vrijdag, juni 20, 2003
Photography, I contend, is to art what golf is to sport. This statement is bound to raise hackles among those people who have spent thousands of dollars on cameras, lenses, classes and darkrooms, under the delusion that they are turning themselves into creative artists. In the end, they have merely squandered a great deal of time and money on a very expensive hobby. There is nothing wrong with hobbies, mind you, but they should not be confused with something entirely different.
In spite of the fact that photographers will be only too happy to talk you to death about shadows, balance and perspective, essentially what they do is take dozens and dozens of snapshots, and then pick out the ones that come out best and show them to you. The camera, a mere piece of equipment, does all the hard work. The photographer simply aims and fires. You might as well suggest that skeet shooting is an art form.
Recently, a great deal of attention has been paid to famous war photographer Robert Capa. Now, really! I wouldn't for a second deny that anybody who goes into battle armed with nothing but a Leica is courageous, even foolhardy. But I've seen Capa's pictures. They're gray and gritty. I've also seen other people's pictures taken in combat zones. And the one thing they have in common is that they all look alike. They're filled with dead or wounded soldiers, blood and mud. Everything is uniform except the uniforms. In short, they look an awful lot like Matthew Brady's pictures of the Civil War.
The accomplishment in these cases isn't one of creativity in which the artist disappears into the work itself. Instead, it is the photographer announcing to the world how brave he was to be right there in the middle of all the action. It's far less an art form than a great way to impress girls.
His fans will insist that Ansel Adams, famous for his shots of Yosemite scenery, is truly an artist. But, a friend of mine, the late Leigh Wiener, who was himself a Life photographer, told me that Adams was a manufactured product. A very savvy married couple persuaded Adams to grow his famous bushy beard and to present himself as photography's larger- than-life answer to Pablo Picasso and Papa Hemingway. They told him to concentrate strictly on big pictures of rocks, sky and waterfalls, relying on Mother Nature to supply the subjects and the two of them to supply the marketing know-how. It worked like a charm. They sold his stuff faster than he could shoot it. As a supplier of kitsch, he soon rivaled Keane and his infamous paintings of waifs with enormous eyes.
Back in the 80s, a photographer named Robert Mapplethorpe was given a grant by the NEA. It became a controversial matter when various communities in which his work was displayed decided he was less a photographer than a pornographer. In this case, it wasn't the emperor who was naked, it was his subjects. All of them children, all of them naked as jaybirds. Overnight, he became a sensation. He no longer needed government grants, he only needed a tax consultant.
At the time, it occurred to me that in many instances the real difference between art and pornography had nothing to do with content, everything to do with venue. Put pictures of naked children on postcards and peddle them in alleys, you go to the clink; hang the same pictures in an art gallery, and the critics will proclaim you a genius, the collectors will throw money at you, and you'll sleep on silk sheets.
Thus I have concluded that, for most people, a photograph becomes a work of art not when the shot is taken or even when it's developed, but only when it's framed, hung on a wall and has a big fat price tag attached to it.
Burt Prelutsky
In spite of the fact that photographers will be only too happy to talk you to death about shadows, balance and perspective, essentially what they do is take dozens and dozens of snapshots, and then pick out the ones that come out best and show them to you. The camera, a mere piece of equipment, does all the hard work. The photographer simply aims and fires. You might as well suggest that skeet shooting is an art form.
Recently, a great deal of attention has been paid to famous war photographer Robert Capa. Now, really! I wouldn't for a second deny that anybody who goes into battle armed with nothing but a Leica is courageous, even foolhardy. But I've seen Capa's pictures. They're gray and gritty. I've also seen other people's pictures taken in combat zones. And the one thing they have in common is that they all look alike. They're filled with dead or wounded soldiers, blood and mud. Everything is uniform except the uniforms. In short, they look an awful lot like Matthew Brady's pictures of the Civil War.
The accomplishment in these cases isn't one of creativity in which the artist disappears into the work itself. Instead, it is the photographer announcing to the world how brave he was to be right there in the middle of all the action. It's far less an art form than a great way to impress girls.
His fans will insist that Ansel Adams, famous for his shots of Yosemite scenery, is truly an artist. But, a friend of mine, the late Leigh Wiener, who was himself a Life photographer, told me that Adams was a manufactured product. A very savvy married couple persuaded Adams to grow his famous bushy beard and to present himself as photography's larger- than-life answer to Pablo Picasso and Papa Hemingway. They told him to concentrate strictly on big pictures of rocks, sky and waterfalls, relying on Mother Nature to supply the subjects and the two of them to supply the marketing know-how. It worked like a charm. They sold his stuff faster than he could shoot it. As a supplier of kitsch, he soon rivaled Keane and his infamous paintings of waifs with enormous eyes.
Back in the 80s, a photographer named Robert Mapplethorpe was given a grant by the NEA. It became a controversial matter when various communities in which his work was displayed decided he was less a photographer than a pornographer. In this case, it wasn't the emperor who was naked, it was his subjects. All of them children, all of them naked as jaybirds. Overnight, he became a sensation. He no longer needed government grants, he only needed a tax consultant.
At the time, it occurred to me that in many instances the real difference between art and pornography had nothing to do with content, everything to do with venue. Put pictures of naked children on postcards and peddle them in alleys, you go to the clink; hang the same pictures in an art gallery, and the critics will proclaim you a genius, the collectors will throw money at you, and you'll sleep on silk sheets.
Thus I have concluded that, for most people, a photograph becomes a work of art not when the shot is taken or even when it's developed, but only when it's framed, hung on a wall and has a big fat price tag attached to it.
Burt Prelutsky
# posted by Jan-Edward : 14:26
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