The anxiety to buy things when people don't understand what they mean, what they represent or they don't comprehend their price ... even if they can afford them!
As long as prices for art [and fine art photography] are not understood, as long as art is not explained to the majority of the population, the art market will have enormous problems to sell to the core of the society.
It is quite amazing how many people with incomes that could easily afford to purchase genuine art, have empty walls or have walls covered with "commodity" posters and prints decorating their home. At the same time, these are the people that will spend hundreds [or thousands] for the next fashion item that will be trashed and replaced in few months. Most of the people I know, never buy art, even if they can afford it.
More sadly, many times the reason is not a lack of appreciation for art ... it is a lack of understanding of how much it is a fair price. It is easy to know how much one should pay for a car, for an appliance, for a book, for a TV. It is dam hard to know what is the fair price for an art piece. As long as to understand fine art prices requires to be a connoisseur, it will never reach the market potential that it could have. I wish I would have a solution. Do you?
Perhaps gallery owners and dealers will need to make the galleries "more inviting" and "less intimidating", and will have to start explaining the art and the factors that define prices. How is it possible that so many galleries have become a place where you can't really experience the emotional aspect of art ... often times so elitist, sometimes so sterile. It is time to start explaining art and prices with an open and inviting attitude so that the potential customer - us- doesn't get paralyzed due to lack of understanding.
[Don't miss the interesting comment from Jacob Pritchard, in the comments section. It explains quite well what I meant with the previous paragraph]
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Art paralysis: It is a widespread and often crippling malady, striking everyone from the new college grad in his or her first apartment to the super-rich banker, lasting anywhere from a few months to a lifetime.
How many are affected is not known, perhaps because the victims are often too embarrassed to come forth. Who wants to admit that "I've had these posters since college, I know that as one of the American Top 10 Orthodontists I should get some real art, but I don't know what that means"?
Or that "It's not that I'm trying to make a minimalist statement with these empty white walls, I just don't know what to buy"?
Or "I walk into those snooty galleries in Chelsea and feel like I just don't belong"? [source]
Some images look so similar that make me question if it is coincidence or copy. I can't tell what is the situation in this case, but these images look strikingly similar to each other.
The one on top is from well known and influential nature photographer Thomas Mangelsen and has sold more than 2 million USD in royalty fees as a stock image licensed by Thomas Mangelsen's stock.
The second one is from National Geographic photographer Joel Sartore, and it came across to me from the Julia Dean workshops.
Striking similarities indeed.
How much the visual influence of images drives our own photography? ... how much do we "copy" even when we don't realize we do so?
Recent work by the legendary fashion/portrait photographer Irving Penn. It is extraordinary the delicacy and sensitivity of his work, the grace of his portraits reflected in still life images. In exhibition at Pace/MacGill gallery in New York City, from February 21st to March 29th, 2008. See some of the images here.
Mr.Penn (b.1917) has made still life photographs since the beginning of his career. In fact, one of them appeared as his first cover at Voge in October 1943. Now in his 91st year, these new images mark Penn's return to familiar forms. The objects are more than mementos, they are long-time companions. In fact several of the vessels in this exhibition have appeared in previous photographs made decades earlier [from the press release].
"I was alone in a world that I didn't know or understand ... fear and freedom at that moment were the same"
Stephen Wilkes's images of Ellis Island capture the beauty and the hope of what it was the main entry point for immigrants coming to the USA during between 1892 and 1954. During this 62 years about 12 million people passed through it. As part of Ellis Island there was a hospital, where individuals who arrived with health problems were kept in observation to avoid the possible spread of disease among the general population. During this time they were so separated from their families and from reaching their dream to enter the "land of hope". About 1% of the people who arrived were not allowed to enter the country.
Over a period of five years Stephen Wilkes, photographed the hospital complex, recording the remaining of the place with a beauty of light and color than was never associated with the history of Ellis Island, and so it provides a unique record of what it was a place for both hope and a place for angst for the few that were not admitted into the USA. You can see the full collection of images at the Monroe Gallery Website.
The website, Ellis Island Ghosts, is an exquisite example for website design to display photography. Don't miss to read the text of the Introduction and the Author's Note. This work was published in a book.
If you are as impressed about the work of Stephen Wilkes as I am, you may consider the possibility to attend an workshop that will be lead by the photographer at the upcoming Palm Springs Photo Festival (workshop here).
Recently I learned about Johsong Baak, an american photographer residing in Paris. I have to say that I feel somehow confused about his work.
I certainly like the aesthetics of his images: high contrast, with a nice and consistent texture of grain. Compositions that are original and play with light to shape the image and convey a dramatic effect into the final picture.
There is "cohesiveness" in his aesthetics. Even more, there is "cohesiveness" between his "dramatic" use of light and his emotional approach to photography.
For Jeshong Baak, being a photographer is an emotional affair with the moment.
Johsong Baak was born in South Korea. At an early age he emigrated to America with his father. This change in life would separate him from his mother for more than 25 years. No memories, no photographs to remember her.
"I lived without roots, imprisoned between cultures"-Johsong Baak
This made him an outsider and a traveler, always and everywhere in search of a home. He often photographed while wandering through a place at night.
"It is a matter of chance - an encounter, a view, the way light falls. Small moments. That is where happiness is hidden."-Johsong Baak
All should be holding together, but unfortunately it doesn't for me, and this is why I am confused.
Nice images, some very nice indeed, but at the end the images in the portfolios are just connected by nothing but the dramatic use of contrast, light and darkness. I feel like he is trying to tell something that unfortunately I don't hear. Each image within a portfolio is somewhere mysterious and always different and for me they miss the concept of a "cohesive" message.
One of the purposes of "a series of images" is to provide a body of work where each image may not hold that well alone but in the context of other images it becomes a key component of the message. Each image should have a defined purpose in the series, like there is a meaning for each word in a sentence. The images become the words, the organization of the pictures becomes the grammar, and the proper relationship of each image to the rest defines the "cohesivenesses" of the message. When this relationship breaks, the message is lost.
This is how I respond looking at Johsong Baak's work. I very much feel I want to like his work but I can't avoid to feel confused. The message is not cohesive to me.
When the images in a portfolio don't have a defined intent to speak to the message as part of the whole series, I much prefer them to be presented as isolated pictures, so I can read the "words" without expecting to read a "sentence". I know it is easy to forget this basic fact when editing a series of work. Just ask yourself why a given image is in the series? ... what does it tell within the context of the other images? ... and make sure that the sequence speaks with proper grammar.
It always helps to have someone else read your "sentence" of images.
Perhaps the most influential historian of photography, Beaumont Newhall. Among his many books, The History of Photography, is one of the master pieces in the genre. This wonderful video, covers some of the history of photography as narrated by Beaumont Newhall and others.
The appetite for contemporary art is so great that it seems buyers don't need to see the art work anymore. Just login into the internet, or get a sample JPEG by e-mail and get ready to open the wallet and pay many thousands before someone else gets your piece. Quite intriguing and very telling of the current trends.
It’s another sign of the acceleration of the contemporary art market: New works, even in the six-figure range, are selling by digital image alone. For the Friedman show, Gagosian set up a private section on its Web site, accessible only by a password sent via e-mail message to select collectors. More typically, gallery directors send off e-mail messages with JPEGs — a format for digitally storing and transmitting images — to potential clients.- from the New York Times by Jori Finkel.
In this Ovation TV original special, acclaimed photographers Albert Maysles, Sylvia Plachy, Andrew Moore and Timothy Greenfield-Sanders discuss the impact their work has on their lives and on culture as a whole.
Regarded as one of the best working photographers in the world, David LaChapelle is known for taking images of popular culture and twisting then into a surreal fantasies. This profile follows LaChapelle as he shoots Alicia Keyes for Vogue, works on a Vanity Fair assignment with Elton John, and recalls backstage stories about his most iconic photographs.
This episode is about the pictures that photographers take of other people and the pictures they take of themselves. Having conquered the street and the road, photographers approached the final frontier: the home, the self, private life. This episode is about the pictures that photographers take of other people and the pictures they take of themselves. It's about what happens when photography translates personal relationships into photographic ones.
More about LaChapelle
and one final one ... this episode looks at the inventions of photography and the way in which it became an integral part of the modern world.
I just returned from visiting The Photographer's eye exhibit at the MoPA [Museo of Photographic Arts in San Diego] in San Diego. This is the third time I see it ... advantages of living in the city. This is really a superb exhibition, as I described before in one of my posts. The reason I write about this is because there is an image, that never leaves me since the moment I saw it: "THIS IS MY PROOF" by Duane Michals.
For a man that exudes humor, and writes books like "Foto Folies", what an emotional piece of work. The synergy between the image and the caption, a handwritten statement, is just extraordinary. It is an small print, extremely well crafted. I hope you have the fortune to see it one day. You will never forget it.
“This Photograph is my proof. There was that afternoon, when things were still good between us, and she embraced me, and we were so happy. It did happen. She did love me. Look see for yourself!”
I like to share with you a new application that is an interesting option to display your photography online creating electronic photobooks. The name is ISSUU, and it is a web based application that allows the display of pdf files at any website (help on making pdf files) in a format that most resembles a "real" magazine/book. See some examples: example 1, example 2.
February 29, 2008
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