From: Katharine Thayer (kthayer@pacifier.com)
Date: 08/27/02-08:26:56 AM Z
Hi Jeff,
I'm curious how you got saddled with the idea that a pictorial
photograph should be of a picturesque subject. To my mind, pictorialism
is about philosophy and, to a lesser extent, process, but the content
could be anything. You should take pictures of whatever draws you to
take pictures of it, try to give your own unique perspective on it
whatever it is, and not worry so much about the categories, IMHO.
Katharine Thayer
jeffbuck@swcp.com wrote:
>
> Sorry for keeping after this stuff. Please just ignore this posting, if
> you're glazing over. This is a little different though:
>
> All this about the nude got me to thinking about pictorialism. In one way or
> another, many of us have commented on the distinction between the pictorial
> nude (which overlaps with Judy's "young" + "female") and the non-pictorial
> nude.... In my own "work," I've usually found myself wrestling with the
> usually-thought-of-as-pictorial (e.g., Mount Fuji, Brooklyn Bridge, Lisa
> Lyons) and the not-so (Metropolitan New Jersey, Sears Tower, Zero Mostel)....
> Twenty-four years ago, in photography class at Univ. of New Mexico, I made
> these very pictorial images of brightly lit semi-trailers against a night sky.
> They were pretty good. Honest. Anyhow, the bottom line was to make a pretty
> picture but, you know, I really wanted to use this not-pretty subject. I have
> been arguing with myself about this ever since. I've been uncompromising
> about wanting to make a pretty picture, but all over the place about what this
> means I ought to be putting a camera in front of. I'm on the lookout for
> things that are inadvertently pictorial (those semi-trailers) and I've been
> trying to warm up to things that are cheaply pictorial but also, it turns out,
> actually pictorial (detail of a new public building or private residence). I
> like the just plain pictorial, but feel like a fool taking pictures of it.
> The woods, the young/female, and Gateway Arch are too deliberate.
>
> Jeff Buckels
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