Bob W wrote: > I must have missed the first part of your rant, and I'm still not sure > what you're saying here. Is this part "But the vigorous amateur verité > **style [...] the gift of photography was the instantaneous reality" > something that you're saying, or something the documentary is saying? > > You haven't included a link to the NYPD crime scene either, so we > don't know what you're comparing to the Steichen picture or, indeed, > which you prefer. > > What I'm inferring from your so-called rant is that you disagree with > the claim that pictorialism was an artistic dead end. But this is > true, and quite clear from the history of art photography. You, and > many other people, might like or be moved by pictorialism above other > forms of photography, but that doesn't alter the fact of the matter > which is that nothing worthwhile has developed from pictorialism as > far as capital A art photography is concerned. I have the very highest > regard for the founders of pictorialism when it was at the very centre > of art photography - people like P H Emerson, Steichen, Steiglitz and > so on, but nobody in the world of art photography has done > pictorialism for a century. > > This statement "the gift of photography was the instantaneous reality" > is also unarguably true. I can't tell if it's your claim or the > documentary's claim, but it is a proposition that I have argued for > many times in the past, including on this forum. The single thing that > distinguishes photography from all the other representational media is > precisely its ability to capture an instant in time completely > unmediated by the 'artist' or operator or whatever you want to call > the person. > > What is the amateur verite **style, and what does it have to do with > pictorialism? And why have you used 2 asterisks in front of style? > > Bob > >
Sorry, I didn't express myself well. In my mind I was thinking about Annie Leibovitz. The comparison in the doco was between these photographs taken at crime scenes in the early part of last century and the Pictorialists. The photography curator made the point that while Pictorialism tried to raise the medium of photography to an artform, in doing so, their range of style and subject matter became narrower and narrower. Ultimately it was an artistic dead end. Whereas, the artless forensic photographers, who were all anonymous, produced a body of work that is a fascinating insight into the world of the lower to middle classes in NY. Unusual angles, stark lighting, wide wide lenses - the photographs were amazing, putting aside the gory nature of the subject. Lartigue also makes a significant appearance in this episode. The ultimate amateur, his famous racing car shot was compared to a rare Pictorialist photo that included..gasp... an automobile. Where Lartigue's shot was and is modern and exciting, the latter seemed already old-fashioned, even when it was new. So while I respect what the Pictorialists were trying to do, verite (the asterisks came from me trying to add an accent) photography is so much more rewarding. "Darstardly" was me being ironic. I love the series. D -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://members.iinet.net.au/~derbyc -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
