Kill! Kill! Stabbity-Kill!

[compilerbitch]

I'm currently reading a book on art theory, specifically relating to criticism of photographs. It really quite severely gets my goat. In fact, it's pissed my goat off so much that she's going to strap a rocket launcher to her back and then go out hunting postmodernists.

It brings a bit of context to something I found deeply disappointing on my most recent London trip. doseybat and I visited the Photographer's Gallery, near Leicester Square. Other than a few badly displayed, though decent, prints upstairs in a poky little 'print sales' room, I have to say that the exhibition spaces were full of, well, crap. There wasn't a single decent print in there. Most of the walls were filled with an exhibit of 'found' photographs -- basically gone-wrong discarded passport photographs mostly. There were a few interestingly manipulated prints, but the interest was in the idea, rather than the execution. Another exhibit consisted of 15 or 20 black and white prints of a variety of wooden lookout towers, many of which were badly focussed, with blown highlights, plugged shadows or both. There was nothing to recommend the compositions either -- they were simply bad photographs. In the entire exhibit, nearly every print seemed to be glued or blu-tacked to the wall. It was clearly all meant to be a postmodernist rejection of modernist/realist photographic sensibilities*, but all it succeeded in doing in my case was have me wondering about the gallery management, thinking to myself, 'what the hell were they thinking?'

I am trying to understand photography at a deeper level, but I'm not at all sure that this stuff really helps. I suppose it never hurts to know your enemy, but I can't see myself going in that direction. It would seem to have about as much point as spending a year travelling the great sights of this planet, making thousands of amazing images, then exhibiting a wall-sized print of the directory structure of my hard drive. I'm not sure I'm a modernist/realist/f-64 devotee exactly, because I find their ideas a little too restrictive, but I'm sure-as-hell not a postmodernist.

* which sounds awfully impressive, but is probably bullshit. I feel like a full-fledged art critic after spending an hour reading that book...

Comments

[http://users.livejournal.com/_nicolai_/]

You have encountered art with a capital F.

[compilerbitch.livejournal.com]

Quite!

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

Oh, amen.

I'm very much inclined to a similar position in terms of what's good and bad photography, though not being more than the most opcasional and casual of photographers myself it's not an area in which I tend to have this argument, but the argument applies equally well in text.

I think my visceral rejection of post-modernism is because post-modernism rejects the notion of quality, and without a notion of quality it's impossible to ever get better, so it's by definition destroying any skill having any value. I reject modernism, at least at the J. Alfred Prufock level of modernist malaise, both because that's totally incompatible with my life's experience of how the universe is, and because even if it wasn't, sometimes you just have to do things because you want to live in a world where people do those things, but I have no idea how well that reaction translates into photographic terms.

[compilerbitch.livejournal.com]

sometimes you just have to do things because you want to live in a world where people do those things, but I have no idea how well that reaction translates into photographic terms.

Actually, this translates pretty well, and is probably pretty close to my own approach. My own tendency is to reject postmodernism because it, in effect, rejects my own art and that of the artists who happen to be my main influences. I also reject the 'driving down the motorway with one foot planted heavily on the brake pedal' traditionalism that exists in photography. For whatever reason, chemical silver-gelatin processes, even more so their predecessors, seem to be revered, whereas digital prints are regarded as a lesser form. This is a widely held attitude by photographers, as well as galleries and collectors. For me, I think it's stupidity -- I work toward the best possible image, printed to the limit of what's technically feasible (or at least as close as my equipment and ability will let me get) -- at the time of writing, this means digital. It's plainly demonstrable, too, but say this too loudly and you're likely to have your head bitten off. Worse still, seemingly, show someone an actual print that demonstrably proves the point, and they then get really out of shape.

My attitude is pretty simple -- I'll do whatever I see necessary to get the final image, and I really don't care about having it (either the image, the way it was originated or the way it was printed) go against the art world's preconceived ideas. My tendency is to push the quality aspect of the image way beyond normally accepted norms -- most of my prints resolve detail finer than you can see with the naked eye, and tend to have more dynamic range than is possible with traditional processes. They are sharper than any silver-gelatin print I've ever seen, including in comparison with 10x8 contact prints. Currently I use coated gloss papers, but I'm considering moving to printing on a special (very expensive) plastic material that is both whiter and smoother than paper, which should result in even higher resolution and even more dynamic range. It's also got far better archival properties than paper because it's chemically inert and doesn't contain plasticisers.

But this is all just the craft of photography -- doing it as well as possible is a technical and mechanical process that in theory anyone should be able to replicate (though in practice few would attempt it). The images should stand for themselves, ultimately -- the art is ultimately in the subject and the composition.

[spaglet.livejournal.com]

Prufrock malaise conflates a modernist period with a dehumanised industrial society, I think. Prufrock's malaise is born of the entirely alien environment he lives in; a savannah dwelling ape has nothing to do with desks whatsoever.

The photographs attempt to comment on their own nature as photographs by failing to perfectly render their subject as photographs are perhaps popularly supposed to. If they weren't very good, if the photographer couldn't (or wouldn't) tell control from sloppiness, or have half remembered notions that the art is in the accident - neglecting the ascetic discipline that is inculcated beforehand - then it makes it all the sadder.

Modernist notions of quality popularly founder on the definition of "good," unfortunately.

[compilerbitch.livejournal.com]

Quality is always a slippery concept. However you sneak up on it, it always manages to wriggle away somehow. It's easy enough to know it when you've got it, but defining it or (worse) figuring out how to deliberately engineer it is incredibly difficult.

That's day-job stuff. :-)

[chard.livejournal.com]

You should've found the gallery management and asked them what they were thinking, ina polite and curious tone, of course.

[compilerbitch.livejournal.com]

It is very tempting, but I would probably have ended up in an argument with someone which wouldn't have made for a pleasant day! :-)

[hilarityallen.livejournal.com]

My big problem with modern art (and also photography) is the conceptual stuff, where the concept is good, but the execution is entirely unnecessary. Much modern art could be done in essay form.

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

When he was five, fomorian observed that modern art is easy, you just have to make a mess. I've yet to see any convincing refutation of this argument.

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

Pop-art. Andy Warhol. Much of both requires high levels of draftsmanship, it's not just a mess.

I still have grave doubts as to its artistic importance, goodness, whatever; but it's widely accepted as part of modern art, anyway.

[compilerbitch.livejournal.com]

I agree -- it's always easy to condemn an area of art as being trivial, whereas in practice this is hardly ever really the case. Photography in general has always been on the receiving end of this kind of criticism, to the extent that it took really about 100 years before it was really accepted as a true art form in and of itself. It hasn't really shaken this off, unfortunately -- I think the strange obsession with obsolete techniques that pervades the fine art photography scene is a clear example of this -- the pictorialists, I suspect, emulated drawing and painting in order to make their work more acceptable to the art world, but in the process denied the actual nature of the medium. When the f/64 bunch went off in the opposite direction, I think it helped for a while, but when they died off (literally) after having made huge inroads into pushing the acceptance of 'straight' photography, there has been a great tendency for people to cling to the past. Actually, 'cling' isn't strong enough -- deify is probably closer really.

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

I like that notion. I'd *enjoy* some of the essays. And I'd enjoy them much more if I hadn't seen the actual work.

[hilarityallen.livejournal.com]

Mm, yes. I was complaining to my aunt about Tracey Emin's bed, and she said it was probably actually exploring the Platonic ideal - the thing itself. And I said it was a very interesting idea, but the bed wasn't art; it was the idea about the bed that was art.

[compilerbitch.livejournal.com]

That's an interesting point. You could well be onto something there.

[hilarityallen.livejournal.com]

See my response to a comment above.

As you may have guessed I highly value skill in any endeavour. Much modern art, including photography, seems to undervalue skill. I should try to write some coherent thoughts at some point, but right now I'm feeling a bit sick.

[bjh21.livejournal.com]

Hmm. That reminds me of the Borges you left lying around a month or two back: essays describing books that didn't exist because actually writing the book was unnecessary -- it was the concept of the book that was important. Lem's A Perfect Vacuum is similar.

[doseybat.livejournal.com]

Execution is necessary for conceptual art just like paper making was necessary for pre-computer literature. Conceptual art would not work in essay form, because the visual medium instantly communicates to its audience things that it may be possible to express in words, but which just would not have the impact. Its the visual shock of the physical presence of the object.

Skill is important and valuable, but it is entirely possible for skill to be irrelevant.

[blue-mai.livejournal.com]

ha ha! actually me and bat were in there sunday for a reviving cup and she mentioned your visit. it's one of my favorite places in london, as i'm sure i've mentioned before. not really very fussed about the current exhibition, the boy quite likes the Found magazine, but i find it a little dull and also find it rather contrived. there was a talk on last night that i meant to go to but ended up going home instead, about analogue photography and nostalgia and possibly touching on what implications it all has for that little section of art dealing with found things. as in, it's more immediate to stumble across a discarded photo, whether the next day or decades later, than it is a lost computer file. though the idea of 'found' archives of digital stuff is also perfectly feasible, there's an interpretive step involved in seeing whatever it is you've found. but i digress.
it's the only gallery i'm currently a member of, despite it being free to get into. so why do i value it? why does it merit my support? hmm...
well i like the whole way the gallery is set up, the print sales is a bit of a mess, yes, but you can wander in there and ask questions and no-one ever glares, the 2 houses embedded in the street, seperate and connected, 2 exhibitions of often very different work in format or style, but linked by an idea. a reasonable bookshop, a good cafe where you can go and sit with a cup of tea and the papers (an oasis of calm 1 minute from leicester sq) and completely ignore the exhibition if you choose, where the queue for the men's sometimes gets held up by a tramp washing in the loo...
as for the work on show, it's hit and miss, but i think it's to be supported that they don't really do the great safe stuff. it's not the place to see Ansel Adams, William Egglestone (the hayward), Robert Frank, Wolfgang Tillmans (tate modern) or Diane Arbus (V&A). it's things i've never seen and people i've never heard of. often flawed and not-entirely-accomplished, but some of it i've really liked. i don't like the current show or the last one, the deutsche borse prize, (i only liked a couple of the shortlist), so the last one i really liked was back in january. "bound for glory: America in colour 1939-1943" little-seen FSA commissioned colour photos, only a few years after Walker Evans. Guardian slideshow. i didn't like the way the photos had been printed pretty big, although i suppose the obvious digital step was part of the process of salvaging. it was just incongruous. there was a mini-black and white room at the back of some of the earlier FSA stuff, together with a camera same model as Dorothea Lange used and notes on how she worked. running concurrently in the cafe-gallery was a solo show by Bert Teunissen
- "Domestic Landscapes", a decade long ongoing project to photograph people and places across europe, the exhibition was simply beautiful prints covering most of the walls. there was a video in the entrance of Teunissen talking about the whys and hows, pretty simple and straightforward, inspired by the rural farmhouses he remembers from his childhood, his fascination with the lighting and atmosphere, his desire to record a disappearing way of life.
it's accessible. i think that's really important. a quiet friendliness.
the shows are subjective and risky (in terms of appeal), in a good way. there's a place for that unpredicatability.
and i like that they sell postcards of the guy that taught A-level photography at my school.
i actually think they might be quite useful for you when it comes to wanting to sell or exhibit your work. i think they might be quite approachable, or at least point you in the right direction. i was once offered a rehanging slot (the few days between shows when the cafe is still open) at a uni exhibition, by a tutor who claimed to have contacts there. i didn't really think the work was up to scratch though, so i never followed it up.
...

[blue-mai.livejournal.com]

as a seperate thing, i've never found the terms Modern and Post-modern to be helpful. they're too generic and broad. perhaps i just don't know what they mean (to be sure i don't - i really shouldn't be teaching postgrad architecture...). i suppose modern implies a naieve utopian ideal type thing, blindly thinking the engineered future will be better than the past, treating people as a rather universal type, wanting to change the world. and post-modern is the specifically self-deprecating, self-aware, subjective phase that came after. perhaps. perhaps things are generally (or at present) beyond that, both self-aware and realistic, and also reaching for something and with attention to craft and quality. the idealist in me would like to think so.

which reminds me, i mean to reply to your field camera suggestion...

[blue-mai.livejournal.com]

it has been found to be unhelpful to treat people the same and to assume you know how they work. this is much of the reaction to modernism that still hangs around today. it sometimes results in too too much reverence of subjectivity, of not wanting to say something loud about anything other than yourself. but i think this absurd softly-softliness is fading.
that's my art critic thought for the day.

[compilerbitch.livejournal.com]

It's an interesting point. A lot of photography these days seems to not really be very loud or proud at all, and almost seems to be apologising for itself. I think quality, in the technical sense, took a big dive when digital started to really take hold -- 120/220, 4x5 and 10x8 film more or less hit a brick wall, to be replaced by digital cameras that frankly weren't even remotely as good. They were also far faster to use, which (I am tempted to theorise) probably has resulted in a far less careful approach to photography. With film, there was a tendency to make every shot count because every shot costs money. Many people treat digital SLRs like a fire hose -- spraying images everywhere in the hope than one in a thousand will work.

Ironically, it's now the case that digital has steamed right past film in terms of technical capability, to the extent that film has been soundly beaten in terms of image quality, ease of use and (at least ongoing) cost. Though it's technically possible, it is very rare to see a contemporary image equal or exceed the quality that was routinely achieved with large format film in the 1940s. Another interesting experience, again from my visit to the Ansel Adams gallery last year, were a number of contemporary prints on sale that had been shot in the valley of some of Adams's iconic scenes. They were all colour, and on close examination, all really, really bad, blown up way beyond the quality afforded by the original image. OK, that gallery is in a tourist hotspot catering to that market, so it perhaps should be given a bit of a break there, but I actually was really quite upset when I left.

[compilerbitch.livejournal.com]

I very much approve of them being prepared to go out on a limb to show less safe stuff from up-and-coming artists. I just really didn't like the current show.

Still, better a bad reaction than no reaction, I suppose!

[compilerbitch.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the link to the Domestic Landscapes work. Interesting, quite thought provoking. I *love* this one:

http://www.bertteunissen.com/item.php?itemId=199



The composition of this particular photograph is fairly conventional, but as a whole the body of work is a little odd -- the camera back is always vertical, so perspective in the rooms is always exact in the way that it would be if a specialist architectural photographer had taken pains to arrange it. Yet the people are often secondary -- shoved over to one side or more often the bottom of the frame. I kept mentally reaching for the rise/fall knob on my view camera. Also, the aspect ratio is unusual -- almost panoramic in nearly all of the shots, again not something you'd normally see, but it works in context. I wondered whether the photographer had used a panoramic camera (something like an X-Pan, or maybe a 6x17 view camera back) to better take in the rooms concerned without ending up with a very pronounced ultra-wide-angle effect that would be much more apparent with the same angle of view and a more conventional aspect ratio -- this could also explain the tendency to have the camera absolutely vertical, because not doing so would have quite dramatic consequences in terms of converging or diverging verticals. But the real star of the show was the quality of light -- in some images it worked better than others, but the real stand-outs were quite astonishing. I wish I'd seen the exhibit.

[vanessapyjamas.livejournal.com]

Which postmodernism don't you like and why?

"My own tendency is to reject postmodernism because it, in effect, rejects my own art and that of the artists who happen to be my main influences."

How does postmodernism reject your art? I'm confused.

(I'm sorry you didn't like the current stuff at the Photographers Gallery. I kind of do. But even though you didn't like this I hope it doesn't put you off going again, they exhibit other excellent work. Its where I first saw Joel Sternfeld who is probably my favourite contemporary photographer and I don't think you could fault the quality of his images.)

[compilerbitch.livejournal.com]

There seems to be an idea that postmodernism effectively means rejecting modernism, and in terms of photography, modernism tends to equate to realism in the sense that was pushed by the f/64 group, particularly Edward Weston and Ansel Adams. This movement was in itself a rejection of pictorialism as pushed by the likes of Stieglitz and his contemporaries. My photography stylistically most closely resembles that of the f/64 group, though I do have a bit of a tendency to make somewhat weirder 'impossible' images that don't really fit that category, even though they still adopt a similar visual style as the rest of my work.

My feelings about the exhibition at the Photographer's Gallery was that it seemed like a cute idea, but that's all, and I didn't feel it excused the extremely poor quality of the images that were shown. In the context of seeing the same exhibit elsewhere, somewhere like the Tate Modern, I think I'd have interpreted it quite differently, probably just as a mildly interesting conceptual piece. But exhibiting it as photography really didn't sit well with me. It wasn't just that exhibit -- the other smaller things on show were frankly just really poor, the sort of thing that most amateurs would bin without a second thought. The experience worried me -- I started doubting my own ability to understand photographs. Later, I decided that the king was in the alltogether, basically, and I wasn't so crazy after all. I left feeling pretty disappointed, actually.

Then again, I am pretty emotional about this kind of thing. On visiting the Ansel Adams gallery in Yosemite Valley and looking at some of the $175 prints made recently from his original negatives, I actually felt really offended -- the prints were awful, a pathetic attempt at what the originals were supposed to look like. It felt like a personal insult. I wondered not so much whether Ansel was revolving in his grave, but at what RPM.

[vanessapyjamas.livejournal.com]

Thats a really interesting reply. I'm not an art theorist, in my field/s (legal and social theory) postmodernism isn't alwayy understood as an active rejection of modernism, but as a consequence or product of the increased social complexity that characterises 'modern' society. Postmodernism for me is a concept not a movement and it isn't capable of rejecting anything.

The theorist I engage with most, Niklas Luhmann, wrote a paper called 'Why does society describe itself as postmodern?' (Cultural Critique, Spring 1995, pp.171-186) in which he argued that postmodernism is a concept whcih floats free from social reality, in that society is clearly still stubbornly modern, so describing it as postmodern seems bizarre. What postmodernism does do is offer a frame within which we can draw distinctions between progressive modernity (which might correspond to the ambition of photographers to produce increasingly realistic images) and anxious, self critical modernity (which is I think an observable phenomenon and leads to people doubting the usefulness of assertions of aesthetic excellence and engaging with found art and the like). The two things are not in any sense inevitably in opposition. They are deeply interlinked. Postmodernism frames the distinction between the two as being historical. Social systems theory (Luhmann was a systems theorist) might see the problem in terms of two competing systems applying meaning to the same art (or not-art) object. The distinction we observe is a choice. But it would seem incoherent to me for any postmodernist to assert that the images created by Ansel Adams are not valid/worthwhile/skilful/beautiful art. They might however suggest that the aspirations of the f/64 group to pure photography exclusive of other art influences are naive.

On a related note, this reminds me of a discussion I had with Joe's Dad who is a photographer, about video art. He was lamenting the fact that in terms of image construction so much of it is rubbish, because it is either not technically accomplished or lacks any kind of visual imagination. For me the shortcoming of video art is that so little of it engages with what it can achieve (exploiting the narrative potential of moving pictures to the maximum) and focusses instead on either conceptual projects which might (as some one said above) just as well be presented as an essay, or on trying to ape still photography, which is pointless. I am sure Joe's Dad is right about the technical rubbishness of video art, but as a non-technical person who is really interested in stories and theory crap, thats not the first thing I see. For the same reason I doubt I would see what you see as wrong with the Ansel Adams prints, because I lack your critical eye. Similarly, it never occurred to me that the found works at the Photographers shouldn't qualify as photography (although I do see your point), but I think it is worth considering that for many of the audience, the provocation they offer is the point, and not the technical or aesthetic quality of the images on display.

[compilerbitch.livejournal.com]

Provocation in art is (usually) a good thing, in my opinion. It is necessary to give the tree a shake every so often. But provocation that in and of itself transcends the art that communicates it only really impresses me when the art itself holds up to scrutiny in its own right.

I don't actually find that the f/64 group's art theory fits me that well either. Though my style does, seemingly, usually end up resembling work from that movement (it's not actually deliberate, it just seems to always end up that way), I do also like to do things that would be anathema -- my CGI-manipulated images might well have a similar look in terms of sharpness, depth of field and composition to my 'straight' photography, but conceptually the images are anything but -- they are quite deliberately contrived to be something that could never possibly be photographed conventionally.

[vanessapyjamas.livejournal.com]

What would it take for the art to stand up to scrutiny in its own right AND transcend the medium? I can't think of any historical instance of the two occurring contemporaneously.

And I see what you mean about your own art, you are doing something quite edgy in terms of exploiting the technology to the limits for reasons that aren't necessarily about enhancing the image or achieving a specific effect - kind of technique for techniques sake. Which sounds dismissive, but I don't mean that, the more I think about your photographs the more I find that a provocation in its own right. Hmmmmm.

[compilerbitch.livejournal.com]

I don't consciously set out for my photography to be a provocation, but I do have to admit that -- for whatever reason -- it does seem to have that effect on a proportion of people. Perhaps it is more provocative than I realise to use all this extreme-tech gear to, in effect, produce photographs that look like they might have been taken in the 1930s. Also, I think black & white photography is a bit of a sacred cow -- it seems to be OK to do the occasional B&W conversion from DSLR images so long as you're not seen to be too serious about it (because, of course, modern photography is all about colour). It's also OK if you want to go the traditionalist silver-gelatin, wet darkroom route. But what I do doesn't fit either of those moulds, so I piss off the DSLR crowd (which tends to be equipment-obsessed on the whole) by severely out-gearing them, and I piss off the traditionalists by being seen to reject their approach.

There are plenty of existing examples of art being provocative yet still standing on its own merits, but I think that this approach isn't quite so common in the visual art world. It's happened quite a bit in music -- pretty much every time a new genre is established, really. Debussy apparently had huge problems in being attacked by critics, yet his music is clearly really quite astonishing, though his use of nonstandard scales and chord progressions was very unconventional by the standards of his time. More recently, you have Frank Zappa, who spent most of his career satirising contemporary rock music (not to mention the music business), yet his own musicianship and that of his band was truly legendary. "Just like a penguin in bondage, boy." Then, of course, we have the likes of Helmut Newton and Mapplethorpe, both of whom created beautiful-yet-shocking images (though I'm not sure either of them really pushed the boundaries of their art, more the boundary between pornography and art if anything).

[vanessapyjamas.livejournal.com]

I think what I find provoking on reflection is wondering what it is you are trying to achieve. Is it an ultra pure form of photography, in which you exploit every last thing a digital camera can give you. What you are doing doesn't seem anchored in anything conventional I can think of relating to image composition. I was very puzzled when you posted about the consistently frosty reception you get from other photographers, because despite my monumental lack of expertise, even I can see you are producing some great stuff, especially the CGI stuff. But maybe this is why 'experts' feel uncomfortable with your work, whilst I like it, because I don't know enough to see how wrong it is.

And I agree that art which provokes is often technically great. And maybe greatness is always provocative. But the point about Debussy is kind of what I was getting at; he was reviled in his own lifetime for being so unconventional that people couldn't hear what was great about him. Just as Ruskin saw Whistler as 'flinging a pot of paint in the publics face'. This doesn't mean provocation equals greatness, but it does suggest that our ability to asses the technical merits of a work are often tied up with a big wodge of preconceptions about what amounts to proper art. If something really transcends existing conventions about a medium, the audience is left floating free with no clear anchor to help them hear or see what makes it good. Whict I think means you have much more in common with the person exhibiting bonkers found art, than with the person who is interested in aping Ansel Adams and nothing more.

[compilerbitch.livejournal.com]

You are probably right that I have more in common with Joachim Schmid. I suspect we'd probably have a lot to mutually whine about!

What you are doing doesn't seem anchored in anything conventional I can think of relating to image composition.

Interesting comment -- I certainly don't use any 'rules' of composition in the sense that people are taught never to put the horizon through the middle of an image and that things should be structured on a rule of thirds and so on. Typically, I see an image in my head, and just go about setting up the camera to capture the scene, then when I get back I spend ages in Photoshop tweaking things so I can get back to my original visualisation.

Thinking back to the photo club that pushed me out, it is certainly the case that many of my photographs don't really fit any of their categories very well. On the night they wouldn't let me enter Sliced into their 'creative' section, the competition was actually won by a picture of a banana that someone had messed up with the liquefy tool in Photoshop. It wasn't bad, actually, but it (and the other entrants in that section) didn't really bear any resemblance to what I'd done. My image looks like a straight photograph -- a studio 'product shot' -- of something that can't possibly exist. It tells a visual story, albeit a weird and possibly disturbing one. Thinking about what you said and looking back, I think it was just too much for them conceptually, though at the time I thought they were reacting to my use of CGI elements.

On the Luminous Landscape forum, where I also posted Sliced, someone actually said, in effect, that my image had no merit because of it's use of CGI, and (I kid you not) this was because the second and third Matrix movies sucked. I think that there is a perception that CGI is trivial; that it's not really art because it's too easy to accomplish. You just push a button and it happens, right? All the same objections that people had to photography-as-art, effectively. CGI is far harder than photography, actually -- you have to be at once an engineer, materials scientist, sculptor and a bunch of other things that there aren't names for, whilst also still having to do the same lighting and photography tasks that any studio photographer also has to address. Seeing CGI used in photography is extremely rare, however, probably because photography is traditionally a solitary activity, so the chances that one person would have the means and motivation to use it *and* the equipment and software necessary are inevitably going to be reduced -- this is quite different to the movie industry with its vast budgets, where teams of often literally hundreds of people work on the CGI elements of the final cut.

Stuff them all! I'll show them. [fx: insane cackling laughter] One day, when I rule the world, bwahahahahaha (etc.)

[battlekitty.livejournal.com]

Can't comment, as I am about the least artistic of anyone I've met but... Have you seen the photography section in the V&A? Mainly old/historical photos, but some of them are really lovely and fascinating. *shrugs* Well, I liked it, anyway. :)

[compilerbitch.livejournal.com]

I've actually never been to the V&A. At least that I can remember, anyway. I'll have to visit next time I'm in London.

[doseybat.livejournal.com]

I think your negative reaction was not about what you saw in the gallery, but more about not seeing what you were looking for and expecting. The photography you are into is a fairly narrowly defined thing, technically sophisticated portayal of nature with quite a specific feel to it - and very good it is too.

The exhibiton we saw has nothing in common with that except the word "photography": it gave you little glimpses of bits and people in different places, and being low tech having no composition was part of the point.

I disagree with your statement that you dislike postmodern art; I have seen you like a great number of things I would call potmodern. Remember those weird bright plasticky shapes we saw in central London a few years back?

Perhaps another reason for your bad reaction is you seeing people being appreciated for zero technical skill photos, while you have had bad reactions in spite of the quality of your work and far greater time that has gone into it. Which is a fair point.

[doseybat.livejournal.com]

can we call it "potmodern" now?

[compilerbitch.livejournal.com]

I think that's quite a good analysis -- you seem to have read me better than I read myself.

Yes, you're quite right, I think my taste in photography is quite narrow in some respects. Though I use fancy high tech gear, I'd probably have fitted in better 50 or even 100 years ago stylistically. My comparative dislike of colour photography is an example of this.

Perhaps another reason for your bad reaction is you seeing people being appreciated for zero technical skill photos, while you have had bad reactions in spite of the quality of your work and far greater time that has gone into it. Which is a fair point.

Hmm... I wasn't aware of thinking about it in that way. I don't really think I felt jealous that the artist had a show and I didn't -- I've never *tried* to get a show, and I suspect it'll be some time before I do, so it didn't really occur to me. I think it just basically offended me because the gallery is very famous, so anything shown there has some kind of implied stamp of approval as being great photography and something that should be aspired to, and I didn't really see the exhibit as being photography at all in the usual sense. I'd probably have enjoyed it if I'd happened upon it somewhere like the Tate Modern.

[doseybat.livejournal.com]

I don't really think I felt jealous that the artist had a show and I didn't

It doesnt work overtly like that, for everyone the emotions about themselves and things that define them are so central to thinking that they colour perceptions of all sorts of tangentially related things.

I'd probably have enjoyed it if I'd happened upon it somewhere like the Tate Modern.

*nods* you should so talk to Olga about this - I think its a bit worse for her having actually tried to build a carrer from art considered by others to be outdated. Be prepared for expletives!

[compilerbitch.livejournal.com]

It's fortunate, I think, that I have no real intention of doing photography for a living, still less trying to live off fine-art photography. To a significant extent, I can do whatever I like to the best of my ability and enjoy doing that, without having to compromise for the purposes of needing to make a living. I honestly have no idea whether my photography will ever get anywhere, but it doesn't really matter if I'm enjoying the process of making photos. I think I have to accept (which is hard) that I'll probably never really have a friendly peer group composed of other photographers (other than people I happen to know coincidentally via other non-photography related routes) -- my experiences so far would seem to indicate that this is very unlikely, and I'm not sure I want to expose myself to the risk of further abuse by trying to move toward something like that now either.

[fatdog.livejournal.com]

all it succeeded in doing in my case was have me wondering about the gallery management, thinking to myself, 'what the hell were they thinking?'

Isn't that what good art is?