The beef?

An interesting discussion is popping up all over the bloggy-bubble about fine-art photographers shooting for editorial magazines. My buddy Andrew recently chimed in, in regards to a post from Liz Kuball, in reaction to an image by Todd Hido, and so on, and so on, and so on. (For more on this, just go to any photo blog; for example, here is a recent chorus from Mr. Soth).

For my own part, I don't care about Todd's picture and I don't care that art photographers shoot for the same publications as I do (as long as their work is held to the same standards, gasp). Even more I truly don't care for the semantics of photography and its infinite categories. There is a reason why I call myself just plain old "photographer," or when feeling Rococo, "freelance photographer." That covers it for me, though there once was a time when I gripped the term "photojournalist" very tightly, as if my white-knuckles would be a badge of some kind.

What I do care about, and am increasingly bewildered by, is how ego has taken center stage in the editorial marketplace. Everywhere I turn I see self-portraits, even when the photographer's mug, shadow, or reflection is not to be found. Millions of pictures that are little more than the evidence of a photographer making a stamp on their world, and mine, sometimes gleefully ignoring the subject altogether or representing them with such a pre-contrived awkwardness and mode that it's embarassing to reflect upon. (Of course these sort of pics have always been made, but I'm speaking about their current use and pedigree in the marketplace, not on Flickr).

All of this self-love used to be fine with me (I've certainly photographed my feet or reflection a few billion times, especially during college during tests with a shiny new holga), and is still to some degree, but now I feel as if this redirection is drastically dealing away something that should be very precious to all of us: content. And that lack of content is further degrading what I believe to be the chief use of photography and my greatest ambition: story telling.

This weekend I was driving north on Biscayne Boulevard with the girlfriend headed towards some errand on a sunny Sunday morning. I flipped on NPR and was greeted with the familiar voice of Ira Glass, which filled me with immediate glee. Though I don't listen as often as I used to, This American Life is a modern treasure. Ira began to introduce a story which opened with a droll, monotone female voice, laying out the parameters of a story about herself and her family. I recognized the form, its tone, its background music, and its pacing. I knew that it would be well-written and sardonic, with a few moments of poignancy. And then I got mad, and hastily flipped the radio off. Here was another 30-something, literary hipster delivering a well-produced story about themselves. WTF?! Have we all decided to stop looking beyond our own experiences for the substance of our art, craft, and interests?

This is a much more complicated argument than I'll give space for here. Yes, because I make pictures for a living I often am in a position much closer to illustration than to actual story-telling, which is part of the problem. Yes, everyone should be and is free to do whatever they want, and I'll respect and celebrate that. Yes, there is a whole 'nother problem on the opposite end of content with too much focus on war or fetish lifestyles. And yes, personal vision is an incredibly vital part of story-telling, and you can not, and should not, seek to completely separate ego and the photographer from the images, but a photographer can choose to focus on his subject instead of himself.

In closing, I simply wish all of us, as photographers of whatever ilk, would be a little more curious about the outside world and delivering real content, connecting people and informing us about each others' lives, and a little less passionate for making the same ego-driven drivel, and way less enthusiastic for those among us who do nothing but, who will hopefully clearly be seen as self-serving blips on the radar in hindsight (cough, Ryan McGinley, cough).

A couple last points that I'd like to throw in while I'm at it...

1 - Celebrating street photography and Garry Winogrand by going out and taking empty pictures of the street and rays of light is completely backwards. Look longer at Winogrand's incredible work and you'll see more humanism and interest in story-telling than just about anyone else. He did run around like a crazy wild man pacing the streets obsessively, but he was looking to document something fleeting about people, class, and the human condition; not just himself.

2 - Lately I've said to several friends, half in jest, how I just simply hate photography, and that's my real problem with these new trends (how come the new trends are so fuzzy that you can't even really describe what you like or don't like about them, but instead have to name the place that they were created at... like Yale). The half-jest part comes from how I do hate photography for photography's sake, and that I love and cherish photography used as a medium. I'll try to be more precise when bull-shitting in the future.

3 - Kathy Ryan is probably to blame for all of this, right?

4 - Sons and daughters of famous photographers seem to make really mediocre photography that the industry loves to celebrate. Maybe music is a better bet?

5 - What Andrew's post says about not judging photography in magazines without a knowledge of the circumstances is exceptionally important. There are dozens of factors out of the photographer's control, especially time and timing, that can lead to crappy imagery being used. Until you've shot several dozen magazine assignments you'll never really get how miraculous it is for a shoot to go off smoothly, resulting in great pictures that are embraced by the client, creating a really nice clip. Holy balls, it's rare.

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Comments (4)

Good post. Very good post.

I think this is the 15-minute-fame-age where we all have so many avenues to broadcasting ourselves (flickr, youtube, myspace, vibe, etc) that we may have all turned up the narcissism up a tad. To the degree that so much waste is put into the ether.

Speaking of Yale, I got a link from some blog that points to the Yale graduates images. Some of those were utter crap to me. Now art in itself is highly subjective. Understood and appreciated. I too celebrate that we all have a right to voice ourselves and produce what we like. But to spend that much money for an education and the end result being an image of a construction site with a yellow crane in it ..not my cup of tea homee.

I love photography. Truly. Some contemporary fine art images I like. Some I think are utter bull-crap and I don't care if they were taken with an 8x10 and you can see infinite detail. Some of my favorite pictures are fuzzy, grainy and dark. But they connect.

One of my favorite photographers of all times is Gordon Parks. Truly one of the most interesting individuals of the 20th century. I would love to own any of his prints. Unfortunately for me, my favorites are selling for $9K and up. Wish I could afford it.

Anyway good post man..

-Sherman

Great post, John. By the way, I've been meaning to tell you that your post back on July 9 has haunted me ever since, and not just because I've gone back to read it several times.

Great post, John.....
as a perpetual student of photography (quite different than a photography student) I too find this trend of "photography as personal statement" quite frustrating. It's nice to see someone of your caliber making a statement.

Gordon Parks is one of my all time favs as well. He was a real class act, and truly served the greater purpose of photography.

Thanks all...

Chantal, I'm not sure that I meant an attack on the personal statement precisely... I think I was aiming closer to photography as mirror, to borrow the Szarkowski system. My argument remains so full of holes that its almost laughable, and the people who I and others might direct most of our scorn towards are some too busy counting their money to care, so what does it matter.

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