eugene_scherba

<p>Steve, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Pictorialist-photography-Luminous-

Lint/lm/21MPU3V3HTO9V">how about this?</a></p>

Actually calibration is absolutely needed for quality B&W output because only calibrated

monitors have more or less sane tonal response.

<p>Hey hey, boys, calm down. Who are you to rabidly jump criticizing/attacking the

article without offering any concrete references or support to your thining? Nothing

Plagens says is untrue. As a matter of fact, his is probably the most unbiased article on

the subject I have seen in a while.</p>

<p>@John K:</p>

<p>So, dare I to infer from your phrase, you somehow privilege film over digital? And how

about the issue of framing? Reality is a 360-degrees sphere with no borders and

continuous time.</p>

<p>@Steve:</p>

<p>> in reponse to "Later in the 19th century pictorialist... " // <i>Not even close. When

I read statements like this, it makes me wonder if he's even bothered to consult an art

history book, much less a history of photography book.</i></p>

<p>Care to give me concrete references to those art history books you've read, preferably

with excerpts/quotations?</p>

<p>@Dick:</p>

<p>> <i>photographers' imaginations and range of expression have been

unleashed.</i></p>

<p>And what use do we have of all this "imagination and range of expression?" Overdone

HDRs with halos? Cats and dogs sleeping together?</p>

Although some of the images posted in this thread are quite beautiful, I really wish people

linked to them instead of embedding them within the page's content.

<p>A must-read article by Peter Plagens appears in the <a

href="http://www.newsweek.com/id/73349">Dec 10th issue of Newsweek</a>. Although the subject of

the article has been "beaten to death" both on this site's forums and elsewhere, Plagens' article still

manages to give an easy-to-read and well-balanced overview of the photographic issues that surfaced in

the digital age. I especially enjoyed his comparison of what has happened to photography recently to what

had happened to sculpture three-four decades ago. In Plagens' words, "... now 'sculpture' can indicate a

hole in the ground as readily as a bronze statue." My only question, if I have any, would be: Why did it

take so long for photography to become what it is now?</p>

<p>Plagens' conclusion that "The next great photographers?if there are to be any?will have to find a

way to reclaim photography's special link to reality" is also quite interesting to me. Does this mean that

documentary photography will claim a privileged position in the medium? Or will the debate on "what is

real?" continue?</p>

<p>Mr. Motskin, you really like to bring up ethnic issues while discussing completely

unrelated topics, don't you? To prove my point, here is an excerpt from your post on <a

href="/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=00NNT4">Nov 24, 2007; 03:19 p.m.</a>: "I

wonder why no photojournalist documented mass murders of Serbs in Kraina province of

Croatia and the total destruction of the serbian population in Kosovo."</p>

<p>You also seem to be a big fan of HCB. Is your other name <a href="/shared/community-

member?user_id=470625">Michael Bender</a>, by any chance?</p>

Why, you were asking for <i>my</i> pictures? What do <i>my</i> pictures have to do with

this? Yeah, I will send you an email if you want; not sure what you'll get from it.

<p>@Hugh:</p>

<p>> <i>Idris Khan was producing layered images in color... before applying the same

technique to the Bechers' images.</i></p>

<p>Quite the opposite. To me this suggests IK has chosen to apply this technique to

Becher's images.</p>

<p>> <i>As for IK not being contemporary well...</i></p>

<p>Who said IK is not contemporary? I said he is not contemporary <i>B&W</i>

photographer. Of course he is a contemporary artist and a contemporary photographer.

Just not a contemporary <i>B&W</i> one, get it?</p>

<p>@Lutz:</p>

<p>> <i>Are there any pictures of yours you want to link me to, to illustrate your choices

and draw a background to your lecturing?</i></p>

<p>Finding images online and linking to them is like a full-time job -- actually it's called

curating. I can forward you to some sites if you wish; those who run them will do a better

job than myself.</p>

<p><i>Choosing to shoot the photo in Color or B&W is just another tool they have in their

bag.</i></p>

<p>That's exactly my problem with most photographers. They think in terms of bags and

tools instead of asking themselves why they are doing it in the first place.</p>

<p>Thanks to everyone who responded to my post.</p>

<p>Barry -- the Tungsten setting was only applied in raw converter for the composite of

4 small thumbnails. The reason why I chose Tungsten for the thumbnails was because it

was the only usable setting I could choose (everything else resulted in crazy orange

colors).</p>

<p>For the master conversion, I did not use Tungsten, but instead tried to make the white

balance more or less neutral (I went way below Tungsten, to around 2,000K) while

maintaining a slight yellow-green cast (because that's what I believe a street with trees

and streetlights looks like).</p>

<p><i>Show us an example of an "Original" photograph?</i></p>

<p>I will only do so after you show me an example of original anything.</p>

<p><i>Once you press the shutter it all becomes mundane.</i></p>

<p>Of course the shutter doesn't matter. It matters what you do before and after you press

the shutter.</p>

<p>Saying that photography cannot be original as an artform is quite uneducated.</p>

<p>> <i>There are lots of photographers who consciously chose color to use it as a

means of expression</i></p>

<p>Nobody denies there is no history to color photography. My argument was that color

is more transparent to the viewer's eyes because most of us are born with color

perception, not with B&W perception. Why do you think there has never existed B&W

painting, at least not on the scale you see in the photo world? Talk about escaping from

genetics.</p>

<p>> <i>As for being original, great artists in past and future where/are mainly

concerned with being original for themselfes and not for someone else or some general

public</i></p>

<p>I am tired of this argument. Try to understand what Warhol meant when he said there

is nothing in this world except surface. Nothing matters except how people perceive

you.</p>

<p><i>but you can't escape your genetics or your upbringing or your era or your

environment</i></p>

<p>Excuse me? Speaking of genetics, what does genetics have to do with B&W

photography? (Answer: very little).</p>

<p>Speaking of era, isn't taking B&W pictures more like escaping from the present (color)

era to the past (B&W) one? To me, a lot of B&W street photos I see in these forums =

escapism.</p>

<p>Speaking of upbringing and environment, I was raised Greek Catholic in Western

Ukraine. I am now an atheist living in Boston.</p>

<p>> <i>So I don't see the point in trying to be original.</i></p>

<p>I can tell.</p>

<p><i>However hard you try, you cannot divorce yourself from your times, your culture,

your sex, your prejudices.</i></p>

<p>The point of living a life is to become someone else than what you were in the

beginning.</p>

<p>The point of being original is to place yourself in a position from where you would be

creating history instead of repeating it.</p>

<p>Speaking of Valerie Rouyer, I like her color work, but am not so sure of the "Still Lives"

series, possibly because it's in B&W, haha. I could well be biased here.</p>

<p><i>As for the artists you reject we will have to differ on that.</i></p>

<p>No no, stay with me here. You mean Idris Khan made a conscious choice to make

work in B&W? I don't think so. I think he made a conscious choice to make work based on

Becher's work, which is fine, but it means that he can be called a contemporary B&W

photographer.</p>

<p>The problem with B&W is that you cannot divorce it from history. Producing B&W work

is like dating a person whom you cannot divorce from his or her previous spouse.</p>

<p>Hugh -- great post, thanks.</p>

<p>To correct myself, I never said that the value of B&W photography is somehow

diminished due to the small number of photographers using it today. The fact that there

are a few people who do use B&W means that there is a niche for which the look of B&W is

indeed appropriate.</p>

<p>But I'm going to par down your list nonetheless. In fact, I wish I had time to publish

my own list of photographers who work in B&W, though I guess it could make for a

misleading image of myself, as I'm more of a color guy.</p>

<p>Valerie Vouyer -- she's not googlable, meaning she either doesn't exist or you got the

spelling wrong. Ted Partin -- great work, truly a good contemporary B&W photographer

(1). Idris Khan -- I like his stuff a lot, but he's superimposing photographs taken in 1960s

by Bechers, which means that I can't quite place him on this list. An-My Le -- great stuff;

and I'm amazed by how the Iraq photos look in B&W; however (a big however) she's using

the historical connotations of B&W to her advantage, meaning that her work cannot be

divorced from the past photographic history. I don't mean to criticize her work -- I like

her stuff -- it's just she's not "listable" on my list for the reason I mentioned above.

Santiago Sierra -- really interesting -- but this seems to be a performance artist who

simply uses photography to document his work. Between him and An-Me, I guess there is

half a point, but not a full point.</p>

<p>So when it came down to counting, I could only pick one and a half photographers

from your list. Three and a half to go...</p>

<p><i>And there is good work in both media (I prefer that term to

"technology")</i></p>

<p>Two things, Lutz:

<ul>

<li>Video and still image make an example of two different media. B&W and color? I really

don't think so.</li>

<li>Name me 5 photographers who do interesting B&W work today. I can think of two so

far (as opposed to, say, 250 or so photographers who do interesting work in color).</li>

</ul></p>

<p><i>time is on your side</i></p>

<p>and when i finally win the argument, i will spend my old age selling vintage B&W prints.

Mwahahahaha!</p>