Wrestling with the concept of "Straight" Photography

[Norma Desmond]

And, of course, as I said, there are many visually imaginative photographers who would see a bunch of wires as well. Because, after all, that's what's there even when we imagine more.

[Allen Herbert]

"Because, after all, that's what's there even when we imagine more "Fred

 

But is it not all about the imagination or is there some other secret factor?.

 

.

[Norma Desmond]

Supriyo, thanks for those step-by-step responses. They clear a lot up and I better understand you now.

[Uhooru]

Supriyo said

"Again, never said or implied the pipeline is art. I said, the pipeline has certain aesthetic features also found in artworks. That doesn't have to raise it to the level of art, the same way it doesn't have to be put in the same category as beehives and birdnests.

"

 

I think the Bechers would agree with you.

[Julie H]

side observation unrelated to the is/isn't argument being carried on:

 

Artists can lose "it." I can think of a bunch of photographers and many more painters and sculptors, whose work later in life pretty much sucked. One of the commonest failings of their poor later work is that they were seduced by their craft, which they did not lose; which craftsmanship in fact became better and better to the point of owning the (former) artist.

[Norman 202]

That something has the aesthetic features found in art is one thing. That something was made with art and aesthetics in mind is a whole other thing

i like that last bit. although producing art can be as mundane (and rewarding) as producing beautiful things (crafts), the artist has to believe he's adding something new.

Edited July 16, 2017 by Norman 202

[Norma Desmond]

Don't know about that, Norman. Plenty of artists didn't add something new so much as add something heartfelt and/or personal. When something is deeply personal, it's genuine, and I don't think it matters much how new it is. Genuine emotions are felt by artists and viewers/listeners alike, often because those emotions are as old as the hills. I don't think art requires novelty. I'd say, very little art offers something new, even in terms of the things being made, except to the extent that anything that wasn't there before is new, in which case producing craft has that same newness. Most artists are part of an evolving school or style, working pretty closely with the aesthetic sensibility of the time, being carried by such a wave rather than waving their magic wands and creating day and night. For the most part, artists are links in a chain. To me, seeing it that way takes nothing away from art. It just provides a holistic context, which I think is real. There are a few profound artists who did something truly new and either broke or started a new chain. They are the exception. The difference between art and craft, I think, does not lie in originality. I do think many artists believe they are doing something new. I also think many artists believe some things they probably shouldn't! ;-)

[donald_miller5]

I would just say that the pipes were laid in an orderly fashion to make maintainence easier. He did not go to extraordinary efforts to make them look like that, be was just doing what was expected and probably had a schematic on paper to follow. If this is the case would the diagram also be considered to have aesthetic qualities. Reminecent of old tube electronic devices and kits. The wiring was planned out ahead of time so one could trace them and looked similar to this. I also think of this in terms of industrial photography which many great photographers dabbled in.

[Julie H]

Craftsman can find ways to be expressive. This is the (famous) story behind the C.F. Martin "Joan Baez" signature model prototype guitar:

 

She had always used her Martin 1929 O-45. When she sent the well-worn guitar back for refurbishment in 1996, Martin repair people noticed that the words "Too Bad You Are A Communist" had been scrawled on the underside of the top. When Joan heard this, she was at first surprised, then amused. She supposed it had been done by a repairman years ago who disputed her politics. When the O-45 was replicated for a 1997 edition, a backwards label bearing the same slogan was adhered to the inside of the soundboard so that it could be read with an inspection mirror. In concerts to follow, Joan has enjoyed telling this story.

 

[story copied from here.]

[Norman 202]

Don't know about that, Norman. Plenty of artists didn't add something new so much as add something heartfelt and/or personal

Fred, i am more than happy to be proved wrong on this and would like to know what artists you had in mind.

[Supriyo]

Donald I agree. Any aesthetic features found in the layout of the pipes comes from its efficient design rather than from the electrician going the extra length to make it more aesthetically pleasing like Supriyo seems to be saying.

 

It is quite possible, since I haven't seen many such works up close. It is definitely possible that the electrician was simply doing his job and he basically is very good in doing what he does. Surely, there are aesthetic qualities in the overall job, but how much of that aesthetics comes from a schematic diagram vs the craftsman's choice is up for debate, without seeing more examples from other craftsmen. However, I suspect, David is more knowledgeable than me in this and I tend to weigh in his judgment on the discussed subject.

[Supriyo]

That's always fun. Walking around in the giant old steel factory of Duisburg, Germany I felt like a kid in Disneyland. The visual possibilities in such a place are infinite and yet the subject is clearly defined.

[ATTACH=full]1198869[/ATTACH]

[ATTACH=full]1198870[/ATTACH]

 

Phil, these came out quite nicely. Each one shows a different scale, or organ of a eviscerated dead monster. The irregular pipes look like intestines to me. After Barry Fisher mentioned the Bechers, I was going through their work. Here is one of their photos of the same location showing a different scale than yours.

 

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/ff/24/65/ff2465f6857d1b8ab6fed5923d2d8e75.jpg

[Supriyo]

Supriyo, thanks for those step-by-step responses. They clear a lot up and I better understand you now.

 

Fred, thank you for your last detailed comment. It made me analyze, and clear up some of my thoughts that were obviously not reflected in the way I wanted.

[Supriyo]

Phil,

Besides the scale, one difference that I noticed between your photos and those of the Bechers is the perspective. Bechers almost always use architecturally sound perspective with parallel lines, while you have used converging perspective and for that reason, your photos look more in the territory of the monster. They tend to show more of their inner structure and the associated emotions, discomfort, entanglement, invasion, may be seduction. Becher's photos show more of the topology of their subjects and their relationship with the surrounding space. Thanks for sharing! Great work.

[Norma Desmond]

Fred, i am more than happy to be proved wrong on this and would like to know what artists you had in mind.

I'll give a few ways I think it works. Not sure this can or should be proved. Just a way to look at it.

There are a lot of composers who wrote Romantic music, which was something "new" following the Classical period. Beethoven bridges the two eras nicely, though he's not typically considered a Romantic composer. He even foreshadowed Impressionistic music in some of his late piano sonatas. So, when did Romanticism become new? If Beethoven was already the bridge, how new was it when Tchaikovsky, who followed him, became known as one of the icons of Romanticism? Chopin, Borodin, Brahms, Liszt all composed Romantic music. It wasn't really new for all of them so much as they all brought individual personalities to what had taken over the music world. I guess I could say they added new things with a lowercase "n" but the New thing, with a capital "N", Romanticism itself, may not be able to be located to a specific or individual person or moment. I would probably say Beethoven, though, was an original to the max. He's kind of a towering figure, an apt adjective as his music is often talked about as being "architectural," a description I love.

There's Picasso, who really did the New with a capital "N". Rare, IMO. I saw a great exhibit a few years back at the Whitney about all the copying, imitating, influence, homages, and inspiration American artists did in relation to Picasso. Sometimes quite direct stealing. Was it Picasso who said, "Good artists imitate, great artists steal"? By steal he meant making it their own, but still not necessarily so new, IMO. Jasper Johns, I remember, had dozens of examples of variations on particular works of Picasso. Again, these American artists were all individuals (though steeped together in an aesthetic and cultural milieu), but I think it's what they gave to their art personally (and personality-wise) that seems more important than the "newness" factor.

Then there's Gus Van Zandt, who remade Hitchcock's Psycho word for word and shot for shot. Strange, not so new, but somehow it works! I think you have to have a lot of guts, confidence, and appreciation for Hitchcock to do such a thing.

Edited July 17, 2017 by Spearhead

[Norma Desmond]

[The type in my prior post looks very big on my iPad. Sorry, am away and posting in a different way from my usual. And this is software programmed with that unique PN flair! ;-)]

[Supriyo]

In photography, HCB and Robert Frank's approaches are different, where HCB's decisive moment aspect is absent in Robert Frank's works, which are less of concrete moments and more about the cultures and emotions of an ongoing era. Yet both those works capture urban and rural life from the streets as part of a big 'N' of 20th century photography.

[Allen Herbert]

There's nothing new under the heavens or earth ,Supriyo.

 

Just our discovery of it and our individual way of looking at it.

 

Which is not so original as its formed of multiple layers from those who walked before us.

[Uhooru]

That something has the aesthetic features found in art is one thing. That something was made with art and aesthetics in mind is a whole other thing. The latter doesn't necessarily follow the former especially if the former is more about a way of looking at things than anything to do with the thing itself.

Hmmm. Yes, that makes sense.

 

Here's an interesting quote from a paper on the Bechers by Blake Stimson from the Tate that addresses this:

"

Art and industry, thus, stand opposed in the Bechers’ work in a manner different from, even contrary to, their Machine-Age forebears: put schematically, their project is one of aestheticising industry rather than industrialising art. This, it might be said, is the other leg of postmodernism in their work, the way in which it engages in the play of signification with diminished concern for its attachment to some properly material reality. This is also the way in which it plays with and transforms the Neue Sachlichkeit[ legacy of documentary photography with its ‘socialistic view’, its core critical materialist mandate of author-as-producer reportage."

 

So I think that means the Bechers weren't concern about the functionality or technical historical meaning of the structures. They just thought the buildings of that era and type had certain interesting aesthetic qualities and that is what they were documenting. I don't think it mattered what the intent of the designers were aesthetic or sculptural just that they were artistic in themselves. I know they were concerned that the buildings were being destroyed and they wanted to preserve them in images. I think the Bechers themselves were interested in creating a visual comparison of structures by the manner they photographed and presented the photographs.

 

Stimson goes on to quote the Bechers:

 

‘We want to offer the audience a point of view, or rather a grammar, to understand and compare the different structures’, they have said, ‘Through photography, we try to arrange these shapes and render them comparable. To do so, the objects must be isolated from their context and freed from all association.’"

 

So I think this again dovetails into the area that Phil was talking about.

thoughts?

Edited July 16, 2017 by Uhooru

[DavidTriplett]

Well, my conduit image generated more intense conversation than I imagined it would. Perhaps some background: I was in the process of making documentary photographs of my project. I was also looking for opportunities for interesting and aesthetically pleasing photographs of architecture and construction details. I have shared a few of these previously, but none are singular or extraordinary. (The building itself is an interesting piece of architecture, but that is for another thread.) In the electrical room, I was struck by what was to me an obvious and possibly extraordinary effort on the part of the electrician to imbue the esoteric with creative life through application of craft and imagination. I took a number of purely documentary photographs, but I also wanted to make an image that communicated my emotional response to the craftsman's work. I do not suggest my image is truly artistic or aesthetically outstanding, but it represents my visual response as a photographer to my emotional response as an architect. The photograph is representational of something that is concrete, and through the means and methods of photographic representation it is an attempt to communicate something more than a simple documentary condition. In this case it will be more meaningful to those who have knowledge of the conditions being represented.

 

Because so much of my professional work is related to industrial-type facilities, I have a certain predisposition to seeing aesthetic opportunities in otherwise purely esoteric assemblies. There is an entire school of design aesthetics relating to "vernacular" buildings. In any case, going back to the Roman aqueducts, Gothic cathedrals and Shinto temples, up through the Industrial Revolution, the Modern Movement, and continuing today, expressions of engineering necessity as aesthetic architectural components has a long and well developed history. Photographs of such features can range from the purely documentary to the abstract, with every creative variation that the photographer can conjure to make an artistic statement or communicate feelings or perceptions. These photographs can be solely about the subject (for documentary purposes), or the subject can simply be a disembodied element in the photographic composition. In the end, the photograph, any photograph, is a two-dimensional representation of the photographer's idea, subject to interpretation by viewers based on their own knowledge and experience.

 

It is likely true that a creatively seen and made photograph of a terribly disordered pipe installation could be more engaging, interesting, and artistic than what I have offered.The examples offered by Phil and others certainly are. That is not the point. The image I offered is simply a minor creative response to what I felt was an unusually thoughtful, even aesthetic response to a very esoteric requirement. The Golden Gate Bridge is generally considered a beautiful object. The things that make it beautiful, to whatever degree it is, are the essential engineering forms of the catenary structure, developed in response to strict engineering requirements, and NOT the few decorative details (though they don't detract). There are a whole range of photographs of the GGB, some lovely, others boring, and some that are unhandsome (to be kind). Whether a photograph of the GGB is lovely or not has far less to do with the subject than it has with the photographer.

 

I have more thoughts to share, but I'll have to come back later...

[Wilmarco Imaging]

Fred, I am on board with the examples you gave of "New" and "new".

[Uhooru]

Creatively seen? hmmmm how bout "Godzilla vs. the Guardians"

Untitled by Barry Fisher, on Flickr

[PapaTango]

Dang boys, this wrestling match sure is long. Has anyone won yet?

 

Here is a 'straight' shot of my office--the studio is at the very top. Just me and the pigeons. Drop on by anytime for a mate. Bring your own bomba and smoking materials.

 

Nutz, I have to switch over to Chrome. This stumbling turkey that is PN won't let me upload in FireFox anymore...

[donald_miller5]

Then again there are structures or constructs when photographed can have aesthetic qualities and the are structures that from the initial design stage are meant to have aesthetic qualities. In one case it is the photographer who brings out the aesthetic qualities as opposed to the architect who make the aesthetics integral.

[Norma Desmond]

The Golden Gate Bridge is generally considered a beautiful object. The things that make it beautiful, to whatever degree it is, are the essential engineering forms of the catenary structure, developed in response to strict engineering requirements, and NOT the few decorative details (though they don't detract)

David, I think part of most people's sense of the beauty of the Golden Gate Bridge, certainly my own sense of its beauty, are its surroundings. I think its resting on the bay, between the San Francisco cityscape and the Marin Headlands, greatly influences whatever beauty is felt for this beloved bridge. I think that's important because I think, often, perhaps most often and perhaps even always, beauty is not judged in isolation.

 

I'm thinking even of the physical beauty of people I know, which often seems to grow or wane as I get to know their personalities. Even when I say someone is physically beautiful despite their personality, I think their personality is influencing them as physical object.

 

How many times have I decided where to hang a photo by saying to myself, "It looks better here than there." While that's partially a statement of WHERE the print looks better, I think it's partially a statement of how the object itself is changed by lighting, by perspective it's seen from, by what it looks like relative to other colors and shapes around it and the quality of the particular space within which it resides.

 

My sense of the beauty of the Golden Gate Bridge changes when it's a cold foggy day and the towers peek out above the white billowing thickness of the atmosphere instead of standing more steadfastly over the blue water on a warm, sunny day. I lived in Marin County, north of the bridge, for a couple of years, but have lived on its southern end in San Francisco for most of my life. Part of its physicality changed for me for those couple of years when I saw it more often backed by the city skyline than by the rolling hills.

 

I'm not denying the beauty of the design itself or of the engineering feat in its design and form, just suggesting that its beauty is a lot more than that, IMO. Naturally, it will be seen differently by an architect than by a commuter stuck in traffic on it every morning and evening who may actually curse it as ugly at times, and I think we can all be somewhat objective in isolating it to some degree from all these context-driven considerations, but I'm not sure we can ever divorce it fully from the many contexts in which it presents itself to us.

 

[Mind you, I don't think you're trying to so divorce it but I just wanted to add some important considerations I think are at play in assessing the beauty of objects.]

Edited July 17, 2017 by Norma Desmond