The Genius of Photography
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
John Gossage and Martin Parr drive around Memphis taking photographs
still from The Genius of Photography, Episode 4
Not long ago, Andrew Hetherington posted about Ovation TV’s running of the six part BBC4 series The Genius of Photography. It looks as though the series has become very popular, as it has been sold to ABC (Australia), Ovation (USA), Ontario TV and the Knowledge Network (Canada), VRT (Belgium), Canal+ (Poland), HBO Spektrum (Hungary & Czech Republic), and Sogecable (Spain).
I finally was able to sit down and watch a bit of it.
I went for Episode 4, “Paper Movies,” which touches on Martin Parr, John Gossage, Gary Winogrand, Robert Frank, Willian Klein, Weegee, Joel Meyerowitz, Lee Friedlander, Tony Ray Jones, Ed Rushca, William Eggleston, Stephen Shore, Joel Sternfeld, Juergen Teller, and Robert Adams.
Notice anything?
It’s true… no female photographers made the cut, except for a brief Diane Arbus name-drop. Here’s a breakdown (via Knautia):
…out of the people interviewed, there were 10 male photographers, 4 male writers, 1 male curator, 1 male publisher/collaborator, 1 male artist and 2 men who asked questions of William Eggleston. Compared with 1 female curator (discussing a man’s work), 1 woman who was married to a photographer, 1 woman asking for William Eggleston’s autograph, 1 woman who asked him a question and 1 woman interpreting questions for him.
This was entirely unfortunate, to say the least. For a program which sells itself as a “guide” to photography’s history - given, it is a pretty male-dominant history - you’d think there would be room for the acknowledgment of female contribution.
That aside, the episode was decent; nothing special, but certainly enjoyable to watch. I’ll have to see the rest of the installments to get a real sense.
If you don’t have cable, like myself, you’re in luck. Episodes 1-6 can be downloaded in their entirety online thanks to this website:
Episode 1: Fixing the Shadows
Tracks the first attempts to make images permanent and the mass appeal that the invention of Kodak created.Episode 2: Documents for Artists
After World War One the potential of photography attracted the attention of artists and governments alike.Episode 3: Right Time, Right Place
Examines the photographs of D-Day, the Holocaust and Hiroshima raising questions about history as seen through the viewfinder.Episode 4: Paper Movies
Charts the golden age of ‘photographic journeys’ and how the use of colour slowly became a credible medium for ’serious’ photographers.Episode 5: We Are Family
Having conquered the street and the road, photographers approached the final frontier: the home, the self, and private life.Episode 6: Snap Judgments
Shows how photography has become part of the art world where a single image can cost $2.9m and, in the digital world, where all images are possible.
Enjoy!
For those of you who have seen more of the episodes than I, do you have any thoughts? A favorite feature?
UPDATE 11/28/07: If you’d rather download the torrents, they’re all here (thanks Jane).
UPDATE 12/01/07: The videos are now available on YouTube.
November 27th, 2007 at 9:19 pm
Thanks so much for posting these links! I’ve been trying to figure out where to see them online. I can’t wait to watch and be outraged by the lack of inclusion of women.
November 27th, 2007 at 10:21 pm
It was a little disappointing to see 97% male photographers represented in the doc. I watched ep. 4 and 5 and really enjoyed 5. Diane Arbus, Sally Mann, and Cindy Sherman are all in that episode. Interesting but I’m sure there are many more examples.. but it feels like they went with names most seen in popular art history books.
November 27th, 2007 at 10:46 pm
oh, I forgot, I don’t know how but Nan Goldin was also featured in ep. 5
December 18th, 2007 at 4:16 pm
Extraordinary effort. Thank you very much for taking the time to upload this material. Nevertheless I have a question, at the begining of video number 6, only for a few moments, in the upper right corner there’s a sign: “subtitles”, do you know if these videos actually have subtitles. I would really appreciate you giving me this information.
January 7th, 2008 at 12:19 am
thanks so much for putting these up. just excellent stuff. really great, thanks again.
February 8th, 2008 at 4:55 pm
Thanks for providing the on-line links. This series, as any effort to embrace the larger history of a medium as rich and complex as that of photography, will not fully satisfy every viewer. I enjoyed it very much, but like other respondents, I do wonder why certain photographers have been shorted or omitted and others included. Among the women, Diane Arbus’s work and the photo-collages of Hannah H√∂ch could and should have been addressed more fully, and there is no discussion of Carrie Mae Weems, whose achievements surely trump those of relative newcomer, Greg Crewdson. Crewdson’s work consititues a tour-de-force of great appeal and raises interesting points about the nature of individual creativitiy and collaborative production, though he is by no means the first to do so. The resulting work, though marvelous in its patient way, is hardly as far-reaching in significance as that of Weems. I would have liked to see something meaningful about Aaron Siskind’s work and its relationship to Abstract Expresionism. And what of Eikoh Hosoe, Clarence John Laughlin, Lucas Samaras, Robert Mapplethorpe, Doug and Mike Starn, Sandy Skoglund, Adam Fuss, and Loretta Lux: are these “geniuses” of photography to be ignored, or are they to be dealt with in some future episode? Finally, to gloss-over Pictorialism as merely a “dead-end” demonstrates a lack of understanding of that movement within the larger context of Symbolist art and, moreover, fails to account for the movement’s impact on later art (especially in regards to the cinema). Despite these unfortunate short-comings, the series does provide a useful introduction to some of the key figures, technological developments, and issues of photography. Indeed, many viewers will find the series both thought-provoking and memorable. In short, it is well worth watching.