I'm stealing this topic from the latter pages of the "cropping" thread as it deserves its own discussion.

What is (and is not) photography?

While I disagree with Russ and some of the others about finding new names for images created using digital processes, I do have my limits. For instance, I was attending a presentation by a photographic educator recently where some previous Guggenheim application portfolios (finalists!) were shown. One of those portfolios caused me great grief and I was unable to prevent myself from making a statement and derailing a goodly portion of the intended presentation. In this particular "photographic" portfolio were scans of historical photographs, which were duly claimed by the presenter to be original and creative photography. These were not parts of other images, but were presented as stand-alone photographs in the portfolio. I was stunned. In my eyes, this was no more creative than photocopying a list of address, yet the presenter and many in the audience argued the merits of these unaltered scans. I was, as far as I could tell, the lone voice of dissent although, in reality, I probably had my backers. I was the only one brazen enough, though, to make this sort of comment during an art museum presentation.

Remember, I'm not talking about some random grant application, this was a Guggenheim FINALIST! (I do not know if it received the grant, or not)

To me, photography - especially fine art photography - is about exploring the world (people or rocks) through our own individual and unique vision, providing viewers with images that are much more emotionally valuable than the actual scene. It's a relationship between the photographer and the viewer, in which the image takes the place of words or emotions. How can this special relationship happen when the image in question is an identical copy of that of another photographer?

I realize that some people use a scanners unique attributes to create unique and compelling images, and with this rant I am not including them. I would even call them photographers....I think. My problem is with the literal and exact duplication of the works of others, under the banner of "photography", and the recognition these artists receive for it.

Chuck, You must know that I'm with you on this one 100%. But the "I think..." you tossed in might open that part of the subject to discussion.

By the way, I really like your photographs. I see you're into wabi sabi too.

It might be this. But such thoughts on the purpose of art have been challenged since about the 1980s. Sherrie Levine is most famous for this photographing of photographs - to precisely the end of challenging the idea that any artwork is 'original', a product of 'our own individual and unique vision'. Clearly the works you describe sound like photographs - if it's a photograph of anything, it's a photograph - even if it's a photograph of a photograph. The question is if it's important or not. I think Levine's 'After Rodchenko' (copy of the series is in the Guggenheim Museum, New York), for example, was important because it challenged the idea that the originality of a work of art was essential to its status as a work of art (instead, the work took on a critical function - it was critical of the idea of originality and authenticity). I don't know if the work that you refer to is important, though. If it's just saying the same as Levine's works, it probably isn't terribly important.

A photog I heard at the local art museum said photography is literally "painting (or drawing) with light", which can be done a multitude of ways. That's not a bad definition in my opinion, but, can someone explain how scanning an existing image is painting with light? I suppose you could use a camera and copy stand instead of the scanner....

Or, putting it a different way, if making an image of an object with light is photography, then the question might be, is making an image of an image with light not photography? And what would be the point unless there were some alteration or inclusion in a collage to distinguish the new image from the original?

Wow! We could wind and wind around this axle and never get anywhere. This is a classic example of why most modern "modern art" is -- well, let's be polite and call it "baloney." The idea reminds me of a photograph by Elliott Erwitt of two men in a museum carefully examining two blank canvasses hung on the wall. It strikes me that if all you can photograph is someone else's photographs you are a blank canvas.

If we kept repeating it, we would get nowhere. But Levine's work got us somewhere, for sure.

The key is not to just repeat things, I guess - at least, not if you want them to register as important. But most of what's done in the name of photography - like most art forms - is merely repetition, as far as I can see.

I guess that depends on which photographers you pay attention to and which photographs you look at. If what you're looking at is photographs of photographs I can understand your disenchantment.

Yes, perhaps I'm looking at the wrong photographs. Or perhaps the likes of Levine tell us something that is easily overlooked, and easily dismissed.

That's a kind of mysticism that escapes me.

Is it mysticism? Read through my previous comments and I think I've outlined (albeit in a very reductive form) what it is that Levine's photographs tell us.

On the contrary, the notion of originality, of 'our own individual and unique vision' is precisely what is so often 'mystical', and what more recent art has turned away from for this very reason.

ROTFL!

I don't know what ROTFL! means, but I'm sure you're right.

No question about it.

I would agree.

As an aside this is the greatest work of art I've ever seen...

http://theonlinephotographer.blogspot.com/...ntal-value.html

Bingo.

Yes, I guess you've seen through the veil of conceptual claptrap and cynical deceit that shores-up the world of fine art. There is absolutely nothing that the photographer, or anyone else for that matter, might learn from carefully looking at and thinking about Levine's work. And now I've seen the light, too.

I'm off to Arizona to photograph the rock formations at sunrise. On the way, I might take a few slow-shutter shots of a waterfall, a few quirky old buildings (preferably with the paint peeling), and a sunset. OR - perhaps someone could send me one of their shots of precisely the same thing and I'll just tinker a bit with it in Photoshop. I can really express myself that way. You know, do something that comes from my emotions, my inner world, something that's my personal vision - and then it'll be real art. What was it that was in Manzoni's tin?

Speaking of lamenting this and that, PhotoLife mag for May 2009 did a nice review of "50 Photographers You Should Know", with particular attention to Cartier-Bresson. Then they lament the under-representation of female photographers in the book, which strikes me as odd, given the typical ratio I see in other publications.

Chris,

Believe it or not I agree with you in some respects. For instance, I just received the latest edition of Black and White magazine -- the Special Issue that contains the rewards for the 2009 portfolio contest. There are some very fine photographs in there, but there also are the usual cliches: the carefully composed faces in front of "significant" backgrounds designed to convey allegorical meaning, the expressive collections of weeds before backgrounds dissolving into bokeh, the long gone and heavily decayed trucks and farm implements, the fuzzy photographs that look as if the shooter dropped his camera, displaced two or three lens elements, and went on shooting, the deeply shadowed belly buttons, etc., etc., etc.

If you've read some of the other threads on this forum you'll know I believe that in addition to belly button photos most landscape photography descends into cliche. But I'm just as guilty of it as anyone else. I love abandoned prairie structures. Not their interiors, but the buildings themselves -- the way they hunker down into their prairie surroundings and say: "I belonged to a family once, but the children fled the land and left me behind."

But what I love most of all is street photography. I can find a world of Ansel Adams cliches out there, but I have yet to find a cliche based on Elliott Erwitt's street work.

But photographing a photograph and calling it original work is so far over the top that I can't find a word in the English language that properly describes it. "Cheating" points in the right direction, but doesn't do the job. I'm astonished that anyone could do that with a straight face, but I'm more astonished that anyone, even those in the easily gulled "modern art" establishment would take it seriously.

Dale, You just came face-to-face with political correctness.

I've seen Levine's work with the Walker Evans photos and am unimpressed. It was, in my opinion only, a hollow concept in which the imagery was completely immaterial. The artistic statements Levine claimed to be making could have easily been made using the work of Atget or Strand or Alfred Palmer. If the pieces are, themselves, irrelevant, what is the use of studying them?

Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying the project should not be considered art (although I have my doubts), but it certainly should not and cannot be considered photography.

Hmm, coming back to “what is photography”. The last time I was doing my own printing was in the 1960s (please no wisecracks). Sometimes I would copy other people's printed work onto tracing paper, rearrange it and expose it as a large contact print. Or take a collection of objects (not “found objects” thank you very much) and arrange them on the unexposed paper and turn on a light. It never occurred to me that this wasn't “photography”. Indeed, the “painting with light” definition has always held meaning to me.
Now in a new age I guess I haven't thought through whether that definition is still 100% valid. I have become interested in taking my photographs apart and reassembling them in symmetrical patterns to challenge myself over the questions of what beauty and harmony means to me, and at what point I can have these things but lose a sense of “humanity” in my images. I think I am about to bite off more than I can chew. At any rate, the results are 20% photograph and 80% Photoshop. If I were printing through an enlarger I would say that it's a photograph, so what about an inkjet print? I'm guessing we will reach a point where there is a grey area where we will agree or disagree, just as we do about whether something is “good art” or excrement.
Yesterday I visited an exhibition of painting and photography. It was a salutary reminder that most paintings that have been done since the dawn of time raise the question “why did you bother?” They weren't very good. People today often speak about the world being flooded with digital images of rather poor quality, as if this is something terrible. Have they never looked at what has been happening in the other arts for ever? Photography has a lot of catching up to do. So in answer to the question “why did they bother?” I guess the answer is “because they loved doing it”. If I think the result is art of poor quality, well, I don't have to buy it or look at at again. I see no harm in struggling to be creative.
And the question of creativity is often all we can discuss with some work, particularly with the “what is art?” genre. I begin with rendering the artist's statement into plain English to see whether I am left with something 1) genuinely interesting to me or 2) not, or 3) whether the result is cant.
Cheers, David

Edit: I see Chuck's thread title is actually "What isn't photography". Which is a much more interesting question.

So, 'photography' excludes certain photographic outcomes because of their subject matter. (This is news to me.) Could we exclude clichéd images of certain rock formations in Arizona, then? The same motif taken from precisely the same spot, with just technical proficiency, equipment, light and post-processing making the difference. Very much like a photograph of a photograph. To re-phrase your original question, 'what other motifs make a photograph not a product of photography?'

ps Suppose 10 of us were each presented with the opportunity to photograph the same Rodchenko photograph (or just the same reproduction in a catalogue, as Levine did). We all tend to have different kit, different demands of lighting, make different choices in post-processing etc.. Don't you think the 10 final printed outcomes could be interesting?

pps I've no doubt there are still great shots to be done of the rock formations in Arizona.

And so, to borrow from my last post on the cropping thread: If I take a sheet of photographic paper out of the package, turn on the light for a few seconds, then develop, stop, and fix the result, what I have is a "photograph" since I've used photographic materials. Also, when the guy down the street paints his house I can call the house a "painting" since it has paint on it.

I doubt you'd say that since I suspect you're beyond first grade and the kind of literalness you get from kids that age.

When we speak or write, we take a lot of shortcuts. It would be terribly inconvenient and unwieldly to constantly have to refer to a photo as "a digital camera photograph" or "a chemically produced photograph from camera and film." Logical argumentation is also a problem because of shortcuts and assumptions that aren't valid for all parties. So far as I've seen, nobody has tried sneaking "photos of photos" or blank canvasses into this forum for critique, which suggestions that this discussion is about experimental art, something we're all in favor of.

You're right, Dale. The whole question on this thread and on the cropping thread has degenerated into semantic quibbling. The real question isn't whether or not something produced with photographic materials, either chemical or digital, is a photograph. Sure it is, in a literal sense. The real question is this: "Is this object, made with photographic materials, a work of art worthy of showing?" I suspect most of us on this forum would agree that it's a wild stretch to call a photograph of a photograph a work of art, and a wilder stretch to say it's worthy of showing. I'd go even farther and call the idea that this is "experimental art" a travesty. But there always are people -- generally the "modern art" folks -- who'd disagree. All you can do when that happens is shrug and move on.

Due to politics, people are afraid to challenge any art authority which may later block them from their own showings or otherwise hurt their career. Also many will not argue with authority for fear of looking like a bumpkin. It's all a variant of the Emperor Has No Clothes. No one will speak out.

As to this example, it's not an issue of if it's photography, it's just plagiarism. I define photographic art (as opposed to photography which is only making an image & your example passes) as visualizing what you wish to create and then using photographic tools and techniques to realize that vision.

Simple. Well, I"m a simple guy.

PS: I too really enjoyed the work I saw on your Web site.

Exactly. My point is that the discussion becomes centred around the creative merits of a work. Someone is going to have to work mighty hard to convince me of the creative merits of a straight photograph of a photograph.

This is interesting. Having been immersed in art with people who sketch, paint, etc. for years, I'm inclined to say "yes it's art, no matter how trivial or derivative." OTOH, the comment made here about plagiarism is also valid - copying someone else's art, even when modified somewhat to disguise the fact, is plagiarism. But there's that old saying you know - copy one person and it's plagiarism, copy several and it's research.

Plagiarism generally requires an element of fraud--representing the work as one's own when it is someone else's. The number of "others" involved is not nearly as relevant.

A better explanation - thank you.

I wish people would stop referring to Modern Art when they mean contemporary or Post Modern art, or some other ism. "Modern Art" generally encompasses a time period from sometime in the late 19th century to sometime in the middle 20th, and involves an abstraction and simplification of figurative art, with some complete abstraction. Ansel Adams considered himself something of a modernist, as did most of the other famous photographers of the years around WWII. Referring to contemporary art as "Modern Art" is like referring to Robert Mapplethorpe as an "Impressionist." It's simply wrong.

Most the artists disparaged here do NOT practice Modern Art.

JC

John, You're quite right of course. "Modern Art" really includes people like Toulouse-Lautrec and Edward Munch. Unfortunately "Post Modern" doesn't mean much of anything unless you know what "Modern" means, and anything done recently could be called "Contemporary." In the end, unless you're at least a little bit familiar with the names given to these periods, saying that Jackson Pollock's stuff isn't Modern Art sounds like a distinction without a difference.

Maybe people should be just a little bit familiar with terms before using them. Speaking authoritatively of hammers when the tool is a screwdriver really doesn't help much with clarity.

Ah yes... In a perfect world... But in the world of art and art critics there's no such thing as clarity.

That's true, but the mistakes are understandable given the term "modern art" is a misnomer, or sorts. Really, why would anyone outside the art world think that the term "modern" refers to anything other than "contemporary", as that is similar to its common meaning.

I give the example of MOMA, the Museum of Modern Art. Anyone who has ever visited this place knows that its focus is NOT on early 20th century art works, but rather those of a contemporary nature. A better name might be MOCA, but I doubt that's gonna happen.

That term might be common in the art circles but it's conflict with the general meaning of "modern". Why not use terminology which is clear so that the rest of the world can understand it?

Outside of the art world, people try to use words in order to convey meaning as clearly as possible. I bet that hundreds of years from now, there will be lots of people who will use contemporary and modern to mean the same thing.

[quote name='inissila' date='May 27 2009, 02:54 PM' post='286913']


"Why not use terminology which is clear so that the rest of the world can understand it?"


What, and have the rest of the world see the emperor naked?


"Outside of the art world, people try to use words in order to convey meaning as clearly as possible. "


But it IS meaning that is being conveyed, if only in code. Without code there is no cabal; without code perhaps not even a da Vinci! (Okay, that´s a cheap shot.) The code is the doctrine; the medium the message.

Rob C

I think that attributing nefarious motives to the art world's use of "Modern" as opposed to "Post Modern" or "Contemporary" is misunderstanding the actual process by which such terms develop.

In music as well, among laymen the term "Classical" represents anything performed in a concert hall or opera house. However, those who study music learn that a style of composition with certain emphasis on form, style of orchestration and melodic/harmonic language emerged toward the end of the era of Bach and Handel, with the music of Haydn, Mozart and early Beethoven best representing what has been termed Classical (pertaining to European music, at least.) As Beethoven and later composers began to push and then exceed the limits of the so-called classical period, emphasis shifted and historians and music critics identified new musical and aesthetic values which they termed "Romantic."

The average person refers to music of Bach, Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms, Wagner, Tchaikovsky and others as Classical, even though to those educated in music there are at least 3 eras of music represented there.

In art, from the Impressionists on, there was such a break with past techniques and goals that the term "Modern" was applied. It covered impressionism, abstract, abstract expressionism, etc. Certainly by the 1960's, new techniques, philosophies and goals in painting, sculpture and other arts began to make clear distinctions in the art that was being made, and the term "Modern," like the musical term "Classical" began to be understood by those trained in art, as a loose body of styles of painting, sculpture and other art media that was qualitatively different from the newer art. "Post Modern" as one descriptor of the differences, was introduced in the art world not as a means of pulling the wool over the public's eyes, but as a means of understanding and describing what had happened in the way many artists now made their work.

You said, "Why not use terminology which is clear so that the rest of the world can understand it?"

In reality, most of the rest of the world is educated in the arts to a degree much higher than what happens in the USA.

Actually, some of the blame for the problem should lie not with the art world for using confusing, or "deceptive" terms, nor with the poorly informed public, but with our attitudes toward education, which has almost totally squeezed the arts out of education, particularly at the elementary school level, but in most educational systems, through high school as well.

I am not trying to "talk down" to anybody here, but the ascription of motives such as deception or worse, I think, are misplaced in reference to the so-called "insider" terminology describing different periods of art.

My firewall is up, so let the flames begin!

Walter, Well said, but I have to tell you that after 30 years in computer science I could write an expository paragraph using technical language that few on this forum would understand. I think the point is that in order for the specialized art community to be intelligible to their audience they need to use terms their audience can understand. If they think their audience is themselves, as is the case with the people involved in modern poetry, then what they're doing is hunky dory. But don't expect the people who normally enjoy and buy art to understand.

Point well taken. However to Walter's point, the chances are good that the majority of 16 year old schoolboys in the US would comprehend 'way more of your computer science paragraph than an equivalent paragraph about fine art. The US public elementary and secondary school system is currently turning out its second -- some would argue third -- generation of art illiterates. Fine art studies are not only unfunded, they're not even on the radar.

Agree with you Chuck. You make some excellent points here. Also you have some incredible images on your site. My kind of stuff!! Eleanor

Art is the production of a two or three dimensional representation of a 3 dimensional original - 2d from 2d (or, if done mechanically or by scanning, 3d from 3d) is copying.

So a 2d photograph of a single 2D picture is a copy, not a work of art.

What you produce with a camera is a photograph, what you produce with a photo-copier or a scanner is a copy... but if you have a suitable camera you can copy a photograph with a camera.

There is, of course the technique of restoration, but this is re-creation of the a picture... is it art? ...is it photography?

Painters often do little more that trace over a photograph... and claim that the painting is their work.
If the photographer produced a 2d image from a 3d subject, and the painter traced it - who is the artist - the photographer or the painter?

Yes, yes, yes! And I can't think of any way to change it. If there were some way for the US to infuse some of Western Europe's aesthetic values without at the same time infusing Western Europe's sclerotic economies, I think we could solve the problem. But I'm surely not going to see that in the rest of my lifetime. All I can do is hope that things will improve for my grandkids and greats.

Walter, it´s not clear to me whether you are attributing that line to me; I simply quoted it from "inisila"´s post in my reply to it...

Rob C

Sorry about that...I deleted one too many Quote codes. I realize you were quoting another person...

Never gonna happen. The U.S. has seen a steady decline on all fronts. We're the world's police, not the world's leading thinkers. Think MTV, Beavis & Butthead, Dumb and Dumber. That's the future.

For once, I find myself unable to argue a point. It´s a future that´s already here, and being perpetuated from within the halls of academe. Sadly, I know school teachers who opine that alright is a word, and with such tiny breaches do floods begin.

Rob C

I can argue the point,and I will.

I agree that MTV, Beavis, and Dumb as well as "alright" demonstrate an aesthetic and educational wasteland in the liberal arts, though I wouldn't exactly call it a decline. I've been around since 1930 and I don't seem to recall an aesthetic or educational golden age during those years. But a decline "on all fronts?" We're "not the world's leading thinkers?" Most of the world's advances in science and medicine still take place in the United States. In all the rest of the world there's nothing like Microsoft, Intel, or WalMart. You can knock WalMart if you want to, but it's one hell of a successful business. The only aircraft manufacturer in the world that can compete with Boeing is a ward of the state and is supported by European taxpayers. There are plenty of other examples. At the moment the United States is going through some rough times, and it's clear we'll continue to go through them for at least another four years, but we're not as bad off as the rest of the "developed" world. Someone once asked J.P. Morgan, "Mr. Morgan, what will the market do?" J.P. replied, "The market will fluctuate." Economies do the same thing. Our economy will bounce back. So will the economies of the rest of the world.

But the most important indicator of the future is demographics. The United States is the only country in the developed world that has at least a replacement birth rate. The native population of Western Europe is plummeting, and unless that changes soon, Europe, as we know it, is going to disappear and become an extension of the Middle East. That's the truly scary thought. Allah help us if it comes to pass.

I just have to take issue with that, seeing as how it could be construed as racist.
Islamic math/science/culture was light-years ahead of "advanced" Western Europe for, oh, about 400 years or so. I always liked the response to a question posed to Zho En Lai by a Western journalist, asking him how he felt about Western civilization: "Too early to say". Things change.
Furthermore, I think a very solid case can be made that Europe's current zero population growth is the key to some kind of future for humanity on this planet. Combine a rapacious and absurdly wasteful economic system here in America with unfettered population growth, and it's gonna be goodbye biosphere. The fifth (or sixth) great wave of extinctions is happening right before our eyes, and we are the cause.