What modern photography is "INNOVATIVE"?

[BrianShaw]

In a discussion about AI "making or taking photography," @koraks states that the vast majority of photography really isn't very innovative.

How will AI affect "making" versus "taking" photo's?

AI is rapidly getting better at "making" photo's. But AI is not capable of "taking" photo's. Well.... for now. Maybe one day there will be AI driven robots, drones etc. that autonomously go out to "take" great photo's in the real world based on their own (artificial) intelligence and interest...

www.photrio.com

I accept that as fact and have always struggled with the question of what photography in the "modern era" can be considered innovative. Are there any examples that anyone can suggest?

 

[BrianShaw]

This is the best example I can think of, yet many would say that Ms Kasten isn't making photographs but, rather, taking photographs of her art exhibits. Perhaps this is just a use of photography as opposed to being inherently photography?

Barbara Kasten: Refracted Light

Collectible but Not Consumeristic

www.documentjournal.com

‘Bewilderingly evanescent’: how a darkroom allergy made Barbara Kasten see the light

The 88-year-old Chicago artist takes photography to a whole new level – as her new East Sussex show, which uses fluorescent panels to sculpt with colour, proves

www.theguardian.com

 

[Ulrich Drolshagen]

Think of concepts being innovative rather than the pictures taken. Sugimoto comes to mind but there a lots more like Gursky, Ruff and others in the following of the Bechers for instance.

Ulrich

 

[Don_ih]

"Innovation" is pretty meaningless as a criteria for judging the value or meaning of photography - or anything else for that matter. The most vapid things can be innovative. The most staid things can be the most meaningful. Attempts to be innovative with photography tend to generate wildly swaying critical opinions. Think of Jerry Uelsmann. Think of all the bizarre costumes of post-movie-stills Cindy Sherman. Duane Michals taking fairly straightforward photos but sequencing them and writing captions under each also was seen by many as just a gimmick. All of those are "innovative" with respect to what is normally taking place.

 

[BrianShaw]

"Innovation" is pretty meaningless as a criteria for judging the value or meaning of photography - or anything else for that matter. The most vapid things can be innovative. The most staid things can be the most meaningful. Attempts to be innovative with photography tend to generate wildly swaying critical opinions. Think of Jerry Uelsmann. Think of all the bizarre costumes of post-movie-stills Cindy Sherman. Duane Michals taking fairly straightforward photos but sequencing them and writing captions under each also was seen by many as just a gimmick. All of those are "innovative" with respect to what is normally taking place.

like

 

[CMoore]

"Innovation" is pretty meaningless as a criteria for judging the value or meaning of photography - or anything else for that matter. The most vapid things can be innovative. The most staid things can be the most meaningful. Attempts to be innovative with photography tend to generate wildly swaying critical opinions. Think of Jerry Uelsmann. Think of all the bizarre costumes of post-movie-stills Cindy Sherman. Duane Michals taking fairly straightforward photos but sequencing them and writing captions under each also was seen by many as just a gimmick. All of those are "innovative" with respect to what is normally taking place.

Yeah............ the Pet Rock was innovative, ingeniously innovative.

 

[Curtis990011]

I'm not sure if innovation has much to do with the purpose of photography as an art; however, I would say it is likely one of its qualities. In my experience, no one can decide to be innovative, it seems to come about mostly through skill and being genuine.

Lua Ribeira: Las Visiones

 

[Sirius Glass]

AI will not enter into my photography,

 

[Arthurwg]

"Innovation" is pretty meaningless as a criteria for judging the value or meaning of photography - or anything else for that matter.

Innovation can also be the most meaningful, like impressionism and post impressionism in painting.

 

[Arthurwg]

Jean Baudrillard and Lewis Baltz come to mind.

 

[snusmumriken]

I don’t have a clear idea of what distinction can be made between innovation and having a unique voice. I think the days of real innovation in photography are largely over, as they are for other media like watercolour painting or 12-tone music. Self-consciously trying to be different generally seems to involve messing around in mixed media or other fringes. I’m always puzzled that this gets the attention of trendy photo galleries.

So I say to hell with innovation. My vote is for being oneself, whether that is revolutionary or derivative. Some lucky people are so innately talented and distinctive that their photos, watercolour paintings or music will always be treasured. For the rest of us, striving for the never-been-done-before isn’t going to help.

 

[nikos79]

Everything has be done. Nothing is innovative. The only innovative is the artist's view which on the same things is every time different

 

[CMoore]

I don’t have a clear idea of what distinction can be made between innovation and having a unique voice. I think the days of real innovation in photography are largely over, as they are for other media like watercolour painting or 12-tone music. Self-consciously trying to be different generally seems to involve messing around in mixed media or other fringes. I’m always puzzled that this gets the attention of trendy photo galleries.

So I say to hell with innovation. My vote is for being oneself, whether that is revolutionary or derivative. Some lucky people are so innately talented and distinctive that their photos, watercolour paintings or music will always be treasured. For the rest of us, striving for the never-been-done-before isn’t going to help.

Everything has be done. Nothing is innovative. The only innovative is the artist's view which on the same things is every time different

Well said.

Innovative, Unique, Artistic, Etc etc etc
Those are all sort of subjective.

Take pictures that you like.
Then let life decide what to call them...........

 

[Arthurwg]

I don’t have a clear idea of what distinction can be made between innovation and having a unique voice.

What about Cubism? Hardly a unique voice. I think innovation is largely conceptual.

 

[Arthurwg]

Everything has be done. Nothing is innovative.

In Switzerland that's probably true.

 

[Chan Tran]

Innovative?
Let stick to 2 dimension imaging.
I think real innovative is some way to make the image more accurate to real. None of these stuff recently does that.

 

[snusmumriken]

What about Cubism? Hardly a unique voice. I think innovation is largely conceptual.

Good point, not a unique voice. But was it innovative, or was it just a revolution against tradition, combined with derivation from other (esp African) cultures? Wasn’t it a collection of unique voices, all shaped by their era and attitude? It seems to me that a revolution is necessarily derivative of the thing it is rebelling against. So is it innovative?

To take a musical analogy, music too had impressionism and serialism and godknowswhatism. But the real innovation was done by the people who first experimented with a 12-tone scale, and later by those who experimented with different temperings, ending up with the ‘even’ temperament we accept as normal in the western world today. Today you can’t find a single harmony that wasn’t previously used by JS Bach, nor a rhythm that wasn’t previously beaten out by some forgotten fellow in a cave.

 

[Arthurwg]

I guess we'll need a definition of "innovation." I do think the incorporation of African styles into Western imagery can be called an innovation. As for music, Louis Armstrong, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis , John Coltrane, T. Monk and Roland Kirk, among others, were all innovators.

 

[snusmumriken]

I guess we'll need a definition of "innovation."

Oh hell, has it come to that?

Trouble is, the OP was asking what we would consider innovative in contemporary photography, and it seems that views differ. Clearly I’m thinking of something more fundamental than you are, for instance.

 

[nikos79]

I can give you an example. When Eggleston photographed the bicycle and everything praised it as innovative they seemed to forget that William Talbot had photographed something similar centuries ago. People tend to forget..

 

[Arthurwg]

Oh hell, has it come to that?

Trouble is, the OP was asking what we would consider innovative in contemporary photography, and it seems that views differ. Clearly I’m thinking of something more fundamental than you are, for instance.

How about your opinion of some fundamentally innovative photography?

 

[Don_ih]

Innovation doesn't come from nowhere. Generally, when something is "innovative", it is with respect to some thing or some practice that already exists, often in reaction to what already exists - as a way to undo, overdo, redo, or escape from it. And it's usually pretty insignificant. It's very rare that something labelled innovative has any impact on anything other than whatever it directly deals with.

In photography, the creation of roll film was innovative. Really significantly so.

APS was innovative. In about as insignificant a way as possible.

Pictorialism itself was not innovative - just like impressionism and post-impressionism were not innovative. Smearing grease on a lens was innovative and pointillism was innovative - when they were first done to achieve their desired effect.

 

[Saganich]

Cindy Sherman was mentioned earlier regarding fictionalized self portraits. I considered that work the previous move forward in photography and have been looking out for what comes next ever since. I can only project that there will continue to be further blurring of the lines between identity, self-representation, reality, memory, and fiction. If the results are "affirming life and overcoming nihilism, as it provides a means to reinterpret and appreciate even the most tragic aspects of existence" then I'm good.

 

[Milpool]

Everything has be done. Nothing is innovative. The only innovative is the artist's view which on the same things is every time different

Yes, basically. Every artform (every pursuit, really) eventually reaches a stage when the leaps and bounds have all happened.

 

[BrianShaw]

... so "innovative photography" may be the new "eye" rather than the new "thing".

whatever those words mean...