Straight Photography or Pictorialism

[clay]

I don't think it is a coincidence that the rise of 'straight' photography as an intellectual force occurred during the same time period that socialist political philosophy became au courant in many intellectual circles. The conceit that worldwide marxism was an inevitable historical force based on scientific concepts rears its head in many of the arguments put forward by the f/64 group. They made appeals to purity of process and the superiority of depicting objective reality without 'artifice', and the inevitability of this changing view of photography. I'm not necessarily suggesting that all of the f/64 group were marxists (although some certainly were), but rather that their modes of argument and their teleological view of the progress of art had a lot of similarities to the arguments being bandied about among the intelligentsia in many social circles in the early 1900's.

Of course, you can demolish one of their basic premises right away when you notice that black and white photographs in no way resemble the world we experience visually, unless, of course, you happen to be a dog. It has, however, been said: On the internet, no one knows you're a dog.

 

[PatTrent]

I'm in favor of both, and do both, although primarily "straight" photography. It really depends on the intended purpose of the photo. For example, portraits of adults come out too sharp--unflattering--unless diffused. But rather diffuse the lens at the time the photo is taken, I prefer a sharp image and then diffuse it in the print. Same with other shots--I prefer to shoot them straight and then I might occasionally "fuzz"/maniupulate them if it suits my purpose.

I also enjoy either style in other people's work, so I'm not committed to absolutes here.

 

[Michel Hardy-Vallée]

Ok, I have heard several references to Adams, Weston, and others of the Group f/64 that were also pictorialists in how they shot some photographs. Someone provide me with an example of one of their "pictorialist" photos.

There is Pictorialism, as in the historical movement, of which Stieglitz was an important practicioner during his Photo-Secession and Camera Work years. There is pictorialism as a more general term to signify "plastic/painterly." Stieglitz stopped being a Pictorialist around 1914, but he remained a pictorialist all his life. Adams has always been a pictorialist.

These terms are not easily separable during the early 20th century (read my previous post carefully if it does not bore you to tears, or visit http://www.tfaoi.com/newsm1/n1m372.htm for some infos). In a weird way, the people who argued for the autonomy of photography as an art form, also aped painting. What we tend to forget is that the f/64 school is not a rupture with this attitude. In fact, instead of aping pre-Raphaelite or Impressionist painting, the f/64 school apes cubism, abstraction, and other forms of modern art then prevalent.

Jstraw's argument sums up in a pithy way the problem of photographic "independance." The fundamental problem is, that there is no such thing as a straight photography. All photography is pictorialist because all photography functions within an aesthetics of 2D representation, of imagery.

So when photographers decided that they wanted to stop being Pictorialists, I can only assent: they just changed their artistic medium, their conventions of representation. They changed taste, but they never ditched away the pictorialist aspect.

 

[TheFlyingCamera]

The image Kerik posted is about as uniquely "photographic" as one can possibly get. The effects and style of the image did not exist and had not been seen in any previous medium before the arrival of photography. I would say that actually, the f64 crowd were more derivative of painting than folks who did work like Kerik's, because photorealistic genre, portrait and landscape painting existed centuries before anyone ever made a wet-plate collodion image. Take a look at some of the Bronzino portraits (16th Century), Caravaggio's early still lifes (late 16th/early 17th), or any number of 18th century landscape painters. The infinite depth of field, excruciating detail, and selective composition of the West Coast school has been around in western art for centuries. With the arrival of wet-plate, selective focus lenses in different focal lengths, and platinum/palladium papers, you finally have media that provide a distinctive and uniquely photographic representation of reality. Prior to wet processes, there was nothing truly exceptional about photography. Even the Daguerrotype was a derivative process- it was intended as a more efficient and accurate replacement for lithographic printing, nothing more.

 

[Chuck_P]

The first print in a recent exhibit of Ansel Adams' that I saw was an image done in 1919 in the tradition of the "pictorialists". Quite beautiful, it had that common, out of focus look of the time and genre. Many of his early, non-pictorialist prints had a softer, warmer feel to them as well. It made me wonder what would have happened if he had stuck with that approach. It is just an opinion, but I think it was in a way even more striking than the cold, contrasty, sharp as a tack look most of the world knows him for.

Bill

Yeap, AA was also using matt paper in those days too.

Those early days were not of the f/64 period, so I should have asked for examples since that group formulated itself. It would be hard for me to see that any work after that period could be called pictorialist, IMO.

Chuck

 

[Jonathan Brewer]

'These are names used to denote certain styles of photography..........That was said by me early on, what the names and/or labels mean to different people, like we're discussing here, is a different issue, so if anything's ridiculous it's what you just said, and as to perusing any books, I seriously doubt if you've got any more art books than I do.

 

[jstraw]

When a tome refers to "pictorialism, or the "west coast school", or "pure photography" I have no more difficulty discerning the difference, than I would where the words "watercolor" , and "oil painting" The existence of one hardly demeans the other. "Truth" has nothing to do with it, but might be used as an expressed concept regarding one particular style.

These are names used to denote certain styles of photography.
A simple perusal of any serious minded book on the history of photography as art will aptly illustrate that. Jstraw has aptly explained his point, and it is well taken.

Beyond Jstraws provincial position, debating the application of the term "pictorialism" as the term applies to photography and photographic history is is quite frankly ridiculous.

I can both acknowledge the understood definitions of "pictorialism" and "pure photography" in the context of their own time and consider the merits of that distinction from the perspective of our time, can't I?

I see nothing ridiculous about discussing any or all photography as being "pictorial." That makes use of the fact that it has a specific, historical meaning. It doesn't ignore it.

If it's more useful to use a different term to describe what distinguishes all two-dimensional, temporally-static, optically-divergent-from-human-sight, subjective, subjective photographic representations from reality...then that's fine with me.

I think the provincialism or at least the parochialism was theirs, not mine. They saw what they were doing as distinct to the point of being immune from the properties which they disdained. From my perspective, I disagree.

 

[JBrunner]

'These are names used to denote certain styles of photography..........That was said by me early on, what the names and/or labels mean to different people, like we're discussing here, is a different issue, so if anything's ridiculous it's what you just said, and as to perusing any books, I seriously doubt if you've got any more art books than I do.

Then I'm honestly sorry, but I'm not really sure what you and JStraw talking about. Perhaps it might serve to use a term that isn't being usurped from its historical meaning.

I'm sure your library is very nice.

 

[jimgalli]

Are you a "straight" shooter or are you a "fuzzy wuzzy"?
Chuck

YES! And often on the same day.

I've been studying this from a historic aspect and am amused that history is repeating itself for almost exactly the same reason. When Eastman made the little camera that made the masses into photographers, and anastigmat lenses came along about the same time, suddenly you had a reaction against the mass of stupid pictures. The seccessionists were withdrawing from the unthinking snap shooters. Good sharp snapshots by the billions. The arteests had to seperate themselves from the uneducated drivel. Pictorialism was born and Steiglitz became it's messiah.

Compare that reaction to what is happening now with the so-called digital revolution. Suddenly anyone that can pop $500 bucks on ebay for a 6 MP Nikon is an arteest doing Velvia looking stuff ad infinitum ad nauseum. I think the tasteful re-appearance of soft focus black and white photography is a reaction again to the un-educated ignorant masses and their 6mp SLR's.

An 8X10 camera with someone who understands tonality, composition, where and how much focus to add or subtract, and which lens to put on for which look is as seperated now from the 6mp slr crowd as Steiglitz's disciples were from the hordes with their cheap Kodaks and anastigmat lenses.

 

[Chuck_P]

The optical (ie photographic) qualities of this image are not something I associate with painting or anything else.

IMO, the optical quality is really meant to be quite literal and not necessarily photographic. A "fuzzy wuzzy" is photographic in nature due to being exposed on film, but its optical quality is poor (despite it being photographed with a softfocus lens as the softfocus lens is meant to provide an optically blurred image). This would not be in keeping with "straight photography" as far as I can tell.

So, by definition (Group f/64's anyway IMO) it is photography trying to imitate something else. Something that would not otherwise come from light focused on a film plane. Is it a photograph? Yes. Is it straight? I would have to argue no.

I have nothing against the blurred images and the like, I can only say that it is not a form of photography that appeals to me. I appreciate greatly, however, that it is part of the traditional process that we all like.

Chuck

 

[jstraw]

Then I'm honestly sorry, but I'm not really sure what you and JStraw talking about. Perhaps it might serve to use a term that isn't usurped.

I'm game for that. I mean, I know a 'fuzzywuzzy' or an 'f64' when I see one. I just think some of what the west-coasters claimed they were not doing, they most certainly were doing, especially as pertains to composition...that is to say...using things that were not new or unique to photography.

My point is that whether we're talking about Ansel Adams or Sebastio Salgado, the notion that a photograph is a retrieved portion of reality is a conceit, a lie.

Adams' portrayal of half-dome may be non-fiction and Mortensen dressing up some model to be Venus may be fiction, but one is not more "real" than another. They are both, in my opinion, illustrations. They are both subjective. They are both the product of so many exterior influences that the fact that the fiction may involve a few more than the non-fiction is made immaterial.

In my opinion both groups were making pictures rather than documenting reality. As an aside, I also believe that even the best and most ethical photojournalists also make pictures rather than document reality.

I reject the idea that photographs can be pieces of reality. They (all photographs) can be honest. They can speak truth. They can tell stories. They are never retrieved reality. They are never bottled experience that we can share. They are inextricably made subjective by their makers and by the nature of the tools and of physics.

 

[removed account4]

i am both and i am not both, but none of my lenses make it to f64 .. so i guess i am more like f22 ...

 

[removed account4]

as for the manifesto -

it seems that they were trying to have photography stand on its own 3 legs. it is hard to believe that the f64 group were not at all influenced by romantic paintings, because it seems that photographic images that adams made were derivative of just that (to me at least, a turner seascape is the same as an adams photograph of yosemite - maybe that is just me though) ...

Ok, I have heard several references to Adams, Weston, and others of the Group f/64 that were also pictorialists in how they shot some photographs. Someone provide me with an example of one of their "pictorialist" photos.

According to the "Group F/64 Manifesto" of which Adams was elected to author, the group defined pure photography as:

"Pure photography is defined as possessing no qualities of technique, composition or idea, derivative of any other art form. The production of the "Pictorialist", on the other hand, indicates a devotion to principles of art which are directly related to painting and the graphic arts."

Despite how one may think that pictorialism has evolved to this point in time, I still think the main connection of the 1930's pictorialism versus todays pictorialism, is the use of the photographed image, in the end result, to resemble another form of art. Even though we all know that it is a photographed image, its purity as such has been compromised. It's a photographed image, but now it also looks like something else. So, though I can't see that politics has anything to do with it (as previously mentioned) but I certainly do see that there is a definite philosophy being adhered to.

A philosophy that also did not wish to hold any "deprecating opinion of the photographers who are not included in its shows". I think it was a definite attempt to say this is how we view photography and that it is an art form in its purist application.

Chuck

 

[JBrunner]

I'm game for that. I mean, I know a 'fuzzywuzzy' or an 'f64' when I see one. I just think some of what the west-coasters claimed they were not doing, they most certainly were doing, especially as pertains to composition...that is to say...using things that were not new or unique to photography.

My point is that whether we're talking about Ansel Adams or Sebastio Salgado, the notion that a photograph is a retrieved portion of reality is a conceit, a lie.

Adams' portrayal of half-dome may be non-fiction and Mortensen dressing up some model to be Venus may be fiction, but one is not more "real" than another. They are both, in my opinion, illustrations. They are both subjective. They are both the product of so many exterior influences that the fact that the fiction may involve a few more than the non-fiction is made immaterial.

In my opinion both groups were making pictures rather than documenting reality. As an aside, I also believe that even the best and most ethical photojournalists also make pictures rather than document reality.

I reject the idea that photographs can be pieces of reality. They (all photographs) can be honest. They can speak truth. They can tell stories. They are never retrieved reality. They are never bottled experience that we can share. They are inextricably made subjective by their makers and by the nature of the tools and of physics.

I absolutely agree.

In my first post to this thread I tried (poorly i guess) to point out that "pictorialism" is the term historically used to describe the intent to imitate characteristics another art form, notably painting. In that sense the OP missed the mark. Bokeh- fuzzywuzzies etc are not the litmus test to define a photograph as pictorialist, but rather the overt attempt to imitate another art form, a very clear distinction from the fact that painting and photography involve similar asthetics. For lack of a better term, the "neopictorialism" of today found in abundance in the wedding mills- and trickling steadily into portraiture and amateur photography plainly attempts the same end- to imitate the feel of a painting.

My eyes are not capable of furnishing me with the DOF nor the field of view of my 8x10 when employed in the "Pure Photography" style. The fact that it was named "Pure Photography" by its originators and subsequently taken up by the art world is out of our control. If it was called something else, then we could call it by another name, and indeed I prefer the term "West Coast Tradition", another perfectly acceptable term for the "Pure Photography" movement that I feel is more illustrative. The fact that pure photography isn't "pure" from a human vision standpoint doesn't invalidate the movement as being distinctly different from the then status quo in its intent, nor does it make it pictorialist.

I think most photographers who are educated enough to know about the various movements in photography are fully aware that all finite visual patterns put forth by humans are a construct, and ,as I said before, the point about all photography being in a sense "pictorialist" is well taken, but is not using the term in a historically correct sense, which you readily acknowledged, and I recognized.

What Jonathan's deal is idk.

 

[Chuck_P]

as for the manifesto -

it seems that they were trying to have photography stand on its own 3 legs. it is hard to believe that the f64 group were not at all influenced by romantic paintings, because it seems that photographic images that adams made were derivative of just that (to me at least, a turner seascape is the same as an adams photograph of yosemite - maybe that is just me though) ...

I don't believe there is any contention that any of the original Group f/64 folks did not receive influence from pictorialism. After all, Adams himself, delved in it in his earliest days when he was a "trial and error" photographer (that is a paraphrase from AA). It was more or less revelation to him, IMO, that the purest form of photography is the truest and that is how he finally decided to pursue it.

Hasn't it been said that photography is painting with light? I think that's pretty cool.

Chuck

 

[Jonathan Brewer]

'Then I'm honestly sorry, but I'm not really sure what you and JStraw talking about. Perhaps it might serve to use a term that isn't being usurped from its historical meaning.'.........................................

.............................I'm certain you'd agree that you can, at the same time, accept the historical meaning, and engage in a clarification of just what it meant to you, or to others, concepts evolve, as they should, as does art, and what it means.

Take African Art, a subject I certainly no expert on, but one I've loved and studied for a long time. Europeans thought they KNEW what Arican Art was, primitive art, fashioned from primitive and dull minds.

I can suggest NOW and have most folks accept now that the inability to really see African Art/scuplture/Masked Performance by those folks for what it was, and what it represented, and why it was created, mirrored the dullness of their minds and not the African Art they were dismissive of.

The story is well know, Picasso comes into contact w/African Art and undergoes an epiphany, he understands, he sees, and he soars. He understands that the purpose of fashioning African Art/sculpture was for one's religious/belief system, created for emotional power, and as representations and metaphors of other things spiritual. And other folks then see African Art differently, they bought it/grabbed it/stole it, in fact, if you want to see African Art from way back, you have to go to Europe to see it.

I can accept the historical belief of a concept, and at the same time disagree with it, and grow because of it as I'm now doing by engaging in this discussion.

 

[Kerik]

So, by definition (Group f/64's anyway IMO) it is photography trying to imitate something else.

And that makes my point. F64's definition is just plain silly. (Although I understand why it was important to them at the time.) The real truth is that this image is intrinsically photographic and created by specific photographic tools and techniques that do not or are not intended to imitate anything else. Certainly no more than a sharp landscape photograph imitates a sharp landscape painting.

Something that would not otherwise come from light focused on a film plane. Is it a photograph? Yes. Is it straight? I would have to argue no.

I'm not sure what "straight photograph" means. If it means sharp, then it is definitely not straight. But if straight means unmanipulated, then in fact it is much "straighter" than any of Ansel Adams' famous landscapes.

 

[Chuck_P]

In my first post to this thread I tried (poorly i guess) to point out that "pictorialism" is the term historically used to describe the intent to imitate characteristics another art form, notably painting. In that sense the OP missed the mark.

JB,

Check the OP again No ill-will, just lookin out for myself. Is my reference to "paintings of some sort" not the mark that you refer to?



Chuck

 

[JBrunner]

JB,

Check the OP again No ill-will, just lookin out for myself. Is my reference to "paintings of some sort" not the mark that you refer to?



Chuck

Yup, Sorry, my bad.

 

[JBrunner]

'Then I'm honestly sorry, but I'm not really sure what you and JStraw talking about. Perhaps it might serve to use a term that isn't being usurped from its historical meaning.'.........................................

.............................I'm certain you'd agree that you can, at the same time, accept the historical meaning, and engage in a clarification of just what it meant to you, or to others, concepts evolve, as they should, as does art, and what it means.

Take African Art, a subject I certainly no expert on, but one I've loved and studied for a long time. Europeans thought they KNEW what Arican Art was, primitive art, fashioned from primitive and dull minds.

I can suggest NOW and have most folks accept now that the inability to really see African Art/scuplture/Masked Performance by those folks for what it was, and what it represented, and why it was created, mirrored the dullness of their minds and not the African Art they were dismissive of.

The story is well know, Picasso comes into contact w/African Art and undergoes an epiphany, he understands, he sees, and he soars. He understands that the purpose of fashioning African Art/sculpture was for one's religious/belief system, created for emotional power, and as representations and metaphors of other things spiritual. And other folks then see African Art differently, they bought it/grabbed it/stole it, in fact, if you want to see African Art from way back, you have to go to Europe to see it.

I can accept the historical belief of a concept, and at the same time disagree with it, and grow because of it as I'm now doing by engaging in this discussion.

I think you are comparing a very broad and evolving concept (African Art) with a very narrow and static word (pictorialism), with deference of couse to the pictorialist movement, which ended long ago.

 

[Chuck_P]

I'm not sure what "straight photograph" means. If it means sharp, then it is definitely not straight. But if straight means unmanipulated, then in fact it is much "straighter" than any of Ansel Adams' famous landscapes.

Kerik,

It may be best to go straight (no pun intended) to the horses mouth as I don't want to shred the intended meaning myself. In the words of AA: "...philosophy of straight photography: that is, photographs that looked like photographs, not imitations of other art forms."

So, it really all comes down to whether you believe that or not. I do and that is really all that my original post was meant to say....I just wish I could have stated it so simply then, oh well. You can think that its silly, and I won't try to persuade you otherwise. IMO, your photograph (and I do believe it is a photograph and I respecit it as such) reminds me more of a charcoal drawing than a photograph. So, I believe that this is an example of photography being used to imitate another art form, in this case, drawing.

Manipulation, simply means, to me, refinements in the tonal relationships within the print. It has nothing to do with straight photography. We dodge and burn just like the F/64 folks dodged and burned. Is that a manipulated print, yes, tonally speaking. Is it altered from its purest state to convey something, possibly, other than a photograph? No.

Chuck


Chuck

 

[Jonathan Brewer]

'I think you are comparing a very broad and evolving concept (African Art) with a very narrow and static word (pictorialism), with deference of couse to the pictorialist movement, which ended long ago.'...........

....................I disagree, I mean no such thing, as in your above quote, you 'think' that,............................I'm considering a concept held THEN by folks about African Art(which is I agree evolving), but apart from evolving, was initially dismissed because of folks inability THEN, to see what it really was.

What the word Pictorialism really means, how people used it to classify other folks work, and like we're discussing here, the premise that some folks were in denial about the pictorial aspects of their own work, is what I'm talking about with my reference to African Art................................be it African Art, or straight photography versus the 'fuzzy wuzzies', ............do we/did we/are we seeing the art for what is really is, and the arguments for what they really are.

YOU are adding the suggestion that I'm talking about 'a very narrow and static word (pictorialism),.......................... I'm not saying that at all.

 

[TheFlyingCamera]

Chuck -

I'd respectfully disagree with your assessment that Kerik's image looks like some other art form. Frankly, the effects of making a wet-plate collodion image cannot be duplicated without knowledge of what a wet-plate image looks like. It is truly an original offshoot of photography as a medium.

I also think that a lot of folks have made the point here already that much of the F64/west coast landscape group's work is highly evocative of earlier painterly works. To me, the issue is that a number of people have put Ansel and his cohorts up on ivory pedestals because he was able to articulate a vision of what photography could be in a sensibility that resonated with his mid-century audience. The f64 ideology was very much influenced by the ascent of the industrial age and the rise of totalitarian politics. "A photograph should look like a photograph and not any other art form" is a rather absolutist, totalitarian way of thinking. In this simplification of photo-philosophy, it was a return to the proletarian approach. Photography, bereft of ideas, a "pure" photography that everyman could understand and accept, the artform that wasn't. They turned photography into exclusively craft, which was always there as a component, and in doing so, made it something that everyman could aspire to - "If St. Ansel can make a photo like that, if I learn his technique, maybe I can too!".

 

[jstraw]

Chuck -

I'd respectfully disagree with your assessment that Kerik's image looks like some other art form. Frankly, the effects of making a wet-plate collodion image cannot be duplicated without knowledge of what a wet-plate image looks like. It is truly an original offshoot of photography as a medium.

I also think that a lot of folks have made the point here already that much of the F64/west coast landscape group's work is highly evocative of earlier painterly works. To me, the issue is that a number of people have put Ansel and his cohorts up on ivory pedestals because he was able to articulate a vision of what photography could be in a sensibility that resonated with his mid-century audience. The f64 ideology was very much influenced by the ascent of the industrial age and the rise of totalitarian politics. "A photograph should look like a photograph and not any other art form" is a rather absolutist, totalitarian way of thinking. In this simplification of photo-philosophy, it was a return to the proletarian approach. Photography, bereft of ideas, a "pure" photography that everyman could understand and accept, the artform that wasn't. They turned photography into exclusively craft, which was always there as a component, and in doing so, made it something that everyman could aspire to - "If St. Ansel can make a photo like that, if I learn his technique, maybe I can too!".

You make an excellent point and have me thinking about the gestalt or synergistics of this. I mean, I'm seeing this little cloud with f64 and Ayn Rand and intellectual anti-intellectualism and "heroic" paintings and it's a little scary.

I never realized what a fascist Ansel was!

 

[JBrunner]

'I think you are comparing a very broad and evolving concept (African Art) with a very narrow and static word (pictorialism), with deference of couse to the pictorialist movement, which ended long ago.'...........

....................I disagree, I mean no such thing, as in your above quote, you 'think' that,............................I'm considering a concept held THEN by folks about African Art(which is I agree evolving), but apart from evolving, was initially dismissed because of folks inability THEN, to see what it really was.

What the word Pictorialism really means, how people used it to classify other folks work, and like we're discussing here, the premise that some folks were in denial about the pictorial aspects of their own work, is what I'm talking about with my reference to African Art................................be it African Art, or straight photography versus the 'fuzzy wuzzies', ............do we/did we/are we seeing the art for what is really is, and the arguments for what they really are.

YOU are adding the suggestion that I'm talking about 'a very narrow and static word (pictorialism),.......................... I'm not saying that at all.

Red is now blue, and my car is now a sailboat. Those who are a bit dull, please try to keep up.

Basically I don't ascribe the definition of pictorialism as an evolving concept of photographic art, but rather a definition of a specific photographic style, specifically photographs that are purposefully made to imitate painting. I feel if you ascribe it to something else, it is certainly your own invention, no matter how you choose to argue he point, and doesn't concern the word as it applies to photography, except as a corruption. The inappropriate use of the term muddies the water in concern to whatever point you are trying to make, however valid it may or may not be.