A somewhat contemplative still life from our kitchen - a vanitas motive.

What is it that makes a set of objects or a scene worth photographing?

How can we recognize a quality that does not try to render or reproduce

some object or szene for some assumed aesthetic value (a landscape,

pattern, model); does not document a domestic event (birthday, baby,

beach); does not translate an opinion or ideology into a photograph

('let's find a bum' concerned photography); does not strive to capture

a funny or unique moment, thereby turning itself into a fetish of

heightened reality?

 

Don't get me wrong, I am not against any of these uses of photography -

but can you share in the desire of doing strictly none of the above?

And is the still life posted getting closer to this ill-defined

territory?

What a stream of consciousness ramble that was! Photography is art, but art doesn't have to "say" anything, does it?

One way to think about it would be that a photograph isn't a picture of an object or scene, it's an impression of the light reflected by the object or scene. Therefore, it's the light that is important, that makes the difference between good and bad photos. Even work that expresses emotion or beautiful shapes, or beautiful people is defined by the light and the physical borders of the light (composition), not by the subject. Anyone can take any object and make an uninteresting picture. But by refining how the light is used, and what part of the light is used, a good photographer can make any object or scene interesting, without any obvious emotion or physical beauty. Anything is interesting if you look close, or far, enough, or at the right angle. So, what makes the kitchen scene is bad composition and use of light, not the subject. That's a very badly worded way to say it, and most of my points don't make much sense, but hey...

I think you have been very successful here. You have captured a scene that has absolutely nothing of interest in it and nothing interesting to say! My 4 year old nephew is also good at this.

 

I utterly disagree with Chris' stance that one should locate quality in composition as a play of light created by whatever referent object. The separation between what the photo shows and how it happens to be composed seems fruitless to me. It is perhaps how both interact internally and with the viewer what can create a more 'interesting' interest. Admit: we have seen and heard it a 1000 times: use of foreground to create depth; diagonals and curves and weights of colours or densities - I'm afraid all this this seems to me utterly regressive and pointless. Admit you are sick of all this!

 

You can of course detect composition in the above shot: slanted rectangles, the circle of the toaster cable reflecting the round butter plate, just as the toaster reflects the empty bacon container, etc. But this is pointless, and not because quality of composition is lacking. The objects beg the question why they are considered uninteresting (they know they are). To be sure, the genre is not - or no longer - provocative once you have seen, for example, the unmade bed photographies by Kippenberger or the sausage series by Fischli & Weiss. Just FYI, the bacon container has already entered oblivion, deep down in the garbage can. I feel like taking it out again. But I stop ranting now...

Anything can be art, but GOOD art has a meaning or some goal in mind. Still life IMHO, only has meaning when it is in a form other then a photograph. A still life painting shows the viewer how close can artist/human being can be to reproducing life. However, in a photograph, you do not physically create the lines, the shadow, the color. That is nature and you did not attempt to recreate nature - it was already there! If you are attempting to show the great intricities (spelling?) of the lines and other textures, you need (or it is strongly recommended) seperate spaces for seperate textures. You can't group all textures together and say the picture shows the strength of textures and intrasecting lines (although I'm sure there's probably pictures out there that is contrary to this belief). I could agrue all day about what I think is art and what I think is not and what makes a good picture...but...I think what makes a photograph worthwile is it's meaning.

If you can feel some emotion attached to the subject, then I guess it would make a good photograph (set in appropriate context). I'm not quite sure I answered your question that you wrote for the caption of the picture, but it's just my view.

What I would like to see in a photo such as this is macro. Rather than positioning yourself high above the scene, simulating a normal view of it, as if a visitor walked into your kitchen and saw this, why not consider giving your camera a mouse's perspective, where a crumb is a mouthful, and a piece of cheese is big enough to sit on. I'm not suggesting a cartoonish approach, but something of this nature might make a more interesting view of this very typical scene.

Art is a silly concept - it evolves along two disparate lines. There is the sort of collective unconscious appreciation of a beautiful/ugly compelling image and then there is the cultural dialogue. I may be presumptuous, but I assume you're in a college art program and decided to snap silliness to demonstrate the frustration between your inherent desire for meaning in image and the postmodern dialogue you're immersed in.

 

The dada school, and all it's soup canned, toilet paint splatter, is now fairly old. When you weed through the meaning behind the volley of conceptual drivel you've given in defense of a silly image, you are left with the human outrage you feel at the tawdry discussion of aesthetics amoung the cultural elite.

 

So I challenge you - the ordinary as rebellion is cliched - create an image that compells YOU. Never mind the dialogue - simply look into your own web of meaning and create.

 

Much more interesting than your bacon scraps...

To Critter: I accept your point that the ordinary as challenge is cliched. However, note that the ordinary (the kitchen shot), instead of being presented in a gallery or book, becomes the nucleus of a discussion here on photo.net. On its own it counts for little. It is the context in which it appears that renders it meaningful. Your contributions, my original question, this very reply put it into a context where it triggers thoughts not just about aesthetic aspects of photography, but about the process of photographing (or more generally art-making).

What I like about this forum is that it can bring together an art discourse and an everyday, democratic, very diverse discourse mainly of amateurs and some commercial photographers. The art discourse normally takes place between initiated experts that are not concerned with amateur and commercial photography - unless an artist appropriates techniques from these fields and puts them into another context (say, Richard Billingham or Philip Lorca diCorcia).

What we see in this discussion, what shines up in its bile, is a lot of, probably mutual, misunderstanding. Critter discerns two sides: the collective (unconscious) appreciation of the powerful image, and a cultural dialogue that since postmodernism has turned away from the immediacy of the artist who wants to express (- is compelled by the desire to produce -) something 'compelling', as you term it, something that demands attention and calls for a direct emotional response.

I indeed think we cannot anymore avoid to see our process of photographing, the relationship of 'production - desirable product - consumption', outside the market context, a market that as you all know produces desires for commodities we mostly don't need. Stock photography is a case in point for the commoditiy aspect of photography. I guess the average ratings here on photo.net won't be far removed from that of agencies who know what sells, and who literally treat photographs as tradeble stock. I feel art must stay away from that - or critique this context from the inside, by making visible the processes that attribute meaning, symbolic value that can be expressed as bucks.

So I think I want to move beyond the compelling image, or at least, beyond the desire to create the compelling image. Whether I have succeeded I don't know. You can look at quite different photographs (or rather digital composites) for example, the Tate series or the Hafentreppe series.

I don't consider this aesthetic discussion 'tawdry' or pointless - we are engaged in it and I guess none of us would count themselves part of 'the cultural elite'. I would like to see the discussion of these issues of production, meaning, personal involvement wrestled away from a purely academic platform. That is why I post here.

Thanks to all for your thoughful and sometimes cutting contributions.

Perhaps I didn't espouse my view with enough bile. As you admitted, "on it's own, it counts very little". I have no problem engaging in a philosophical discussion on this forum, but I responded because you pissed me off. Rather than submit a photo you wished to defend, because it represented you creative impulse, you foisted a clearly ridiculous shot in order to stimulate "discussion".

 

I have discussed this. It's trite. If you wish to foster discussion, present your work - something you stand behind that expresses you.

 

As to your stock photography comment - I have no commercial goal with photography. I do record music in a commercial realm and I am SICK AND TIRED of the shallow analysis that "something that sells well" is somehow tainted. Frankly, appealling to the mass of consumers is another way of conjuring up the collective unconscious or better, tapping into the essence of human experience. This is a far cry from "tradable stock".

 

To even suggest that is to assume all people are idiots and unbeholden to your superior insight.

 

I did look at your work (although both links seemed to lead to the same place) It bored me. The meaning wasn't located in the image, but in the discourse of you explaining it. That to me is bad photography. And bad art, honestly.

 

If you wish to foster discussion, stop posting straw men and engage it at the level of passion.

Critter,

 

I think we will have to agree to differ on this. I don't consider the photo I posted a straw man, but rather an demonstration of the question - about which I feel passionately - why so many things normally go unphotographed, or, in other words, why it is again and again sunsets, butterflies, nudes, candid portraits, great architecture etc that are photographed.

 

When I said: 'on its own it counts for little' I meant to say it is a (crucial) part of a larger context (this discussion) which in this case is 'the art work'.

 

I don't think everything that sells well is bad. However I like to draw inspriration from sources other than the collective unconscious.

 

I do think that the discourse around art is an integral part of it, informing both production and reception. Believe me I am quite passionate about photography and my work - if you don't feel this passion, so be it. We may just happen to have little in common.

Seven or eight years later, I just want to update the addresses to the hafentreppe series and the tate series since the addresses given in one of my replies are no longer valid.

I think I will post more photographs for critique soon.