Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site peora.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!bonnie!akgua!whuxlm!whuxl!houxm!vax135!petsd!peora!jer From: jer@peora.UUCP (J. Eric Roskos) Newsgroups: net.rec.photo Subject: Re: Art vs. Technique Message-ID: <1496@peora.UUCP> Date: Sun, 18-Aug-85 00:46:28 EDT Article-I.D.: peora.1496 Posted: Sun Aug 18 00:46:28 1985 Date-Received: Tue, 20-Aug-85 06:14:21 EDT References: <54600009@trsvax> <4088@alice.UUCP> <1418@peora.UUCP> <286@harvard.ARPA> <1471@peora.UUCP> <282@cxsea.UUCP> Organization: Perkin-Elmer SDC, Orlando, Fl. Lines: 65 > That's all well and good, if you're into Realism. But isn't it time for > photography (especially color) to explore other things, like impressionism? Certainly... though nowadays Realism doesn't get too much support, hence my comments on it. (Except that recently there have been some really out- standing examples of that genre in the popular magazines; even a photograph called "Homage to Edward Hopper"!) As for exploring impressionism... well, wouldn't that be sort of a step backward? I mean, Group f/64's formation back in 1932 was a reaction to attempts to make photography emulate genres analogous to impressionism (well, it was (is) called "pictorialism" in photography). Nowadays, we can do it all over again, due to all the photographs out there whose whole reason-for- being is to "explore" or make some "statement" on the nature of Color. There was a really amusing commentary on that in a recent issue of _American_ Photographer_, which I encrypted into my signature line awhile back: If any general statement about photography could be discerned from this exhibition, it was that the Cibachrome print has become the photographic medium most acceptable to art curators. Of course, it is Cibachrome's specific, unlovely quality that makes it absolutely right to those for whom art need not please the eye or in any other way seduce the senses. * * * At least one of the Whitney photographers seemed to have decided that Cibachrome by itself was the pure stuff of art. Like the work of certain painters in the late abstract expressionist period,presents color for its emotional effect alone, without imparting any intellectual spin to give the emotion a meaning. Alas, that is also what interior decorators do, but nobody displays their work at the Whitney. (From Owen Edwards's "Photo Disdain Lives," Am. Phot. 15(1).) > Unto each, his own. Certainly! I am not attempting to suppress anybody else's view of what their photography should be; only to try to discourage the commercial-art attitude so popular nowadays. (Why, in fact, I spent most of the day today making 3 Cibachrome prints, for that matter! Though that was mostly to retouch them... who ever heard of a terrier dog with bright blue eyes?) Ultimately, I sometimes feel that many photographs exist, not to say or be anything themselves, but to make some unrelated statement about the photographer. I don't think this is a good thing. At the same time, there's something else, too; something having to do with my own personal feelings about prints-from-transparencies, photographs which have their basis in strong colors, etc. This all has to do with a lack of moderation. I think one of the appeals of Cibachrome print material (in particular) is that it is so easy to use... there is something absolute and extreme about them. This is also true for strong color. It is harder to use print materials that require very exacting color balancing and exposure, and harder to photograph "natural" colors. Yet they tend to be more pleasing because of this, in my opinion, because there is something pleasing about precision, a sort of optimality rather than absolute maximization. But that's just my opinion... -- Shyy-Anzr: J. Eric Roskos UUCP: ..!{decvax,ucbvax,ihnp4}!vax135!petsd!peora!jer US Mail: MS 795; Perkin-Elmer SDC; 2486 Sand Lake Road, Orlando, FL 32809-7642 "Gurl ubyq gur fxl/Ba gur bgure fvqr/Bs obeqreyvarf..."