Photography's Return to Painitng

[cyanatic]

John -- Per the link below, the Weston quote is "Photography -- Not Pictorial" from Camera Craft, Vol. 37, No. 7, pp. 313-20, 1930

 

http://www.jnevins.com/westonreading.htm

 

I hope I have not given the impression that I have an axe to grind where Weston is concerned. (In retrospect, arguing against an aesthetic opinion which he may or may not have had is probably a foolish waste of time...although it can stimulate discussion.) My knowledge of him is derived from this book here, that critical anthology there, a website over there...etc. I'm looking to expand my library -- any suggested book(s) dealing specifically with Weston? You've piqued my interest. If I'm going to spout off about a dead man, perhaps I should know a bit more about him, eh? ;-)

 

I have wandered through the M.O.P. website, mouth agape, quite a few times. I need to take a look at that DVD. Cheers, Steve

[jtk]

Steve, I've just started to read your Camera Craft article...wonderful stuff...thank you.

 

"Have we not had enough picture making?more or less refined "Calendar Art" by hundreds of thousands of painters and etchers? Photography following this line can only be a poor imitation of already bad art."

 

..Edward Weston

 

Don't know what EW would think, popping out of the grave in 2007 to confront Photoshop. I suspect he'd hate it but love our keypads, outdoor reverence, and wimmen. And I'm certain he'd be disappointed in our overall limited literacy and poor writing skills.

 

Daybook II was my bible from the late Sixties. Then I drifted away from photography as well as Weston. After I came back to it, my girlfriend gave me fresh Day Books I and II (a less funky replacement for the old one). A fine writer and serious thinker, he consorted with poets, dancers, genuinely dangerous revolutionaries, the wealthy (Bender for example) and lots of women, knew poverty...not too many of us seem to reach that far out of our little caves these days.

[jtk]

...by the way, I like the small dramas and gestures in your images.

[philip__b_temple]

I doubt anything is going to return to what it was. Even if people wanted that, there

seems to be something in our individual and collective psyche not allowing return. If we

were returning to something painterly in photography, i think we would find the various

filters in Photoshop "in the manner of....[this or that painter] to be quite popular and we'd

be using them frantically rather than holding them in disdain.

 

When i review my mental cataloques of oil painting, water color, or photography history, i

think the art i remember and am impressed with most from antiquity onward is the artist

exploring something in a new way; not necessarily with a new gadget or gimmic. But he

was willing to study something over a long period of time and learn from it and about it.

From his learning he was able to express something fresh, even tho he was painting

poppies in a new way, as they had always been pictured in a new way for

thousands of years. And so photos and paintings of poppies have evolved.

 

Sometimes we think a picture of something we haven't seen before is quite fresh material.

But i feel it often is an old pictures of a new things. I've often wondered what the world

would think of St Ansel if his photography had of necessity been confined to land east and

north of the Hudson River. I think one would have to conclude differently what Ansel's

contributions to photography were ? his real contributions.

 

Photographic art, no matter how polaroid, no matter how instamatic, no matter how digital

will continue to involve the old blood, sweat, and tears stuff that leads to new

understandings. From what i see, painters are struggling with all this just as much as

people clutching new digital cameras. What i hope i sense is that we digital pilgrims are

turning to the old masters to see what frame of mind they must have held that make their

photos or paintings something other than the posters and posies pictures we so often see

and our society is turning out in huge quantity now. We may be ready to return to our

files and contact sheets and sketches to see why these few things we did were good, and

why all the rest could be easily scrapped. Do our standouts have anything in common

with the great classical attitudes our admired predecessors held ? Can we wrestle with this

and come up with something Olympian and soulthirst-quenching? Personally, i'm

counting on it.

 

Phil Temple

Pepperell, ma

[kristina_kraft]

Photography that imitates paintings of an old masters is quiet in fashion at movie makers. There is popular movie "Girl with pearl earring". Now all scenes and photographs imitates Vermeer's style. I like it a lot. And I was amazed with the photographs. So golden bright, innocent girl-made with such a beauty and light that reflected on her. Just perfect moments. The town, the village were represented in a Vermeer's manner. For me, it is progress in photographic world.