Oh Boy, am I out of it!

[Troll]

I just had a look at this month's Digital Journalist, and there was

an article "25 under 25" of promising young photographic talent. A

photograph (with accompaning blurb underneath) was shown for each of

them. I didn't understand a single image!!! What is wrong? Am I

such an antique that I've lost the ability to interpret photographs

as they are being made today, or are the current crop of

photographers unable to present images which stand on their own,

rather than just illustrate some mundane facet peculiar to the

subject? Grump, grump, grump.

[everitt]

To each his own I guess.

 

I took a look at the photos and found some that were very interesting photos

and some that I thought were boring. Another person might have a

completely different view of this. Art is subjective and the gamut of styles and

tastes runs across a very broad spectrum.

[eric friedemann]

I agree and I don't get it either. Most of the photos look like they were taken to illustrate some fictional short story in a college creative writing review.

 

The people I know who shoot for papers and magazines tell whole stories with images. You may not know the names of the subjects or the exact locations without looking at the caption, but you understand what is going on in the photographs without having to read about the images.

[mfeetham]

Well all I can say is Thank You. Sometimes I look at images and think "What am I missing? Why does everyone think THIS is so great?!". I'm not saying the pictures are bad, I just don't get them, and I'm glad I'm not alone.

[phule]

I took a look at some of the images online. One thing I don't understand is why the B&W images are so flat.

 

http://www.digitaljournalist.org/issue0404/2513.html

 

That photo in particular.

 

Is this flatness a deliberate thing or am I just seeing the results of someone(s) not understanding how to use Photoshop Curves?

[phule]

<< why the B&W images >>

 

I should have said, "...why so many of the B&W images..."

[marbing]

I looked at them but I'm afraid I didn't see much that I hadn't seen before. There were so many cliches...absurd juxtaposition...dead-face portraiture...self-absorption. I was struck by one thing however. What these kids don't know about photography (which is plenty considering the basic technical errors they made)they more than made up for by perfecting the 'art school' spin. They were great at putting high sounding words to half-baked concepts. For example:

 

"I try to give a sense of our culture without using the traditional patriotic icons. Instead, I look at simple things-gestures, painted fingernails, the small moments that go unnoticed."

 

"I try to convey this sense of unease, of things being on the verge of an explosion or disaster. Races are a controlled violent activity, and there are moments when they appear as a strange transfigured dance, a kind of feral ballet."

 

"At first, I had great difficulty marrying the photographs to words and ideas about Abe's dreams. With time I came to realize that the photographs had taken on a meaning of their own. They are in part a sedimentary layer of curiosities, the objects and memories that for whatever reason stay with a person and sometimes gather beneath him."

 

They were confused too!

 

I remember the old Alan Alda movie "The Four Seasons" where one of the wives was a photographer who had spent the past 15 years of her life on her photographic 'vegetable studies'. A whole fantastic world out there and she p*sses away her life on shots of parsnips!

[eric friedemann]

Regarding the B&W images, I was willing to give the photogs the benefit of the doubt and assume that the contrast of the photos was not properly leveled for the Internet. But, even if you assume better tonality in the original images, it still isn't good photojournalism.

[grant_.]

<i>"a whole fantastic world out there and she p*sses away her life on shots of parsnips"</i>

<br>

<br>

uhhh....ever hear of edward weston

<br>

[everitt]

"What these kids don't know about photography (which is plenty considering

the basic technical errors they made)"

 

Since when does a photo have to be "technically correct" to be good or get its

message across?? Ansel Adams may have been techinically outstanding as

a photographer, but many (including I) consider his work to be rather boring.

The idea of techincal perfection in photos is IMHO poison to the mind. Look at

David Burnett's famous photo of Al Gore, it was taken with a $20 Holga, but it

is to many a great image.

[eric friedemann]

Edward Weston shot many varied subjects- not just vegatables. However, I do admire Weston's sarcastic creed: "Anything more than 500 yards from the car just isn�t photogenic."

[grant_.]

yes, weston was open to all things.....something meryl might want to try once and a while...

[barmijo]

I don't feel I have to "GET" everything, but I only found a couple images in the 25 under 25 piece that I could connect with at all. The piece in the same issue on Peter Turnley, however, had wonderful images so I'm assuming it's more that my tastes don't line up with the person who created the list.

 

Besides, publishers love hot-lists because they're easy to create. Very little thought goes into most of them.

[danny_liao]

It's sad to hear that they were considered the "BEST." The most recent issue of PDN

had a similar spread but it was called "PDN's 30." I recently left art school, Art Center,

because those were the type of images my fellow classmates were creating. It was

boring, lame, and just simply awful. The images they created, similar to PDN's 30,

seemed to have no meaning...no passion...no heart. But that style seems to be the

trend all the young photographers are going after. I think what the problem is that

these days young photographers stopped trying to be original/creative. All they do

now is imitate. I think that's why the images are boring to me, they all look the

same...with a few exceptions. I swear you could put 10 different sets of photos by

different photographers together and they would look like they were all shot by one

photographer. Nothing original.

[marbing]

There are artistic decisions and there are simple dumb mistakes. I doubt that the guy who took the pictures of the race cars had some deep artistic reason for the filter vignetting seen in the corners of his example. There is no need to glorify the dumb mistake as some stroke of artistic genius. If everything is great art then where is the garbage?

[Spearhead]

<i>I doubt that the guy who took the pictures of the race cars had some deep artistic reason for the filter vignetting seen in the corners of his example.</i><p>

 

But there's really no way of knowing, without talking to the person. I know people who regularly vignette corners, it's just a look in the same vein as film borders.<p>

 

I think people should read the statement by the person who chose the photos. Lauren Greenfield (an excellent photographer, by the way) has, like all judges and curators, a specific viewpoint. These represent her choices. While it's possibe that people here would choose something else, no-one was asked, were they? It's a matter of taste, and I find quite a few appealing, and some boring. But that's true of almost every group of photos I look at, except maybe the big Adams show, which put me to sleep, and the Irving Penn nudes show, which was also a bit of a yawner, and the new Arbus show, which was riveting from start to finish.<p>

 

Regarding the appearance of some of the black and white images, it looks to me like someone at the magazine messed up since there are way too many with exactly the same look to say that it was the photographer. Maybe the wrong monitor or something...

[._._z]

Aside from aesthetic quibbles, I was surprised five of the twenty five photographers singled

out came from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts, a school not particularly well known for

turning out art photographers.

[john falkenstine]

Ref Jeff's notations, I agree that it appears that whoever processed the images for posting on the Website does not appear to have their act together. The images I looked at contain enough information to allow "repairs" after which they look much, much better.

[phule]

<< egarding the appearance of some of the black and white images, it looks to me like someone at the magazine messed up since there are way too many with exactly the same look to say that it was the photographer. Maybe the wrong monitor or something... >>

 

The more I look at the images, especially the B&W ones, the more I'm convinced that there was simply no editorial control over the posting of these images.

 

They look like poorly made scans slopped together in Microsoft Paint. Many of them are not lined up and have weird bits of whitespace around them as if they were sitting in the scanner wrong.

 

I think the photographers emailed the images and a web jocky threw them into a table without looking at the images.

[beeman458]

Bill

 

It's what the critics want to see. The critics don't applaude that what they don't want to see. And the prof's give high grades to those that give them what they do want to see.

 

Have you seen the latest from "LensWork"? Some beautiful B&W efforts that says nothing more then is said everyday when one walks down the street and uses their eyes.

 

It's very frustrating but hopefully you'll get use to it.

 

I hope the above is found insightful and helpful.

 

"Today I had an epiphany; I am grateful." :)

[dave_s]

Why does anyone think 'Digital Journalist' should be taken seriously? If this had been published by 'Aperture', then I'd be shaking my head in disbelief, and correct me if I'm mistaken, but I doubt if anyone gives serious credence to 'Digital Journalist'.

 

All diplomacy aside, most of this work is not just uninspired, it's beginner stuff that looks like it came from a high school. The best work here is very derivative-- I spotted one Arbus and two Winogrand wannabes.

[b_kosoff]

I thought most of the work was pretty bad. Arbus and Klein clones for the most

part. A few were interesting. Very few. What I couldn't really get over was just

how bad they were technically. And I just don't mean bad scans. At a time

when photography is at it's pinnacle of image quality, these images were all

poorly done. Do they bother teaching technique nowadays? Or are they

concerned that having some craft and technical competence interferes with

their "vision"?

 

A good analogy might be music. When Rock and Roll first came out, the older

generation thought it was noise, however there was true musicianship and

the ability to actually play their instruments behind their music. I think few of

these "photographers" have the chops beyond point and shoot cameras and

one hour phoot labs.

[Spearhead]

<i>Arbus and Klein clones for the most part</i><p>

 

There's really nothing on there that resembles Arbus or Klein, except very superficially. Quite a few do seem to look like Greenfield's though, which is characteristic of a lot of judging.

[boris_chan1]

"I didn't understand a single image!! What is wrong? Am I such

an antique that I've lost the ability to interpret photographs as

they are being made today......"

 

Quite probably. Let me guess, all modern music sounds pretty

bleak to you as well - you remember the days when they could

really play their instruments.....

 

"The people I know who shoot for papers and magazines tell

whole stories with images.........you understand what is going

on........without having to read about the images."

 

Why is ambiguity in images a bad thing? The most interesting

photographers I know realise that they seldom know the right

questions, never mind the right answers.

 

"There were so many cliches........absurd

juxtaposition........dead-face portraiture.......self absorption."

 

Interestingly this is also an utterly accurate description of most of

the images on photo.net.

 

"........it's beginner stuff......."

 

Which bit of "25 under 25" are you not understanding? Of course

it's beginner stuff.

[el_fang]

<i>"Why does anyone think 'Digital Journalist' should be taken seriously? If this had been published by 'Aperture', then I'd be shaking my head in disbelief, and correct me if I'm mistaken, but I doubt if anyone gives serious credence to 'Digital Journalist'." --Dave Sims</i>

<p>One look through the archives of Digital Journalist should answer your question, Dave. While I also have issues with the "25 Under 25" article, DJ is a treasure trove of still images, video, and audio featuring some of the best photographers in the world. To make a blanket statement such as yours, based on one article, is pretty... well, um... stupid.