Self belief and image fatigue
If you take any machine whether a digital point and shoot or a large format film camera, a photographers aim would be to produce the best of the capability of the machine, then preserve the result in the context of the tool that made it. The realization that the cheaper range of consumer digitals can, in fact, produce powerful results seems to come only after someone famous or successful suddenly shows this to be so (I'm thinking of Alec Majoli). Some photographer's self belief appears to be built upon their icon's self belief (the whole concept behind celebrity advertising, right). Let's face it, though the digitals may be seem far more convenient to use, that perfect picture, distinct from that perfect file, won't be much easier to make.
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On another topic. Image fatigue is something I suffer from. I'm so tired of exposing my eyes to pictures. It's an addictive urge, almost a masochistic need to quench this desire. I remember in university, pouring over just about every photobook that existed on the shelf, amassing all those images in one huge picture library in my mind. The result has been a growing lack of belief in photography and especially art. So in a way I understand how someone might say, there has been nothing important since Arbus. For me it's Cartier Bresson (Arbus is just too uncomfortable), not because I really think there has been nothing since, its just that there's far too much good, and bad, photography that my line of sight is obscured.
Submitted by Philip Cartland on 26 November 2006 - 1:37pm.Pieter Hugo and James
I'm a bit of a schizophrenic person. One day I like this then another day I like that. I really used to get heavy under the eyes with portrait photography, I'm also, like, a little bit very much misanthropic. Then the portrait turned modern (contemporary...or whatever). Well what does that mean? I really am going to avoid talking about Avedon, I might just nod off (sorry)...... I guess, what I mean is, suddenly you get your subject standing in the middle of the frame, kind of like in a measured way, just standing there almost as though to say I am what I am, here I am. That's why I suppose I like Pieter Hugo's 'subdued' portraits besides the obvious nature man in his environment thing. It's refreshing for me not to see an old car, a signboard, street, a mundane sparsity or a weird over ambiguous 'meaningful' gesture.
These images remind me of a guy I knew called James, last time I saw him he'd got into a drunken fight and lost two of his front teeth. James was not to bright, in the 'educated' sense of the word, i.e. he couldn't read nor write. He had trouble putting a three pronged plug into a wall socket, he spent an awful lot of time, in an HIV world, sleeping with prostitutes and anyone else available (consequently he found himself followed by a string of kids), and he spent every penny he earned the same day he received it. But he'd come from another world completely. Give him a panga (big chopping knife) and a thick branch and he would carve out the most delicate cooking spoon. He knew all about honey and bees and what fruit certain birds liked and what animal made such and such mark on the ground. He was, just, like so many Africans today, being crowded out by a world that has enforced western style education and lifestyle.
Submitted by Philip Cartland on 11 November 2006 - 1:29pm.