Photography in an age of mass culture, mass arts and mass media

[Enoyarnam]

In an era of mass culture, mass arts and mass media does photography stand apart as one of the most powerful means by which the dynamism of our age can be captured? If we answer in the affirmative what strategies can be put in place to investigate the ever-changing nature of the cultural forms that exist around us. I have in mind things like the commodification of dreams and the use of visual imagery in advertising.

In this context, if photography is become more than a purely self-referential or navel gazing exercise does it make sense to take one item and to examine it in depth. I am particularly interested in finding out what others may think about any of the above.

 

[Roger Hicks]

I'd back advertising, especially advertising jingles, as more pervasive and important.

Cheers,

R.

 

[antiquark]

Video is the new photography. (E.g., youtube, etc.)

 

[chrismoret]

I think the average ‘around house’ shooter has become indeed a self-referential or navel gazing exercise. Photography is no longer a skill you had to practice for, and failures don’t cost you anything. So everybody is clicking away. It certainly became a mass-thing. Editing your pics? Picasa, or Picknick will have some pre-sets that will do the trick. So there is no skill needed.
For professionals is gets harder and harder to stand out. Every amateur has got a SLDR with a nice kit lens, and a copy of Photoshop Elements. The magic is a little gone....

 

[Arjay]

Dunno. I don't believe in today's 'art speak'. The pervasive automation of modern cameras doesn't mean we now have an automated technology to create art. If that were so, this would of course devalue art in itself.

Fortunately, art is always presenting an individual vision, and that's why it will permanently come up with new and refreshing ideas.

If I'm taking the same pictures as everyone else does, I create mainstream. I even doubt that this type of photography would deserve to be called art. That's craftmanship - nothing bad, but nothing special either.

It's easy to tell both apart.

As to recipes - there are none. If there were, then these recipes would degenerate into instructions for craftmanship. Some might find that desirable - I think that's simply boring.

 

[ebino]

The magic of photography is not gone, its enhanced by its ubiquity.

The biggest problem is that most photographers are taking pictures that their loved ones and other amateurs would like and praise. They're not risking it, they're playing it safe.

 

[zumbido]

Due respect, Arjay, but nearly everyone throughout the millennia has disagreed with you that art and craft are so easily distinguishable.

 

[ottluuk]

I think a good navel-gazing exercise generally yields better results than desperately trying to be different, alternative, stand up against "the man", whatever. Interesting work mostly arises from knowledge of the subject, IMO.

If you think about literature, you'll see that some of the very best writers of fiction actually use a lot of autobiographical details in their stories.

I believe that much fine work can be done in the field of documenting one's own personal space, interests, etc. The trick is to follow your own sensibilities and emotions rather than emulate what you see on the 'net, TV, billboards, etc. Let's say you are a beekeeper. You love what you do and you keep a photographic diary of your troubles and successes with the bees. You take photos of how you build the hives, of how you extract your first honey, of friends who come to get a taste of the sweet stuff... With skill in execution and editing, you end up with a coherent, honest document of your life, something worth showing and keeping.

Mass media is mostly boring, evil and repetitive. In my view, the same goes for people who dedicate themselves solely to fighting against mass media by uncovering "the terrible secret" that mass media is evil, boring and repetitive. It's mostly all loftily detached from reality, as in being a movie about a movie about a movie.

The bottom line: I prefer a good, concentrated story of an actual person doing something real, even if it's a very narrow slice of life to any vague attempt at large-scale social commentary.

 

[Arjay]

Due respect, Arjay, but nearly everyone throughout the millennia has disagreed with you that art and craft are so easily distinguishable.

No offense taken - I just wanted to reply to the thread's opening statement, and to use a certain exaggeration to make my point clear.

I have read too many preposterous statements in gallery openings to just let this stand as it is. It is always possible to add presumed importance to something that's fairly simple. Please pardon me, but I sometimes take sardonical pleasure in cutting through verbose fog. 😉

 

[zumbido]

No offense taken - I just wanted to reply to the thread's opening statement, and to use a certain exaggeration to make my point clear.

I have read too many preposterous statements in gallery openings to just let this stand as it is. It is always possible to add presumed importance to something that's fairly simple. Please pardon me, but I sometimes take sardonical pleasure in cutting through verbose fog. 😉

No doubt. It's pretty easy to make a drinking game of "buzzword bingo" on artist's statements. Though more difficult to manage to walk home afterwards.

 

[ebino]

I think a good navel-gazing exercise generally yields better results than desperately trying to be different, alternative, stand up against "the man", whatever. Interesting work mostly arises from knowledge of the subject, IMO.

If you think about literature, you'll see that some of the very best writers of fiction actually use a lot of autobiographical details in their stories.

I believe that much fine work can be done in the field of documenting one's own personal space, interests, etc.

photography is so open-ended that anyone trying to make sense of it, define it, and try to control it would get lost... There is no right way or wrong way in photography, there is no way in fact, you just have to make your path as you go. You could navel gaze, you could do anything you wish... absolute freedom... thats what makes photography so difficult once you're past the initial phase where its all fun and games... what makes me say this, experience. the more i have taken photos the more i feel as if i don't know anything about it. the technical part is easy.

Interesting work almost NEVER arises from the knowledge of the subject. its when you know the subject that things get boring and there is no more surprises. A true subject worth photographing is the one that never opens up itself to you and it never answers your questions. So, you keep going back again and again, until years pass and still you don't find the answer.

words such as documentary photography are completely misleading. A photograph is a mute description of a scene seen through the camera lens. it almost never tells the truth to someone who does not know its context. what could be a very sad photo is completely hilarious to someone else. If it was not for captions and aid of writing most of still photography would be completely misunderstood... photography is not visual writing as some people mistake it to be, its a language on to its own. a photographer can do his best to say something with that language but most often he has to depend on writing to make his intentions clear... The greatest photos are the ones which don't need any writing and context to make it clear what they're about, and what they're about is also never clear since everyone interprets them in their own way.

so as you can see, its the rabbit hole of contradictions and confusion... and some of the greats have been lost in it, Eugene Smith, Diane Arbus are a few examples...

so, every time you think you have got it, thats when you should pause and go back to basics.

 

[amateriat]

I had a bit of a laugh when I was attempting to write my "artist's statement" for my first one-person show a few years back. My some miracle, I managed to write something that (1) was interesting to more than two people, and (2) hasn't made me wince just yet. (But it might.)

I've cheerfully ignored most of whatever "mainstream" photography was about, at any given time, over the past 30 years. That didn't mean I didn't admire, or get a small hit of inspiration from, others' work.I did spend an inordinate amount of time needlessly honing the technical edge of my work, but that didn't get (too) much in the way of doing a few interesting things that I still like to this day.

And, there frequently were those periods where it seemed "everybody" suddenly had a camera: When Canon introduced its first affordable, multi-features AE-1; when Konica ushered in the age of auto-everything compact 35s; when minilabs started springing up in cities like mushrooms after a thunderstorm; and, finally, that uncanny convergence of the Internet, digital cameras, and cameras winding up in all sorts of other gadgets that didn't exist before. There are always more and more people with cameras. I can deal with it; it has little effect on the work I do with mine.


- Barrett

 

[PKR]

I don't like explosions. I don't mind progress. But digital photography has made every man, woman, child and chimpanzee a photographer of sorts and consequently has numbed down the general quality of photographs".

Elliott Erwitt

 

[Arjay]

I don't like explosions. I don't mind progress. But digital photography has made every man, woman, child and chimpanzee a photographer of sorts and consequently has numbed down the general quality of photographs".

Elliott Erwitt

Yes, it does indeed seem that artists have felt threatened by the presumed 'democratization' of art through photography. Can you imagine that even Pablo Picasso (I think jokingly though) said he would give up painting once everybody could tote a camera?

I don't think there's reason for fear: Cameras are tools. Artists produce art, and as long as there's no algorithm to create art beyond a merely tool-oriented function, we won't need to be worried even if everybody and his uncle will have a camera.

 

[Viktor Sebastian]

Looks like an Essay question.

 

[oftheherd]

Looks like an Essay question.

Yes, it does. Since I don't know what mass culture or mass art is, and can only vaguely define mass media, I am leaving the whole thing alone. Let him find his own answer. 😛

 

[Pickett Wilson]

It is kind of interesting what has happened since cameras got smarter. I was at our local gallery last week looking at the entries in a Juried art competition. The photos in the photography category were interesting. The winners were interesting compositions; but, the technical quality was awful. My guess, from looking closely at them, was that they were, for the most part, shot with low-end DSLR's with the kit lenses and printed on small format consumer inkjets. And people were actually buying them! And not cheaply!

My conclusion is that while it is easy to make "good" photos these days, it is no easier to make "great" photos; but, in the end, nobody really cares.

 

[wgerrard]

Can't see the OP -- that font thing again -- but technology has certainly enabled most people to take pretty good pictures that meet their needs. Technology has also given them the means to almost instantly make those available to anyone on the planet. That's all for the good.

Most people who use cameras have never been interested in producing art, or acquiring it from a pro who claimed to be able to make it. When people position photography as an art form besieged by the digitized masses I get a bit uncomfortable.