Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1999/02/17
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Harrison McClary wrote: > I don't understand what you are saying above....what do institutions > have to do with great photography? What makes a great photograph is > content. Period. Not the camera. Not who made the photo. Not the > lens used. Not what film was used. Not weather some bozo at a museum > will hang it on a wall or not. I'm sorry, I didn't clearly define my terminology: I was referring to "Great" with a capital "G," as in "Art" with a capital "A" which is what is 'universally' accepted as being great or art. That is, it is objective or public "greatness;" for example, it is what distinguishes a Mapplethorpe from an unknown photographer's work that may be equally good or similarly, between a child's drawing of a Campbell's soup can with Warhol's. This "Greatness" is largely created through publicity associated with institutions whether they be musuems or publishing houses. However, to regain perspective on the issue, "greatness" clearly transcends institutions although I can't think of an example to illustrate the point at the moment... > Just for the most part B&W has an immediacy color lacks because it > abstracts the world into tones of grey forcing the viewer to see the > subject matter in a non-realistic manner thus causing, perhaps, a > greater level of communication. I was in no way criticising black-and-white practice or making any statements on its relevance; after all, most of what I do is in black-and-white. I would hesitate in saying anything so specific about the effect of tonal abstraction though since I have always found that this is entirely dependent on the subject matter; what makes a wonderful colour subject can be extremely lack-lustre in black-and-white and vice-versa. Furthermore, I have found that discussions on these topics are often far too polarised - the possibilities in the range of hues in a photograph is large, spanning black-and-white to toned monochrome prints to various near-monochromatic colour processes (eg. crossed-processed VPS) to 'standard' colour to super-saturated colour (eg. landscapes in Velvia, cross-processed E6). With digital post-processing, hue range can be controlled as a continuum and so, it surprises me that the black-and-white versus colour argument can be so heated - it seems as pointless as the art versus pornography argument. Regards, K.