Will there ever be another photographic movement?

[MattKing]

We all have our own movements...This could lead into a really bad joke.

Clearly you spend an inordinate amount of time around teenagers

 

[macfred]

Movement in photography ? That's about suspended movement; motion blur and visual flow ...

 

[Cholentpot]

All the Gen Zeds in my photography 11 class, over the past few years, have been very excited about using film and getting into the darkroom.

Right, and we catch them now and the movement will snowball. I've gotten at least a half dozen 'kids' hooked onto film photography. They already have a phone for snapshots. For real photos they want a film SLR.

 

[warden]

For real photos they want a film SLR.

SLR?? They need rangefinders, man. Teach them.

 

[Luckless]

SLR?? They need rangefinders, man. Teach them.

TLRs... Be there, be ... err... square. I guess.

We all have our own movements...This could lead into a really bad joke.

Are you setting up to joke about how shitty some of our work can be? ... I'll go now.

 

[Andrew O'Neill]

TLRs... Be there, be ... err... square. I guess.



Are you setting up to joke about how shitty some of our work can be? ... I'll go now.

 

[Luckless]

While possibly an oversimplification or scrapping too deep into things, is there really anything more to 'A Movement' required beyond at least one person being able to highlight some reasonably unique element or idea that is then embraced or supported by others?

I wonder how far that could be pushed... Honestly it wouldn't really surprise me if something like a "Red Square Movement" of photography could take off as 'a legitimate thing' in art that swaps sub-schools and branches, where every photo [even B&W] makes some use of 'a red square' of some kind in each and every frame, if just a handful of people on some random internet forum decide they want to make it 'a thing' for long enough that it eventually takes on a life of its own.

Art is weird. Humans are weirder.

 

[Cholentpot]

SLR?? They need rangefinders, man. Teach them.

TLRs... Be there, be ... err... square. I guess.



Are you setting up to joke about how shitty some of our work can be? ... I'll go now.

Gotta ease them into it. SLRs are out there a dime a dozen. Rangefinders are a little advanced, gotta keep both eyes open.

I started with a TLR. No meter, full manual. No clue about ISO, shutter speed, aperture, depth of field. Nothing. Loaded roll and shot. Took to lab, got prints back. Did it twice and got a dev tank. The rest is history for me.

 

[Pieter12]

What defines a movement? Do you need a group of like-minded photographers? A manifesto? Or just grouping of similar style, influenced by others but not necessarily coordinated or intentional?

 

[jtk]

A bit of competition/ego should be expected (hoped for) just as in sculpture, dance, and poetics. Creeping back into old habits and what some of us wish isn't an art movement, it's fear.

If it's convenient and comfortable it it's decay, not a movement.

As well, movements have leaders, not classroom teachers.

 

[Alan Johnson]

You can buy phones that will do blurry backgrounds and phones that will do fill flash from close up.
Phone that cannot be purchased is one that , in good light, will do fill flash at longer distances
Bolt on separate flash units (IIRC there is one called the Godox A1) that will provide more light than the native phone flash are emerging.
More powerful separate fill flash for phones has been slow to emerge but has the potential to replace the separate digital camera for simple purposes.
It might be a new movement or a damp squib.

 

[AgX]

What defines a movement? Do you need a group of like-minded photographers? A manifesto? Or just grouping of similar style, influenced by others but not necessarily coordinated or intentional?

Let's make it "Who"?
Art-Historians

 

[Ko.Fe.]

I have no idea about groups in OP. Photosessionists?
Street photography exist for more than half a century.

I’m member, active, of rangefinder.ru. Forum dedicated for rangefinder photography.
While many still photograph nothing special with any camera, over years photography in the gallery of this forum developed distinguished look. It is next to totally film on-line gallery.

 

[warden]

I have no idea about groups in OP. Photosessionists?

Alfred Stieglitz, Edward Steichen, etc. It was a major photographic movement in the US, but perhaps not known elsewhere. It saw the start of the magazine Camera Work, also very influential here but perhaps not elsewhere.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photo-Secession

 

[AgX]

Street photography exist for more than half a century.

Over here not even that term existed (in the meaning of artistic/documentary form).

 

[Patrick Robert James]

Between lack of isolation and appropriation the answer to your question would be no.

Imagine for example if the internet was around in the early 90s. Hair bands would have appropriated grunge and a lot of the grunge bands would have struggled with a lack of recognition. Basically these days "movements" can't really move.

 

[AgX]

Before the internet the photographic world was much more segregated, both technically and esthetically. So what was a movement in one part of the world needed to get known elsewhere. And if it did not got installed elsewhere, over there one was dependent on imported publications or local publicatins, exhibitions to get to know. Much more filtering than today.


Wouldn't that mean that today chances for a new movement are greater?

One fellow already hinted at Lomography.

 

[Arthurwg]

I'm seeing a tendency toward abstraction, but not in the "non-objective" sense. These pictures have obvious referents, but their presentation is more interesting and "artistic." I wish I could define it better, and as far as I can tell the "movement" has yet to be codified. Some of it uses alternative process, but not as an end in itself. More to do with visual syntax.

 

[Chan Tran]

There is a movement of "No DOF" and bokeh. It's because the cell phones can do a lot of DOF without having to use f/64 so many would pursue the "No DOF". So much so that cell phone manufacturers have to do it with software.

 

[jtk]

http://lenscratch.com/2020/01/bill-westheimer-new-vistas-photographers-working-with-the-landscape-3/


"movement" is an academic idea

 

[KenS]

Let's make it "Who"?
Art-Historians

I find it rather 'strange' that there has been no mention of John Sexton and his making of photographs in the period of "Quiet Light' in the short time after the sun has just 'dropped' below the horizon.

Ken

 

[warden]

Basically these days "movements" can't really move.

Much more filtering than today... Wouldn't that mean that today chances for a new movement are greater?

I think you're both right actually. It's so much easier to connect globally now that you would think that there would be dozens or hundreds of new photographic movements happening all at once (I mean, look at all the photographs that are being made and shared) and yet I don't see a lot of evidence of new movements, with the exceptions of "bokeh", Lomomography, and a few others mentioned in this thread. (Maybe Instagram filtering could be added as well.)

I'm enjoying reading these responses.

 

[Pieter12]

I think there is a bit of confusion between movement and genre. Certainly, style can come into play, but a movement is usually a group with a common philosophy or goal. I see a lot of references to individual photographers, but not to their intention or whether there are more photographers with similar practices and goals.

 

[Luckless]

- Slow Photojournalism (and Slow Photography more generally)

What was the definition you had for those? Didn't get any obvious hits for it off Google just now for something that could be described as a movement or school.

 

[jtk]

I suppose that's true, but I would imagine the New Topographics for one would be familiar to German photographers as two of the group were German (Bernd and Hilla Becher who founded the Düsseldorf School). Would the f/64 group be unknown to a German photography audience as well? I assumed Ansel Adams was more influential than the 50 states but that could just be the US perspective again.

Anyway, photographic movements from other parts of the world would be very interesting to learn about, especially if they are ongoing ones. If anyone has pointers I'd be glad to read about them. The Lomography one mentioned above is interesting, and they even have a "manifesto" that they published, but then again they have products to sell and that makes it feel more commercial of course.

Who were peers of Bernd and Hilla?