You quoted the Dean of Students at the San Francisco Art Institute as saying to
you
"If you were a better photographer, you wouldn't need to make such beautiful
prints."
You drew the implication, which the context of the conversation bore out, being
that all
technically skilled photography sucked.
As you implied, but left unsaid, but that I think needs to be said, this did not
say very much for his knowledge, perception, sensitivity, powers of observation,
aesthetic judgement or even intelligence. But this is not as unusual as it
should be in places of higher education.
You said :
"We had a saying at the Associated Press darkroom: *You can't polish a turd.*
(or with a turd- hence the need to distinguish shit from Shinola)
Some work requires masterful technique to carry the image forth, some
doesn't. doesn't make one kind "better." "
Hear! Hear ! I have seen negatives have to be redeveloped three times to get a
prize winning print. I have seen technically perfect prints that had less
aesthetic or any other kind of interest than a close up of a smooth white washed
wall. Its the end result, ie the objective that matters. To argue that
technique either is important or unimportant per se demonstrates an unhealthy
interest in technique and forgets the objective.
What's Shinola ?
It does mean some work gets "privileged" when viewed casually or through
reproduction, especially crummy reproduction.
Victor Burgin said the contempory "museum" is a corkboard and pushpins, and
the museum of the future a computer monitor (this was a while back, i spose
he means now). He felt that the sooner we got rid of all the "preciousness"
in art, which makes it a tool of Capitalistic somethingorother, the
better... . Well, there's something to that, but dere's a baby in dat
bathwater, dude.
Victor has got a lot to answer for. His unforgivably narrow and unintellectual
viewpoint has led to a lot of unhappiness and bad education.
"The zone system, or any other system, allows one to "codify" and make
results repeatable and calculable (?). But Adams was adjusting his exposures
and developing technique to suit the image long before using a zone system...
By limiting himself to a few cameras, lenses, films, developers, (and
shooting conditions), and mastering their capabilities, Weston could work
without a light meter, keeping the lens open for as long as his brain and
experience felt he should. Some of us like that idea.
It's kinda like going off into the wilderness. You can dispense with miles
(or kilometers) and hours, and think merely in terms of an abstract "get
*there* before *dark*- sorta eliminating the middleman... and if you've ever
ben alone in the wilderness for an extended period of time, you know how
weird it is when you return and first need to *speak language* rather than
just thinking..."
I enjoyed that.
Terry King
-------------------------
Plywood and Rhetoric
graphic design from both sides of the brain
plyboy@teleport.com
http://www.teleport.com/~plyboy
"Momma DID raise a fool"