Re: neo-Pictorialism

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From: SteveS (sgshiya@redshift.com)
Date: 10/08/03-08:53:34 PM Z


Kate, you would do well to find "California Pictoralism" a Getty publication.

Weston and the gang were nothing more than a group of punks doing photography very, very well. The original group, the Brennan Group that met in Berkeley were mostly [women] photographers employed to illustrate books of poetry and epic poems, classics of the kind rarely read today. These photographs were referred to as a genre, "Pictoralism."

Because the photos were staged, and the poor, by today's standards, lenses caused long exposures, the results were fuzzy. That was 'writtn off' as artistic.

Sorry to be such a fuddy duddy, but I knew those guys, and what you read is somewhat what I was treated to of my own ears from their own mouths.

I met Ann Brigman, who owned the Brennan St. studio in Berkeley, was taken out of my way to be introdued toher by Ansel and we spoke about Pictoralism. The 'poetic titling idea' came from him and her during a series of conversations over a couple years.

S. Shapiro
  ----- Original Message -----
  From: Kate Mahoney
  To: alt-photo-process-l@skyway.usask.ca
  Sent: Tuesday, October 07, 2003 2:25 AM
  Subject: Re: neo-Pictorialism

  No posing people is "staged and directed", pictorialism refers to a particular school of photography that weston and others referred to as "fuzzy-wuzzies". - particularly the gum and platinum printers around the turn of the 20th century.
    ----- Original Message -----
    From: SteveS
    To: alt-photo-process-l@sask.usask.ca
    Sent: Tuesday, October 07, 2003 10:17 PM
    Subject: Re: neo-Pictorialism

    My understanding of neo-pictoralism is when you 'title' a photograph and create or impose a meaning for what may be a simple photograph of some annimate or inannimate object.

    I often photograph trees, and label or title them with my impression of what they represent. I see it as 'poetic' and the labeling critics label it neo-pictoralism.

    Pictoralism is the practice of posing people, arranging a set up for a purpose of illustration.

    One opinion.

    Steve Shapiro, Carmel
      ----- Original Message -----
      From: Ender100@aol.com
      To: alt-photo-process-l@skyway.usask.ca
      Sent: Tuesday, October 07, 2003 12:19 AM
      Subject: Re: neo-Pictorialism

      Kate,

      Here is what is probably a very oversimplified view of the whole thing. You do what work you do based on what is in your heart, mind, and spirit to the extent your mastery of the craft and your creative ability allows you—involving the relevant subjects that fall within the range of your mobility and your camera lens.

      Then, later, after you are dead, should someone notice your work, be they a critic or writer, to satisfy their need for order, they place you in a category or box with a label on it—like maybe the post-neo-pictorealist photographisterical movement. Then they go about describing all sorts of obvious symbolism in each of your images and motivations on your part at the time of clicking the shutter to include those meanings in the image so that you are proven obviously to be a post-neo-pictorealist photographisterical photographer type person.

      You can call me anything you want. Just don't call me after 2:00 AM.

      ;)

      Mark Nelson

      In a message dated 10/6/03 8:58:43 PM, kateb@paradise.net.nz writes:

        The only thing I've got against the tag of "neo-pictorialism" is the faint
        odour of disapproval that wafts to me from "pictorialism". Being a product
        of the postwar generation, when pictorialism was a no-no and we were to
        stick severely to "realism", even through abstraction, neo-expressionism and
        Malevich. Seems like we've finally caught on to what the painting world has
        known for over a century - art is NOT about truth!!! It's about ART - and
        the word artifice is rooted in the wrord ART so........is the Sistine
        ceiling a lie??? Or an artifice??? Does anybody care??
        And what about thoses peppers? Were they supposed to be read as
        vegetables????? They may have been as sharp and real as all hell but they
        were at the very least another sort of artifice in themselves.........


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