Form/ Aesthetics v. Concept/ Statement

cliveh said:

If Leica made decking they would use screws, not nails and would certainly not contemplate them under the influence of LSD.

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But just think what they would cost!

And would they open screw "boutiques"?

Blansky - Love the parable. Reminds me of the process of an anthropologist viewing a new found / long lost cvilization.

i.candide
Dangerous to oneself

Thank you for all the responses. They have truly helped me figure this issue that I have been having. I thought these were important questions that needed to be asked since I see so many walk blindly without ever questioning what they are told. Your answers have helped me do more research on this issue. Here is a good blog post that I found that kind of sums up the issue. http://arkalangeles.blogspot.com/2009/11/what-ive-been-thinking-about-formalism.html

Maris said:

The position of a photograph in the art market, a popularity contest rather than a quality contest, run by high-rollers, chancers, and state institutions.

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And those who should be in state institutions

cliveh said:

I see nothing wrong with you working in whatever style you wish. If you wish to emulate the style of Adams, then stick with it and after several hundred/thousand photographs you will notice your work is not like Adams but your own. Everybody copies or is inspired by someone and although professors may suggest (not tell) you what to do, you don’t have to follow. There are no rules, so be true to yourself.

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Cliveh,

As I expected you ere very much right here. Even though my train of thought is similar to Adams my work is very different because if continued exposure to several differenct photographs. A little over a month ago we had a photographer visit our department, Stan Strembicki. He said that you can try a technique and get the photograph you want, but then you need to ask yourself, what now, what can I do know that I have been able to do with this. So, I do see my work going in a direction I like and it is truly my own.

I did ignore my proffesor on my last project. He is mainly a 35mm photographer. He said that it is difficult to compose in a square and he advised against it. But I went ahead and shot with my Rolleicord. I didn't get the best grade but in critique the other students really liked the square and the different point of view because of the waist level viewer. So, I am happy with the project which is actually part of a personal project I am working on.

Kris

Agree with Greg Davis. Lewis Baltz said "there is no history of photography", which is something I've been thinking about a lot recently. There is only a canon of photographers relevant to their own time periods and it's very easy to get caught up in the past. You might have to ask yourself why it is you relate so much to Ansel Adams and the classical photography - is it for subjective or formal reasons? You mention Stephen Shore who of course was part of the New Topographics, but his work is rooted in formalism. Everything he says about photography always comes back to his fascination with the ground glass and subtleties of composition. I absolutely agree that nearly every contemporary large format photographer is deeply influenced by Shore and it shows. Nadav Kander is one, but I love his work regardless, as his subjective concerns are unique. There's more humanity to Kander's work.

I've recently bought Uncommon Places by Shore and I looked through it probably five times the day it came in the post. His work is so rich and visually involving.

I also need to say that for the first few years of my photography, up until last year, I was only interested in traditional landscape work and predominantly British. All my pictures up until a year ago are concentrated on purely natural subject matter. I rapidly moved away from it upon the realisation that landscape photography, as a genre, is notable for being bound to convention - a collective way of seeing. Personal exploration is limited when you give yourself over to a tradition. I've also started to understand that the aversion to landscape photography in the art world comes down to this very fact that it's a world unto itself. It plays by its own rules, which for me, felt like a straightjacket. A niche within a niche as they say. Photographers such as Darren Almond, Thomas Joshua Cooper and John Blakemore who work in the landscape, have done so with a personal way of seeing. There isn't a near-far or 80/20 composition to be seen. Their work is notable for its personal expression and the art world likes it better for this reason, which is no bad thing. Maybe you could have a look at their work as a starting point for broadening your horizons... so to speak.

Darkroom317 said:

I did ignore my proffesor on my last project. He is mainly a 35mm photographer. He said that it is difficult to compose in a square and he advised against it. But I went ahead and shot with my Rolleicord. I didn't get the best grade but in critique the other students really liked the square and the different point of view because of the waist level viewer. So, I am happy with the project which is actually part of a personal project I am working on.

Kris

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Your professor is an ass, you should have told him to look at the images of Bill Brandt.

greg

i keep coming back and reading your post
it really resonates in a lot of ways.
thanks !
john

Greg Davis said:

I teach photography in the art department of a major university. I can tell you from experience, as a teacher, and as a former student making the same kind of modernist photographs you like, that it is not 1954 anymore. Don't worry about a Gursky selling for any amount of money. That is unrelated to you making photographs or having your work critiqued, or art making in general. That is about art market economics, not art making.

I am not going to tell you that you cannot make the photographs like your heroes, but be prepared to defend it. What they are telling you in subtext is that art moves forward, and the work you like was made half a century ago. How can you make them while looking to the future of photography? If all you want is to make that type of photograph, then there is no need for you to get a BFA, or even go to school. The department is going to push you to evolve in style and ideas. That does not mean you need to change what you do, but they are going to ask you to think critically about why you choose to look to the past and explore old ideas about photography, and not new ones. You need to ask yourself the same thing.

You are going to get a lot of people here telling you what you want to hear, that a university is only going to try to force you to make photographs like the people you hate. That is not true, and if it is, go to a different school. But, a university is about research. In the art department, that means exploration of new ideas in visual communication. If you are only rehashing old ideas, you are not doing research.

No matter what you do in your work, be open minded about other people's work. Look at all of it, even if it isn't what you would make. Try to understand what they are trying to accomplish and it may help you figure out what you want to accomplish in your own work.

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blansky said:

Aha, the compromising of ones principles in the worship of practicality.

Foregoing the beautiful woman and settling for the good cook.

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We all grow old, fat, droopy... But the cooking remains.