» The most ignorant article I have ever read
Tried to upload a picture here (of me looking shocked) but it won’t work. I’ll try later.
In This Week’s Magazine: Sepia No More by The New York Times.
Warning: its ignorance and snobbery might be too overwhelming. Hang on to your contact lenses - they might just blast out.
I wrote this response which should appear on the Comments of the article shortly. I even put my swear word ’shit’ with two stars so they’d better publish it.
——
Wow, how much snobbery and ignorance can be packed into one article?
The stance Heffernan takes on photography couldn’t be clearer; true photography is, of course, made by ‘art-school photographers’ who ‘continue to shoot on film, embrace chiaroscuro and resist prettiness’. Anything that has been near a computer is ‘not quite right’.
Dare I say it, I am a “photographer”, because I create, using a digital camera (gasp!) and varying amounts of Photoshop (gasp!) - or what you might dub ‘digital tricks’, that is, if you were the most resolutely anti-modern snob who doesn’t realise that Photoshop is in fact a tool like any other “production mischief” used in the sacred darkroom, and just as challenging to utilise.
Like others I see emerging through Flickr, my photography career started with being, yes, “proficient” at “how to create images that would look good shrunk in “thumbnail” form” and how to “flirt with Flickr’s visitors in the comments area to keep them coming back”. (By the way, the way the writer has used the word “flirt” to describe Rebekka G’s process is not sexist at all, is it?)
It is amazing how the writer casts off the Internet as a medium in its entirety - apparently, it’s only a place for “failed” or “out of step” artists. That is a laughable suggestion when I consider how many artists would never have got into photography nor felt encouraged to keep creating more work had it not been for the encouragement they receive from a worldwide audience on the likes of sites like Flickr. Flickr does not make these artists. There is no such thing as a “Flickr photograph”. All kinds of people use Flickr, but I know that fine artists use Flickr as tool to gain feedback on their work and showcase it for wider external publicity, the quite unshameful and really quite fascinating equivalent of physically trolling one’s portfolio round galleries.
According to this article, Flickr viewers “pretend” to have “expertise” in photography, their comments are “naive”, “gushing”, and don’t recognise real photography when they see it, even when posted as a spoof. Does this mean - gasp! - that perhaps the majority are having a say about what actually is exciting imagery? Could this be a forum for everyone to express their opinion on art, in this case photography, whether they are educated at art school or not? Could this be a blurring of high and low art; could Flickr represent - shock horror - democracy?
What exactly is wrong, other than defying the nature of “real” photography from Arbus and Bresson, with artists who work at “abandoning realism”? With, what the writer dubs, “creamy fantasy pictures”? With anything that isn’t “rawer and grainier 35-millimeter photography”? Who has the right to say what “photography” is or isn’t? Why should photography be subject to such elitism? Why isn’t the writer welcoming to a medium that helps make these changes?
Heffernan should get over the fact that this is simply no longer an age where the artist needs “elaborate deference to institutions, hard-won group shows and expensive years spent in unnoticed toil” as “the only way to success.” And all the better for it! Sites like Flickr don’t make it any easy to get your work seen, if anything, they make it more competitive, all it means that the artist does not need to be a first rate, first-degree snob to get anywhere near an appointment with a gallery.
Without the Internet (Flickr) I would never have created the wealth of images I now have in both my online and physical portfolios; and without Photoshop, I would never have been so stimulated by photography to start with. I would not have had two exhibitions, including a current show in Madrid, been featured in the Tate Britain, had publicity with the likes of the BBC, El Pais, La Repubblica, and art magazines internationally and be selling work, nor would I be invited to speak at an important Microsoft photography event later this year.
I would find it hilarious (if it wasn’t so exasperating) that the writer does not see how precious the internet and Photoshop are as tools to the artist today, even when she is consciously discussing Rebekka G’s Toyota commission that resulted from building her impressive portfolio on Flickr. Of course, we have to shit all over pictures that have used anything but traditional processing means; so it’s wrong to be impressed by Rebekka’s really quite impressive early pictures (only a certain social group should be able to say what is worthy of praise and it’s all down to how it was made.) Not only are Rebekka’s 4 million views incidental, but the external recognition of her work by art galleries and by the Toyota commission itself just simply can’t mean anything. All because she used Photoshop. (And her “movie-star eyes” must be mentioned because they must make her self portraiture soooo much easier).
It is quite stunning how uneducated this article makes the writer look. Digital photography: “forced, intense, contrived, juvenile”? Might not be your cup of tea Ms Heffernan, but don’t slag off the many artists who choose to embrace technology as part of their artistic process that is as dignified as any other. Is true photography about ‘resisting prettiness’? If so, my work, and that of an array of talented emerging artists showcasing their images on Flickr, is rendered worthless. I certainly will never accept that value, and I think only a few thousand million people, including an increasing amount of gallery directors whom you thought had the same notions as you, wouldn’t either.
This entry was posted on Friday, May 9th, 2008 at 9:12 pm and is filed under Essays. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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May 9th, 2008 at 9:35 pm
Wow. Reminder to never get on your bad side. Very well worded counter-argument to the author’s ridiculous proposition.
Unfortunately, she’s working in an industry (newspaper printing) that will be nothing but a fond memory for old people in 20 years. Maybe by then she’ll figure out how to make this internet-thing work.
May 10th, 2008 at 2:35 am
When I saw the title of this of this blog on my RSS feed, I thought “I hope Natalie isn’t referring to the mildly diverting NYTimes article I just read”.)
The piece is full of typically lazy journalism, but it’s not something I’m going to get my knickers in a twist about. This is just El Pais all over again.
You’ve actually made some excellent points in your riposte, which is pretty impressive considering how angry you seem.
I totally reject the thesis that there is a “typical flickr photograph” and agree with the “democracy” idea you mention. Halfway through the article I was wondering if the journalist actually knew that Rebekka’s flickr led directly to her work with Toyota, so was glad to find that rectified on the second page, where another flickrite’s counter-claim about the “typical flickr photo” also appeared.
It’s just another piece of mainstream journalism that avoids the esoteric details of the site we know and love, but will lead to more people checking it out.
You know of course, that the writer is paid to generate discussion. Journalists want their pieces talked about just as much as artists want their work seen and discussed. The fact that you sent a long reply will make the writer think “I must be doing my job well”.
Journalism is a piece of piss. It’s trolling by another name. I can do it in my sleep. Just come out with a load of blanket statements and wait for the reaction. I find it rather amusing when otherwise level-headed people fly off the handle over a meaningless article that probably took less than 20 minutes to research and type up.
Now where are those Life Water pictures? I’m getting thirsty!
May 10th, 2008 at 2:39 am
P.S. The article made me want to know who that Merkley guy is, so it’s good publicity for someone. Do you know his flickr ID?
May 10th, 2008 at 2:50 am
Oh. http://flickr.com/photos/merkley/
About as useful to me as bicycle is to a fish. I’m not sure if the journalist considers his photos to have the same style as Rebba’s or not. Frankly I don’t care what anyone thinks.
May 10th, 2008 at 4:15 am
What I found bizarre in the comments was the number of pro-Flickr people who seemed to think that it was a positive article when it was so obviously slamming Flickr. Did they actually read the same article I read?
I don’t think that Flickr is the be-all and end-all of photo-sharing communities and there are major issues with it in terms of the perverts on there, but it is still responsible for me meeting a number of other talented artists, both personally and virtually, that I would not otherwise have been exposed to.
As you know yourself, there are very few serious artists on Flickr who are there just for the potential Flickr “superstar” status. The serious artists are finding their way into real world galleries, and Flickr just represents another avenue with which to market their work and get it seen: as you mentioned, the “equivalent of physically trolling one’s portfolio round galleries”.
Though the article also ignores the fact that there are many people on Flickr who do not consider themselves artists and who are simply there for the community or to display their snapshots.
I still find it hilarious how much people revere film photography and folk like Diane Arbus and Henri Cartier-Bresson. Yes, they were both talented photographers, I’m not disputing that, but although both were considered photojournalists that does not exclude the potential manipulation of their images. Obviously not the sort of digital manipulation of the current day, but by asking people to pose for her, Diane Arbus has already manipulated what we see. Recording people in their everyday lives without them being aware would be less manipulated, but then there is still manipulation in the form of choosing what is to be included in the viewfinder. This doesn’t even get into the possibilities of the darkroom - I used to make composite images in the darkroom and I was just a student, so you can imagine what professional photographers more adept in the darkroom were capable of. The attitude of film-based photojournalism being sacred and “true” is extremely naive.
And since when did *art* photography have to portray reality only? Isn’t art at least partly about expressing and interpreting your own view of the world, which may or may not have anything to do with reality.
Man Ray would be a perfect example of someone within film photography who is highly revered but who quite happily used the medium to break with reality, eg. Rayograms, solarisation, etc.
Oh, and I love how Rebekka’s attempts to find “a way of navigating the institutions and social systems that might gain her a following and a living” is almost construed as a negative. God forbid she might want to make a living out of something she is skilled in and enjoys! As a true artist of course she should be wallowing away in obscurity, and her body should not be “weight-trained”, it should be waif-thin and emaciated from living below the bread line…
May 10th, 2008 at 8:52 am
@ Arty
Last night I was tired, moody and came across this article, which made me moodier. I was angry, and you are right that it isn’t worth it. However, Bronwen’s response parallels my eagerness, if not my anger, that makes one feel like responding in words to Heffernan’s article. I think it is healthy to do so, but I certainly won’t waste my anger in the future. Actually, last night after I posted my loooonnng comment on the actual NY article, I felt really bad. I thought my comment made me sound really arrogant. I wanted to delete it, but I couldn’t. I sent a message to them asking them to delete it but got no reply. I spent more of my energy the rest of the evening worrying about the comment than in feeling angry about the article itself. Ah well, I feel better after a good night’s sleep. The comment’s still there but never mind…
Thanks for your words on this, I certainly won’t get wound up again about articles like this in future, however, I will respond to them if I feel vehement enough, in this way on my Blog (as I did to Picture This) because I feel it’s healthy and necessary.
@ Bronwen
I agree, yes, some people were going on about it being positive! I just saw downright classism, sexism and anti-modernism that lumped together not just all Flickr users but all digital photographers as fake and worthless!
Yes I agree with your point about Arbus and Bresson, and how “Rebekka’s attempts to find “a way of navigating the institutions and social systems that might gain her a following and a living” is almost construed as a negative.”
May 10th, 2008 at 2:19 pm
It’s a shame you regretted your comment, but don’t make the mistake of thinking it sounded arrogant. Any opinion taken out of context and posted in a vacuum can appear that way. The article itself can be seen in that light too, after all, when the writer herself is not necessarily arrogant by nature.
I used to be addicted to writing on the BBC’s “Have Your Say” pages and would sometimes think long and hard about how to get my point across, but it just depressed me how my considered opinions were soon smothered under the weight of the usual bigoted idiocies of the great unwashed. (One of the negatives of democracy is that even stupid people have freedom of speech!)
It’s fine to get stuff off your chest, but really not worth wasting too much energy on it. (Like I said, the journalist doesn’t care about the reaction to her piece. Deadlines mean she moved on to another subject as soon as she hit the SEND button.)
Bronwen makes some excellent points, but I think she’s fallen into the trap of expecting every news article about Flickr to somehow encapsulate the views of every user. Mass media can’t do that. It’s impossible to do more than indicate the subtleties of the user experience in 750 words or so. It’s lovely to read Bronwen’s esoteric views of flickr (and yours, too Natalie), but you’re not writing for the idle reader of the NY Times magazine.
I actually found the discussion of Cartier-Bresson very amusing (I would have loved to seen the thread in which people criticized the work). He may or may not be “the greatest photographer of all time”, but his time is so obviously not our time. Maybe Rebekka is the greatest photographer on Flickr, and the article should have perhaps been more celebratory but, as someone else wrote above, the newspaper industry is losing the battle against new technology and this clinging to the past will only serve to alienate more readers.
We can counter the portrayal of flickr as one thing or another by writing our own blogs and comments, but shouldn’t we really just stop complaining and get on with enjoying the art?
May 10th, 2008 at 2:30 pm
Oh I will always spend more time making images than writing these blog essays!!
There are certain people on Flickr who do it the other way round - spend most of their time trying to get on other people’s tits and politically bring down Flickr. Nothing wrong with that, it’s their choice, but they bore me and often come across as arrogant, whether they mean to or not.
I didn’t regret my comment as such, as it’s similar to what’s in this blog entry anyway, I just wish I could edit it (it’s so long) and restructure it so it doesn’t look like I’m launching straight into parading my achievements (which I wrote to make a point of course, but I’d rather edit it).
Yes you have a very good point when you say Bresson “may or may not be “the greatest photographer of all time”, but his time is so obviously not our time.”
I witnessed a crash today in Brighton - an urban jeep ploughing into a motorcyclist. Scary stuff. Me and my car were trapped within the police cordoning for nearly an hour and had to give a statement. Me, not the car…
Don’t know what that’s got to do with the discussion but never experienced anything like that before!
May 10th, 2008 at 4:01 pm
maybe my opinion on the original NYT article is not that harsh as yours, but I pretty much have to agree with you. I am pretty puzzled that such a shortsighted article / view can be published on such a forum. flickr is about popular photography and it provides a social enviroment for amateurs and hobbists. therefor it was never ment to define today’s “high-art” photography. surely they can coexist. why does it bother anyone that a few people can use flickr to leverage their work and use that opportunity? those who had the privilege to take their “flickr fame” further, get a wider recognition had so much more than “boobs”.
May 10th, 2008 at 8:57 pm
You’re an amazing artiste! As long as you believe in yourself you don’t need the acceptance of proper artists!
May 12th, 2008 at 8:31 pm
I read that article the weekend that it came out. Don’t regret your comment, which at this point I don’t think you do. You always express yourself so well in both your writing and your images. The article was interesting to me bc I saw, once again, just how ignorant people can be even in that medium that is so influential and has such a large readership. I don’t know why I am continually surprised by these type of articles. I have a great respect and admiration for film photographers, especially the likes of Mr. Cartier-Bresson and Ms. Arbus, however, I have a tremendous respect and admiration for artists, like yourself, Rebbekka and Merkley and all the others on flickr and elsewhere, who are so innovative and creating a new art form using digital photography, photoshop and other programs.
The reality is that for every person who loves your art, my art, etc there are 10 who hate it. I see this as the best thing about making art: creating a dialougue and getting people to think about it in the first place. Your images mean so many things to so many people and for different reasons. This is what motivates me to create and to take chances. You have something to say. Your work inspires people to think of topics ranging from the relationship of light and shadow to post-feminism to sex to the explosion of the internet. This NYT article is just more of the same in terms of the media coming to their own conclusions in the form of an opinion. Hopefully next time they will bother to actually interview one of the artists who they mention (although they did interview Thomas Hawk for this one).
May 19th, 2008 at 6:49 pm
Yeah, this article was rather annoying… great response Natalie. You know what though? Be excited.
I think that you have the incredible opportunity of TIMING - to be on the verge of this change within the art industry and of course everything new will be met with a lot of resistance at first… but you are a pioneer - don’t forget that. You are much more important to this change than the people who will come after you.
May 19th, 2008 at 8:51 pm
By the same token, you too!
Thanks alot for your comments x x x
June 1st, 2008 at 8:46 am
[...] Times. Warning: its ignorance and snobbery might be too overwhelming. Hang on to your contact lenseshttp://missaniela.com/blog/2008/05/09/the-most-ignorant-article-i-have-ever-readTesla’s electric sports car aiming at Europe market AFP via Yahoo! News Earth-friendly [...]
June 3rd, 2008 at 12:56 pm
Nudes give you visits but not recognition. Your photos are more than simple nudes or photoshop, they are art, a different manner to see the things, people… and I love it.
I think you have a great talent and I hope you never stop in that way.
Painting is art, photograph is art and photoshop is a part of this art. Like to paint with paintbrush or with your fingers.
Congratulations for your photos!
Sorry for my english, but I´m spanish
June 6th, 2008 at 2:42 pm
“Nudes give you visits but not recognition.”
I would say I agree with that…
thanks alot Herzeleyd!
July 15th, 2008 at 12:22 am
Personally I think anything beyond a mercury developed Daguerreotype is not worth calling art. On top of that I think newspapers should not use computers for their layout, but still do that in lead. I hope Hefferman still wrote her article with a feather pen (using a pen really creates good articles because you have to think when you write, wordprocessors enable anybody to write good articles).
In seriousness, Hefferman’s article is just to silly to take serious, but your respones Aniela, pretty much says it all.