Philosophical discussion on what can be called a photograph

[eddie]

For a few years, I've been making what I call "Emulsion Etchings". They're scratched sheets of film, enlarged on silver gelatin paper, and painted. They don't involve cameras/lenses in the creation of the negative (although I've recently begun to add "real" negatives to them). I've exhibited them a few times (even sold a few), but the response seems to be about 50-50 as to whether, or not, they are photographs. I think they are, since they're produced by light sensitive materials, but I'm not overly concerned in defining them. I hope this thread goes beyond what I'm doing, and explores other, less traditional uses of traditional film materials. Examples of your own experiments would be great to see.
Here are a few examples:

 

[removed account4]

hi eddie

you know where i stand on this
yes they are photographs, they are made with light.
i too have made things not like this but different
it was a foggy night and came up with the name "hybrid photograph"
because they were made with light sensive materials and sometimes
negatives i made by hand, sometimes in conjunction with a camera negative.
of course hybrid is something else now but i still make them and just call them photographs
and often times i only make 1 print and never scan it so it is a single edition and the only thing that exists...

i hope you keep making hand worked photographs, its really great to see you tke hte bull by the horns.

oh, i've attached a few hybrid and photographs i've made over the years...

 

[eddie]

hi eddie

you know where i stand on this

Yes, I do... Your stuff falls into what I'm getting at with this post. Experimental, but (usually) using traditional materials in a way that can only be done using film/chemicals. I also think Robert Mann's soot on glass work falls into this category, as well as some of Emil's (Gandalfi) work. I'm just wondering if any others are experimenting in similar ways.

 

[gone]

I like those very much eddie. It's difficult to know just what to call them, as I'm sure you know. If they were animated, the genre is very clear....scratch films. But I don't think that works for your work, nor does mixed media. Photo art comes to mind, but I'm not crazy about that either. By the strictest definition of photograph, they are that. It simply means drawing with light. But generally it means with a camera, so that might not work. Technically, what you got are a form of cliche verre, but with film instead of glass.

Here's some camera-less-photographers (not happy with that mouthful either).

http://thecreatorsproject.vice.com/blog/8-photographers-who-dont-use-cameras-to-take-pictures

 

[eddie]

Thanks for that link. I was familiar with a few of those artists, but most were new to me. I'm intrigued by what film/chems/paper is capable of when used in ways other than designed.

 

[NedL]

I always look at your whatever_you_want_to_call_them when you post them in the gallery. That 4th one above really catches my eye, it reminds me of a symphony in a whirlwind...

I tend to really like the ones you make with more sparse coloring like the 1st and 4th above, but I enjoy all of them.
I don't have any opinions about classifying them, just happy to look at them.

 

[DannL.]

Generally speaking, when you say "photographs" I think of images of recognizable things, people, places, etc. In this case I think "abstract" or "fine art abstracts" would fit nicely. If someone specifically asked how they were produced, then go into details. Otherwise . . . Keep'em guessing.

 

[Maris]

If they are made out of light sensitive materials via the chemical changes occasioned by light energy they are photographs. The other half of the meaning of photography (and this is from the guy who invented the word "photography" and specified its meaning) is that the end point is "pictorial representation". There is no mention or requirement for cameras and lenses at all. Photographic materials exposed in contact with scratched pieces of film yield photographs just as surely as stuff that's encountered an optical image in the back of a camera. The photograph is a picture (= pictorial) of a scratched piece of film.

If these photographs are painted in the pursuit of "Emulsion Etchings" they cease to be purely photographs to the extent they are painted, "painted photographs" possibly, great art possibly.

Emulsion Etchings are a modern version of a technique practiced more than one hundred years ago. Look up "cliches verre" .

 

[Vincent Brady]

Lumen prints would seem to fit into the same category. There is even a negative until it is dropped into the fixer.

 

[goros]

In Spain, it would be called "conceptual art on photographic media". This englobes, for good or bad, everything that is made using photografic film or paper but not being strictly a photograph.

 

[jeffreyg]

Check out the late Henry Holmes Smith. I have one of his images that was made with photographic chemicals on color photographic paper with no negative or enlarger. Also an artist Holly Roberts comes to mind.

http://www.jeffreyglasser.com/

 

[blansky]

I think "photography" is a big tent and accommodates whatever photographers do. And most do a number of processes.

Being anal about whether it atomically adheres to yesteryears methods is pointless. If you feel it needs a prefix, then add one.

But things evolve.

And one would hope people can too.

 

[Ken Nadvornick]

I think "photography" is a big tent and accommodates whatever photographers do.

So then I can't let the obvious begged question pass...

Does that tent include sufficient space to allow those who are "...anal about whether it atomically adheres to yesteryears methods..." to also comfortably stand inside?

Jus' askin'...

Because if it does, then by definition that particularly pejorative "anal" approach wouldn't be any more "pointless" than any of the other approaches, right? And if it doesn't, then perhaps that photographic evolution of which you speak is still a work-in-progress for those individuals who still believe it doesn't.



Ken

 

[removed account4]

I think "photography" is a big tent and accommodates whatever photographers do. And most do a number of processes.

Being anal about whether it atomically adheres to yesteryears methods is pointless. If you feel it needs a prefix, then add one.

But things evolve.

And one would hope people can too.

couldn't agree more

 

[blansky]

So then I can't let the obvious begged question pass...

Does that tent include sufficient space to allow those who are "...anal about whether it atomically adheres to yesteryears methods..." to also comfortably stand inside?

Jus' askin'...

Because if it does, then by definition that particularly pejorative "anal" approach wouldn't be any more "pointless" than any of the other approaches, right? And if it doesn't, then perhaps that photographic evolution of which you speak is still a work-in-progress for those individuals who still believe it doesn't.



Ken

Of course. But that's why old people need to die off.

Because once an old person ceases to become a teacher and mentor and instead becomes a grumpy obstructionist, then their wailing just becomes noise.

And that noise is usually outside screaming at the tent, even though the door is open.

 

[Ken Nadvornick]

But that's why old people need to die off. Because once an old person ceases to become a teacher and mentor and instead becomes a grumpy obstructionist, then their wailing just becomes noise.

Need to die off??

Hmm...

The bad news is that it sounds like we are still very much that photographic-mindset evolutionary work-in-progress.

The good news is that xenophobia is a learned trait that can be unlearned as well. And with sufficient mindset evolution we can all become accepting of everyone's approaches to making photographs. Even approaches which may seem threatening to us.

It is a big tent.



Ken

 

[blansky]

Need to die off??

Hmm...

The bad news is that it sounds like we are still very much that photographic-mindset evolutionary work-in-progress.

The good news is that xenophobia is a learned trait that can be unlearned as well. And with sufficient mindset evolution we can all become accepting of everyone's approaches to making photographs. Even approaches which may seem threatening to us.

It is a big tent.



Ken

I believe I said that.

But some like to pitch their ideological pup tent inside the big tent, and pretend that they believe in the big tent. When in fact they just wish to be included in something they don't actually believe in so they can pontificate.

Sound familiar?

It's like the Klan showing up at the company picnic and complaining that the people aren't very inclusive.

 

[Ken Nadvornick]

I believe I said that.

And I held up the mirror.

 

[blansky]

And I held up the mirror.

A parrot is not a mirror.

 

[Ken Nadvornick]

A parrot is not a mirror.

True. But that's a distinction without relevance in this case.

Wishing for those photographers who photograph differently than you to disproportionately die in greater numbers, such that their passing will skew the statistical distribution more in favor of those photographers who photograph more like you, is not exactly the poster child definition of a big, inclusive tent.

There is no such thing as being totally inclusive, except for those dudes who need to die off...

One must guard against arguing so passionately that one becomes the enemy.



Ken

 

[OptiKen]

• PHOTOGRAPHY (noun)
The noun PHOTOGRAPHY has 3 senses:
1. the act of taking and printing photographs
2. the process of producing images of objects on photosensitive surfaces
3. the occupation of taking and printing photographs or making movies

It seems to me that #2 qualifies etching on photo sensitive paper

 

[removed account4]

hi optiken -- sorry to put you on the spot
i know you didnt' write the definition but ...

is putting a negative on one's skin and going out in the sun and getting a sun print on one's skin photography ?
or putting objects on cheap construction paper and bleaching it a different color in the sun (to make a photogram ) or anthotypes ... photography ?

they aren't done with light sensitive materials like photo paper, but at least to me they are every but as photographic
as a print from the darkroom, or a shadow on the wall ( photo ( light ) graph ( drawing ).

 

[Doc W]

eddie, this is something I would never do myself but I have to say that your work is very good. It brings to mind the filmmaker Norman McLaren who not only scratched and painted on film, but also "drew" sound tracks.

I especially like the more abstract pieces. I also like the work of Jackson Pollack, which raises the question of whether or not he was a painter. Of course he was - no one argues that anymore - but when abstract expressionism first appeared in the 40s and 50s, there was a lot of reaction.

I think it is safe to say that eddie is making art with photographic materials but the "photograph," as most people know it, figures in his work less. Sometimes the emergence of new form of expression which are related to older forms creates tension in the words and this often leads to a new vocabulary.

Another point. Some of you have said, more or less, that there is often a rigid, old guard reaction to new modes of creativity. True enough, but just as often, the practitioners of these new modes are even more rigid. Think of the various art manifestos of the early 20th century - the Futurists were the most aggressive I think - vehemently rejecting the past and crying for a complete change in the aesthetics of art. I love the work of the Futurists but they must have been absolutely insufferable on a personal level, at least when it came to art. I hasten to add that I am not saying this about eddie. Quite the contrary.

One final point, playing with the language a little. "Photograph" comes from two Greek works as most of us know, meaning "light" (phos) and "to draw" (grapho). "Grapho" also has the meaning (in earlier, Homeric Greek, I believe) of "scratch" or "graze." It seems to me that eddie is doing just that, i.e., scratching on light-sensitive material.

 

[Doc W]

Of course. But that's why old people need to die off.

Because once an old person ceases to become a teacher and mentor and instead becomes a grumpy obstructionist, then their wailing just becomes noise.

And that noise is usually outside screaming at the tent, even though the door is open.

The idea that art is always needs to be progressive in some way was a 20th century obsession. The story is that western art is the result of a series of victories over the Old Guard by young visionaries. The statement that the old need to die off in order for art to progress (toward what, one might ask) is definitely reflective of that.

Yet the recuperation a past aesthetic as a statement against a current state of affairs - the reverse of what you imply - has been part of the art world since forever. Artists have frequently gone to the past to find a basis for expression. Just as a small example, think of the number of great artists and especially musicians who are labelled "neo-classical." In photography, for the past 25 years, there has been an increasing interest in older methods of making photographs - salt printing, platinum, wet plate, and so on. Should these archaic methods and their practitioners die off in order to get out of the way of digital? Furthermore, especially in the 20th century, the new art movements were among the most strident and dogmatic of all, insisting on adherence to strict aesthetic principles.

In a nutshell, the history of western art is not about progress. It is about change, for sure, at least in part, and sometimes these changes came about by the battle between old and new, but that is only part of the picture (pun intended).

 

[blansky]

The idea that art is always needs to be progressive in some way was a 20th century obsession. The story is that western art is the result of a series of victories over the Old Guard by young visionaries. The statement that the old need to die off in order for art to progress (toward what, one might ask) is definitely reflective of that.

Yet the recuperation a past aesthetic as a statement against a current state of affairs - the reverse of what you imply - has been part of the art world since forever. Artists have frequently gone to the past to find a basis for expression. Just as a small example, think of the number of great artists and especially musicians who are labelled "neo-classical." In photography, for the past 25 years, there has been an increasing interest in older methods of making photographs - salt printing, platinum, wet plate, and so on. Should these archaic methods and their practitioners die off in order to get out of the way of digital? Furthermore, especially in the 20th century, the new art movements were among the most strident and dogmatic of all, insisting on adherence to strict aesthetic principles.

In a nutshell, the history of western art is not about progress. It is about change, for sure, at least in part, and sometimes these changes came about by the battle between old and new, but that is only part of the picture (pun intended).

You seem to misunderstand my position. I'm FOR all the old ways and new ways in the big tent as I stated early in the thread and on every discussion on photography.

But my second statement covers the dying off part. Old people need to teach the young the older techniques so that the young have both the old ways and the new ways. But too often we see the old, wail about "these kids today" and they just become obstacles.

Does photography really need stringent definitions of what it is and what it isn't and what it evolves to. Perhaps but only when selling it so the buyer knows exactly what he's buying.