Is modern-day photography ugly?

There have always been 'ugly' sides to photography, only now do we get to see so much of it through the internet. But only when mainstream publications and media start to regularly use HDR photographs should we get the pitchforks out. Then as now it is when photography runs out of intellectual content and imparts a purely visual 'norm' that it gets ugly and vacuous.
 
I get the sentiment, OP.

It's not that things are "ugly," per se. It's that you're used to them.

It's like when you put on cologne in the morning, and then after about a half hour, you can't smell it--but then someone comments on it, and you remember (hopefully not because it stinks).

You are simply numb. The everyday is, well, everyday.

But it won't always be as thus--this is something I try to remember.

Time slips away and no one notices its passing, because it moves slowly and shows it ages in weird places, at different times, and things age at different rates.

So I try not to think of modernity (postmodernity?) as "ugly."

It's not. It just is. Deal with it. Nostalgia can be so masturbatory.

Just like all those people who are always on about how they should have been born or lived in a different era--they probably wouldn't have liked that era either.

Terrible people. Never content. Make poor lovers.

Now is the best possible time to be alive, and the most visually interesting.

We have video phones, for god's sake--and they fit in the palm of your hand.

It's like 2001: A Space Odyssey, and all some people can talk about is how nobody wears bowler hats anymore, or no more Edwardian buildings are going up.

Just stop. Now is great.

Stop weeping for the death of a past that never was a present.

Go with Darwin, I Ching--roll with it, adapt. Grow a little.

Sometimes, when I'm taking pictures, I like to think I'm a time-traveler, and this is already the past.

Try that.

Weird little mind game, I know.

In that mindset, everything immediately gets more interesting; or rather, I feel like I can decipher the meaningful things from the crap (or the meaningful crap) a bit better.

Alright. I'm done.
 
buzzardkid said:
.. So now my questions: do you consider modern life to be 'ugly' in a photographic way? Are you (like me) a romantic old f*rt when it comes to photography? And, what do you do to photograph modern life in an aesthetically interesting way? ...
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:: No.

:: Not sure: I like some romantic old images, but I like good new images too.

:: Try to look deeper and see more clearly.

Much of the struggle in my photography is to try to capture from the world around me what my eye and imagination combine as seeing, according to the whims and precepts of the aesthetic I like. Which tends to be more often simple, quiet, and meditative rather than loud, bright and 'commercial'. If it's loud, bright, and 'commercial' that you find ugly, I can easily understand why you seem to think modern life is ugly—it's show without substance, celebrity without accomplishment, like so much of marketing and spin-fluff—and why the older, the more familiar, seems romantic and good.

But modern life is simply life, in the time of tremendous change, with capabilities that never existed before, rushing faster towards a future we can only speculate about. We have to develop better, faster eyes — to see the ways that we are always adapting, and carrying along both the beautiful and the ugly, the dark and the light, the good and the bad — and learn that that is what life is all about.

​
 
All I know is when I bought the photo mags back when I was a teenager (70s) I thought the vast majority of the 'modern photography' back then was completely uninspiring. Nostalgia hasn't changed that for me. 🙂
 
I suppose what seems cute and retro to us now was probably "ugly" to people of that time. I suppose in time, ATMs, Lady Gaga, Chevy Volts, and Olympus E-3s will come to seem cute, old-fashioned and "so retro!" with a patina of time..
 
buzzardkid said:
Some days ago I watched a 1999 documentary on Magnum. In it, a photograp3her explained that in 1999 Magnum suffered from a lot of applications for future members that sent in stuff that looked like the old days, like Capa and Cartier-Bresson work. And he confessed to having trouble himself to shoot contemporary, modern-day work. As he put it:'When I'm shooting a fastfood restaurant front in Wales and somebody passes by with sheep and a dog, I instantly aim for that.'
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I went to a Magnum portfolio review a few years back. Not applying for membership, but just a review.

While I shoot all sorts of subjects the look of my work could be described as 'classic' in nature. I shoot b/w, compose along traditional rules, try to capture the decisive moment etc

The opinions on my portfolio were split.

Half thought the work was very strong and liked it enough to say it was the best work they had seen at the review.

The other half dismissed it as tired, old fashioned and quaint.

So, I think there is an ongoing split within the agency. This seems to go back to around the time when Martin Parr was voted in. Apparently HCB was deeply opposed to his admittance.

Personally I think a lot of the work from some of the recent and a few older Magnum members is fairly poor. Badly composed, poor timing and technically sloppy.

If that is the requirement to be considered a producer of contemporary, modern-day work at Magnum, then they can keep it. I refuse to produce crap. Good composition, capturing the decisive moment and solid technical execution are not fashion trends, but requirements to produce a photo that clearly communicates to a viewer the moment or emotion that the photographer was trying to capture. The funny thing is that the public is not confused about this. They dismiss bad pictures instinctively.

This argument remind me of the nonsense I had to put up with in art school, where one teacher declared some students, who were not 'sloppy' or in his opinion were 'trying too hard', as 'uncreative' and 'not free spirited enough' to be artists. I walked out of that class and dropped it.
 
Harry Lime said:
Personally I think a lot of the work from some of the recent and a few older Magnum members is fairly poor. Badly composed, poor timing and technically sloppy.

If that is the requirement to be considered a producer of contemporary, modern-day work at Magnum, then they can keep it. I refuse to produce crap. Good composition, capturing the decisive moment and solid technical execution are not fashion trends, but requirements to produce a photo that clearly communicates to a viewer the moment or emotion that the photographer was trying to capture. The funny thing is that the public is not confused about this. They dismiss bad pictures instinctively.

This argument remind me of the nonsense I had to put up with in art school, where one teacher declared some students, who were not 'sloppy' or in his opinion were 'trying too hard', as 'uncreative' and 'not free spirited enough' to be artists. I walked out of that class and dropped it.
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I don't think I can disagree with something any more than I am with these statements.
But arguing is useless.
 
Bille said:
By the way: How would you rate Alec Soths work? Contemporary?
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I think he can be considered a contemporary and I like his work.
And unlike HCB I actually like a lot of the work of Martin Parr.


I'm not saying that 'contemporary' photography is bad. I'm saying that bad photography, regardless of its style, is bad. The problem is that there is a lot of bad photography being passed off as 'contemporary', as an excuse for its short comings. As if contemporary photography is not governed by rules of composition etc. That's a little like saying that a Jackson Pollock is just a bunch of squiggles on a canvas, which of course is wrong. There is a very definitive method to the squiggles Pollock put down. The point is that there is just as much planning and structure in an abstract painting by Kandinsky as in a more traditional Rembrant.

One is not better than the other, they are just different in their approach to telling their story.
 
I don't think modern life is ugly, it is just all the same. The same shirts, shoes, hats, coats, same looking burger places, same looking malls, miles and miles of same looking houses (which can be an image), same looking bands, same looking sports bars, same hairdos: it just isn't as interesting out there any more, all bought at the same stores. So the odd is much harder to find.

I'm speaking specifically of California. Maybe it is different in a less monolithic locale.
 
Three picture, three styles, similar subjects.
All work, because they follow fundamental principals of visual communication.

Duchamp, Bresson, Gerhard Richter
 

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Nomad Z said:
Nostalgia ain't what it used to be.

But it will in another 20 years or so.
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Martin Parr was extensively featured in the documentary I saw.

Now, I gotta admit I hate his pictures. Way too figurative, too much DOF, too bright, to 'flat' due to short focus and flash. I also don't like his predilection for contemporary fashion, items of jewelry, and food. BUT they do catch modern times as they are and document them for future spectators. While on the other hand (see my original post) somebody shooting a flock of sheep, a dog and a sheep herder is recreating nostalgia of days past, instead of creating future nostalgia that actually stems from today.

Let's fast forward to the year 2212. Would we want historians to think that the 1940s lasted 80 years, or do we want them to see 2012 for what it really was? I'd say the latter, but it is continuously hard for me to shoot modern day life instead of that romanticized picture that is out there too.

Am I alone? No (look at the gallery). But why is it so hard? It's as if we're blocking out things that are right in front of our noses, and favor shooting 'days gone by' instead.😕
 
Harry Lime said:
It's a world wide phenomena. The world is a lot more homogeneous today, than it was even 25 years ago and the trend will continue.
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With the rise of instantaneous communications everywhere, this is inevitable. And will continue until we become a planetary culture.

Homogeneity does not automatically imply ugliness, however. Is beauty simply difference, contrast, the foreign, the unusual? I hope not.

G
 
Harry Lime said:
It's a world wide phenomena. The world is a lot more homogeneous today, than it was even 25 years ago and the trend will continue.
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Depicting that would be a means to depict 'modern life' photographically, I reckon. Yet, it feels alien to me to do so.


I find that utterly bewildering. Thing is, I keenly shoot wild animals at the zoo having 'lunch', stillborn puppies or lion cubs in formaldehyde, ripped-to-shreds black crows (owls midnight snack) and other gruesome stuff. Because I'm interested in the conflict between a horrendous image and the skill and art of photography, which are IMHO aesthetically-driven at large. Because that conflict provides tension and gets me images interesting enough to watch and even display.

Yet, at the same time photographing something 'ugly' does not provide a similar conflict for me?😕
 
buzzardkid said:
Let's fast forward to the year 2212. Would we want historians to think that the 1940s lasted 80 years, or do we want them to see 2012 for what it really was? I'd say the latter, but it is continuously hard for me to shoot modern day life instead of that romanticized picture that is out there too.
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The 1940s in what sense? In terms of what is represented, or in terms of the photographic style? In terms of what is represented, it generally can't be done because people are wearing modern clothing, cars are different, streets are different, etc. If in terms of the style, if I paint a picture using the stylistic elements of van Gogh's later period characterised by his more famous works (bolder colours, swirly textures, dark outlining), will people in the future think that the "van Gogh era" lasted a bit over 100 years?

There is a difference between the thing photographed, and the rendering or stylistic elements of the photograph itself. The thing photographed may be of its time, and may have disappeared 50 years later, but the rendering or style is only new once, after which, it's available for all time, as long as any technological dependencies remain available. The "van Gogh era" will never end as long as individuals choose to paint in that style. Ditto classic B&W street photography, or any number of photographic styles or genres that were once the newest and latest thing.



Am I alone? No (look at the gallery). But why is it so hard? It's as if we're blocking out things that are right in front of our noses, and favor shooting 'days gone by' instead.😕
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The attached photo is of something that was right in front of my nose (or was after I spotted the opportunity and walked a few metres to the position I wanted to be in to get the photo). Was I shooting 'days gone by' when I took this?

LadyInPeriodDress600.jpg
 
Harry Lime said:
This argument remind me of the nonsense I had to put up with in art school, where one teacher declared some students, who were not 'sloppy' or in his opinion were 'trying too hard', as 'uncreative' and 'not free spirited enough' to be artists. I walked out of that class and dropped it.
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This kind of work is what is now what the art world promotes. In addition to technical sloppiness, there seems to be a race to find the most meaningless, empty compositions possible. I think the root of it is an obsession with 'originality' and 'newness' that causes people to believe that straightforward, honest documentation of the real world is unacceptably 'un-original' because it 'has been done before.' The problem with that worldview is that the world, the real world, is in constant change; it is always 'new' and 'original', even if you photograph the same thing 100 different times over a period or months or years.

That attitude in art has basically made art irrelevant to 99% of the world's people because it has no connection to their lives, their culture, their religious beliefs, their traditions, their history. It is completely devoid of meaning, and I find it ironic that the uneducated masses that the art world looks down upon are the people who truly understand that. Perhaps, in the postmodern worldview, that is exactly the point.
 
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