Will there ever be another photographic movement?

[Arthurwg]

The last two photographic movements I can think of are The New Topographics and The Dusseldorf School. I would say these mark the end of modernism in photography. I guess beyond that we could move into Post-Modernism, like in painting. But it's difficult to see how post-modernism could enlist a like-minded group of photographers, either in contact with each other or working independently. I think that would be more like a splintering than a movement.

 

[VinceInMT]

...If Joe sets out to be a maximal absurdist polo bagpipe player, it doesn't constitute a movement - it's one guy doing something no one else is. If three or four other people join in, it's still not a movement - it's a group of people doing something esoteric. If it gets publicized in some way and starts to have an impact on other people, it can be called a movement - but probably still not significant enough for anyone to ever say it is. Only when it becomes anchored in a culture in an influential way, can it be rightfully said to be a movement.

Reminds me of "Alice's Restaurant:"

"...there's only one thing you can do and that's walk into The shrink wherever you are, just walk in say "Shrink, You can get Anything you want, at Alice's restaurant.". And walk out. You know, if One person, just one person does it they may think he's really sick andThey won't take him. And if two people, two people do it, in harmony, They may think they're both f____s and they won't take either of them. And three people do it, three, can you imagine, three people walking in Singin a bar of Alice's Restaurant and walking out. They may think it's an Organization. And can you, can you imagine fifty people a day, I said Fifty people a day walking in singin a bar of Alice's Restaurant and Walking out. And friends they may thinks it's a movement."

 

[Arthurwg]

Still, perhaps. alternative-process efforts can be seen as a retro-movement, along with funky Holga and Lomo photography. See Lyle Rexler's. "Photography's Antiquarian Avant-Garde," for example.

 

[Pieter12]

There is movement in photography today. It is the endless diarrhea of unispired, unoriginal, uninteresting, bland and just generally bad photography seeping from every pore of the internet.

 

[Alex Benjamin]

it's difficult to see how post-modernism could enlist a like-minded group of photographers, either in contact with each other or working independently. I think that would be more like a splintering than a movement.

I agree.

 

[Arthurwg]

There is movement in photography today. It is the endless diarrhea of unispired, unoriginal, uninteresting, bland and just generally bad photography seeping from every pore of the internet.

It's always been like that, more or less, but now we have the internet to distribute it.

 

[Alex Benjamin]

There is movement in photography today. It is the endless diarrhea of unispired, unoriginal, uninteresting, bland and just generally bad photography seeping from every pore of the internet.

So, shall we go with "The New Banality," "Post-relevancy" or "Neo-Insipidity" ?

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

Most people aren't shooting for art but for posterity recording events like parties, get-togethers, vacations, etc. They're not insipid, banal, or meaningless. In fact, they're most of the most treasured photos taken.

 

[Pieter12]

Most people aren't shooting for art but for posterity recording events like parties, get-togethers, vacations, etc. They're not insipid, banal, or meaningless. In fact, they're most of the most treasured photos taken.

Look at all the selfies, poseurs and imitators shooting insipid shots of their ratty pets and unappetizing food, then posting them to various social media sites. And the more that are posted, the more others want to jump on the bandwagon. Treasured? We all pay in the cost of running the servers to subsidize them.

 

[Pieter12]

It's always been like that, more or less, but now we have the internet to distribute it.

And a monumental increase in the number of cameras to take them.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

Look at all the selfies, poseurs and imitators shooting insipid shots of their ratty pets and unappetizing food, then posting them to various social media sites. And the more that are posted, the more others want to jump on the bandwagon. Treasured? We all pay in the cost of running the servers to subsidize them.

Shut them off if they bother you. Let others do what they want to do for themselves. Why is it your business?

And you're not subsidizing anyone. The more people are on social media, the more the companies make from their advertisers who pay for the number of hits.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

And a monumental increase in the number of cameras to take them.

Why is that your business?

 

[Pieter12]

Shut them off if they bother you. Let others do what they want to do for themselves. Why is it your business?

And you're not subsidizing anyone. The more people are on social media, the more the companies make from their advertisers who pay for the number of hits.

I try to avoid them as much as possible, but I was writing about the site of the majority of photography being done today. And where do those advertisers get the money to pay for hits?

Why is that your business?

Not my business. Just a statement of fact.

 

[Sirius Glass]

There is movement in photography today. It is the endless diarrhea of unispired, unoriginal, uninteresting, bland and just generally bad photography seeping from every pore of the internet.

That and ExLax makes a movement. See my posts about GWCs and PWCs.

 

[Sirius Glass]

Look at all the selfies, poseurs and imitators shooting insipid shots of their ratty pets and unappetizing food, then posting them to various social media sites. And the more that are posted, the more others want to jump on the bandwagon. Treasured? We all pay in the cost of running the servers to subsidize them.

That is why other than Photrio I avoid social media.

 

[Don_ih]

You've given me Joe the polo bagpipe player.

The fact that you don't see the relevance of my purposely absurd example tells me that you have a much more fanciful notion of what a "movement" would be than is actually the case. It's good to maintain a high standard for whatever others may or may not be doing, to elevate it into the aether, to make sure no one can actually do it. Or is it that everyone and anyone is always doing it? I can't quite see the relevance of anything you've said a movement is, since it seems everything is a movement?

 

[awty]

There is movement in photography today. It is the endless diarrhea of unispired, unoriginal, uninteresting, bland and just generally bad photography seeping from every pore of the internet.

Thats the new movement, time to embrace it,

 

[MTGseattle]

I'm pretty sure a few of you have already landed at this point, but if there is a current "movement" within photography, we will likely be unaware until it has been so named be the curators, gallerists, critics, etc. Unless of course someone does launch a mission statement or manifesto hailing their work as being completed within specific parameters and/or in response to another way of working. Any movement within the art world at large and narrowed down into photography has been a counterpoint of sorts to the "establishment" within that community. Group f64 fought hard to get Steiglitz's blessing which thereby advanced the groups recognition over to the east coast. It is too easy to get bogged down worrying about copying. One should at least do some research and know who's tripod holes you're treading upon. The on-line community at-large (insta, youtube, etc) doesn't seem to reference those who came before. I've been hung up lately on the notion of derivation, and the thought that if I can't say something "new" about a given subject, or if I am unwilling to bend the medium in some odd and unique way, that I should just not be out shooting. It's all derivative in some way. Is there truly a new way to photograph architecture or people? Portrait photography using drones? I don't know. I recently heard about a company that can produce relief prints for the vision impaired. Think of the possibilities with a truly tactile (not tactile in the basic way of simply holding a print) photograph.

 

[Pieter12]

I'm pretty sure a few of you have already landed at this point, but if there is a current "movement" within photography, we will likely be unaware until it has been so named be the curators, gallerists, critics, etc. Unless of course someone does launch a mission statement or manifesto hailing their work as being completed within specific parameters and/or in response to another way of working. Any movement within the art world at large and narrowed down into photography has been a counterpoint of sorts to the "establishment" within that community. Group f64 fought hard to get Steiglitz's blessing which thereby advanced the groups recognition over to the east coast. It is too easy to get bogged down worrying about copying. One should at least do some research and know who's tripod holes you're treading upon. The on-line community at-large (insta, youtube, etc) doesn't seem to reference those who came before. I've been hung up lately on the notion of derivation, and the thought that if I can't say something "new" about a given subject, or if I am unwilling to bend the medium in some odd and unique way, that I should just not be out shooting. It's all derivative in some way. Is there truly a new way to photograph architecture or people? Portrait photography using drones? I don't know. I recently heard about a company that can produce relief prints for the vision impaired. Think of the possibilities with a truly tactile (not tactile in the basic way of simply holding a print) photograph.

All art is derivative in some way. Crewdson's staged scenes could have been cut from a David Lynch movie, the Becher's owe something to Atget, and so on. There are a multitude of photographers today making manipulated (either digitally or analog) prints, making unconventional photographs that do not involve a camera, altering prints with other media--paint, thread, etc, collaging photos--the list goes on. So many ways to produce some sort of self-expression that should not stop one from taking (or making) photos. One does not need to invent a new way to photograph people, as the people are different themselves. Look at Avedon's In The American West, the approach is identical for every subject--that's the glue that holds it together--yet it doesn't get repetitious. Or Penn's Small Trades or the work of August Sander.

 

[Rolleiflexible]

Have you all really been arguing over this for two years now? The question itself is a head fake. Why did the OP suppose that photography is different from art in general? All of the movements that occupied other species of the arts have also found expression in photography.

To state the obvious: Not all photography is art. But there is no reason to treat photography as a form of artistic expression any differently from painting or drawing or sculpture or etchings or whatever. It is influenced by, and influences, all the same currents that move other artists.

As for "diarrhea," the same has been said ever since Mr. Eastman sent Vest Pocket Kodaks to the troops in the Great War. It is a democratic medium, now distributed in a world with no barriers to dissemination. That's okay.

 

[Alex Benjamin]

The fact that you don't see the relevance of my purposely absurd example tells me that you have a much more fanciful notion of what a "movement" would be than is actually the case. It's good to maintain a high standard for whatever others may or may not be doing, to elevate it into the aether, to make sure no one can actually do it. Or is it that everyone and anyone is always doing it? I can't quite see the relevance of anything you've said a movement is, since it seems everything is a movement?

I really don't see which part of "let's agree to disagree" you're not getting. We're not on the same page. That you don't find a single word I've written relevant is really no problem for me. I've been through worse.

Now we can each leave this thread with the certainty that the other is wrong, and no harm will have been done. Life will go on, film will be developed, movements will be born and die, and one day the Canadiens will win the cup again.

 

[Don_ih]

All art is derivative in some way

That is almost necessarily true, just for a new artwork to even be recognizable as an artwork at all. The amount of conformity always outweighs the degree of novelty.

Have you all really been arguing over this for two years now?

We're bored.

 

[Don_ih]

Now we can each leave this thread with the certainty that the other is wrong,

Yet I'm not wrong and I don't think you are, in most of what you say. You just seem to refuse to accept meaningful distinctions. Speaking about something should be done in as unambiguous a way as possible to actually get the meaning across. You don't distinguish an artistic movement from the activity of a single or group of artists.

I never agree to disagree.

 

[Rolleiflexible]

All art is derivative in some way.

In the end artists repeat others, often unwittingly, not only because their work is derivative, but also because people keep coming back to the same subjects. FWIW, Geoff Dyer's book, The Ongoing Moment, is a fascinating dive into this aspect of photography.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

I'm pretty sure a few of you have already landed at this point, but if there is a current "movement" within photography, we will likely be unaware until it has been so named be the curators, gallerists, critics, etc. Unless of course someone does launch a mission statement or manifesto hailing their work as being completed within specific parameters and/or in response to another way of working. Any movement within the art world at large and narrowed down into photography has been a counterpoint of sorts to the "establishment" within that community. Group f64 fought hard to get Steiglitz's blessing which thereby advanced the groups recognition over to the east coast. It is too easy to get bogged down worrying about copying. One should at least do some research and know who's tripod holes you're treading upon. The on-line community at-large (insta, youtube, etc) doesn't seem to reference those who came before. I've been hung up lately on the notion of derivation, and the thought that if I can't say something "new" about a given subject, or if I am unwilling to bend the medium in some odd and unique way, that I should just not be out shooting. It's all derivative in some way. Is there truly a new way to photograph architecture or people? Portrait photography using drones? I don't know. I recently heard about a company that can produce relief prints for the vision impaired. Think of the possibilities with a truly tactile (not tactile in the basic way of simply holding a print) photograph.

Virtual Reality VR could be the new movement, at least according to Zuckerberg. My smart TV still can play 3D although all if not most of the new TVs can't do 3D anymore. How about robots taking pictures of us?