Preface: This article was written and re-written by me several times since the mid nineteen-nineties. It was sometime in 1993 on vacation in South Florida when I met with an architect. My family told me of his deep interest and devotion to photography, and so I went to see him to show him my fine art photography.
It was not a warm meeting and it was followed by a ridiculing letter about my work from him. It stated how true art photography was the photography by Strand and Steiglitz (not sure if Adams, Weston and other were mentioned). Their work was ’straight’, and I guess mine was crooked. I can’t remember this persons name, but obviously he had a very limited or narrow minded view of traditional photography and this was my response to him……………………………………………………….
In August of 1997 I published a book of twenty seven creative photographs with complimentary stories titled “Illusions of Martha’s Vineyard.” It was truly an act of love, taking nine long years to complete and compile into one volume. Bound cover to cover, the completed work became an artistic product, reflecting my own trademark style of photographic skills.
With product in hand, my next great challenge was marketing. Marketing photography is particularly difficult, due in part to how the art of photography is perceived and defined. A strong market exists for celebrity photographs, historical “antique” photographs, and photographs created by pioneers in the field, and little else. The market for photographic art is, and has been for years, quite soft. It is easy to understand how this evolved.
For decades after its advent, photography remained a curiosity with many practical encumbrances. By the turn of the century, advances of the Industrial Revolution in physics, chemistry, electronics, mathematics, removed many encumbrances or “handicaps” in the photographic process. This contributed to a new movement called “straight” photography. As the name implies, the movement believed in the role of straightforward un-manipulated photographs. Now just about anything was a suitable subject. Within these subjects, however subtle or blatantly obvious, would lurk photographers’ private meanings or “equivalents” of feelings. And the way of looking at a subject, its interpretation, is what they believe is the true nature of photographic art. This view, most notably American, has been a long-running assumption ever since, and has not yet run it course.
As a result of this evolution, there’s simply too much “straight” photography. The hegemony under the banner of “straight” photography is burying the world in a broad catalogue of reproductions, while allowing a narrow view of creativity. It is stifling the growth of photography by limiting its potential as an art form.
Bastions of this view are institutions such as: “The International Center for Photography” and “Aperture,” the not-for-profit organization promoting fine art photography. These organizations suggest they represent, respectively, the international and universal view of what is photographic art, while in reality promoting the limited view of “straight” photographic art.
Imagine underlings and fans of Rembrandt dictating Realism as only acceptable serious artistic style, forever. Limiting views hold back artistic growth. Fortunately the Impressionist, Cubists, and Pointillists were able to popularize their artistic styles. Their talents, today, are considered creative, artistic, and beautiful. Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “It is true that the discerning intellect of the world is always much in advance of the creative, so that always there are many competent judges of the best book, and few writers of the best books.” Perhaps the same is true for the multitude of judges of photographic art. They have no hallowing presence, but an exaggerated faculty.
Fact is few people can write a novel, and few with paint, brush and canvas can paint the human form. But under the banner of “straight” photography anyone can produce what can be considered a work of art (as these things are viewed subjectively). Adding confusion today is automated technology, which has diminished the average person’s general understanding of the creative intricacies of traditional photographic art.
The method of “straight” photography can be viewed as reproducing reality with a camera; something illuminated by light, ready to be exposed. Photographs with shock value and documentaries, often stoic and staged, are popular subjects, as are pictures of and by celebrities. Other themes are regional scenic and abstract images (old bikes against chipped paint walls), duplicated and copied around the world and popular only by familiarity and transparent beauty. With anthropocentric mind, these “straight” photographs are often translated by words to be inspirational, expressive of emotion, and revealing true knowledge, by explaining light, shape, or the timing being just so. They are inclusively illusions from the warehouse of individual consciousness, evolving out of the mind, having no self nature. However intellectual and impressive they may sound, most interpretations are at best inventive and arbitrary, and simply provide a subjective validation. With a few exceptions, however clever the critical spin, most “straight” photographs are not that engaging, and their interpretation rarely translates them into a meaningful, imaginative or uniquely creative work of art. Joseph Joubert said, “The ordinary true, or purely real, cannot be the object of the arts. Illusion on a ground of truth that is the secret of fine arts.”
My “Illusions Of Martha’s Vineyard” are not “straight” photographs, but more like flights of fancy based on a ground of truth. Martha’s Vineyard provides the ground. Victor Hugo once said, “Nature, like a kind and smiling mother, lends herself to our dreams and cherishes our fancies. And Ann, the quintessential model can best be described; “A true work of art is but a shadow of divine perfection,” Michelangelo. Ann represents the human form; the physical analogous of a woman to create the imaginative consciousness of beauty, and symbol of health. Creatively combining human form with harmonious settings of Martha’s Vineyard in enchanting scenes of shapes, colors, textures, aesthetically choreographed with balance, perspective and proportion is the “illusion.”
The hegemony of “straight” photography finds fault with my aesthetic choreography. It is manipulative. They scorn that “left” brain and loathe the technical aspect of photography. “Straight” photography can only be defined as strictly ego driven, with the assumption in their view that interpretation, private meanings, or equivalents, satisfy all photographic possibilities. I feel strongly it does not. Imagine painters minimizing the importance of canvas fabric, brush construction and size, the mixing of paints, application of varnishes, and use of technique. Are fine art photographs only made by exposure and interpretation?
Examine the wonderful photograph of a ‘decisive moment’ such as “Place de l’Europe” by Henri Cartier-Bresson. I think the blurred movement of the man jumping over a puddle is the engaging quality of this artful image. Was this the result of an overcast day and low sensitivity film, or a photographer lowering the shutter speed to create the blurred movement, i.e., was it luck, or a brilliant deduction and intelligent adjustment based on the science of photography for a creative effect?
I do not have the answer. I do know adjusting the shutter is one of many mechanical/scientific facets of photography. However minimal this “manipulation” may be, it is still one of many technical aspects that make photography what it is. Since its birth, traditional photography has grown through physics, mathematics, chemistry, and electronics. This has resulted in a corresponding growth of creative possibilities, some not yet imagined, that can not be dismissed. Again, photography is a product of the Industrial Revolution, and its science is part of what makes photography a unique art form. Yet many disdain this aspect of photography. Can it be that incomplete knowledge clings to narrow views? Some have an intellect not inclined grasp this aspect of photography, and a few are simply too lazy to apply themselves.
Irrespective of interpretations, I can’t dismiss the creative process of exploring and experimenting with photography, and (by definition) painting (vignettes) with light. “Science discovers; art creates,” John Opie. Scientific discoveries are always part of the creative process in making photographic art. Each piece of film is a blank canvas. The photographic artist can paint it with light, using however many or few scientific variables as necessary to complete the process. This diminishes the full weight of a subjective judgment or evaluation to validate artistic value, and expands its full creative potential and interest derived from effort, perseverance, and knowledge of the medium. Not only is it essential and part of the process, I consider it the joy of photography. Exploring with photographic “painting” techniques to express an idea, visualize a fantasy, or otherwise create photographic art is an important form of its artistic expression.
Today, the growing domination of the digital electronic age, makes it especially important to embrace all artistic forms of pure photography. New methods are eliminating the need of traditional photography for commercial purposes and the amateur hobbyists. What may, or then again, may not be more troublesome for the hegemony for “straight” photography, is the completely obscuring effect that new imaging devices, with dynamic duality, will have on this method of photographic art. Soon, any frame from any digitally captured video can become “straight” photographic art. It will be interesting to see how these moments among infinite moments will be interpreted to have their private meanings or equivalents. What should all these new digitally manipulated, computer generated images be called?
There are many “straight” photographers I admire; Strand, Capa, and Adams are among them. My views are not directed to minimize their great talent. I understand the artistic value of “straight pure” photography, and have my own creative examples of this photographic method. What is of concern me is this prevailing notion, dominant for nearly 100 years, that this is all there is. There is an equal place for all forms of creative photographic expression. I hope someday soon all organizations who purport to represent and love photography will grow to embrace all its artistic possibilities.
Article by James Schot pre 2000, Photographer/Author of the book “ILLUSIONS OF MARTHA’S VINEYARD,” now part of the photographic art library collection of the VICTORIA & ALBERT MUSEUM in London. You can contact JAMES SCHOT at 2800 N. Federal Highway, Ft. Lauderdale, FL. 33306 + 954-564-1112 + james@bestschot.com