Politique des auteurs in photography?

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siverta

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Politique des auteurs was coined by the "French New Wave"-director Francois Truffaut in the late 50's, and it states that a films (movie) artistic quality is higher when the directors "fingerprint" can be seen in the film. Films from Hollywood, in Truffauts way of thinking, has a lower artistic quality because they are manufactured through what is called "studio system" that is basically a factor for spewing out a generic product. (There are, ofcourse, some problems related to this theory, but you get the basic idea).

A typical auteur: David Lynch, Spike Lee, Francois Truffaut (ofcourse), Jean-Luc Godard, Sergio Leone, John Ford (the masters of western movies), etc etc.

Is this theory of the auteur applicable on photography? Is it possible to see the "thumbprint" of James Nachtwey in all his pictures - his personal touch? If we didn't know the photographer of a specific photo, is it possible to see this "thumbprint" and identify the photogographer?

Sivert.
 
A single photo? Not unless it had been selected as “typical” of the artist; no you could not. An exhibition perhaps, a retrospective almost certainly but it takes time and a lot of editing to become a stereotype.
 
Some photographers that to me, have a strong thumbprint would be Sarah Moon, Helmut Newton, David Hamilton, the Bechers, Joel Peter Witkin, Guy Bourdin... What about David Lachapelle?

I think that's what makes their work so powerful.

Khaled


www.chaka.fr
 
Richard Avedon and Irving Pen come to mind when thinking of a photographers fingerprint.

Avedon's use of that white background and very high resolution images, his compositions all make his fingerprint recognizable.

Like Sparrow said it takes some looking to see the fingerprint, but once you recognize it you can make a pretty good guess at the photographer by looking at one image.
 
Funny that.

RML asks about a 'female Japanese photographer'. There could be millions.

And Greyhoundman hits it bang on.

How about that for having a very distinctive portfolio?? Looks like Kawakita's is certainly distinctive, even if the elements of distinction aren't to everyone's taste.

Whatever. She arouses an emotional reaction.
Click to expand...

From 'Female Japanese Photographer' thread here yesterday.
 
You can often pick out an individual photographer, but you can also make a mistake when you see a print by an imitator, follower or student of a particular photographer -- style, in photography, is relatively easy to pick up. There are roughly, mmm, a billion Arizona Highways photographs that look sort of like Ansel Adams. How many people travel to Point Lobos or shoot nudes in the sand in chasing after Edward Weston? You can go to www.in-public.com and see lots of photographers who have been influenced by Robert Frank. And some of these guys are technically very, very good; they just don't seem to have a unique vision.

Others are just a little strange. I once met a guy who took photos like those of Ansel Adams, not too bad, either, but the thing was, he dressed like Ansel and had the same beard and so on...

JC
 
It'd be impossible to mistake a Man-Ray or a Witkin..

Some photographers definitely have a more defined style, but of course with so many photographers, their styles overlap and it becomes increasingly difficult to identify a 'thumbprint'
 
John Camp said:
Others are just a little strange. I once met a guy who took photos like those of Ansel Adams, not too bad, either, but the thing was, he dressed like Ansel and had the same beard and so on...
Click to expand...

That is scary. Keep away.

But it works two ways. This morning a young woman said her photos were like David Bailey's. They were nothing at all like Bailey's. I know Bailey, I know his photos and these were wrong wrong wrong.
 
siverta said:
Politique des auteurs was coined by the "French New Wave"-director Francois Truffaut in the late 50's, and it states that a films (movie) artistic quality is higher when the directors "fingerprint" can be seen in the film. Films from Hollywood, in Truffauts way of thinking, has a lower artistic quality because they are manufactured through what is called "studio system" that is basically a factor for spewing out a generic product. (There are, ofcourse, some problems related to this theory, but you get the basic idea).

A typical auteur: David Lynch, Spike Lee, Francois Truffaut (ofcourse), Jean-Luc Godard, Sergio Leone, John Ford (the masters of western movies), etc etc.

Is this theory of the auteur applicable on photography? Is it possible to see the "thumbprint" of James Nachtwey in all his pictures - his personal touch? If we didn't know the photographer of a specific photo, is it possible to see this "thumbprint" and identify the photogographer?

Sivert.
Click to expand...

Didn't Truffaut and the writers of Cahiers Du Cinema develop the idea of the director as auteur based upon Hollywood films? I think the idea is that the through the constraints of the Hollywood studio system one could consistently discern those elements of filmmaking that were unique to a single person's vision. It wasn't that the films of Hollywood directors were less artistic. Truffaut, Godard, et. al. were huge fans of Hollywood films, and saw in them a high degree of *film* art. The theory is based on Hollywood films. The director as the author of a film sort of took off during the sixties and seventies because of the influence of the Cahiers writers.

I think it's hard to apply this theory to photography, and to do so you would probably have to look at a photographer's efforts across different genres (portraiture, landscape, street), because each genre has its own set of constraints. Let's see the street, architectural photography of Joel Peter Witkin and Avedon. 🙂

.
 
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