Comments on: Has beauty become a dirty word?

By: Carl Dahlke

Carl Dahlke — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 03:25:09 +0000

Hmm – I think that one of the reasons people talk about the quality of the print rather than the quality of the image is that people don’t know how to talk about the content of an image.

I”ve been practicing for over 10 years and I still find it harder to talk about content than about image quality. Talking about technique is ultimately an EASY and SAFE thing to do. Talking about what your work means or what other people’s work means to you isn’t so easy. There aren’t any standards for meaning, so you are really more on your own when you venture out of the “it’s a beautiful print” realm and into the content of the images. And making that step can actually be SCAREY – you are in some sense putting yourself much more on the line when you stop talking about technique and start talking about content.

I think that talking about the qualities of the image gives people something to talk about when the images don’t have much content. To me the classic case is travel photography where shooters just document that they were there. If a person takes a picture just to “get the shot” then the images tend not to really have content – so what else is there to talk about other then image quality?

Should you say anything if the picture you are seeing doesn’t speak to you beyond the quality of it’s surface?

By: Lauren Henkin

Lauren Henkin — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 01:15:08 +0000

The danger I see is that often, people aren’t able to comment on the content of an image that has been printed superbly. I’ve seen this happen over and over again. It’s like people are suspicious of the beautiful print, they lose focus on the image itself and just focus on the printing. I’m in no way saying that you can’t do great work if the prints aren’t perfect. I’m saying that greatly printed images should also be appreciated for content, and when I hear comments like “that’s a beautiful print” instead of “that’s a beautiful image” I wonder why it is that they won’t get past the print. Thanks Carl for the great comment!

By: Carl Dahlke

Carl Dahlke — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 02:46:12 +0000

Being a great printer is only a problem if the print quality becomes the content of the artwork. But if your art has content, then the great print opens the content up to the view.

What do you see the danger? That people will see a beautiful print and just not see the photograph BECAUSE the print is beautiful?

I think you can do great work in photographic modes that don’t require the beautiful print (Tempelton’s Deformer book or Joseph Mills work immediately comes to mind), but you have to have some vision driving you away from creating a beautiful object.

The key word here is vision. Purely conceptually driven photography can just be sterile as purely technique driven photography. A lot of conceptually driven photography (especially that based on a snapshot aesthetic) has all the aesthetic impact of an illustration in a packaging and shipping products catalog. (Nikki Lee’s work immediately comes to mind here). The work may be an exploration of an idea but a concept isn’t art per se.

Artists with ideas and no vision can be just as vapid as artists with technique and no vision. And I think there is alway some idea that is realized in the work of artist’s with vision. When you have ideas and vision both then one idea can unfold in a thousand manifestations. Ansel Adams work is, I think, a long unfolding and refinement of one basic idea.