20
Dec
2008
The Decline of Fashion Photography
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Category: Photography
It took a while but I found the link to the Slate article about the Decline of Fashion Photography. This echoes the discussion Dr. L and I have been having about nudity, religion, culture, etc.
Carly is not in decline, fashion photography is...
I promise I’ll go back on my happy pills and post something more uplifting than my last few posts but this link, and the discussion that surrounds it, reinforces my belief that beauty is being replaced by anti-beauty in the marketing and advertising world. Even if you disagree, its a great read.
http://www.slate.com/features/010510_fashion-slide-show/01.htm
Saturday, 20. December 2008
Good article. I agree with much of it, but I still believe that fashion photography has much to offer the art world. The problem is that there is so much of it, that it is difficult to find the jewels within. Mert and Marcus, for example are pure genius, IMO. Fantastic artists, both their adverts and their fashion spreads. Nick Knight and David Bailey too.
I read Vogue most months, not just for the clothes, but for the great photography. I guess that not all advertising is bad, although I do think the beauty industry and media have a lot to answer for regarding creating unrealistic expectations and self-image problems in today’s impressionable young girls.
Saturday, 20. December 2008
I’ve read/viewed this photo-essay before but it’s been a while so I gave it another go. Mostly cuz… well, cuz Bob suggested doing so.
For me, a lot of what I think about fashion photography (and some other genres as well) is summed up in the second slide, the one with the La Chapelle image:
“Critics say the problem is that today’s fashion photographers see themselves as artists, while their Golden Age predecessors thought they were just working for a living.”
Those Golden Age shooters didn’t merely see themselves in the context of “working for a living,” they saw themselves as *photographers* working for a living.
IMO, far too many photographers regard themselves as artsts who happen to use photography as their medium of choice. That’s not to say there aren’t artists creating art with photography, there are, but frankly, those people are in the minority.
It seems to me that way too many self-proclaimed artists are simply covering for their lack of photography skills as well as their ignorance of the craft. And they do this by labeling their work art and proclaiming themselves artists.
Personally, I call “bullshit!”
If you’re work routinely and repeatedly sucks, please don’t try to convince me it’s art. It’s not. It’s just bad photography.
If you break every single rule of photography because you don’t have a freakin’ clue what you’re doing–especially when you manage to break nearly all of those rules in one single image–please don’t try to convince me it’s art. It’s not. It’s just bad photography.
Just because a person believes they have artistic vision does not an artist make. In fact, just because a person actually possesses artistic vision does not an artist make.
Obviously, the trick for artists (or those who think of themselves as artists) is for them to transfer their artistic vision from their heads and onto a piece of paper, a canvas, or whatever medium they prefer… for example, a photograph. But guess what? While some people may be born “artistic visionaries,” they probably weren’t born with photography skills or painting skills or sketching skills and knowledge.
I don’t give a crap how creative someone is, if you want, as another example, to write a novel, you’ll first need to speak a language–as in with words–so that you can communicate your story. So far as I know, no one has ever been born already fluent in any spoken language used on this planet.
Although I believe I’ve had an artistic vision or two bounce about my brain a couple of times in my life, I’ve never (seriously) referred to myself as an artist. But I have thought of myself as a craftsman. It’s craft skills that make a photographer. If a photographer happens to also be recognized as an artist, that person (more than likely) was or is a craftsman first.
For the most part, craftsmen work for a living. And that’s what some fashion shooters (and other shooters) are not: They’re not craftsmen. And they’re not artists either. They’re sometimes just people with cameras who know how to “know” the right people. While hey have with no real skills using those cameras, they do, apparently, have superior skills at convincing others they are something they are not. All they’re doing is pawning themselves off as artists while covering up for their incompetence at making crafty, or even artistic, photographs with their cameras.
(Same goes for some of those people who call themselves art directors, art buyers, and art critics, leastwise in terms of them truly knowing something about art and/or craft.)
Saturday, 20. December 2008
Jimmy, that is the best blog comment I have ever read, and it sums up my thoughts exactly.
Saturday, 20. December 2008
Right on, Jimmy! Here’s an example from the eminent Mike Johnston, editor of The Online Photographer.
Saturday, 20. December 2008
Hey folks, check out the link WillT mentioned. It’s SO TRUE!
And it’s an Annie Liebowitz shot under discussion. Decide for yourself.
Saturday, 20. December 2008
Jimmy, that is a very bleak view of the art world. I disagree. I think you do yourself an injustice, Sir. You may not personally consider yourself an artist, but IMHO, you come closer to it than most.
And I should know of course, because I’m “one of those people who call themselves an art critic.” Or at least, I used to, until I read your comment.
Sunday, 21. December 2008
Lin, although it might seem my view is bleak and I’ll certainly admit to a certain degree of cynicism on this subject, I don’t think I’m far off the mark if at all.
U.S. Supreme Court Justice, Potter Stewart, on the subject of obscenity and pornography, once opined, “I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description; and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it…”
It seems to me the same holds true for art. In fact, Justice Stewart could have just as easily been speaking of art rather than obscenity/pornography.
I believe the majority of people can distinguish art from crap, i.e., they can readily identify art even if, like Justice Stewart, they cannot intelligibly define it. They can do so whether they’re doctors, cab drivers, engineers, construction workers, accountants, housewives, U.S. Supreme Court Justices, or photographers.
If you submitted many examples of art–art that is relatively obscure and unknown–along with many examples of so-called art, i.e., crap, to a great number of people, I think majority of them would be in agreement in terms of identifying which of those examples qualify as art and which of them are simply crap.
In other words, people know art when they see it and, for the most part, they know crap when they see it as well.
I may not be an art critic but I think I know a good photograph when I see one, art-photo or otherwise.
Monday, 22. December 2008
Jimmy, I’m sure you do know a good potograph. You’re a trained professional photographer. You have learned how to SEE. Three years ago I had no clue at all which photographs were crap, and which were great. You have to study a particular art for a while before you learn to distinguish good from bad.
“If you submitted many examples of art–art that is relatively obscure and unknown–along with many examples of so-called art, i.e., crap, to a great number of people, I think majority of them would be in agreement in terms of identifying which of those examples qualify as art and which of them are simply crap.”
Then you would think the same would apply to all art forms, say music for example, which is easier than most to distinguish beautiful music from bad?
If you accept this argument, then I would respectfully refer you to the following artcle:
http://www.oftwominds.com/blognov08/joshua-bell11-08.html
Monday, 22. December 2008
The Joshua Bell social experiment neither supports nor disproves my contentions, i.e., that most people can distinguish art from crap.
I’ll admit it says something about people’s priorities when it comes to the importance of art in their daily lives. But it says little about those people’s abilities to perceive Bell’s music as art. If you stopped and polled all those 1,097 people, asking them to listen to Bell for a bit and then asking them if they believed the music Bell played was art or crap, I believe the vast majority of them would perceive it as art. That’s a very different experiment. How about a Coke vs. Pepsi experiment? Have Bell play for a bit, hidden from view, and then have an amateur play, one who is not very good and also hidden from view, and ask people to distinguish between the two. I think art would win and crap would lose.
The following quote (from the article) contains a hypothesis that I found a bit disturbing: “…all these middle-class Americans ignored Bell and his music because no “expert” was there to tell them he was good.”
Do we really need experts, i.e., critics, to tell us when something is good or artistic or bad or crap? I certainly hope not. In fact, seems to me that many art critics are exactly the people who have attempted to elevate crap to art. Unfortunately, they’ve been successful at doing this a few too many times. That’s why, for instance, when I’m choosing a movie to go see, I ignore the critics/experts and read the fan reviews– The majority of those people most often seem to know a good movie from a bad movie but, when it comes to critics, I can’t say the same.
Monday, 22. December 2008
If I may, I will speak to this from the perspective of someone who has (occasionally) adjudicated writing contests and (perpetually) taught writing for decades. You can’t break the rules, particularly the rules of grammar, until you know them. Students tried that swindle on me for years: well, I didn’t put a comma there because I wanted to be creative. No. I can tell when someone breaks the rules of grammar for an artistic reason and when someone simply doesn’t know how to write correctly.
Not everyone with pen and paper, a typewriter, or a word processing program can produce literature, which is to say, artistic writing. So not everyone with a camera can produce visual art. As with any artistic pursuit, music, dance, acting, painting, drawing, a would-be artist must learn from the masters, master the basics, and practice, practice, practice. Then talent takes you the rest of the way.
Tuesday, 23. December 2008
Well that’s one point of view, and Heaven knows we’re all entitled to those.
“In fact, seems to me that many art critics are exactly the people who have attempted to elevate crap to art.”
Art critics would be the first to admit that art is subjective. They provide an opinion and publicity for the piece in question, nothing more. I don’t think the Pepsi/Coca Cola experiment would work with art, whether painting or photography. One man’s art is another man’s crap. I’ve experienced this too many times to count. Needless to say, I’m no expert at anything (with the exception perhaps of the health extending effects of eating differing types of vegetables, and I’m gonna pimp that until I drop dead.) Photography wise, I look forward to next year furthering my ability to persuade the general populus that some crap is indeed art, and some so-called art is crap. Even if people disagree with my opnions, at least I made them think about it a little.
Tuesday, 23. December 2008
Over on APE (A Photo Editor) there’s an article about radio host, Ira Glass, speaking–in a sense–about the art vs crap thing. I didn’t view and listen to the provided YouTube links (I’ll probably do do later) but it seems obvious by what APE wrote that art vs crap, and why it happens, is a big part of Glass’ podcast. (Albeit, Glass is referring to writers rather than other types of artists.)
Here’s the link:
http://www.aphotoeditor.com/2008/12/22/finding-a-decent-story-killing-crap-and-reaching-your-potential/
Friday, 26. December 2008
Kevin up in Calgary has opened a similar discussion. He did a trackback ping but it seems that my blog isn’t accepting them at the moment. Please check out his site!
http://speciousargument.com/blog/archives/2008/12/vanity_fair_the_portraits_a_century_of_iconic_images.php
Bob’s last blog post..The Decline of Fashion Photography
Friday, 27. March 2009
Hi,
A very good article explaining the truth.
The reason is no can understand this properly.
Thanks for sharing.
Tuesday, 19. May 2009
I thought that article was spot on in its commentary — especially in reference to that LaChapelle image.