10 photographers to ignore?

[markbarendt]

It was clear every one of them knew the technical rules, but they were all speaking in someone else's voice.

That problem is endemic.

 

[Ken Nadvornick]

I took a look at a club photographic exhibition yesterday, and with a single exception none of the photographs detained me. Apart from the fact most were digital, the photos could have been taken in the 1950s. It was clear every one of them knew the technical rules, but they were all speaking in someone else's voice.

Is it possible the disconnect arose because they simply weren't speaking in your voice instead?

Meaning, none of the works detained you because those works were communicating using a different set of rules than the set by which you were attempting their understanding? In other words, it was a different visual vocabulary? The visual equivalent of the work speaking French, while you were listening in English?

Rules are the common currency of intellectual understanding. To comprehend what someone is saying or doing is to acknowledge an implicit understanding of the set of rules by which that individual is performing that saying or doing. To suddenly exclaim "Oh! Now I get it!" is to acknowledge a sudden understanding of the larger framework of rules within which that event occurred.

Ken

 

[Wayne]

I don't know how I missed making this list. Perhaps we could amend it to "11 Photographers to ignore"

 

[Doc W]

...

as i also said --- Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg

Pardon my digression, but I have not seen this in years!!! When I was but a wee lad, more than 60 years ago, I collected bubble gum cards. One set I loved was a "quiz" set. The front of the card was a question and if you covered up the back of the card with the special transparent red plastic card which was supplied, you would see the answer. One of the questions was something like "What is the longest place name in the world?" The answer was, of course, Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg, which the card said meant "you fish on your side, we fish on our side, nobody fishes in the middle." That is a little like bracketing, I think.

This made my day.

 

[TheFlyingCamera]

Perhaps the word "ignore" is what's throwing people here. Better said, it would have read "10 photographers to appreciate and enjoy, but never ever try to emulate". I'm tired of seeing F/64 School landscapes that are trying to be the second coming of St. Ansel, for one thing. Just stop, please. I'm not saying don't shoot landscapes, and I'm not saying don't learn how to be a world-class printer, and I'm not saying the Zone System is irrelevant. But Ansel Adams did what he did with such success and such visibility that anything like it will inevitably appear mimicry. Same with HCB and "the decisive moment". The work is so well-known and so iconic that people trying to do it will be immediately recognized as such, and instead of "oh, that's a Brad Smith!" the reaction will be "oh, that's another HCB-wannabe". You can never take another photo of a workman jumping over a puddle mid-flight without anyone seeing it automatically thinking of Bresson.

 

[blockend]

Is it possible the disconnect arose because they simply weren't speaking in your voice instead?

Meaning, none of the works detained you because those works were communicating using a different set of rules than the set by which you were attempting their understanding? In other words, it was a different visual vocabulary? The visual equivalent of the work speaking French, while you were listening in English?

Rules are the common currency of intellectual understanding. To comprehend what someone is saying or doing is to acknowledge an implicit understanding of the set of rules by which that individual is performing that saying or doing. To suddenly exclaim "Oh! Now I get it!" is to acknowledge a sudden understanding of the larger framework of rules within which that event occurred.

Ken

What I meant is the subject matter and mannerisms they dealt in had been exhausted. They were interchangeable with thousands of other virtually identical images of street people, beaches, sunsets, girls in a studio, flaking paint textures, whatever. There was no poverty in their technique, they were well exposed and nicely printed, but they were presented as if the images had originality and were thus worth extended viewing. It was as though they were stuck in a 1965 photo annual. I guess this may be because the dominant voices in the club value the same things, or the members are too conservative or reticent to spread their visual wings.

The singular power of photography is the descriptive, but description alone is not enough for a compelling photograph.

 

[ParkerSmithPhoto]

Rules allow mankind to make progress. They do this by encapsulating and distributing prior knowledge and preventing each individual from needing to reinvent the wheel every time out. And thus allow him to spend that saved time in thinking outside-the-box to figure out more creative ways to use the wheel instead.

This is one of Hayek's great insights, that we often are oblivious to the fact that we are following rules and participating in what he calls "spontaneous order" because we are just doing, habitually, what actually works on a day to day basis, patterns that we (hopefully) learned from our ancestors.

Photographers give themselves way too much credit for "creativity" but, as John Szarkowski said, photography is "a perfect tool for visual exploration and discovery, but a rather clumsy one for realizing the inventions of pure imagination."

I think in 100 years people will want to view photographs that show the substance of the world as it is now, just as we look back on Berenice Abbott and Walker Evans and marvel at their creative energy which restrained itself and maintained fidelity to reality. Most of the art gallery crap will have depreciated to the point that no one will want it. Even museums run out of space and "decommission" art works. Are they going to keep the 8x10 Walker Evans prints or the 40x60 prints from the "hot" photographer circa 2014? I think the answer is self-evident.

 

[Ken Nadvornick]

...that we often are oblivious to the fact that we are following rules and participating in what he calls "spontaneous order" because we are just doing, habitually, what actually works on a day to day basis, patterns that we (hopefully) learned from our ancestors.

Absolutely correct...

The so-called rules-don't-apply-to-me mentality is merely a false state of mind one chooses to believe for unrelated reasons. Perhaps for public image reasons. Or for self-image reasons. Or for self-validation. Or for self-therapy. Or for whatever. But it does not necessarily reflect the true reality of our daily existence.

Even the most wildly un-ruled photographers will still dunk their film into their favorite unruly yak piss developer before dunking it into their favorite fixer. Because not following the rules of photography can be a real bitch...



Ken

 

[tomfrh]

Unless we are very very special then whatever we do someone will have done better. Does that mean we shouldn't bother doing anything?

Should I stop wasting time doing marathons because I'll never be the best?

 

[Ken Nadvornick]

Unless we are very very special then whatever we do someone will have done better. Does that mean we shouldn't bother doing anything?

No, you should continue right ahead and go out and make your own unique best effort. Each and every successful member of previous photographic generations would tell you that, if they could. Don't let the grumpiness of others stop you. Their unhappiness is not your concern. Do it for the right reasons, and you will always be proud of your results.

There is a certain unfortunate pervasive rejectionist mentality that holds some here on APUG in a vice-like grip. A strong sense that once something has been attempted and accomplished, no one else better ever dare try their hand at their own unique reinterpretation. Our resident Ansel-haters fall into this category. This is, of course, a patently false mindset. In photography, as well as any other field of human endeavor throughout history.

At this moment I am composing into an Internet browser. That browser is complexly connected to the APUG server in real time through a 100 Mbps link. That means 104,857,600 individual binary signals may be reliably transmitted every second over that data connection.

But the original binary form of data transmission was not the primitive modems of the early 1980s. It was the hand-keyed Morse code of the exquisitely talented human telegraphers of the middle 19th century and beyond. The highest speed ever recorded for a manual telegraph transmission (traditional straight key) was reported to be 35 WPM, demonstrated in 1942. That's words per minute.

Thirty-five 5-character standard words works out to 490 individual binary signals transmitted per minute, or slightly less than 8.2 bits per second. A remarkable human achievement. That also means my current Internet connection is a sweet 12,839,706 times faster. That's an increase of over one-and-a-quarter-million orders of magnitude in only 74 years.

How sad would it have been if our resident rejectionists had stomped their collective feet and mandated that once someone had successfully mastered the art of manual binary data transmission, that no one else should ever be allowed to reinterpret and build upon that achievement in the future?

I fear that if they had their way we would all be posting to APUG using one of these:

This is a KOB. A Key-On-Board practice Morse (straight) keyer. It's not a replica. It's the real thing. It was given to me as a gift by my high school Radio Shop teacher, Mr. Collins. He had personally used it in his own youth for practice. I keep it to honor his memory, as Mr. Collins passed away during the Christmas break of my sophomore year. Occasionally I'll still key out my name on it. Just for fun.

I also keep it up on the shelf right next to my high-speed Comcast network bridge and wireless router devices, just to serve as a strong reminder to me to never be tempted to engage in the arrogance of our modern rejectionist society, where everyone who came before us are assumed to be idiots, and everything they accomplished is now considered to be crap.

Ken

 

[blockend]

There is a certain unfortunate pervasive rejectionist mentality that holds some here on APUG in a vice-like grip. A strong sense that once something has been attempted and accomplished, no one else better ever dare try their hand at their own unique reinterpretation. Our resident Ansel-haters fall into this category. This is, of course, a patently false mindset. In photography, as well as any other field of human endeavor throughout history.

It's worth bearing in mind that this thread is based on the slightly tongue in cheek observations of two critics. I think there are two things going on, the validity of technique in realising a personal vision, and the assumption that technique will lead to personal artistic recognition. The point Formhals and Andrews seem to be making, is that some people assume that by adopting the technical and visual tropes famous photographers have dealt in, some magic will rub off onto their own work.

 

[removed account4]

Perhaps the word "ignore" is what's throwing people here. Better said, it would have read "10 photographers to appreciate and enjoy, but never ever try to emulate". I'm tired of seeing F/64 School landscapes that are trying to be the second coming of St. Ansel, for one thing. Just stop, please. I'm not saying don't shoot landscapes, and I'm not saying don't learn how to be a world-class printer, and I'm not saying the Zone System is irrelevant. But Ansel Adams did what he did with such success and such visibility that anything like it will inevitably appear mimicry. Same with HCB and "the decisive moment". The work is so well-known and so iconic that people trying to do it will be immediately recognized as such, and instead of "oh, that's a Brad Smith!" the reaction will be "oh, that's another HCB-wannabe". You can never take another photo of a workman jumping over a puddle mid-flight without anyone seeing it automatically thinking of Bresson.

hi scott

i don't know about that. there really isn't much of anything new that has been done ... since the first people did it
if someone wants to emulate ansel adams, or watkins, or f64 landscapists or
make trunkated nudes or photographs of peppers, boring landscapes,circus freaks, or drunk nudes in a motel room some might think it is a great thing.
people digest and make what they can and what they want and digesting
it makes it their own. no one is an isolationist living in that cabin and even if they are
people are influenced by everything around them.
and they make things that matter to them .. whether it is endless film tests
or finding someone else's tripod holes or photographing water towers in germany

so, even though you might not think it is "an original brad smith" it will be.
im not one of the folks that thinks its a great thing, i think it might be kind of boring to
always be doing that sort of work. but thats just me, .

 

[Ken Nadvornick]

The point Formhals and Andrews seem to be making, is that some people assume that by adopting the technical and visual tropes famous photographers have dealt in, some magic will rub off onto their own work.

That's how behavioral evolution works. That's how progress is made. That's how new replaces old. That's how better supplants worse. Excellence doesn't simply explode fully formed from a vacuum. Everybody stands on somebody's shoulders. Even if they don't realize it. Or want to admit it.

Those who stand securely will graciously acknowledge and generously thank their forebearers for the shoulder up. And everyone around them will smile. The insecure will bleat endlessly about how they are totally unique, the first ever of their kind, and the rules don't apply to them. And everyone around them will frown.

Ken

 

[blockend]

That's how behavioral evolution works. That's how progress is made. That's how new replaces old. That's how better supplants worse. Excellence doesn't simply explode fully formed from a vacuum. Everybody stands on somebody's shoulders. Even if they don't realize it. Or want to admit it.

Those who stand securely will graciously acknowledge and generously thank their forebearers for the shoulder up. And everyone around them will smile. The insecure will bleat endlessly about how they are totally unique, the first ever of their kind, and the rules don't apply to them. And everyone around them will frown.

Ken

I don't understand your point as it pertains to the practice of photography. There is no photographic evolution, certainly not an aesthetic variety at any rate. A photographer can gain renown by pointing out the unsettling colourfulness of the mundane (Eggleston), or by the camera's unique ability to freeze everyday events into compelling juxtapositions (Cartier-Bresson), or romanticise nature through the use of filters and very large negatives (Adams), or demonstrate the potential of the snapshot aesthetic to portray youth (McGinley). Martin Parr and Stephen Shore are not evolved William Egglestons, any more than Robert Frank and Garry Winogrand are naturally selected HCBs - each bought a unique view to a similar concern.

The problem isn't photographers putting a new spin on old masters, the issue is people offering clones as virgin births.

 

[tomfrh]

There is no photographic evolution, certainly not an aesthetic variety at any rate.

Sure there is! Styles persist and slowly change, ie evolve.

 

[blockend]

Sure there is! Styles persist and slowly change, ie evolve.

Evolution infers progress, the idea that a contemporary landscape or street photograph is objectively better than an old one. That's patently nonsense. Even technically it's untrue, a gum bichromate, a 10 x 8" chrome and a full frame DSLR print are only different from one another, not superior or inferior.

 

[tomfrh]

Evolution infers progress

No, our understanding of evolution has evolved beyond that.

Regardless of whether you believe in evolutionary progress or not, or simply consider it change, I'm not sure why you would deny there are parallels between the change in photographic technology/style, and other forms of evolution, eg evolution of life, or evolution of cars and driving styles, etc.

No man (or camera) is an island.

 

[blockend]

No, our understanding of evolution has evolved beyond that.

I don't believe Darwinian analogies hold for commercial or art photography, so evolution is a red herring. The appreciation of photography functions across a complex matrix of psycho-social and aesthetic parameters, and reducing it to C19th theories of genetics is misplaced. Besides, Darwinism might not even be Darwin's idea: http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/who-will-debunk-the-debunkers/

 

[tomfrh]

I don't believe Darwinian analogies hold for commercial or art photography, so evolution is a red herring

Cameras and image styles have evolved in a manner not that dissimilar to natural evolution. I was looking at some insect photos in new scientists today. Stunning stuff, the result of hundreds of years of photographic technology and experience.

cameras and images arent created out of a vacuum.

 

[Doc W]

Let's not get bogged down by using analogies from evolution. Too many of you have already implied that evolution implies qualitative change. It doesn't. It is all about the ability to survive and reproduce in a given environment.

 

[Ken Nadvornick]

Let's not get bogged down by using analogies from evolution. Too many of you have already implied that evolution implies qualitative change. It doesn't. It is all about the ability to survive and reproduce in a given environment.

At its most fundamental, yes it does. If one is an artist for whom an art sale in a competitive market means meat and potatoes on the table that evening, then you're darned right it's all about qualitative evolutionary change. That is Darwin's principle in spades. Reference The Daybooks... Weston hated those damned portrait sittings. But even he admitted to himself that they were ultimately his own products. Part of his body of work.

Besides, I prequalified the process to behavioral evolution, as opposed to biological evolution. Nevertheless, everything in the world still evolves over time. Including human intellect. Which is the underpinning of human creativity. Which is the foundation of human art. Show me something anywhere in Creation that does not evolve over time, and I'll show you a failure of the Second Law. A motionless Arrow of Time.

People seem to have this strange concept that Art, in this case Photography as Art, is somehow immune to the laws of nature. That so-called artists can, by the mere force of their will, change the rules by which human endeavor is defined. That by using their self-proclaimed uniqueness they can make the laws of nature disappear by simply ignoring them. And as a consequence settled fact becomes instead matters of opinion. It is the height of uninformed arrogance. The very definition of reaching only the first level of expertise competence.

My advice to these "artists" is to tone down the testosterone and approach Nature with a bit more humility, recognizing the inconvenient truth that, like it or not, you will always be the grasshopper in that relationship.

Ken

 

[blockend]

At its most fundamental, yes it does. If one is an artist for whom an art sale in a competitive market means meat and potatoes on the table that evening, then you're darned right it's all about qualitative evolutionary change. That is Darwin's principle in spades. Reference The Daybooks... Weston hated those damned portrait sittings. But even he admitted to himself that they were ultimately his own products. Part of his body of work.

Besides, I prequalified the process to behavioral evolution, as opposed to biological evolution. Nevertheless, everything in the world still evolves over time. Including human intellect. Which is the underpinning of human creativity. Which is the foundation of human art. Show me something anywhere in Creation that does not evolve over time, and I'll show you a failure of the Second Law. A motionless Arrow of Time.

People seem to have this strange concept that Art, in this case Photography as Art, is somehow immune to the laws of nature. That so-called artists can, by the mere force of their will, change the rules by which human endeavor is defined. That by using their self-proclaimed uniqueness they can make the laws of nature disappear by simply ignoring them. And as a consequence settled fact becomes instead matters of opinion. It is the height of uninformed arrogance. The very definition of reaching only the first level of expertise competence.

My advice to these "artists" is to tone down the testosterone and approach Nature with a bit more humility, recognizing the inconvenient truth that, like it or not, you will always be the grasshopper in that relationship.

Ken

Visual creativity has little to do with photographic technology. You want to see creativity in action, give a great photographer a box camera. Technological "evolution" leads to the horrors of HDR, not a superior form of Ansel Adams. His work was never about Yosemite, or a moonrise, they were not geological surveys or topographic guides, they were all about Ansel Adams, and that's equally true of every well known photographer you can name. Reality does not reveal itself through the lens of a camera, reality was there all along, the only thing revealed is the mind of the photographer. There is no visual "progress", only people working with the equipment available.

 

[blockend]

Regardless of whether you believe in evolutionary progress or not, or simply consider it change, I'm not sure why you would deny there are parallels between the change in photographic technology/style, and other forms of evolution, eg evolution of life, or evolution of cars and driving styles, etc.

No man (or camera) is an island.

We may be talking at cross purposes. To be clear, I'm referring to the OP's link in which two photographic critics bemoan the lack of originality and personal insight in much contemporary photography. A photographer can amuse himself as he damn well likes on his own time and it's nobody else's business, but when he publicly presents his/her work for appraisal, people will view and position it in a wider photographic context.

In the case of Ansel Adams - whose name keeps reappearing for some reason - he ring fenced a particular kind of descriptive, monochrome, optically mediated, romantic view of the American landscape that subsequent photographers have to negotiate. That isn't to say contemporary photographers can't shoot black and white, or landscape, or large format, but if they're going to combine all three and believe their vision to be a unique one, they need to navigate Adams first. They can't rely on technology to get them out of a hole, because within his own specific oeuvre, he nailed his thing comprehensively and left very few loopholes, so they need a particular vision of their own.

The same goes for any of the iconic photographers people care to name. Their fame mostly rests on showing people things that resonated, which means they dealt in a language that was both newly coined and offered instant currency. Imitating that language is an individual's prerogative, and may lead them to transcend it, but if it's presented to the world as novelty, they're offering Monopoly money and claiming it's a dollar bill. That isn't evolution, it's cloning.

 

[TheFlyingCamera]

hi scott

i don't know about that. there really isn't much of anything new that has been done ... since the first people did it
if someone wants to emulate ansel adams, or watkins, or f64 landscapists or
make trunkated nudes or photographs of peppers, boring landscapes,circus freaks, or drunk nudes in a motel room some might think it is a great thing.
people digest and make what they can and what they want and digesting
it makes it their own. no one is an isolationist living in that cabin and even if they are
people are influenced by everything around them.
and they make things that matter to them .. whether it is endless film tests
or finding someone else's tripod holes or photographing water towers in germany

so, even though you might not think it is "an original brad smith" it will be.
im not one of the folks that thinks its a great thing, i think it might be kind of boring to
always be doing that sort of work. but thats just me, .

There's nothing wrong I suppose with being a slavish imitator of someone else's work if you're just doing it for your own satisfaction. If you have a goal of being someone, of being "the next Michael Kenna" or "the next Annie Leibowitz" or whoever, that's when you run into trouble.

 

[Ken Nadvornick]

Visual creativity has little to do with photographic technology.

Not talking about incremental technological evolution. Talking about incremental intellectual evolution. Which directly impacts progressive visual creativity. And which you appear to believe is impossible. Despite all of the obviously valid factual examples of it with which you have been supplied. And the fact that mankind has been continuously progressing via incremental intellectual evolution—later better ideas built upon the shoulders of earlier lesser ideas—for over five million years.

There are real reasons why the ancient Romans, with all of their impressive intellectual capabilities, had wonderful chariots, but were still not able to place a man on the moon. There are also reasons why the lunar rovers used wheels, just like the Roman chariots.

If I accept what you say, then I cannot for the life of me see how we arrived at where we are today. It makes no sense. Unless you are arguing a Biblical interpretation wherein we all just suddenly materialized fully intellectually formed from a featureless vacuum...

Ken