Yes all of the above. In the first place, don't bother me with the facts.
In the second place they're wrong. In the 3rd place I came across a
paragraph in the NY Times book review today that expressed perfectly what
I meant, & take the liberty of quoting it here. It's by Philip Lopate,
poet, essayist, on the "Bookend" page.
For "poetry" substitute "view camera photography":
"There are exceptions to all I have said, of course. I could name them,
but my purpose has been not to praise the high points of our verse but to
characterize the typical banalities of American poetry at this moment.
Cant and feel-goodism have long attended the poetic scene. I cannot agree
with some recent critics who have pronounced American poetry dead, but
neither does it seem to me to be exactly thriving. If it is too early to
say Kaddish [Jewish prayer for the dead], it is also too early to
celebrate a rebirth."
In other words, I deny that a slight amount of possible hyperbole
(which may not be so hyperbolic -- after all neither of us has
taken a census) destroys my point...
> ....The discussion wasn't about the quality of Sally Mann's platinum
> prints but about the esthetic choices made and rendered in the medium.
> I had a chance to see all of her 12-yr old series (you are right, I was
> off a year) about a dozen years ago when we did a show and workshop
> together in Virginia. I found them competently made and didn't have
> any feelings of incongruity between subject and process.
Difference of opinion, my father frequently explained, being what makes
horse races. It's never too late to come around to my way of thinking. But
meanwhile, my point was that I didn't feel the prints I saw did anything
good for rep of platinum or view camera...
> > Of course not, but for about 2 reasons is treated as if it were. I didn't
> > mean western landscape, BTW -- any realistic landscape -- could be
> > treebark of Central Park
>
> What "2 reasons"? I'm interested, especially as to how these reasons
> relate to the way a photographer choses imagery and process. Of course,
> there are those who try to imitate another's esthetic, but saying that
> 99% of all platinum prints are just imitations of the f/64 landscape
> school is like saying that 99% of all gum prints are neo-DeMachey's (sp?).
> By the way, is it significant that none of the f/64 group printed their
> classic landscapes in platinum and that platinum was pretty much
> anathema to their purist ideology?
But now so much of view camera is printed in platinum, and vice versa,
that an outsider tends to conflate the two. Meanwhile, Carson, how can you
ask a question like "what 2 reasons?" You know perfectly well that I'm at
an age when if I don't write something down at the time it's unfair to ask
me a week later. But give me a while, they may come back to me.
> Perhaps, though the monolithic histories of photograhy of 25 years ago
> (Newhall and Gernsheim) have been greatly fractured by some good
> scholarship and monographs. If you were studying photography
> in the late 60's and early 70's what you knew about the subject was
> pretty tightly defined by Newhall's book and by the slide sets
> published by George Eastman house. Sort of like how everyone watched
Here I think you're being optimistic. Newhall's History of Photography is
still the text, and much of the photo world is run by those who studied it.
> the Ed Sullivan show and Milton Berle on television (in the US at
> least). Now, to quote Nesbitt, there is a multiplicity of choices that
> are unrivaled in the past, whether on cable TV or in photographic
> esthetics. I think everyone would agree that consensus just isn't what
> it used to be.
Maybe it's not quite the same voice of authority, but "mainstream" view
camera is in consensus about much/most. And I suspect that the
multiplicity of choices you refer to can cancel each other out. To
continue your TV metaphor, when there are 70 little channels (or however
many) none is strong enough to neutralize effect of the major networks....
I'll try to get back to you on the 2 reasons....
Cheers,
Judy