Posted by Jack Daws, Seattle at 12/19/07 10:17 p.m.

http://www.worldsfamousphotos.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/03/lockness_monster.jpg

Posted by slowbadhands at 12/20/07 6:35 a.m.

may i beg your kind indulgence to reply not only to points you raise about my newsweek piece on the possible/impending/theoretical "death" photography, but, generically, to other typical comments the piece which have wafted in from elsewhere in the blogosphere? (your flattering precede in an earlier post about my being the only reason to read newsweek, and the impeccable taste and shining intelligence of your readers compel me humbly to beg for space on "art to go.")

1. i'm the first to admit that the "is photography dead?" question didn't orginate with me. i just thought--after seeing the shows referred to in the piece (plus an exhibition of fox talbot's "sun pictures")--the issue would make a nice, written-in-plain-english piece in a national venue for lay readers.

2. "truth" and "reality" are uncomfortably blunderbuss terms, i admit. but they're the reasons why, for instance, we think that surveillance cameras can prove that a given crime was perpetrated by a certain defendant. think anybody'd ever be convicted by a surveillance painting?

3. the facts that a photograph is by nature a selection from reality, and that photographers have always tweaked their pictures in the darkroom, doesn't obviate photography's digitalization being a sea change in the medium.

4. fifty million frenchman--or a hundred million photographers--can't be wrong, can they? well, beside being a question, i meant "dead" in a certain cultural-clout way vis-a-vis art. instead of a vehicle to record "truth" about "reality," a digital camera (plus real good printer) might instead be a machine that produces the world's most fantastic pointillist colored-pencil drawings. and i think that suspicion might be starting to undermine photography's special claim on our attention. millions of photographers still running around "capturing" likenesses of their cute kids, moutain dawns, ocean sunsets, or (as a photo dealer put it about a current gallery fave photographer) "boys in the israeli military standing around doing nothing") doesn't change that. (millions of stalwart churchgoers didn't roll back the undermining impact on "faith" of darwinism.)

5. i'm not a scholar, i'm a journalist, and sometimes i get historical minutae (e.g. the date of a particular rejlander photograph) wrong. i don't think whatever tiny errors there are in the piece (so far, nobody's pointed one out, but i have been called various names synonymous with "idiot" by some argumentative photo devotees) obviate the questions raised.

6. yeah, i'm a painter and painting has been called "dead" more times than i've got hairs in my brushes. but, honest, i'm not trying to get revenge on photography, the original alleged killer of painting. if the exact same words in newsweek had been written by, say, a grocery deliveryman, would they be less suspect?

8. as somebody in my family (who will remain nameless for reasons of decorousness) used to say, "you get pus, you must've hit a pimple."

Posted by storm tharp at 12/20/07 11:36 a.m.

Regina,
In your original post you mention photography and art while also discussing the nature of scrapbooking and family life etc. I just wanted to make sure that the issue here - is the state of photography as art practice. As a technology and cultural phenomenon, photography is alive and kicking - however as an art form, its hard not to question the whimpering life pulse of the medium. It may not be dead, but it is certainly under anesthetic.

But recently at the Joyce and Robert Menschel Hall for Modern Photography at the Met it felt alive again. The inaugural installation - "Depth of Field: Modern Photography at The Met" was a quiet, under-the-radar kind of show that really knocked my socks off. Outstanding works by Trisha Donnelly and Sharon Lockheart in particular. Curated Doug Ekland under the supervision of the brilliant Maria Hambourg, it reminded me of the photo galleries in the old MoMA.

With the recent passing of John Szarkowski, this thought seemed fitting and optimistic.

-ST

Posted by unregistered user at 12/20/07 5:18 p.m.

I thought the most interesting part of Plagens's piece is that photography really is fracturing. There is a lot of interesting art being made that is pushing up against the limits of the photographic medium and experimenting with how these might be expanded or rethought. It is hard to figure out how to classify this stuff right now but the spirit of experimentation is invigorating.

Sara Krajewski

Posted by m. at 12/21/07 10:24 p.m.

"...as an art form, its hard not to question the whimpering life pulse of the medium. It may not be dead, but it is certainly under anesthetic." - Storm Tharp

storm, i might offer that the veracity of this statement surely depends on where you look, an idea which seems to be supported by the thoughts you finish out your post with...

that failing to convince, i might also offer that a caterpillar in chrysalis and on its way to the next stage of its existence might look quite dead. or at least under anesthetic...

and it is also, as sara points out about "the photographic medium," just as "hard to figure out how to classify" at that particular point in time...