Time to move on and get with the real world
My subscription to LensWork magazine – a bi-monthly small format photography magazine which holds itself in higher regard than the Kennedys – was up for renewal and, I confess, I thought long and hard before paying for one more year. The reason? Each 90 page issue is completely devoid of color photography. This is the oh! so serious world of High Photographic Art, you see.
Let me tell you that the leading contributor’s work over the past year was a book of pictures of tramps. Now a tramp is a tramp is a tramp; he is not a street person, a mendicant or disadvantaged. He is a tramp. No one forced this choice on him and he is neither to be respected or adulated. These tramp snaps were reproduced in volume (sadly, high volume) with obligatory excess contrast in search of drama. Now do you get the drift of this sometimes fine publication? The tramp series said absolutely nothing new and the use of Club Mono was, well, tediously predictable for such cliché subject matter. The sum total of photographic art was, in other words, untroubled by this derivative, poorly printed work.
So why waste money on a publication whose dominant content appears to be snaps of derelict steel and coal town in America’s Rust Belt, longing for the good old days of tubercolosis and black lung? Because, maybe twice a year, a great photographer is discovered in its pages. That almost makes the very high cost of this rag worthwhile. Take Dan Normark’s outstanding work as an example.
Anyway, putting my gripes behid me I renewed with the promise to the publisher/editor that this would be the last time if no color crops up in the publication over the next twelve months. One has to draw the line. And if they can do Club Mono so well, why not some color?
We live in a world defined by color. A lot of photographers, choosing the easy way out, opt for monochrome and then wax lyrical over how some ink jet printer or other has purer blacks and whiter whites than the other guy’s. Please. These people sound like a washing detergent ad. The result is that you see a lot of truly miserable work, matted in acres of white with the obligatory thin black frame, signed, as often as not, in pencil. The latter is mute testimony to the monochrome worker’s recognition that membership in Club Mono dictates this sort of thing if you are to be taken seriously.
So why are all these hard working photographers excluding 90% of the content of their photographs by making monochrome prints?
- Because it’s far easier to take a good moochrome picture.
- Because the man in the street can’t get it at the local drug store.
- Because you automatically get the ‘art’ premium associated with this form of pretentiousness.
- Because you have neither the talent nor guts to see in color.
- Because color is infinitely more difficult to do well.
- Because someone else who is ‘arty’ does it.
- Because it worked for Ansel Adams and Bill Brandt.
And on and on. Not a good reason to be found.
Take a look at the current issue – #69 for Mar-Apr, 2007. There is a lovely set of pictures of Hanoi, moving and expressive. Some are of street scenes at different times of the year. They simply scream for color. But no. This is Club Mono.
So I’m voting with my feet. Add color, Mr. LensWork, or subtract one subscriber. And next time you see a Club Mono snap, just ask yourself how much better it would have been in color.
South Beach, Santa Monica, CA. Pentax 6×7, 105mm Takumar, Kodachrome 64
Thomas
I may agree with you that B&W is not the only form of Art and great color photography is much tougher to ‘do’, thus being more admirable when it’s achieved. Like your South Beach photo which reminds me of Saul Leiter’s work (cfr. Early Color, ed. Steidl), perhaps because of the old Kodachrome feel of the blues. Still, it’s a shame that you decided to deprive yourself of the good services of LensWork. After all, there can be great stuff in B&W, too! And thanks to digital, controlling B&W output has become much less frustrating and therefore more productive than it has ever been. Not all B&W is automatically Art of course, nor all photography should necessarily be Art in the first place. But it’s not our fault if most of the masters have chosen B&W as their medium of choice, even way after color became the default choice for casual photographers. I’m not talking about the masters of Art only, I’m also talking about the masters of photojournalism. Color is most times distracting noise, extra information that detracts from the essence of an image (esp. if you’re talking about people). When not distracting, it’s most times when the whole image is essentially monochrome (like your South Beac above); not by chance perhaps. So, long live B&W and long live color! There’s room for both. Just keep the pretentious people away, whichever their medium!
Best regards and thanks for your blogging.
Giovanni
Hi Thomas!
What’s up with the comments? Every entry of yours recently is ‘no comment’, but I suspect your loyal followers (me included daily) are commenting indeed (not daily I hope). Just very busy on other fronts, I guess. Hope all is well with you, and regards,
Giovanni
Giovanni –
I don’t know what’s up with Comments – I went from getting a lot, including spam, to none, and I tend to approve everything, as long as it’s constructive.
I suspect that one contributing reason is that I frequently state strong opinions which do not rest easily with the implicit mass market status quo. Add the fact that I accept no advertising and, consequently, have no axe to grind for any manufacturer or product, and you end up with a poor prescription for high traffic.
No problem. Far better to have a few questioning readers than the zealots who would have you believe that film is the only art medium for photography, etc., etc.
Thank you for your good wishes, and the best to you.
Thomas
Thomas,
thanks for your reply. You do state clear opinions, and that’s what’s good about coming back to your blog on a regular basis. What first got me to your blog was your Ur-Leica Lumix approach (hey you actually convinced me to go for one), but I’m staying because of your fresh thoughts and images. If I were a brand zealot (never used Canon in my life etc etc) I would not be here.
I’m not a film zealot either, simply because time spent in the darkroom is time stolen from the real world (and wife, a bit like golfing). Have done a bit of B&W film + scanning, lately, but it’s so time consuming that the only point of it is to keep using loved equipment. Can’t sell it, sorry, not my Nikon FM bought in 1978 which introduced me to photography—still using it, something I doubt we’ll say in 2037 about equipment bought in 2007. I don’t know how you ever got around to sellling yours; but then again I am one of those that will never sell/donate/throw books he’s read.
Best again,
Giovanni