Banal Photography - New Genre of Photography? A Debate.

I would like to propose an introduction of a new genre in photography. The need to generate a new name came from the frustration that arose when trying to find photographers that shoot, what I would like to offer to call, Banal Photography. Let me try to explain what do I understand by it and how I would define it.

 

Banal Photography is a mix of poetic and bizarre photographs of everyday objects. It has some elements of documentary (documents ordinary things), street (but without people), fine art (uses photography as a medium for creative expression) and still life (photographs of still objects but without arranging them), but it is neither. Let's look at some examples of 'Banal Photography' and consider if we can imagine them in any of the above categories (fair and square).

 

William Eggleston:

 

 

 

Peter Fraser:

 

 

 

Teju Cole:

 

http://www.tejucole.com/wp-content/uploads/092_cole_9780399591075_art_r1.jpg

 

 

Stephen Shore:

 

 

 

Wolfgang Tillmans:

 

 

 

 

The works of Wendy Morgan (Login • Instagram), Enoch Ku (Login • Instagram) and Natalie Christensen (Login • Instagram) are also great examples.

 

I also created a 'Banal Photography' group on flickr which I believe shows a good variety and a lot of amazing work (Banal Photography).

 

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According to Wikipedia ([PLAIN]Category:Photography by genre - Wikipedia[/PLAIN]) and other websites (like this one: 106 Types of Photography You Should Know), there are over 130 genres of photography. Even if you remove some that overlap, it is still at least 100.

 

 

 

If there is a space for 'Dog Shaming' and 'Lolcat' photography, why not add one more that would make it easier for people to find or identify this style of photography? I believe it is not just about adding yet another label. I feel photographs usually belong to few categories and there is no need to pigeonhole them, but if a new genre is able to describe a certain style better, and that it doesn't really fit anywhere else, then it makes sense to me.

 

Please feel free to add more names of photographers that shoot mainly 'Banal Photography' (or maybe just certain projects) and let me know what you think about the name, and the necessity of creating this genre.

 

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I understand that not everyone is a fan of this style of photography (I am not a big fan of many genres myself) but I would like to kindly ask for a respectful debate.

In my uneducated opinion, Tom, your mention of a combination of the poetic and the bizarre very well might be considered another subclass of abstract photography. Your thoughts . . .

Likes are not a metric of being good, but they may be a metric of banality!

In essence, this is what I may have said in connection with next PN version.

There are a couple face b00k groups that grew into/out of this sort of thing- both seemed to launch off a platform of "New Topographichs" type photography but "Banal" has certainly become a part of the expression of content. One of them has also morphed into the realm of "Liminal Space"- a subject of some debate all by itself.

When it's good, it's pretty good, but also it can be quite.... "banal" at times, perhaps too much so? In the end, is there a difference between banal photos and just plain uninteresting photos? One does need to draw a line somewhere, I suppose, eh? Then again, is the crowd sourcing of "likes" a reliable metric for what is good and what is not?

 

Regardless, the exapmles provided above are lovely, and AFAIK there's room for all kinds of genre bending and growth in photography.

 

One more thought... I read somewhere once not too long ago, with the advent of "smart" phone cameras, that "never before have so many people so fully documented themselves doing so little". Perhaps the genre of "banal" is alreaady fully formed and is only now garnering enough attention to be recognized in its own right?

Sam, haven't well regarded full-length films been created with a cell phone - e.g. "Unsane" (by Soderbergh) and"Uneasy Lies the Mind" (Fosheim)?

A recent image I consider to be abstract, to least a small degree

In my uneducated opinion, Tom, your mention of a combination of the poetic and the bizarre very well might be considered another subclass of abstract photography. Your thoughts . . .

In both a metaphorical and literal sense, any photo can be seen abstractly, even the most straight document. So, it might be interesting to consider photos in general a subset of Abstracts, at least as a thought experiment.

It can move me as a viewer to look at the how as well as the what, the subject photographed as well as the subject, and how is this subject photographed as much as this is the subject photographed. Composition, color, shape, focus, texture, and the intangibles of a framed two-dimensional world take on significance and become a not-necessarily-representational experience in themselves.

Eggleston’s everyday world is more than a description or category. It’s an abstract concept his photos make concrete.

The banality lies in the pretence that what is photographed is 'special' and worth our attention, either 'because it is', or because the photographer elected to make it the subject of her or his attention.

A reaction to that is to photograph things without that pretence, everyday things from our normal life that we do not pay any special attention to, just because these things are just that.

Fake v. Genuine.

The first is a genre that grew on its own dirt. The result of far too many people believing that what they produce holds an interest to anyone besides themselves.

The second is a genre that is worth our while, because it draws attention to the nonsense we humans get up to, and documents our true, genuine lives.

In both a metaphorical and literal sense, any photo can be seen abstractly, even the most straight document. So, it might be interesting to consider photos in general a subset of Abstracts, at least as a thought experiment.

 

It can move me as a viewer to look at the how as well as the what, the subject photographed as well as the subject, and how is this subject photographed as much as this is the subject photographed. Composition, color, shape, focus, texture, and the intangibles of a framed two-dimensional world take on significance and become a not-necessarily-representational experience in themselves.

 

Eggleston’s everyday world is more than a description or category. It’s an abstract concept his photos make concrete.

I wonder if all/most photos are abstract in a narrow sense - 2-dimensional. Most/all subjects are 3-dimensional.

Sam, haven't well regarded full-length films been created with a cell phone - e.g. "Unsane" (by Soderbergh) and"Uneasy Lies the Mind" (Fosheim)?

Hi Michael,

It's Tom here, actually (not Sam) Tom Banks aka Ricochetrider, please & thank you, sir. :)

And yes, although I'm not familiar with the films you named abve, far as I know some full lenght (and shorter) films have indeed been "shot" either on moblie phones, or using mobile phone footage. Daryl Hannah has produced one such with Neil Young- Paradox, also featuring Lukas & Micah Nelson plus Lukas' band The Promise Of The Real, as well as a 2nd film that seems more a documentary with Crazy Horse- built it seems, around the NY & Crazy Horse record The Barn.

The film Paradox ends with some footage of these guys actually playing and as mundane and nosensical as most of the film is, the performance is worth the wait- IF you're a Neil Young fan.

I don't have a specific feeling about banal, other than it's generally thought of as beneath the standards of whoever is invited to the table that evening. I photograph a lot of what could be thought of as inanities, things and scenes that often have the common thread that they're either gone mostly or on the way out.

Here's an example, posted before, that's from a now nearly abandoned pecan farm near here. A worker once drank these, left at the end of his shift, and they're now remembered by this photo.

Now, with Human Resources, and every movement on camera and reviewed by supervisors, this kind of profligate behavior is a thing of the past. Not regretted perhaps, but the deadening smoothness has washed over so much.

Hi Michael,

It's Tom here, actually (not Sam) Tom Banks aka Ricochetrider, please & thank you, sir. :)

 

And yes, although I'm not familiar with the films you named abve, far as I know some full lenght (and shorter) films have indeed been "shot" either on moblie phones, or using mobile phone footage. Daryl Hannah has produced one such with Neil Young- Paradox, also featuring Lukas & Micah Nelson plus Lukas' band The Promise Of The Real, as well as a 2nd film that seems more a documentary with Crazy Horse- built it seems, around the NY & Crazy Horse record The Barn.

The film Paradox ends with some footage of these guys actually playing and as mundane and nosensical as most of the film is, the performance is worth the wait- IF you're a Neil Young fan.

 

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Tom, I was a fan of Neil Young, especially when he hooked up with C, S, & N. To me, his most powerful song was "The Needle and The Damage Done."

Hi Michael,

It's Tom here, actually (not Sam) Tom Banks aka Ricochetrider.

And here I thought I’d finally found my doppelgänger.

The film Paradox ends with some footage of these guys actually playing and as mundane and nosensical as most of the film is, the performance is worth the wait- IF you're a Neil Young fan.

You sure you don’t mean banal and nonsensical? :)

Definitions of banal and mundane are similar. One such of banal is "so lacking in originality as to be obvious and boring." and one of Mundane is "lacking interest or excitement; dull." another of Mundane is "of this earthly world rather than a heavenly or spiritual one.", a bit different.

Could it be that one of the things that what Eggleston was doing when he talked about photographing "democratically" was pointing out that what's beautiful and interesting in his photography isn't dependent on the beauty or nobility of the subject or the objects photographed, but more of how they were photographed? Maybe he was talking about a way of seeing? Or is this post a classic example of those definitions? (don't answer that)

A recent image I consider to be abstract

I think that's the key to many (most?) of these images. Reducing real-world 3D objects (and their shading) to an arrangement of coloured shapes within a frame. Snatching passing visions of everyday life that catch the eye through their lighting, arrangement, unusual juxtaposition, or whatever. But with the 'artistic' addition of selective viewpoint and composition.

I think that's the key to many (most?) of these images. Reducing real-world 3D objects (and their shading) to an arrangement of coloured shapes within a frame. Snatching passing visions of everyday life that catch the eye through their lighting, arrangement, unusual juxtaposition, or whatever. But with the 'artistic' addition of selective viewpoint and composition.

I think this can be said more of some of the photos posted to this thread. But I think Eggleston’s and some others don’t reduce in this manner. They do operate on that kind of abstract level, in Eggleston’s case especially of color as well as other features, but the significance of his photos, especially as a body of work, comes more from being at home in their everyday literal-ness and personal-ness. I like Szarkowski’s analogy to a family album.

With their content of old-fashioned furniture and decor, and their off-natural colours from old colour processes, what some of these pictures convey to a modern viewer is a view of an old world; even nostalgia to some (people of roughly my age will have seen those furnishings during their childhood). Whereas Eggleston was using processes that were the state of their art, and the subject matter was also current stuff.

(or was it? Maybe Eggleston had been away to university and become cosmopolitan, and was now photographing the quaint old south where he was a child; maybe there was an element of nostalgia for him even when he took the photos? Perhaps I should get the book and read the photographer's blurb)

Anyhow, a lot of what has been posted in the OP's 'banal' Flickr group looks like simple pastiche; photos of old-fashioned artifacts, rendered in an ever-so-slightly-brown colour palette. Those artifacts stood out to the photographers because they aren't typical of our lives any more.

This most banal of snapshots was prompted by the thought:

Is the stairlift mainly there for the use of customers who are only legless when leaving the bar?

The picture reminds me of that thought and still makes me smile.

Maybe that same thought occurred to some of you before being explained, maybe not, but I hope it illustrates that even the most banal of pictures might have some obscure or hidden meaning, if only to the photographer.

Perhaps it's like looking at someone else's family album, or pictures of their pets. Lack of emotional attachment completely alters one's perspective. Not to mention attention span.

'That's more about really looking at the world with attention, seen in the state of heightened awareness.' Stephen Shore

Some would compare that with the state of being drunk or under the influence of drugs - so I'm told.;)

Apparently that was a state very familiar to William Eggleston.

The banality lies in the pretence that what is photographed is 'special' and worth our attention, either 'because it is', or because the photographer elected to make it the subject of her or his attention.

A reaction to that is to photograph things without that pretence, everyday things from our normal life that we do not pay any special attention to, just because these things are just that.

Fake v. Genuine.

 

The first is a genre that grew on its own dirt. The result of far too many people believing that what they produce holds an interest to anyone besides themselves.

The second is a genre that is worth our while, because it draws attention to the nonsense we humans get up to, and documents our true, genuine lives.

“I had this notion of what I called a democratic way of looking around: that nothing was more important or less important.” William Eggleston

"If one thing matters, everything matters" Wolfgang Tillmans

With their content of old-fashioned furniture and decor, and their off-natural colours from old colour processes, what some of these pictures convey to a modern viewer is a view of an old world; even nostalgia to some (people of roughly my age will have seen those furnishings during their childhood). Whereas Eggleston was using processes that were the state of their art, and the subject matter was also current stuff.

Yes. And this suggests that knowing something about the photos, for instance the decade they were made, can help viewers see them more than one way: as they strike viewers in a contemporary world and mindset, and in relation to the era of the photos themselves …

(or was it? Maybe Eggleston had been away to university and become cosmopolitan, and was now photographing the quaint old south where he was a child; maybe there was an element of nostalgia for him even when he took the photos? Perhaps I should get the book and read the photographer's blurb)

Leads me to the thought that photos can be more than one thing to the photographer and that they both are and are not what the photographer means and intends. Once presented, they take on a life of their own, birthed by the photographer, our imaginations guided by them or set free (or both) to varying degrees.

 

Some would compare that with the state of being drunk or under the influence of drugs - so I'm told.;)

 

Apparently that was a state very familiar to William Eggleston.

It reminds me more of the practice of mindfulness.

Being drunk definitely doesn't help with the state of heightened awareness (tried). Drugs have the ability to make your awareness over-heightened which can be an obstacle as well (also tried).

Being drunk definitely doesn't help with the state of heightened awareness (tried). Drugs have the ability to make your awareness over-heightened which can be an obstacle as well (also tried).

Obviously there have been enough brilliant drunk and drug-influenced artists to suggest that your experience may not apply universally. Human experience of these kinds of things varies greatly.

Obviously there have been enough brilliant drunk and drug-influenced artists to suggest that your experience may not apply universally. Human experience of these kinds of things varies greatly.

The "ability" and "can be" already suggested that.

Ian Jeffrey (Photography - a Concise History, Thames & Hudson, 1981 - but I expect there's a newer edition than mine!) is the first art-photography book I bought. He refers to the same sort of visual joke as Rodeo Joe in talking about Eggleston. He refers to the photo of a brown dog drinking from a beige puddle, and says it seems the brightly-coloured dog is draining the landscape of colour. But he goes on in his next paragraph:

'Mainly, though, the Guide has to do with picture-making rather than observation and metaphor. [ ... ]William Eggleston founds his pictures on sets of a few distinct hues clearly stated: green/red, red/blue. Whatever else is there connects with these dominant primaries. [ ...] In most cases a central motif or emblem pairs two primaries which are then mediated across the remainder of the picture.'

He notes that Eggleston's pictures are mostly suburban, and suggests that the occurrence of colour is different in the city.

So maybe you could write down a sort of recipe for it (or program an AI).