I must have missed the first part of your rant, and I'm still not sure what you're saying here. Is this part "But the vigorous amateur verité **style [...] the gift of photography was the instantaneous reality" something that you're saying, or something the documentary is saying?
You haven't included a link to the NYPD crime scene either, so we don't know what you're comparing to the Steichen picture or, indeed, which you prefer. What I'm inferring from your so-called rant is that you disagree with the claim that pictorialism was an artistic dead end. But this is true, and quite clear from the history of art photography. You, and many other people, might like or be moved by pictorialism above other forms of photography, but that doesn't alter the fact of the matter which is that nothing worthwhile has developed from pictorialism as far as capital A art photography is concerned. I have the very highest regard for the founders of pictorialism when it was at the very centre of art photography - people like P H Emerson, Steichen, Steiglitz and so on, but nobody in the world of art photography has done pictorialism for a century. This statement "the gift of photography was the instantaneous reality" is also unarguably true. I can't tell if it's your claim or the documentary's claim, but it is a proposition that I have argued for many times in the past, including on this forum. The single thing that distinguishes photography from all the other representational media is precisely its ability to capture an instant in time completely unmediated by the 'artist' or operator or whatever you want to call the person. What is the amateur verite **style, and what does it have to do with pictorialism? And why have you used 2 asterisks in front of style? Bob > -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On > Behalf Of Derby Chang > Sent: 12 February 2008 09:34 > To: Pentax-Discuss Mail List > Subject: The Genius of Photography > > Sorry for continuing on my rant. The seed was sown a little > while ago by > this dastardly BBC series > > http://www.bbc.co.uk/photography/genius/ > > One of the strong themes in an early episode was "Pictorialism was an > artistic dead end". But the vigorous amateur verité **style has been, > and still is, the driving force of photography as a medium. Whereas > Steiglitz and his movement withdrew into smaller and smaller > ranges of > subject matter and styles, the gift of photography was the > instantaneous > reality. The photos of the NY Police Dept Crime scene in > comparison with > the most expensive print on the planet > (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pond-Moonlight) is > startling. I know > which one moves me. > > D -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
