Matt Henry, a UK based photographer wrote today’s post.
There’s an interesting précis here of photographer Paul Graham’s lecture at the first MoMA Photography Forum which took place this week. I’m gonna précis a précis here by saying that he was claiming that the art world doesn’t take photography that isn’t somehow representing art in the traditional sense at all seriously. So unless you make sets out of paper and photograph them, like Thomas Demand, dress yourself up in all sorts of elaborate costumes and take self-portraits, like Cindy Sherman, or recreate scenes that you’ve spotted out and about a la Jeff Wall, you ain’t getting written about in any high brow art journals, or splashed about the right gallery walls.
His argument was that the process of snapping ones surroundings in an instinctive fashion like William Eggleston, Gary Winogrand, Walker Evans, or Stephen Shore isn’t understood by an art world obsessed with due thought and process; unless you’ve been slumped in a chair thinking about it for at least five minutes, it somehow doesn’t count. But then he goes on to say that the ‘straight’ photography of these old guys is finally getting its recognition, and it’s more the modern straight photographers that aren’t getting their credit. Perhaps he has a few friends then frustrated that their own recognition doesn’t rival his.
But ‘straight’ photography gets more than its fair share of due; Alec Soth is the rising star of the moment after all, and there are countless others like him. Thanks to the brilliance of Eggleston and pals, most of the language of photography is couched largely in these ‘straight’ terms; if it’s not found, and it’s not real, it’s not worthy of gallery walls (unless of course it’s more recorded sculpture, in the Demand or the Sherman sense). And this is why every other photograph seems to be of an empty car park, a left-over meal in a diner, a suburban home, or an aerial shot of beach goers. Even Jeff Wall’s narratives are often recreations of real events, which is probably what made them palatable to the art world in the first instance.
Which makes me think photography as a medium is still in its infancy and some rotten doors need kicking in. Sure the documentary is a big part of cinema, but most people choose narrative fiction as means of communicating those same themes that artists touch upon; themes that we all need to explore as human beings: life, love, loss, purpose, faith, hope, friendship, ambition, desire, duty…. Yet few have used this medium in any meaningful sense in photography, mostly because those that do are allied to the commercial sector, which in many (though not all) cases is liable to dilute self-expression. Fashion photography is the one genre that openly embraces narrative, yet it’s reliance on great looking people in great looking clothes kind of guarantees a general vacuity. Aside from Crewdson, who doesn’t personally appeal, all my coffee table books are dedicated to ‘straight’ photography. I would very much like a few that explored the world through fiction.
33 Comments
I’ve read this twice to be sure I understood what you meant and I think the thing that happens is we tend to feed off each other rather than look for something different.
What I mean is photographer A sees an image that appeals so he creates something similar then photographer B sees that image and does the same, then photographer C, D and so on.
When what we all probably really need to do is look at the world through our own eyes and not “colored” by what we’ve seen before.
Of course there is a phrase in the Bible that goes something like, “there is nothing new in the earth.” I probably have that wrong and out of context but hopefully you get my meaning. (If I actually have one).
Just my two cents.
@Tim Skipper, I think, at least for my self, that not being influenced by some of my favorite artists (Monet, Renoir, Adams, Weston, Lange, Edie Adams) is difficult at best. All of them have in influence on how I visualize, compose, expose … an image. I think that some photographers want the instant gratification of recognition that the too closely emulate other better known photographers. So yes individuality is key.
Amen.
Sorry didn’t make that clear Tim. I agree with your sentiment about reproduction, but ultimately I was just trying to say that there’s a current fixation on photography in the fine art sphere (and elsewhere) with capturing the real and the found, rather than creating ideas/stories from afresh.
And those that do venture into this sphere don’t seem to get their work recognised as having artistic merit. Gregory Crewdson managed it by having such huge production values that his work could hardly be ignored, but for me it became something of style over substance. But we certainly need more of the substance, and for people to recognise that this sort of work has artistic merit, should get onto gallery walls, and that it deserves to stimulate debate.
Most of the photography that makes it into galleries or books is either ‘real’ or ‘straight’ photography, simple records of installation type work, or hopelessly old-fashioned. I don’t know whether it’s simply the case that other avenues aren’t being explored enough by photographers themselves, or that these avenues aren’t allowed a serious voice. I suspect a combination of the two.
@Matt Henry, “or that these avenues aren’t allowed a serious voice” my experience is this.
If it isn’t the same old it gets ignored. I also find this to be true, to different degrees, in other realms of photography as well.
Well done Matt.
[…] art, photography — Jason @ 11:20 am February 18, 2011 Matt Henry drafted a post today on A Photo Editor that examines photography’s place in the art world. Very specifically he looks to developing […]
I have no idea what is cherished by the art word or what isn’t or will be or might be…like everything else in the world, some curators will be innovative and creative but most will be hopeless slaves to fashions and to the zeitgeist, wether out of necessity or simply because they lack the creative strength to o anything else…. Personally I choose to ignore all these issues as they are distracting in the extreme….I do as I please and try to make a leaving doing it….sometimes it works, sometimes it is enormously destructive….but as they say “watcha gonna do?”….. Like an Editor at Time(Jay Colton) once told me ” You’ve found your voice, now learn to sing”….that alone takes constant reminding and polishing….
@olivier laude, that sounds pompous….whatcha gonna do…!
@olivier laude,
At certain times that’s enough for me Olivier – the whole thing a process which I just have to get on with and which either makes me feel infinitely better or infinitely worse. Everyone else can go to hell, as long as I can pay the rent.
Then at other times I guess it becomes less about working through ideas as a kind of cathartic process, and more about communication. I’m trying to say something, and if so, shouldn’t I try and make what I say be heard?
It’s the age old conundrum of whether art work needs an audience. I guess if you accept that we’re social creatures and that art is a form of communication, then yes it does. It’s just a shame that one of the most important routes to sharing our messages happens to be the gallery, an elitist and rather tired institution with its origins in an entirely different form of communication. Cinema doesn’t give a damn how its greatest works are considered by the art community – it has the cinema and the DVD to communicate its message. Let’s hope the internet proves to be the successful platform that photography finally deserves.
@olivier laude, “You’ve found your voice, now learn to sing” what a wonderful phrase.
I go to AIPAD every year (next month even) to get a sense of what the fine art photo market is like. I see more fictionalised images then straight images. Seems to be lots of photographers taking full advantage of digital manipulation to create images based far from reality. Not to my taste…the world around me is quite enough, at least for now. Great post.
@Chris Hensel,
Have to say I agree there Chris, that the technology is no doubt being used to create something just because it can be done. I’m a great fan of science fiction cinema, but first and foremost always comes the story, the concept, the ideas. You only have to see the emotion that Kubrick’s 2001 Space Odyssey can still generate and set this against the effects-laden squib that was the new Star Wars franchise.
So it’s not the non-reality itself that’s the issue, but the lack of thought with which it’s applied. If you want to see a great sci-fi series, try Zena Holloway’s 125 magazine shoot in the editorial section of http://www.zenaholloway.com/. It can be done with still imagery, and done well.
In order for photography to be regarded as “fine art” it must be easily be distinguishable from advertising. But almost any type of image can be found and used in advertising nowadays, so that leaves only a handful of avenues for fine art photographers to explore in order to be able to distance themselves from the commercial world. One way of doing it is to shoot “straight” photography of found objects etc and explore the nitty & gritty of real life. Another way to do it is to portray controversial subjects and themes that would be too dangerous to be associated with advertising. But all of this is reactionary, and photography can’t really be taken too seriously as a fine art if all it is doing is serving as a reaction to mainstream advertising. I don’t think that fine art photography is suffering from a lack of ideas, talent or time as a medium. I think that the problem is the period in time in which we are living is dominated by consumer advertising and it’s almost impossible for fine art photographers to compete against it in terms of financial resources or to differentiate themselves from it without simply being reactionary.
@Mike Moss,
That’s a really interesting point Mike, and one that I hadn’t considered if I’m honest. There’s no doubt that is a factor, but I’d like to hope that we’d be able to put a gulf between our fine art or personal work and that produced purely to promote a service or product. I don’t think the two are mutually exclusive.
Again, to draw parallels with cinema, the skills of every cinemaphotographer or director have been to put to commercial use at some point in their careers, either as straight advertising, or in the production of an overtly commercial film, yet many fantastic independent films still get made. And not all of these films feel the need to portray controversial subjects too dangerous for the commercial world. Some of the best deal with the most subtle nuances of life and living.
I see no reason why as photographers we can’t produce the same. This probably ties in with how you define fiction, which I’ll come on to in replying to Jay’s post below…
Two thoughts:
1. fine art photography is into “thought-provoking” titles, IMO
2. some fine art photographers have no interest in galleries, they go straight to client or client intermediary; their work doesn’t hang
somewhere in public for critics to dissect
I thought this was an extremely well thought out commentary. It raised a couple of questions for me.
In what sense do you mean that Alec Soth is a “straight” photographer? The way he makes his pictures (with an 8 x 10 film camera) is an extremely slow, deliberative, posed (and often lit) process.
In your last sentence, you say that you’d “very much like a few [photography books] that explored the world through fiction.” Would you mind expanding on what you mean by “narrative fiction?”
My own view is that every photograph is a fiction. To say that Eggleston is not engaging if fiction is a misreading of his work. Let Us Now Praise Famous men is, by and large, a work of fiction. Evans cleaned up the sharecropper’s houses, setting particular pieces of houseware precisely where he wanted them. I also think it would be fair to say that a great deal of Winogrand’s images are fiction masquerading as street photography.
@Jay Trinidad,
Hey Jay, great point. I guess this all comes down to how you want to define fiction, and if you take it in the loosest sense, you could argue that every photograph is fictional. It is after all an inauthentic representation of reality for many reasons, even if the object untouched or subject unaware.
I think for me it only becomes a useful term if you’re willing to be a little bit more arbitrary about definition. Again to draw from other genres, both cinematic and literary works tend to get categorised either as fiction or non-fiction. And for whatever reason, it appears vital that the viewer is allowed to distinguish. In cinema, those documentaries that stray into the realms of fiction typically suffer because of it, and any elements in fiction that appear real typically confuse the viewer and are often interpreted as the product of poor acting skills (see any range of cameos by non-acting celebrities).
Certainly in my own work, if ‘real’ people appear in the background of an otherwise constructed shot, this seems to be the first thing that viewers pick up on, and they immediately discount the shot. So somewhere there’s a line drawn in people’s minds and this must serve as our own.
So I think it’s a question of degree and scale. Sure Alec Soth might take time over his portraiture and may light his subjects, but on the whole the intervention is minimal. He’s using non-actors and existing scenes. Contrast this with say Alex Prager and you can see which side of the arbitrary line most people would place each. Her scenes feel overtly contrived and constructed. I think that deduction is intellectual and emotional, so it’s not something we can map out easily in theoretical terms.
Which makes it flawed as a definition no doubt, but for the sake of exploring different photographic avenues, it’s still useful in my mind. And by narrative fiction I simply mean fictional imagery used to construct some form of story. There are so many fashion photographers that do this well (Miles Aldridge is one) but again there you’ve got the limitations of the fashion framework. It would be great to see that imagination applied to other scenarios and to see it on gallery walls.
Although the brain is a multi-threaded multi-tasking instrument the conscious mind is a feeble barely single tasking construction. And yet this is the era of the ‘decisive man’ and you assume a somewhat idealized superhuman status in our culture if can ‘cut the crap’ (as they say) and exercise the capacity to dedicate yourself to a single objective with single minded focus.
So even though what drives an individual – and in particular the photo artist – is a complex mix (and confronting complexity is in fact is the whole point of artistic endeavors) everyone is so, so relieved when one makes a concerted ‘regular feller effort’ and states “Oh! It’s a simple this or that”.
In deference to this unceasing search for heroic simplicity, how about the idea that there are 2 distinct modes for the photo artist: ‘Looking at reality and seeking to learn/discover things’ while attempting to share this with the rest of us – – or ‘making photo related constructions/contrivances’ and in so doing demonstrating what has been successfully been assimilated from the outside world (ie what you could muster out of your imagination if locked in an empty cell). It’s a nice clean ying yang view of photography.
Here is another nice ‘opposites’ idea. You are either impressed at the content of the photograph and its ability to transport you into a kind of an extra human realm or you are impressed by the photographer’s disguise of that horrible cold impersonal reality with a layers – warm, snug safe and smelly with humanness and human intervention.
And yet one more: The view that everything in art only achieves meaning when it can be seen as ‘human achievement ‘ (ie that someone can be awarded a ‘gold star’ for effort) as opposed to when it leads us to appreciate that which may lie beyond human achievement (or at least define limits). In the latter – no one gets gold stars – one probably just shoots the messenger.
All this dichotomy of motive is cute yes it fits comfortably with the urge to compartmentalize. It’s convenient that the artist is human and probably only aware of concentrating on one thing when producing their work. Then they surely must only be doing or be interested in ‘one thing’.
‘Compartmentalize and conquer’ it is what many of us live for but in conquering it misses the point of the art which is a distillation of many levels of understanding and mental processing – many quite contradictory.
Face it – when it comes to art as with most everything else we don’t have a handle of what we are doing – and indeed, given our culture we probably don’t even aspire to know. So, even if the subconscious component is constant, for as long as the creators and the critics remain so keen to muss it all up with their trite conscious definitions it seems safe to say that photography as a medium will remain in its infancy for a very long while.
Great post! Photography requires a unique and creative eye.
“There’s an interesting précis here of photographer Paul Graham’s lecture at the first MoMA Photography Forum which took place this week.”
ahem. thats from february 2010.
we is 2011, right :?
@robert p,
Well spotted! But what’s a year between friends. The argument still stands I say!
When looking at photographic work I always see or feel the difference between “photographers” and “visual artists” who are using photography only as a medium for their work. Same goes for video and other media used by visual artists. For instance, Jeff Wall is clearly a visual artist, James Nachtwey is a genuine photographer.
I have to say that there’s very few photographers out there who are actually using photography as their medium, but actually producing art. As a camera shop/print lab owner, I’m familiar with most of the photographers, at least in the local area, and most are just basic “straight” photographers. I can only think of a couple that really push the edge towards what I would define as “art”. Then again, my “art” is probably not your “art”, so who’s really to say?
If you’ve ever tried to emulate the kind of images done by Eggleston, Shore, et al, you will quickly realize it’s much, much harder than it looks. Finding the right subject, colors and composition in good light in a real-life setting is very challenging.
Traditional artists get to control everything. The subject, the color, the light, etc. The same could be said, to some degree, for commercial photographers. I’m not saying there is anything wrong with that; or that real talent isn’t required to produce outstanding work under controlled circumstances. But going out into the real world and capturing compelling, memorable images is a real artistic talent that should be appropriately recognized.
@Rover,
Agreed; it’s extraordinarily difficult. Here’s a modern guy I love that does it well. http://www.matthewgenitempo.com/. Wasn’t trying to detract from these guys at all, just saying the other needs a little recognition as an artform too!
THANK you. Finally someone had the time to pen it all down.
great post, Matt.
As you said: “themes that we all need to explore as human beings: life, love, loss, purpose, faith, hope, friendship, ambition, desire, duty….”. I would add to that a need to connect emotionally and as photographers we do that visually. An abstract or created image can be as touching as the gesture in a photojournalists frame.
I just started today a weekly post dedicated to those who inspire me visually and it was interesting for me to realize that although I am not a “fine art” photographer my first two inspirations (Carlos Serrao and Haley Jane Samuelson) are damn close to art. Haley Jane for sure.
http://bit.ly/hSEDeV
EDIT: that was last week’s link, here is the correct one on visual inspirations: http://bit.ly/hnV9T1
it is great to see that this debate is alive, and ongoing…
i have been photographing in the streets for the past 6 years, and i am still in the learning curve process.
i find that being able to frame and capture from a street shot what you want is not as easy as it seems. It takes talent and time to be able to create compelling images in a setting where you do not control the light, the background, the people passing, the weather, etc…to become quick in focusing, to learn how to spot various situations in the street..
it is an art to be able to create engaging and sometime beautiful images from the “real” world
i agree with Rover who says: “But going out into the real world and capturing compelling, memorable images is a real artistic talent that should be appropriately recognized.”
One of me favorite genius of this art is Saul Leiter, http://www.lensculture.com/leiter.html
@Nancy, love Saul Leiter :-)
@kevsteele :)
**just noticed a typo in my comment, should read “one of MY favotire” **
http://www.bjp-online.com/british-journal-of-photography/news/2025845/world-press-photo-google-street-view-photojournalism
To be an honorable mention for World Press Photo awards is a real stretch IMO. Maybe he should have received an honorable mention for editing, but not for actual photojournalism…
You know, more than defining photography by subject matter, one interesting thing that happened visa a vi conceptual art in the ’70s was the bifurcation of the photographic world into two semi-arbitrary realms. Loosely: “The photographer who is an artist”; & “The artist who uses photography.”
I think there has always been another binary of sorts in the photo world, ever since it’s inception, which is that of the “amateur” (hobbyist in our current parlance) and that of the “professional” (commercial photographer in modern terms). [And for confusion’s sake, let’s say photojournalism is another thread!]
It’s not that there is only one dominant photo history. In fact, related to your more recent post about “literary” photography, Graham’s statement seems to lead directly out of the idea that there are multiple dominant photographic lineages depending on what world you stand in!
The basic simple version of my argument is:
If you ask a conceptual artist about photography, or a curator at a highly conceptual/contemporary art museum about the role of photography in art — about the values, goals, and important artists — you are going to a wildly different answer than if you were to ask a Magnum photo rep; or a commercial photo rep; or a high-brow dealer of classic prints at Photo L.A. [drink!]; or someone who readers DP review.
To get a but muddier (this is a tricky topic, like talking about sub-genres of metal with serious metal music fans!) Really, what Graham seems to be accidentally tugging at is the widening rift between the two dominant threads of contemporary art photography: the hybrid fields of the amatuer-photo-as-artist world (let’s call it the “photography world” – of Apeture magazine etc.) who feature Keith Carter or Ansel Adams and the amateur-artist-using-photography such Gurski or Struth (things you might see at MoCA or the Walker Art Center).
Sure, the “discourse” at the increasingly academic and conceptual art school MFA programs does tend to prioritize Cindy Sherman, Baldasari, the Beckers and anything dealing with “institutional critique” etc. but even those dialogs and articles point out that photography has so much banal and anxiety as well as potential and interest precisely because there are a myriad of uses, a melange of images with differing purposes, such that “photography” as one thing — as one museum-grade idea — as one history is confusing even to us professionals!
Comments are closed for this article!