Lewis Carroll's Photographs

[tomalophicon]

Good Morning Artonpaper,

I am sure fuddy duddy is right, but spell check is underlining it in red, I digress - My question regarding Jock Sturgis was as way of asking for an expansion

I thing I have always found odd is that Sally Mann and Jock Sturgis were castigated for producing what I find to be in general engaging portraits, although SM's pictures of nose bleeds etc I am not fond of, but that is part of the mix - The person who was never castigated to my knowledge was David Hamilton, who made deliberately sexual images of young Scandinavian girls

My prime criticism of Henson is his lack of engagement, to me the most crucial aspect of portraiture - I feel the lack of engagement goes hand in hand with his creepiness (a word use I accept in this thread) and the slickness of his presentation

Regarding the media noise over Henson's 2008 Oxley show I forgot to mention the radio campaign from Chris Smith of Radio 2GB in Sydney which started the furore, I was reminded of this by Ross Chambers - Living the the Southern Karri Forest Belt I am too far away to see the Henson show in Sydney, but if I was in NSW I would certainly visit it

Do any of you Aussies remember this?

http://www.theage.com.au/entertainme...821-1j4td.html

[Leigh Youdale]

[QUOTE=tomalophicon;1307068]Do any of you Aussies remember this?

Yes, I do. Seems every country has a Mary Whitehouse or two.

A couple of years ago I was at the beach with my wife. She was paddling at the water's edge, I had hung back to take a beach scene as I was then testing the Bessa III MF camera.
Someone near my wife noticed me and asked if she knew me and what did I think I was doing, and if I didn't stop "perving" on the children nearby they would ring the police.

Of course they were way out of line from legal standpoint, but sometimes it's not worth the aggravation of staring down a zealot who is foaming at the mouth and eager for a "win" of righteousness (self) over common sense.

[Poisson Du Jour]

Do any of you Aussies remember this?

http://www.theage.com.au/entertainme...821-1j4td.html

Very, very tame — read, non-event, compared to Henson's seminal works. There is a lot more about Bill Henson than what poster's here postulate. I suggest you know him personally and understand his methodology, direction, drive and dedication. As for the "models" in his exhibition, the first, they were photographed many years ago and are adults. Contrary to populist myth, the poses were consented by family. His darkly malevolent film noir interpretation of the beauty of youth might have caused a silly beat up with a prudish Premier of Victoria (thank God he's gone back to the farm at Ravenswood to mingle with sheep), a trigger happy Police commissioner and a blood-lusting media, but the spin-off is that the controversy was quite good for business. He continues to do well with a wide retinué of projects reflecting his personal oeuvre and especially, his life dedication to the arts. His CV, readily available on the web, speaks reams for his wide acceptance in galleries around the world: very few of us have that sort of take-up. Clearly, even in these supposedly enlightened modern times, the non-artistically grounded NIMBYs are more interested in kicking up a righteous spray than learning something intellectual. Society's shame, art's gain.

[BrianShaw]

And now we see you aren't just a historian, you are equally interested in smearing the living as well.
Who needs proof when you have suspicion and "other information"?

Either contribute to the discussion or please shut your pie-hole. Thank you. You, sir, are both wrong and insulting. Your personal attacks are not welcomed.

If you can provide proof of your position then please do so. To date, all you have done is voiced your generic distrust of historical analysis and expressed a very unrealistic belief that absolute proof is required before any conclusions can be made. Please present your absolute proof and stop casting accusations upon me that are clearly not true.

[tomalophicon]

Lol.

[BrianShaw]

Me too. I'm LFAO, in fact. Laughing my way right to the ignore feature!

[Wayne]

Either contribute to the discussion or please shut your pie-hole. Thank you. You, sir, are both wrong and insulting. Your personal attacks are not welcomed.

If you can provide proof of your position then please do so. To date, all you have done is voiced your generic distrust of historical analysis and expressed a very unrealistic belief that absolute proof is required before any conclusions can be made. Please present your absolute proof and stop casting accusations upon me that are clearly not true.

That is freaking hilarious, but I'll bet you don't even know why.

[BrianShaw]

Troll.

But, yes, I do see what you would find humorous.

[Sirius Glass]

I wish you lot would get a dictionary between you ...

Those who obsess about proper spelling are quite often of such small minds that they cannot deal with anything else of substance.

Nothing personal, I'm jest sayin'

[Ross Chambers]

Well, that seems to be an issue that is not unique to him. Some others of the same era were equally inattentive to surrounds. I speculate (my personally owned opinion) that the "sloppiness" was a function of two things: the complexity of photography in those days, and the complexity of orchestrating the allegorical scenes. There was a lot to think about and it is not clear that these images were produced in a manner to be "picture perfect"... meaning publication or award-winning quality. Ohter Victorian photographers were definitely interested in sales. I'm not sure that Carrol/Dodgson was so motivated.

Not to forget Julia Margaret Cameron's concept of focus, which Dodgson criticised.