The Machinist

[DanK]

Ansel Adams was a pictorialist early in his career.

Weston was as well.

With the advent of cheap pocket cameras and later smart phones with images posted on the internet, photographic images became ubiquitous. The camera doesn't matter, but rather it is all about creating images that are emotionless and candid observations of the world, generally with very muted, flat lighting.

The second sentence seems like a nonsequitur. Why does the advent of postings on the internet require that serious photography be emotionless and have flat lighting?

I think our community has a wide variety of approaches to photography, which is a real strength. That helps push us to think outside our usual box, and this thread has gotten me thinking. My approach is very different from yours. While I do get a great deal of satisfaction from getting prints into an exhibit, a gallery, or (only once) a museum, I am only interested in making images that give me satisfaction, and when the fashions are not consistent with that, I'll just forgo the chance.

An example I've used before is Douglas Stinson's Urinals, which he used in a 2019 article in the PSA Journal as an example of the sort of work that fine art photographers do in the current fashion but club photographers don't do. It's an out of focus black and white shot of a row of urinals, which he described as "playing with repetition, light and shadow." He was criticizing club photographers for not producing images like that. If that's the accusation, I plead guilty. If I somehow accidentally produced something like that, I would delete it in my first culling in Lightroom. It's boring and ugly, IMHO. I don't care that it's in fashion. It would give me no satisfaction to produce something like that, regardless of how it's received.

I went through this last year when I was pitching my prints to galleries. One person--a photographer himself and a framer--like what I showed him but said that it wouldn't fit in his store, which focused more on reproductions than signed originals. He recommended two nearby galleries. The owner of one of them never responded to me. The other one I didn't even approach. I looked at some of what she stocks, and it's mostly in the "fine art" realm. I figured that the chances were near zero that she would be interested in highly realistic work like mine. I didn't try to produce what she would more likely want. I just went elsewhere.

Don't get me wrong: I'm not likening the images in this thread to his. My point is that I wouldn't make images of people with expressions of that sort this woman shows unless I found the results personally satisfying. That will take me out of the running for some exhibitions, etc.

[Manfred M]

The second sentence seems like a nonsequitur. Why does the advent of postings on the internet require that serious photography be emotionless and have flat lighting?

I agree Dan and this is like many other views that can be described as a trend or fashion; the intellectuals, academics, curatorial community, art schools, etc. have made that call. We live in a world of "influencers" and people listen to them, even though their views are little more than opinion.

The other problem I have with that community is the "group think". As an example, right now taking pictures of "poor people" from other countries is not acceptable and in fact I had to demonstrate that the images I made during my visit to Holi in India a few years ago largely involve middle class attendees. I know another photographer who has a number of First Nations friends and wants to do a book on them and was shunned by the artistic community. It seems only a member of that community can create photographic art of that group (under the umbrella that someone else doing so would be "cultural appropriation". The list goes on and on.

I have been told that to some in this community. the "artist's statement" is far more important than the body of work. When they go to an exhibition, that is what they concentrate on and the actual works are given short shrift.

I still largely make images for the same reason as you do, for me.

[billtils]

The main reason I have embraced the trend is it is the only way to get one's work past the "gatekeepers" that control access to exhibitions. Frankly I do not like a lot of what I see coming out of the community, but...

Thanks for that clarification Manfred (and for elaborating on the purpose of the shoot in earlier posts). It's comforting that you don't like what you see (coming out of the community) and your "but" is entirely understandable in the context of commercial contracts. I probably missed it but what does your customer think about your use of "the look"?

I still don't like it but if it's what the customer wants, so be it (the "look" aside I thought your more recent shots were a big improvement).

I don't do any commercial work and have only recently ventured into competitions at a national level - to find that there too success is influenced by the prefences of the customer.

[Manfred M]

I probably missed it but what does your customer think about your use of "the look"?

The note from the customer, in response to starting the real shoot.

"HI Manfred

Larry is away for a couple of days. I will circle back with him when he
gets back to review.

Photos look great!

Best Regards,"


The "community" has a lot of problems and can't always see clearly. Cultural appropriation is a big one.

My daughter got in trouble from some quarters when she posted this picture a few years ago:




Even the explanation did not help with some people. This is one of her engagement photos and her fiance is on the left. She was accused of "cultural appropriation" for appearing in formal Japanese dress. The fact that not doing so would have been viewed negatively by her future in-laws was quite irrelevant to some people.

[Donald]

I haven't read all the thread (yet) and am sorry am so late.

But if a lot of the discussion is about the expression..................

That's Dead Pan photography. You can photograph a landscape or a person as a Dead Pan image. I'd refer you to Chapter 3 of Charlotte Cotton, The Photograph as Contemporary Art, 3rd Edition, Thames & Hudson, London, 2014.

[xpatUSA]

I haven't read all the thread (yet) and am sorry am so late.

But if a lot of the discussion is about the expression..................

That's Dead Pan photography. You can photography a landscape or a person as a Dead Pan image. I'd refer you to Chapter 3 of Charlotte Cotton, The Photograph as Contemporary Art, 3rd Edition, Thames & Hudson, London, 2014.

Interesting, Donald. Is that Chapter available free on-line?

In USA, the whole book is available in paper form, used, for $5.64 w/free shipping here:

https://www.abebooks.com/97805002038...0500203806/plp

[Donald]

Interesting, Donald. Is that Chapter available free on-line?

Doubt it. The book is still in print.

[xpatUSA]

Doubt it. The book is still in print.

So maybe a free reference would have been more helpful.

Some free stuff here:

https://medium.com/@Depositphotos/de...8-73a26d802cc1

https://www.nyfa.edu/student-resourc...n-photography/

https://stevemiddlehurstcontextandna...pan-aesthetic/

Her Chapter 3 is mentioned here:

http://peopleandplaceatoca.blogspot....orary-art.html

From which:

[xpatUSA]

On the machine operator's expression and the Deadpan sub-topic, just found this:

http://archive.boston.com/ae/theater...ooking_at_you/

"Here are August Sander's portraits from the 1910s and '20s of a farm couple, a machine operator, a match-seller, a doctor and her young son."

LOL

[Manfred M]

On the machine operator's expression and the Deadpan sub-topic, just found this:

http://archive.boston.com/ae/theater...ooking_at_you/

"Here are August Sander's portraits from the 1910s and '20s of a farm couple, a machine operator, a match-seller, a doctor and her young son."

LOL

Sander's portraits are quite striking, but are definitely not "deadpan". He was a renowned portrait photographer and his works document the lives of ordinary people. Many of his works were done in the 1920s and 1930s.

[xpatUSA]

Originally Posted by xpatUSA On the machine operator's expression and the Deadpan sub-topic, just found this:

http://archive.boston.com/ae/theater...ooking_at_you/

"Here are August Sander's portraits from the 1910s and '20s of a farm couple, a machine operator, a match-seller, a doctor and her young son."

Sander's portraits are quite striking, but are definitely not "deadpan".

Well, here I am, wrong again!

While trying (and failing) to find those exact referenced portraits, I found plenty of Sander's images that could be described as "deadpan". I really do not understand your blanket statement of "are definitely not deadpan" which implies a) that I am wrong as usual and b) not one of his images out of thousands of shots of ordinary German citizens could be described as "deadpan".

He was a renowned portrait photographer and his works document the lives of ordinary people. Many of his works were done in the 1920s and 1930s.

Thank you for the education but I already knew that when I posted.

[Manfred M]

Well, here I am, wrong again!

While trying (and failing) to find those exact referenced portraits, I found plenty of Sander's images that could be described as "deadpan". I really do not understand your blanket statement of "are definitely not deadpan" which implies a) that I am wrong as usual and b) not one of his images out of thousands of shots of ordinary German citizens could be described as "deadpan".



Thank you for the education but I already knew that when I posted.

Ted - his subjects are stark, but hardly emotionless. No cheesy smiles, but one can see pride, fortitude, honour and a whole list of emotions in his subjects. In some, there is a twinkle in the eye of the subject. The look is hardly 100% neutral, which is what one would expect in a deadpan look.

My suspicion is that you don't spend enough time looking at portraits, so you are missing these subtleties.

[xpatUSA]

My suspicion is that you don't spend enough time looking at portraits, so you are missing these subtleties.

Yes, that must be it. I fold.

[billtils]

Photos look great!

No more needs to be said - well done the photographer! But since I'm in charge of the keyboard I will add that I still don't like the "look" in any way.

[DanK]

I personally don't care that much where one draws the line between arbitrary categories of styles, but it looks like the writer got his information from the MFA, and if the MFA considers Sanders "deadpan," that seems to make it a defensible categorization.

But in any case, I was responding to the the initial photo in this thread, regardless of how one labels it. It didn't strike me as emotionally neutral. It struck me as emotionally negative. The subject seems to me to be pouting or sulking. However, some people's resting facial expressions seem negative, so perhaps that's what's going on here.

And in any case, this is not a context in which I would find deadpan the genre of choice. Just speaking personally, I see this as an environmental portrait, so I would find it more interesting to see the subject engaged with the environment.

On the other hand, the side discussion about factor work got me re-thinking this. I did all sorts of manual labor when I was young: factory work, laying asphalt, outdoor and indoor maintenance at a park, moving furniture, picking olives, raising turkeys, and on and on. My parents' simple (and very good) rule of thumb was: if you're not studying, work. I enjoyed some of it, but the factory jobs were unpleasant: boring, and in one case, quite dangerous--in part because of the risk of becoming inattentive from the boredom. So perhaps the negative expression on this woman's face does show engagement with her environment.

[escape]