Stay Signed In
Do you want to access your site more quickly on this computer? Check this box, and your username and password will be remembered for two weeks. Click logout to turn this off.
Stay Safe
Do not check this box if you are using a public computer. You don't want anyone seeing your personal info or messing with your site.
I take my "Street Photography" pretty seriously, so I thought I would mention that in my
library I have books by two Australian photographers which fall into the "street" category.
They are both well worth buying and all you have to do is be patient. They're worth the wait.
If the links I've set up don't help, then just "Google" the titles and proceed that way.
No Reason, No Rhyme: the irrational pursuit of a little poetry. Last year I visited the Museum of Contemporary Art and was confronted by two walls dedicated to some guys huge photographs of white goods placed out in the scrub. Kind of 'fridges on safari'. The photo's were absolutely dead emotionally, and could only be described as pretty pointless. Yet they did get me thinking. It would seem the buzz word in contemporary art photography at the moment is 'BIG'. Giant computer print outs of flawless definition tower over unsuspecting gallery visitors, bringing gasps of appreciation in much the same manner the latest Hollywood 'special effect' garners a 'jeeez' from fans of the blockbuster. Fine definition and the resultant ability to upsize is a natural attention grabber, and given that the layman's brush with the medium is usually confined to a bubble camera at end of year family gatherings, it's hardly surprising. Even before the actual contents of the gigantic image have been digested, a platform of respect has been built between viewer and the work, based wholly on the superficial. The legendary former Director of Photography at the New York Museum of Modern Art, John Szarkowski, during a 2004 interview with 'Modern Painter', touched on the 'Big' phenomena laying it solely at the feet of commercial sensibilities, adding "most of the best photographs are smaller than 11x14".
Grain and an overall lack of sharpness are contemporary photography's take on working without a net. Sprinkle in a pinch of subtlety, a non formulaic, purely observational approach, and your odds of plummeting to failure shorten even further. So it's little wonder the vast majority of 'photo artists' today opt for the insurance that is definition and size. That the actual photograph may or may not work as a creative image, in many cases really doesn't appear to matter. It's big, it's glossy and it's self proclaiming ! A grainy, blurry, diminutive Robert Frank classic hung on a gallery wall next to a monolithic Bill Henson Cibachrome, and to the vast majority, judgement is rooted in the gospel according to Hoges ... 'that's not a knife, this is a knife !'. The little black & white gets lost in the hype. Bill Henson is a well respected contemporary artist, yet few photography historians would disagree that Robert Frank is one of the great poets of the medium.
Is it perhaps a symptom of our times ? The unhealthy respect for technology, an even more disturbing adherence to market forces and the resultant, proportional lessening of true humanitarianism ? A microcosm of life today where people are terrified to simplify, to clarify. They chase (or are pushed) the latest in almost everything; no sooner do you need a DVD player to replace a perfectly good video recorder than your TV has to be upgraded to digital and you just have to have a mobile phone that glows ultra marine. Layer upon layer, cluttering up lives. Technology and marketing. People consumed with the trivial, moving further and further from self discovery, further from truth, further from genuine art. An almost souless population of ravenous consumers, charging blindly into debt for the latest wizz bang flashy thing that Bill Gates, in collaboration with NASA, have whipped up just to make your life bearable. Not much poetry in all that !
The rash of 'BIG', and more precisely it's use in many cases as a means to an end, is a sad reflection of these, our times. Art dictated to by market forces and technology is hopelessly conservative and very often numbingly trite. Worthwhile art is a truth absolute. A process of stripping away, reaching deep within, desperate to find a higher level of honesty. It invariably involves risk. A bucking of trends, fads and current thinking to pursue a personal ideal, however indefineable that may be. Brushing away criticism, ridicule and ignoring common sense. Accepting poverty as a likely dance partner: the market place is rarely enamoured of a gentle whisper. Most of all be prepared to be ignored. Your destiny is almost certainly that crumpled and broken body at the foot of a mighty fall. That you work with no net is seen as foolhardy by most, yet you've known from that first wobbly step that timidity dilutes achievement, and great poetry never rhymes.
Back To Home Page
