notes from tuesdays class

Tuesdays Class
Review of Why People Photograph… an article by Robert Adams.
Adams believes there is no purpose to add text to art as it is a self-explanatory medium. He also talks about the straight forwardness of pictures and photography. In contrast to what Adams says, the class reached the conclusion that context can help enrich audience’s experience with art, especially if they are unfamiliar with the piece and the artist.
Adams tends to use sweeping generalizations and seems to speak a bit hypocritically judging from the fact that he is criticizing writing about art, through writing. In some ways he is claiming that text and writing cannot co-exist and if one is not successful alone, than there must be some sort of flaw in the original work. He says that work should be strong without the addition of writing or explanation.
He believes that photographs should have clarity and should not use text as a crutch. However it is more probable that, as Colby put it, “the visual rhetoric and the textual rhetoric add to the piece as a whole instead of taking away.” Lazy pictures depend purely on text to be successful is what Adams maybe arguing about more specifically rather than claiming that all photographs which include text should be considered lesser works or art.

Episode 6 documentary notes:
Variability of photography
Digital age brings about new types of photography and snapshots, however still maintains the “more than meets the eye” back idea.
Asks: What is a photograph really worth these days?
Staging behind photography, almost similar to a theatrical production
Gregory Crixon, brining cinematic materials to photography- Lots of labor intensive work for photographs.
Priced at 60,000. With a list of potential buyers – “Hollywood values” with photography
Crixon is looking for the “perfect photograph.”
Photography is a very different experience for modern photographers than it was for previous generations.
Robert adams (author of the article we read earlier in class)- lived on the line of poverty – photography was a different world then
Now collecting photography has become “a lot of fun… baby boomers are collecting photographs,” which is pushing price of photographs up at auctions- but how do you assess the worth of a photograph. Higher priced photographs are made by the photographer himself. “Vintage” means the print was produced closer to the time it was taken.
Aesthetics do not necessarily come into play
“trying to make photographs like works of art”
history matters (like what I mentioned about vintage above)
the market has changed photographers
photography has become both a commodity and a medium
in 1970- a photographer tried to get listing in NY times and they said photography “wasn’t art” however in 2000 photographs are going for millions!
81 billion photographs taken this year