Gursky’s 99 Cent II- almost 2.5 million at auction last November.

Michael Murphy had a comment on one of my previous posts that struck a chord with me. I’m not usually one to see much use in labeling and pigeonholing, but I believe the discrepancy between photographers and artists using photography is one that in a practical sense exists and is worth considering. Photography dealer Alex Novak specifically mentioned this distinction (without necessarily endorsing it) in a May interview with Photo District News as a justification for the high price of Gursky’s work:

Gursky and other people of his ilk don’t consider themselves photographers. The consider themselves artists. This is some of the price differential that you’re seeing.

Interestingly, when pushed to explain, Novak can’t offer much:

It’s a strange dichotomy, and somewhat artificial.

Gursky is someone I personally see as first and foremost a photographer- his work, while “conceptual,” is very much about photography (Michael hits it on the head with his designation of Gursky as a “crossover”). Compare that to people like Krueger, Boltansky, Sherry Levine or Carrie Mae Weems who are truly using photography as simply a means to an end. I remember the somewhat disjointed experience of seeing a print by Alec Soth (another crossover) across the room from a photographic piece by Mike Kelly at the Gagosian Gallery last summer. Lot’s of superficial connections (both contained beards and pubic hair), but world’s apart in their effect (I looked extensively for a reproduction of the Mike Kelley piece to include, but came up empty-handed).

So what makes the difference, and why do these distinctions even matter?

What is a conceptual artist? In my mind it is an artist using whatever medium(s) to raise larger questions about the medium itself, art in general, society, etc. Conceptual art is art that makes me think, not just respond. It pushes boundaries and makes us consider things in a new light. Anyone have a better definition?

Then how about the difference between conceptual photographers and conceptual artists using photography? Again, I would love to hear anyone else’s thoughts, but to me a conceptual photographer is making work about photography itself and/or showing a general concern for/fascination with the technical (craft) properties of the photograph.

Whenever I make up boundaries like this, I always find myself immediately looking for examples of work that blur those boundaries. I know they’re out there, but I really can’t think of any. The Starn Twins? Vik Muniz? Uta Barth? Their work is all still pretty immersed in photography. Maybe there’s room for exploration here.

So, is it that there are a much smaller number of photographers doing conceptual, or is it that it’s harder to get recognition for that work? Am I just looking in completely the wrong places? I’ve been around academia long enough to feel there’s no shortage of people doing conceptual work. If it’s harder to get recognition (one commonly held quality of conceptual that I have a major beef with is that it has to consciously deny any aesthetic considerations- maybe this plays in?), is the same true of painting and sculpture and other media, or is it a special prejudice against photography?

After sitting on the fence for three weeks about it, I finally submitted an entry for Critical Mass. Paying up to $250 for the chance to simply have a group of influential people browse your work in digital form seemed a bit excessive, but I guess it’s one more chance to get the work out there.

Andy Adams has honored me by showcasing another image of mine on Flak Photo. Have a look. Thanks Andy, it look great! A previous post about Flak Photo can be found here.

Soth has already plugged this book on his blog, but as one of the people interviewed for the book, he obviously doesn’t have an objective perspective. I thought I’d add my own plug as someone who most definitely was not interviewed for the book.

The book delves into the working methods of a wide range of photographers and curators, as well as suggestions for finding your own success. The questions asked by Jaeger are direct and provide great insight. Among other things, I was astounded to learn that Soth used only one or two sheets of film per shot for Sleeping by the Mississippi. Imagine getting some of those portraits in just one or two shots!

Check it out if you get a chance!

I wrote a post several months ago about my endeavors to send packets unsolicited out to galleries, and promised to write updates about my progress. I thought now would be a good time for an update.

Ok, well, actually, there is no update. I have so far had one response- after reviewing my work once, the Museum of Contemporary Photography contacted me wanting to see actual prints, which I took to be a very good thing. However, I am still waiting to hear back. Other than that I have yet to hear anything.

Being in an optimistic mood right now, I am going to take these two months of silence to mean that many of the institutions I sent work to looked at it with interest and are now sitting on it to figure out if they have a place for it… I’m sure we can all imagine alternative, less positive explanations for the silence.

On a brighter note, I am quite happy to see the recent boost in traffic and comments to my blog. It’s nice to know you’re out there, and even better to be hearing from you!

Color Printing in Photoshop- The Great Equalizer??

I’m hoping in the next week to undertake the making of my first serious color darkroom prints in probably 8 years. As a color photographer, I’m trained in the digital darkroom. I know all about color management and color correction in Photoshop, but when it comes to chemical based color printing, I have precious little experience.

So why would I want to partake of such an archaic and seemingly more and more irrelevant experience? I’m convinced there’e still something in the smell of that delightfully toxic chemistry that, while it can be mimicked in the computer, can not be found there initially.

As photographers working with color in Photoshop, we are taught a very simple formula for color correction: neutralize the highlights and shadows in levels, then the midtones in curves. The power of these two tools is immense- well beyond the tools of the traditional color darkroom (unlike black and white, where I remained convinced that almost everything you can do in Photoshop has a chemical-based counterpart- albiet an often times very cumbersome one). However, in using this formula (especially for white point neutralization), we are reducing all lighting scenarios to a single state (that of gray), and the beautiful way that color film (especially color negative film) sees the world gets lost. Suddenly, a photograph taken during the golden light at the end of the day becomes almost equivalent to one taken in the middle of the day. As a result, the atmosphere of the original photograph all but disappears.

The same is true for contrast control- I know I have a tendency, as I think many photographers do, to crank up the contrast in the digital darkroom much more than would be possible in the traditional darkroom. As a result, some of that beautifully sublte tonal range associated with C-41 film is lost. Not every image requires a true white or a true black, but with the empty portions of the histograms in such images crying out to me, I have a tendency to overcompensate and give them one anyway. I have no doubt that anything done in the traditional color darkroom can be almost perfectly mimicked in Photoshop, but you first have to have a pretty good sense of what it is you are mimicking…

Despite the fact that I am first and foremost a digital photographer (at least as far as darkroom work is concerned), I find I have a notable prejudice against the look of digital. I can look at a print and almost always tell if it was made with a film or digital camera. I can also tell which photographers were trained in the traditional darkroom (even if their final prints are now made by lasers or droplets of ink). In almost every case, I like the “look” of traditional photography over digital. Is that just my own inability to accept the new language of digital and the new beauty inherent in it, or is there something still superior to the traditional silver based way of rendering the world?

And so, as I begin trying to finalize prints for my most recent project, I find myself doing something I’ve been meaning to do for years- return to the traditional color darkroom to try to answer the question- have I been missing something for all these years in my printing? I will of course post the results of my experiments…