Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2000/09/08
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]I, fortunately, have read the writings in question which originated in a series of articles for the New York Review of Books. The collected essays, published as "On Photography", won the National Book Critics' "Circle Award for Criticism" in 1977. Susan Sontag, along with Janet Malcolm and others, seem to be vilified by photographers for trying to critically place photography within the other art movements of the 19th and 20th centuries. They even had the "gall" to dismiss Ansel Adams' work as a continuation of the very "pictorialism" that he and the "f64" people tried to rebel against. A statement that I largely agree with. Why do we photographers feel that only photographers can properly criticise photography? We think of certain photographs as new or revolutionary which are just mirroring somewhat dated trends in the current art world. We scorn photographs that critics praise because the photograph's craftsmanship is not up to our illustrious standards! We praise sentimental romantic fluff because it is skilfully reproduced! I could rant on and on but my point is that 99.99999% of photography on this planet is not particularly significant to the various art movements and that includes myself and most of this group. We enjoy recording the world around us and have our appreciative, albeit captive, audience. Let's not get too cocky because we can place a particular tone where we want it or because we are adept at remembering to put the main subject off centre! Disrespectfully yours :-) John Collier PS: I am presently reading, and enjoying, "Photograhy, A Middle-brow Art" by Pierre Bourdieu :-) > From: Walter S Delesandri <walt@jove.acs.unt.edu> > > Hi, Eric, and agreed....unfortunately, this wench was required > reading in "art" school in the seventies and eighties.....now we > have "new" gurus, equally inept, giving guest lectures and writing > "scholarly" papers about everything BUT photographic issues....I can't > attend most of our presentations because I couldn't keep my mouth shut > or refrain from puking. > >> Sep 2000, Eric Welch wrote: >> >> >> This woman should be banned from all discussion lists on photography! She >> knows squat about what photography is about. Her book On Photography was an >> excuse to spew her lame theories. >> >> Now if you want me to tell you what I REALLY think, email me privately. ;-) >> >>> On 9/7/00 5:07 PM, Robert Rose at rjr@usip.com wrote: >>> >>> In America the photographer is not simply the >>> person who records the past, but the one who invents it. >>> Susan Sontag