UK photographer chased down and detained for taking pix at fun fair – Boing Boing Yet another post about yet another UK Photographer being unfairly harassed by UK policing.
Is it any wonder that photographers are being turned in left and right with the “brilliant” new campaign targeting photographers by the Metropolitan police.
Photography is not a crime. One more reason (besides the weak dollar) to stay away from the UK this year.
Aqui-Ali, one of the Flickr photographer’s mentioned in this weekend’s New York Times Magazine article.
The New York Times Magazine has an interesting article that will run in this weekend’s paper on the new art represented by Flickr and online photography.
The article contrasts the predominant popular styles on Flickr with the old fine art photography of the past. I was interviewed for the article.
Personally I believe that one of the greatest things that Flickr represents is a new democratization of fine art photography.
For the past 100 years, much of what the world considers fine art photography has been bestowed upon us by a very small handful of influential gatekeepers. Literally, at any given time, probably less than 100 people control 95% of what the world is told to consider fine art. These are a few major museum curators, select gallery owners, and other influencers. These individuals not only control the prices that fine art photography will fetch, they quite literally control what is considered the best fine art in the world today. They tell people what photography ought to be deemed great and what ought to be deemed amateurish.
With the advent of the web much of this is changing. In the past without the cooperation of the art elite most photographers saw their work fade into obscurity. Sure, they might win a bronze sticker at the local county fair for their photograph, but really nobody would ever see it.
Today the web is allowing a new breed of photographer as artist. An artist that is increasingly able to bypass the fine art elite and promote their work directly to the public. Although the fine art prices have not yet been attached to today’s new “Flickr Famous” photographer, this too will come in time. Step one is simply getting the exposure.
One of the stories that I conveyed to Virginia Heffernan, the reporter at the Times who wrote this article, was a story of a Cartier-Bresson photograph which a critique group of Flickr shouted down as inferior photography without knowing it was an actual Cartier-Bresson. While one take away from that story might be that the general Flickr community simply has poor taste in art, another take away might be to question the previously unquestionable. Was Cartier-Bresson actually that good? And would his work stand up today as it has in the past?
Many in the fine art and photography community would immediately label me as heretical for suggesting the possibility that Cartier-Bresson, regarded by many as the finest photographer the world’s ever known, might not be all that he’s made out to be.
And yet Cartier-Bresson prints sell for hundreds of thousands of dollars, while my Flickr famous Pal Merkley sells his prints online himself for hundreds of dollars instead.
But the mainstream press is beginning to take notice of the new trends in fine art photography that are beginning to take form on Flickr. For some of the photographers mentioned in the NY Times article this is a whoo-hoo moment. The NEY YORK F***ING TIMES!
But mark my words. The naysayers will be here shortly. The fine art world has a lot to lose. Literally millions. But more significantly, control. Control over what is good fine art and what is not. Right now the the wealthy patrons that they advise still believe in what they push. But as the marketing of art by a talented new bunch of artists and photographers learn their very same promotional techniques — it won’t be long.
And this is what the internet does best. Tears down old ways of seeing the world and brings entirely new ones.
Don’t get what I’m saying wrong. I do believe that some of the photographers that the fine art world has historically bestowed as worthy are very much in fact worthy. But there are many new photographers that I believe are every bit as worthy. And I think that they too will begin to see the success that they equally deserve — even without an MFA, even without networking like hell with the fine art crowd, even without the right group shows or whatever that civ thing is that the fine art types tend to obsess over, and even without being 21 and beautiful and just the right type that just the right curator likes to sleep with.
Worthwhile reading: Merkley’s treatise, “I’m Not a Photographer.”
NY Times article on digg here.
I’m currently up in Yosemite Valley with my wife spending two days interviewing Michael Adams, Ansel Adams’ son. The interviews are being done as part of a new video show called Photo Cycle that I’m working on with Robert Scoble and professional photographer Marc Silber. Rocky Barbanica who is executive producer of the new show is also up here with us.
In about an hour we are going to be given a guided tour up on a closed road to Glacier Point to shoot photographs from more of the places that Ansel Adams shot over the years. Yesterday we spent most of our time driving around Yosemite Valley to many of the most famous spots where Adams first shot some of the world’s most iconic images of nature.
Michael Adams is such a kind and generous man. When I have more time after I’m back I’ll do a much more detailed write up. He has so many amazing stories about his father Ansel and the beautiful photographs that Ansel provided the world with.
The photograph above was taken in the same meadow where Ansel Adams shot Moon and Half Dome, one of his most famous and spectacular images.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22DTUqjspcQ]
1. Won’t connect with a web site right now while I’m in the Ferry Building in downtown San Francisco returning back to me a “Safari can’t open the page because it can’t fine the server” message instead? The same “server not found” message that I get for any web page that I try to access. (Note, I just turned it on and off and got my slooowww internet access back).
2. Can’t load a TechCrunch article from the West Oakland BART Station to the Transbay Tube so that I can have something interesting to read while the BART train is under the Bay?
3. Couldn’t get a voice or data signal in Downtown Portland for over three hours (until I finally simply turned it off and back on)?
4. Couldn’t post an item to Pownce or Zooomr’s Zipline last night while driving from Mason and Post to Epic Restaurant along the Embarcadero (over a ten minute drive)?
5. Frequently won’t rotate my screen while it’s stuck on some internet load?
6. Types really, really, slowly sometimes while I’m loading an internet page?
7. Can’t get a signal in the men’s restroom in the Ferry Building in downtown San Francisco?
8. Couldn’t load a web page from the toll plaza at the entrance of the Bay Bridge to exiting the first off ramp of the Bay Bridge (about 10 minutes later) in San Francisco?
9. Couldn’t load a Flickr page while walking from Fort Mason to a parking lot in Chrisy Field in San Francisco?
10. Has never been able to load my Google Map page of everywhere that I want to shoot in the world over the Edge Network when I’ve tried to access this page on the iPhone at least 50 times?
Isn’t this new fangled cell phone supposed to be able to get the internet on it?
