Robert Frank: "There are too many images."

[Brian C. Miller]

From an interview in Vanity Fair, Robert Frank’s Unsentimental Journey, April 2008:

There are too many images. Too many cameras now. We’re all being watched. It gets sillier and sillier. As if all action is meaningful. Nothing is really all that special. It’s just life. If all moments are recorded, then nothing is beautiful and maybe photography isn't an art anymore. Maybe it never was.

Quite provocative, eh? What value is there for the watcher, when all that is watched is equal?

For myself, that means that the dedicated photographer becomes more important. The photographer must not only see, but the images must be seen, and rise above the noise. Without that, it all becomes lost. While there is value for the creator, the real creator who is dedicated to creating, the value for the watcher diminishes because there is an overloading avalanche of information. Moonrise, puppy dog, Mona Lisa, lunch food on the plate, all the same, all delivered the same way.

"It is the same with him about photography. Digital photography destroys memory, he believes, with its ability to erase. Art school is another problem, teaching students to be blind. Editors are worse—they poke the artist’s eyes out. Photography: one minute it’s not art at all. Then perhaps it is. And then again it is not. That’s Robert Frank."

[Darin Boville]

Photographs used to be very special things. They put them in little folding cases with velvet lining. Then they put them in photo albums. Then digital hit and there wee so many photographs, everything it seemed was photographed. Photographs were not so special.

But I've noticed recently that photographs are becoming special again. People see fewer physical prints than than used to. They are becoming special.

--Darin

[johnmsanderson]

There are too many images. I go through websites like Flak Photo and the ease of moving onto the next image or 'series' just ends up detracting from my own ability in being present with a body of work... the next click away might be more interesting! I end up avoiding too much of this visual noise, to the point where I'm sick of looking at photography on screens. I go to other mediums: music, painting, literature. I often find those to be just as helpful to my photography. Seeing photography shows is another matter. Seeing Burtynsky's Manufactured Landscapes at the Brooklyn Museum is still embedded in my memory as the point in which I decided to dedicate myself to large format photography.

[johnmsanderson]

But I've noticed recently that photographs are becoming special again. People see fewer physical prints than than used to. They are becoming special.

--Darin

I am looking forward to this. I feel there will be a return to the appreciation of a finely-crafted objects: prints, pinball machines... steam locomotives!

[jp]

In the "good ole days" there weren't many photographs and the consumer ate whatever dogfood they were fed. Call it special, or not.

Good stuff is still presently being made, online and on paper, perhaps more than ever. But finding it and viewing it is a whole different game which requires more focus and intention rather than entertainment, Perhaps the same focus required of an artist picking out a subject from the noise of life.

Thus art is moving from curated "this is good" small volume popular stuff to finding what is special for photography is completely like finding what's special in real life. No problem with that here, but it's not for everyone, especially pundits.

[Ken Lee]

Photographs used to be very special things. They put them in little folding cases with velvet lining. Then they put them in photo albums. Then digital hit and there wee so many photographs, everything it seemed was photographed. Photographs were not so special.

But I've noticed recently that photographs are becoming special again. People see fewer physical prints than than used to. They are becoming special.

--Darin

I agree. Beautiful prints of adequate size - especially when matted and framed in a way that further enhances their impact - stand apart from the countless transient images to which we're exposed every day.

As you say, a fine print has become even more fine today.

[Toyon]

I agree. Beautiful prints of adequate size - especially when matted and framed in a way that further enhances their impact - stand apart from the countless transient images to which we're exposed every day.

As you say, a fine print has become even more fine today.

Yes, but there is a difference between the darkroom print and the digital print. The darkroom print is the real thing, the result of light striking and altering the chemical makeup of the substrate. Digital prints, on the other hand are a reproduction of the events that occurred on a photographic sensor. It is one step removed from the actual process. I have no doubt that this difference means little to nothing to the majority of viewers. But it is a critical difference to me. It may be to others.

[Tin Can]

I suppose many of us here, still use a real computer and monitor for everything. I prefer a comfy chair, a fast computer and a nice monitor, but I find most people are using only Smart phones for everything. I sent a couple digital images to a some models, that were good as large prints, but they looked at them for maybe 2 seconds each on a tiny phone. and moved on with their busy lives. I had both digital and wet prints for them, but they don't even want to see them. I don't see? how they can judge a print, even on a Retina iPhone, perhaps on a Retina iPad. Image overload.

I think it's humorous to see how many people are staring at their device constantly, but I now know they are dealing with a slow connections, balky websites, et al. And most of the viewing time is spent waiting for the damn thing to deliver. For a while I actually thought the youngsters were all geniuses, doing important business on their Smart phone. No, they are texting nonsense, looking at FB stupidity, playing solitaire, examining selfies and... These same people often ask me to look up shit for them, or even buy shit for them, because they don't know how to Google, don't use Paypal, or Amazon Prime, or credit cards or...Now I have one couple asking me where to go see waterfalls, I found many decades ago, easily. Very little imagination left, said this old man.

Not an angry old man, just wondering what's next. I bet I get to it before they do.

How that's that phrase go, 'old age, money and treachery beats youthful exuberance'. Never!

[Bill_1856]

Sour Grapes.
Robert Frank's photographs were never about the individual images, but of his insight and brilliant presentation of that point of view in his books and films.

[Sal Santamaura]

...there is a difference between the darkroom print and the digital print. The darkroom print is the real thing, the result of light striking and altering the chemical makeup of the substrate. Digital prints, on the other hand are a reproduction of the events that occurred on a photographic sensor. It is one step removed from the actual process...

I vastly prefer a completely gelatin silver workflow. I enjoy the darkroom environment/process and like my prints made that way. So far, I've only used digital for snapshots and occasional publication illustrations. Nonetheless, what you've posted strikes me as absolute nonsense. You're not the first or only one to make these claims, and you probably won't be the last. I usually don't respond. That ends now.

Silver halide in gelatin on plastic substrates is no less a "sensor" than the electro-optical sensors in digital cameras are. Digital prints are no more reproductions of events that occurred on a photographic sensor than optically made gelatin silver prints are. It's time to move on from this so-called debate and face reality. Photography is photography. The mechanism(s) used to practice it do not define photography. They are mere tools. Like "artspeak," I contend that denigrating any specific mechanism(s) of photography is meaningless babble. I don't think it's possible to utter a more meaningful statement, whether discussing photography toolsets or any given work of "art," than "I like it" or "I don't like it."

Can we all get along? Without trashing each other's methods?