And more importantly, the man is insanely prolific
This thought strikes me as well. Again with the book of historical portraits, I can only look at these from my knowledge of the past and in relation to my experience training and imagination. Whatever those photographers and sitters thought of, I can only relate to if the cultural structure of their consciousness is similar to my own.
I can only "get the impression the artist thought about it" if we are in the same ballpark of comprehension.
I snipped a bunch of your post for the sake of brevity of my response, but want you to know I enjoyed every word of it. Thank you.
This is something I think about often. In all of the fields of endeavor that I have been involved in in my life, I have seen many individuals who do the very best work and never receive nay recognition at all. On the other hand it is not uncommon for the individual that does receive recognition to be excellent in the field or not, but to be advantaged for other reasons, politics, who you aline yourself with, aggressive skills or whatever.
It is mentioned above about a body of work. frankly most of the well known monographs and books carry the same 20-50 images repeatedly. Karsh's books are extremely repetitive and his family and commercial work could be very average.
I have a book of Steichen which ends with a series of Shadblow tree images. they are photographs and they comment on mortality, growth, place in the world, otherwise unseen environment, what ever metaphor you like, AND they are by Steichen!
They do not stir me nor do I think they are really worthy of publication, particularly in the knowledge that there are thousands of great photographers never anointed who should be published.
As a side note I feel that your post "Some with the fancy sprinkles after their names like to poo poo anyone who doesn't use their language. It's a tribal thing."
And Pdeeh's response in post 35 have effectively set up a straw man with a colleague knocking him down. I questioned the motivational structure of the Art world but prior to there was no talk of "constantly denigrated as "ivory tower academics" or have their writing dismissed as "meaningless" or are called "so-called experts""
PS I have a lot of fancy sprinkles
Regarding physicists and chemists, the language is primarily directed at each other and is for the purpose of clarity. We have Bill Nye the science guy to explain it to us. There is no reason not to theorize about photography, but clarity is essential, if one really wishes to communicate. and no, you don't have to dumb it down, but neither to you make it incomprehensible to your audience.
Enough poster have written to convince me that Eggleston is an important photographer, but I remain unsure that the world of Art has developed a clarity in its discussions, top down or bottom up
Well, I intended it to be art.Ok, you're resorting to sarcasm. I think you're probably done?
Well, I guess that settles that. Everyone gets a trophy. Hooray!
I think it is great that each portrait tells you a story, without someone else having to tell you what that story is. They must be remarkable.That is interesting as well. I shall look for stories there. I like that idea because I am working on a book of historical portraits of 1840 on and each portrait tells me a story, so I can relate to your comments.
No more so than if they were tricycles taken with a point and shoot and printed as dye transfers. I'm process agnostic.if the photographs in question were grand landscapes made with a ULF camera contact printed on silver chloride paper
would they be be "art"?
Well, I guess that settles that. Everyone gets a trophy. Hooray!
In any case most of his well-known work was shot decades ago, that world is largely gone now, isn't it?
If everyone has a different definition, then there is no defintion.
I did not say it wasn't art, I said I am struggling with the academic explanation for why it should be considered as such.
Are the photographs I take art? Who decides? Me? You? The critics? The academics?
As much as you might want to scoff at the idea of it being art, it is still art with or without your approval of it being art.
That said, there is nothing in that to say that it is good art.
I suspect that good composition invokes an "in-between" emotional response, either consciously or unconsciously.All this begs the question, for an image to be considered art, from you the viewers perspective, does it need to evoke a visceral reaction? Anything from a gut punch to happiness and everything inbetween. Or can it just have good composition as an end in itself?
I haven't read extensively on Eggleston, but my guess would be that he chose dye transfer so he could control color.with regard to eggelston's dye transfer images ..
color "machine prints" / c-41 prints "c-prints" are not "archival"
my guess is he decided to have them printed in a more stable medium,
just like irving penn did with his color /dye transfer prints.
i haven't seen eggelston's work, except through the internet, but i have seen irving penn's
and they are beautiful.
All this begs the question, for an image to be considered art, from you the viewers perspective, does it need to evoke a visceral reaction? Anything from a gut punch to happiness and everything inbetween. Or can it just have good composition as an end in itself?
All this begs the question, for an image to be considered art, from you the viewers perspective, does it need to evoke a visceral reaction? Anything from a gut punch to happiness and everything inbetween. Or can it just have good composition as an end in itself?
I haven't read extensively on Eggleston, but my guess would be that he chose dye transfer so he could control color.
It's interesting to think about that.All this begs the question, for an image to be considered art, from you the viewers perspective, does it need to evoke a visceral reaction? Anything from a gut punch to happiness and everything inbetween. Or can it just have good composition as an end in itself?
+1 for that definition. Also art isn't defined by success, it can be a complete flop and failure, but it is still art.i don't think there is any criteria of what makes something "art" ...
it just has to be made / expressed
See now that's an interesting observation!maybe ... or maybe he just wanted to have his work made using the most expensive and time consuming way to create a color image ...
But plenty of art (often, but not always, conceptual art) uses photographs as part of a bigger piece, perhaps an installation or even a collage.
In those cases I wonder about the extent to which we can consider the photograph itself in isolation as an item that can be called "art".
maybe ... or maybe he just wanted to have his work made using the most expensive and time consuming way to create a color image ...
Thanks for posting the article. I really enjoyed it, and this thread even more.
I love Eggleston's work because it's the only photography I've ever discovered that improves with each viewing. At first sight, most of his photos do little for me, aside from causing confusion. The second, third and forth viewings usually result in more confusion. Then they start opening up and it starts to build. After a few months of going back to a photo, they can feel mesmerising, as though there's something just out of sight that you can't quite grasp. It's an odd feeling. A few of them also give me the uneasy feeling there's something sinister behind me in the room, that the people in the photos can see.
I recently viewed a couple of his original prints at the Tate in Liverpool. They were quite spectacular in the flesh.
Ahah! He or maybe others. Highly likely. It was a unique use of the process at the time, exclusive for sure.
LIKE a snapshot, but not EQUAL.
We are getting somewhere.
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