How much of Mapplethorps's art was Mapplethorps?

blansky · Dec 22, 2005

avandesande said:
You could go ad nauseum with this type of thinking. Wet-plate guys could accuse us film shooters of not creating our own emulsions, so we aren't artists.
Perhaps we should be digging up our own silver ore and making everything from scratch.

A bit extreme.

Why is it that when a Rembrandt is for sale it is worth millions and when somone copied it and most experts couldn't tell the difference, that it is virtually worthless.

Because people want the work of who is advertised.

If someones assistant produces a product, is it worth the same as the master?

Michael

blansky · Dec 22, 2005

Bill Mitchell said:
If you'd learn that H. C.-B. hasn't printed ever his photos would you then
seriously find his work artistically less worth than you found it before ?

bertram

Yes.

Slightly less.

Michael

Robert Budding · Dec 22, 2005

I appreciate the artistic creation of the composer when I attend a classical music concert. And I appreciate the artistic interpretation of the orchestra and composer. They each perform different roles, both of which are important in providing an experience.

Robert

Robert Budding · Dec 22, 2005

Oops. Should read "orchestra and conductor."

Robert

Lee Shively · Dec 22, 2005

Cartier-Bresson was, and Nachtwey is, a journalist. They shot for publication. The subject matter of their photography, the nuance of the subject's expression or the circumstance being photographed was the purpose. Their work has been exalted as art but, I believe, they did not present themselves as artists--except for HCB and his sketches. MapplethorpE, presented himself as an artist.

If you create artwork and present it as art, I believe it should be your work. Even if the technical quality of the print is less than perfect, a piece of art actually made by the hand of the artist should be worth more than one made by a technician.

Considering Annie Liebovitz and her entourage of assistants involved in the production of her photographs, who really is the artist? Did Matthew Brady ever make any photographs himself during the Civil War or was it only his hired help doing the photography while he took the credit? Is it enough just to push the button or own the camera? So it goes.

Bill Mitchell · Dec 22, 2005

Mozart played by the New York Philharmonic or a Kazoo Band is still Mozart. I think that St. Ansel pegged it correctly when he said, "The negative is the score, and the print is the performance."

Bob Carnie · Dec 22, 2005

Just saw Annie Liebovitz new book of Musicains , I think she is an amazing photographer even if she has a large crew.. The artists are definately relating to her as the photographer. The prints in the book are well done but you definately see her vision coming through..
All great photographers seem to have an ablility to make the viewer see their vision. A good printer should be able to compliment their style and not overshawdow.
I think there are many competent printers worldwide that can do this.

Mike Spry out of England did an amazing job printing Anton Corjbins Star Trax, but without the photographer's ability to bring out the subject , we are at a stalemate, the most important element is what the photographer puts on film, I don't think it matters who prints the image, as long as it is approved by the photographer. I think that Mike Spry brought to the table years of printing knowledge and daily experience that Corbjin respected and took advantage of.

jd callow · Dec 22, 2005

Lee Shively said:
Considering Annie Liebovitz and her entourage of assistants involved in the production of her photographs, who really is the artist? <snip> Is it enough just to push the button or own the camera? So it goes.

I have a freind who spent a few months assisting Ms L. He doesn't speak kindly of her Photographic Kung-fu (at any level).

rfshootist · Dec 22, 2005

blansky said:
If someones assistant produces a product, is it worth the same as the master?
Michael

In this case the assistants do not produce a work, they are just the muscle.

Saying you would rate the artistic worth of HCB's work ( in other words himelf as an artist ) lower if you knew he did the printing not himself you say also that the visual perception solely is not enuff for you to find a reliable judgement about a photogs work.

That is remarkable, considering that we talk about photography here and photos, a medium to which we are connected solely by visual perception.

Bertram

severian · Dec 22, 2005

Sinatra

Bob Carnie said:
Without a great image , a printer is only rendering tones.

A great printer can make the most dreary and mundane image sing like Sinatra
Jack

severian · Dec 22, 2005

Weston's prints

The last time a saw an E Weston print that was printed by his son the price was $1200.00. What would a print of the same negative printed by E Weston
be worth? I'm guessing a bit more than $1200.00. Why?
Jack

severian · Dec 22, 2005

Dimaggio

RichSBV said:
Just a note. When discussing Mapplethorpe, it might be a nice idea to mention which one, especially when you mention the fact that he's now dead. Yes, Robert Mapplethorpe is dead, but Edward is alive and well and still photographing...

Word association. I say Dimaggio, Do you say Dom?
Jack

blansky · Dec 22, 2005

rfshootist said:
In this case the assistants do not produce a work, they are just the muscle.

Saying you would rate the artistic worth of HCB's work ( in other words himelf as an artist ) lower if you knew he did the printing not himself you say also that the visual perception solely is not enuff for you to find a reliable judgement about a photogs work.

That is remarkable, considering that we talk about photography here and photos, a medium to which we are connected solely by visual perception.

Bertram

Your remarks are fixated on HBC. Mine are on photographers in general. And the answer is as I stated.

I have more respect for the photographer who produces his own work. From exposure to finished print. Your mileage may differ.

There probably isn't anyone on this site that couldn't take a random snapshot by grandma and with some darkroom work turn it into a pretty good print. Does that make grandma a good photographer?

In my opinion the process is an integral part of the product.

Michael

Mateo · Dec 22, 2005

I'm not really familiar with Robert Maplethorpe's photographs and I don't think I'll be collecting too many of them what with not being a person of great monetary means.

So I got to thinking...what if I was to download one of his images online somewhere and hit control P. Now that would distill the thing down to what the photographer contributed without all them distracting details added by such and such master printer. Neverminding the legal problems, I'm pretty sure that what I'll get should be equal in value to those prints hanging in galleries, minus the cost of the frame of course.

rfshootist · Dec 22, 2005

severian said:
A great printer can make the most dreary and mundane image sing like Sinatra
Jack

A kind of analog photoshopping I suppose ?. Tarting up junk is not printing tho. Printing is making the vision visible. What kinda vison could be in a mundane
and dreary shot ?

bertram

Jim Chinn · Dec 22, 2005

severian said:
The last time a saw an E Weston print that was printed by his son the price was $1200.00. What would a print of the same negative printed by E Weston
be worth? I'm guessing a bit more than $1200.00. Why?
Jack

That is true, but the last time I read anything about a Mapplethorpe printed by someone else being sold at auction it sold for 6 figures without the decimal point. One big difference being that the Mapplethorpe was printed under his supervison.

severian · Dec 23, 2005

mundane

rfshootist said:
A kind of analog photoshopping I suppose ?. Tarting up junk is not printing tho. Printing is making the vision visible. What kinda vison could be in a mundane
and dreary shot ?

bertram

Clouds, mountains,little houses,cemetaries all pretty mundane stuff. Until they are "analog photoshopped" into Moonrise, Hernandez
Jack

rfshootist · Dec 23, 2005

severian said:
Clouds, mountains,little houses,cemetaries all pretty mundane stuff. Until they are "analog photoshopped" into Moonrise, Hernandez
Jack

AA did not photograph mundane clouds, mountains,little houses and cemetaries , he photographed the magic of the moonlight .
There was never anything dreary or mundane in this superb Hernandez concept that needed an analog photoshopper to make it sing.

If a printer claims he can make mundane and trivial things make sing by his craft of printing then he shall call himself whatever he wants to , but not a photographer.

In general I am surprised to read such a statement of making mundane stuff sing, here on this analog site where all kind of manipulation is considered as the worst thing at all which can be done to a photo. Or is that in your opinion only valid if it is done digitally ?

To me it sounds as if you got a bit off-rail with your photographical intentions by concentrating too much on the craft side.

bertram

Bob Carnie · Dec 23, 2005

severian said:
A great printer can make the most dreary and mundane image sing like Sinatra
Jack

This is true:
We gave point and shoot cameras to a class of 5 year olds and then put all the selected negs in the enlarger and made prints.

These images hung in the lobby of a nursing home and I would say they were very good.. but when I tried to put the images in MOMA , we were rejected.

wilhelm · Dec 23, 2005

rfshootist said:
AA did not photograph mundane clouds, mountains,little houses and cemetaries , he photographed the magic of the moonlight .
There was never anything dreary or mundane in this superb Hernandez concept that needed an analog photoshopper to make it sing.

Well, whatever you may think about that particular photograph, Adams got lucky - he lucked onto the scene on the way back from a shooting trip in Santa Fe, and since he could not find his light meter, had to make an educated guess about the exposure. As a result, most of the negative was grossly underexposed, and only through meticulous application of craft, was he able to bring anything out of it. (The Negative, pg 127, sidebar).

rfshootist said:
In general I am surprised to read such a statement of making mundane stuff sing, here on this analog site where all kind of manipulation is considered as the worst thing at all which can be done to a photo. Or is that in your opinion only valid if it is done digitally ?

So it sounds like you're taking the extreme position that it's not true photography unless it's a straight print, out of a straight in-camera negative. This site is about analog photography, both the art and the craft. In the craft of analog darkroom work, there are many techniques available for manipulating the image. All manner of chemistry choices, paper grade choices, burning, dodging, split-grade printing, contrast masking, unsharp masking, the list goes on and on. Where do you think photoshop got the names for many of its tools? But back to my point, all these methods of manipulation, which are all entirely analog, are available to support the artistic statement of the one making the print.

I made a print just yesterday which required the split-grade technique, some burning-in of a few areas, and the print could probably do even better with a mask to bring the highlights down a bit. Is that not analog photography? I used no computers of any kind, other than my digital watch to time the film processing, and my digital enlarging timer; my light meter is even analog.

As far as making mundane negatives great by darkroom wizardry, I would say it's not very likely. As another poster mentioned Adams's comment, the negative is the score, and the print is the performance. If either one is lacking, the whole is compromised. A great print of a mundane subject is still going to be mundane. And fabulous negatives printed in an amateurish fashion, well, they aren't any good either. To use the HCB example, I find many of the reproductions of his work to be flat and lifeless, despite the wonderful composition, and this diminishes the work to me. I've never seen a real HCB print in real life, so I'll hold off final judgement until I do.

Will

avandesande · Dec 23, 2005

Luck has nothing to do with it. The thing that 'unifies' all master photographers from CB to AA is to be able to recognize great photographic opportunities. I am not a big AA fan but give credit where it was due.. AA had good technique and a good eye. I don't necessarily agree with his approach to photography or how he marketed himself.

blansky · Dec 23, 2005

Moonlight over...... did not "sing" until it hit the darkroom.

Michael

rfshootist · Dec 23, 2005

As a result, most of the negative was grossly underexposed, and only through meticulous application of craft, was he able to bring anything out of it. (The Negative, pg 127, sidebar).
I know this story. But what has a underexposed neg to do with a mundane and dreary neg ? THAT was issue.

So it sounds like you're taking the extreme position that it's not true photography unless it's a straight print, out of a straight in-camera negative.
Will
No, not at at all. It's the opposite standpoint, , all kind of extremism is kinda sick for me.
What I really said was that a great printer cannot make mundane and dreary negs sing. That's the way it was said , and there is no possibility to interprete anything, this means manipulation ! The manipulation I was talking about using the "analog photoshopping" comparison.

The consequence would be a great printer makes art from everything, no matter how poor it is. To me this sounds a bit like having lost conact to reality.
Photo printing is a a craft that cannot stand alone, without photographers shooting negs, and it cannot create art itself, it needs a source .
That's trivial, isn't it ?
bertram

127 · Dec 23, 2005

The problem is that we love the idea of the auteur - the lone artist struggling to produce their work single handed. In some art forms it's vaguly possible, or at least it APPEARS possible, but in fact it's usually just not.

We're all dependant on a team - the guys who designed our cameras, the chemist that created the film, the builders who built the studio etc etc. You can take over more of the task yourself, or hand some of it over.

On the one hand it's tempting to think that the "artist" who just manages the project is less able. If a photographer can't/doesn't print their own work we think less of them - however if all it took to create great art was to hire the right people, then surely we could all hire a great darkroom guy, a great lighting team, a top model, and produce great art.

If you believe it takes no talent to manage/run/lead/captain such a team then take out a bank loan for $XX,000 and hire yourself that entourage for a one day shoot - you're SURE to produce a couple of great works and make enough money to retire!

There is no Auteur - no one does it on their own, and if a great work is produced by 1 or 1000 people it's the result that matters. We'd just LIKE to believe in "the one".

Ian

blansky · Dec 23, 2005

One of the remarkable things about photography is that it CAN be just one person. No collaboration necessary.

As for the who made the chemistry or whose genes the camera maker inherited, this to me is just a smokescreen. In my opinion the process is from when the photographer chose the film, through when he presents the final print.

We're not talking about a movie here, where 300 people collaborate to produce it and their names all appear on the credits. We're talking about a person with a camera taking a picture and making a print. It's not all that complicated a concept. He can do it alone.

When there is a committee producing a print then TO ME it has far less value that when a photographer does it himself. I am slightly less impressed when he oversees a couple of people and I'm not impressed at all when it is a committee.

Michael

How much of Mapplethorps's art was Mapplethorps?

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