Is Photography Dead?

[mfunnell]

I say it's another triumph for the "Who Cares?" Morovulgatti, who compensating for their lack of talent and technique say "if I say so, it is so"

Certainly there seem to be way too many of them. The trick, if you can pull it off, is to appreciate work you might not "get" at first, and try to understand it, without wasting time on the aforesaid talentless types. The heuristic I use is to look further into things only where the artist has demonstrated competent use of their medium and materials. This is on the principle that if they can't be bothered to get the craftsmanship right then their "art" is unlikely to be the real deal. At the very least, if an artist is a competent craftsman then its likely that their work is deliberate and came out as they intended it to. And it they couldn't be bothered learning the craft as an underpinning to their art, well, how committed can they really be?

To pick an example that's important to me personally, whether you like Jackson Pollock's work or not, its quite obvious that the man knew his way around canvas, brush and paint. Having realised that, and looking into his work further, I came to appreciate it rather a lot. But even if I hadn't liked his work (as has happened with other artists) I would have gained some insight into why others did, and seen the value in work that I didn't personally care for.

...Mike

 

[foto_fool]

Good discussion, and I submit that the fact it is happening is evidence that he's just mostly dead, and mostly dead means partly alive. "To blaaaave..."

Gabriel - great new sig! For a long time I also have been calling myself a jelly donut, to friends who understand the fun that can be had with a poor translation.

RE: the article itself, I tend to agree with Ruben. The whole genre of "fill-in-the-blank"-is -dead writing has been done and done, and by better writers. I found the work derivative.

- John

 

[RdEoSg]

To start with, the author demonstrates an ignorance of the history of photography, both as an art and as documentation. A discussion of the factual inaccuracies would be an article in itself, and the author hasne't earned that kind of attention. IOW, even a passing knowledge of mid-century photography would reveal the fallacies found in the article.

Secondly, how can the widespread use of captured images in various forms and manipulations for artistic purposes possibly mean photography is "dead?" Perhaps the author was using a definition of the word "dead" that I am unfamiliar with, one counter to the traditional sense. Or perhaps the author is not nearly so clever or educated as he thinks.

Sooooo... what you are saying is that the article is dumb and you know why, but you are unwilling to offer any sort of proof that your opinion is correct and his is not.

Interesting.

 

[dadsm3]

Wow, I thought film users were over-defensive. Methinks thou dost protest too much....
Who doesn't lose the "gee-whiz factor" once you realize a swan landing in a misty pond is photoshopped in rather than caught in real life by a craftsman lying in some reeds? Maybe they're both art, and I'll leave that to the philosophers.
But I have a hell of a lot more respect for a real photograph that someone fought for over an image that some computer savvy technician with nothing more than a good eye whipped up in his basement one night.

 

[amateriat]

Chris: Well, you have to admit, the article got us out of our chairs, which at least in small part was the idea, no?


- Barrett

 

[literiter]

The article is indeed interesting but, I'm still not sure from reading it, what condition photography is in.

Mary Ellen Mark ( famous photojournalist ) came to our little town one day. We were given the treat of our lives as this marvelous photographer showed slides of some of her work and gave an interesting talk.

When the talk turned to the subject of digital photography the woman became immediately vituperative. She exclamed in no uncertain terms that digital photography would kill photography. ( It is of course interesting that this photographer is still alive and still producing images. )

I don't believe this at all. I believe another large branch is growing on a large tree.

Perhaps I miss something (as is often the case) but how someone of the stature of Ms Mark could worry about photography dying by the addition of another tool (an inevitable tool) could concern her.

Us humans are an odd lot, myself notwithstanding.

 

[amateriat]

literiter: MEM is entitled to her opinion, just as the rest of us are. (I don't entirely agree with her on this one, but i don't entirely not agree; depends on the day. )

- Barrett

 

[amateriat]

Capital "P" Photography (concrete?) is dead, like capital "A" Art...?

Just want to be sure I'm reading you right on this.


- Barrett

 

[dave lackey]

Quote: "The ability to take one's film, make high-quality scans, digitally retouch and manipulate ("manipulate" has become a dirty word of late, but I use it in the strictest wet-darkroom sense as far as my work is concerned) with a higher degree of precision than before, then print the resulting file at home or via pro lab, still amazes me. There are no minuses here, nor is this a dis against the wet darkroom: the lightroom can go where no darkroom is possible, 'tis all."

Hi, Barrett...

Interesting diatribe and I have only one nit to pick. A personal one but maybe not too rare.

I have been working photoshop with my D2H for years now. My results have been satisfying and I have continued to shoot film and am now trying to master film photography as if I had not been shooting for 35 years.

Why? Well, I am typing with one finger now due to recent surgery for cubital tunnel syndrome which is nerve damage to the ulnar nerve at the elbow. Caused by thousands of hours at the computer resting my arms/elbows on the desk and chair arm. You can google the term for more info but I awoke one morning with numbness in my left arm which quickly resulted in paralysis of my hand and severe pain. Surgery was immediately done and I can only wait 6-12 months for a prognosis. Not fun but it has givenme an opportunity to go back to shooting and selecting those negatives/slides that I like for printing.

I am forced to back away from hours of PS.

The best part is my photography is changing for the better as manual focus lenses and film force me to not only slow down while shooting but to think through my objectives for shooting in he first place.

YMMV...but Photography is NOT Dead for me. It is just beginning!

Thanks for your post as this is turning into an interesting thread.

 

[literiter]

Here is an interesting thing I bookmarked a while ago.

http://www.sportsshooter.com/news/1534

 

[kevin m]

...lets go look at some Photography, and we go over and look at 11x14 prints, with 3 inch wide mats on the top and sides, 4 inches on the bottom, in natural dark wood frames, hung at eye level, all spaced 4 1/2 feet apart. We look at strangers on the streets, or dead in wars, or more strangers in the streets, all perfectly positioned...

Nothing wrong with those kind of photographs, except that perhaps the novelty has worn off. We've been looking at photos of that type now for, what, a century, so anyone who's spent any time in galleries has become entirely too familiar with them.

Your post hints there's something passe about them and that 'fictional images' are somehow artistically superior, but I think a more primitive part of the brain is simply reacting to a new(er) stimulus.

 

[Kevin]

The incompetent writer closes with "The next great photographers—if there are to be any—will have to find a way to reclaim photography's special link to reality. And they'll have to do it in a brand-new way."

This fool stubbornly refuses to acknowledge the simple concept of tradition.

 

[kevin m]

I don't hint. Not that I do not occasionally enjoy the comfort of MOMA's iconic sections, with the simple frames. There is a peace in it.

While I can respect that there's always a need to push forward and break new ground in art, I must object to the notion that there's some sort of moral or intellectual superiority in the appreciation of the new. All it indicates is that a person has already seen the old and wants to move on. Period. There's no special merit, superiority or status there. That's close-minded, insider thinking, and a good reason that so much of the art world is trapped on a little island, talking only to each other. :bang:

 

[kevin m]

Jeez, are posters allowed to delete their responses after they've been replied to? It makes a mess of the thread....!

 

[kevin m]

Actually you are right we talk to mostly to each other. I for one (and I think I speak for many of my friends) do not feel trapped at all.

Honest question: Don't artists have some sort of obligation to engage the world at large? I'm not 'just' being a smart-ass when I say that, as a group, U.S. artists seem to be trapped on an island, it saddens me, too. Will we have to have another great depression, with WPA art projects and the like, to get artists out in the general public again?

 

[kevin m]

This thread had such an undercurrent of hatred and posturing, that I found it, in the end, intolerable.

I'll have to go back and read the whole thing.

There does seem to be more than a little animosity between the art world and the public at large, though, and both camps are the worse for it, I think. The art world seems to spiral ever tighter in on itself and the general public seems content to wallow, almost literally, in filth.

 

[kevin m]

If this is a serious question, and I am not being baited, this is a widely discussed issue among those (including me) who have received public money.

It is, I swear, no baiting! When I'm being nasty, it's usually pretty obvious. :angel:

I wasn't thinking at all about public money, I was thinking about the huge gulf that exists between, say, the people in the place where I grew up (central Illinois, in the heart of "fly-over country") and the people I know now who live and work in NYC and are part of the art world, to some degree. Both camps seem content to live apart from one another, one knowingly, the other barely aware the other exists, and that seems a sad state of affairs.

A responsibility not to so offend the government, so that other artists will not receive the grants.

No more "Piss Christs", right? The obligation I was talking about is the obligation to connect, one person to another, thru the artist's chosen medium, and not the obligation to spend public funds a certain way, which, I agree, is a silly form of censorship.

 

[MikeL]

Both camps seem content to live apart from one another, one knowingly, the other barely aware the other exists, and that seems a sad state of affairs.

Kevin, I'm curious why you see this as a sad state of affairs. Ideally what should be happening? I'm not baiting here either.

 

[kevin m]

Ideally what should be happening? I'm not baiting here either.

Mike, I have no clear idea. But can art survive in a vacuum? Can the "general population" survive without art? Why is art so ghettoized in this country, only visible in our largest cities at certain times and locations?

 

[kevin m]

I do not believe connecting one person to another has much to do with making art, unless that is the artist's goal.

Not with the making, but certainly with the performance/display/exhibition. Or am I way off base here?

Until a few years ago I still owned a farm in southern Illinois, not a place dear to my heart, I still have cousins who think nothing of saying "It's those ---s in Chicago that keep the soy prices so damed low." (I wrote the full quote but could not bear to leave it in place.) I am frankly fed up with the thinking, based mostly on fear, of most of my past, I am so relieved to be apart.

I was an adult student in the film department at SIUC. (small world...!) I made a super-8 film that attracted some notice from the faculty, earned me an "A" in the course and a film maker's grant from Kodak. I made the mistake of showing it to my parents -- Nothing but the sound of clearing throats.

I'm glad to be gone, too, and have NO intention of ever moving back. But I guess I have some lingering sense that the people I left behind don't quite deserve that fate, either. There has to be something more to life than shopping, Fox News, church and The Olive Garden.