Photography theory

RichC said:
Happy to oblige!
PS: that photo of yours of dawn in Kassiopi is now up on my wall at last!
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You should have let me print it properly for you, I still have your Brighton Pier up in the 'studio' ... oddly it's just as nice today as when I first got it, despite the camera being obsolete now ;)
 
aizan said:
. . . writing about photos is not irrelevant, per se. it's just irrelevant when the writer doesn't write clearly, intentionally (baudrillard) or unintentionally (buchloh). it's not an excuse to write about something else, too. that's just a matter of taking a certain approach to the subject when you write something.
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Nicely phrased!

Cheers,

R.
 
I wrote a brief treatise on my views and very briefly posted it this morning. It was a longish post for a forum, but wonderfully brief for a treatise. I realized while I was reading it again after I posted it that, regarding the philosophy of photography, I have become a legend in my own mind.

I deleted the post.

Then, it slowly occurred to me that most of the OTHER works I've read about the philosophy of photography were written by people who were apparently also legends in their own minds! I guess I'm in good company.

I feel much better about it now.
 
Roger Hicks said:
Dear Stephen

No, I remember them all too well -- as tendentious and unreadable, which is why I gave them away.

Cheers,

R.
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Roger, I don't mean to dismiss your view of these authors. It is a valid one, and held by many -- including on this thread. I was simply trying to get at what it is that you object to, other than being "tendentious and unreadable". Imagine being asked by S Sontag: "What was it in my book that you disagreed with, Roger?" "It was rubbish and I didn't care for any of it" wouldn't be much of an answer in my view.

The OP was looking for reading advice, and I would recommend reading those authors, if only to make up his own mind. There is precious little good critical writing on photography and even books like On Photography and Camera Lucida, which are now regarded as canon, get dismissed as "theory babble" (which arguably they are).
 
... would 'Sontag approaches this essentially egalitarian subject with an unrelenting elitist pretension from the first sentence. Her aim throughout is to impress her superior intellect and her personal viewpoint upon her reader rather than inform them of the subject itself. However beyond a now touchingly simplistic feminism, personal prejudice and ego she has little to say about the actual practice of photography today. Thankfully the complex structure and vocabulary, almost Dylan-like in its obscurity, for the most part hides her poverty of understanding of the subject but sadly that same Dylan-like obscurity in the hands of a lesser talent becomes almost unreadable in practice' be better? :)
 
stephen.w said:
Roger, I don't mean to dismiss your view of these authors. It is a valid one, and held by many -- including on this thread. I was simply trying to get at what it is that you object to, other than being "tendentious and unreadable". Imagine being asked by S Sontag: "What was it in my book that you disagreed with, Roger?" "It was rubbish and I didn't care for any of it" wouldn't be much of an answer in my view.

The OP was looking for reading advice, and I would recommend reading those authors, if only to make up his own mind. There is precious little good critical writing on photography and even books like On Photography and Camera Lucida, which are now regarded as canon, get dismissed as "theory babble" (which arguably they are).
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No, it doesn't work like that. Only a fool would ask "What was it in my book that you disagreed with, Roger?" If you've ever had much published, you'll no doubt have found first, that people will tell you what they dislike, without prompting, and second, that their objections are, indeed, typically phrased in the most general terms. I know: I've been on the receiving end.

Also, it's hard to argue in detail, from memory, even with a well thought out and closely argued book. With nonsense like On Photography, which is neither well thought out nor closely argued, it is next to impossible. Sparrow sums her up very well.

Rather, imagine getting into a real conversation with her: as it might be, at an opening night. Imagine asking her to defend anything she said as she blathered on. It might be a short conversation.

Fortunately, my eyes have been opened (on this thread, by Mitch) to vastly better pieces on theory and critique, to the extent that I shall no longer be anything like as dismissive of photographic theory in general: just of the drivel of some of the better known names, Sontag among them. In fact, having now seen rather more good writing on the subject, I shall probably be even more dismissive of the witless baggage.

Cheers,

R.
 
Roger Hicks said:
No, it doesn't work like that. Only a fool would ask "What was it in my book that you disagreed with, Roger?" If you've ever had much published, you'll no doubt have found first, that people will tell you what they dislike, without prompting, and second, that their objections are, indeed, typically phrased in the most general terms. I know: I've been on the receiving end.
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I have had a few things published, Roger. These have been academic pieces in peer-reviewed journals, where, typically, disagreement on the part of editors or reviewers does have to be made at the level of the specific. To repeat what I have said above, I have not seen anything here which engages with arguments Sontag actually makes.
 
I have had a few things published, Roger.
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A cutting riposte, indeed!

...except that you'll find that a number of people around here have not only been published, some quite frequently, but have even sat on the other side of the desk, attempting to explain why someone's "deathless prose" is not going in. (It is a pleasure with a half-life measured in milliseconds.)

I don't blame Miss Sunday for her style of writing; read her biography and it's quite clear that the milieu and her career path prepared her for writing theses but not much else. Some writers have risen above such disadvantaged beginnings but what I've failed to read of her output indicates to me that she's not one of them.
 
Sejanus.Aelianus said:
A cutting riposte, indeed!

...except that you'll find that a number of people around here have not only been published, some quite frequently, but have even sat on the other side of the desk, attempting to explain why someone's "deathless prose" is not going in. (It is a pleasure with a half-life measured in milliseconds.)

I don't blame Miss Sunday for her style of writing; read her biography and it's quite clear that the milieu and her career path prepared her for writing theses but not much else. Some writers have risen above such disadvantaged beginnings but what I've failed to read of her output indicates to me that she's not one of them.
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Not intended as a riposte. This started out as a thread to help someone with a few reading choices. I took issue with what seemed like browbeating by some here. I didn't set out to have an argument with men with multiple-thousand internet forum posts. I will leave you to it.
 
stephen.w said:
I have had a few things published, Roger. These have been academic pieces in peer-reviewed journals, where, typically, disagreement on the part of editors or reviewers does have to be made at the level of the specific. To repeat what I have said above, I have not seen anything here which engages with arguments Sontag actually makes.
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Dear Stephen,

Well, yes. I have to admit that I did not have peer-reviewed journals in mind. Nor was I reviewing or editing the book: I would hardly do either without the book in front of me. Sontag was not writing for peer-reviewed journals; and I can assure you that disagreement on a specific level is most assuredly not the way that most readers (not editors or reviewers) respond when talking about a book they have not read recently. They may pick out something they particularly like or dislike, but if they do, it will be set against a general critique of the mood and style. Which was a direct response to your question about "Imagine..."

If I wrote a piece on (say) the history of the 35mm still camera, and said (for example) that the Contax was introduced before the Leica, I'd expect to be pulled up. But there are few facts in Sontag's book. Instead, there are unsupported assertions and assumptions -- as Stewart well summarized -- serving as the shaky foundations for towers of opaque prose.

See also the last paragraph of post 135.

Cheers,

R.
 
Leifer said:
Hi there, Im looking to expand my knowledge of photography. Particularly in the area of photography theory, art theory, and the history of photography . If any of you have any sources that you found inspiring or useful, please leave a comment below. It could be films, books, essays, articles etc. Thanks!
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Hi Leifer,
I found the following books an enjoyable read, though they are not photographic theory:

On Being a Photographer by David Hurn & Bill Jay
Letting go of the Camera by Brooks Jensen

Good luck,
Nick
 
re: Sontag et.al.

There was a time when I enjoyed an engaging philosophical tome... and the subsequent discussion no matter how futile the subject or opaque the writing may have been.

I find in my late-middle age that I have little tolerance for it now. My life experience leads me to believe that concepts are immediate and transparent or they're irrelevant.

I am now firmly in the camp of "Say what you've got to say in intelligible terms, and do it succinctly." The time I'm willing to devote to obscure nonsense is limited.

stephen.w said:
I didn't set out to have an argument with late middle-aged men with multiple-thousand internet forum posts. I will leave you to it.
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Oh, and Stephen, while I only have a single-thousand posts here so far, I'll suggest that perhaps you've missed that the Internet fora is the new Athens for philosophical exchange. I'd expect that the greats of Greek philosophy would be quite engaged with the Internet and we "late middle-aged men with multiple-thousand internet forum posts." ;)
 
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