Is Photography Dead?

[MaximusM3]

Actually, these "Three Trees" on a hill - complete with ominous clouds in the background - did win an award, so somebody must think that photography is not dead...

Ken

Ken,

These are indeed the "Three Trees" that ruffled his feathers. At least we're all giving Jon Butler some deserved publicity.

[Ken Nadvornick]

Ahh... pays to keep up then, eh?

At any rate, Butler's three certainly don't look like any three - or two, or one - that I've seen anywhere in the APUG Galleries. Or anywhere else, for that matter. Such is the counter-intuitiveness of traditional photography. No two photographs, even tripod-hole photographs, ever look exactly the same.

And thankfully there isn't a "no repeat" database which must be consulted. No one would ever pick up a camera again...

Thanks,

Ken

[tomalophicon]

When photography dies, does it start to smell?

[wildbillbugman]

Early in my learning how to use a view camera, I was incouraged to try to duplicate a well known print from a well known artrist. I chose Weston\'s peper. Many hours and shots later, I came close, but no cigar. My point is that,skill may be aquired and polished with cliches. Had I been able to produce an exact dupicate(impossible!). It stll would not be (Art).

[pbromaghin]

True--you have to understand (a) what makes a good "tree on a hill" and (b) what makes it cliche (or not, as the case may be).

Then you can move on to breaking new ground.

It's like a musician practicing scales. You won't perform them, but you need to know them. The best musicians I know never stop doing the basic work.

Mat Carrey, ++

How will anyone ever get good if they don't first learn to make the cliche?

I've been a martial artist for 35 years and I still practice, every day, the same stuff we were taught in the first week. And I learn more about it every day.

My daughter was a gymnast. She competed nationally, but years before that she had to compete with every competitor doing exactly the same, the simplest, most cliched routine and winners got medals.

[polyglot]

"Insofar as literature is a telling of new stories, literature has been exhausted for centuries but insofar as literature tells archetypal stories in an attempt to understand once more their truth - to translate their wisdom for another generation - literature will be exhausted only when we all, in our foolish arrogance, abandon it" -- Gardner

Applies just as much to photography.

[Aristophanes]

... we become so desensitized that we cannot conceive of a good photograph anymore.

Could we ever?

The curse of subjectivity looms.

[Roger Cole]

I have a lot of tolerance for repetition. I've been known to put the same song on repeat for an hour or more. I've never understood why a subject shouldn't be done again just because it's been done before. It's guaranteed to be different each time. The clouds are different, the tree is different - I don't give a damn how many people have shot trees on hills or sunsets before and it's totally irrelevant to me. If I see a tree on a hill or a sunset that I like, I'll photograph it. I also don't give a damn if anybody else likes it. I do what I do for me.

[MattCarey]

Actually, these "Three Trees" on a hill - complete with ominous clouds in the background - did win an award, so somebody must think that photography is not dead...

Ken

Interesting photograph. I expect to see the Lorax hiding behind one of the three trees.

[brofkand]

As far as photography dying? I consider photography as a medium better than ever, but the problem we face is the same problem Jackson Pollock and the other AbEx's faced in the 40's: what can we do that hasn't been done before? People's tastes change, and art has to continually reinvent itself to avoid falling out of the public view. What scares me to death is art students in 50 years will look back at this era and see the photography of this generation as being Chase Jarvis and Joe McNally. Both good photographers, but decidedly boring in my view. They do nothing that hasn't been done before. They're "safe."

I'd say Photography as an art is dying. The medium is becoming less and less about what makes a beautiful photograph beautiful, and what can we do that's new, but becomes more about what can I do to sell a book? What can I do to fill up the next workshop? What can I do to sell a new camera (or hotshoe mounted flash) for my sponsor? What can I do that is new, fresh, exciting, dangerous, risky, and controversial never enters the mind. Granted, photography started as a money maker. Ansel Adams, Cartier-Bresson, Frank, Liebowitz, and others all made a living with photography. But during making a living, they managed to add something to the history of this medium that will last forever.

So we'll see. I hope somebody comes up with the next photograph of Yoko and John, or the next St. Lazare.