Telling trivia from truth.

Landrum Kelly · October 23, 2010

Thanks for comments on the picture of the blue house that I posted. I had passed the house hundreds of times without even noticing it, and one day I noticed it (October 7) and the next day (October 8) I went back and photographed it--on the way to photographing the dogs by the fenceline on the farm, as well as the barn photo (my intended destination for the day). I don't think that I would have made so much as a trip across our small town to photograph this house. I was willing to stop for five minutes, once I had the camera and tripod in the car on the way to shoot something else.

Given the garish color, I am sitting here wondering how I could have not noticed this house previously, but perhaps that also is a testament to the banality of the subject: it is otherwise so ordinary (apart from the color, that is) that it does not attract attention to itself. It is on a short-cut that I take when trying to get to the interstate to go to points north and east, such as Greensboro or Durham or Chapel Hill, and it is remarkable only because it almost immediately adjacent to a very nice part of town with huge homes on the oldest country club around (not my neighborhood).

Fred is right to call the photo of it "blatant." The tight crop emphasizes that sense of "blatantness," although the reason for the tight crop was that everything around it was a mess. Including the rest might have given it a bit of context, but nothing interesting. Being originally sized to fit the screen also emphasized a sense of blatantness, I suppose, though that was not my point. In fact, there was no particular point to be made in shooting it. Even so, somehow it captured my attention and then my imagination. Unfortunately, to the extent that I might have some kind of photographic imagination, I would be hard pressed to defend that claim with this photo.

John, perhaps the color could sell some paint, but only if one likes the result--and I rather doubt that paint companies would want this photo or this house associated with their products.

I took the picture because it occurred to me that, ordinary though the house was, perhaps it was worthy of note, sort of like the soup can that must have inspired Warhol's painting. The house's thoroughly trivial or ordinary appearance is shown by the fact that it could escape my notice for so long. Once noticed, at least in the afternoon when the sun bouncing off of it makes it almost impossible to ignore, one cannot help but see it again--it is set back about ten feet from the sidewalk. It is there. In some sense, it even seems to scream, "I am HERE. I exist." No one cared. That has not changed that I can tell. The photo of it will share a similar fate. This is as much fame as either the house or the photo of house is going to get. I am unfeeling at that prospect.

I'm really not sure why I took the shot. I submitted it here only because in some way it seemed a good example of the trivial and the banal. In fact, it is so thoroughly uninteresting a subject that I wondered to what extent something's lack of interest might be a defining attribute of the banal--or is the uninteresting nature of something only a contingent, not a necessary, ingredient of its banality?

So, the question that I am left with is whether the banal is typically associated with that which is uninteresting. When photographers or painters do abstract the banal from reality and put it center stage so that we are forced to notice it, what are they trying to tell us or show us?

Thank you for enduring both the photo and the post(s).

--Lannie<div></div>

Julie H · October 23, 2010

Bzzzztt!! [i feel like I'm on a game show: Name That Thread!! -- whoever gets it right wins a new refrigerator!]

How about this? In the socio-political-personal-emotion weave of life -- the great Brillo pad in which we are all embedded -- if you can snip it out and flush it and nobody misses it, it's trivial. On the other hand, if you remove it and people start to cry or point and giggle or call the repair person, then it's "meaningful." [please hand me the Sani-Wipes]

[Edited to add: I posted at the same time as Lannie. I like his blue house.]

Landrum Kelly · October 23, 2010

I was beginning to wonder, Julie, and the house (not to say the photo of it) was probably a bit hurt. As for myself, I was feeling like I had been instantly gonged before I had scarcely started my song and dance.

Feel free, guys, to cite the house or the photo in the literature. You may even call it "The Banal Blue Abode" if you wish.

--Lannie

jtk · October 23, 2010

The house is significant to Lannie, otherwise he would not have both photographed and shared it. It's out of keeping with the earlier, standard-issue old barns. To me it's far more "bountiful." When I see old barn photos I think "hobbiest photographer" and when I see wildly painted houses I think "maybe this has some potential."

It might be more "bountiful" if, as Fred and I suggested, it was part of a coherent group, sequence, portfolio etc. As it stands, solo, it really does look like an ad for paint. It's certainly as "tasteful" as "Jeffersonian " faux-mansion "architecture." I've seen a lot of houses like this in places like Newfoundland and backwoods Southern USA. That "look" is powerfully attractive to the right market segment.

In an earlier era they would have had washing machines on their front porches and orange Plymouth Roadrunners on what might have once been gardens. That house needs an orange Roadrunner. <a href="http://rides.webshots.com/photo/1086344104047076720YrgGam">http://rides.webshots.com/photo/1086344104047076720YrgGam</a>

aplumpton · October 23, 2010

"I have understood that the question related to "truth" had been somewhat withdrawn"

Anders, you are right, it was in the first and second sentences of the OP.

You are using also Luis's example of "Connoisseurship" (which I like to sometimes mispronounce as something tonally similar to "Comeworship") in regard to the photos of Elliott, Ronis and all as being references of "significant","meaningful", or "bountifully expressive" images.

But it isn't enough I think to just say they are, because the C's or CW's have said so, but you as a viewer should have a go at defining why they appear to you as significant, or we are thrust into in the realm of "The Emperor's New Clothes". There is a lot of me-too-ism in photography and art that the art professors like to promulgate, or that the mindset of a past generation took to be great, but which the art or photography world might be a little beyond at present. I am not knocking the fine works of the past, but think we owe it to ourselves to personally evaluate what are or are not significant works. I am less pessimistic in finding very fine and significant works here in Photo.Net. I have seen a number that move me as much as some of the "classics", although not within categories (like POW) of the more visible entries.

I would have thought the photographs of more trivial or banal nature (e.g., sunsets that are virtual copies of others) are also easy for each of us to (albeit if only subjectively) qualify, as to whether an image moves us, or not. I first looked at Lannie's blue building photo and thought it of the definitely banal type. I didn't say it, as I usually have to have something I personally like if only a little bit to move to criticism (that is, ability to praise a part and suggest that the rest may not be contiguous with that). But now I am not fully sure, as it does arose some interest, and not just because there have been many words offered about it. Whether that additional interest is enough to move me I am not sure, bit it may not change my initial impression of disinterest. That is not the case for many of Lannie's other photos.

In short, I would suggest that any examples of well-known or not well-known images be accompanied by your personal evaluation. In that way, praise or rejection need not be obfuscation, but a measure of how you discern the qualities of either. There may not be a common consensus at all, but the types of appreciation (positive or negative) may elaborate on what trivial and significant mean. So far, I think Fred has used and define the word or phrase like "ability to move me", to which we might add the words why and how?

Which brings me to comment "When I see old barn photos I think "hobbiest photographer" and when I see wildly painted houses I think "maybe this has some potential." This is a very categoric, generlized and "collimated" as view, which you may well also apply to other subject matter in photography.

I guess someone can submit some nice colorful real estate photos and reap praise?

Julie H · October 23, 2010

Geez, John. Lannie didn't photograph "the house." He photographed the living baby-blueness that made it so.

Landrum Kelly · October 23, 2010

This thread could benefit from some examples, in my opinion--better ones than my blue house photo.

There is something about the banal and the trivial that seems obvious enough, and yet, when one tries to conceptualize the issues, those issues are remarkably hard to formulate and address in the formal language of philosophy and art criticism.

Sometimes my feeble mind needs something a bit more concrete: how about posting some examples, guys? Two levels of abstraction away from reality is hard for my old brain to process today.

--Lannie

Landrum Kelly · October 23, 2010

By damn, John, that is one fine orange Plymouth roadrunner in your post of 4:50 p.m. I want one for my front yard, whether with wheels or up on concrete blocks I care not. The white-painted tractor tires that I am using for flowerbeds need something else in order to succeed.

Perhaps someone from Florida will send me a plastic pink flamingo--or at least a photo of one.

--Lannie

aplumpton · October 23, 2010

In part to please John, because AT LEAST with this image he is right about images of old buildings being trivial or banal. The shingles initially amused me, and had I photographed them differently, in less dull daytime light, or in specific close up. I might have made a more interesting image. As it was, being a fixed focal length lens user and distant from my kit, the latter was out of reach.

I place this image in the trivial category for the following reasons:

<ul>

<li>Unless you are a roofer or protector of old fishing buildings, this won't move you;</li>

<li>As mentioned, there is no particular quality to the photographic approach, lighting or attempt to create tension, emotion or other;</li>

<li>The subject is not particularly interesting for most;</li>

<li>There is no mystery or enigma, surrealism, immaterial statement or context that a viewer might relate to.</li>

</ul>

Yes, some will contradict that appraisal, but it is my subjectivity that leads me to consider it trivial. Therefore, for me at least (ignoring any thoughts of the roofer) IT IS.

Such images are not difficult to classify in the banal category. Fine images are somewhat harder. There is no point I think of putting up one's own star image, as it would just receive gratuitous positive as well as negative critique, which is the nature of and not the force of PofP (that force currently resides in the useful verbal exchanges).

However, if someone can decompose the image of one of our historic greats, that would be useful and might establish some of the parameters we use in deciding what is significant as opposed to banal.

cyanatic · October 23, 2010

Having read what all of you have posted, I don't want to pound over the same ground.

John: Touche'. Two Roma and a bass were too much for my virtual herd. You are safe. And banal v trivial...yes, a distinction.

Anders: "the institutional art-community type of criteria that makes some photos being highly priced and others unsellable."

There is something to be said for the...what? "validity"? "recognition"? that is bestowed upon a photographic work when hard cash is laid out for it by the community Anders mentions. I'm talking about purchases by museums, major auction houses, galleries, universities...not someone who might lay out $100 at a local arts and crafts fair. Purchases made by institutions and individuals who could be said to possess Luis' "connoiseurship".

Arthur: "Luis suggest a meatier word "Connoisseurship". It should be remembered that those claiming to be cognoscente or "critical judges" have historically missed the boat on many artists and movements. Connoiseurs seem to have little trouble in determining what is valuable within their chosen milieu with which they are most familiar, but are sometimes without oars in other waters. I agree that educated critiques are to be listened to, and learned from, but "Connoiseurship" can have its limits and can also become simply "Comeworship" (a paradigm that is not absent in the reverance saometimes too easily attributed to some former photographers)."

Arthur, errors of judgment, or the unquestioning acceptance and elevation of a cultural meme, style, fad -- whatever we want to call it--always happens. But I don't think connoisseurship is always an agent of faddish snobbery. In terms of photography, I think significant perceptual shifts were midwived by Stieglitz, Szarkowski and others. My impression is that most posters here are far better informed in terms of art history, criticism, movements, actual experience of the art world, etc. than I am. In that sense I only speak for myself when I say that I have struggled at times with keeping an open mind about certain styles or specific images. So, lately, I have been trying to understand first, to ignore initial "likes" or "dislikes". In the absence of knowing something about a photographer, sometimes all I can do is describe what I see and hope it leads to some kind of understanding. This general approach to photographs applies equally to that which might at first seem trivial or banal. So I suppose that is my response to your initial question of how "I" make a determination.

I like Fred's listing of parameters, particularly the notion of "Voice" and body of work. There are many examples, but what sprang to mind was a thread (started by John, I think?) regarding Tanyth Berkeley's work "special ones". As individual photos they might not have sparked much interest and seemed less than technically accomplished. As a body of work they stood up differently, regardless of ones final "judgement" of their significance.

Luis spoke of some aspects of this discussion distilling down to "how do I make a great photo". That certainly may be a part of it, but for me there is a distinction between how "I" make a "great" photo, and how I determine if a photo I am viewing is great (I prefer "significant" since "great" seems a bit over the top.). Education, exposure, reading, studying, photographing, utilization and development of film as well as digital, making prints, ...all of these may give one a greater level of "connoisseurship" with which to determine the latter. They can only contribute to the former, as well, but the eye, and the instinctual knowledge required...the growth of certainty and faith in one's eye and instinct...luck? gift of the gods? All one can do is do it, examine the results dispassionately, and learn...and keep going.

AJHingel · October 23, 2010

Arthur, you're getting near to one of the fantasies among us when it comes to our individual abilities of judging the quality of a photo. We have all our guts feelings when we sap among photos and can sometimes after some reflection, maybe, conclude on which photos we like and which we dislike and reject as trivial or just not worth our attention. Some among us are proud to announce that we can do it in a fraction of a second. I'm sure, as we have seen, we can also each of us elaborate on the Why. Whether we "owe it to ourselves", as you write, to do that effort or not is irrelevant, in my opinion, to what we discuss. The question is not each one of us, and our comfort levels and personal ambitions, but whether a PHOTO is "trivial" or not - not whether I or you find it trivial or not. This is why I found your questioning about "less subjective criteria" interesting and something different from what normally have our attention in these threads.

What are then such "less subjective criteria" ? One way of approaching an answer to such a question would, ads I suggested, to try to understand why certain photos seem to play out the historical role of icons in the history of photography. Playing such a role, could be one way of identifying non-trivial photos, that I would believe we can agree upon. Many other non-trivial photos exist and might be in our own portfolios, but what I suggested was to concentrate on some handpicked examples of those few icons.

The photos I gave links to above might be such photos. I could also have chosen to upload a photo that clearly is not going to be such an icon and ask the question: Why not? It might be a lousy snapshot, but what is trivial about it? (see below).

If I should suggest some of these less subjective criteria looking at the photos I linked to, I think I would start situating the photos in the historical context where they first earned their characteristics of icons. Erwitt and Ronis are both good examples of photographers that make the viewers smile with a certain ironical touch and able to express the romanticism of the early post-war period that also films of that period are characterized by. They are photos that might not teach us much about the world, but they mirror certain cliches that we appreciate recalling through photos. They are light and entertaining. Such "criteria" might just be some of the less subjective criteria of the photos of the two photographers I by chance picked. Other criteria could certainly be added by viewing iconic photos of for example Capa, Lange, Weston, Avedon - you name them!

(This is written before having seen Steve's contribution above)

aplumpton · October 23, 2010

"Erwitt and Ronis are both good examples of photographers that make the viewers smile with a certain ironical touch and able to express the romanticism of the early post-war period that also films of that period are characterized by. They are photos that might not teach us much about the world, but they mirror certain clichés that we appreciate recalling through photos. They are light and entertaining."

Anders,

it delights me that you present the work of the post Stieglitz and Szarkowski periods in the manner you do. Erwitt, Ronis, Cartier-Bresson and many others are of the time you mention and their iconic images are examples of the state of the world at that time, and for many a simpler, unassuming and romantic time that has since disappeared with but a few minor exceptions. What was significant to the readers of "Life", "Paris Match", "The London Illustrated News" or Condé Nast has metamorphosed into something different today.

What is significant today is not entirely the same as then. Listen to one of the archived and charming late 1940s or 50s radio broadcasts and you will note the dislocation between these periods. It was a nice time, but nice times are not timeless. What is significant in photography today relates to such things as the mindset and receptivity of of the population or (especially) that of the contemporary museum directors and other cognoscente. The less subjective criteria they may apply in choosing your work is not based upon traditional criteria and not on the work of Ronis or Cartier-Bresson or Gary Winogrand (yes, they will run those exhibitions, of course, but that is in large part due to the time delay between the acceptance of new art and the continuing run of what is popular art in the imaginations of the public). If you are working in the present it behoves you to be yourself, but also to be as advanced in concepts as the contemporaries and not saddled to the past benchmarks of what constitutes significant photography. Significant photography is a moving target in my opinion, just as yesterday's art may be charming and still draw crowds, but real evolution in art requires originality and not the ability to undestand and copy past references.

One criteria that I apply in judging significance in photographic work is simply that, the exhibition or not of originality by the photographer. The landmines appear in the former of clichés (subject matter, approaches, adherence to past styles or forms, past techniques, etc.). What is different about the new work? Does it move you in some new and partly unexpected way?

luis_g · October 23, 2010

Arthur - "Luis suggest a meatier word "Connoisseurship". It should be remembered that those claiming to be cognoscente or "critical judges" have historically missed the boat on many artists and movements."

Arthur, knowledge and experience do not confer infallibility. That's an absurdity reserved for Popes, demigods, and Gods. The thing to remember is that all mere men are not equal. Some know more about certain things than others, or have greater experience, insight, etc. Everything is not equally distributed. Everybody knows something.

Arthur - "Luis, it may sound trivial, but I welcome late breakfasts like the charms of silences or repeated themes in music. Unhurried. Enjoy."

Thank you, Arthur. After a long day with friends, and managing to get in a few pictures, it's a perfect ending to a great day.

_____________________________

Steve - "Luis spoke of some aspects of this discussion distilling down to "how do I make a great photo". That certainly may be a part of it, but for me there is a distinction between how "I" make a "great" photo, and how I determine if a photo I am viewing is great (I prefer "significant" since "great" seems a bit over the top.)."

I would agree with that distinction -- and submit that there's a heavy link 'tween the two.

Steve - "...ones final "judgement" of their significance."

The Fat Lady never really sings on these things. No matter how much you know, how many photographs, portfolios, shows and sites you see a month, how many photographers, critics, gallery owners you talk with, etc., if you have an inkling of what it is to be human and the meaning of humility, you know you have blind spot(s) and that there's a chance something could be so far ahead of its time, that as Herbert Marcuse said, it would be invisible. In the history of photography, including our own time, it's happened. For all we know it is probably happening right now. One clue, historically, is that those things usually (but not always) intensely disturb experts, particularly those that read them wrongly. They almost always elicit strong reactions, not yawns, and that's one flag to keep an eye out for.

_________________________

Anders - "Many other non-trivial photos exist and might be in our own portfolios..."

Or in our reject files. Often photographers aren't so good at editing their own work, and no, I am not suggesting that they shouldn't, because that's an integral part of the process. But it's not a bad idea to let a 2nd pair of trusted (and ruthless) eyes sift through our trashpiles. As with the work of others, sometimes our imagination gets ahead of our own capacity for understanding, ahead of our own time. I've seen many photographers, myself included, react strongly (negatively) to some of these images. Years later, going back to see how a great idea was leaking into our workflow, out of left field.

________________________

cyanatic · October 23, 2010

However, if someone can decompose the image of one of our historic greats, that would be useful and might establish some of the parameters we use in deciding what is significant as opposed to banal.

</blockquote>

I have a hard enough time deconstructing a photo, famous or otherwise, let alone "decomposing" it. ;)

"North Wind" the barn. What am I seeing? A dilapidated barn with falling shingles in midafternoon light. A 3/4 view with a hint of horizon at lower right. Other than that there is little frame of reference for its surroundings. Rural, certainly, and as to be expected from such a structure. On its own, hard to say what the intent was (pretending I know nothing of the photographer or what they've said about it). There is a harsh quality to it, both in terms of what the barn has undergone, and the quality of the light in which it was photographed. Decay, abandonment, sadness perhaps. In a larger sense it could stand as a metaphor for the decay and abandonment of a way of life, a period of time. But this would be better served if this was a series of such structures in a body of work which made that point more clearly. Or, I can shrug and say it's a picture of a barn with the bottom part cut off and leave it at that. Which is it?

Anders, "no title", the b&w street scene. A fence at night, some type of framed ads? photos? reflections? apparently a number of them, receding into the distance..a man and woman walk away in the distance, the man carrying some bags, long shadows thrown by the street light. But the image is dominated by the (I honestly don't know what it is) framed piece. It is almost like looking through the window of a restaurant or a bus, though the head of one man is too large (it appears to give off its own reflection within the image) and there is a figure, much smaller, of a man running with a bag or briefcase. An echo of the distant man carrying the bags next to the woman? It's a complex image, which may or may not serve it. It's pregnant with meaning, or it's "too busy". It may be "trivial" or "banal" if it's too busy and unclear. It may be significant in some way if the elements of the image on the fence, and the distant couple are linked in some way. Or it is a metaphor for the complexity of modern life.

Eggelston's tricycle. A tricycle in a suburban driveway. Certainly looks banal. The merest peek of a car's front end at right seems to be waiting for an ardent critic on the PN critique forum to pronounce it as "distracting and it should be cropped out". The angle of view is from ground level, distorting the tricycle and making it dominating, almost menacing in its distorted size. "Monolithic" comes to mind and that, to me, is a large part of its appeal. Someone else take it from there...if they feel like it.

<a href="http://williamyan.com/storage/william_eggleston_tricycle.jpg?__SQUARESPACE_CACHEVERSION=1262663890039">http://williamyan.com/storage/william_eggleston_tricycle.jpg?__SQUARESPACE_CACHEVERSION=1262663890039</a>

The Fat Lady never really sings on these things. No matter how much you know, how many photographs, portfolios, shows and sites you see a month, how many photographers, critics, gallery owners you talk with, etc., if you have an inkling of what it is to be human and the meaning of humility, you know you have blind spot(s) and that there's a chance something could be so far ahead of its time, that as Herbert Marcuse said, it would be invisible. In the history of photography, including our own time, it's happened. For all we know it is probably happening right now. One clue, historically, is that those things usually (but not always) intensely disturb experts, particularly those that read them wrongly. They almost always elicit strong reactions, not yawns, and that's one flag to keep an eye out for.

</blockquote>

Yes! Seems obvious when you say it (particularly the last, bolded), but not something I had thought of.

jtk · October 23, 2010

"Which brings me to comment "When I see old barn photos I think "hobbiest photographer" and when I see wildly painted houses I think "maybe this has some potential." This is a very categoric, generlized and "collimated" as view, which you may well also apply to other subject matter in photography." - Arthur.

Please Arthur, you're the wrong guy to complain about "obfuscation." :-)

Yes, I do apply my own individual frames of reference to photography ( the P.N ratings system trains the exact opposite, therefore there are plenty of barn snaps). I value "maybe" and "potential" over studies in decaying wood and interpretive pretenses. But that's just me :-)

btw, you used "collimated" decoratively, I'll grant...but wrongly. It has very specific meaning in optics (lens repairmen do collimation), hence especially in photography (ie here).

Landrum Kelly · October 23, 2010

Eggleston keeps coming back around, and with good reason: when someone produces an extraordinary image of an ordinary subject, the rest of us are forced to rethink the concept of the banal.

Evaluating Eggleston's work presents its own challenges, as shown by the problem of determining which copy of the "The Red Ceiling" is really anywhere close to what he was trying to capture. Thus can one read his own description of it as "blood red' and then go to the Getty site, only to get this:

http://www.getty.edu/art/gettyguide/artObjectDetails?artobj=134392&handle=li

I don't think that the problem is with my monitor on this one--although I will never know for sure.

As for the tricycle, yes, indeed, Steve: "monolithic" seems to sum it pretty well, if one only gets to use one word.

This thread is not quite about either banality or trivia, Arthur. You've given us a good one.

--Lannie

aplumpton · October 23, 2010

John,

I stand tall by my statement regarding what I considered your "collimated" view, and of your simple generalised categorisation of barn photos and coloured houses. Yes, I know optics quite well from research as well as photography, but my free use here of the term was intended as an analogy for a "blinkered" view. Much of what you say I often agree with, but when you go off the rails in making simplistic statements about barn photos and coloured houses, I cannot restrain my own critical impulses.

Steve,

I hope you realise that the photos presented in this thread so far have in fact been examples of banal or trivial images, and presented as such by myself and other posters. The 3rd party Eggleston photo may say something more through its use of so called perspective distortion and the simple contrast of an elephantine presence of an otherwise very small tots vehicle, but it hasn't yet grabbed me like it might do some. Perhaps it is part of that banal art movement John was speaking of.

Hopefully, someone may take up the challenge of showing a well known third party iconic photograph and concurrently provide their analysis of it (by deconstructing or decomposing the image, or whatever term you like to use for such step by step evaluation, or any other analysis) and thereby set out a few "less subjective" qualifications for a significant image. A fairly well known 3rd party image is I believe preferred, as it will allow others to do the same analysis and perhaps even assemble some general observations about what the participants feel are important parameters in describing a significant image.

This latter challenge, at least for me, is key to this OP question. The results are coming in, aided by Fred's list and also some other points, but I hope the discussion will heat up and evolve even more so, even it requires an asbestos suit.

cyanatic · October 24, 2010

Arthur: I hope you realise that the photos presented in this thread so far have in fact been examples of banal or trivial images, and presented as such by myself and other posters.

</blockquote>

Of course. But should they automatically be treated as such? Could they not be seen, either alone or as part of a body of work, as something more? If we see the significant in the banal as presented by the well known, why do we not make the same attempt with the lesser known? Your barn was not in the same style as the Americana of Stephen Shore, but could it not be seen in a similar way as part of a body of work of rural decay? Strip away the significance that is sometimes automatically afforded the work of a well known photographer ("It's a photo by X, there must be something to it.") and maybe we can find what the underlying criteria is that makes such and such a work truly rise above its initial seeming banality.

Or approach it from the other direction. Why are some of the images that have been posted banal?

A fairly well known 3rd party image is I believe preferred, as it will allow others to do the same analysis and perhaps even assemble some general observations about what the participants feel are important parameters in describing a significant image.

This latter challenge, at least for me, is key to this OP question.

</blockquote>

This would be an interesting exercise. I attempted to begin it with Eggleston's tricycle. But I went about as far as I could. I am not a critic, nor am I a connoisseur. I would really like to hear what others see, or don't see, in that image. Or let it be some other "well known" image that might initially seem banal. It doesn't have to be Eggleston. I only chose him because his were the first suitably banal images by a well known photographer that came to mind.

luis_g · October 24, 2010

Arthur - "If you are working in the present it behooves you to be yourself,"

This sounds easier than it is. In a basic way, it is all one can ever be, but the self is not a discrete, solid entity, like a sphere, for example. It is more of an interactive, porous, living smear, range or cloud of potentials that distill, precipitate or collapse into a minimal subset in actuality at any given moment.

[This is one thing that Fred addresses beautifully, in his own way, on a regular basis in his posts]

It also behooves one to cultivate himself.

"The limitations in your photography are in yourself, for what we see is what we are."

--- Ernst Haas

If you want your photographs to change, change what you are.

Arthur - "...but also to be as advanced in concepts as the contemporaries and not saddled to the past benchmarks of what constitutes significant photography. Significant photography is a moving target in my opinion, just as yesterday's art may be charming and still draw crowds, but real evolution in art requires originality and not the ability to undestand and copy past references."

This is almost an idealized Modernist statement (saddled to the past!). Those who are saddled to contemporary benchmarks are also in trouble. The problem is not what you put the saddle on, it's being saddled.

Significant photography is not a target. It is not something outside of yourself to aim and fire something. It's not a possession.

"Real evolution" takes many paths in art, as it does in biology. Originality, believe it or not, is not required. See Richard Prince here:

http://www.gagosian.com/artists/richard-prince/

Those who are enslaved to the past are doomed to repeat it, as are those who aren't aware of it. Transformative appropriation or conceptual work is nothing new. In fact, it's mainstream nowadays.

__________________________

Fred's list was his own. Each of us sees what they are (as viewers and photographers) and thus has to work up their own ideas. [Didn't we just do this what makes a good picture thing?]

There are no lists or recipes. You have to make your own way.

AJHingel · October 24, 2010

What is significant in photography today relates to such things as the mindset and receptivity of of the population or (especially) that of the contemporary museum directors and other cognoscente. The less subjective criteria they may apply in choosing your work is not based upon traditional criteria and not on the work of Ronis or Cartier-Bresson or Gary Winogrand

</blockquote>

Arthur, I must must be dangerously bad in formulating myself. How can you believe one second that I would not agree with you that our mindsets are different from those of our parents and grandparents in the fifties when the iconic photos I referred to was pick out as non-trivial. No, Arthur, the whole point of my argument is that: here we have examples of photos that seem to have played out the role of non-trivial and I asked the question WHY? Two questionings emerge on that basis:

One which you yourself mention, but which you seem to reject: Whether such iconic photos before "here-and-now" still are non-trivial also for us and whether they are only interesting for us to show what the old days were like; or, as I would suggest, such photos have also universal value that make them travel across times, reaching us as still significant icons for us too;

Secondly, the question of what specific criteria are inherently linked to our times. As mentioned above, the main category of criteria are in my eyes related to the context in which the photos are taken (historicism) some of which become universal.

I'm convinced that the current social, economic and ideological turmoil we all are confronted to have profound influence on what criteria we currently would attribute to our times in order to identify the "non-trivial" of the decennium. It might be criteria of anomy (and then I would understand the subjective extremism that is exhibited here and there) or it might be criteria announcing that we live in a time of non-criteria: everything is trivial or nothing is.

I would personally opt for a understanding of criteria of icons that travel with us across times and linked to some elements of human nature, our social being, our hopes and fears as human beings in a social world. And on the other hand criteria that are much more rooted in an expression of the specific historical phase we presently live. Both categories of criteria are in play when identifying non-trivial photos.

Please bare in mind that I have not approach the question of how a photo travels from being a non-trivial photo for ME to become a "non-trivial photo as such".

AJHingel · October 24, 2010

Arthur, one more remark to your comments. When you write

What is significant today is not entirely the same as then

</blockquote>

it might be interesting to see what is happening in contemporary art just for the moment. I use all my available time these days in the yearly contemporary art fair <a href="http://www.fiac.com/?lg=en">FIAC</a> in Paris with almost 300 galleries and the works of some between 3-4000 artists on show - many of them photographers by the way. One impression I get, and some experts in the field have mentioned explicitly, is that geometric abstracts are coming back inspired by the 50s. Is photography happening in another world where what were made and inspired artist and viewers yesterday is not any more relevant for what is made less trivial today ? I think that a more nuanced approach is needed in the field in order to answer your basic question of less subjective criteria of the trivial/non-trivial.

I know that most of you are probably presently in your sweat dreams - so I'm debating with myself !

Julie H · October 24, 2010

This thread seems to me to be an effort to put art on a scale and weigh it for its "use" value. For its utilitarian, information (what has it done for me lately?) value.

Art does not belong on that (or any) scale. If any weighing is to be done, art IS the (or a) scale. Art is the process (or a process) of the eternal making/morphing of that scale itself.

aplumpton · October 24, 2010

Anders, "touché", a more nuanced approach is indeed desirable. I may have provoked (exaggerated) a little too much, in the interests of generating discussion, but, like you, I am searching for some novel feedback regarding what are considered by many to be significant images, and, especially, why? As I think Luis says, there are various criteria (but I am sorry, I have catch up to do on the recent contributions to the discussion, and don't want to misrepresent anyone's views, but have to take a break until later in view of local events). There is also the fact that any one image is sometimes not enough in regard to an overall body of work (as Steve mentions). Julie makes a valuable point about the difficulty of "measuring" what a work of art is. My intention in the OP is not to ask about that, but rather to better understand why specific observers and photographers (y'all) think a particular work of art or photograph is significant (or at the other end, trivial). What qualities do you see that make it rise above the crowd? I know some of these qualities, of course, but which do you (and me), as the observer of a work of art, apply in specific cases (and ones that we might all relate to - as I believe is an exercise (utilitarian if it must be) in seeing what impresses one or all).

Anders, a lucky man. Who would not love to see that Paris exhibition (or just Paris)?

cyanatic · October 24, 2010

"Real evolution" takes many paths in art, as it does in biology. Originality, believe it or not, is not required. See Richard Prince here:

<a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.gagosian.com/artists/richard-prince/" target="_blank">http://www.gagosian.com/artists/richard-prince/</a>

Those who are enslaved to the past are doomed to repeat it, as are those who aren't aware of it. Transformative appropriation or conceptual work is nothing new. In fact, it's mainstream nowadays.

</blockquote>

You are a brave man, Luis. I still bear the scars from the last time I brought up Richard Prince in this forum. Good times. ;-)

I think Julie, Luis, and Anders in a way (with his nuanced approach, a valid point) are saying, each in their way, that we're attempting to know the unknowable. Obvious, of course. I don't think any of us, least of all Arthur, really expects that we're going to come up with any kind of "target" or "scale". But the journey, the evolution of a thread, the asides and branches and digressions, can be entertaining, illuminating, thought provoking. We struggle, dance around the edges, trying to nail that damn jello to the wall.

</blockquote>

Landrum Kelly · October 24, 2010

I am searching for some novel feedback regarding what are considered by many to be significant images, and, especially, why?

</blockquote>

Arthur, I confess that,although I like Eggleston's tricycle shot (in large part because the image of the huge child toy dwarfs the suburban homes behind it), I was a bit surprised to find that he himself characterized his "The Red Ceiling" (or "Greenwood, Mississippi") as "so powerful that, in fact, I've never seen it reproduced on the page to my satisfaction."

"The Red Ceiling":

<a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.getty.edu/art/gettyguide/artObjectDetails?artobj=134392&handle=li" target="_blank">http://www.getty.edu/art/gettyguide/artObjectDetails?artobj=134392&handle=li</a>

The Tricyle shot (by whatever title):

http://williamyan.com/storage/william_eggleston_tricycle.jpg?__SQUARESPACE_CACHEVERSION=1262663890039

In other words, he found the blood-red ceiling so powerful--but also so non-reproducible--that he has thereby rendered himself invulnerable against all criticisms of it: the rest of us cannot see just how powerful that red really is. I appreciate the challenge of working with red. I appreciate the force and power that the photograph might have had for him and others.

I cannot find such great power in it myself, and that is hardly a lament.

--Lannie

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