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Photography Is Dead! ... Long Live Photography!
- Thread starter fotografz
- Start date
I hope you are right also. Thing is, all three of those influential people I mentioned were recognized as such in their lifetimes ... more importantly, those they guided recognized them pretty early on.
Sometimes I think photographers aren't interested in the opinions of anyone anymore. Maybe they are right because there are no great mentors to listen to?
Hmmmm ...
- Marc
Guy Mancuso
Administrator, Instructor
My one liner for the day. Without my eye I am no longer viable. End quote
Maybe the smartest thing I said in 18505 replies
Maybe the smartest thing I said in 18505 replies
Shashin
Well-known member
You are just looking at photography through the rose-colored glasses of history. There were plenty of hacks back then. Photography was also democratic--as Kodak said, you press the button, we will do the rest. Just the fact of having a ten fold increase in population, we have a ten fold increase in photography. I have snapshots from my grandparents and photo albums of my great grandparents. Every generation will have their own greats. Whether you value them or recognize them does not matter.
As far as discrimination, Edward Weston's toilet? Walker Even's telegraph poles? Lartigue's family snapshots? Banality has been around a long time.
Every photographer and every age will show us a different world. Who are we to judge? After all, we are allowed the same opportunity.
Who said there weren't hacks back then? Who said that the great image makers made gold with every touch of the shutter button? The hacks are long forgotten, and what gold the artists did make remains. Cream floats to the top.
I'd also forward the notion that the increase in photographic noise has NOT been due to just a population increase as you suggest. That is the rose colored POV. Both the means to make photos, and the ways to view them have become exponentially promiscuous and/or democratically equal ... which is at the core of this discussion.
Most people have snaps, formal portraits, and albums of previous family generations. The question is will subsequent generations have them?
I deal with the public a lot, and I can tell you the trend is clearly they won't. Family members have always been in a unique position to capture the lives of their loved ones on a day-to-day basis, however the vast majority of family photos are now taken with cell phones and never printed or preserved in any way. Here today, gone today.
The whole infrastructure of Professional photographers that served the public (as opposed to art type photographers) has been decimated. Despite the population increase you mention, all forms of professional portrait, event and related publicly consumed photography has headed over a cliff. Print labs have disappeared at a ferocious rate. A wedding photographer that bases their business model on print sales goes out of business very quickly.
Obviously this is due to computerized digital technology allowing the public to do it themselves ... in their opinion. However, the impact has been that no applied methods of preservation remains intact. When Kodak said "You press the button, we do the rest.", that meant prints ... the very thing that is in those family albums of past generations. You HAD to print the photos to even see them ... now you don't.
As I mentioned earlier, common public snapshots, and the advancement of photography as an art form are two different subjects. The public has never been the arbitrators of "what is art" in any form of visual expression (except perhaps the motion picture industry).
Personally, I'm interested in both segments.
I try to urge my clients to get prints, to make an album, or a book if I do not make one for them. It is like pulling teeth sometimes. Intentions are good at first, follow through almost never happens. I have clients that pre-paid for an album that never followed through after I sent them the design. If I load a set of images onto SmugMug with a link, some clients never come and pick up the prints they already paid for as part of their package. In discussions with other pro portrait and event shooters, I found I'm not alone in this telling experience. :wtf:
The Art of photography is the subject that most interests me, and one that I am currently re-kindling after decades of paid photography with a pre-arrainged purpose. I see it as a two part effort ... curating my past efforts with the aid of a few "editorial" friends who's opinion I value ... then making a few books ... and simultaneously getting back to making more of those type images again, which will take some considered thought and refined intuitions. All I can say for sure is that is isn't easy.
- Marc
alajuela
Active member
It sounds as though the point here is that - all the great photography of the pass rose to the top as cream on milk, what a romantic idea. There were probably then as now as many people (undiscovered or not recognized in their lifetime) as gifted as the ones who had success. To put a fine point on it and stay within photography would we know who Atget was if not for Abbott.
Photography is and has always been a moving target - I think Will encapsulated this point well. The artistic side of (which is due to the individual craftsmanship and ability one has to express oneself) has not changed. Not to parse words here when Kodak said "You press the button, we do the rest. "They had the same idea as Henry Ford when he made cars for the working man. No more, no less.
Styles and desires come and go and sometimes return, be it Photography, Clothing, Architecture, Painting etc. While not necessarily the sponsor, public might in the long run be the final arbitrator of art. I think art by its definition is all visual; it is enjoyed by the mind, whether it comes in thru the eyes or the ears. I don't have the confidence you do that certified arbitrators exist. But like you, it is a few people that I respect (in this case they also know photography) that I look for critical comments.
I think it is great you insist that your clients get prints of their wedding, my opinion is that it will be their lose for not taking your advice. Possibly they are too caught up in the style of life and not the substance. Art is personal, what is one person’s delight is another’s revulsion. I have seen some of your images here; I liked them and would look forward to seeing your book, -- not a virtual one, one I can hold and enjoy and then put on my shelf, next to the other photographers I respect. To be picked up and enjoyed again, without having to be wired in.
Phil
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V
Vivek
Guest
Re: Art and photography (albeit with very poor/crude techniques):
BBC News - Historic Bentley snowflake photos for sale in US
Wilson Bentley - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
BBC News - Historic Bentley snowflake photos for sale in US
Wilson Bentley - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
No phil, that was not the point. The better work endured and rose to the top, either in its' time or eventually. Nothing romantic about it ... it is just history punctuated by icons of the art form who's work retained some universal aspect to it and speaks to us over the gulf of time.
You are right, Iconic photographers weren't the only good ones of their time ... they were the ones that advanced visual thinking, did it well first, and were recognized as such by critics, mentors or even by other photographic contemporaries (like Seiglitz's 291) ... and often they were part of some sort of collaborative influences involving others of a like mind, often from other artistic disciplines (Man Ray and Duchamp for example ... or James Agee and Walker Evens for another).
The book "Geniuses Together" is a good read on how that dynamic works.
My walls are peppered with both iconic photos and those I hunt down and are struck by from unknowns. The difference between the two is one of consistency and discrimination in a body of work.
The French photographer Robert Doisneau summed it up with his book titled "Three Seconds from Eternity" ... a notion about his selected life's work adding up to three seconds of time ... still shots that freeze moments in time at 1/500, 1/1000, 1/125, etc.. BTW, his photo titled "Les Pains de Picasso" hanging on the stair wall up to my studio is still as humorous as it was when he shot it.
I'm not saying this is non-existant today ... just that it is an interesting model for aspiring art photographers that want to reach deeper ... which is why I like Burn Magazine. Yet, while the internet seems to bring us together, I wonder if it is nearly effective?
- Marc
Ben Rubinstein
Active member
I wonder if social media and the social frenzy as it is today is going to continue as a constant? Last year my students (18 year olds) were posting on facebook every day even though only two had smartphones. This year every single one has a smart phone and they post on facebook an average of about once a week. I found it interesting. The social media world is consolidating from so that there are far fewer albeit far larger addresses for social media-ing and in general, at least what I'm seeing, it's settling somewhat. Human behavior and social human behaviour does not IMO change that drastically permanently. It will change but I wonder if the mad rise of social media over the past few years will end up having been a blip before it settles to a more relaxed norm. Or am I completely wrong?
Ben Rubinstein
Active member
Question: Is the lack of greats that Marc is noting the same through out the art world in this century or is it a photography thing?
jonoslack
Active member
I just don't really subscribe to it - with people like Salgado and many others around and still shooting.
V
Vivek
Guest
I agree even if you discount Salgado and such. Just because someone's favorites are all deceased doesn't mean decent photographs and photographers do not exist.
Crikey! I never said there were no contemporary "greats" ... although, to some extent time WILL be the measure of whether they endure as "revered icons" I guess.
Perhaps the question is more about what or who influences us and the art of photography now? Maybe that could be more revealing and constructive than rehashing history.
However, I fully admit to being heavily influenced by photographic icons of the past ... HCB, Chim, Doisneau, and that group in terms of the whole decisive moment/humanistic approach ... Kertesz, Meatyard, Rodchenko, Levitt, Brandt in other ways ... Alfred Neuman being my favorite portrait photographer (I had the good fortune to meet and speak with him when purchasing his portrait of Igor Stravinsky).
Not that other photographers past and current don't speak to me, but the interest and influences are less pronounced. Cindy Sherman is already an Art Icon that uses photography as her medium ... but it is hard for me to relate to that when I pick up a camera.
Of the modern masters Josef Koudelka comes to mind ... I suspect his body of work will endure. Related to what I mentioned previously, he was strongly supported by a Czech art critic and Cartier-Bresson ... now both dead.
Ben, the question you ask is a good one. As far as I can determine, contemporary Art is stuck in 1975. Perhaps that is directly related as you suggest?
- Marc
Ben, current studies tend to support your premise. Just Google "The rise and Fall of social media".
Here a good example right from the horse's mouth:
The Rise and Fall of Facebook, Google and Other Social Media Giants - Maximize Social Media
I just read an article on how more people are beginning to close their FaceBook accounts than expected ... for various reasons ... public personal information being one, "a waste of time" being another.
I doubt it'll go away, just settle down to being just another communication medium. That may be good as it'll give other types of media a chance to flourish.
- Marc
Jorgen Udvang
Subscriber Member
Not all, as I see it, and they follow different rhythms. Music is an obvious candidate, and more troubled than photography in my view, but with music, commercial forces come in to play as well as other factors. As with photography, the talent and skill is, and probably always will be, present. The question is if they will be seen through the cacophony of commercial noise which is ever present.
Obviously, it wasn't easy to to be seen 200 years ago either. You had to belong to the upper social classes. Today, the challenges are different.
One of the most dramatic changes in photography is that, while to start with, one needed several skills; artistic, as well as technical and practical, now, only the first two are required, and the need for the second is diminishing while I'm not sure how many would recognise the first (except, of course the tiny elite posting here on getdpi :ROTFL: ).
Ben Rubinstein
Active member
Thanks for that Marc.
BTW I used the phrase 'lack of greats' rather than 'no greats', there is a lack perhaps in comparison to 50 years ago but is it not always that way with innovation? The golden years of innovation in technology will always produce stand out products that will still be remembered but eventually everything just becomes the same until the next huge shift when the innovators are seen again. I think this is as true in art/music as it is with technology. As always, for any given generation the innovative greats can be counted in tens, tens out of the entire world population. I doubt our generation will be that much different even if it was a generation of innovation rather than of refinement and me too-ing which I believe it to be.
My generation (I was born in 1980) will be known as the generation that saw the revolution in communication. Cable TV, Cellphones, Internet, Social media, Smart Phones. Ironic as it was the generation that saw the fall of the Berlin wall and the USSR but who will remember that? Not sure what you older generation's think however I would have been more proud to have seen the changes you did and which defined your generations. I'm not sure just how good for the human race this communication race is in the long term. I am personally sure that it has stifled innovation. Instead of competing within a small circle we are now, all, always competing against the entire world, if you try anything new you are instantly copied and or shown to have just been copying, it's almost impossible to innovate or more importantly to have the drive to innovate anymore.
Good observations Ben. In addition to other comments posted here, they make me question a few premises, and to consider the alternatives to what is happening now.
First is the premise that photographic invention must be something totally new. While art icons Picasso and Braque "invented" cubism and revolutionized visual thinking, David Hockney continued on with it to great success ... because he felt it had not been completely explored ... including using photography for some Cubism images.
David Hockney on cubism - Bing Images
The other consideration could be to counter the cacophony of highly public and ubiquitous ... with private and personal. This thought reminded me of when I first showed my work to my mentor (a very accomplished photographer in NYC) and his first assessment was that the work was "very personal" ... which was a very good thing in his opinion. It took me a while, and some wine fueled dinners with him to grasp what he meant
-Marc
Tim
Active member
That photo is hilarious. He could be from the same gene pool as Homer Simpson.
Tim
Active member
I have wondered along these lines. I feel writers like Edgar Allen Poe were able to create their because of the "spare time" great thinkers had long ago. Today we are time poor and huge amounts of information going in (internet, TV etc), when do our minds have a chance to create? Perhaps others can overcome the hurdle but many of us just consume without finding the time to create.
Shashin
Well-known member
Right, so nothing has really changed. There is still gold being made today. but the cream will not always rise to the top. If it was not for a few individuals, we would not have the work of Atget, Disfarmer, or Maier. We have no idea how many great photographers and work have been lost to time.
Certainly the ease of taking photographs has added to volume. I don't see more photographs and more people using photography is a bad thing. To say the opposite would be hard to support. Are you going to argue that more literacy and better word processors have been bad for literature?
But that has always been true. Photos get put in boxes and then thrown away or they go moldy. Photographs are not less impermanent today. In fact, you could say the opposite. Load it up on the internet and you photograph could be duplicated and share an unlimited number of times. And as always, photographs will survive if they are valuable to someone. The media does not change that.
What you are saying is the old business model is not viable. Are you going to suggest keeping a business model that no longer works? Photographers, just like everyone else in the world, will need to learn to deal with change. They will have to develop new models and learn new skills.
I think you are forgetting Polaroid.
But my point is convenience and ease of use has always been around. The difference today is simply a matter of degree, not a radical shift.
Actually, the public taste does influence things like commercial photography including wedding photography. They also influence "art" photography--look at all the photographic galleries around the country that sell landscapes. If you are going to separate "real art" from commercial photography, I am going to have a hard time with that as I think you cannot ignore Avadon, Margaret Bourke-White, Gordon Parks, Iving Penn, Horst and a whole host of photographers.
Any creative profession is hard. It is only "easy" if you are independently wealthy. But there is not golden age where it was easier for artists. You are just going to have to figure it out.
But you are also picking and choosing your your data. If you going to say technology is a bad thing, and only bad, you are missing opportunities. Because today, you have the technology and distribution methods to publish your own work--those photo books you talked about. (BTW, don't use Blurb or LuLu, get a real printer.) Self publishing is seeing a huge growth and a very legitimate growth. Photograph is still hard--it was always a difficult part of the book market--but you have the technology in which you can make it work.