Loss of fine art photography tradition

tony lockerbie · Mar 15, 2013

Very interesting question. Possibly one does not need history to produce great work, after all someone using an Iphone is light years from a bloke with an 8x10 camera and a tray of pyro developer, the methods are just not the same.
Having said that, we can all learn and be inspired by those from history, all good art classes have a large part dedicated to the greats of art, same should be for photographic lessons. When I taught photography at night school I began with the pupils making and using pinhole cameras, and excellent grounding on the fundamentals.
I have to agree that it is a bit disturbing that they haven't heard of Weston, you would think that a very keen photographer would seek to look at this sort of work, even if their images in no way reflect that style.

markbarendt · Mar 15, 2013

horacekenneth said:
The point is that traditions are not so much a limiting factor as trying to be different for the sake of being different (or following tradition for the sake of following tradition).

I think we are going to have to agree to disagree. IMO traditions simply promote the status quo.

markbarendt · Mar 15, 2013

mark said:
Their just Wannabes

Yeah I know.

Probably should have picked somebody famous like Frida Kahlo

Or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galen_Rowell

Maybe a National Geographic photographer like http://photography.nationalgeograph...rs/photographer-lynsey-addario/?source=A-to-Z

Ken Nadvornick · Mar 15, 2013

Hmm...

Methinks the "new cadre of vocal contributors" has managed to run the OP off from his own thread.

Or maybe he's just taking a breather? Or gasping for air?

Ken

mannbro · Mar 16, 2013

TheFlyingCamera said:
Some of the greatest breakers of tradition in art were highly schooled in the traditions of art before they decided to break them - look at early Picasso paintings for example. Or early Renoirs, or early ....

Noone lives in a vacuum, and of course everyone - like it or not - are influenced to some degree by those who came before, and as I stated, while some ideas can only come to those who have a fresh mind, true innovation often comes from those who can both understand history, traditions, contemporary and the avant garde.

TheFlyingCamera said:
You've got to know the rules and conventions before you can break them successfully - otherwise you're just floundering around.

Innovation rarely - if ever - comes by breaking rules. It comes from exploring your subject, thoughts or ideas in a way that has never happened before.

Picasso's cubism wasn't invented to break rules, it was created to expand in the ideas of perspective to take the viewer furtherin to the subject through exploring several angles and points of view simultaneously.

Duchamp's readymades and Malevich's black square were not made to break the rules of what art is, but rather to explore what art can be and if and where the limits are.

Now, of course neither of those works of art and the advancement of the arts they contributed would have been possible without a certain understanding of the (then) contemporary art, but wether they studied early art history or not (I don't know), doesn't seem very relevant. They did know and fully understand the contemporary, and that seems way more relevant for their inventions.

Now, when it comes to photography, one problem, I think, is that since the history is so short, traditions are in a way held more important.

There is a lot of new and exciting photography being made today from artists who rather look to other art forms than early masters of photography, but as we photographers and lovers of great photography tend to be quite conservative, a lot of us tend to dismiss things that we can not trace back directly to the great old masters.

In this regard, I think the analog/digital shift can be quite healthy for photography. As the young digital artists of today have the opportunity to easier look to other art forms for inspiration than early photography, with all the crap that is produced, some good and innovative ideas will emerge.

I think that is well needed in the world of photography.

TheFlyingCamera · Mar 16, 2013

mannbro said:
Innovation rarely - if ever - comes by breaking rules.

Tell that to Steve Jobs

mannbro said:
Picasso's cubism wasn't invented to break rules, it was created to expand in the ideas of perspective to take the viewer furtherin to the subject through exploring several angles and points of view simultaneously.

Duchamp's readymades and Malevich's black square were not made to break the rules of what art is, but rather to explore what art can be and if and where the limits are.

I don't know about Duchamp and Malevich but I do know Picasso was an academic painter, trained in a formal art school setting, and as such he would have had art history even if only indirectly. And Cubism was certainly a rejection of contemporary standards and rules - it may have been an exploration of seeing multiple planes in a flat 2-dimensional representation, but that in itself is a wholesale break from the past where realism was a requirement, as was the shifting color palette that ran equally unrealistic.

The same was true of Impressionism - it marked a wholesale break from academic painting in that it represented the real world, not heroic ideals, and it represented it as the artists FELT it, not as the camera would see it.

Now, of course neither of those works of art and the advancement of the arts they contributed would have been possible without a certain understanding of the (then) contemporary art, but wether they studied early art history or not (I don't know), doesn't seem very relevant. They did know and fully understand the contemporary, and that seems way more relevant for their inventions.

Now, when it comes to photography, one problem, I think, is that since the history is so short, traditions are in a way held more important.

There is a lot of new and exciting photography being made today from artists who rather look to other art forms than early masters of photography, but as we photographers and lovers of great photography tend to be quite conservative, a lot of us tend to dismiss things that we can not trace back directly to the great old masters.

In this regard, I think the analog/digital shift can be quite healthy for photography. As the young digital artists of today have the opportunity to easier look to other art forms for inspiration than early photography, with all the crap that is produced, some good and innovative ideas will emerge.

I think that is well needed in the world of photography.

I agree in general, although I think we're at a watershed moment where "photography" is actually disappearing, or at least breaking off into photography and a new, as-yet-defined medium. Digital art may begin from photographs, but it goes so far beyond the photograph I think it's a disservice to both to keep calling it photography. Good for the art world? Certainly. Good for photography? yet to be determined.

Slixtiesix · Mar 16, 2013

By they way, I don´t know about the anglo-saxon world, but we in Germany distinguish between "photography" and "photographic art", with all these works created with the help of heavy photoshop or other software treatment falling into the latter category. Is there such a differentiation in the US?

markbarendt · Mar 16, 2013

Brian C. Miller said:
What the artist needs to do is stay on the bus and see where it goes. The bus will diverge from the other routes, and go somewhere unique. The photographer needs to figure out what they want to photograph, and stick with it.

I'm a big fan of mass transit but only when it can take me where I want to go.

The problem I see in your argument is that it is content/craft centric rather than expression/art centric.

Henri Cartier-Bresson was already expressing himself when photography came into his life in earnest, he was already a trained artist, a big part of his motivation to use photography was to be able to "instantly draw a picture", his idea paraphrased by me. HCB switched buses, to use your metaphore, to using a camera because it meant he could automate his work, the camera was just a tool to make drawings with and it even allowed him to hire out the printing process. He already knew where he wanted to go.

Adams fell in love with Yosemite and the outdoors first, then photography gave him a way to share it.

Much too often photography and movements/schools within photography (and other crafts/skill sets), like pictorialism and west coast styles and Lith and Wet Pkate, simply become answers looking for a questions, tools looking for jobs.

Brian C. Miller said:
While Adams is known for dramatic 0.8 ratio pictures of nature, that's not the only thing he photographed, or the only type of camera he used. I saw a YouTube video where he packed a lot of cameras into his truck, and among them was a panoramic camera. I have never seen any prints from that! So how does Adams break from his own tradition?

That's another thing that drives me nuts, is that everybody has to find something to be "known for." You have to have a rut. You may not move out of that rut. And what is a rut? A very long grave.

The magic of Adams and the f/64 community was in marketing.

Business thrives on repeating things over and over, most galleries I have ever seen find a type of subject that works and stick with it, because that is what their clients come to expect. Artists do the same thing, they dig their own ruts. Makes life easy and keeps food on the table.

f/64 did this to themselves, they defined a common style so that the members could get more gallery showings. It is spelled out in their manifesto. That common style allowed galleries to rotate between all the f/64 artists while maintaining a very specific style. In short it made gallery marketing easier.

That business model became f/64's rut.

removed account4 · Mar 16, 2013

mannbro said:
Picasso's cubism wasn't invented to break rules, it was created to expand in the ideas of perspective to take the viewer furtherin to the subject through exploring several angles and points of view simultaneously.

picasso didn't invent cubism at all.
others were similar things before ... he made it famous

what these people you mention did was stand outside convention, you are right they didn't break rules
they created new rules because the rules that existed did not relate to what they were doing.

PhotoJim · Mar 16, 2013

Slixtiesix said:
By they way, I don´t know about the anglo-saxon world, but we in Germany distinguish between "photography" and "photographic art", with all these works created with the help of heavy photoshop or other software treatment falling into the latter category. Is there such a differentiation in the US?

"Photography" and "imaging" - that's the terminology I use. Popular Photography magazine has retitled itself, in the past few years, the world's most popular "imaging" magazine so I think I have some precedent.

mannbro · Mar 16, 2013

jnanian said:
picasso didn't invent cubism at all.
others were similar things before ... he made it famous

Actually, he did invent cubism. Les Demoiselles d'Avignon was the precursor, and from there he explored it further. If I remember correctly, it was Gertrud Stein who came up with the name in 1909. While Braque also was a pioneeer in the field and probably influenced the development quite a bit, Picasso was, I am quite certain, the first.

PKM-25 · Mar 16, 2013

markbarendt said:
Business thrives on repeating things over and over, most galleries I have ever seen find a type of subject that works and stick with it, because that is what their clients come to expect. Artists do the same thing, they dig their own ruts. Makes life easy and keeps food on the table.

I don't think they should be called ruts but styles. It's the same thing for other arts, especially music. If your favorite performer had been doing flemenco guitar for two decades and then all of the sudden plugged a Strat into a 8 foot tall amp and hit the whammy bar like he was swatting a fly, I would hazard a guess that many if not most would not be happy about it.

When a person's subconscious sensibility can come to rely on getting another fix, it's both soothing and invigorating at the same time, so they like to count on it. I love trying new things in some areas but like certain things to stay somewhat the same in others, it's human nature.

What digital has done by function of marketing hype and the sheer nature of having a tool belt with not 8-12 expected tools but thousands of "options" is dilute a sense of attaining a style by not having limits to what one can actually do with said tools. This has resulted in very weak styles that never seem to settle on a look at a personal level. The curato of a show I am in said this exact same thing of her own work in that at some point, she knows she needs to stop dabbling and stick with what resonates with her. Although one can use self control to employ the use of digital to attain said styles as there is clearly evidence of that ( Mark Tucker ), most of what is out there is all over the map visually speaking because of having thousands of tools on that belt rather than a dozen and companies like Adobe, etc. love it.

If you are stuck in a style that is not working for you, it is a rut. But if it works for your deepest most subconscious response, it's not your rut but your niche.

But the bottom line is that people still do care and the ones who do not now never really did in the first place. Tha actual problem is web born perceptions and hype in the form of "Trending Now" that spread pure crap faster than a speeding loaf of you know what. Even the most intelligent of people would rather regurgitate the loaf of hype than think for them selves and find out what the truth is.

I only have really learned about the art world after moving to a town that places an enormous value on it and have taken my self more seriously as a creator of art, so I know who the masters of the pre-digital age are....I care.

You can not, however, force someone who does not care to suddenly do so, it will take life's simple twists and turns to do that.

StoneNYC · Mar 16, 2013

I would also guess many are like me, I never went to school for photography, so who would have taught me of the various greats that came before, all I know are the artists of now that I'm familiar with, I don't see any images other than Ansel's that are of any name mention at all in my daily life, even when I'm paying attention.

I only know of Dan for example because I met him, and only know Ron because he's a prolific figure on APUG, but the greats, where would I even see them?

I would guess its a lot about lack of exposure (no pun intended)

~Stone

Mamiya: 7 II, RZ67 Pro II / Canon: 1V, AE-1, 5DmkII / Kodak: No 1 Pocket Autographic, No 1A Pocket Autographic | Sent w/ iPhone using Tapatalk

removed account4 · Mar 16, 2013

mannbro said:
Actually, he did invent cubism. Les Demoiselles d'Avignon was the precursor, and from there he explored it further. If I remember correctly, it was Gertrud Stein who came up with the name in 1909. While Braque also was a pioneeer in the field and probably influenced the development quite a bit, Picasso was, I am quite certain, the first.

one could easily say that the italian futurists were doing this at the same time
they called it one thing, braque, picasso and stein called it another.

some people innovate, others stay within convention ...
and eventually enough people recognize what was once innovative
and it becomes just part of the vernacular.

i remember an interview with michael stipe from rem a handful of years ago.
the interviewer told him they were no longer cutting edge, and that they sound like
everything else on the radio ... michael stipe's response was that they hadn't changed
what they were doing but 20+ years later everyone else caught up with them.
( personally, i thought they were much better when you couldn't understand much of what stipe slurred+mumbled)

removed account4 · Mar 16, 2013

StoneNYC said:
... but the greats, where would I even see them?

I would guess its a lot about lack of exposure (no pun intended)

~Stone

Mamiya: 7 II, RZ67 Pro II / Canon: 1V, AE-1, 5DmkII / Kodak: No 1 Pocket Autographic, No 1A Pocket Autographic | Sent w/ iPhone using Tapatalk

to add to what greg said ...

if you are near a university
see if the library has a special collection ---->>> print collection.
head up to boston, go to tufts and to the library's special collections area
they have portfolios of callahan and others to look at ... just ask.
if you are making a day of it, go to haaavaaad, make an apt the day before
go to the fogg and sackler and ask to see photography,
the stuff is there for looking ... if you end up in prov ri, go to the risd museum,
they probs have oodles of callahan and siskind's work, seeing they taught there ...

have fun !

markbarendt · Mar 16, 2013

PKM-25 said:
I don't think they should be called ruts but styles.

I might suggest the word tradition might work in place of rut too.

As to the tools providing distraction, there have always been distractions.

IMO the problem is not how many tools are at hand but our lack of clarity about what we want as a result.

Pfiltz · Mar 16, 2013

Hey folks.

Is there a place in Chicago to view real prints made in a darkroom?

Pfiltz · Mar 16, 2013

Thanks Greg. I'll be up ther again in June shooting, so I'll try to see it.

Tony Egan · Mar 17, 2013

Originally Posted by markbarendt (there was a url link here which no longer exists)
Here are three that seem to me to have come to there art/inspiration before there schooling in art.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grandma_Moses

Dead Link Removed http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vivian_Maier

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ansel_Adams
Their just Wannabes

There, Their, They're! Take your pick I suppose? The trouble with the world today is there are too few pedants.

markbarendt · Mar 17, 2013

Tony Egan said:
There, Their, They're! Take your pick I suppose? The trouble with the world today is there are too few pedants.

And autocorrect is a bit too "helpful".

TheFlyingCamera · Mar 17, 2013

I don't think you can say Adams and Maier were devoid of education/exposure to formal notions about art, Adams moreso than Maier. Maier had talent, and her work deserves recognition. But she didn't produce a game-changing body of work - she was photographing within a well-established genre, and frankly, never sought the publicity she is now receiving. Adams, however, did produce a genre-defining style of work, and if you read his bio on the Wikipedia page, he was in constant contact with other artists who were both his contemporaries and his seniors, through whom he would no doubt have gotten exposure to art history. I think you can certainly say they (Adams and Maier) did not have formal academic instruction in art history, but to claim that they were unaware of it would be erroneous. Grandma Moses was an outlier, a one-off, and her commercial success is not a good argument - she produced work at really the end of a very long movement of American folk art, very much steeped in a tradition. So if anything, you could say she was the MOST indebted to art history of the three examples, although it would be a very specific, narrow art history.

If you want to find examples of artists who broke the mold without having first seen what the mold could provide, these three are not good examples.

Steve Smith · Mar 17, 2013

Tony Egan said:
There, Their, They're! Take your pick I suppose? The trouble with the world today is there are too few pedants.

My thoughts exactly!

Steve.

Hatchetman · Mar 17, 2013

Pfiltz said:
Hey folks.

Is there a place in Chicago to view real prints made in a darkroom?

Art Institute, lower level.

Pfiltz · Mar 17, 2013

Hatchetman said:
Art Institute, lower level.

Thanks... I plan on going up one day early, just to view prints at these places.

markbarendt · Mar 17, 2013

TheFlyingCamera said:
I don't think you can say Adams and Maier were devoid of education/exposure to formal notions about art, Adams moreso than Maier. Maier had talent, and her work deserves recognition. But she didn't produce a game-changing body of work - she was photographing within a well-established genre, and frankly, never sought the publicity she is now receiving. Adams, however, did produce a genre-defining style of work, and if you read his bio on the Wikipedia page, he was in constant contact with other artists who were both his contemporaries and his seniors, through whom he would no doubt have gotten exposure to art history. I think you can certainly say they (Adams and Maier) did not have formal academic instruction in art history, but to claim that they were unaware of it would be erroneous. Grandma Moses was an outlier, a one-off, and her commercial success is not a good argument - she produced work at really the end of a very long movement of American folk art, very much steeped in a tradition. So if anything, you could say she was the MOST indebted to art history of the three examples, although it would be a very specific, narrow art history.

If you want to find examples of artists who broke the mold without having first seen what the mold could provide, these three are not good examples.

As has been said several times above, we don't live in a vacuum, surely some exposure came early for Adams and I do agree that Adams got an education in photographic history but it also seems apparent that his inspiration came before his formal education or serious study of photography.

Galen Rowell and Joe Buissink I think are very reasonable examples of commercially successful photographers who like Adams turned a hobby into a successful vocation.

I believe that Rowell, Buissink, and Adams each have a couple very important things besides photography in common though. They are/were commercially astute to begin with and they each had/have passions/inspirations they wanted to share with the world.

These guys didn't start out to be visual artists. Adams was studying to be a pianist, Rowell was in the automotive business, Buissink was studying for a Phd in psychology.

Their artistic inspiration was driven by wanting to express/share their moments/experiences/emotions with others. Yosemite for Adams, climbing for Rowell, and emotions for Buissink. Photography in a sense for these guys was simply a convenient tool.

The important questions after the inspiration are present tense, like "what tools and skills do I need?" and "who is my competition?" not past tense, like "what would Stieglitz have done?".

Loss of fine art photography tradition

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