To help preserve her works, Cindy Sherman is offering to destroy and reprint old photographs

[warden]

I can name about 4 million reasons why she would refuse.

Me too.

Well put. I wouldn't describe her as a photographer. If she started her career now she'd use a camera phone. Not that there's anything wrong with that, the camera phone gets out of the way so the artist can concentrate on the intent more than the technical.

I wonder why you assume she has no interest in the technical aspects of photography. She makes her own pictures and sets up her own lights, and works alone.

 

[MattKing]

I would hazard a guess that there are relatively few people contributing to this thread who would ever consider constructing something for the purpose of communicating an idea, and then photographing the result.

 

[Cholentpot]

Me too.

I wonder why you assume she has no interest in the technical aspects of photography. She makes her own pictures and sets up her own lights, and works alone.

Because that was the only way to get a decent photo back then. An cellphone will do it all for you now, you don't need lights anymore.

 

[MattKing]

Because that was the only way to get a decent photo back then. An cellphone will do it all for you now, you don't need lights anymore.

Cindy Sherman has lots of work where it is very clear that the lighting is intentional, and well understood, and almost certainly set up.
All of which can be done, of course, with a cel phone.
Although given the size of some of her more recent work - which can be quite large - I don't expect a cel phone would make sense.

 

[warden]

Cindy Sherman has lots of work where it is very clear that the lighting is intentional, and well understood, and almost certainly set up.
All of which can be done, of course, with a cel phone.
Although given the size of some of her more recent work - which can be quite large - I don't expect a cel phone would make sense.

If I understand correctly I think Cholentpot is doing the thought experiment of plucking a young Cindy Sherman out of the distant past and dropping her teenage self into 2025 and then deciding somehow that young Cindy would prefer to use a phone instead of a professional camera and lights. What this is based on I haven’t a clue. For her entire career she’s been known for working on her own and controlling every aspect of her photographic output, including the technical work and post processing. She does her own work still.

I am frankly amazed that people in this thread are still insisting that this person is not a photographer.

 

[0x001688936CA08]

Gosh, you must think I'm uneducated, Matt. I've seen my share of vintage Surrealist photography too. Just because I get annoyed at certain genre doesn't mean I don't get the point. I just don't want the same predictable commodities dumped on me over and over and over again every time I visit another "modern art" museum which apparently can't think for itself. When I consider the De Chirico painting of the Pink Tower, or inspect one of Dali's paintings, it screams with genius and remarkable technique. But when I look at a Cindy print, I yawn and roll my eyes.

As far a Curtis is concerned, I have the best modern book on his work ever published, and as lovely as it is, a lot of the dress is faux, brought along with him on his travels, with little respect for authentic local tribal dress, much like a John Wayne movie. If you have a copy of Almost Ancestors, the Sierra Club book on early Calif Indian photos, I personally knew three individuals in that - photos of them when they were children, but aged when I was growing up. I went to school with their own kids. Our family collection contains tintypes and ambrotypes of an even earlier generation, back when the typical hot weather dress was zero.
My own babysitter as an infant was the first white woman ever in Yosemite, when she was 7.

Yes, that's an interesting Jane Brown photo. I sure wouldn't want to cross the guy.

Ansel didn't get a whole lot of shooting in on those Sierra Club outings. He was in charge of much of it, so had to be up awfully early to get in a few personal shots. Most of them were taken on other occasions. We locals resented all the trash those big S. Club horse convoys left behind, and all the damage to the meadows. Big groups like that are no longer permitted in the high country.

I grew up in that Sierra light, so have a far better idea of AA's sensitivity to it than most people. Also his poetic feel. No, his printmaking skills didn't impress me as much as the work of both Edward and Brett Weston, and I never even saw a real AA print until I was given my own exhibitions in his own neighborhood.

It's interesting that your refined artistic background amounts to nothing more than an appreciation of art based entirely on comparing everything to Ansel Adams.

Perhaps growing up in the Sierra light means you can't see the forest for the trees.

 

[0x001688936CA08]

...

I am frankly amazed that people in this thread are still insisting that this person is not a photographer.

"I mean I guess she's a photographer, she's just not doing photography in a way that I relate to because it's not about technical mastery, and instead she's using photography (the medium I base my entire identity on) in a way that makes me uncomfortable and insecure, so she mustn't really be a photographer, because if she's a photographer then that means I'm like her, and I don't want to be like her. She's weird."

This is how the "No dude I totally get it, it's just dumb" comments from the gatekeepers of "real photography" read to anyone who's thought about photography for themselves.

 

[koraks]

Well, this is of course a forum with a membership heavily biased towards classic technique. I suppose it's no surprise that the degree of conservatism is downright stunning. Yet, I admit I'm still caught off guard by it much of the time.

 

[gordonrgw]

Interesting that Gregory Crewdson was mentioned earlier.
Do you not think that Crewdson and Sherman are very similar in intent in their practices?
Constructed narratives with a little interpretation left to the viewer.

 

[Don_ih]

Crewdson's photos could be thought of as very similar to Sherman's, since he sets up elaborate, cinematic scenes that hint at a greater narrative. His photos look as much like movie stills as Sherman's - but he doesn't appear in them.

As for the "performance art" stuff said earlier - if it was a performance, the result is a still photo. You can set up a scenario and take a photo. If what you are producing (the end product) is a photo, you're a photographer. I guess people think it's less authentic than photos of rocks and trees and naked bodies. (Note - has to be the right rocks and trees and naked bodies. )

 

[TJones]

Well, this is of course a forum with a membership heavily biased towards classic technique. I suppose it's no surprise that the degree of conservatism is downright stunning. Yet, I admit I'm still caught off guard by it much of the time.

At least it’s quite a bit better than it used to be.

 

[koraks]

At least it’s quite a bit better than it used to be.

You're probably right, and I'm glad to hear ti. And my apologies for that remark; there's likely a larger audience that doesn't speak up that has much more nuanced views anyway.

 

[Cholentpot]

If I understand correctly I think Cholentpot is doing the thought experiment of plucking a young Cindy Sherman out of the distant past and dropping her teenage self into 2025 and then deciding somehow that young Cindy would prefer to use a phone instead of a professional camera and lights. What this is based on I haven’t a clue. For her entire career she’s been known for working on her own and controlling every aspect of her photographic output, including the technical work and post processing. She does her own work still.

I am frankly amazed that people in this thread are still insisting that this person is not a photographer.

All that effort for the results she got? Doesn't change my opinion.

Well, this is of course a forum with a membership heavily biased towards classic technique. I suppose it's no surprise that the degree of conservatism is downright stunning. Yet, I admit I'm still caught off guard by it much of the time.

Maybe because the larger world hasn't been told what's good and the classics are classics for a reason.

 

[nikos79]

Crewdson's photos could be thought of as very similar to Sherman's, since he sets up elaborate, cinematic scenes that hint at a greater narrative. His photos look as much like movie stills as Sherman's - but he doesn't appear in them.

As for the "performance art" stuff said earlier - if it was a performance, the result is a still photo. You can set up a scenario and take a photo. If what you are producing (the end product) is a photo, you're a photographer. I guess people think it's less authentic than photos of rocks and trees and naked bodies. (Note - has to be the right rocks and trees and naked bodies. )

If you have ever seen a curriculum of a big University that teaches photography this is exactly the style of photography they teach, big staged photography.
The old style of the photographers that reacted instinctively to the world around us is unfortunately long gone

 

[nikos79]

All that effort for the results she got? Doesn't change my opinion.



Maybe because the larger world hasn't been told what's good and the classics are classics for a reason.

Actually Cindy Sherman herself identified primarily as an artist and not a photographer.

 

[nikos79]

Maybe because the larger world hasn't been told what's good and the classics are classics for a reason.

+1

 

[TJones]

Maybe because the larger world hasn't been told what's good and the classics are classics for a reason.

But the larger world has been told. You just don't agree with what they've been told, and/or who is telling them. Sherman's work has its place because the arbiters (critics, museums, gallery owners, etc.) put it in that place. Who would you replace them with?

And how you define "classic"? Traditional technique or subject matter? Age? Something else?

 

[TJones]

The old style of the photographers that reacted instinctively to the world around us is unfortunately long gone

Street photography is dead? Photojournalism is dead? Nature photography? Architectural photography?

There are more people doing these things than ever before. All you have to do is open your eyes.

 

[nikos79]

Street photography is dead? Photojournalism is dead? Nature photography? Architectural photography?

There are more people doing these things than ever before. All you have to do is open your eyes.

Yes of course, I was talking more about academical circles and what kind of Photography is taught.

 

[nikos79]

But the larger world has been told. You just don't agree with what they've been told, and/or who is telling them. Sherman's work has its place because the arbiters (critics, museums, gallery owners, etc.) put it in that place. Who would you replace them with?

And how you define "classic"? Traditional technique or subject matter? Age? Something else?

I guess we all here know the classics

 

[bdial]

Is the art the image or the object, i.e. the print?

More to the point of what Ms. Sherman is doing, is the value in the image, or the paper it’s presented on?

 

[TJones]

Yes of course, I was talking more about academical circles and what kind of Photography is taught.

And you’re still wrong.

 

[TJones]

I guess we all here know the classics

“We all here” agree about very few things. Identification of “the classics” is not one of them.

 

[nikos79]

And you’re still wrong.

I had friends who studied in Yale or London so I know. When they want to show work they always ask them before "What you want to say or accomplish with your work?"
Absurd. The classical names they teach them as separate course called "The History of Photography" they don't even consider them worth analysing or presenting. The new trends are big stages, huge prints, fusion with other arts, conceptualism, and staged photography

 

[Cholentpot]

But the larger world has been told. You just don't agree with what they've been told, and/or who is telling them. Sherman's work has its place because the arbiters (critics, museums, gallery owners, etc.) put it in that place. Who would you replace them with?

And how you define "classic"? Traditional technique or subject matter? Age? Something else?

I'm of the larger world, I've done my time and learned my craft. I never heard of Cindy Sherman until yesterday. Might it be I'm younger than many members here and her work is unknown to my generation? It's most definitely irrelevant to me, I mean I can learn lessons in it, not in photography but in marketing.