Re: [Fwd: Re: First gallery ' experience']

davidhatton@totalise.co.uk wrote:
>>Do disagree!
> Thank you so much.

You're welcome. :-) That is one of the more fun aspects of this list:
the range of opinions.

Your earlier comment:
>I disagree with those who say that 'it is the image that is important
not the way it's created'

is hard on folks without an arts education. In the local museum, the
casual viewers say "that's a great picture." They don't know what a
platinum/ziatype/gelatin silver print is until they read the handout the
museum provides, and that's completely acceptable to me. _I_ am
interested in what kind of print it is, but it does not hurt me that
they do not already know. It's also okay with the museum, which is why
the image is large and the text description is small. To the casual
viewers, the process is not important.

It is painful but true.

A happier position would be to say that a successful print requires an
aesthetically successful image printed technically well to bring out the
best of the image. The image they see is, after all, the result of a
long process to make it. If they are admiring the image, it is because
it looks good in the process it's been printed in. That means they are
indirectly endorsing the process, even if they don't know what it is.

I know that doesn't make process SOUND important, but it still is.

So I think you only disagree with _me_ in that I don't personally
emphasize process to non-photographers, who will ask if they care, but
otherwise will just judge on the image they see. I am emphasizing
image, which happy folks know naturally incorporates process.

Elizabeth

----------------

Less concise, less interesting answer section:

>>my painter friends don't
>>explain the chemical composition of their paints (or explain the oil vs.
>>acrylic debates) when they show their work to non-painters.
>
>Because they assume ignorance in a non-painter?

Because the painting also has a subject, a style, and a message, and
they want you to admire those things. [See the discussion above about
people in a museum and what they notice.] The work is more than the sum
of its paints. I don't think there's anyone into photography who is
only in it for the silver nitrate, which is just a tool.

>>The materials [painters] choose _define_ the
>>appearance of their work, but it's not they way they introduce it, and
>>it's not the way the work is judged.
>
>If That's the case, how do you explain this quote from the original
posting?

We don't know whether the work was introduced as alt or by subject, so
we can't compare directly to painters not talking paint-first.

Going by the quote you chose, the full text complains that his gallery
can't figure out how to charge extra for it ("added value"), Kate didn't
provide an art-speak explanation, and there's no industrial fad
currently that would let the gallery jump on a bandwagon. Those don't
touch on the subject of process at all.

We're left with some rants about him not understanding or liking alt,
which is his subjective opinion, which he has a right to have. As a
whole package, process isn't THE issue: it just bothers us more, because
we're process people. His opinion carries no weight beyond his gallery,
so we're making him more important by talking about him than he deserves.

Elizabeth
Received on Tue Feb 14 12:24:35 2006