Jeff Wall in the WSJ (with his Linhof)

[Drew Wiley]

I did see some of his kind of theme on the way home and would have really really liked to have spent some time on rural architectural whatevers in warm summer light. But my truck AC doesn't work, it was well over 100F all day on the way home (once out of the mtns), and as usual, about all I managed was a couple of quickie 6x7 snapshots in that wretched heat. Serves me right for complaining how cold it was previous nights up above timberline. Next year's project: repair my AC. No money this year. I finally got home at 5:00 PM, then my wife arrives at 8:00 PM with a brand new Toyota Prius. Revenge for me buying a new lens I guess. Actually, I was delighted because I was constantly afraid of her old car breaking down somewhere. She tried calling me, but no cell phone coverage up in those hills. But I generally consider that an advantage. Besides, I saved the life of a chipmunk.

[bob carnie]

I will say it again Drew.. you are the most interesting man in the world... Stay thirsty my Friend.

I did see some of his kind of theme on the way home and would have really really liked to have spent some time on rural architectural whatevers in warm summer light. But my truck AC doesn't work, it was well over 100F all day on the way home (once out of the mtns), and as usual, about all I managed was a couple of quickie 6x7 snapshots in that wretched heat. Serves me right for complaining how cold it was previous nights up above timberline. Next year's project: repair my AC. No money this year. I finally got home at 5:00 PM, then my wife arrives at 8:00 PM with a brand new Toyota Prius. Revenge for me buying a new lens I guess. Actually, I was delighted because I was constantly afraid of her old car breaking down somewhere. She tried calling me, but no cell phone coverage up in those hills. But I generally consider that an advantage. Besides, I saved the life of a chipmunk.

[johnmsanderson]

I'm curious -- What makes a photographer's body of work conceptual? Will an elaborate conceit do?

[ruilourosa]

just google it!

[Corran]

All of these threads about this or that photographer are so tiresome. It's the same few boring posters with the same lame diatribes about the photographer in question and why his work is banal / devoid of soul / has no meaning / etc. (subtext: but their work is fantastic, they just haven't gotten recognition!).

It's fine to not like certain artists/works, but some of you need to take a step back and not act holier than thou in every thread. Except the Ansel Adams threads, of course.

[Drew Wiley]

Are you making a confession, Corran?

[Fr. Mark]

late to party here, but it seems to me that once upon a time, it took skill (ie ability to draw) to produce art, but most anyone could get some sense of what it meant. Somehow, instead we've gotten to a point where it takes no skill to make art but you need to have a PhD in "art" to "explain" it. I enjoyed the earlier comment on speaking in tongues! I guess I'm 19th C but I don't see how this is progress.

My main excuse for my interest in photography over making paintings is that if I finally get an image I love, I might be able to share it w/o giving up my only copy. Plus I like fine machines and chemistry and my drawing is not yet good enough to capture a likeness of a person in the time I can set up the Sinar thru to the final print.

Wall doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Not stuff I'd want to own, or do myself, but it does not hurt to have seen it.

It does take the idea of still life to a different level. I spend time arranging lights and flowers to show them in what I consider their best presentation.

Back around 1990 or 1991 Roald Hoffman gave the Eli Lilly lecture at Eli Lilly in Indianapolis. Everyone expected a technical talk, he does have a Nobel prize in chemistry iirc, but instead he talked about "Natural v unnatural"
Using a fountain with sculptures of children and dolphins and moving water. It was real bronze but not real children and real water but pumped around so it made arcs echoing the movement implied by the "jumping" dolphins, is that natural? The water once pumped out followed a nice natural parabolic type arc. The figures all were correctly proportioned. What is real or natural and not natural is not so simple.

I wish I had good notes from the talk. I'd like to say he went on to link this with synthetic or semi-synthetic pharmaceuticals but I don't remember.

Which is a longish way of saying or asking, is Wall's art so unreal? He is bouncing light off objects in the real world and collecting a tiny portion of that light on film. He's not painting entirely from imagination. Even then he'd still need a way to display what's in his imagination (paint, sculpture, computer monitor, etc). So he creates a scene for a still life photo in a very elaborate way. Is this wrong?

I tend to come from the school of thought that the world has plenty of ugly already, why make more of it like the destroyed room? I'm also interested in finding beauty where others might over look it. So to an extent the ugly or not beautiful content of the work does not speak to my aspirations or hopes for photography.

[ruilourosa]

you are in XIX century!