) Technicians.

Mastering the technical skills needed to make an image on a negative is not rocket science. It takes a bit of practice of course. Making art is quite divorced from this procedure. There are a lot of good technicians out there; few great artists.

On the whole... I think I am in agreement with the Focus Mag guy, as well as the guy referenced by Maris.

I am sick to death of technically correct (and often lifeless) images of Monument Valley, churches, old barns and cala lillies (even when I make them, and I do). But I am also sick of fuzzy-for-the-sake-of-repudiating-tradition-Holga images as well. What is art lies somewhere twixt the two philosophies, if you will.

Calling oneself an artist means than one asserts the ability to express original (as well as borrowed) ideas via an original and unique language of (in this case visual) expression particular to that individual. Often, the new paradigm of rejecting paradigm out of hand as dogma throws the doors open to those who lack a certain amount of ... talent. Some even say talent is a myth. If it is, then I want to be Miles Davis when I grow up. Give me a horn. A few lessons, a couple of years practice, and surely I will surpass him... right?


I don't think so.

[Michael Wynd]

Very well done Maris. I'm going to give a copy of this to the head of our Visual Arts Department. He is an art critic and has several books to his name. Some of what he says makes sense to me, but some of it is (as far as I'm concerned) drivel. He is a bit of a snob who thinks that classic photography (Ansel Adams etc) is twee. I'll be very interested in finding out what he thinks of what you wrote.
Again well done
Mike