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Popped into Indigo the other night to get the latest photography magazines - they had a good haul - View Camera, Camera Arts, Shotz, Photo Life, and B&W. In addition they had Black and White Photography and Lenswork but I have subscriptions to those.
Thumbing through the magazines, I was quite struck by how many of the images were unattractive in the extreme - this of course is a biased opinion and I may just be revealing my ignorance, lack of culture and just plain bad taste, but I wonder.
I went through pages of bromoil and other antiquated techniques resulting in oddly coloured hard to see images of no particular merit - the process was all - I got the distinct impression the people using these old processes were so pleased to have been able to produce an image at all that content was surplus to requirements. The number of manipulated images, double exposures and so on was high. this was particularly noticeable in Camera Arts which has a reputation for showing this kind of photography. There was a substantial amount in Shotz and View Camera, both of which don't usually showcase a lot of this work. B&W and Photo Life didn't in fact show much of this kind of work at all.
Perhaps it was just a bad month, maybe it's just me. I doubt it's just me - I've heard comments about and seen for myself how Aperture went this direction 15 years ago and lost a lot of subscribers.
I have abstract paintings hanging on my wall, some of my own photographs are fairly abstract, I own (paid for) platinum prints. I can admire portraits and fashion photography, sports and news, the distorted nudes of Bill Brandt, so what is it about these rather messy odd looking photographs that I'm missing if several editors think they are worth showing?
Photographs certainly don't have to be pretty - they can definitely present a message designed to make you uncomfortable - but in the case of these images, the message I get is, 'turn the page'. I can't see people living with them on the walls. I doubt people would collect them were they offered cheaply and unsigned and not made by the photographer, no matter how identical. I have a horrible feeling that they are appreciated more for their being different than they are for for their skill, message or emotional responses. That would make them collectable but not admirable, valuable but not wonderful.
It may be that I simply don't get the language of these photographs, just as I don't get a lot of 20th century classical music. Are they in fact created for a minority of intellectuals and the rest of us poor slobs aren't meant to 'get' it. Is it remotely possible that any of these photographs is going to have staying power - that they will become icons of 21st century photography - I frankly find that hard to believe.
Why is it that editors of some magazines favour this kind of work while others don't. I can't remember any of this kind of thing in Lenswork. Of course, Brooks Jenson is a middle aged white guy brought up through the Ansel Adams, Fred Picker et al school of photography, just like me. Does this mean that the other editors are simply unlike us, perhaps with a political science degree, a background of writing for the radical student newspaper and having values radically different from mine.
I worry that the fault is mine, that what is considered fringe now will be the norm in a few years and that most people will 'get' it, that my dislike for these images is akin to someone criticizing Picasso in the 20's and 30's, only to find out later that there's a lot more to it than first realized, that it took skill and imagination to paint cubist pictures, and with a bit of education it can be appreciated every bit as much as a Rembrandt.
But, what if I'm right and this is the 'emperors new clothes' and we've been hoodwinked into believing there is merit where none exists.
Disturbing... No answers.... Yet....
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6 comments:
If you really want to give yourself heartburn, take a look at Aperture's book "reGeneration: 50 Photographers of Tomorrow". When I thumbed through it a few months ago at Borders, my jaw dropped...not from the "fine photography" I saw, but from what (to my eyes at least) looked like fake, staged, distant, aloof, sterile (add a few more to taste) images having little or nothing to do with aesthetics or beauty. I remember thinking (seriously!) is *this* is what the "next generation" of photography will be like, then (a) I'm glad I'm in the *current* generation, and (b) I no longer understand photography ;-)
A thought: I suspect that whenever an artistic medium (perhaps any creative endeavor) matures beyond a certain threshold, there is a compelling force to not "create per se" (at the whim of the artist) but to create "compelling dissonant" works, that are deliberately crafted to be *different* from what came before. Art not for art's sake, but for the meta-sake of just doing something different. While "good" art may still result, my "old-school" self suspects that its not the most productive path to take.
My wife, who has a masters in theatre history; says that many artists push the boundaries but it's only the test of time which will show the very small number of ideas that turn out to be good, the others forgotten in the 'I can't believe the bizarre ideas they had' pile. Crap will out. She mentioned theatre of the absurd but only 'Waiting For Godot' survived from that experiment. Editors often live in an environment of trying the new and are no more prescient than the rest of us in predicting what will last.
Certainly, if we think of great music, some of it wasn't appreciated for years after the composer's death, or fell out of fashion for 200 years before being rediscovered. Presumbably there people like us complaining about this 'new' music - but it's important to remember that they were surrounded by hundreds if not thousands of other 'new music' ideas which have long since deservedly been buried as being the junk the we of the time thought it was.
I was having this conversation just last night at a gathering of image makers, some using cinema, others using emulsion. It was said that a lot of photography would have zero merit if the creator weren't allowed to drone on and on about the process of creation.
In many ways, I feel as if these people get so caught up in how they're doing what they're doing that they totally lose track of what they're doing. That once they see the result of their efforts either they're so enamored with the process that they can't see that the image isn't worth looking at, or that they immediately realize the image sucks and hope that by going into endless detail about their process, viewers will somehow forget that they're looking at crap.
I've been pondering this since George posted, and came to the conclusion that the problem, if you can call it that, is three-fold.
First, I think some editors are fearful of looking derivative and dull, thus showcase photographers whose work is outside the norm preferring to err on the side of extreme. Not unlike university faculty in many arts programs who frown on "straight" photography, often pushing students towards (and rewarding them for) work that is more experimental than worthwhile
Second, many editors have a myoptic interest more in the history of photography than it's present incarnation. That means near-extinct "traditional" processes get published not because of astute message or compelling imagery, but rather because of the process. Style or substance.
Third, the still newly evolving digital process has made fine-art photography easier and less expensive than ever (which is not necessarily a bad thing). That ease has created an overabundance of substandard and boring photography. That mediocrity has probably pushed some editors, gallery owners, and curators away from the "traditional" image and towards either the older manual processes, or the experimental future.
Of course, I might just be full of crap, but it seems to make at least a bit of sense.
I think Chuck makes some very good points. It would explain the predominance of odd toning techniques and lith prints in 'Black And White Photography' for the last couple of years, perhaps the popularity in magazines of Holga pictures (though some I do like), and the general disdain of digital.
George
Photography isn't one thing, one look. It isn't Ansel Adams to the exclusion of Sally Mann. It isn't always all neat and in focus and pictures of beautiful scenery. Some who practice photography are artists, always searching for the new, many times failing and getting right back up and searching again, not satisfied with the status quo or don't see the point in continually repeating what others have done.
It's always best to have an open mind. I used to think that the sound of Miles Davis' trumpet with harmon mute was brash and grating. My music teacher said that someday I'd think it was the most beautiful sound in the world. And, you know what? He was right.
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