"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."
George Santayana, about a hundred years ago.
There is an argument to be made for the fresh, unencumbered eye, the naive look. And it would be more than interesting to see how a khoisan hunter, a Yanomamo matron, or an Aboriginal kid tackles photography.
People who have easy access to photographic equipment, however, are steeped in a culture of visual artifacts. Advertising, television, cinema... All these myriad images are directly or indirectly indebted to the innovators and grandmasters of the past, wether it be photography or painting.
One could argue that it is the visual culture that counts, and not the names of the photographers, just as one does not need to know the name of the singer to appreciate the song. From that point of view, it does not matter who invented how to carve a vine leaf and a bunch of grapes, what matters is that one knows how to do this.
But in a world where we are bombarded with zillions of images, for a photographer, it should at least be interesting to know how our craft was forged. At the least to avoid blatant plagiarism. Most of all, it informs and enriches, one learns from the old forgotten masters, even from their faults. How could one truly appreciate HCB, without knowing about Eisenstaedt, Capa, Frank, Eisenstein and Lartigue?
In the early sixties, my father subscribed (from Belgium!) to the 'Famous Photographers' mail order course. Irving Penn, Richard Avedon and Alfred Eisenstaedt, among others, were his tutors, 'at a distance'. I feel so incredibly lucky to have had those images spooned in as a toddler. This is what has taught me how to read an image, how to asses the aesthetic possibilities of a scene. (ok, I'm not very good at it, often lazy or stupid and just shoot whatever is in front of me)
I'll admit there is not much logic here, more of a belly feel, but I think it is essential to learn from the past. One does learn from someone else's mistakes.
By the way, has everyone forgotten Bill Brandt?
