And if his prose wasn't bad enough, what about the titles he's given his images? "Heaven's Gate"? "Mystic Waters"? "Golden Ages?" I'm not particularly wild about the photos that VC ran with the article, either, although I've liked the few prints of his that I've seen in person.
Emil,
yes, that's a nice photo and we should give Fatali credit for "f8/being there" having a good sense of compostion and knowing how his film would perform.. but we all should do that, didn't god do the majority of the work in that one?... Fatali should get the credit for capturing it onto film but the photo isn't splendiferous... the subject is. Give any decent photog a helicopter ride over that sucker and see what happens...Fatali's prose would make you think he willed the subject into being. That's all we're saying.
Trib, I am not so naive that I cannot tell apart what is the subject's beauty and what is the photographer's merit. I would bet that at least some decent photographers already had helicopter rides over "that sucker". I wonder what they brought back. I suppose that there are other good pictures of that place in some image bank. They are surely not identical... and they are not a part of a same body of work. Being there, having a sense of composition and knowing how the film will react does not make a Fatali (or, without any comparison, a Haas or a Porter ...)from just anybody. I think that the worth of somebody's work cannot be represented by one or even several pictures but resides in the homogeneity and constancy of what he achieved. I do not base my appreciation of Mr.Fatali's work either on that particular picture or on his choice of subjects in general. I consider his personal way to treat them and his ability to distil from them an abstract harmony that is rare to find in pictures of many other, even well known and praised photographers, and that goes way beyond merely skillful reproduction of a "splendiferous" subject. In that sense, I dare to say that at least some of Mr. Fatali's pictures are and will remain pieces of art, no matter what titles he gives them or what he writes about them. If you folks need to put it this way, then imagine what the world would be if the only sin perpetraded in God's name were Mr. Fatali's writings.... To make this long story short, I have a suggestion: let people who hate Mr. Fatali's prose go out there, make better pictures than he does, give them better names, market them better and make Mr. Fatali a miserably forgotten photographer... Any volunteers?
Fatali is a mediocre photog with incredibly bad taste.Richard Misrach has shot the same type of subject matter and has a far more interesting take on it. I think the real discussion should be which is worse his prose or his titles?-J
Pardon if this goes on to long. Probably belongs in another thread...
's far 's I'm concerned, "Art" is a guy who lives behind the bowling alley.
And to paraphrase the heck out of something Dave Jenkins wrote on the Phil of Phot Phorum:
"... only history can judge whether our work is art. To call oneself an artist is the sure sign of a "wannabe."...Sic transit gloria mundi -- "So passes the glory of this world."...Ultimately it doesn't matter what you or I think of ourselves or our work. Only the work matters, and if it is good it will endure...In our culture many want to be "artists" because "artists" have status...To those who say to themselves, "Hot dog! I did an art! I'm an artist!" I would ask one question: is the work any better because you call it art?"
And this is so good and so relevant I have to pass it on:
http://www.afterimagegallery.com/website.htm
*Below is an entertaining word exercise (which actually can be done for any field of endeavor). To achieve the usual jargon used in these landscape photographer artist's statements, place any three words in the table together, placing a word from the first row first, one from the second row second and one from the third row last.
universal all-encompassing transcendent mystical deepening glowing unchanging
photographic visionary luminous spiritual life-affirming artistic intrinsic
insight reality perception experience concept unveiling realization
Burning the rock may be the only interesting thing that Fatali ever did. The marks on the rock can not be as unappealing as the over saturated and over dramatic photos and writing that I have seen.
Sour Grapes, the lot of ye. You'd criticize Ansel because "Clearing Winter Storm" wasn't made at noon on the 4th of July.
Well here we go again. A bunch of wannabe photographers with apparently no inkling of what a good color landscape photogragraph is about. For those(it seems most of the subscribers here) who don't know much about color printing, Michael doesn't use filtration in the exposing of the film. He doesn't have to. All of this beautiful color work is done in the darkroom. Just like most color printers. And what most of you fail to realize is that these images were taken at the most advantageous moments when the light was already incredible. The shot of the maze district is not an ariel but taken from Dead Horse Point on the Island in the Sky. Over saturated? I and many others say beautiful. Mr. Fatali is a very accomplished photographer. Few are his equal. Misrach doesn't take this type of image. He hasn't been to these places and shot these types of images. His Cantos series are very different from Fatali's work. He uses a pastel theme in his work. His use of color is quite different. The only thing these two artists have in common is their love of the land and their printing techniques. It is quite appearent that most of you know little or nothing about Michael Fatali, the man. Or you wouldn't write what you do. Michael runs a bussiness. Plain and simple. He has a marketing strategy. Who are you to judge his bussiness practices? His writing? It's how he feels. It's how he learned to express himself. He made a mistake trying to simulate the light that the native american indians saw The Arch by when they camped in the bowl over thousands of years. He took every precaution but failed to realize the was tracking the ash from the logs onto the slickrock. You can't find a trace of the damage now. The damage wasn't permanent. So quit harping on something you apparently know little about. James
Amen, James.
I do not dispute that Michael Fatali is a highly skilled maker of picturesque and decorative images that apparently appeal to many, that he accomplishes what few others can, and that he has developed a marketing strategy that seems to have achieved success by aiming at a certain new-age sensibility. I agree, therefore, that anyone who says that Fatali is just pointing his camera and taking what is there- -as if no skill or work was involved--is talking nonsense. None of that puts Fatali beyond criticism. Fatali is not a school child whose work should be greeted only with affirmation. He has put his images and prose into public view and has marketed them, and therefore has surrendered his immunity from criticism.
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks