don_althaus1

Bryce: A couple of thoughts- first, changing labs can be the problem here. I have had the same work (8x10's from the same negative) done at two "pro" labs and the results were totally different. The printer has a great impact on the results. Your old lab evidently gave you good prints- give them a shot at your new film. If that can be ruled out, and I really suspect that is the problem, was there any heat heat damage at all to the film (a real long shot)?

For a little different take on this whole thing, try this:

 

http://www.althausphoto.com/essay1.htm

 

 

I would have posted it here, but it's fairly long.

Let's try another approach to this problem- I look at a lot of work and so much of it is so similar- similar limited subjects, similar approaches, similar overall look- The work looks like the guy's down the hall or the girl's across the street- this is what they see, so it's what they photograph. It is done with a great deal of technical merit but without the passion that comes through when someone is truely interested in what they are shooting.

 

The issue is not the photograph itself- the issue is what the photograph shows us. The issue is how the 10 or 17 or 22 photographs link together to present a fuller view of the subject. I still see plenty of portfolios that are simply a collection of prints with nothing linking them.

 

We need to photograph what we are interested in. Photographing simply to photograph or because we think we are creating art is the visual equal of verb conjugation exercises. They can be technically perfect, and we can learn a lot, but they have little to offer a reader.

 

Photographers have to photograph what they are interested in. We photograph because we are interested in the subject, not because we are interested in photography- the photography is only the vehicle.

 

If you find yourself talking more about the qualities of the print than the qualities of the subject, it's time to re-evaluate.

In light of some other discussions going on, I find this one particularly interesting...

 

I must agree with a lot that has been said here... let's face it, there is a lot of photography out there that is both uninspired and uninteresting. There is a lot of work that is boring because the photographer is bored with the subject. I have run into an awful lot of photographers who are trying to create "art." You can see it in the work- and I look at a lot of work.

 

For a lot of reasons, photography does not work very well on the wall- it's natural venue is the book, or as said earlier, the printed page. Photography is an intimate expression- it is one photographer and one viewer. If the "purpose" of art is to interpret the world around us and present that interpretation to others, then art has certainly lost it's way. Art has become self-reflexive and the more self-reflexive it becomes, the more irrelevent it becomes.

 

Photography is one of two forms of expression that is the closest to us. The other is writing. And this is really the natural relationship-photography and writing, not photogrpahy and art. At some level, the author tells us who we are and at some level the photographer shows us.

 

I have a friend who is a middle school teacher (8th grade language arts and social studies). In her classroom is a little sign that says if you want what what you write to be interesting, first you have to be interested. I think this speaks volumes for photography.

An observation� Maybe the fact that we�ve been having these �art� discussions for more than 100 years should tell us something. Maybe the fact that we cite photography for its unique abilities, its unblinking gaze and then try to lump it in with �art� should tell us something� that the only way to win is not to play anymore.

 

Without boring all of you with the history, suffice it to say these ideas of art and photography have never been resolved, and will probably never be resolved. Maybe they can�t be� and maybe this is telling us that we have to move on. Barking up the wrong tree and all of that�

 

It would seem that �art� has lost its purpose of interpreting the world around us and then communicating that interpretation to others in a comprehensible form. It has been lost in all the rhetoric of �whatever the artist feels� or the rhetoric of �it�s art if I say it is,� etc. It has also been lost in the concepts of unit sales and net profit margins. If the artist doesn�t communicate the interpretation then nothing has been accomplished. The work is simply the equivalent of finger exercises on the piano.

 

In many ways all of this has done nothing more than raise art to the enviable status of decoration. And for those who hold that art is to be enjoyed �for what it is� or �an experience unto itself,� that makes the entire thing self-reflexive and anytime that happens it simply becomes stagnant and then irrelevant.

 

Of the many students I have taught, many come from an art background and tell me that it is about the design of the art space- the color, line, shape, and texture. I once had an instructor from a fairly well respected art program ask �What is art if it is not about design?�

 

Is this really the ultimate goal for photography?

 

Maybe we need to move photography from art- maybe we need to realize that the true relationship is not between the artist and the photographer but between the photographer and the author-

 

At some level the writer tells us who we are.

At some level the photographer shows us who we are. (There�s intention)

 

Maybe we need to stop worrying about creating �art� and start worrying about interpreting the world around us.

But if this idea that the photograph itself is the art object is true, then which photograph? The original print? the original print I make next week or the one I make on revisiting the negative next year? the poster? the gallery catalog print? the book print?

 

If I have a beautifully executed photograph of a roll of chain link fence does that become an art object? or just a photo of chain link fence?

 

And, Peter, of course you are right- postmodernism holds that nothing at all is known in certainty and all is realtive- I was just limiting it to "art" for the sake of discussion.

After reading the responses here, I think a few of things need to be added- in postmodern art theory, which is the dominant theory since the 1960's, art exists unto itself. That is "art" is the arbiter of what is or is not "art." If a work is accepted as "art" then it is. This becomes a circular argument in logic, of course.

 

But more than that, under the current oprators of postmodernism- denial of referent, denial of context and deconsteruction- the idea of internal intent or meaning in a work is eliminated and the ideas of intent, and by extension interpretation, are put solely on the shoulders of the viewer.

 

The second point this brings up is that "art" is involved with the creation of aesthetic objects- which is why the flowers themselves are not "art," but the painting of the flower arrangement is.

 

The third point under these operators is that art is to be enjoyed for itself- intent or interpretation should be totally unnecessary to the enjoyment of the work- it is the color, line, shape and texture used in the design of the art space that is truly important in the appreciation- i.e. reducing the effort to essentially exercises in design.

 

...and therein lie the problems, especially for photography.