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Photography Is Dead. Long Live Photography


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<p>A must-read article by Peter Plagens appears in the <a

href="http://www.newsweek.com/id/73349">Dec 10th issue of Newsweek</a>. Although the subject of

the article has been "beaten to death" both on this site's forums and elsewhere, Plagens' article still

manages to give an easy-to-read and well-balanced overview of the photographic issues that surfaced in

the digital age. I especially enjoyed his comparison of what has happened to photography recently to what

had happened to sculpture three-four decades ago. In Plagens' words, "... now 'sculpture' can indicate a

hole in the ground as readily as a bronze statue." My only question, if I have any, would be: Why did it

take so long for photography to become what it is now?</p>

 

<p>Plagens' conclusion that "The next great photographers?if there are to be any?will have to find a

way to reclaim photography's special link to reality" is also quite interesting to me. Does this mean that

documentary photography will claim a privileged position in the medium? Or will the debate on "what is

real?" continue?</p>

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"Sculpture did the same thing a while back..."

 

Yeah, like 1913? He must have missed Duchamp's series of "ready mades" starting in 1913.

 

I suppose, if you've never studied art or photography this distorted view of both might be...somewhat informative.

 

He ignores non-reportage photography (of which there are many examples throughout the history of photography), apparently because it would blow his thesis of what photography "should be" as viewed from the top of his gopher mound, looking through the wrong end of the binoculars.

 

"Later in the 19th century, "pictorialist" photographers used soft focus, toothy paper, sepia tones, multiple negatives and even scratching back into the image as ways of getting photographs to look more like paintings."

 

Not even close. When I read statements like this, it makes me wonder if he's even bothered to consult an art history book, much less a history of photography book where an historian has take the time to research and (most importantly) document the information contained. This is pure speculation (and not accurate) on his part.

 

The remainder of the article is equally as riddled with speculation - all in support of his extrememly weak thesis that photography is tied to reality.

 

With a just a little researh, anyone can turn up exact quotes from early photographers debating this exact point and most stating that since the photographer is choosing the point of view, subject, etc. - there is no correlation between the final photograph and "reality."

 

Of course, I'm not surprised at this. Reportage and "accuracy" occupy exists in the same space as photography and "reality."

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"As gallery material, photographs are now essentially no different from paintings concocted entirely from an artist's imagination, except that they lack painting's manual touch and surface variation."

 

It's about time they were decoupled from the myth that they should, as works of art, be seen as anything but that. The time-worn acceptance that a photograph bears a special obligation to realism (except when recording news or in a forensic role) was to a degree supported by the extraordinary darkroom skills required to convincingly transform a negative into a fantastic print.

 

All that's really changed in the sixty years I've been making pictures is the ease with which one's vision can be transformed to a finished work of art. By virtue of that facility, photographers' imaginations and range of expression have been unleashed.

 

Rather than question whether there will be any more great photographers, the author should be in awe of the potential for them that's been created by the growth of technology.

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Plagens is raising a loose question that may appeal to a segment of the magazine's broad, casual readership. That's the magazine's job.

 

It's interesting, good, that a highfalutin' question like that seemed appropriate to the editor. Time used to do a good job in its Arts space...I only look when in the dentist's office. The New York Times is a very good common place to look for significant ideas and critical writing, and its letters-to-editor serves as powerful corrective. Thinkers read that, talk-show-enthusiasts denounce it :-)

 

There's plenty of accurate reportage if one cares. A readership's reading skill and breadth is the issue. One doesn't look for accuracy at TV, or at popular magazines, with the exception IMO of The Economist.

 

Dance and opera are as relevant to Plagens' "hole-in-ground" as is photography, by which I mean that they're at least as relevant.

 

History of photography seems barely relevant at all to Plagens' point, though I accept that it's marginally relevant to today's photography (I'm paying more attention to pictorialism but I consider Weston contemporary :-).

 

From the beginning most photographers (and viewers) have felt photos represented "reality." A great deal of painting has also been understood as "reality"...eg. the paintings commissioned by the "Founding Fathers" of the signing of this country's earliest documents.

 

"Reality" is the primary pursuit of zen practitioners. It's their central goal...not vague or weird, like it is to caffinated people like me.

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...incidentally, painters today deal almost exclusively with reality. A Chuck Close self-portrait is 99% paint and 1% Chuck.

 

http://calendar.walkerart.org/canopy.wac?id=1528

 

Chuck's portraits look photographic, which makes them less real than Duchamp's 100% real Nude Decending Staircase.

 

http://xroads.virginia.edu/~museum/armory/galleryI/duchamp.nude.html

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<p>Hey hey, boys, calm down. Who are you to rabidly jump criticizing/attacking the

article without offering any concrete references or support to your thining? Nothing

Plagens says is untrue. As a matter of fact, his is probably the most unbiased article on

the subject I have seen in a while.</p>

 

<p>@John K:</p>

 

<p>So, dare I to infer from your phrase, you somehow privilege film over digital? And how

about the issue of framing? Reality is a 360-degrees sphere with no borders and

continuous time.</p>

 

<p>@Steve:</p>

<p>> in reponse to "Later in the 19th century pictorialist... " // <i>Not even close. When

I read statements like this, it makes me wonder if he's even bothered to consult an art

history book, much less a history of photography book.</i></p>

 

<p>Care to give me concrete references to those art history books you've read, preferably

with excerpts/quotations?</p>

 

<p>@Dick:</p>

 

<p>> <i>photographers' imaginations and range of expression have been

unleashed.</i></p>

 

<p>And what use do we have of all this "imagination and range of expression?" Overdone

HDRs with halos? Cats and dogs sleeping together?</p>

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Caffeine! Now, John, I can put so much of your writing in proper perspective. Having just traveled to Italy, I'm re-discovering the wonder that is caffeine, and have several more wide awake hours each evening to contemplate it. Um, and to answer questions about remote triggering of SB-800 strobes, apparently.

<br><Br>

More to the point, though: I've had several buyers/commissioners of photographs expect from me <i>true</i> accuracy in my photography. What they want is complete fidelity, in the final displayed work, to the utterly non-real image of the subject they have in their head. That "really perfect photo" of so-and-so or such-and-such would seem to be judged by many as such because it resonates with what they want to see, or because it shockingly jars them from how they think they've been seeing it/him/her all along.

<br><br>

"You really captured it!" can sound like praise for technical accuracy, but it seems I should always translate it to "You really produced a photograph that makes me feel like I want or need to about the subject." Accuracy and reality and photography and <i>people</i> are a big, maleable lump of goo that we get to roll out into a 2-dimensional finished product. It's amazing how well it can work, sometimes, and in ways that have nothing to do with an audience's relief that we've kept things connected to reality.

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Matt, you've hit the nail on it's pointy head. Ideas like these aren't addressed directly.

 

Eugene, I take it your 360 degree reality sphere runs on solar power, mounted on the back of a giant tortoise? I thought definitions of reality were passe' centuries ago...

 

As for film Vs digital, my film becomes digital, but winds up doing something tangible to paper if I like it enough...same as my limited digital.

 

Reality isn't digital (no-thing is digital), and digital is less real than film because...hang onto your hat...you can't TOUCH it.

 

If you are aware of zen, consider the mat, the stone or flower or leaf, the tea, the breathing and physical discomfort. Those are real, not records of anything...digital or otherwise. I'm aware of those things from memory, but I'm too lazy to deal with them. As the moment, my reality involves electronic junk, a swivel chair, a monitor, a view of a the Rio Grande's bosque, a mountain range, and thoughts about lunch.

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"Care to give me concrete references to those art history books you've read, preferably with excerpts/quotations?"

 

Certainly Eugene - but rather than me doing the heavy lifting for you (I really don't want to spoil the thrill of discovery) how about you participating in your own edumacation?

 

Pick up some history of photography books, and at least one art history book - that way you can make up your own mind about Mr. Plagens sad little tome without my interpretation of the information.

 

1. On the Art of Fixing a Shadow: 150 Years of Photography.

 

2. History of Photography 1839 to the Present (Beaumont Newhall)

 

3. World History of Photography (Naomi Rosenblum)

 

To put that in context --

 

Try Janson's "History of Art" - and don't cheap out and buy the "short history" version...you really need the unabridged version.

 

When you've waded through all of that, there's still more for your reading list, but that will certainly get you started.

 

I've have more than 50 credit hours of art history...including two courses on the history of photography taught by Beaumont Newhall.

 

I've had art history from prehistoric to renaissance,

art history - renaissance to modern, western art history, the history of print making, Chinese art history, photographic art history, graduate level courses (my favorite, "problems in aesthetics" - you'd have to be there for that one...) - so, it's not exactly like I'm making this stuff up.

 

 

But again...I'm probably viewing all of this through my own unique "filter" - and I think you should have the opportunity to do the same...

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"In Plagens' words, "... now 'sculpture' can indicate a hole in the ground as readily as a bronze statue."

 

Ever been to the Vietnam memorial in Washington, D.C. ? Some people accused that of essentially being a hole in the ground once. It is easily the most emotionally stirring monument on the mall. It is far more emotionally stirring, aesthetically provoking, and intellectually engaging a piece of sculpture than the "representative" bronze statue on the inside of its angle.

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"Steve, how about this?"

 

Some interesting books, the Clarence White book for one, and the Photo Secession as another. However, without understanding the Linked Ring, the reason for Stieglitz's creation of the Photo Secession would make no sense. You also have to understand the European society that gave rise to the Linked Ring.

 

So, you have three areas that need to be understood and weighed against each other - traditional fine arts, photography, and society.

 

You really need the broad overview of the history of photography put into the context of the history of the "fine arts" (painting, sculpture, printmaking) and the social influences that affected the arts.

 

Janson's book deals with classic arts, with little to do with photography - but, that's the reason for having the book. Conversely, Newhall's book deals strictly with photography with scant discussion of other arts or social influences - again, a purist's view of the subject and perfect as the opposite of Janson.

 

In the middle is "On the Art of Fixing a Shadow" that relates photography to other arts and societal influences throughout it's growth.

 

Lastly is the, "World History of Photography" that puts the American / Euro centric view of photography into a perspective of a world wide history.

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<p>Getting back to the topic -- are you denying the existence of pictorialist photography?

Or are you suggesting that pictorialists did not use soft focus lenses, etc.?</p>

 

<p>If we both accept that pictorialist photography existed (I really don't think you can argue

that it didn't), how can you say that Plagens ignores non-reportage photography? Was

pictorialism reportage?</p>

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<p><i>Plagen's article contains misleading information...</i></p>

 

<p>How is making a point by using pictorialist aesthetic as an example misleading? Isn't <a

href="http://jlztl.byus.net/tt/976">The Pond - Moonlight</a> by Steichen a representative

of a certain aesthetic that was more prevalent from late 19th to early 20th centuries than it is

now? If not, I'm all ears.</p>

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"Misinformation," famously through selection of factoids, has always been the fuel of history books.

 

Demands that one must read particular texts to relate to someone else's thoughts initially seem bizarre and are certainly schoolmarmish.

 

But in a way they make perfect sense: we're not talking about photographs or "art," or even photography after all.

 

We're gyrating around an inconsequential magazine article, automatically accepting a random author's "art" frame of reference rather even than expressing our own ideas. For example, is that hole in the ground "art?" How is that noun relevant to anything 2007? Does any photograph have anything in common with a bronze sculpture?

 

This thread shows how words remain our medium of choice, the medium to which we resort when we deal with ideas, despite our inadequate writing skills, incoherently bombastic thinking, and our possession of the latest, easiest photogizmos.

 

 

Photography never has captured "signs of times" as well as written media...

 

...and it's been slipping even more recently, especially following the onset of convenient 16mm film sound cameras (for example).

 

Today, amateur videos of rioting in Paris suburbs on Youtube blow photo coverage away...if you disagree, prove it with links:

 

(a random example)

 

Still photography is an antique medium, insignificantly advanced since Matthew Brady's time. That doesn't take away from it's beauty, inherent merit, or our pleasure in it, it just establishes context, scale.

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<p>> <i>Today, amateur videos of rioting in Paris suburbs on Youtube blow photo

coverage away.</i></p>

 

<p>Sure they do. That's exactly why photography as we know it from photojournalism is

dead.</p>

 

<p>> <i>Opinions don't have to be proven, they just are. Links illustrate, they prove

nothing.</i></p>

 

<p>True, opinions don't have to be proven and links are only illustrations. However,

illustration is a part of the proof. If I were interested in unproven opinions, I would be

standing on the street conducting polls. I am interested in opinions with illustrations,

which is exactly why I posted on this forum.</p>

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Links (and subjective experience of ourselves and others) come closer to "proving" than any argument ever will.

 

Science "proves" hypotheses only by providing unreasoned evidence.

 

Scientific "proof" never confirms anything absolutely, it merely stacks up the evidence and leads to believable operating conclusions.

 

Logic is used to guide research and to infer operating conclusions from evidence, but the power's in the evidence, not in the logic.

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