Re: More than 2¢ worth - much more
I'm glad you did jump into the fray Jack - that was a thoughtful response IMO and it gave me more to think about with respect to Michael Grillo's call for entries, thanks. I think that the subject of his show is important, interesting and timely. I found it interesting that he did post this to the list, where many might not - for reasons already revealed! It is a subject which is relevant to my own work - which I take seriously, as I know many other photographers and artists on this list do too. It won't and obviously doesn't mean much to others on a list with such a varied subscriber base - and that's fine. Unfortunately, dissing academia and more difficult ideas (and the expression of more difficult ideas) is great sport in this age of profound conservatism. I really like to think about what I photograph - thinking is a major part of the excitement and pleasure of photography for me. It can be a highly intellectual activity, both before the image and after it is made. I also love the mix of head and hands - the practical making and doing along with the what and why. Documentary photography is not straight forward, simple and easy. As someone else on the list pointed out, it never was. But documentary photography remains contentious, and things have changed. Photography isn't an insignificant, neutral and benign activity, it isnt simple or straightforward, otherwise photographs wouldn't be censored in the way that they are being censored these days. It is clearly complex and complicated, just look at how journalistic images of/from/about Iraq are controlled and manipulated - not by photographers but by Governments. And they aren't using photoshop either. Michael Grillo's exhibition title is a good one - still. A personal note on documentary and art photography: My own photographic practice is a varied one which includes alternative processes and has done so for 30 years. I've been on this list for over 10 years. I know there are many on this list who also work with a range of photographic practices, i.e. different cameras, printing methods etc. I see their names on other lists. Alternative processes, which is one aspect of the vast and varied collection of activities called photography, is however, primarily about process. process is only part of the whole deal of making a photograph. Process informs subject matter - what and how one takes the photograph as well as ways of thinking about the finished image, and that is great stuff too. It is probably why I still work with cyanotype, for example ( I just love that process), as well as with carbon inks on old digital printers, among other things including pinhole cameras. Can a photograph be a documentary photograph if it is realized as a cyanotype in blue, or made with a fuzzy pinhole camera? I think that this is a question still worth thinking about, but then photography is my day job and my afterhours occupation too. I have just returned from a few days in Tasmania (that's the island state of Australia which sits on bottom right of the mainland) where I have been photographing in the native forests. I go there every couple of months (roughly a 2 hour plane trip south from Sydney where I live, then 2 hours drive west into the forest from Hobart). Along with trying to make the best pictures I can, I am trying to make a visual record of these magical forests before the 400 year old trees (along with heaps of other trees and plants) are cut down, the rest of the forest clearfelled and the tall trees made into woodchips and pulped. The remaining forest in the logging coupe is then naplamed and burnt, including the animals. I try to photograph this too. To say that the clearfelling these trees is a political hot-potato is an understatement. As Jack said, the pocket-book rules. But where in the world of art or photography does that place photographs of this forest and brutal forestry practices? I am acting as a documentary photographer, but I am not an impartial viewer. The dark, difficult forest is a challenging subject, physically demanding and just plain hard work - it doesn't want to be photographed, I can't get back far enough to picture a whole tree without getting caught up in other trees, the wind blows my subjects during their 8 second exposure. It rains and snows, and I finish up covered in mud, scratched and exhausted. I work hard at making my images beautiful, complex, rich, challenging, colouful etc etc, as that is what I do well. Where and how do these images fit into this world of the pocket-book now closely coupled with politics and government? It is a world which is different to 100 years ago when plundering the environment was a completely different issue - well, it wasn't much of an issue then. Subjects for the documentary have changed, just as ideas of the documentary have changed. And as I have also noted in one small example, the nature of interference in the photographic document has also expanded and changed. (I can also remember police and political arguments surrounding the bashing of Rodney King which maintained that the real truth of the incident was not in the evidence of these photographs but lay outside the frame of the images.) I see that what I am doing as a documentary photographer/artist as fraught with difficulty. For example, the world of the art museum here isn't so accepting of photographs motivated by passion for the environment, and which don't overtly take 'art' as their prime subject. The larger issue of documentary photography is problematic, still, as Michael Grillo, I think, rightly observes. While I can and do make beautiful photographs of the forest I also want to help save these forests. I have also found that no one wants to look at black and white images of death and destruction, and that (generally) art museum curators don't think that such images make good art either. That'll do for now. Anyway, thanks again Jack (and Michael) cheers all, Catherine ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jack Fulton" <jefulton1@comcast.net> To: <alt-photo-process-l@usask.ca> Sent: Thursday, September 07, 2006 5:30 AM Subject: More than 2¢ worth > I should not jump into this fray. > We, theoretically, are 'alternative' photographer processors. > Therefore we are using processes that are "different from the usual > or conventional: as a : existing or functioning outside the > established cultural, social, or economic system" (according to > Merriam-Webster) BUT, in general, we are rather conventional, even > Ludditical at times. > PM and the French argot is not an easy read. Since the VietNam 'war' > and Gregory Bateson/Margaret Mead, many realize much of the medium's > imagery is controlled by whims/morals/mores/biases of the maker, > hence Crewsdon, Sherman, Wall, Levine et al abound. There is fiction > in their reality. Veracity is a property of the medium used not its > truthful verification. > As Camden indicates, chuck the email or contact Michael Grillo. > What I feel most of you are failing to understand from Michael's > query is that times have changed greatly and the documentary > photograph does not hold the cache it once did. > I would he he (Michael) feels there MUST be a NEW way to look at what > is real around us. > For instance . . . . in our country here in North America, you'll see > a lot of new journalism work shot at an angle. This comes straight > from New Topographics work now over twenty years old, but it has > slipped sylph-like into the visual jargon. Too what digital hath > wrought is an ability to "alter" an image. These are major changes. > What is exigent one might ask? Is it the Iraq war or is the loss of > ocean quality more important. Only things tangible to the pocketbook > seems to make news but there is far far more that needs to be covered > AND with bias I'd say. Overpopulation, corruption/greed at the top, > lack of education can all be journalistically photographed in ways > not yet seen I am sure. > So, rather than dissing Mr. Grillo, join in with the guy and help > make the world a better place.
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