i love that photo above, btw
― narcissistic late-20s liberal arts grad on ilx right now (sciolism), Friday, 28 August 2009 19:54 (fourteen years ago) link
Correct. BBC. xpost
― StanM, Friday, 28 August 2009 19:57 (fourteen years ago) link
woo yay, thank you for bittorrent.
photography classes are such a crapshoot, the separation between the competent snapshooters and the photography as an art crowd is so vast, you never know which you'll get.
the photo classes I've taken: the intro was basic to the point of idiocy, but it got me shooting. had another class with a great, knowledgeable, ambitious prof but we spent literally HALF THE CLASS doing HDR, which is miserable, tedious, and gimmicky and I burned out majorly and haven't done too much shooting since.
― narcissistic late-20s liberal arts grad on ilx right now (sciolism), Friday, 28 August 2009 19:59 (fourteen years ago) link
For theory/criticism, I 'll take Sonntag & the Barthes essay & for home viewing, I'll stick by my well-worn Eugene Smith & Diane Arbus editions. I've always meant to check out more 19th century criticism, Stieglitz & such, but I have not yet gotten around to it. For a kick, check out Baudelaire's essay condemning photography as degenerate art.
http://www.adorama.com/images/Product/BKP7.jpg
^^ The London & Upton Photography editions were the go to bibles for students back in the 90s. Too sad, they probably went the way of the darkroom, tho.
― Pullman/Paxton Revolving Bills (Pillbox), Friday, 28 August 2009 23:56 (fourteen years ago) link
lots of good stuff on that list; surprised there isn't a Szarkowski book on there?
also, would somebody please explain to me the appeal of Sebastiao Salgado?
― tony dayo (dyao), Saturday, 29 August 2009 04:30 (fourteen years ago) link
Szarkowski discovered Latirgue actually! His pics, I mean of course. I have put some of his books in my Amazon basket. Y'know at the end of the day I'm more of a Looker (as with music, where I'm a listener) and I especially adore the whole dissection of the art form. (My friend HATES HATES HATES photography btw, SPITS on it.) Anyway S seems to have lost some of his appeal apparently.
I've already read Sontag (half was classic, the other part was a bit lacklustre) and Barthes (my fave writer). I want to move on. I especially like the first period of photography: the looking for a direction is so interesting.
― Nathalie (stevienixed), Saturday, 29 August 2009 11:53 (fourteen years ago) link
yeah Latirgue is fabulous - I wonder if Szarkowski has written anything on depth on him. I just finished his essay on Winogrand in his Winogrand retrospective, and his book on Atget is great too. Looking at Photographs is a great introduction to photography for anyone. I've been hunting down a copy of The Photographer's Eye but it always seems to be borrowed.
you're OTM about the dissection of the art form - if anything, it just makes you want to punch whoever says photography isn't art.
― tony dayo (dyao), Sunday, 30 August 2009 02:22 (fourteen years ago) link
Yes, this is why I should stop talking/defending photography to my friend. Every single fucking time she starts shitting on photography. I have told her again how passionate I am when it comes to photography. I want to show her "people about to be shot" and scream at her: "TELL ME, DOES THIS NOT TOUCH YOU? If not, then you can fuck right off" But y'know whatevs, she can hate whatever she wants. :-)
― Nathalie (stevienixed), Tuesday, 1 September 2009 11:58 (fourteen years ago) link
Books I really like not listed or mentioned:Photography's Antiquarian Avant-Garde (alt-process photographers)Andre Kertesz: The Early Years (tiny book, about 5x5, of his earliest photographs contact printed)all of Robert Frank's monographs, esp The Americans obvEugene Richards - all of his monographs, esp Americans We. The Fat Baby is enormous and amazing, but I'm not sure its still in print (and cost $100 to start with)
I've read Berger/Szarkowski/Adams, but I got more out of reading about art history in general than photography in particular. My first and best professor was making installations and incorporating photographs, so a lot of the intro and intermediate classes I took were split between 20th century greats and modern art history and practice.
― ice cr?m paint job (milo z), Wednesday, 2 September 2009 05:12 (fourteen years ago) link
also, would somebody please explain to me the appeal of Sebastiao Salgado?― tony dayo (dyao), Friday, August 28, 2009 11:30 PM (2 years ago) Bookmark
― tony dayo (dyao), Friday, August 28, 2009 11:30 PM (2 years ago) Bookmark
i only just heard of him the other day (he came up when some ppl were discussing gibson's developing technique...they both are really into tri-x and rodinal apparently). the stuff of his i've seen online seems very....sentimental? also, p much every photo i looked at basically yelled "I HAVE BEEN THOUGHTFULLY COMPOSED DO YOU SEE?" not sure i have the vocabulary for it, but there's something very obvious about his images. i like quite a few of them, but boy if he doesn't just come on strong as hell. which, i'm guessing, is the appeal: you don't have to be ~into~ photography to look at one of his images and say "hmm yeah something is going on there, i can appreciate that someone thought about this" like, his photos are what i would imagine my non-photographer friends would imagine in their heads if you told them to think of "good photography": old wrinkly hands holding things, moody landscapes, noble poverty, etc.
i think both kodak and leica have used him as a spokesperson, which kinda sums everything up right there
― (♯`∧´) (gbx), Monday, 26 September 2011 14:29 (twelve years ago) link
Of late, I've been getting Selgado shoved in my face because I'm still on the DxO Labs mailing list and he's now a spokesperson for their Tri-X film pack plugin. Which I guess is a bit like being a life-long proponent/active user of vacuum tube pre-amps and outboard gear who then becomes the figurehead for a ProTools plugin which simulates valve warmth. A bit odd.
― Michael Jones, Monday, 26 September 2011 14:40 (twelve years ago) link
yeah there's a part of sontag's on photography where she talks about how all photography beautifies, even when the subject matter is horrible or gut-wrenching. with selgado, and in a similar fashion nachtwey, there is so much cooking going on in the post-processing and printing process that it's all a bit much. they are doing God's work obviously and raising these issues to a much wider audience than pretty much any other photographer working out there but there's something about the intentional beautification of tragedy that puts me off.
― dayo, Monday, 26 September 2011 14:42 (twelve years ago) link
the intentional beautification of tragedy
yeah, this. sometimes his subjects seem almost secondary to the formal considerations (and boy are there a lot of them), which, given his whole schtick, is a little ironic. also his work seems completely, utterly, leadenly humorless. makes sense, obv, but i like a bit of a smirk every now and then
― (♯`∧´) (gbx), Monday, 26 September 2011 15:16 (twelve years ago) link