End of the Age of Photography : Danny Lyon

<p>http://www.americansuburbx.com/2010/08/danny-lyon-end-of-age-of-photography.html</p>

<p>I think he's right about tats and young morons and upgrades and the seductive beauty of the instant erasability of images (tho "sharing" online makes them eternally non-biodegradable). </p>

<p>I've admired Lyon's deep-immersion documentary work (not street) since "Toward A Social Landscape" in the late Sixties, when I bought the heavily abused Heritage/Eastman House book that's on my desk: http://www.amazon.com/Contemporary-Photographers-Toward-Social-Landscape/dp/B000Q5VEMM</p>

<p>And I applaud his success with print sales...he reports some wonderful property, including a fishing camp.</p>

<p>What I take from Lyons essay is mostly this: The factor that distinguishes throw-away photography from significant photography is the fine enlargement, or print publication, maybe even the garish 4X6 prints, cared-enough-about to be assembled in albums (bets on the future of the family or memorial to broken hearts). Not chimping or glowing monitors. In addition to being potentially eternal, digital storage and display inherently implies nothingness...it won't even return to dust.</p>

<p>What do you think?</p>

<p>I think Danny Lyon is a terrific photographer. After reading this article, especially the first couple paragraphs, I still think he is a photographer but I really don't want to know him. I don't think it would be a pleasurable experience, and I have no interest in his opinions. The amount of prints he's sold and the farm etc etc don't make him any more valuable as a commentator on photography, although he seems to think it does.<br>

<br />For a much more reasonable view on this topic, and it is a quite different opinion, read <a href="http://www.zonezero.com/zz/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1234:are-too-many-people-taking-photographs&catid=1:pedro-meyers-editorial&lang=en">Pedro Meyer's recent article</a>. Pedro is able to talk about photography without making it about his own financial success.</p>

<p>I don't follow the digital persistence = nothingness notion, I'm afraid. But I do agree that people who see - online - some of the stuff I shoot in the field, or who point e-mail links to it for their friends' casual on-screen consumption, react in a completely different way when shown a large-ish, carefully made print.<br /><br />Just on Friday I delivered a large print, made on fine paper. The woman who paid for the session (with her child and the family hound dog) had been admiring and Facebooking/etc the shoot's proofs, and really enjoying them. But when she saw the print I'd labored over, she said that it's got her thinking in a completely different way, and that she wants some of those same friends to come over and actually look at it in the flesh.<br /><br />It was interesting moment (and she paid in biodegradeable cash!). But her appreciation of the print on her wall doesn't make the stuff that she continues to look at online (the images from the rest of the session) and share with her friends a bit of nothingess or (to her) throw-away. These are two different ways of experiencing the work.<br /><br />As for moronic youth... that is a universal condition.</p>

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<p>As for moronic youth</p>

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<p>Well that's part of what I find so offensive about the whole thing.</p>

<p>He complains that someone is a "moron" because they are listening to music on earphones. Does he want to go back to the boom box days, when an entire subway car was assaulted with one person's music? And why is someone a "moron" for listening to music? Music is universal. It's something almost everyone enjoys at some level. Why view that person as a moron instead of someone taking pleasure in something really basic to virtually every culture?<br>

<br />The whole article is a downer. It's a crank, a Scrooge, someone who is obviously mad at the world ranting. </p>

<p>While most youth lack the experience and wisdom, they make up for it in exuberance. There's a lot that can be learned from that. And you won't learn about it by calling them morons.</p>

<p>Exuberance, no matter how thickly laden with the most opulent finery, will never, ever become a substitute for wisdom.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>A competent, talented photographer unencumbered with the political correct filters we in the arts are used to passing our opinions through...<br /> I love it!<br /> <br /><br />Yeah, he is a little over the top, but hyperbole is the lead in the pencil, the anchovies on the pizza, if you will. I for one am glad to read the words of an artist<br /> putting things the way he sees them. I actually agree with much of what he says. The emperor has been running around naked for a very long time, and<br /> the author of the piece places a well aimed, sharp elbow at his chest to keep him at bay.</p>

<p>Bravo.</p>

<p>He seems pretty mad at the world, I wonder if his life is going as well as he would want us to believe?</p>

<blockquote><p>Exuberance, no matter how thickly laden with the most opulent finery, will never,

ever become a substitute for wisdom.

</p></blockquote><p><br></p><p>Who said it was?</p>

<p>Of course, he is right about consumerism and its need for evolution to make money, and the probable short lifespan of many digital files (the "best" will be propagated by copy) but the young people he refers to as morons are simply living their generation, no more, no less. They are influenced by adult decisions of their society. Pedro Meyer makes more sense when he suggests that the digital camera revolution, the ease of producing palatable images (at least exposure wise), are allowing many more people the opportunity to be creative without requiring craft talent. A good thing. A first step to more engaged activity perhaps, and at the very least a beneficial outlet for interests and emotioins.</p>

<p>Exhuberance and commitment are likely very necessary paths to later acquisition of knowledge and wisdom. How many of us purchased like sheep the latest in-fashion clothes or boots or went walking in winter cold with minimalist protection as teenagers? Moronic? Possibly, but only short-lived, as other priorities came and we learned there are other things to occupy body and mind.</p>

<p>I wish that the desire for fine prints also reached other fine photographers. He probably sells all of his, but without either of the qualities of artistic talent or marketing skills, many fine prints get exchanged only infrequently. He is talkng about the masses but reflecting really only on his own very singular position. I think Pedro gives a more balanced view of what is happening in digiworld.</p>

<p>Scott:<br>

I think it is a mistake to assume he is mad at the world. I share his implicit disdain for what passes as art these days. But, perhaps I am reading more into it. A fine black and white darkroom print has more intrinsic value than the very best inkjets, in my opinion, and I think this is what he is alluding to. For example, Picasso posters may be had for as little as $30; a hand pulled lithograph, signed by the artist, has far more intrinsic as well as monetary value (and is arguably far more beautiful to behold).<br>

Jeff:<br>

"While most youth lack the experience and wisdom, they make up for it in exuberance"...<br>

Perhaps I am misunderstanding this statement. I fail to see... never mind.</p>

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<p> never mind.</p>

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<p>OK, now I understand why you like Lyon's essay so much.</p>

<p><em>"A fine black and white darkroom print has more intrinsic value than the very best inkjets"</em></p>

<p>A fine black and white darkroom print has NO intrinsic value. It has the value that the photographer and the viewer is willing to put on it. Same for inkjet prints and screen images. </p>

<p>"moronic youth"</p>

<p>Said the "old fart", lol. Why should <em>they</em> care about his silver-gelatin prints, or about making their own, when he seems to be talking about non-photographers mostly. His attachment to a photograph's tangibility - to the material world - is not that much different than the i-generation's attachment to i-pods and i-phones, etc...as vessels for their 1's and 0's.</p>

<p>It's a romantic view though.</p>

<p>It's fun to see the oxen Lyon gored. :-)</p>

<p>Maybe some will remember his life-threatening participation in the Civil Rights movement, and his affectionate embrace of blue-collar youth/biker culture. Not mere "street," wonderful though that can sometimes be...he committed bravely to central things and took deep risks, particularly in the South. Admission of strongly held personal values is too-often crushed by kumbayah.</p>

<p>As for asserting his PRINT SALES success... I don't understand what's wrong with having a personality and pride, but I do understand how jealousy can warp perceptions as well as motivate. Maybe...just maybe...the cosmos is rewarding Lyons for his good works. Maybe someone jealous of Lyons will use that unpleasant feeling to step up to some unknown plate to earn similar rewards.</p>

<p>Money: Lee Friedlander is deeply and successfully in the photo-book business. A recent one was shallowly contrived, but his nudes and portraits were fine surprises: bigtime financial successes by a print-making photographer. Should he wear rags to appease folks who can't afford his books (like me)?</p>

<p>The work of Bruce Davidson,the famous Canon 5DII-shooter, is featured with Danny Lyon, Garry Winogrand, Lee Friedlander and Duane Michals in that 1966 Social Landscape book I cited in the OT.</p>

<p>Also, note that Lyon didn't say anything negative about "youths." He commented on the prevalence of morons, and a dominant aspect of contemporary culture.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>Good grief, watching a puppy get hit by a car is more pleasant than listening to him.</p>

<p>I look at all the youth in Iran during the 2009 election and how they communicated using phones with text messages and twitter feeds. Maybe our own civil rights movement would have happened earlier with better communications technology.</p>

<p>Walt, I don't think "pleasant" is the central goal of all photographers, but it certainly is for some.</p>

<p>Our Civil Rights movement was suddenly rocket-propelled when Mitchell 16mm camera with its long-roll magazine supplanted short roll Bolex for news film shooters...just in time for Bull Conners and his kin, and their fire-hose, dog, and club attacks on peaceful demonstrators in 1963. Prior to the emergence of that Mitchell there was little extended television coverage of oppression in the South...much like today, when what we see are mostly clips (in other words journalistic technology is worth damned little if an audience can be sufficiently dumbed down).</p>

<p>

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<p>Maybe some will remember his life-threatening participation in the Civil Rights movement, and his affectionate embrace of blue-collar youth/biker culture.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>That hardly excuses the incredibly elitist views he now holds. In fact, who cares, that's when he was young.</p>

 

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<p>I don't understand what's wrong with having a personality and pride</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Successful people don't usually spend a lot of time using it to justify their criticism of everyone else. It's just more elitist nonsense. Frankly, I'm surprised you buy into it.</p>

 

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<p>I do understand how jealousy </p>

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<p><br />I don't see anyone being jealous. Quite the opposite, the last thing I want to do is be the kind of person that calls a kid a "moron" for listening to headphones on the subway. I'm much more jealous of Pedro Meyer because he is so able to accept change at a very late age, and write about it in an articulate way.</p>

 

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<p>Should he wear rags to appease folks who can't afford his books (like me)?</p>

</blockquote>

<p><br />Nobody suggested anything remotely like this. This is a ridiculous response.</p>

 

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<p>The work of Bruce Davidson,the famous Canon 5DII-shooter, is featured with Danny Lyon, Garry Winogrand, Lee Friedlander and Duane Michals in that 1966 Social Landscape book I cited in the OT.</p>

</blockquote>

<p><br />And that's relevant?</p>

<p>I thought the article was entertaining and flat out funny as hell ! Some people take things way too seriously and seriously need to get their panties out of their crack.</p>

<p>Jeff, you're getting pretty worked-up.</p>

<p>The relative jealousy you admit, Meyer Vs Lyon, is a good sign: You can see, you're heart's still beating :-)</p>

<p>I don't think a Civil Rights photo hero or any other highly regarded and historically significant photographer needs "excuses" (or your permission?) to report strong observations and feelings today.</p>

<p>And I'm surprised to see Lyon attacked for being older than he was 50 years ago.</p>

<p>As to your "question" about "relevance" (was that intended as abuse?): Davidson, Friedlander, Winogrand, Michals...and Danny Lyon...are genuinely and equally elite ( I admire what I've seen of your work as well...you're "elite" in my book, even when name-calling).</p>

<p>There's usually a lot of jealousy in calling someone an "an elitist" (one of Limbaugh's favorite curses). Elitists are often one's betters.</p>

<p>John:<br /> could not agree more...<br /> except about Jeff getting worked up...<br /> After all, the Mamiya 7 images haven't started popping up to illustrate his points yet...</p>

<p>regards,<br>

your friendly neighborhood certified, card carrying elitist.</p>

<p>facing ones irrelevance, whether finely clothed or not, can be a tough proposition.<br>

i photograph with headphones on. quite an enjoyable experience.</p>

<p>It reads as if Danny has a very bad case of "You kids <strong>GET OFF MY LAWN, NOW</strong>!". He's only a year younger than I am and I know the symptoms. They need to be resisted or one does indeed become totally irrelevant.<br>

I will admit to feeling a bit sad that instead of finding old albums and shoe boxes full of negatives, slides, and prints future generations will find old digital media they can't read. I'm delighted someone held on to some old prints of me and my mother for sixty years so that I might see them one day. </p>

<p>I suppose oil painters of the 19th century must have been complaining about the impermanence of the printed photograph too. To argue against progress and technological change is mortality based. He seems to be running out of birthdays and trying to grab on to anything that reminds him of <em>his </em>youth and <em>his </em>place in the sun. The fact that modernity and life is passing him by is sending shivers up his spine.</p>

<p>It's amusing to read geezers sounding like geezers when objecting to Danny Lyon's thoughts :-)</p>

<p>I wonder if many here have actually spoken recently to many college students? I've been amazed by the blythe ignorance of any recent history, the basics of scientific method, and lack of more than one language. "In my day," as we say, the kids did have some capability in those realms. We argued and read about various important things as we staggered barefoot through the snow to our distant classrooms, after milking our morning milch cows.</p>

<p>It tells the story when someone compares "modernity" (iPhones etc) unfavorably to history-moving commitments, as Lyon made to Civil Rights. It tells a similar story when someone is "delighted someone held on to..old prints" yet, at the same time, suggests no intention to do the comparable thing for the next generation.</p>

<p>I agree that the print is probably going to prove more permanent than most of the digital files. And I don't feel DL is somebody I'd enjoy hanging out with for a meal or a day. Otherwise, the article didn't punch any buttons on me in any direction at all.</p>