December 2006
- 6
Photographic Manipulation And The Internet
About two years ago, David Hockney was being interviewed and quoted in the media for his views on photography. It sucks, he said, because in the digital age it can’t be trusted since much of it is manipulated. It’s lost all integrity. Except this was nonsense: it’s a controversy that’s existed for decades, Hockney is no photography expert, and there was no reason to emphasise what he said. I read one article where a journalist…
- 12
Sensitive Response
When I become sensitive to what is happening to me – as soon as I begin to be aware of my thoughts, of my feelings, of my body, my sensations – this energy is beginning to work in me. Without this….sensitive energy we are nothing but machines. Up to that point there is nothing but mechanicalness, but as soon as sensitive energy enters, the possibility of separating from our own automatism begins. JG Bennett…
- 18
Meta Photographic Themes: Sex, Tragedy, And The Other
Take a simple but powerful technology, enabling you to make a 2D visual record of anything and everything. Make it affordable and widely available, and what do you get? I’m curious about what I call the meta-themes of photography, the common and ubiquitous subjects that people pursue. Traditionally, we have such classical photography genres as portrait, landscape, art, travel and documentary. And yet, as Charlotte Cotton suggests in The Photograph As Contemporary Art (2004), these are…
- 25
Jazz Photography: Jazz And Jeet Kune Do
I’ve come to the conclusion that jazz, like punk, is the name for a former musical phenomenon that largely no longer exists. In both cases you find contemporary sounds that do fit the genre, but in both cases it lacks the significance and the context of the original work, and there’s not much of it about. Some, but not much. There will never be another Clash, there will never be another Art Blakey, Gillespie, or…
- 27
Mountain Photography: Philosophy
In American Photography (2003) Miles Orvell suggests there are three ways of considering landscape. The first is the view landscape representing the wondrous sublimity of nature, where Ansel Adams is the notable/iconic example: Orvell suggests that “Photography, by promoting the spiritually uplifting value of nature, contributed crucially to….cultural changes, creating symbols that crystallised and made tangible these feelings” (2003: 45). Modern ecological sensibilities could to some extent be traced back to the achievements of Ansel…