Norma Desmond

Doing something just to show one’s an artist may not be a great idea. Doing something in order to express oneself or communicate something is often a start toward being an artist. Painting is an established art form and, as you say, photography can have its own voice. So photographers can choose among many overlapping paths, from the straightest of straight photography as an independent voice to a painterly style which pays homage to another medium or even directly imitates it, and lots of places in between. Contemporary artists in all times have often been in a dialogue of sorts with art history. There are many ways to do that while also moving forward. It’s not really a matter of what a photographer should do as much as what a photographer wants and chooses to do and how the artist executes it. Many photographers don’t see themselves as artists and some would prefer not to be seen that way by others. As for searching the Net, for a good understanding of two important photographic traditions relative to painting, see the Wikipedia link below for a discussion of Pictorialism, an early “painterly” school of photography, and the transition from Pictorialism to Modernism, an approach that saw photography as a more unique medium with an independent voice. That should provide at least a start to a view of both sides of the coin, which is still flipping in the air and probably will never land. Pictorialism - Wikipedia

If you have no experience planning a wedding, you shouldn't plan the wedding any more than you would want to hire Uncle Henry who's taken a few decent snapshots on his vacations to the Grand Canyon and Niagara Falls to be the photographer at the wedding.

There's a danger here and I think it's wise to separate understanding from morality. Slavery, in its time, was obviously more acceptable to more people. It's pretty much countenanced in the 3/5 clause of the U.S. Constitution. So, considering historical context is important in understanding, for example, why Thomas Jefferson could own and abuse slaves in his time and why a Thomas Jefferson counterpart in our times couldn't own and abuse slaves. But, the historical context which provides an understanding of why Thomas Jefferson owned and abused slaves doesn't make his owning of and abusing of slaves any better in a moral sense. We are perfectly entitled to, and should, judge it wrong. And it would be a terrible case of moral relativism to say owning slaves and abusing them wasn't as wrong then as it is now. They may not have thought of it as wrong. But we are perfectly entitled, and must, think they were wrong to think that way and to act that way. One can understand the Japanese internment from a wartime perspective of misunderstanding and paranoia. We hadn't evolved at that point to where we, in some ways, are now (though just how much we've evolved when it comes to wars and prejudice is questionable). But that internment can be judged today harshly because it was wrong, no matter what they thought at the time. And portrayals of that internment can be understood in a variety of ways given the historical times and circumstances but ought to be judged by our own standards. It's not a mistake to evaluate Leni Riefenstahl, for example, harshly even though she was part of a culture that accepted such a view of humans and such treatment of those they considered to be of inferior race. Knowing her circumstances may give us insights into and understanding about why she did what she did but our evaluative judgment of her should be condemnation, regardless of context or circumstance at the time.

Yes, this is a distinction between journalism and documentary. Viewers do well to be aware of the subjective perspective they're being shown. They might also be aware of the way the personal perspective is expressed in terms of style and other photographic qualities. And they do well to consider that not all subjective perspectives may be equally valid or defensible. The three main photographers who documented Manzanar are Adams, Lange, and Miyatake (himself a resident of the camp). I don't know of any non-Adams photos that conform to a trope of showing the internees as victims without agency. What they show are victims whose freedom has been severely compromised (having businesses and homes taken away, which Lange portrays directly, and now living in encampments surrounded by barbed wire). But that lack of freedom does not show a lack of agency. Lange's people, in particular, through their gestures, activities, and expressions, are shown very much as human beings with agency. These camps and our government at the time victimized people. That's not a trope. It's a reality. That doesn't mean that's all they were, but not showing the victimization in a documentary about a place made to victimize people might well be someone's personal perspective but it falls far short of any kind of historical accuracy or truth.

A lot of photography is political/social/cultural. A lot of photography not intended to be so still is. Some is not. It makes sense that discussions even of apolitical photos might get involved in politics when tangents are taken or different examples are given that may involve a political bent. I think PN has been pretty good about allowing some politics into discussions when the politics have to do with photos being discussed and when the politics don't take over the discussion to the exclusion of photography. I think in this thread there was a pretty natural and benign progression into the political from the apolitical, though at some point it might be seen to have briefly and relatively benignly crossed a line. With that said, I've had no problem reading, thinking about, and handling everything that's been said without feeling as though I've needed to ignore anything. In any case, after that brief possible crossing of lines, I think the discussion got back to a good place.

And one of my all time favorites . . .

Or . . . Let It Grow . . .

I think a critique or assessment of someone else's photos says as much about the one providing the comments as they do about the photos themselves. My critiques do very much say a lot about me as a person. Since you mentioned my name just before this particular sentence, I want to ask you to read my comments again. What I emphasized were not his politics and worldview per se (which I made sure to say I did not have knowledge of and thought he likely had the best of intentions). What I said, in terms of the lack of creativity I perceive, was that his approach and style didn't meet the subject matter he was dealing with, and that's both in the case of Yosemite and the case of Manzanar, though his style works better for Yosemite than Manzanar. Even if I disagreed with his politics (and, to repeat, I don't know what his politics may have been), I would judge his creativity based on the expression of those politics, not on the politics themselves. That's why I can resent or even revile an artist like Leni Riefentstahl, hate the political message of her work in photos and film, and still recognize the brilliance of it as well as the creativity of her vision, even while I recognize the danger and horror of the propaganda she helped put out there. Just as I have many disagreements with much organized religion and yet recognize its inspiration to many great artists as well as the beauty and creativity of much of what has been produced in the name of religion. I think there ought to be more and better reasons than that. There are way too many proven and successful practitioners on the world-wide stage who deserve to be negatively critiqued on certain levels.

Right. In other senses as well. I think he lacked expressively and in terms of sensibility. As an example, look at his work in the Japanese internment camps (especially compared to Dorothea Lange's work in the same situation). Those camp photos, except for the subject matter, aren't approached much differently from how he approached Yosemite's beauty. So it comes off as a sterile, cleansed, false view of what the camps were (despite what may have been the best of intentions). He didn't have the aesthetic or expressive range to adjust his style and approach to a very different kind of situation, and so he winds up doing a disservice to history and to the people who were in those camps. It's a sensibility issue, IMO, not just a visual one. His photos of those camps are an emotional, social, and aesthetic miscue. In terms of Yosemite, while he captures an iconic and socially important homage to the park, I think the perfection of technique stands well above the emotional connection in the photos themselves. Yosemite is more raw than one could ever imagine from looking at his photos. It might be that he captured the physical beauty of Yosemite but without much of its heart and soul, IMO. That being said, he was an important advocate for the park and for the environment in general, gave much to the world in terms of our appreciation of nature and our surroundings. I have a lot of respect and admiration for him and still look at his photos regularly. Probably, as you note, there are different kinds of creativity. There's certainly creativity in the application of craft. That's different from artistic or aesthetic creativity, IMO.

I wonder if PN has put a cap on the number of LIKES one can give within a certain time frame. That would be an interesting move and I could see some justification for it in terms of maintaining at least a bare minimum of meaning to the giving out of LIKES. More likely, though, it’s just a system glitch.

Anyway, let me know if you'd also want to talk about Samaris's work. That might be interesting, but I understand if you don't want to.

Sandy, I'm guessing there are one or two "true" artists you haven't met or may not know too much about. It's just not the case that most artists with big egos were only legends in their own minds. Humility is hardly a necessary quality for becoming either a "true" artist or a legend.

Two good quotes: One of the reasons I like doing portraits of others and of myself is that I'm often so surprised at the results. Rather than fulfilling expectations, portraits often show something unexpected. A lot of my portraits feel to me like, together, we've actually created a new character. The thing about a character is that it is someone else, someone who the actor may just be playing, but that requires the actor to give a lot of his or her true self even while adopting the role. I think I'd call the colors in Transformations garish, on first blush, and that seems in tune with the grotesqueness. I stand up and take notice when a photographer or artist is bold enough to be so over-the-top and do so with purpose. Artists often have big egos, often deservedly so . . .

Thanks, Michael. I liked the American West portfolio and particularly liked the Migrant section. So many of the 1930s-era photos of the Depression and migrant workers show the power and lasting nature of important and good photography.

Many well-known photographers made self portraits long before cell phones. Many cell phone self portraits are, as you say, meaningful and well crafted, though I suspect most selfies are taken precisely NOT to be meaningful or well crafted but rather spur-of-the-moment expressions of greeting or document. Here is just a small sampling. If you google "famous photographer self portraits" you'll find a lot of great stuff. Robert Mapplethorpe (LINK) Man Ray (LINK) Francesca Woodman (LINK) - most of her photos are self portraits Richard Avedon (LINK)

I got turned on to Samaras a few years back. Two of his projects I'm most familiar with are his Photo Transformations (LINK) and AutoPolaroids (LINK). Interesting quote from the article about his work with Polaroids, Samaras's take on "selfies" before that word was a twinkle in the millennial eye: A word used later in the article to describe these Polaroid self portraits is "grotesque," a word I also associate with many of the portraits of Francis Bacon, not to mention so many paintings by Goya. Samaras's Photo Transformations and some other of his photography is fascinating to me, in part because I'm not sure if I like it and even less sure whether that matters to me. I feel like my not liking it presents an opportunity. Something about it reaches out to me so it it may have the potential to change rather than comport with or confirm my taste, which is exciting. Even if I wind up not liking it ever, it's creative enough to warrant my spending some time with it.

“I really don’t know clouds at all . . .”

It seems inappropriate when viewing the horrors of Nazi concentration camps, photos like Napalm Girl, the battered women in some of Nan Goldin’s Work, and the junkies in Larry Clark’s Tulsa series. Even some cloud photos can lead us elsewhere than enjoyment. There’s nothing wrong with enjoying enjoyable photos. And photography is sometimes different from that.

I’d say “capture” and “creativity”, in many cases, don’t go hand in hand. I think Ansel Adams, including Moonrise, was much more skilled than creative. In many ways, he was skilled beyond compare. And his prints are an amazing result of that skill. But that’s not necessarily being creative. I see Adams as one of the most skilled and less creative of the well-known photographers. Words are not as important as a matter just of semantics as they are a help in getting to some complex and nuanced ideas. There’s some benefit in keeping things simple, but not everything is, thankfully. So a discussion about the meaning of words, to me, is helpful if it gets me to think of different nuances in what I’m thinking about and, in the case of photos, what I’m looking at. The discussion to me has been beneficial not so much in deciding a debate between whether serendipidity actually means this or that but rather in looking at various things a photo might show and a photographer making photos might experience, such as accident, luck, confluence, alignment, intention, and the different degrees and layers to which these things can play a role. These things all play a role not only when out shooting but when culling one’s photos and processing them as well, when creating series of photos or even folders or groupings in a portfolio or exhibition.

Maybe just serendipity! :p Seriously, though, nice when photos hit us with such personal recall. When I used to come back to NYC for vacations during my college years, I would explore parts of the city I didn't know about when I was younger. Hujar's photos recreate some of my feelings at doing that, the kind of intimate alienation I felt in some of what seemed like strange places to me, as well as the sexual charge of those days in the 70s when folks were first coming out but it was still pretty new and scary . . . somewhat uncharted territory for many of us.

Here's a link to the Art Institute of Chicago's collection of some of Stieglitz's cloud photos, from his Equivalents project. LINK This is a worthwhile quote from the introduction to the series, in the words of Stieglitz himself. I think, even when I make or look at photos of important subjects, keeping this idea in mind is invaluable, because there's so much more than a subject to every subject and so much more than mere subjects to photograph.

I partially agree with this. If we start using words with any random interpretation we want, we risk not being understood, possibly even speaking nonsense. But, if we otherwise make ourselves clear (such as through context, poetic license--as has been mentioned), by using words in ways not used before, then we can communicate, sometimes more effectively than if we stick to using words in more traditional ways. In any case, this has nothing to do with the use of "serendipity." As I mentioned, the researchers took the time and energy to find out how people were using and understanding the word. They didn't go out telling people what the new meaning was. They discovered how the word was often being used. That's not a word being open to "any" interpretation. It's a word being commonly interpreted, through evolution, differently from how some dictionaries define it.

There's a fine exhibition currently at the Morgan Library in NYC of Peter Hujar's photos, which I just got to see on a trip back east. It's a very well put together retrospective of close to 150 photos taken throughout his life. There's a short video here (LINK) giving some background, and here's a website featuring a good number of pages of his photos (LINK). Toward the end of the video, the narrator uses the word "introspective," which I think is apropos. The personal nature of his stuff, from the portraits he's probably most known for to his urban and often emotionally dark cityscapes, I find really gripping. He's an artist of a time and place for sure. He documented and was part of NY's East Village art scene from the 50s through the 80s. He had a close relationship with Avedon for a while and Avedon was moved enough by his work to have 8 of his prints in his personal collection. He was obviously influenced by Arbus as well. I think the universality of his work lies in the vulnerability he finds in his human and non-human subjects as well as his own vulnerability which seems to come through in the photos. Your thoughts welcome.

A decent writer with a good imagination could extend those metaphors and probably do something interesting with them both. “I’m feeling a bit chess today” isn’t hard to imagine working. And, back when I was going to Shea regularly, I could easily make a meal out of peanuts and cracker jacks, and it would have been a lot cheaper back then!

That’s certainly a possibility. A) This is the first I’ve heard of chess being referred to as a sport. Interesting. I think of sports as involving more physical exertion than chess demands. But, I’m always open to creative uses of language and chess as a sport gets my imagination going. I grew up a couple of miles from Shea Stadium, so a bat and ball and some running come to mind when I think of sports, not to mention a whole lot of losing in the early years of the franchise. B) The Yankees, that other NYC baseball team, had a pitcher named Ron Guidry who was really into chess. And Don Drysdale of the L.A. Dodgers (hated rivals of my current team, the San Francisco Giants) was another pitcher who played chess. The 2016 St. Louis Cardinals had three chessboards installed in their clubhouse over which the players bonded before games. Both are games of intense strategy, as well as other things, of course. Interesting that baseball is easily referred to as a game (take me out to the . . .) but chess is not typically referred to as a sport. c) The only luck I’ve ever had in chess is having an opponent worse than me, which is a rare occurrence! :(