Thomas Kinkade's death

[Klainmeister]

That's why Berenice Abbott, among the few to call shenanigans on the Straight's fight against Pictorialism, called Adams, Weston, and the later Stieglitz "Super-Pictorialists", in the sense that they exhibited the same amount of print fetishism than Mortensen.

The main difference between f/64 and Pictorialism is the kind of painting they associate with. The former with Clement Greenberg-championed flat, geometrical modernism; the latter with late 19th C. Symbolist or pre-Raphaelite paintings.

It's my hope that in future histories of photography, "straight" photography stops being seen as a break from Pictorialism, but rather like a competing school with similar aesthetic values.

+1

 

[benjiboy]

If you gild a turd, sell it for a huge price and get people to wax idiotic about it's percieved "virtues", guess what? It's still a turd.

If Damien Hirst http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...s-36-800-plastic-skull.html?ito=feeds-newsxml produces it it will end up in the Tate Modern, or the National Gallery then sell for millions.

 

[TheFlyingCamera]

I've got an idea - I'll gild one of my own, and sell it to the Tate Modern claiming it is in fact Damien Hurst's own turd...

 

[benjiboy]

I've got an idea - I'll gild one of my own, and sell it to the Tate Modern claiming it is in fact Damien Hurst's own turd...

What are you Scott, some sort of a ventriloquist ?

 

[Mainecoonmaniac]

But isn't he one already? He kills animals in the name of art and profit.

http://www.thedailygreen.com/living...g-design-technology/art-animal-cruelty-460109

 

[removed account4]

+1

+2

 

[k_jupiter]

Hmmm.. stirring things up a bit.

I have studied Photo history (at NESOP), have read all of AA's books, have read about the manipulation he and his darkroom workers used to pull a print out, I have spent a fair amount of time (but not enough lately for my satisfaction) in Yosemite and the mid-Sierras, I guess I know a bit about what I am talking about...

I see in tone values, not black and white, and I think in layers of gray.

Doesn't mean I have to like AA's work. But then again, I got thrown out of a Gallery in Santa Fe last winter for expressing what I really thought of their featured photographer's use of red filters for every damned photograph.

Some like it, some don't. I like my landscapes a bit more real... I guess you could call me a yellow filter kind of art aficionado.

tim in san jose

 

[Vaughn]

Fair enough. I am more of a no filter guy (especially with T-max). There have been a few times, though, when I thought afterwards, "should have used my yellow filter".

Tossed out of a gallery, huh? That says a lot! I manage to keep my opinions to myself in that type of situations -- sometimes one has to remember that one is not on a forum instead of a place of business...tough for me to do sometimes, like when I stopped by Galen Rowell's gallery in Bishop, CA a little while back!

Vaughn

 

[TheFlyingCamera]

Galen Rowell was another person with a camera with more marketing skill than artistic vision. There was always the "oooh" factor when you found out exactly what he did to get the shots he got (like dangling upside down off the side of a cliff while manipulating his color ND grad filters that he was so fond of). Amazing technician. But he's up there with Michael Fatali in the excessive manipulation of color (although he never did set fire to a national landmark) and excessive deployment of ego in the name of marketing.

 

[jglass]

Extremist Turdography

Further reading, for those of you with a healthy skepticism towards Kinkade's "art." here and here . The latter is a hilarious slide show of parodies of kinkade's work.

Milan Kundera reportedly said that "kitsch" (which I among others consider Kinkade to be a paragon of) "is the absolute denial of shit." So this talk of gilded turds is pretty appropriate in the context of Kinkade vs. Damien Hirsch and/or one of his co-darlings of the art establishment, Andres Serrano, whose Piss Christ and other excrement-related works you can read about if you feel like typing a google search. What I think differentiates these artists from Kinkade -- and maybe even from Ansel Adams -- is the seriousness of aesthetic intention, the struggle with artistic meaning, and the courage of breaking new aesthetic ground. I don't believe Adams or Kinkade had a real struggle with any of the above.

But I love looking at Adams's photographs; Kinkade's pictures make me want to barf.

 

[jglass]

Galen Rowell was another person with a camera with more marketing skill than artistic vision. There was always the "oooh" factor when you found out exactly what he did to get the shots he got (like dangling upside down off the side of a cliff while manipulating his color ND grad filters that he was so fond of). Amazing technician. But he's up there with Michael Fatali in the excessive manipulation of color (although he never did set fire to a national landmark) and excessive deployment of ego in the name of marketing.

I definitely agree with you on Rowell, but I'm not sure he actually considered himself to be or marketed himself as a true artist. Maybe he did, but he is an Adams-ite from top to bottom (the "oooh" factor you speak of.

 

[Vaughn]

I definitely agree with you on Rowell, but I'm not sure he actually considered himself to be or marketed himself as a true artist. Maybe he did, but he is an Adams-ite from top to bottom (the "oooh" factor you speak of.

One needs to separate the man (as a climber and photographer) from his wife -- and her (justified) needs to have income to support the family (and to support his desire to be out there).

 

[Alan W]

I'm picking up a lot of tips on this thread,and to think I almost overlooked it!

 

[k_jupiter]

I'm picking up a lot of tips on this thread,and to think I almost overlooked it!

You mean like how to dangle from cliffs with neutral density filters for some crazy shot?

No thanks. *L*

tim

 

[Brian C. Miller]

I'm picking up a lot of tips on this thread,and to think I almost overlooked it!

#1: Velvia or Ektar.
#2: Lee ND filter set, and get the Singh-Ray filters, too.
#3: Enhancing filter. Make sure you also shoot a roll without that filter, because it can really put the scene "over the top."
#4: Sun rises at 5am. Be there.
#5: Sun sets at 8pm. Be there.
#6: Aim the camera lens at something with saturated color. If nature didn't provide something, put something there.
#7: Sell it! Promotion is everything.

 

[Leigh Youdale]

I think the level of contribution to this thread has now become a quite accurate indicator of the people posting the comments and really has little to do with the photographers or artists mentioned.
The number of references to bodily waste is distasteful and demonstrates a low level of intellect. That in turn indicates that the posters have nothing of value to contribute to what was supposed to be a discussion about art, artistic ability and artistic integrity.

This is a photographic forum, not a school toilet wall.

 

[E. von Hoegh]

I think the level of contribution to this thread has now become a quite accurate indicator of the people posting the comments and really has little to do with the photographers or artists mentioned.
The number of references to bodily waste is distasteful and demonstrates a low level of intellect. That in turn indicates that the posters have nothing of value to contribute to what was supposed to be a discussion about art, artistic ability and artistic integrity.

This is a photographic forum, not a school toilet wall.

Show us some, and we'll stop typing about turds.

 

[blansky]

It's my hope that in future histories of photography, "straight" photography stops being seen as a break from Pictorialism, but rather like a competing school with similar aesthetic values.

Probably due to human nature, for any changes to be made in most things there has to be a rebellion of sorts, and with that goes the name calling, the tribalism and the "one is better than the other" mentality.

We can see than occurring now with the film/digital tribes. Human nature sort of dictates that in any rebellion there has to be a winner and a loser, where higher evolved individuals can see that "different" is a positive thing and not a hindrance or a threat.

 

[Mainecoonmaniac]

The digital vs analog is a different schools in technology I think. But the pictorialism and straight photography goes in cycles. We had many decades of straight photography until the end of the 80's. During the early 90's, the blur came back. Bokeh is in now because people forgot straight photography of Adam's school was rebelling against photography mimicking painting. I think change is good. The young Turks rebels against the old farts and the cycle continues. With all this clean, over processed digital imagery, some people are hungering for something real and grungier.

 

[Brian C. Miller]

I was looking at Getty's Eliot Porter page, and thinking about Kinkade, Lik, Adams, etc, and I realized something: when a black & white image is dramatized, it doesn't go over the top, it just looks good. When a color image is dramatized, it can make your skin crawl. Porter's East Penobscot Bay is dramatized. No scene can look like that with the sun in that position, but the print looks good. Now imagine if Lichens on River Stones had the saturation increased like Lik and Kinkade would do it. Would it still be a nice composition?

 

[E. von Hoegh]

I was looking at Getty's Eliot Porter page, and thinking about Kinkade, Lik, Adams, etc, and I realized something: when a black & white image is dramatized, it doesn't go over the top, it just looks good. When a color image is dramatized, it can make your skin crawl. Porter's East Penobscot Bay is dramatized. No scene can look like that with the sun in that position, but the print looks good. Now imagine if Lichens on River Stones had the saturation increased like Lik and Kinkade would do it. Would it still be a nice composition?

No. It would make me want to hurl, just like everything Kinkade did and almost everything Lik does.

 

[Michel Hardy-Vallée]

Probably due to human nature, for any changes to be made in most things there has to be a rebellion of sorts, and with that goes the name calling, the tribalism and the "one is better than the other" mentality.

We can see than occurring now with the film/digital tribes. Human nature sort of dictates that in any rebellion there has to be a winner and a loser, where higher evolved individuals can see that "different" is a positive thing and not a hindrance or a threat.

Indeed. I may not agree with everything Hegel then Marx said, but these two sure pointed out how strife is fundamental to existence.

Notice, for instance, how hard it is to have a forum thread that develops cooperatively rather than through disagreement.

I think we should start punching each other right now, otherwise I fear we may create a Singularity of Consensus, and rip apart the space-time continuum, thus vacuuming this entire site out of existence.

 

[jglass]

Okay::: PUNCH!

Seriously, this thread is quite interesting to me as I believe discussion, nay, argument about art is essential to my development as a photographer and as a person. Anyone who does not enjoy references to human functions, such as sexuality, eating, and excretion, should perhaps go over to the exposure discussion and fret about ISO/ASA values rather than aesthetic ones.

 

[Mainecoonmaniac]

I completely agree with you. Some photographers are more concerned with the nuts and bolts of photography rather than the aesthetics of photography. To me, the mechanics of technical details of photography should serve the art.

 

[blansky]

I completely agree with you. Some photographers are more concerned with the nuts and bolts of photography rather than the aesthetics of photography. To me, the mechanics of technical details of photography should serve the art.

The problem is, is that in this art form, and in some others there are two brain types exploring it.

The engineer type who likes toys, gadgets and the fondling of mechanical wonders as well as the analysis of technique to copy or achieve similar results. The art to him is the existence of these camera things, and lo and behold the damn thing can actually take pictures too.

And we have the artsy fartsy types who are more interested in creating images and don't/can't deal with the mechanics at all. The camera thing is just a means to an end.

Then we have the people in between.

So the practitioners of photography are often looking at the same objects and see two entirely different things.

Sort of like two guys looking at a pretty girl. One wants to take her clothes off and jump her bones and the other want to take her clothes off to see how all those body parts work.