How much of Mapplethorps's art was Mapplethorps?

rfshootist said:

<blah blah about Moonrise snipped>
I know this story. But what has a underexposed neg to do with a mundane and dreary neg ? THAT was issue.

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My point was that, in your earlier post, you seemed to almost completely discount the craft of the darkroom. Adams's negative was, by all accounts, nigh unprintable. I can't find the text I'm remembering right now (otherwise I'd cite it), but he had to resort to all manner of heroics in the darkroom (your "analog photoshopping") to get the magical print he did. As Michael said, it didn't sing until it hit the darkroom.

That said, he started with a pretty wonderful image; I will not dispute that. But in the hands of a lesser printmaker, it wouldn't have ended up the icon that it is. Craft, even bizarro super manipulation, is still a necessary part of the art, and you can't discount it, not even a little bit. One hand washes the other, right?

Will

blansky said:

In my opinion the process is from when the photographer chose the film, through when he presents the final print.

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While that's certainly one interpretation, and a perfectly reasonable one, it's a bit of a circular argument - one person [me] can do it because I define the process to be the bit that I can do.

The equipment available to you IS part of your work. Would you be impressed if a photographer designed a camera specifically to get a shot? What if he hired someone to build him that camera for the shot? What if someone build a camera which (for the first time) could get a particular shot, and a photographer used it?

blansky said:

I am slightly less impressed when he oversees a couple of people and I'm not impressed at all when it is a committee.

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Why? I wouldn't argue that committee's often produce bad things (photographs/products/laws!), but the comittee doesn't make it inherently worst. If you think you could produce better work with the right team, why not hire the team? If you think it's harder with the team, then respect those who can lead a team.

Ian

127 said:

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.

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And I tend to believe that these are only the most superficial supports one has as an artist. The social milieu of an artist is far more important that the materials in influencing the product. I'd say that my pictures are far more dependent upon the folks I talk with than upon the materials with which I work. I am not sure I'll fully grant Sagan's apple pie metaphore though; I doubt that the brand of brick making a studio bears measurable importance on the work produce therein.

127 said:

Why? I wouldn't argue that committee's often produce bad things (photographs/products/laws!), but the comittee doesn't make it inherently worst. If you think you could produce better work with the right team, why not hire the team? If you think it's harder with the team, then respect those who can lead a team.

Ian

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My answer to this would be, to use the Leibovitz example, that this is not the work of Ms Leibovitz, but if it was called the Leibovitz Committee, then I would have no objections.

Back in the sixties, Elton John and Bernie Taupin had many songs together. They were refered to as such, which I believe is proper.

If Joe Blow as a photographer has no darkroom ability and has Freddy Job as his amazing printer, then in my opinion the print should be credited to Blow/Job and not to Joe Blow.

I think it is a credit thing for me. Don't put forth as yours what is not yours.


Michael

blansky said:

I think it is a credit thing for me. Don't put forth as yours what is not yours.

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Exactly!!! Which is why we should dispell the myth of the Auteur in all its forms. It's only because people like to believe in the lone artist that one person can take credit (Peter Jackson's "King Kong"), but once we accept that the person with their name on the box is just one of a team then there's no longer a problem.

When I see a name on a product I assume that person is the leader of a group. Of course if they claim they're not, and then are exposed thats a big no-no, but provided everone is open and honest then leading the team is as valid as working on your own (but don't get too carried away that anyone works truley solo).

Ian

wilhelm said:

As Michael said, it didn't sing until it hit the darkroom.

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wilhelm said:

Michals contribution wasn 't helpful, he tried to make it fit by mixing to different things up:

An underexposed neg, with a vision on it, saved by an ingenious printer on one hand and a dreary and a mundane photo on that other hand , which a great printer allegedly can make sing..

These two very different things must be kept propperly separated if we don't want to loose the track here ! It wasn't about technical faults ! It was about mundane and dreary negs. Artistical impotence is not a technical fault , correct ?

That said, he started with a pretty wonderful image; I will not dispute that.
Great. I take this as your approval that AA the king of printers did not make a mundane and dreary photo sing here. NO printer can do that. His extraordinary printing knowledges helped him to save his vision, that's all and does not touch the original claim I was referring to.

bertram

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munane again

What is the most mundane thing you can think of? My answer to this question 15 years ago was crushed cans. I've been photographing these mundane objects ever since. I like to think(with humility) that my abilities in the darkroom elevate the cans beyond mundaness. About a year ago there was a spread in View Camera magazine highlighting another photographer who had the same idea. His cans were printed in platinum mine are in silver. I did get to see his original prints at the Houston Center for Photography. They were spectacular. Any mundanity inherent in the cans was simply lost to his expert printing ability. We make selections in subject matter for a variety of reasons. For Winogrand it was"to see what something looks like when photographed" For Gowin it is"to reveal the structure of something". For EW it was "the thing itself". For me it is the concept of "tathata", to reveal that which identifies a thing as that thing.The tathata can't be seen, smelled , tasted or heard but as a photographer I must try to reveal it. EW, Winogrand and Gowin are doing, I believe, the same thing. What is inherently dramatic or non-mundane about a twisted pepper, or a group of sisters as photographed by Gowin? The subject matter was chosen based partly on the assumption that the photographic process can and will reveal the inner and outer structure that is seen by the eye of a true artist. A great deal of this happens in the darkroom. I don't believe that there are many of us who are so purist that they would not burn and dodge. Use all the photographic powers that are available to you.Perhaps then the seemingly mundane can become majestic
Jack B

How about Irving Penn's huge platinum prints of cigarette butts? (I believe that Brett Weston referred to them as "elegant shit.")

I am inclined to think Brett Weston was entirely too kind. I would also say that Moon Rise Over Hernandez printed under Ansel's direction to yield the same print would be just as valid and be indistinquishable. Ansel did employ darkroom help. If I have an employee print under my direction as opposed to
working with an outside printer is that any different? Does a photographer have to do all the following steps to consider the work to be theirs? Load film, choose to shoot a subject, place the camera, focus and set the camera, trip the shutter, unload film, develop, stop, fix and dry film, insert the negative in the carrier, focus the negative, determine contrast, expose the paper with the necessary manipulation, stop, fix, wash, tone, trim, mount and spot prints. If they do then even Ansel would not meet this criteia.

Good photography and good printing are two seperate skills which can be embodied in the same person but do not have to be. Certainly, what is on the transparency or negative is vitally important. The way it is printed is also very important. I would like to believe that I am a skilled printer but I see no evidence that it is true.

I see, what for me is, way too much emphasis on doing wonders in the darkroom and way to little emphasis on producing the finest negatives possible.

severian said:

........ crushed cans. I've been photographing these mundane objects ever since. I like to think(with humility) that my abilities in the darkroom elevate the cans beyond mundaness.
Jack B

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Ah, you take pics of a mundane thing and then your printing abilities elevate that thing beyond mundaness ?? Now I see finally what you mean, the Warhol thing !
Photo magazines are bad advicers btw when it comes to finding new ideas, they are all still living in this delusion of "creative photography" which is solely an invention of "suburban photo clubs" in the 60s, as Sieff said, same as the stupid question if photography is art or not.

Well to each his own, do it if that's what you like, no further questions or comments then from me because this has nothing to do with photography imo. My POV is that t he camera is kinda abused here for picking an arbritrary item or pattern, just to gain a kind of source for "elevating - by - printing" exercises.
I have totally different expectations concerning the use of a camera and the results I try to get.

bertram

So help me understand. The right thing to do is wait for that perfect sunset/rock/tree/water combo and however you print it is fine. Better yet get someone else to print it because artists shouldn't be burdened by craft nonsense.

But I get confused because I think last rays of sun over cemetaries in the desert southwest are mundane and crushed aluminun cans are fascinating. Cigarette butts are way too cool. Probably there ain't no good formula for a good subject to point a lens at.

I wonder if maybe it would be cool to have a balance between vision and craft. Maybe the craft would help others take the vision seriously and the vision would give the craft purpose. Ya, that's why I respect people who print their own stuff more.

I quite like photographs of mundane things. Elevated or not. Eggleston is one of my favorite photographers. I liked the cigarette butt photographs too.

While I pretty much totally agree with Michael, I also realize that photographers depend on a lot of cooperation to produce their photographs.

Taken to the extreme, credit lines and signatures on photographs might end up saying, "Photograph of (fill in the blank), (Date), Hasselblad camera, Zeiss lens, Kodak film, Ilford chemicals, Durst enlarger, Schneider lens, Forte paper, Kodak chemicals, Fotospeed toner, products and supplies bought from B&H and Freestyle, delivered by Federal Express and UPS, Joe Blow photographer".

guilty

rfshootist said:

Ah, you take pics of a mundane thing and then your printing abilities elevate that thing beyond mundaness ?? Now I see finally what you mean, the Warhol thing !
Photo magazines are bad advicers btw when it comes to finding new ideas, they are all still living in this delusion of "creative photography" which is solely an invention of "suburban photo clubs" in the 60s, as Sieff said, same as the stupid question if photography is art or not.

Well to each his own, do it if that's what you like, no further questions or comments then from me because this has nothing to do with photography imo. My POV is that t he camera is kinda abused here for picking an arbritrary item or pattern, just to gain a kind of source for "elevating - by - printing" exercises.
I have totally different expectations concerning the use of a camera and the results I try to get.

bertram

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Guilty as accused. I looked in a photo magazine. I'll wear sackcloth and eat locusts for a month
Jack

Mateo said:

I wonder if maybe it would be cool to have a balance between vision and craft. Maybe the craft would help others take the vision seriously and the vision would give the craft purpose. Ya, that's why I respect people who print their own stuff more.

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Very well said. I couldn't agree more.

I believe in teamwork

I've been reading this thread with great interest, and appreciate the thought and civility that has gone into the discussion. For my book Crash Burn Love: Demolition Derby , I made all of my own work prints (thousands) but turned the final production of master prints that would be scanned for the presses over to some "pros" whose job it is every day to make top-quality prints. I knew they could do a much better job of that phase of the process than I could, so it was an easy decision. They were, of course, acknowledged in the book and well-paid for their excellent work.

I think the difference between a good work print and a top-quality print for publication or presentation has to be taken into account. The differences may in some cases be subtle, but to some people they're critical -- to others it isn't that big a deal, because for them the important thing is the content of the image not the "object" they are producing or selling.

And really it just comes down to the time that is available for the photographer to take part in the production process. All of the top level photographers I know (save for one or two) turn their work over to assistants or labs for development and printing. There are a few who feel, as some of the responders to this thread, that it is essential for the photographer to be involved and responsible for every single step of the production. I can certainly see the merit to that, but I wouldn't say it's essential for the production of an "interesting," or "important" or "enduring" image.

The successful production of a photograph, like the production of many other things -- a house, a song, a painting -- can be accomplised either by an individual or a team of people. I believe that in order to get the best product time and money allow it usually will best be achieved through teamwork, because everyone has different strengths and weaknesses. I couldn't make as good a print (at least in the time allotted) as the women who printed for my book, but they couldn't have taken the pictures I did. Together, we turned out a set of images I'm really proud of. I would certainly use this approach again without any hesitation.
Bill
http://www.crashburnlove.com

blansky said:

Avedon had lab people doing his work. It can be argued that they oversaw the process but to some, that is like da Vinci telling his assistant how he wanted the Mona Lisa painted.


Michael

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When it comes to controlled lighting situations, like studio, the lighting plays a huge role in the look of the image. A well lit shot, with the tonalities, shadows and highlights nailed on the film, could be printed at your drugstore by a reasonably competent lab tech using an automated process and it will come out great. Avedon knew lighting very well, I'm certain the negs that he gave the lab required very little effort and no interpretation on their part.

However and i can't understand why some people consider it acceptable, is that many available light art photographers have other people print their work. I can see if it's a mural size print and you give an exhibition printer a sample print and your print "formula" to follow and copy. But so many art photographers simply pass off the work to someone else to figure out. For me so much of what the image ultimately becomes is the result of interpretation in the darkroom. It just seems like in the case of so many things, actual competence at your profession seems to matter little today.

Early Riser said:

When it comes to controlled lighting situations, like studio, the lighting plays a huge role in the look of the image. A well lit shot, with the tonalities, shadows and highlights nailed on the film, could be printed at your drugstore by a reasonably competent lab tech using an automated process and it will come out great. Avedon knew lighting very well, I'm certain the negs that he gave the lab required very little effort and no interpretation on their part.

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Interesting that you say that, because fashion lighting is probably one of most uncomplicated. It is mostly a flat lit, umbrellas on either side type of lighing.

Most fashion setups are overall lit and the beauty of the model and the art of the makeup person defines the face. I really don't know if Avedon was a great lighting person, since most of his work is pretty flat lit.

As for the neg being great, it probably was, but there are pictures of "work prints" sitting on his desk that have up to 10-15 burn/dodge instructions on them. So your argument that the lab just make an automated print is probably not correct.


Michael