Photography thread

[costanza]

pretty much all photography is gimmick/schtick tbh, its only meaningful/ culturally relevant form at this point is the teen selfie.

That's a provocative statement, care to elaborate?

[bels]

Photography never managed to establish an aesthetic standard before it was swarmed by adverts, photojournalism, holiday pics etc. Most 'art photos' are:

Visual punchline - Something with some kind of thematic contradiction or bait and switch
Uncommon sight - This is mostly just photojournalism and only of interest because it's a photo. (a photograph of god would be amazing, a drawing of god is pointless)
Appeal to authenticity - black and white or at this point medium/large format film photography or even just digital that's been edited to look as such. Looks 'good' because it appeals to baked in value systems of old (read expensive) things having superior aesthetics. Would have no appeal if it was taken with a bad camera (unless that camera was wielded by someone with enough social capital that they could claim the bad camera had some level of authenticity that was important). Basically audiophile art (it's just so much warmer looking/sounding)

[Minkhoi]

took some pics in Barcelona (smiling)

Spoiler:

[oucho]

has anyone here heard of karl martin holzhäuser? I came across him ages ago on the internet on a blog that doesn't exist anymore http://www.souslesetoilesgallery.net/ar ... w=slider#4

[kremvax]

i just got some film back today and am really excited about the photos that came out!! i've included some pictures from the winter here too. the olympus stylus epic i got from a thrift shop broke and i replaced it with another but i wish i got a xa or xa2 instead sometimes. it is just a lot of pictures of myself and friends

[kickingthefly]

i have to agree with fellow teen above who asks bela what an aesthetic standard even is. and i actually think photography did have its moment, kind of based around barthes' camera lucida, all photographs being about death etc. unfortunately it just crystallised around that, nobody took the form forward- even today when i talk to 'big' photographers they just go on about the same shit, and look blank when i point out they're relying on idees recus that dont even make sense any more (for example the 'documentary' power that barthes talks about has gone entirely and now resides in new technological forms, like facebook live).
its not even like im entirely against the nostalgic aspect of loving kodak film when used by a good artist (tacita dean for example)
but at this point as ive said photography seems almost 100% correlated with a global leisured class of people who can afford a good camera and the time/money to find picturesque locations, look at all these laughable 'taste' signifiers (the new 'laughing indian slum children' is fucking brushed concrete staircases, brutalist buildings, non-lieux etc.).

[bels]

The aesthetic standards were defined by the tastes rich people who commissioned art/were patrons/owned museums/were collectors. Photography from the very start lacked of any kind of structure to dwell within/rebel against except for 'being accepted by the establishment' which they managed to do once colour film was invented (meant you could take black and white photos and they would be considered art)

[INNIT]

The aesthetic standards were defined by the tastes rich people who commissioned art/were patrons/owned museums/were collectors. Photography from the very start lacked of any kind of structure to dwell within/rebel against except for 'being accepted by the establishment' which they managed to do once colour film was invented (meant you could take black and white photos and they would be considered art)

but most emerging cultural forms started off without any "structure" or were actually indicative of "low taste" (ie they were not supported by the patronage of rich people). if you're going to make these claims about photography you also have to do the same with theater, novels, film, etc.

[bels]

Think I'm just arguing for the sake of it now, but surely novels were pretty elitist for a good amount of time (most people were illiterate etc), same with film (very difficult to get hold of video equipment for cheap until quite recently)

Theatre probably the odd one out. But maybe I can try and formulate an argument to take down the medium of theatre if I'm already trying to take down photography.

[INNIT]

well, novels developed simultaneously with capitalism and the printing press in the 19th century; they were very much a "popular" genre contrasted with poetry and, at this point, theater. 18th century novels were like, a different beast, and vary drastically across continental Europe in terms of acceptability (many 18th century works read like weird pomo novels without the chapters and were published anonymously).

but anyways, what we think of as aesthetic standards, at least the way you describe them, are usually applied retroactively by some sort of bourgeoisie class rather than being emergent with the form itself. we might say modernism rebelled against 19 century realism but it's not really until the "modern period" that the latter works are being valorized in the first place. that's the point that i was trying to make. i think that most emergent forms start off rather rhizomatic and that it takes time for elite classes to retrospectively decide "what's good," codify/striate things, etc. this process obviously speeds up in the ages of mechanical and digital reproduction.

(this is my weird defence of photography, a medium that i know nothing about)

[oucho]

I think the more pressing topic is how can we (care-tags) wrest power from the elites and finally couple our bourgeois userbase with true aesthetic influence.

[bels]

well, novels developed simultaneously with capitalism and the printing press in the 19th century; they were very much a "popular" genre contrasted with poetry and, at this point, theater. 18th century novels were like, a different beast, and vary drastically across continental Europe in terms of acceptability (many 18th century works read like weird pomo novels without the chapters and were published anonymously).

but anyways, what we think of as aesthetic standards, at least the way you describe them, are usually applied retroactively by some sort of bourgeoisie class rather than being emergent with the form itself. we might say modernism rebelled against 19 century realism but it's not really until the "modern period" that the latter works are being valorized in the first place. that's the point that i was trying to make. i think that most emergent forms start off rather rhizomatic and that it takes time for elite classes to retrospectively decide "what's great," codify/striate things, etc. this process obviously speeds up in the ages of mechanical and digital reproduction.

(this is my weird defence of photography, a medium that i know nothing about)

I like this, it's very good but I think it essentially agrees with my point. There has never been enough time for any elite to stratify photography and now there probably never will be. There's too many photographs for a start.

[INNIT]

i guess that (and i'll let this return to being a thread about pictures after, i promise!) i'm suspect of how much power we willingly forfeit to "elites" when we say that a medium is shit because the sovereign, the bourgeois, the 1%, w/e, haven't spent money to territorialize it, or no longer have that opportunity because the form is too dynamic. the development of photography (again, a medium that i know nothing about) is also coextensive with the development of digital technology, and in the digital age emerging forms are bound to be rhizomatic, and i'm not sure if this is a bad thing. a little structure is always good, mind you, but too much and we end up with 19th century realist novels.

[radicalbusiness]

Shot [my first!] roll of expired color film on my Olympus XA while I was living in Nepal this winter - love how it turned out, except my finger kept slipping into the shot argghh






few more

Spoiler:

[tweefwend]

picked up a Fuji x100s for a good price today

Spoiler:

took it out downtown, here's some of my favorites:









its wayyy more fun shooting street style stuff with a small camera. The x100's leaf shutter is silent, making it so much easier to work with. Excited to shoot more with it. I've also been really into 6 x 7 crops recently

[ellascottgm]

Oh! This camera was a good purchase. So beautìul

[106-2]

some stuff from Berlin a couple months back. really been in a rut with my photography but fairly happy with these

Spoiler:

[soko]

Don’t know anything about photography in any meaningful way, but Interested in seeing if/when photography takes on the purposefully poorly-composed-all-things-in-life-given-equal-weight approach of autofiction in literature a la Shiela Heti or Karl Ove. What’s the photography equivalent of a bad prose stylist? If someone could link me?

*edit:

Interested in any kind of photography that doesn’t really do anything, anti-nostalgia, anti-romantic images.

[swampblood]

Film from the past couple months, I picked up a used Olympus Trip 35mm that I've been having a ton of fun with.

[kickingthefly]

Don’t know anything about photography in any meaningful way, but Interested in seeing if/when photography takes on the purposefully poorly-composed-all-things-in-life-given-equal-weight approach of autofiction in literature a la Shiela Heti or Karl Ove. What’s the photography equivalent of a bad prose stylist? If someone could link me?

*edit:

Interested in any kind of photography that doesn’t really do anything, anti-nostalgia, anti-romantic images.

i dont know anything about photography either and kind of hate it in its current manifestations but wasn't a lot of tillmans' early 2000s stuff like this.

[kickingthefly]

[bleeker]

some touristy dips from Copenhagen

[surfdude69]

This was from about a year ago in my last uni project where I was asked to choose a stop on the Merseyrail train map and make something based on it. I ended up choosing a town on the coast, Bootle, and documenting the last gasps of its drying up industry since the docklands are seeing less and less work available and other areas of Liverpool experience serious gentrification. Bootle currently has one of the highest rates of unemployment in the UK. I made three books from the photos I took, and were printed and bound in a printers based in Bootle.

[swampblood]

Some polaroids from a day trip to Baltimore.

[zevolution]

Been doing some scanning lately which is photography of a sort, I think

[zevolution]

CMYK wants to know:

Really digging that last one. Where's it from?

It's a ticket stub from the MPA (Maine Principal's association) State Championship - Indoor Track. Not sure how it wound up with me, tho

[Sam]

some pics from a new project im working on atm - guess the theme

[Sam]

had a go at fashion photography on the weekend, quite pleased with the results

Spoiler:

[Benson]

Photography never managed to establish an aesthetic standard before it was swarmed by adverts, photojournalism, holiday pics etc. Most 'art photos' are:

Visual punchline - Something with some kind of thematic contradiction or bait and switch
Uncommon sight - This is mostly just photojournalism and only of interest because it's a photo. (a photograph of god would be amazing, a drawing of god is pointless)
Appeal to authenticity - black and white or at this point medium/large format film photography or even just digital that's been edited to look as such. Looks 'good' because it appeals to baked in value systems of old (read expensive) things having superior aesthetics. Would have no appeal if it was taken with a bad camera (unless that camera was wielded by someone with enough social capital that they could claim the bad camera had some level of authenticity that was important). Basically audiophile art (it's just so much warmer looking/sounding)

Late to the game here but I find this discussion super interesting and have wanted to contribute. A lot of the points mentioned here are what turned me off photography for a while (especially the other post about using photography as a class signifier).

The point about appeal to authenticity - v true especially thinking of how the new trend is to use medium format cameras. I'm going to barf if I see one more medium format image of a 1950s car and a beatup bungalow or neon sign. I feel like this whole nostalgia fetishization is a gateway to the NIMBYism seen in a lot of cities, but I digress.

To me, photography is relevant when it creates sequences or series. A picture of clouds can be boring in its own right, but photos can contribute to an interesting series. Even if the series is attempting to document something, it can end up being unique because it's always from the perspective of the artist and there is a narrative at play. Photography has that advantage over painting, where you're more hesitant to really experiment and it's time consuming to create a story.

I know someone mentioned the teen selfie as being relevant but I'd go even further than that. You have things like the superzoomed photos and motifs that are becoming common all of a sudden (bathroom tiles, pictures with fences, light in blinds, vanity license plates?) and that's mostly because of photography, and more specifically photography with phones. Photography plays a huge role in creating images that influence culture, for better or for worse.

I will say though that there is somewhat of an aesthetic standard for photography and I think a lot of that comes through some of the great photos on this thread. There is some truth to film looking superior to digital in the same way that I'd say oil paintings almost always look better than digital paintings.

Anyway y'all are doing some great stuff and it's inspired me to go out and shoot more. In the meantime here's a picture from my Nishika.

[tweefwend]

1500 mile Spring break road/camping trip: Lancaster -> Death Valley -> Yosemite -> Fresno

here are some of my favorites from the trip, feedback is welcome : )

Spoiler:

other shots I also liked