Has there really been progress in photography? Reflections upon viewing the works of Käsebier, Stieglitz, and Steichen.

[charles_h2]

<p>In this day and age, the very nature of philosophic thought is esoteric. Only a small group will ever care. I, and I'm sure many, are mostly concerned with the progress one makes once they pick up a camera, until they put it away for good. Techniques come and go. Tools come and go......</p>

<p>Steichen writes, "Photography is a medium of formidable contradictions. It is both ridiculously easy and almost impossibly difficult. It is easy because its techinical rudiments can readily be mastered by anyone with a few simple instruments. It is difficult because, while the artist working in any other medium begins with a blank surface and gradually brings his (their) conception into being, the photographer is the only imagemaker who begins with the picture complete. His emtions, his knowledge, and his native talent are brought into focus and fixed beyond recall the moment the shutter of his camera has closed".</p>

<p>The larger the field, the more difficult it becomes to separate the weeds from the grass. With 6 billion+ people on this planet armed with cameras and computers, it will take time for the old school and the new to fully appreciate the meaning of dedication...because in the end, the dedicated always rise to the top, and they are the ones who belong there.....</p>

<p> </p>

[AJHingel]

<p>Some dislike quotes, but I find them sometimes timely.<br>

When discussing progress in art, it might be relevant to turn to how artists have answered the question on progress in arts.<br>

Georges Braque participated in developing three new creative modes of expression in painting: <a href="http://0.tqn.com/d/arthistory/1/0/-/z/cdc_nga_2010-11_77.jpg">Impressionism</a>, <a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-ldsZ0jGEVYg/SAZwRTU6JFI/AAAAAAAAE54/QysvSQEXcns/P1170090.JPG">Fauvism</a> and <a href="http://www.friendsofart.net/static/images/art3/georges-braque-fishing-boats.jpg">Cubism</a> so he should know someting about the subject.<br>

He said the following about progress: </p>

 

<blockquote>

<p>The progress in art is not to extend its limits, but to know them better</p>

 

</blockquote>

<p><br /></p>

[luis_g]

<p><strong>Phil Hardy - </strong>"The larger the field, the more difficult it becomes to separate the weeds from the grass."</p>

<p>I disagree with the classification wording and the thought. It depends on who's doing the separating.</p>

<p><strong>Phil - "</strong>With 6 billion+ people on this planet armed with cameras and computers, it will take time for the old school and the new to fully appreciate the meaning of dedication...because in the end, the dedicated always rise to the top, and they are the ones who belong there....."</p>

<p>So...this is simply a matter of dedication, and some kind of natural selection, and they just "rise", like true believers at the Rapture heavenward? If I had a penny for every dedicated artist I have seen that never made it...and some times it takes a whole lot more than that. Would it be too presumptuous of me to assume that the author sees himself among the er..."dedicated"? Worse, the whole idea reeks of entitlement. You can be dedicated, self (and family and friend)-sacrificing, maniacally laborious and still not ever glimpse the top.</p>

[Landrum Kelly]

<p>Well, Luis, perhaps we can at least say that dedication is necessary but not sufficient for producing anything of lasting worth in any field.</p>

<p>--Lannie</p>

[luis_g]

<p>I would agree with that. Dedication (or more likely obsession) is almost required, but it's not enough by its lonesome self, and certainly no guarantee of anything. There aren't any.</p>

[charles_h2]

<p>Luis..<br>

I'm not that concerned that we agree. I think you know what I mean. This is a photography chat room, and my comments are about photography. My dedication comment should have been more specific, in reference to all the different shooters discussed in this post.</p>

<p>Reaching the "top" could be another point of discussion. Many of them, as well as other artist, didn't receive acclaim until well after their departure, but dedication was a part of their resume. As far as this "author" being among the dedicated. I am. Will I rise to the top? That remains to be seen. The goals are not the same for all. There are many who are dedicated without any desire to reach the top, and those who have their own definition of what the top means...</p>

<p>The top I was referring to, was a body of work that future generations would still consider relevant. A goal Luis...something to shoot for. Does this not require dedication? If you know another way, I'm all ears......</p>

[luis_g]

<p>Read my reply to Lannie above.</p>

[charles_h2]

<p>Thank you...now give me my hug :)</p>

[Landrum Kelly]

<p>Where is Julie Heyward when we need her? I have a hunch she gives better hugs than Luis.</p>

<p>--Lannie</p>

[charles_h2]

<p>Yes.<br>

Luis is right about the use of definitive statements. It surely wasn't my intention to suggest that dedication is the only way to the top. I really was trying to address the talent mentioned in this forum, and I should have said so. It is a common point or factor, that I have found in the work of all those that I admire. </p>

[luis_g]

<p>Sure, Phil. >>>>hug<<<<. </p>

[mjferron]

<p>Progress is a given. Take any art (or even sport for that matter.) You'll find someone is always building upon the ideas or achievements of those who came before them. Do you really think I could be famous with Weston's Pepper today if he didn't shoot it first? I would probably get 5 comments on a critique site tops. And then forgotten. :)</p>

[Julie H]

<p>Lannie, you can't bring me in as designated hugger unless you (as manager) designated me as such before the start of the game. On the other hand, I believe I am permitted to pinch hug.</p>

<p>Every picture (every thing) is perfect just as it is until and unless you assign to it some instrumental purpose. If/when you do assign it some such instrumental purpose, that purpose then becomes the ruler against which you will measure its progress. This can be tricky when that "ruler" is moving (and pinch hugging).</p>

<p>How do you measure "... the great interests of man: air and light, the joy of having a body, the voluptuousness of looking"? [-- <em>Mario Rossi</em>]</p>

[luis_g]

<p>Welcome back, Julie! Pinch hugging, hmm...</p>

<p>One often measures against the shifty rubber ruler of memory and experience, and that seems tied to natural brain function. What happens next depends on how we use & look at that measurement.<em><br /></em></p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p>

[Landrum Kelly]

<blockquote>

<p>How do you measure "... the great interests of man: air and light, the joy of having a body, the voluptuousness of looking"? [-- <em>Mario Rossi</em>]</p>

 

</blockquote>

<p>Julie, you saucy tart! My thinking is this: pinch-hugging is allowed. Hug-pinching is a no-no, but I am open to being corrected.</p>

 

<blockquote>

<p>Every picture (every thing) is perfect just as it is until and unless you assign to it some instrumental purpose. If/when you do assign it some such instrumental purpose, that purpose then becomes the ruler against which you will measure its progress.</p>

 

</blockquote>

<p>It seems that you are insisting that I actually do some honest thinking again. I think that the "instrumental value" of a picture (if we may speak of such) must always be assessed against what the goal was in taking it. If it was intended to be an aerial photo showing hidden missile silos, then I suppose that it is "valuable" to the extent that it does that, not the extent to which it realizes some esthetic purpose. If the picture was meant to be merely a souvenir/memento, then surely a snapshot will suffice. If high resolution was the point, and the shot is blurred, then the shot is a failed shot--and we can measure its deviation from what we wanted to achieve by counting line pairs per millimeter.</p>

<p>The problem, I think, is that, once one starts talking esthetics, one is no longer speaking of instrumentality, and I suppose that that is your point. Esthetic value (in its pure form? do I dare say "pure"?) does not exist as an instrument to any other end besides itself and so is almost invulnerable to measurement and comparison. If this is true, then cancel the entire thread--or let me at least cancel the original question, although not the way that others have wanted to rephrase it.</p>

<p>I am increasingly of the opinion, since I posted the question, that it is the very timelessness of the esthetic that is its great strength. It resists invidious comparisons. It resists categorization as well, though we keep trying.</p>

<p>The problem from a purely human perspective with any valuation of anything that was originally designed as a means to some end is that it sooner or later will be judged for the value that inheres in it. In 1976, I adjudged myself to be thirty pounds overweight and began running three days a week in order to lose weight. I lost the thirty pounds within a year, but I kept running for years for the sheer joy of running--and for the elevated sense of well-being that I felt after running. Someone has said that we human beings tend to make ends of our means. That which is ostensibly to be evaluated purely instrumentally (sex for procreation comes to mind, at least according to the Church) comes to be valued in and of itself, or for its expressive and esthetic content.</p>

<p>Can we counterpoise the "instrumental" against the purely "expressive"? Is the "expressive" that which esthetics is about in the first place? Since expression is such a personal, private thing, perhaps that is why we tend to resist not only categories but evaluations, especially those that insist upon measures of "progress" or "superiority" or some such.</p>

<p>(I am beginning to get a glimmer as to why Luis, Fred, and others recoiled so strongly against my original wording. I shall have to go back and read the Sonntag thread.)</p>

<p>Now, as for pinch-hugging, are we talking instrumental <em>qua</em> therapeutic, or purely expressive? It could affect my valuation of the entire sport, which I do not fully understand but am willing to try. I do try to keep an open mind.</p>

<p>--Lannie</p>

[Landrum Kelly]

<blockquote>

<p>"You don't understand. I'm a man."</p>

<p>"Well, nobody's perfect."</p>

 

</blockquote>

<p>Thank you for that one, Fred. Perhaps that will get me through what promises to be a very long and hard workweek.</p>

<p>--Lannie</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p>I find perfection and the notion of perfection stultifying.</p>

<p>An aesthetics which must lack instrumentality often feels somewhat barren to me.</p>

<p>My photos are both instrumental and aesthetic. They are not perfect nor were they ever nor are they trying to be.</p>

<p>Walker Evans. Dorothea Lang. Instrumental. Aesthetic.</p>

<p>Even Weston's pepper. Why separate its instrumentality from its aesthetics?</p>

<p>Read through many of the critiques on PN, especially where other photographers are trying to "improve" the work of others. These photographers are working toward a misguided standard of perfection, one pre-conceived. The photos were not perfect before other photographers started re-envisioning them and they won't be perfect afterwards.</p>

<p>There is beauty in flaws. Aesthetics is more about beauty (beauty, not pretty) than perfection. </p>

<p>Nothing is purely expressive. Nothing is purely anything. That's the beauty of it.</p>

[dhbebb]

<p><em>I think that the "instrumental value" of a picture (if we may speak of such) must always be assessed against what the goal was in taking it.</em><br>

Most pros would agree: A good picture is one that fulfills its intended purpose. This is the ONLY valid judgement criterion.<br>

<em>Read through many of the critiques on PN, especially where other photographers are trying to "improve" the work of others.</em><br>

In the pro world, people assume your pictures look the way you want them to. They will judge them only on the basis of the principle mentioned above (they might also state their personal opinion, but will be quite ready to pronounce work good even if they don't personally like it).<br>

The worst mistake amateur photographers make when criticizing the work of others is to draw on a (usually very limited) set of paradigms inside their own heads and, if the work they are criticizing does not match these, dismiss the work and begin to explain to the photographer concerned how they have done everything wrong and are stupid for not making pictures like the ones the critic makes.</p>

[Landrum Kelly]

<p>Yet, yet, once in a while someone learns from someone else's take on a photo, as manifested in a "redone" version posted on a forum. I rather like to have persons have their own tries at mine, although most of the time they seem to miss what I was after.</p>

<p>Fred, did I miss something? When did "perfection" creep into the conversation?</p>

<p>As for "expressive" v. "instrumental," I think that it is related to the distinction "intrinsic' v. "extrinsic." If I take a photo for money pure and simple, then the photo has no intrinsic value for me, although it might for the one who purchases it.</p>

<p>There may indeed be no such "perfect" dichotomy, but dichotomies are only more or less useful, I think, not "true" or "false." I find some utility in the distinction between the "expressive" and the "instrumental." I have not claimed perfection in such distinctions.</p>

<p>I am reminded of Gilbert Ryle's statement that "Philosophers are typically guilty of making too few distinctions rather than too many." (approximate quote) I think that the quote appeared in <em>Plato's Progress</em>, which I read in 1972. My memory could fail me on that one, as on so much after so many years (and sometimes as to what was said or done yesterday).</p>

<p>This is a great conversation, but I am going to have to leave it for awhile. . ..</p>

<p>--Lannie</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<blockquote>

<p>Every picture (every thing) is perfect just as it is until and unless you assign to it some instrumental purpose. --Julie</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Lannie, this is where perfection crept in.</p>

<p>And it's where the suggestion that an instrumental quality or assertion somehow undermines this perfection (aesthetic perfection?) came in as well. It's what I'm rejecting.</p>

<p>_______________________</p>

<p>An academic or theoretical dichotomy is fine (though increasingly compromised as philosophers have figured out other ways of articulating and approaching these questions and issues), but it's well to recognize that dichotomies and distinctions are often ONLY theoretical. In reality, distinctions are not as clear cut as they seem when they are separated for analysis. Instrumentalism and aesthetics can be separated theoretically and analytically but NOT in practice. Once that's understood, it actually becomes harder to even separate them theoretically. Vocabularies and grammar change accordingly.</p>

<p>I'd replace or at least supplement Ryle's view with both Wittgenstein's and Rorty's, both of whom see the folly in many traditional Western dichotomies, and along with many other mid- to late-twentieth-century philosophers have taken great pains to relieve us from the default position toward dichotomies we've adopted, mainly since Descartes, or at least relies that those dichotomies are language games and not ontological.</p>

[scott_norville]

<p>Jumping in late, I know. I did read most of the pages, though...<br>

There was mention of "define your terms". To discuss "progress" in any sense (qualitative or quantitative) it would seem that one of the first things that would be needed is the scale you are using. As a medium of artistic expression, I don't think so: I doubt Brady or Steichen or Weston (any of them) or Adams or Strom or <strong>me</strong> has any more (<em>or less</em>) feeling of personal satisfaction in their expression and creativity. What other measure of <em>ART</em> is there? I also doubt that appreciation, by the viewing/dialoging audience, has changed much, as that could really be the only other rational measure for art.<br>

Other measures: technology is ruled out, and I doubt earlier photographers spent that much more time regretting the limits of their equipment than we do regretting the lack of neutrino sensitivity in ours.<br>

Prices: have certainly progressed<br>

Volume: as well<br>

Technical acumen of the photographing population: probably lower than ever before, but has probably fallen with each new innovation that makes it easier to take pictures without have a clue. Fuming mercury, anyone?</p>

 

[thomas_k.]

<p>I have a problem with use of word "progress" in context of culture. I do not believe there is such a thing as "progress" in art either. I think term "change" is more appropriate.</p>

[luis_g]

<p><strong>Fred - </strong>I also find the ideal of perfection a straitjacket. Had that read "fine as is", "valid", etc. I could have agreed with it. On aesthetics and instrumentaity, I agree. On purity also.</p>

 

<p>___________________________________________________________________</p>

<p>Lannie, I have seen that people do learn about technique and other things from "improved" photo-critiques. But what they learn is useful for the future. The picture they've taken loses its gestalt with the changes suggested. Not because they were perfect to begin with, but because they were (imperfect, flawed and) whole and theirs.<br>

____________________________________________________________________</p>

<p><strong>David Bebbington - </strong>"Most pros would agree: A good picture is one that fulfills its intended purpose. This is the ONLY valid judgement criterion."</p>

<p>If there's one criterion, and it's internal to the maker, then there's little to talk about.<br>

_____________________________________________________________________</p>

<p><strong>Scott Norville - "</strong>I doubt Brady or Steichen or Weston (any of them) or Adams or Strom or <strong>me</strong> has any more (<em>or less</em>) feeling of personal satisfaction in their expression and creativity."</p>

<p>I would be willing to bet that it's likely not true. From personal experience in directly speaking with hundreds of artists, it varies greatly from person to person. The personal experience of art is not identical and universal. It varies.</p>

<p><strong>Scott - "</strong>What other measure of <em>ART</em> is there?"</p>

<p>Oh, I don't know....there may be one or two.</p>

<p><strong>Scott </strong>- "Technical acumen of the photographing population: probably lower than ever before, but has probably fallen with each new innovation that makes it easier to take pictures without have a clue. Fuming mercury, anyone?"</p>

<p>I disagree. People have <em>different </em>skills than they used to, but overall they are far more hands-on and involved than they used to be in the days of the 1hr lab. They're more involved and technically savvy than ever.</p>

<p> </p>

 

[scott_norville]

<blockquote>

<p>The personal experience of art is not identical and universal. It varies.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Exactly my point. Any given artist is ecstatic, despondent, indifferent, or not. Progress? No. Each is different, minute to minute.</p>

<blockquote>

<p><strong>Scott - "</strong>What other measure of <em>ART</em> is there?"<br>

Oh, I don't know....there may be one or two.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>There may be. But a pretty universal definition of art is what we create when we have no other material need, besides the need/desire to create/express. All else is <em>craft</em>. Art and style evolve. Craft progresses. Examples: across millennia and incomprehensible cultural change the paintings in Lascaux remain moving (and for many, more expressive than much "modern art"). And talk about "archival". On the other hand, compare sunbaked mud to Wedgwood to truly modern ceramics that I can't even pronounce.<br>

And as far as skills go, even more people now who just push the camera button on the cell phone than ever before... What minor fraction (besides those here) can do more than click the "red eye" tab? I think the ratio of capable amateurs to casual dilettantes remains rather low.</p>