Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2007/12/08
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Philippe, First of all I was not commenting on any of the photo links posted in this thread. I have been very busy this past week and have not really looked at any of them. Sorry. My take on the "new" photography comes from our camera club. Our president has a Masters of Photography each month, one legacy (meaning dead) and one current. Many of the current photographers I look at their work and think "what garbage" I am sorry I do not recall any names, IMHO it is not worth remembering. Their work is so "trendy" as to be lacking in all merit, is simply different for the sake of being different. Also I think with the advent of digital photography there has risen a new art form, one that combines photography, and graphic imaging. I personally do not call this photography, it is a new art form that deserves its own category. Some of it is excellent, much of it is crap. I started college as an art major and my art professors were quite good at abstract arts, however, they all said that before you could go into the abstract you must be able to handle traditional methods of art. They said too often the abstract was a cheap cop out for those who had no talent. In many ways I think this is carrying into the modern age of photography. People who have no concept of composition, exposure, colors of light or other tenets of photography are doing things in a way that is not right, then saying "but it is art". Did they understand the process that got them there? If not I do not consider it art. Like the idiot who dropped his little Nikon PS in the lake then made photos and called them art a few years ago...that was not art, that was being clumsy with a happy result. When I was in college a friend of mine came up to me before our color slide class and was very worried. He had forgotten about our assignment until 1am the night before. He rode around in the rain trying to make photos from his car. Needless to say they sucked, out of focus, shaky and many were poorly exposed. He was asking me what to do, knowing the teacher was going to rip him. I told him "Say you wanted to show what it is like to drive drunk on a rainy night" He did this and made an A on the assignment. Our teacher was an "art" photographer...he cared more about the BS lines you told about your photos than he did good photography. And believe me Sam's photos were crap...he thought I was crazy with my suggestion, then was floored when it worked. I did get free beer out of it though. :) In that same class the teacher used to toss my photos in the trash ripping them for how bad they were even though they had been on the front pages of the Nashville BANNER, a paper that won a lot of awards back then for its photography. I started going out and making photos of rocks on the side of the interstate and he was so excited about how "great" these were I thought he was going to wet his pants. Talked about how I spent so much time discovering the details and patterns in the rocks...hell I shot the photos after several beers in about 5 minutes. LOL I guess I have seen one too many bad photos being defended with the "It is Art" tag for me to accept that as any kind of excuse. Good art communicates, a feeling, a mood, or something...it is not an excuse for something that is simply bad. Now what I think is bad and what you think is bad may be very different and neither of us is wrong...that is simply the nature of being human. You ask if I am a traditionalist...I guess so. When it comes to journalism the answer is a resounding yes. What I wrote earlier about not being an artist went back to my days in the news business. In that business it was not about the art, but about telling the story. IMHO tilted horizons, funny colors, and deliberately out of focus images have no place. Now I guess what I do could be called art in some way as I do add a lot of effect with the way I light images, using colors and spots and all sorts of things....but now I am paid to create an "image" for a client, not to tell a nonobjective story. Anyway I hope you can sort of understand where I am coming from, I do not know if I was clear or not...discussions like this are hard via e-mail. Thanks. Harrison Philippe Orlent wrote: > So no MoMA, SFMOMA, Guggenheim Bilboa, Tate Modern, Centre Pompidou, > SMAK, Hirshhorn, Hamburger Bahnhof-Museum f?r Gegenwart Berlin, > Kassel, Venice Bienale, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, Kr?ller-M?ller, > Witte de With etc for you? > Are you a traditionalist, Harrison? > > Philippe > -- Harrison McClary Harrison McClary Photography harrison@mcclary.net http://www.mcclary.net ImageStockSouth - Stock Photography http://www.imagestocksouth.com Tobacco Road: Personal Blog: http://www.mcclary.net/blog