The Decisive Moment

We’ve been discussing the recent controversy surrounding one of Nan Goldin’s photographs that was recently seized by police from an exhibition due to fears that it might breach pornography laws. We ended up asking if the work was even really art or just a snapshot. This got me thinking about what constitutes art so I thought I’d write a post about.

So what does count as art? Well my trusted Pocket Oxford English Dictionary says, ‘art – n, 1. the expression of creative skill in a visual form such as painting or sculpture. 2. paintings, drawings, and sculpture as a whole.’ Well I guess that should include photography too (goes to show how old my dictionary is). So by definition it doesn’t really matter what I paint, draw or photograph or indeed how I go about doing so, it can all be classified as art.

I don’t think that’s a good enough definition though. I think art needs to be more than that to be called art. Surely for something to be art there aught to be some sort of expression within it or at least some sort of meaning to it, and not just that, but a meaning or expression that the artist intended to be in there and is in someway communicated by the piece.

Is the definition of art a personal thing? Often I’ve heard people say that something isn’t art, seemingly just because they don’t like it, so is the reverse true? Can something only be art if you like it? There have always been artists who have challenged our perception of art. Artists like Andy Warhol and more recently Damien Hirst, to name just two, have created pieces that have caused uproar within society. Does this mean they can’t really be considered art?

Is the question answered by the subject of the piece? For instance is a photograph of starving children in a war torn country taken by a news reporter art? After all the primary function of the photography here would be reportage. The most important thing is that the photograph offers a realistic portrayal of the situation. Is it even wrong to call it art? If it isn’t wrong to call it art, isn’t it at least disrespectful to the subjects of the photo to consider it as such? Would a photographic reproduction of Constable’s “The Hay Wain” support the opposite argument?

What counts as art for you?

An experiment

If you would, take a look at the photo above. I took it a few years ago and at the time I had every intention for it to be labeled art. I won’t share with you what I think of it now, but I will when the results are in. Is it art? Let us know what you think, leave us a comment.

Firstly, I feel I should apologize for the appalling title of this article - to you for insulting your intelligence and to the family of Edwin Starr for causing him to turn in his grave!

I’m not going to bang on about the benefits of shooting your digital photos in RAW mode or what you can and can’t do in the processing stage. This is all pretty well documented elsewhere. Really, I just want to underline the simple, fundamental and yet apparently often overlooked truth about shooting RAW:

RAW is there to allow you to achieve the best possible quality from your digital camera, not to allow you to compensate for shoddy technique.

Yes, you can tweak the exposure, the contrast range, the sharpness, blah, blah, blah to “fix up” the under/over exposure, poor lighting arrangement, etc. However, capturing the “perfect” RAW image in the first place allows you to manipulate the photograph to express your creativity instead of forcing you into a rescue attempt.

In the days of film (oh, here we go again!) you paid a much higher price for shoddy workmanship. You learnt that your method of capturing the image was directly relational to the finished picture. Perfecting your exposure technique would save you time and potentially a huge amount of money.

Now that many of us work in an entirely digital workspace, we don’t consider cost in terms of materials. We can shoot as many pictures as we like, load them on our computers, manipulate them and only commit to paper those images we are happy with. But there is still a cost - pride. Have you ever presented a client with a picture you knew was not really up to the mark? One that you did a pretty good job of rescuing, considering what you had to work with? Did it eat away at you?

Modern cameras, whilst they are truly technological wonders, do not “understand” light, they merely measure a small sample of it as a guide. It is up to you how that image is captured. Stop and think for a moment before you release the shutter.

Strive for perfection. The processing stage will become much more enjoyable, I promise you.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the last couple of months you will have undoubtedly heard about the controversy surrounding one of the pictures in a recent exhibition of Nan Goldin’s work.

For obvious reasons we can’t show the photo here but for those of you who haven’t seen it, it’s a picture of two young girls belly dancing; one of them is naked and in what could be considered a compromising position.

The photograph, Klare and Edda belly-dancing, was taken away by police on September 20th due to concerns that it might breach child pornography laws.

Firstly, please understand that I (and everyone at TDM) certainly believe that the matter of child pornography should be taken very seriously and I don’t believe that there can ever be a severe enough punishment for these kinds of offences, but when did we, as a society, completely lose all common sense? Whilst I understand that we need to protect children from abuse and exploitation, I don’t understand how anyone who has actually seen the photograph could see anything pornographic about it, or even feel the need to question it’s validity in relation to the law. When did we forget that nudity doesn’t mean pornography? And when did we decide that it was a good idea to turn a common depiction of the innocence of youth into something sinister?

Throughout history there have been countless occurrences in art of all genres of nude children. Some of the most famous pieces of work created by the old masters contain nude children. Why is this any different? Surely any “normal” person would take one look at the piece and realise that there is nothing sinister about the photograph?

Right, everybody close your eyes. Now think back. As a child did you at any point run about, playing, doing silly things without your clothes on. If you did, put your hand up. Now open your eyes. Yup I thought so. It wasn’t that uncommon a thing was it. How many of your parents have a photo of you like that. You know that photo that your mum always gets out and shows your significant other the first time you take them home to meet your parents. I thought so. Now, it could be argued that that isn’t the kind of photo you really want to display in an art gallery, but except for the embarrassment it would cause is there really anything wrong with that?

If the photo wasn’t clearly the type of photo above then I absolutely agree it should have been removed. If it had been removed just in case a paedophile should see it then that would at least make some sense, but to potentially brand a piece of art like this as paedophilic and then in turn brand the photographer as a paedophile is moronic at best.

Personally, I’m not a fan of Goldin’s work. I can’t say that I particularly care for the photograph in question either, but I believe it’s important that as photographers we support one and other’s right to be creative. Furthermore I think it’s our duty as humans to support our society’s values but also to remember that common sense should prevail over political correctness and that we shouldn’t live in a society where we are afraid to go about normal daily life because of a minority who would cause trouble because of it. After all, isn’t that what the fight against terrorism is all about?

This is obviously a potentially controversial subject and there must be other important points of view to consider. What do you have to say on the subject?

To me it’s invaluable. Think of any situation you’ve been in where you have needed to direct models or wedding guests or even just one person for a portrait. At some point in each of these scenarios you will have had to command the situation. This requires confidence.

That’s not the only roll confidence plays in photography. We’ve all done that thing of taking 30 of the same shot just to make sure we get what we want just because we’re a little nervous. If you’re in the zone less than a handful of shots will do the trick. You need confidence to do that.

I’ve been using the same camera for a couple of years now. I know it inside and out and know what to expect from it. I never have to second guess the camera when I’m using it. The lenses though are a different matter. When I’m taking portraits or doing a wedding I mostly use the EFS 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 II that came with my Canon 350D. It’s a pretty good little lens. It’s versatile, well built and reasonably cheap. But for some reason I’ve never been completely happy about using it. I couldn’t tell you why. It’s played on my mind and on occasion I’ve lacked confidence and made all the usual related mistakes because it.

Gaz recently bought himself the Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM lens and to be honest I got a little jealous. Now my budget can’t quite stretch to one of those but I did have enough in the kitty to get the Sigma equivalent - the Sigma 24-70mm f/2.8 EX DG MACRO (reviews and a comparison of the two will follow very soon).

The build quality and ease of use are very good. There is no doubt in my mind that the lens is far superior to what I have been using. The specification alone supports that notion. When I put it onto my camera something odd happened. I all of a sudden felt more like a proper photographer. Almost like up until now I had only been playing with photography. Considering I regularly photograph people and weddings for money and have had no complaints so far it seems odd that this should have happened but it has.

I’ve spoken to other similarly skilled photographers and they have had similar experiences. Perhaps it’s part of the “right of passage” a photographer goes through as they develop their skills and experience or perhaps I’m just daft, but for me it seems that the price of confidence is £300 for a new lens.

Last week I stumbled upon a website where photographer Vitaly Druchinin demonstrates his (considerable, in my opinion) talent for retouching and manipulating images of models. I was really impressed.

My initial reaction was that the resulting picture was a lie, in as much as it gave a false impression of… well, everything! Once I gave it a little more thought I realized that I was being rather naive (okay, stupid). Of course these pictures give a false impression - why would you want to see the reality anyway? These images are art, not documentary. They exist to create a fantasy. And as art they really work. Without the before and after images I would have been none the wiser and I think this is the key ingredient here; the “artist” has created something which you do not question when the finished image is all the information you have to go on.

However, a couple of days ago, many of the local bus stops were adorned with a poster advertising the opening of a new shop in the town centre. The poster shows the lovely Louise Redknapp in her Triumph underwear, looking fantastic. For a few seconds (I admit it would have been longer, but there was nobody waiting for the bus at this stop) I stared at the poster and admired the lighting, the set and, okay, Mrs Redknapp. Then it hit me! I know I’m looking at at a picture which has almost certainly been completely retouched. I don’t have the before and after pictures to compare, but that’s not clever lighting, it’s Photoshop. Is Mrs Redknapp really that shapely, or has she been digitally enhanced? I’m labouring the point - I know you get it.

What makes this advertising image different is that I’m expected to believe in it, although it’s still about fantasy to some extent, obviously. It’s not supposed to be art. The model is someone recognisible; someone I feel I know, in a way. This makes it feel dishonest.

Of course this has been going on for ever. Even the portraits from the old masters aren’t accurate. Famously, creating a painted portrait was more about showing the sitter in a flattering light than depicting an accurate portrayal. Isn’t this just the same thing but with modern technology?

Where do you draw the line? Is there really any difference between airbrushing away a single wrinkle and completely changing the lighting of a photograph? Is this just part of producing aesthetically great imagery or is it the corruption of something that should be more pure?