Robert Frank article - Vanity Fair
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MinorTones
Well-known
cool. it almost echoes the jack kerouac story about he and R. Frank in the style that it was written.
SolaresLarrave
My M5s need red dots!
Thanks for posting it, Doug! 🙂
foto_fool
Well-known
I just read the article in print yesterday - a bit of a puff piece but the author has genuine affection for Frank. I was pleased there was no "film is dead" subtext, and at the same time moved by Franks comment: "There are too many images. Too many cameras now. We're all being watched. It gets sillier and sillier. As if all action is meaningful. Nothing is really all that special. It's just life. If all moments are recorded, then nothing is beautiful and maybe photography isn't an art anymore. Maybe it never was."
I disagree, but it is thought-provoking. Does the view have merit, or is it just the sentiment of a man at the end of his life whose success as a photographer is four decades behind him?
I disagree, but it is thought-provoking. Does the view have merit, or is it just the sentiment of a man at the end of his life whose success as a photographer is four decades behind him?
larmarv916
Well-known
I read the Vanity Fair / Robert Frank piece....Thanks for posting the link.
I agree that it is a "puff piece" but I really agree with the idea that there are "to many images" is a very accurate statement and that most are "not special". That said whta I see hidden in that statement is the view that there is way to much hype by the gallery marketing establishment and also Art Directors, who seem to feel they "validate" what is or is not to be treated as "highly artistic". Also the idea that many photographers who the press and art community gush over are...yes, riding on past performance that is many decades in the past.
This of course is fostered by the commerial stooges who can only constantly resell work that has a known auction track record. With so many cameras trying to recreate images and then pretend they image concept is original we see an endless parade of recycled images. Also today to many images are given status because they supportive of some politically envoge topic.
The question for those of us still shooting.....is can we keep up or own motivation to find an exciting image to capture. It seems now days I either take forever to shoot a roll of film or burn through a roll in a couple of mintues due tripping over something exciting. Thanks again to Doug Ford for the posting of the link.
All the Best....Laurance
I agree that it is a "puff piece" but I really agree with the idea that there are "to many images" is a very accurate statement and that most are "not special". That said whta I see hidden in that statement is the view that there is way to much hype by the gallery marketing establishment and also Art Directors, who seem to feel they "validate" what is or is not to be treated as "highly artistic". Also the idea that many photographers who the press and art community gush over are...yes, riding on past performance that is many decades in the past.
This of course is fostered by the commerial stooges who can only constantly resell work that has a known auction track record. With so many cameras trying to recreate images and then pretend they image concept is original we see an endless parade of recycled images. Also today to many images are given status because they supportive of some politically envoge topic.
The question for those of us still shooting.....is can we keep up or own motivation to find an exciting image to capture. It seems now days I either take forever to shoot a roll of film or burn through a roll in a couple of mintues due tripping over something exciting. Thanks again to Doug Ford for the posting of the link.
All the Best....Laurance
williams473
Well-known
Laurance,
You pose a very interesting question, one I've found myself contemplating quite often. It does seem that it is very difficult to come up with anything new - Frank seems to be bemoaning this fact - but that seems to me that finding a new way to see is not neccesarily the reason most photographers are working.
The way I see it, people as the subject, is what differentiates a lot of photography - especially art in the photjournalistic style, or even straight photojournalism. Honestly, I am usually bored by landscape and still life photography, even the best of it - painting seems to have much more expressive control and less hackneyed ways of presenting these subjects. For me, people, and the events in which they are involved are enternally interesting, and the imaging of people is right in the wheelhouse of photography.
I think about it this way - imagine if no one photographed people and what they were doing for an entire decade? That would be a huge loss in my opinion - for art, and for posterity. So perhaps it's true that the massive proliferation of imagery does seem to make it less "special," but of those countless images being made, some will be drawn on in the future and looked to as Art, or history, or both.
You pose a very interesting question, one I've found myself contemplating quite often. It does seem that it is very difficult to come up with anything new - Frank seems to be bemoaning this fact - but that seems to me that finding a new way to see is not neccesarily the reason most photographers are working.
The way I see it, people as the subject, is what differentiates a lot of photography - especially art in the photjournalistic style, or even straight photojournalism. Honestly, I am usually bored by landscape and still life photography, even the best of it - painting seems to have much more expressive control and less hackneyed ways of presenting these subjects. For me, people, and the events in which they are involved are enternally interesting, and the imaging of people is right in the wheelhouse of photography.
I think about it this way - imagine if no one photographed people and what they were doing for an entire decade? That would be a huge loss in my opinion - for art, and for posterity. So perhaps it's true that the massive proliferation of imagery does seem to make it less "special," but of those countless images being made, some will be drawn on in the future and looked to as Art, or history, or both.
