How Relevant Are We?

[Carlsen Highway]

Sometimes disturbing thoughts occur to me.

It occured to me to consider how relevant photography both as an art form and as documentary or photojournalism might be to the average person.
I considered this for a while, and hesitatly came to the conclusion - not very.

I considered the place where I work for example. Out of the 400 odd, perfectly normal, average middle class people that work here, how many of them have seen or would recognise or think "special" any of Cartier Bressons' pictures?
The answer is none of them. It is not relevant.

Out of the modern art photographers....also none of them.

Out of the photographers that are practicing photojournalists whos work transends documentary so that it may also be described as art to some degree as well, say Eugene Richards, or Saldago, or simply the successful documentary pjotographers whether their work is considered art or not - how relevant to these average people is it, how aware of it, and how much impact or influence it might have on them?
The real answer is that it is not relevant and has no impact at all as for as I can see.
A good documentary picture may illustrate an article in a magazine, but to be brutally frank, to most people it is another news shot of something.

In a medium where we claim much of our work to reflect life, to inform people, to express our own views of the world - who are we actually reaching in any meaningful way?
Does our interest and passion really equate to a niche interest much the same relevance for anyone else as stamp collecting?
Are we imagining an audience?
I did a lot of painting and eventually came to the conclusion that painting was a meaningless art form nowadays becasue it has no real audience other than for those who have a specialist interest in art.

The only thing that I can think of that has an impact on the average person, and does that through both its craft and art, is cinema.

Do you think I am wrong?

[FrankS]

Maybe it depends if you think our hobby photography is done primarily to satisfy the photographer or an audience.

[gns]

"The only thing that I can think of that has an impact on the average person, and does that through both its craft and art, is cinema".

Not music? Or literature?

I didn't choose to try photography because of any impact I thought I might have on others. It was really just my own fascination with it.

Cheers,
Gary

[Carlsen Highway]

Music and literature - I was thinking visual arts to be honest, but cinema would eclipse literature certainly, but music is a valid one to bring up.

But perhaps I am mistaking the powerful impact of cinema with its moving pictures and music combined with superior reach.

Art without an audience, is like building a house and never living in it I suppose thats how it feels to me. Without communication, then by definition it can't be art surely - just an activity that you enjoy performing? Like yoga?

I am not challenging what you do, I just had a depressing thought. There is no point in being depressed on your own in the internet age.

Am I confusing mass appeal and the size of the audience with relevance?

If I am then TV would have to be the most valid art form of all obviously. Which is where my hypothesis breaks down.


Do you need an audience for your pictures? Do you need to show people? If so, does the amount of people you actually show justify what you have done? Need it?

I am getting my thoughts tangled here.

[Al Kaplan]

I started doing it because it was the easiest way I could find to make a living without really working. It was a way to do a bit of traveling and meet people. It was saleable, or it made me saleable anyway, because I had to produce what others would pay money for. Most of what I've shot over the years I consider crap, but it satisfied the editor or art director. I think that a lot of photographers get to the point where they're being praised for photographs that were crap when they were shot decades ago, but now they either conjure up nostalgia for a bygone era in the viewer's brain or are photographs of famous people or events. One thing that makes a photo of a well known person more valuable is if it was made very early in their career, long before they'd achieved fame. Another type of photography is documentation of a way of life that no longer exists. The historical value trumps whether or not it's a great photo. Save all your negatives. You never know...

[gns]

Well, I understand the sharing part. But for me that's secondary. I do it for myself. The same as you might enjoy casting for trout in a stream all by yourself.

[mabelsound]

I mostly do it because it feels good. If somebody sees my stuff on flickr, or this forum, or at one the small shows I've done, or will do, I'll be delighted. But I just like photography.

[FrankS]

In order to do good and satisfying work, you have to please yourself first, IMO.

[Roger Hicks]

In the long run we are all dead: Keynes.

'Relevance' must generally be considered on the small scale. If I kill you tomorrow, it affects both of us significantly, but probably doesn't matter a whole hell of a lot on the grand scale. The question is, how grand a scale to you want to think on?

Or as Voltaire put it, "Il faut cultiver notre jardin"; we each have to cultivate our own gardens.

Cheers,

Roger

[nikon_sam]

I have a photograph taken about two years ago...I have never shown it to the person to whom it will, in time, go to...
It is a photograph of her husband taken just three months before he passed, after an eight year battle with ALS...
It's not Art by any stretch of the imagination, it will never be published or viewed by the masses, it's just a decent and loving photo...
The copy I have will go to one person, what she does with it is up to her...if no one else ever sees it means nothing to me...does the photo have relevance...you might want to ask Sue...

[dazedgonebye]

Carlsen,
If you see Roger in New Zealand...run. :-)

[Carlsen Highway]

I will be watching for him on his motorbike.....as I go under the wheel he will note the passing of another photographer who's self importance was out of proportion to his relevance...:)

I like the Voltaire quote very much.


I think Roger and Sam said the same thing in different ways, and both nicely put too.

I just wrote another big post, but confused the hell out of myself, contradicted my self several times, and had trouble even being coherent so I deleted it.

Very well, I will tend to my own garden.

[Al Kaplan]

These days I enjoy writing and politics more than photography. I have fun with photography in a very tongue in cheek manner. I mostly shoot pictures with an ultra wide angle 15mm lens. I'm in the photographs. I carry around a toy monkey and incorporate her into the photos and the stories. Sometimes I let her write the stories...it makes for an interesting blog... www.thepriceofsilver.blogspot.com

[SolaresLarrave]

Carlsen, photography is relevant in many different ways. I, like you, used to think I was the only one practitioner of a disappearing art... and then I learned that people carry cameras with all the time, and they're snapping photos here and there. They use their cellphone cameras, or small digital P&S, but their aim is to keep a memory, immortalize a moment, preserve something they witnessed... and, in the end, if they're consistent enough, they'll see what photography can be.

In the end, photography is very relevant. When I was growing up, we got out a camera to photograph birthdays and special ocassions. Now, it's there in a bar, restaurant, anywhere... Think about it. :)

[Sparrow]

I enjoy being irrelevant...... I feel it's a role I was destined to fulfil

[kevin m]

Or as Voltaire put it, "Il faut cultiver notre jardin"; we each have to cultivate our own gardens.

No fun eating your veggies by yourself, though. :p

[dave lackey]

Are we (photographers) relevant?

Change that question to, "Am I as a photographer relevant?"

Up until a few months ago, I thought I was relevant. But that was before I lost my job. Now, I am not so sure.

As each day drags by with an occasional email, I become less certain that my relevancy ever existed. Now, as I immerse myself in all things photographic, I find myself torn between trying to find a way to make a living in photography and being creative in my own quest for self expression.

In the former, I feel I must be relevant or my wife and I will not have food to eat or a home in which to live. The success of my relevancy is indeed in doubt. In the latter, I feel that I am relevant but only to myself, and to my wife who is enthusiastic of my photography. Am I relevant to the outside world? I suppose to a handful of people around the world I may be relevant as a person. Do I feel relevant to the outside world as a photographer? No. But then, at this stage of my continuing development, I probably should not be.

Each individual has to work things out for himself/herself. We are all different with different circumstances. Overall, though, yes, photography in general is very relevant. How else can we pass what we see down to our grandchildren and their grandchildren except with pictures? Holograms, maybe? I suspect that, too, will be looked at as another form of photography. It will all be relevant.

[rogue_designer]

No fun eating your veggies by yourself, though. :p

Then you're growing the wrong veggies, my friend. ;)

[Carlsen Highway]

Dave, I am truly sorry to hear about your difficulties. I have been unemplyed a couple of times due to unfortuante cicrumstances, and for me personally, the desire to make anything arty or personal projects evaporated until I could get some security back.

I guess the essence of my question if I boil it down, is that if no one is seeing your pictures, or very few people, are they still meaningful, are they still art.
(I am less interested in historical or documentary recording, just for the kind of guy I am. )

Am I asking is photogrpahy still art? I suppose what I am getting at, is how relevant, meaningful, or useful is art of any kind in our modern lives?

On the other hand, when was it ever? Most people in France did not go to the salon des refuses and see the first impressionists.
Most people have not seen Citizen Kane, or the Bicycle Thief, much less any of Robert Franks films nor En Chien Underlou - nor would really want to. Landscapes rule as the most preferred painting subject for 90% of the population and pictures of flowers sell like hot cakes, despite the abstract works and constructions that are lauded as cutting edge and sell for thousands of dollars to a few individuals.
I am thinking out loud.
Why?
Why are we working in a medium which is about being seen by people, which is about comuunication, when we must admit that very few people indeed will eveer see them? Surely this must affect the success of teh work as a piece of art? What value the Mona Lisa if no one except saw it except Da Vinci?

And if we do it for ourselves only then it seems curious and inexplicable to create such things, like writing a novel and then burning it, writing a melody on paper but never playing it. If this is the case why are we not boat builders or collecting pigeons?

[dave lackey]

Hmmm...well, it is art to me even though I do not post my work. Some of it is good, most of it is not so good, but I enjoy it and it satisfies my need for creating something that evokes emotion from my innerself. I agree with your mentioning cinema where music and pictures really speak to people. And that is where truly good photography shines because it speaks to the viewer with the image itself and without help from music.

I have spent my whole life in universities within the technical fields of engineering and architecture... and only dabbled in art a bit here and there. Now, since I am no longer teaching, I have become immersed in my desire to learn more about art and how to create it myself. But, maybe, first I need to answer your questions about the very basics of art. That is indeed worthy of a thread and I thank you for posting it.

I look forward to the discussion from our colleagues who are better qualified to venture into that realm.

[Ducky]

The idea that man(kind) has figured out a system where light can pass through a few pieces of glass and react with chemicals which, when treated with additional chemicals, can create an image so fine you can count the hairs on a person's head leaves me in awe. And the fact that I can do it too is even more exciting. I find that relevant.

[ferider]

I look at one of my keepers and see what I remember I saw.

Somebody else looks at it, comments that (s)he sees what I saw, too.

Very, very cool.

Back to boat building ....

[Fred Burton]

What does it matter if photography is relevant to anyone but yourself? Look at Winogrand. He had some greatest hits. But the majority of his photos have never been seen by anyone and will never be seen by anyone. You've got to shoot for yourself (unless you are a pro and then creating what the client wants is the only relevance), if other people think it's crap, so what? Too much angst.

[Carlsen Highway]

Fred,

You are entirely correct of course, you have to do it for yourself. (unless your paid to do it for someone else...)
But what Im getting at, is that while that it is understood as for as the nuts and bolts of performing the activity, is that unless there is an audience - or you perceive there might one day be an audience, no matter how small, it becomes a

[MickH]

I started doing it because it was the easiest way I could find to make a living without really working. It was a way to do a bit of traveling and meet people. It was saleable, or it made me saleable anyway, because I had to produce what others would pay money for. Most of what I've shot over the years I consider crap, but it satisfied the editor or art director. I think that a lot of photographers get to the point where they're being praised for photographs that were crap when they were shot decades ago, but now they either conjure up nostalgia for a bygone era in the viewer's brain or are photographs of famous people or events. One thing that makes a photo of a well known person more valuable is if it was made very early in their career, long before they'd achieved fame. Another type of photography is documentation of a way of life that no longer exists. The historical value trumps whether or not it's a great photo. Save all your negatives. You never know...

Dear Mr Kaplan, I applaud your honesty. If only all artists were this candid.

[Nh3]

I'm not an artist and I would never be one. Why I'm photographing is to have a say and express myself with my photos... Its like writing on a dairy and not expecting anyone to read it and even if they read it, their reaction is not important.

[Al Kaplan]

MickH, a lot of my best photos were shot while shooting for one particular editor, Jim Kukar, through his career with a series of papers and magazines that he edited over the years. We met when we were 26 and this year we turned 66. He's no longer in a position to be buying photography although he still works part time as a copy editor and headline writer. We still meet for lunch a time or two each month.

He knew what I could do, how I saw the world, and would send me out on a shoot with no instructions beyond maybe a "I'm thinking of a four column horizontal to run below the fold" and from there it was my call. He was a big believer in what he called "wild art", a photo I'd just happen to run across in my travels, maybe kids playing or an interesting play of light and shadows on a local church. I got names when possible.

I hated politics with a passion. He assigned me to cover city council meetings and local elections. Somehow or another he got the two of us floor passes to both the Democratic and Republican national conventions in 1972, when they were both held in Miami Beach. There were photographers from national publications that had less access. He then got out of the editing business for a few years and managed a succesful election campaign for Bill Lehman who was running for congress. He ran the congressman's office for a few years. That led me to other political clients. That led to other non-political clients as well.

Jim Kukar took a twenty-something shy photographer and thrust him into the exciting new world of the power structure. He also had the disconcerting habit of telling me that the reporter would meet me at the location. He rarely did. I'd get back to the office and Jim would tell me to leave some notes so the guy could write the story in the morning. I'd sit down and just pound out the copy, double spaced of course, on the old Underwood. It just seemed easier that way. A couple of years ago Jim and I were gettting together for lunch and I asked him why didn't he just fire that reporter all those years ago. The one who never showed up. He told me that he thought I wrote better copy, and he'd never assigned anybody to cover those stories.

James Mitchell remarked to me a few years ago that the unique thing about my photography career was how varied it was, from rock stars to presidential canidates, neighborhood kids to black power leaders to prostitutes in the ghetto, and all done within about a fifteen mile radius of where I'm sitting right now. Mostly shot on black and white film run through Leicas. No, I never hasd any problems being the only white guy around, and for a couple of years I was the "token honkey" for a black publication.

While my photographer friends were roaming the world I was helping raise my two kids while my wife was finishing college, attending medical school, and doing her residency. I found that you can find a lot of things to photograph within that fifteen mile radius, and make money doing it.

[hawkeye]

Carlsen

We live in a world awash in photographic images. Billions of images, covering our walls, filling our magazines and crowding out the space on our computer monitors. We add to this deluge, our little band of photojournalists, hobbyists and idlers away of time.

Do you understand that simply by being 'serious' about making photographs you have stepped outside of that normal middle class world? On this forum we all share a strange mania, an obsessive need to make images and a compulsion to play with our "cameras obscura."

That we are different is central here. That some part of our beings wants to do this "photography" is what is important. Relevance is relative but it is the passion that matters.

It keeps you alive.

Hawkeye

[imajypsee]

... snippage...
Why are we working in a medium which is about being seen by people, which is about comuunication, when we must admit that very few people indeed will eveer see them? Surely this must affect the success of teh work as a piece of art? ..snippage...

If you mean that very few people will ever see your PRINTS, that's perhaps a reason to suffer whatever angst you're suffering regarding relevance. But, since we have at our disposal online galleries, there's little reason for suffering from lack of viewers. I have over 4000 photos on my main site and 350 on Flickr. My stuff is viewed many times every day. if I were to hang it in a gallery some place (and I have done that) the experience wouldn't be the same and the number of views wouldn't compare.

As for "relevance," I can say that I find my work relevant and others must agree since they keep looking at it and, on occasion, they buy it.

Mary in SW Florida

[Fred Burton]

"I have over 4000 photos on my main site and 350 on Flickr."

Picasso, when he died, it is said, left over 90,000 pieces of completed art work. How many have any of us seen? In that sense, the Internet would have given him much more exposure. But most of this art clearly did not rise to the top of his greatist hits, so would posting them on the web (had it existed) have simply buried his talent in the noise of his prodigious output?

I vacillate about whether the exposure of the web is really a good thing.

[Spider67]

When I was doing Comedy (not quite right .In Austria we call it "Kabarett" and it is rather a mix betwenn comedy and political satire) I had to learn that writing and performing is the fun part, to get it to the stage and into the papers was work.
So perhaps being an artist somehow means 20% Art 80% work. Of course that seems to be just at the beginning like that until you find some kind of agent.
I am also asking myself if exposure on the web in communities is such a good thing ("you scratch my back, I scratch yours").
Perhaps your products -stories, photographs wharever- are becoming art when you climb on the soap box and are ready for a beating.....or worse for being ignored. And you become an artist if you have done that so often until you succeeded to get from the soapbox on the stage or ina gallery (not to mention a museum.
And of course there is Lartigue who was an amateur and raised interest in his photographs when he was 60+.

[eric rose]

I think it's quite erroneous to make those assumptions about your co-workers. You might be surprised to find out what gives them pleasure once they are out of the office. It seems what you are saying is that they are lacking in culture. Some of the most "cultured" people I have met work at very tedious non glamorous jobs. Al's words are also so true and should be an inspiration to the younger photogs out there.

[Roger Hicks]

Al is indeed very candid about his photo career -- but his comments do not have much to do with artists.

Dear Fred,

Nothing has much to do with artists. We back to the old quote, "Genius does what it must; talent does what it can."

Cheers,

R.

[imajypsee]

leaving aside your analogy about whether or not Picasso's finished pieces were worth a look, how can exposure on the web not be a good thing? Is there some downfall to having lots of eyes on one's output/art/work/use your own word here...?

I vacillate about whether the exposure of the web is really a good
thing.

BTW, I don't think everything I put up is necessarily worth a look, but who am I to judge?:p I do it because I can.

[dave lackey]

Dear Fred,

Nothing has much to do with artists. We back to the old quote, "Genius does what it must; talent does what it can."

Cheers,

R.


Ahhh...Lord Lytton. The one man who coined the phrase that I remember most from reading briefs in law school: "It was a dark and stormy night..."

Roger, you are bringing back memories of things almost forgotten.:p

[Papa Smurf]

After spending more that 45 years in daily contact with the public or colleagues, it is my observation that, as the saying goes, "most people are on the world, not apart of it." Whatever crisis they are dealing with at any moment is relevant and everything else is not. Whether any of us will change the World or even leave some small mark upon it is questionable. True genius is typically not recognized until long after the poor guy or gal is long dead. And often as not, it (the genius) was accidental. Did Da Vinci set out to create one of the greatest paintings ever when he started the Mona Lisa, I doubt it. Just take your pictures for whatever reason you choose, enjoy them, and let the "public", well just let them be as they will be.

[Al Kaplan]

Seventeen thousand people came and saw my recent photography exhibit, but I'm saying "AND SAW", not "TO SEE". I was showing at a local art gallery. The owner, Mario Folores, was asked to curate an exhibit by local artists the North Miami Public Library, and he included a dozen of my prints.. The library was chosen as one of the sites used for early voting in the recent election. People were lined up for a couple of blocks, waiting in the rain and in the sun, and when they finally got inside the line slowly went past the wall where my photos were displayed. It was either look at them or stare at the back of the head in front of you.

A few days later I was at a city council meeting and the head librarian said "It's official, Al. Over seventeen thousand people saw your photo exhibit!"

Most of them, of course, didn't have a clue in hell as to who I was. Still, over the next few days I had people I barely knew tell me they saw the pictures. It was good for the ego. I shot some pictures of the line outside, the cars parked helter skelter wherever they could, and the people in front of that wall of my photographs. I really should develop that film and post them on my blog.

[Roger Hicks]

Seventeen thousand people came and saw my recent photography exhibit, but I'm saying "AND SAW", not "TO SEE". I was showing at a local art gallery. The owner, Mario Folores, was asked to curate an exhibit by local artists the North Miami Public Library, and he included a dozen of my prints.. The library was chosen as one of the sites used for early voting in the recent election. People were lined up for a couple of blocks, waiting in the rain and in the sun, and when they finally got inside the line slowly went past the wall where my photos were displayed. It was either look at them or stare at the back of the head in front of you.

A few days later I was at a city council meeting and the head librarian said "It's official, Al. Over seventeen thousand people saw your photo exhibit!"

Most of them, of course, didn't have a clue in hell as to who I was. Still, over the next few days I had people I barely knew tell me they saw the pictures. It was good for the ego. I shot some pictures of the line outside, the cars parked helter skelter wherever they could, and the people in front of that wall of my photographs. I really should develop that film and post them on my blog.

Dear Al,

Your pictures can't possibly have been any good because you're not an Artist. At least, I don't recall your claiming that exalted status; my apologies if I am misremembering. You're just a (holds nose, grimaces) photographer.

Art-with-a-capital-A seems to me to be increasingly like economics: a grand set of theories, more and more rigorously analyzed, and ever more detached from the real world. Personally, I've usually enjoyed the work of photographers more than I've enjoyed the work of Photographic Artists.

Also, of course, some of the best photography I've ever seen comes from unknowns, just as happens with painting, though I'm not so sure about sculpture.

Cheers,

Roger

[bottley1]

Photography permeates all aspects of modern life, in that respect its relevent to all. Maybe people take photography for granted, being bombarded by images all day and night.Familiarity breeds contempt?

[hawkeye]

At the outset Carlsen posed the question is photography relevant to people especially compared to something like cinema. He was also asking about whether it mattered that he took photographs.

It wasn't about art or the web but a more existential question about being and purpose. That's not too many steps from Sartre or Camus writing about meaning. For them meaning came from commitment and doing.

Sure we live in a world of images and there's Art photography and there's exposure on the web but what I think matters is doing something with passion. Doing it when no one else cares that you do it and when you are not doing it for reward.

I'm a working pro and I shoot for magazines and have done a few books. My images are easily seen by something like maybe 100,000 people or more a month just in print--god knows who sees what on the web.

But you know what? Ultimately what gives me satisfaction is being out there taking pictures and once in a while taking out my box personal pictures to share with a few friends and other photographers.

That's me craziness and what me likes to do best.

Hawkeye

[RayPA]

What does it matter if photography is relevant to anyone but yourself? Look at Winogrand. He had some greatest hits. But the majority of his photos have never been seen by anyone and will never be seen by anyone. You've got to shoot for yourself (unless you are a pro and then creating what the client wants is the only relevance), if other people think it's crap, so what? Too much angst.

+1.

There's only one audience. Shoot for yourself and no one else.


.

[ruben]

In every field of human life a person can be relevant. It depends on a mixture of personal features, and the objective need for that mixture at a certain point of History. Politicians, conquerors, artists, writers, discoveres, scientists and Bill Gates, why not. It is the roullete of the specific mixture superimposed with the roullete of the hystoric need, that select people every second to fill a hole.

But I would like to warn at this point, that we humans have a hidden or explicit wish to trascend mortality, by becommng so important that even physical death will not stop the spiritual message of our life, as we catch it.

Yet the word relevant that you have used is very interesting. If this word was not selected by chance, it could mean positive contribution. This is not equal to influence, nor fame. Nor even immediate effect.

Accordingly to which sense you apply to the word relevant, you can go back to the threads of RFF that dealt with these issues.

Cheers,
Ruben

[Carlsen Highway]

If you bake a cake the most wonderful cake, is it truly wonderful if no one eats it. How would they know?

Sure I understand the "shoot for yourself" thing, but again this is a process for achieving something, not an answer for whether the achieving of it is worth persueing in the first place or even if it is achiveable at all.

Eventually you have to define "art" if you want to go any further...

I am generalising, but much of art today is an art of ideas rather than anything else...whoever comes up with the cleverest idea wins the prize. Plus a large dash of having any hint of the past in your picture is derivitive and commits the ultimate sin of modern art - unoriginality.
Art, I have observed in my wisdom, is a matter fashion, just like womens hemlines and the sneaker. The fashion today and in other things in society - is the preciousness and the right of the indivual to be an individual. This brings up the position where art is what the artisist says it is, and it doesnt matterif the viewer doesnt understand completely what the artist intended, it is enough that the artist know himself, the ultimate in self expression you see. This is why "anything" can be art.
I see I havnt yet defined anything...okay for me art is about communication - there are somethings that cannot be communicated to another person except through art, whether it be music or pictures, or the feelings that may be evoked at the end of a story.
Which brings me to my point - ramble about modern art and all - is that if you have a situation where you shoot only for yourself and have no concept even however vague that your pictures should or may be seen, then this an equivilent position to creating "art" only for yourself - as long as you know it then that is enough. But without communication of whatever intent to a viewer, listener, an audience, then it ceases to have any meaning whatsoever, it's "art", and message is simply latent.

If no ones ever sees a photograph then can you even define it as a photograph anymore, since any definition of a photograph must includes a viewer.

Sure you can shoot for yourself, and follow what pleases you, and enjoy the finding and the making of pictures, but without a viewer (God grant us a sympathetic viewer) as far as photography goes, you could argue that you didnt actually make anything at all.
So you have to have art that works, and you have have to viewers, you have to have communication. So without either one you have nothing.

Even Van Gogh, who I think is the one who created the cultural figure of the poor starving artist who painted only for himself (or this concept arose from the historical figure of Van Gogh) desperately wanted an audience. I argue that without one his paintings were not relevant, he himself was not relevant and he went off and shot himself, making himself actually irrelevant.

Someone mentioned Da Vinci - Da Vinci never painted a thing in his life he didnt have commssion for. I suspect the idea of "painting for yourself" would have left most Rennaissance artists looking at you blankly. But then the definition of art has changed since then I think.

The idea of creating art only for yourself, shooting for yourself is a modern concept, the denial of the vewier, the audience, the public as a participant in the art. To take it to the length of cariacature, it becomes simple snobbery, where the normal people at my work I mentioned are not cultured enough to understand it, are not relevant to the artist (!) and there for they simply dont bother with art with a capital A anyomore. They are not invited to that party. It becomes a social phenomonon, where only people of a certain social group are permitted to understand Art and the rest are just the extras in the backgorund of a Van Goh painting forking hay. A form of art fascism.

So maybe its not that photographic art is not relevant ( Rueban I use the word in the sense of "having meaning") perhaps its more that (modern) artists have made the veiwer irrelevant.

[antiquark]

I you photograph for yourself, then at least one person (you) will like the pictures. If you photograph for others, you may end up with pictures that nobody cares about.

[sepiareverb]

The music the masses like in the US is pretty much a waste of my time.

Art has no relevance in this society because we cannot afford to expose children to it in school.

[climbing_vine]

Art has no relevance in this society because we cannot afford to expose children to it in school.

I guffawed, and then I cried.

Back to Carlsen, and your latest post. Photography for me is, for lack of a better phrase, my daily worship, wherein I meditate on the world around me rather than myself for once. ;) Part of my personal effort to stay awake and alive in the world these days is to strip out that archness you're talking about from any of my pursuits that I consider "artistic". When I was 20, I thought people were dumb for not "getting it". Now, I realize that was just part of learning. I needed to be there to be where I am now, which is a place of working to accomplish what I need to for myself, and sometimes develop it in such a way that it might, maybe, do something for someone else too.

Why? Because I think we're all better off when we all do our small parts to help keep each other awake, and that's more important than "sincerity"; rather, it is sincerity, and what I had before was a stop on the way. But maybe I'm full of ****.

And in other words, i'm pretty sure I agree with Ruben.

[bsdunek]

My take is that very few know anything about anything any more. Of course I'm and old coot and remember the 'good old day's' when people knew something. Maybe it was just because my parents were in a circle of more aware people.
My impression is than so many go about with their iPods plugged into their heads, know the scores of their favorite teams, and whatever news the major media broadcasts. They know nothing about art, be it photography, painting, sculpture, dance, music, or whatever. The best beer is Bud Lite, and the best hamburger is from Micky D's. Whoa, it's the weekend, Dude, let's get a pizza and beer and kick back.
Don't let it bother you - just do what you know best and enjoy!
Just IMHO. :cool:

[climbing_vine]

My take is that very few know anything about anything any more. Of course I'm and old coot and remember the 'good old day's' when people knew something. Maybe it was just because my parents were in a circle of more aware people.
My impression is than so many go about with their iPods plugged into their heads, know the scores of their favorite teams, and whatever news the major media broadcasts. They know nothing about art, be it photography, painting, sculpture, dance, music, or whatever. The best beer is Bud Lite, and the best hamburger is from Micky D's. Whoa, it's the weekend, Dude, let's get a pizza and beer and kick back.
Don't let it bother you - just do what you know best and enjoy!
Just IMHO. :cool:

Disagree. Most people have always not known anything to exactly the same degree as they do now. You just have to look harder for the evidence of it before the current age, because very few people had any kind of voice--much less one that would be saved. Hell, most of them didn't even have literacy. The difference is just that you weren't there, and since they didn't have movies we don't have any previous age's version of "Dude, Where's My Car?"

Their non-knowing-anything days were spent living mostly short, ugly lives snuffed out directly or indirectly by the people who left the histories that we find so dreamy and dignified. :P

And yes, you're lucky your parents traveled in those circles. The conversations I heard were about JR Ewing and grocery store wine taste tests.

[FrankS]

If you bake a cake the most wonderful cake, is it truly wonderful if no one eats it. How would they know?

Sure I understand the "shoot for yourself" thing, but again this is a process for achieving something, not an answer for whether the achieving of it is worth persueing in the first place or even if it is achiveable at all.

Eventually you have to define "art" if you want to go any further...
.


It is only if you go at it from the outset to make the best cake you can to please yourself, that you have any hope of making a truly wonderful cake. If you set out to make a cake that you hope others will others will like, you are stuck following a recipe that's been done before.

The problem with current art is that it is manipulated by art galleries and investors who are mainly looking to make money. Only with time, hindsight, and academic study, will the important art of today be revealed. It's similar to the history of art, where an artist's greatness is often only realized after his/her death. Or maybe that's when the dealers take over because the work is now limited to existing pieces. Oh, well.

[hawkeye]

Carlsen

Excuse me but da Vinci and every other artist has created work for themselves. Da Vinci's left many small paintings and notebooks that were hardly done on commission. You are mixing up work for hire or sale with an artist's creations.

And loads of photographers created works for themselves and their friends exclusively. Think of Julia Margeret Cameron. Isn't it also true that art is relevant only in the way it is perceived by viewer at a particular moment. The 'artistic' soft focus photographs of the late 1800s and early 1900s were images we with our modern vision reject.

Rueben nails it with his several definitions of relevance. Its meaning is different for different people. I can't shoot with an "audience" in mind, at leaast when I shoot for myself.

But I actually do when I work commercially because I need to give the photos a particular 'mmeaning' for its role in a story.

Hawkeye

[Al Kaplan]

"Look up: Photography Blogs in the Yahoo! Directory"

"Price of Silver, The [read review]
Blog by Al Kaplan recounting more than 50 years working as a photojournalist in the Miami/South Florida area.
thepriceofsilver.blogspot.com"

I have more fun writing the copy than showing my old photographs or shooting new things for the blog. It has certainly broadened my fan base.

[Foto-factotum]

Is "relevance" not in the eye of the beholder? Just because van Gogh only sold one painting in his life time , was this the only painitng that was relevant?

Is the photograph of the young lady that causes her to eat less, go to gym, loose weight and gain confidence, relevant? Only to her? Or the photograher? Must the picture be rated as art to be relevant?

Thank you for a thought provoking post.

[bmattock]

Photography is as relevant as you want it to be. Consider commercial advertising photography and advertising. Sports and news coverage in the printed media. Fashion, celebrity, political campaigns, and so on.

Photography is not only relevant, but vital.

Perhaps you meant fine art photography.

That is as relevant as any art is. Which is to say, it is relevant to some, it is not relevant to others. Its popularity waxes and wanes with the zeitgeist, but in general, art galleries and museums are not very well attended by the hoi polloi.

This is not something I worry too much about. Life is too short to spend worrying about why people prefer American Idol and football in place of art.

[Lilserenity]

You could say the same for most art forms, and photography to me is an extension of expression, a way of articulating a thought, a memory, a feeling and therefore it's not a given that the one I am communicating to will understand or even get close to what I was attempting to articulate. The same thing in writing or in fact any thought that stirs me to photograph ior write about it. Therefore the only true satisfaction will be found from me doing this for myself as a way of expression, not mass media acceptance. E.g. a recent trip up into Berkshire left me feeling rather cold and switched off by the acerbic nature of modern consumerism and the dull void that Tescos seems to sit at the very epicentre... Would most people get me? No. Would most people try to get me? No. Would most people even hear me? No. But that doesn't bother me. To me my writing and photographs are an extension of my memory, a way of preserving my life's experience.

I don't see my photography or writing with the need to change the world or effect it in some manner, I just want to record the world for what it is and what it means to me. And that's special. And if someone gives me recognition for that, then that's fine. But there aren't many people who will get me when I got off on a crazed manic ramble of the thoughts I sometimes get such as the one when shooting under the Westway in London (an elevated motorway) and listening to the noise, the damp concrete decay hanging all around and the incessant drum of the traffic made sense in the way it was photographed and written about as "the drum of Ballard's thunder..." The point is it means something to me and that makes me happy and that matters.

[Carlsen Highway]

Lilserenity, a wise and worthy post.

[mike thompson]

My dogs use photography...go figure.

[colker]

Sometimes disturbing thoughts occur to me.

It occured to me to consider how relevant photography both as an art form and as documentary or photojournalism might be to the average person.
I considered this for a while, and hesitatly came to the conclusion - not very.

I considered the place where I work for example. Out of the 400 odd, perfectly normal, average middle class people that work here, how many of them have seen or would recognise or think "special" any of Cartier Bressons' pictures?
The answer is none of them. It is not relevant.

Out of the modern art photographers....also none of them.

Out of the photographers that are practicing photojournalists whos work transends documentary so that it may also be described as art to some degree as well, say Eugene Richards, or Saldago, or simply the successful documentary pjotographers whether their work is considered art or not - how relevant to these average people is it, how aware of it, and how much impact or influence it might have on them?
The real answer is that it is not relevant and has no impact at all as for as I can see.
A good documentary picture may illustrate an article in a magazine, but to be brutally frank, to most people it is another news shot of something.

In a medium where we claim much of our work to reflect life, to inform people, to express our own views of the world - who are we actually reaching in any meaningful way?
Does our interest and passion really equate to a niche interest much the same relevance for anyone else as stamp collecting?
Are we imagining an audience?
I did a lot of painting and eventually came to the conclusion that painting was a meaningless art form nowadays becasue it has no real audience other than for those who have a specialist interest in art.

The only thing that I can think of that has an impact on the average person, and does that through both its craft and art, is cinema.

Do you think I am wrong?

you are falling for cultural section of newspaper's hype.
cinema is overrated. when you have the main classics being "refilmed" w/ better photography, dolby and current stars.. how can you say it's art?
is velazquez las Meninas being repainted? Is a Cartier Bresson being reshot w/ better lenses?

cinema is entertainment. other than comedy it's mostly boring.
i refuse to watch serious, commited film. it's self indulgent BS.

Art is art. It's big and photography is in the heart of it right now. You want to be relevant?
if you are not pushing the limts of ANY language.. well, then forget relevance.

[Tuolumne]

Imagine a newspaper or a web site without photos...enough said?

/T