Home » in English » Comments about our Editorial » A photograph, is a photograph is a photograph
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| Writers write photographers photograph [message #980 is a reply to message #120 ] |
Fri, 27 May 2005 17:35   |
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05:51pm Oct 18, 2004
When I as growing up in Scotland as a young person interested in the Arts I can't recall anyone ever calling themselves an Artist. People were painters, sculptors, photographers, architects, dancers etc. etc. Other people might call them artists and that was taken as an affirmation of true talent and ability. When I settled in Canada thirty years ago it took some time to get used to the idea of people calling themselves "Artists" I found it very pompous, what was wrong with painter, photographer etc? I would argue with my peers to no effect. Anyway over the years I have "given in " to the convention, although I'm still not terribly comfortable with it, and personally I still prefer to use the specific descriptive.
I think your comparison of the word to the photograph is right on. To me the change from photographer to artist seems to coincide too neatly with the number of MFA graduates that have been pumped out of universities in the last 25 years or so. To me it all comes down to the "photographic" image, at a certain point I don't really care wither it was made by an artist or a chimpanzee. This I realize is blasphemy in the Art World (Industry).
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| A photograph, is a photograph is a photograph [message #981 is a reply to message #120 ] |
Fri, 27 May 2005 17:37 |
 Maler, Tom
Messages: 3
Registered: April 2005 |
Junior Member |
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03:16pm Oct 22, 2004
I feel that both Pedro, the photographer and the digital "artists" nouveaux have a valid points, so I think it's a draw.
I totally agree that the term photography should include all those manipulated pixels, because the analog photography is on it's way out and it would be a pity to loose it, so let's be inclusive. However, I can also see these new "artists" wanting to differentiate themselves from someone who just snaps pictures with whatever camera comes their way and never does anything with them. There's nothing wrong with calling themselves artists or whatever. It's all a matter of semantics.
I think time will tell which side will win. In the meantime, I will enjoy looking at the beautiful photograph (or an artistic image) by Pedro on the home page of Zone Zero this month.
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| A photograph is a photograph, etc... [message #983 is a reply to message #120 ] |
Fri, 27 May 2005 18:54 |
bdownard
Messages: 1
Registered: April 2005 |
Junior Member |
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02:19pm Oct 28, 2004
Maybe it's because a lot of my photographic (usually digitally manipulated) imagery is commissioned for use in advertising, but I believe the essence of photography is all about communication. Whether it's a purely "advertising" image, or the most beautiful "personal" image describing the photographer's personal vision, if it doesn't communicate anything, it is wallpaper. I personally am uncomfortable with the term "artist", but I don't believe it should be an issue...it's the work that counts. I also believe the discussion around traditional photography versus digital photography, and the issues of manipulation, is futile. Digital photography (and any subsequent manipulation) is simply a tool, and is purely a means to an end. It seems a pity to limit the potential of the digital version of a medium, by constantly linking it to its predecessor. It is not traditional film & chemical photography, so why keep on trying to define it in those terms?
Take photographs, make photographs, communicate.
Incidentally, my agents label me a "photo-illustrator". There's some more discussion!
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| A Photograph is a photo... [message #985 is a reply to message #120 ] |
Fri, 27 May 2005 19:10 |
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05:41pm Oct 28, 2004
I enjoyed your essay, Pedro, and I loved your "photographs" or "art" as well. Your work represents why photography can be art.
Berry
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| Differences on "A Photograph is ..." - part I [message #986 is a reply to message #120 ] |
Fri, 27 May 2005 19:15 |
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01:08pm Nov 30, 2004
Some aspects of what has been propounded in both of the last two editorials seem to me quite questionable. For example, within the October issue, the first three images included are in pretty much direct contradiction with the primary argument put forth in the text. By deliberately incorporating a "painterly effect" within (mostly) the background portion of the original photographs, you are really consciously moving the image from the domain of original photography off into a new one. One dominated by artistic impressionism. And by that movement, or (better) by that translation, the viewer is invited to interpret the image differently.
All but one of the images in the newer November editorial has the same characteristic. The best example of this translation out of the purely documentary photographic domain is the image of the woman on the first page. She has been made - to the viewing eye - more-or-less ageless by all of the post-capture reworking of the original; the remaining clues to her age, and also social status, are left to the fashion "accessories" - jewelry, lipstick, hairstyle.
What constitutes the original photograph, as a documentary record in time and place, is clearly known directly to the photographer, at the point his or her shutter closes (and in exactly the same manner when using either a conventional film or a digital camera). If I organize a model shoot tomorrow, dress the model(s) in nineteenth century period costumes, and use period furniture and decoration as a background in the studio, then I will know definitively that the photographic shots were taken on a specific date and in a certain place. However, I can intentionally tempt the viewer into believing otherwise. I could easily do this using conventional media simply by printing the image as a duotone and softening the focus a little when using the enlarger. Again, there would be no difference if I chose to work with digital tools.
It seems to me that the capability to achieve this type of objective with the advent of digital recording media and image editing tools is not really that revolutionary. It is undoubtedly an expansion of scope, but not to the degree claimed in the editorial. It is semantically correct to write: "I can explore and submerge myself today to the very bottom of a sea of pixels, and touch each individual pixel through the pressure of my finger on a stylus with no parallel to what could be done previously ... This premise transforms all of photography forever.". However, it's likely not to prove a fully defendable viewpoint. If we take the first image in the "Street Photography Revisited" piece as an example again, I'd guess that well over 95% of the pixels have been touched through the use of a stylus. However, much the same total image effect (as impressionism!) could be obtained by other means, even from just one single photographic exposure. Using so-called traditional media, a Polaroid image or emulsion transfer would certainly be one candidate.
As for photomontage, well there's really very little that is new under the sun (sic) today. The well-known darkroom trick of using two "sandwiched" negatives in an enlarger is almost as old as photography itself. Gustave Le Gray is usually credited with introducing it in the 1850s (yep, that's right: there's no typo in there!). His determination was to try and overcome the very limited contrast available from state-of-the-art negative materials back then. There's a nice example of his work - titled "Large Wave, Mediterranean Sea" - online (and copyrighted ...) in the past exhibitions section of the J. Paul Getty Museum website. Some others can be viewed at the site of the V&A Museum. Basically he used separately exposed images of the sky and of seascapes and vistas and superimposed them at the horizon. Most contemporary and many post-contemporary images by other photographers simply possessed blank white skies. M. Le Gray, who was initially a student of the painter Delaroche, took up photography in the 1840s, and became a founding giant in the infant nineteenth century field of fine art photography. Especially given the fact that he worked most often with collodian sheet glass plates, which needed to be still wet when exposed and then returned immediately to a darkroom for development and fixing. Typical exposure times were, at circa 1850, in the tens of minutes (see: "On the Art of Fixing a Shadow: One Hundred and Fifty Years of Photography", by Sarah Greenough, Joel Snyder, David Travis, and Colin Westerbeck (National Gallery of Art, Washington DC and the Art Institute of Chicago, 1989)).
The really revolutionary aspects of digital photographic techniques ... see part II which follows.
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A photograph, is a photograph is a photograph
