What is a photographer?

23rd April 2015

This exercise looks at the essay written by Marius De Zayas (1880-1961), a curator and essayist  who was closely allied to the 291 gallery. This essay was published in 1913 and looked at the distinction between "artist photographer" and "photographers". 

I have read the essay, summarized the key points, responded to his points of view and considered whether these questions are still relevant today.

Inserts from Photography and Photography and Artistic Photography (1913) Marius De Zayas, first published in Camera Work no. 41 (http://www.camramirez.com/pdf/DI_Week6_PhotoAndArt.pdf)

This is a fairly straightforward definition on what De Zayas considers the difference between art and photography. The explanation follows of how to make photography acceptable like art by following a set of protocols. This introduces the reader to the idea that De DZayas believes photography represent the truth. I do not agree with his first statement of photography not being an art. I believe that photography can be art, although there must have been thought, imagination, creativity and reflection behind the work. Looking back through time, Atget may not have called himself an artist but he has been called an artist because people were interested in his work. Photographers formed groups and exhibited their work much like artists. Nowadays photography is more widely accepted as art.

In 19^th century art, the development of the neoclassicism and primitivism  moved artists away from painting religious scenes and symbolism in favour of science, industry and more realistic images (form). De Zayas was living through a period of great change in Art with the development of impressionism, cubism, neo-plasticism and other genres.   I do not find it surprising that people questioned what art was. 

In 1916, Picasso had exhibited Le Demoizelles of Avignon (painted 1907) which at the time was considered immoral. This cubism painting shows that Picasso was influenced by African art and he

distorted and made geometric the female form. It challenged societies views on female beauty.

At the time De Zayas’s essay was probably written, the common view was that Non- western people did not have art. Looking back to this period of art history, it seems that art was undergoing a huge change especially with the development of the camera and if De Zayas was in alliance with Stieglitz he may have favoured photography over art.

In my opinion, one of today’s issues is that more and more people are taking digital photographs but not all of it is art, despite numerous publications and guides on the internet for the amateur. These do not teach one how to put the emotion into the image;  they merely teach the photographer the technical aspects of taking or reproducing the image which in turn dilutes the pure art. So perhaps the issue of “art devouring art” has not disappeared, merely changed form.

These days there are several publications and websites for the professional and amateur     photographer. Competitions and  exhibitions are held encouraging photographers to showcase their work. It is possible that an idea is never really original as we live in a visual world and if an artist’s or photographer’s work has made an impression on us, we may subconsciously remember that work which influences our own.

I think times have moved on since here. Contextually the British Empire was still in existence and slavery had been abolished. (No academic reference to article so I am unable to date it exactly). It is possible that the artists who influenced the popular artists at the time this essay was written had seen works containing African lifestyle and slavery. The decline of the British Empire was based on British greed so it may be that this is an accurate representation of how people felt at the time. Culturally, although anthropological studies were undertaken on Africans and their art, their differences may not have been as widely accepted as they are today. Certainly these days, Aboriginal Art is taught in secondary school education as part of the curriculum along with artists such as Piet Mondrian (1872-1944 Dutch Artist) who started his career as a  landscape artist and painted landscapes in graphic designs. Mondrian published a book on Neo-Plasticism in which he referred to his vision of "plastic" being the new method for representing modern reality by the action and forms of the colours on the surface of the canvas. 

At this point I became confused. De Zayas was in alliance with Steichen who exhibited modern art paintings along with photography in Gallery 291. Maybe he thought that it was time for a new medium such as photography to be developed and exhibited which would be more creative than paintings.

Imagination requires reflection on the original idea, trying out new ideas and combining them together and trialing them again, perhaps several times. So I agree with this idea.

I think  De Zayas is referring to the fact that imagination originally comes from fantasia (fantasy) and is seen as not real. This was a topic being defined over the last few centuries, especially by Kant. De Zayas  goes on to say that imagination is illusionary. 

I think this explanation means that the photographer has to show the emotion of the subject or form that he is capturing (Emotion is an affective state of consciousness - Collins dictionary) without showing his own emotion. To update this, I think that some photo - stories which appear on websites such as Lens Culture or works such as Richard Billingham's "Ray's a Laugh", or Toby Smith's "Walk the HS2 line" are emotional subjects which the photographer has to empathise with in order to produce the images he requires which convey the necessary emotion to the viewers. (Empathy is also an affective emotion.) I agree with this, although I think the photographer has to remain neutral and open to possibilities rather than taking a particular side if it is a political subject. Thinking back to the talk from Toby Smith, I think this fits in well here.

I agree that photography teaches us to realise and feel our own emotions. 

However, I do not believe that photography always shows the truth. I think in a bid to make the photograph look creative, the truth may be bent or the image may contain a representation of form. When studying geo-caching and topography briefly for a previous assignment, I came across debates on the Internet on whether the photographer should remove telegraph wires from images because it spoiled the scenic view and made the area more difficult to find for geo-catchers. Historically too, it would not represent how the land / building was at the time if the image was altered. I think that if the purpose of the photograph is defined, the photographer is able to alter the truth. If all photographs showed the truth, photography would become banal. Researching a certain subject of photographs on the Internet can be demoralising because there are  so many similar images on the web. It is only when an artist / photographer does something different, people take more notice. 

I agree with this statement because I think that as the photographer begins to master the technical aspect of photography to capture form, they begin to use the techniques at their disposal more creatively. I see it as progression and setting the photographer of form out from the artist. I think De Zayas, who was in alliance with Stieglitz and Steichen was putting forward his argument for why his contemporaries were doing things differently. 

Even by defining the 4 key words in this passage, I am still not sure i completely understand where De Zayas is coming from. Objectivity is a lack of bias whereas subjectivity is developed in the person's mind and not developed by external stimuli. Inductive thinking is starting with a specific idea and working around it to make it larger. Deductive thinking is logical reasoning by the power of deduction starting with a broad subject and narrowing it down.This again talks of imagination and emotion. I think this is where artistic photography fits.

Amorphic is without form. I think this statement  is a great generalisation. I have not studied art in cultures who are more religious than ours or countries who are multi cultural and have multi faiths where influences may cross over. I also wonder how long the "great periods" are that De Zayas mentions. I don't feel I know enough to comment on De Zayas's reasoning of why "Art has always been subjective and dependent on the religious idea." De Zayas argues that it is only photography which started man thinking about representing form. Is this because photography was developed and adopted as an art form in the West? Did Eastern cultures experiment with photography and was it abstract like their art. Was the culture in which De Zayas worked open to cultural exchanges of ideas?

It would be interesting to see what De Zayas thought of photography now and whether he sat on the side of art photography or photography. I think there is a place for both. Looking at the image from Steiglitz of The Steerage from 1907, the representation of the subject would not look out of place today (although the image could be dated from the type of boat and clothes worn by the passengers.

 So I think the image shows some truth.

Bibliography

http://www.pablopicasso.org/avignon.jsp  accessed 21/4/15
http://www.piet-mondrian.org/ accessed 22/4/15
http://www.theartstory.org/artist-mondrian-piet.htm accessed 21/4/15
http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/33.43.29 accessed 21/4/15
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/emotion accessed 21/4/15
http://www.camramirez.com/pdf/DI_Week6_PhotoAndArt.pdf accessed 21/4/15
http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/33.43.419 accessed 21/4/15