Youts Vs Geezers

<p>I've never been crazy about the obviously powerful image. They suck you in but they spit you out just as fast. Images that last have an undertow. When they take you, they hold you, for good. So while my subjects are basically the same as they have always been, I have gradually become deeper. Nuance is everything. The final print has just the right off balance, the perfect but challenging tonality for the shot, and most importantly, imperfection, or better yet incompleteness. Painters call it a foil. Seamless perfection is death, commercial, photographic. There has to be something going on, a lure, but you don't know quite what it is. So while I may make mostly punchy, hey that's a great picture, the really satisfying ones are the less obvious. So that's what I work towards, and I'm more intensely involved now than I have been in forty years of shooting. It may be almost a strictly formalists pursuit, and I sometimes worry that I am without a message, but thats the way it is, and I don't intend on forcing a change to stay up with powerhouse imagery, or go out and cover an edgy topic that I'm not really empathetic towards. I'll take instead the minor, the meagre, offhand, overlooked, maybe even a little chaotic. As long as it slows you down long enough to ponder. To go, humm ? Otherwise it's todays movies, eye blasting, and leaving you numbed. A spectator only. I love the still image, the contemplativeness of it. <br>

You know there's something about greatness in any field. And you know you can't really say what it is, but it works because it touches you, and thats what I look for. I don't care too much about the actual subject. That shadow on the side of the house, sure it's powerful, but unless you play it down a little, hide some or contradict it, it'll be obvious, the eye will devour it, and there won't be anything left to feed the soul. </p>

<p>Kenneth, you write one hell of a post, but somehow paragraph formation has eluded you :-)</p>

<p>I wish you'd illustrate your situaton with photos in a P.N gallery. </p>

<p>I don't accept your comfortable use of ideas such as "greatness" when the context is your own (or my own) aspirations...and I actively reject the idea that "you can't really say what ... touches you." I can often say what touches me, it's not always ephemeral...and a person as verbal as you can certainly do it...so I think you're dissembling. You're not "thinking too much," you're trying to fool yourself. IMO. Human nature. Veil of Maya.</p>

<p>"Seamless perfection.." isn't "death" when it's preferred by people such as Avedon, Weston, Penn, Siskind, Davidson et al. I think the idea that perfection is a problem is an affectation. The craft itself is worthy, btw. </p>

<p>Yeah there's some shaky stuff in that last post. This one too, probably. By seamless perfection I should clarify, not technically seamless, as photography has almost unavoidable technical exquisiteness, but seamless by presenting untroubled, non conflicted, perfectly poised postcards. For which I should apologize, is not death to the healthy. But might as well be death for the sick souls, i.e. the ones in real need of redemptive and meaning filled lived art. To them, to me, the bright happy sound triumphant image is vapid. Gives them nothing. Patti Page. Doggie in the window. Not worth five seconds.</p>

<p>Paragraph. I posted on apug a few years back. Waste of time, Dumb compliments, cheery good natured blather. Time better spent in the darkroom. Hate scanners and clone stamps. Not trying to prove anything, and too filled with doubt to bear deciding what to chose, and I doubt I could be very convincing yet anyway. I'm still working this out. So sorry. I'd be glad to send you a print though.</p>

<p>Greatness of course is as subjective, I guess, as can be. But doesn't this overtly relativistic culture kinda bug you? Anything goes, everybody's wonderful in their own way. Seems destructive to treat people like children. Especially when the real strong creatives are pretty serious people who know their stuff. Maybe. What do I know? Maybe they're more easy breezy than I think, and I'm just a drudge. But I can't say why I like my favorites. Dylan is my favorite artist bar none. Can't say exactly why. Oh he does this, he does that, so what? So do many others. I think he's like any great. An inexplicable idiosyncratic hambone. We could name loads of people in music, but would you say, "oh I like Howlin Wolf, because of his guttural growl I'm charmed into feelin like I'm right there on the porch with him. No me. Authentic people have something, and though they might have to work on it, at least they don't have to fake it. And no I don't think Dylan faked it much, despite the hillbilly lore. After all, he's just a song and dance man. Said so himself.</p>

<p> And the craft is worthy, sure. Sure it is. Worthy of a nap. It's only the rock and rollers that make it interesting. The modern in modern art is the rejection of ideals for innards. Subverting surface attractiveness. These real creatives aren't just ohhhing and awing over their pyro developed tonalities. They might have the best craft imaginable, but the real content is how well they render their predicament. </p>

<p>How am I trying to fool myself?</p>

 

<p>I'll leave you to think about that "fool myself" question. clue: veil of maya. Everybody fakes everything, you're not more or less special than they are.</p>

<p>More interesting than any rock/roller is Miles Davis, working with Gil Evans. Quiet Nights etc. Seamless perfection. Think Irving Penn. (I cite them because we both seem to be the right vintage)</p>

<p>Dylan isn't my favorite, he's one of many. In that vein, consider Jack Elliott (Dylan was his former son :-)...who doesn't need obscurity or poetry to be poetic. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jzVffTEfMw&feature=related</p>

<p>Right, the self is just a social construction. But it's "my" social construction.</p>

<p>I'm not getting my idea of seamless across. I'm stating it wrong. Penn looked around for ways to subvert the veneer, his documentary stint, his grey corners, wilting flowers, cigarette butts. Avedon seeemed to Arbus it up a notch with The New West. Before that in his commercial work, his starkness was always a jab at veneer. I don't mean to say that techincal perfection means seamless. But if it's only technique, then there's nothing under the wrapping, even if you could poke through it.</p>

<p>In fact that's why so many, I like Jack too, wear out so soon. Nice stuff gets boring. Sure the Stanley Brothers sound great now, because they're rediscovered, but at the time, I bet they got to sounding awful. Dylan knows how to keep the edge on. He's great at the grating. You look for it to collapse, but it doesn't. Seamless pictures, wowie stuff, over and done in seconds. That horrible over glorified post processing nature stuff going on today. More of a homage to the Easter Bunny than to nature.</p>

<p>Things a little more personally cockeyed, and you wander in more, look around more, ask what's going on here? Something has to be off, to be on.</p>

<p>Sketches of Spain. One of the most brilliant albums in my collection. Wanders and wavers.</p>

<p>Correction: That's "American West" by Richard Avedon. And "Avedon At Work" has some great stories about the making of it. A wonderful sweet man who was truly concerned with many of the people he encountered doing that project.</p>

 

<p>I've not read "Avedon At Work" but I first formed my positive personal impression of the man from his work with James Baldwin in "Nothing Personal"... not just his mental hospital candids...his personal values (the enemies of "deconstruction") are on display in his paired portraits of "great men."</p>

<p>His masterfully designed "Richard Avedon Portraits" (accordion design, I've not identified the designer) contains a thoughtful biography that places him in context with painters (the austerity factor) and a personal meditation on Egon Schiele's work...something about photographs or photographing as "performances." </p>

<p> "I was no longer interested in doing portraits of persons of power and accomplishment. However, there were three men whose work I admired enormously and whose portraits I wanted to make: Jorge Luis Borges, Samuel Beckett, and Francis Bacon. Their portraits turned out to involve three different kinds of performances: Borges gave an unphotographable performance, Beckett refused to perform, and Bacon offered a perfect performance. I photograph what I'm most afraid of, and Borges was blind." etc etc.</p>

<p><a href="http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/1997/schiele/artistwork.html">http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/1997/schiele/artistwork.html</a></p>

<p>Funny you should mention Egon Schiele. I spent half a day in the museum for him in Cesky Kumlov last October. His paintings of the houses, wonderful stacks of rectangles were from there, before they hounded him out of town for misdeeds with I believe it was young females. </p>

<p>As close as I got to Avedon was to supply one of the white background papers when he was in Cheyenne at the Frontier Days Rodeo. I was working as an in house photographer for a company and we got the call, so I trooped out to the fair with this roll of white, but was met by one of his assistants instead. A portrait did come out of that visit though, the severe looking woman in the rhinestones and cowboy hat. </p>

<p> </p>

<p>One take-away on Avedon for me is that he set his course as a child, found opportunities and guidance as he grew, stuck generally to that course, became increasingly able to follow it as-the-crow-flies with ever-fewer wanderings.</p>

<p>. This take-away suggests that studying people like Avedon (like Picasso for that matter) won't set the clock back for us as individuals, but it can nonetheless inspire.</p>

<p>I think the reason so many amateurs imagine "art" is superior to the work of professionals has mostly, if not entirely to do with failure to comprehend dedication, since by definition they (I/we) lack it, and fear the the harsh reality of luck and the accompanying high odds of disaster.</p>

<p>And there's the content. Commercial is the establishment, consumerism, crass capitalism, and the like. Art represents the individual, the rebel, spirit, soul, etc. That surely has an effect. If however you look past that then there is no doubt that astounding work is being churned out by professionals at a much higher rate. Yet, yet, the artist will take the time to experiment, look under rocks, throw the bucket of paint at convention. The pros lap it up too.</p>

<p>Kenneth, where we differ (slightly) includes the notion that amateurs are more likely to be "artists" than are professionals. That has almost entirely to do with fixation on one aspect of professional work (the purely illustrative) while ignoring the nature of almost all amateur work.</p>

<p>I doubt many amateurs actually know the work of more than a few professionals, much less know any of them well enough to understand "dedication" ... which is not just a matter of throwing paint at convention: convention is the literal goal of most amateur photographers, as is evident in P.N. ratings.</p>

<p>How many amateur "artists" live in their studios or work straight trough, 20/7, for weeks?</p>

<p>Hi John, I think another place we are differing has to do with how we frame this notion. I'm only thinking of the best examples of either camp, not quantifying a near impossible guest at the entire entity amateur, or professional, and what they represent. Who cares what utilitarian/ family/ casual vacation photography amounts to?</p>

<p>Actually, now that I say that, both camps do. Both camps have stuck their quivers into snapshot aesthetics. And in that case I'd give more to the amateurs/ artists. Robert Frank, New Topographics, Winogrand, Eggleston. The pros, after they tired of the floating Nikes of the 70's, went retro snapshooter black and white in the 80's. At least fashion did. It went from glam to some kind of Wim Wenders meets Guess Jeans with Anna Nicole. Ah Anna. </p>

<p>Don't get me wrong. I think highly of pro's. I half heartedly tried to be one in NY in the 80's. They have to be firing on all cylinders, to be sure. But that takes a toll on being inventive. People get stuck with an image and can't change much even if they wanted to. Meanwhile a vast and diverse pool of amateurs bring up the rear with new things. For me, the most interesting photography happening today is showing up on Flickr. Not in the fashion mags, not in the museums, or Geographic, but from kids with digital cameras. </p>

 

<p>Kenneth, I'm happy to change perspectives. We agree about things happening in Flickr. To make this more confusing, or to blur ideas more usefully, I'm not sure anybody with a digital camera ever produces a fully non-commercial image, and a lot of what I see in ads is exactly the amateur-looking work you cited. <br>

By the way, if you got March 13 Sunday NY Times the "Style Magazine" (fashion) had a wonderful B&W cover of Tim Lincicum, superstar MLB pitcher ( "the freak"), and a bunch B&Ws of elderly rock stars in skinny outfits, as well as some highly Los Angeles-looking freaked-out color (beyond anybody's Flickr aspirations I suspect) and some absolutely abysmal advertisements featuring washed-out, starving, slack-jawed hominids...reflective of something else about professionals.</p>

<p>Kenneth, I'm happy to change perspectives. We agree about things happening in Flickr. To make this more confusing, or to blur ideas more usefully, I'm not sure anybody with a digital camera ever produces a fully non-commercial image, and a lot of what I see in ads is exactly the amateur-looking work you cited. <br>

By the way, if you got March 13 Sunday NY Times the "Style Magazine" (fashion) had a wonderful B&W cover of Tim Lincicum, superstar MLB pitcher ( "the freak"), and a bunch B&Ws of elderly rock stars in skinny outfits, as well as some highly Los Angeles-looking freaked-out color (beyond anybody's Flickr aspirations I suspect) and some absolutely abysmal advertisements featuring washed-out, starving, slack-jawed hominids...reflective of something else about professionals.</p>

<p>You know what? I think I'm becoming a real die hard Arthur Plumpton fan.</p>

<p>Here's a thought. When I was in school, 76-80, there was a definite line between art and commercial, for me anyway, and I think for many. By the time the 80's commenced that line was erased, and they flowed back and forth unimpeded by the heavy considerations that I held.</p>

<p>Ken, in what way is that "a thought" ? What does it mean to you? Where was that school? Was it a wonderful school that you still think representative of some non-school world? Do you think school work typically or even occasionally reflects the excitement of the non-school world? I'm asking this seriously...what do you mean by that blast from the past?</p>

<p>Do you think your memory of the era in your region or school was indicative of something going on elsewhere?</p>

<p>During that era in San Francisco I recall an aversion to that kind of "definite line." In general "we" were averse to lines like that from at least the Sixties...I suspect it's still that way. A lot of Fred G's wonderful non-professional (I guess) San Francisco work looks like some of the fine advertising in Vogue, reminds me just a little of Sarah Moon's work (http://secretsofpeopleweknow.blogspot.com/2010/10/completely-intrigued-by-sarah-moon.html)...I suspect he could cash in on it in a professional instant without losing his artistic edge...</p>

<p>I shall not speak the name of said school, for I disdained it much.</p>

<p>It is a thought in that it speaks to the amateur/ pro dichotomy spoken prior, and somewhat, albeit loosely to the mutual "sharing" of influences.</p>

<p>My subjective experience I think fell midstream from what, in America at least, took off in the sixties, and more through Pop Art, than political ideology. By the mid seventies it dawned on my modest perspective that people were not so concerned with the distinctions art commercial. Whether it came from progressive revolution, rampant relativism, or a natural unfolding I can't say. And I certainly can't nail down a time line, what with Europe to consider as our arts forefather. I don't mean to tackle any Duchamp thing here. Or a civil rights thing either. Some lines need to be erased, and maybe some others don't.</p>

<p>Only to say that in that mid seventies period I begin to hear and read about more people saying, why not do both? Idealistic art camp people no longer spoke of being a whore or in anyway felt they had to justify earning a living with commercial work. The stigma, and I think there was one, had melted away. Commercial people, of course saw themselves as being just as edgy and daring as any d bag artist, in fact way better. Actually commercial people, as I experienced them while this melding was unfolding, were far more disdainful of the artist. They didn't know their materials as well, and they made incomprehensible nonsense. Only when a Cindy Sherman started bringing in the big bucks did the respect appear on the level that the art camp had already succeeded to the pro.</p>

<p>Pie and cake, car and model photographers sprinkled their portfolios with street shots, grizzled faces, and any oddball outsider thing they could think of, for that street cred. No one in the 50's and 60's would have gone into a ad agency with "arty" stuff. Secretly they may have revealed that what they really wanted to do, what they really admired was the edgy black and whites of so and so, but they would have kept that out of the office.</p>

<p>That vanished somewhere in the 70's, I think. I think in a fairly short time, and thanks to that 80's monetizing mentality, it all became commerce. Pop to Postmodernism, sprinkled with feel good relativism. Art was told to get over itself, and commercial was assured that it was not a bad thing at all. In fact it was a very very good thing. The egalitarian victory enshrined wealth above all else.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>Kenneth...interesting syntax. I mean, it works...but it's certainly distinctive. I speak a little Russian...it reminds me of that syntax.</p>

<p>Anyhow...didn't you just shift gears, change your tune, backpedal...or did I misread? </p>

<p>JK</p>

<p>I'm not sure what you mean. But either way, I'm just exploring the ideas around two distinctly different callings and how they've gradually become indistinguishable. But it's a can of worms. Back peddling required, even though I'm not aiming for a definitive summation. Just thought it had some merit as an observation/ topic.</p>

<p>If it sounds like I'm trying to build a case for or against, that's my failure as a writer. Lack of full awareness makes for didactic sounding claims. Although I do think we're a stronger culture to recognize at least some modern equivalent of sacred and profane.</p>

<p>Maybe we should just ditch this thread. It seems to have come down to just us, and I'm not sure we have a clear purpose left. Unless you can get me back on track with something more specific, I'll self destruct. </p>

<p>Oh, and the syntax? I got that from Joan Crawford. </p>