Untitled, anonymous photograph from the 1950′s
© Photographer Unknown / National Gallery of Art
While Peter Plagens’ article Is Photography Dead? (written for the December 10th issue of Newsweek) draws a few interesting conclusions about the “digital revolution,” it generally seems to overlook fundamental ideas about art and photography which I thought were actually rather self-evident.
By now, we’ve witnessed all the magical morphing and seen all the clever tricks that have turned so many photographers – formerly bearers of truth – into conjurers of fiction. It’s hard to say “gee whiz” anymore.
Fiction in photography may be a relatively new idea but doesn’t it seem that the notion of photography concerning itself with “truth” or representing “reality” is what perished (long ago)? Since when has fine art photography really been about the “tool” used by the photographer? Isn’t the true power of art that it transcends the mediums limitations by way of the artist?
I encourage readers to offer their thoughts on this thread.
19 Comments
December 3, 2007 – 8:04 pm
Yes, I would hope that the notion of photography being a bearer of truth would be put to rest finally. Photography does not present truths, and therefore there is no harm in digital deteriorating photographys reputation. Fiction is nothing new in photography. I have yet to ever see a photograph that I would call completely true or lacking fiction. The photos of the Farm Security Administration were bought; they completely fooled the viewers into thinking that those images were true. Sure those were real migrant workers in real situations, but exact representation does not mean truth, as much as it is believed to. Fiction is not new to photography, and I see it now as the only avenue to truth in using the medium. I’ll tell you exactly when fine art photography was made about the ‘tool’ used by the artist. Egglestons exhibit at MoMA. I think photography could have done without that favor.
December 3, 2007 – 8:11 pm
what i disliked about the article is that i have a feeling the title was meant to incite as many responses and reactions as possible. you know, how like online trolls use deliberately provocative words in their Digg headlines and blog posts.
the content of his Is Photography Dead article kind of has nothing to do with the title.
December 3, 2007 – 8:33 pm
Back to the future…
“I have found myself wondering what made so much of this ÄòtableauÄô work rise as it did in popularity. But, that may be a discussion for another day; what IÄôm really curious about is not the trends of the market but what viewersÄîthose looking at and responding to the artÄîthink about the true value or ÄúutilityÄù of such photographs versus images of things that really happened. We may be able to agree that staged images are, in some way, less honestĶ but what about their value? Papageorge declares that the creative possibility of the world is richer in surprise than the imagination. Is it?” – Shane July 10th 2007
I still think I should have drove up to Boston and punched you in the stomach for using the word “utility” back then. That word has haunted me for a while…
That being said I have one word to sling back at you, “content”.
That is how photographs turn into art and transcend the limitations of the medium.
December 3, 2007 – 9:00 pm
Haha, Chad. “Utility” was in quotations to emphasize that fact that it was an idea brought forward by others, not my own word. And notice I end that paragraph with the question… “is it?”
Can’t I be the devil’s advocate on this blog? I want to get people thinking.
I like that you bring us directly to “content,” the heart of photographs. Here’s a question for you:
Barthes writes that it is at the moment when the punctum strikes that the photograph will “annihilate itself as medium to be no longer a sign but the thing itself” (and the object will become subject again).
Is this thing itself the “content” or is this “content” beyond the thing itself?
December 3, 2007 – 9:24 pm
Jared,
You may have contradicted yourself there. To say that photography could have done without Eggleston’s contributions entirely goes against your philosophy on “digital and film.” What Eggleston (and his contemporaries) did for photography isn’t far from what the advent of the digital process (and our generation) is doing for it now.
And I don’t think Eggleston’s work was entirely about the tool. Of course, color is important in his work, and color film is his mode of using color, but I think I speak for a lot of people when I say his photographs are about a lot more than the film he used.
December 4, 2007 – 1:45 am
Shane, or should I say Mr. Lavalette, I feel that this notion of photography as a tool dates back to the original intentions of photography: to capture and record events with the highest quality and the ability to reproduce images without (much) loss of quality. Since then photography has become intertwined with a strong sense of the ephemeral- what is recorded when one photographs? Is it a moment of time? Is it a moment in between time? This question has plagued modern man for years- where does this overwhelming sense of technology become the actual subject, and when do the subjects and events being photographed take the proverbial backseat to the large format Buick?
December 4, 2007 – 2:09 am
Mr. Willing, of course the tools were important at photography’s inception – Plagens writes about Talbot’s work in the article. In it’s youth and even today photography has had a scientific use. But since the time that photography was been consciously utilized for “art’s sake,” hasn’t the general attitude grown to be something like this?:
“What makes a Nan Goldin photograph different from a photograph of my own is Nan Goldin.”
December 4, 2007 – 4:23 am
At least Kodak as “sponsor” fits to the title ;-)
December 4, 2007 – 5:39 am
Who gave Newsweek permission to propose such a silly idea. Real photography magazines don’t bother touching that subject with a ten foot pole. Why? Because it’s ignorant.
December 4, 2007 – 7:13 am
I think what people call “digital revolution” is only a social phenomenon. The mere replacement of halide crystals with CCDs is not really introducing another technology both are based on the same philosophy and both can be manipulated using to the same values and references – what is truly different is that you can see the curves and histograms in a software program, instead of going to the next lab.
As for the truth dilemma – it’s time for the photographers to really take responsibility for himself. Just like the author of a book can manipulate the words, now everyone can manipulate image. However, we still have good writing journalists, who we trust. It’s because we know them as reliable and responsible. We trust them, not their typewriters.
December 4, 2007 – 11:30 am
“What Eggleston (and his contemporaries) did for photography isnÄôt far from what the advent of the digital process (and our generation) is doing for it now.”
I’m curious what you mean by this. By our generation do you mean our student peers, or are you using this term loosely? And how in fact, is “our generation” revolutionizing photography by way of the digital process? What are we doing now that wasn’t done ten years ago or even thirty years ago?
December 4, 2007 – 11:37 am
Very clever Shane.
Use the words of Roland Barthes to throw the conversation into a loophole of further misunderstandings! I think in your comment to Jared you hinted on a key ingredient to what allows photography to transcend the medium.
“And I donÄôt think EgglestonÄôs work was entirely about the tool. Of course, color is important in his work, and color film is his mode of using color, but I think I speak for a lot of people when I say his photographs are about a lot more than the film he used.”
That is the root of what I was trying to say with the word “content”.
I don’t mean to cast stones here but it seems currently there are just as many photographers making mid-range portraits of individuals as there were photographers in the 90s creating tableaus. Without proper editing and arrangement those portraits fall victim to a lot of the same scrutinization. What is the “utility”? What is the real “content”?
A photographer has to be very much like a poet in my eyes to transform the photograph or set of photographs into what some label as art. The photographer has to make people believe that there is something beyond the image, something more indescribable in what seems to be a medium of description.
December 4, 2007 – 11:51 am
Alana,
By that I just mean Eggleston and his contemporaries pushed for the acceptance of color photography the same way that following generations would push for the acceptance of digital.
To other question: I’m pretty sure what Gursky is doing now wasn’t done thirty years ago. As with any medium, it evolves… and there’s always skeptics.
Chad,
Haha, I just figured I’d throw that out there – the intention was not to make the conversation ambiguous. I like what Barthes writes about the punctum and I feel it’s somehow connected to “content.”
Get on IM if you’re around…
December 5, 2007 – 11:04 am
maybe the seeming decline in gee whiz moments is in part due to the proliferation of linguistic construct in the graphic arts, wherein the medium is investigated less than the question of what is art? fine art photography that does not pay homage to the tool through formal resolution seems to risk being viewed as trendy in the eyes of history.
in regards to the notion of truth and your inclusion of barthes, it is hard to resist adding a quote from gilles peress,
“I see that an image has several authors: there is yourself; there is the camera (because I think that photography through each camera speaks in a different way); there is reality, because reality speaks very forcefully through photography; and then there is the viewer, which is a person who looks at the image, makes his own interpretation of what’s happening.”
December 5, 2007 – 12:43 pm
With the choice to include an anonymous photograph to head this post makes it easy to answer the fundamental question, “Is Photography Dead?”. No, not until the last photographer, no matter of what degree, stops photographing will photography die.
But maybe I’m oversimplifying things a little by looking at this question in the broadest sense. I have no worries over the future of photography, but of what may come from the advent of certain technologies. If interests continue in visual construction through digital means will there be a split? Or will it just become harder to decipher the differences.
December 9, 2007 – 3:29 pm
Is photography dead? I don’t think so. It is a bit strange to link digital photography and Photoshop to the beginning of the end for photography. For some fields, such as photojournalism, I do agree that photographers must be careful not to modify the image to the point that they are making history rather than reporting it. And I don’t care for some works of art that started with a photograph, but with software end up looking more like a cartoon or a Dali painting.
But for any work of art, be it literature, a painting, the cinema, or a photograph: the truth lies both in the eye of the creator and the viewer. We all have our own frame of reference and set of experiences that affect how we interpret the work of art.
With the advances in digital cameras and film, I think the art of photography is accessible to more than it has ever been today. As someone that still loves to load up a roll of Tri-X black and white film in my camera, or on another day take out my digital camera, I feel photography is very much alive. So grab that old film camera out of the closet, or that brand new 12 Megapixel DSLR, and lets go out and takes some photos for all too enjoy! Who’s with me?
Michael Watry
December 17, 2007 – 12:05 pm
I would like to add a few comments to the e-mail from Mr. Eggleston on Dec.4 (while several of the above e-mails mention him by name, it’s surprising to me that no one seems to have responded directly to what he wrote). He states, rather arrogantly, “Who gave Newsweek permission to propose such a silly idea”? (i.e. that Photography is dead), well, last time I checked, we’re supposed to have a free press in this country- why does Newsweek need permission from anyone to comment on the current state of photography?! While I am not a big fan (or frequent reader) of magazines like Newsweek or Time, I do respect their right to publish opinions…Then Mr. Eggleston goes on to write that “Real photography magazines don’t bother touching that subject with a 10-foot pole. Why? Because it’s ignorant.” Well, 1) Newsweek is not a photography magazine ["real" or otherwise], 2) why should it be that only photography magazines can comment on photography- this smacks of raw elitism, 3) what is a “real” photography magazine?!… His comment also reveals that he’s upset because Newsweek’s article dares to ask: “Is Photography Dead”, which of course, touches upon another sacred cow, & that’s the real reason no photography magazines DARE pose the inevitable question, in a kind of self censorship (which is very American, by the way). Then the final insult, “Because it’s ignorant”…Well, I read Mr. Plagens’ article, & it’s obvious that he’s not ignorant about photography. This is another kind of elitist put- down, meant to squash all debate, typical of left-leaning, artsy-smartsy types who disagree w/ other people’s opinions. Mr. Plagens’ article was daring & refreshing & kudos to him (& Newsweek) for having the guts to publish it! Personally, I like Mr. Eggleston’s color photography very much & am disappointed to discover his intellectual & critical dishonesty & unfairness.
December 17, 2007 – 12:39 pm
Nick, I hate to break it to you but that was not actually Eggleston who left the comment. I believe it was Chris Taylor.
December 23, 2007 – 4:43 am
Is Photography dead? Nah, just changing, growing up perhaps. For my full view on this issue see http://auspat.blogspot.com/2007/12/i-live-on-globe-but-its-flat-outside-my.html