The death of photography?
Man Ray, Tears, 1932
I’ve been tossing up whether to post this essay I wrote the other week for my ‘studies in photography’ course.
There are a couple of things that have been holding me back.
1) It’s probably not as ‘easy-reading’ (a la 4KQ easy listening radio) as most of my stuff. I don’t crack any lame jokes or exhibit my affinity for puns. But hey, I think you people are pretty smart so you can probably hack it and/or read your own jokes and puns in where you feel it is appropriate.
2) I was a little worried it would cause offence among certain sectors of the community, namely hipsters, people with iPhones, and/or hipsters with iPhones. But again, I think you can hack it. I’m just trying to fuel the debate, man…
Let me preface with a couple of comments though.
Firstly…
It is my personal belief that iPhone photography can be art. It can be art in circumstances where there is a degree of artistic decision-making involved in the taking of photographs. In particular, Henri Cartier-Bresson’s concept of ‘the decisive moment’ is, I believe, an essential element in the creation of art photography. What do I mean by this? The best photographs are those that capture a scene at a precise moment that best conveys a particular feeling or an idea, and the best photographers are those that are capable of identifying that precise, decisive moment.
Secondly…
Yes, it does irk me (to say the least) that there is an overwhelming number of people around these days, who, owing to the increased accessibility of ‘expensive’ cameras, consider themselves artists. I’m sorry, but you are not an artist. You are a hobby photographer. Different.
There is indeed nothing wrong with this, so long as you accept that you fall into the ‘hobby’ category, and don’t skulk around in clubs being ‘cool’, taking photos of other people being ‘cool’ for no apparent reason other than to make people think you’re ‘cool’ and make the subjects of your photos, usually your friends, think that they’re ‘cool’ too.
You know who you are.
Photography as a hobby is amongst the greatest hobbies, in my opinion. Sometimes I wish I could be a hobby photographer.
Having said this, there is an extra special something that is present in art photography that is not present in hobby photography. Fact.
Okay are we ready? Deep breath.
(FYI - the essay question (voila!): In what ways has the use of photography in art contributed to ideas about the identity of ‘Generation Y’?)
iPhoneography is a medium that is particular to Generation Y artists, distinguishing them from photographic artists of preceding generations. In the age of ‘gadgets’, iPhoneography engages in a symbiotic relationship with the prevailing technology-driven consumer culture in order to produce images that may be seen as art. Using the latest and most popular iPhone applications, the iPhoneographer is able to create an artistic digital image at the press of a button. Exhibitions are done through online mediums, blogs and Flickr accounts rather than in the traditional gallery context. Despite its somewhat novel nature, however, iPhoneography is inescapably informed by themes that have been explored since photography’s invention in the early 1800s. In a way, iPhoneography makes use of cutting-edge technology in order to create images that largely mimic those of the past. A number of comparisons may be drawn between contemporary iPhoneography and its more traditional counterparts, most particularly, with the Pictorialist tradition. Despite their similarities, however, the two traditions are completely at odds, and may even operate in opposition to one another.
This essay will argue that the iPhone successfully encapsulates the zeitgeist of Generation Y through its technology and in the way in which it generates an instantaneous photographic product. It will explore the dialogue and tensions between iPhoneography and Pictorialism, arguing that although the motivation behind creating nostalgic images with the iPhone may stem from a similar worldview, the approach that Generation Y has to the creation of such images is completely antithetical to the Pictorialist ideal. Whilst Pictorialists’ motivation sprung from a desire to differentiate art photography from its mainstream commercial and populist uses (Bunnell, 13), iPhoneography arguably reduces the established photography art form to an automated, mechanical process, and risks its devolvement into an entirely populist medium.
The term ‘Generation Y’ refers to the portion of the population born between 1977 and 1995. As the children of the ‘baby boomer’ generation, Generation Y largely entered into adolescence and adulthood after the year 2000 (Featherstone, 35). As such, they are synonymous with the ‘echo boomers’ and ‘millennial generation’. Generation Y is the first generation to experience the presence of the internet from a young age, and as a result they are notable for their proficiency with technology. Arguably, it is these technological influences that are responsible for a number of the characteristics that distinguish Generation Y from other generations. These characteristics include a desire for constant stimulation through interaction and participation, familiarity and comfortableness with new media sources and an expectation of immediate gratification from all pursuits (Featherstone, 36).
The iPhone is the culmination of Generation Y pursuits. It is a hybrid of communication and media, allowing instantaneous access to email, social networking sites, search engines, text messaging and calling services. Through an endless number of ‘applications’, the iPhone is able to do just about anything – including create stylistic photographic images. Different photography applications allow for the instantaneous creation of photography genres with stylistic influences stemming from movements in photography’s history. Through technological development, iPhone applications are able to create images in the tradition of modernist gelatin silver prints, and sepia effects emulating 19th century albumin prints.
Misho Baranovic, Toorak Station, 2010 (in the style of modernist gelatin silver prints)
Kerry A. Williams, Steamboat Jazz, 2010 (in the style of 19th century albumin prints)
One such example of this is the ‘Hipstamatic for iPhone’ application, which is marketed as bringing back ‘the look, feel, unpredictable beauty and fun of plastic toy cameras from the past’. The application is essentially a simulator of lomography cameras from the early 1990s, which emphasized instinctive, unconventional photography: ‘don’t think’, ‘be fast’ and ‘don’t worry about any rules’; with an iPhone Hipstamatic application, ‘digital photography never looked so analogue’. The Hipstamatic application takes this further, however, allowing its user to quickly change between lens types, flash, and film effect, with each adding ‘a unique touch to your HipstaPrint’. It is this feature that takes Hipstamatic iPhoneography out of the 1990s lomography photography tradition it is attempting to emulate, and gives it a distinctly Pictorialist sensibility. Whilst the photographs the iPhone Hipstamatic application creates are similar in aesthetics to their 1990s equivalent, the process by which they are created carries many of the hallmarks inherent to Pictorialist photography.
Bunnell describes Pictorialism as the first instance of photography as art form. The movement’s chief ambition was to distinguish a photographic art form from photography’s largely populist and commercial uses in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Overcoming the perception that photographs were the creation of a machine and could therefore never achieve artistic status proved to be Pictorialism’s greatest hurdle (Bunnell 13). In order to achieve distinction, early Pictorialism explored ways to make art photography unique through the referencing of art historical moments and painterly photographic techniques (Bunnell, 14). In later Pictorialism, this evolved into an exploration of the ‘essence’ of photography – making use of photography’s inherent hallmarks to create images that conveyed an artistic sentiment: light, tonality, positioning and framing (Bunnell, 14). In doing so, Pictorialists successfully developed a unique language of art photography. Overwhelming in this pursuit, however, was Pictorialism’s romantic, nostalgic aesthetic. Enhancing photography’s inherent hallmarks through development techniques, the Pictorialists softened and romanticised the technological developments of their time. It is these post-take effects that distinguish Pictorialism from other photography, the concept of which is picked up by contemporary iPhone photography applications.
Alfred Steiglitz, Winter on Fifth Avenue, 1892
Alfred Steiglitz’s Winter on Fifth Avenue is a classic example of photography in a late Pictorialist style. The late Pictorialist movement distinguished an artistic form of photography through the use of unique photographic expressions of tonality, light effects, time of day and plasticity of light & form. The artist’s creativity and status as an artist was displayed through the use of these qualities to express a feeling in response to the object before camera. In Pictorialism, the photographic subject is the idea conveyed by the image, and not the image itself. The image is merely a medium through which the romantic ideal may be communicated. As seen in Steiglitz’s Winter on Fifth Avenue, this romantic ideal is expressed through the nostalgic use of trodden snow and a long street disappearing into the fog. The image conjures a sentiment of excitement, possibly Christmas time, as the passengers of the carriage are whisked through the bitter cold in warmth and comfort. Nobody is on the street, because they are taking refuge from the falling snow in their cozy homes. The nostalgic impression is conveyed through the soft use of colours, the blurred edges, and the haste of the carriage. Rather than representing the harsh reality of wintertime in the city, possibly through the depiction of the bitter conditions’ impact on the city’s poor, Steiglitz instead conveys an idyllic, romanticised image of winter.
Iphoneographer, Rain in Fermo, Italy, 2010
Online iPhone exhibitor Iphoneographer’s Rain in Fermo, Italy is an example typical of the iPhoneography medium, and may be constructively compared to Steiglitz’s work. In a similar way to Winter on Fifth Avenue, Rain in Fermo, Italy portrays a romantic aesthetic through a strategic use of light and tonality. The silhouettes of the couple form the central motif of the image, and instead of the viewer focusing on the inclement weather conditions they instead concentrate on the idyllic nature of the couple’s interaction: a romantic stroll through a rainy city at night. This impression is conveyed through the image’s use of black and white, and a slightly blurred, impressionistic use of light and tone. Instead of the streetlights being harsh and illuminating, they instead take on the quality of stars in a night sky, looking down on the couple’s romance.
As can be seen in a comparison of the above images, a key similarity between Pictorialism and typical iPhone photography is the softening of the image through photographic effects. Both Pictorialism and iPhoneography share a preoccupation with the romantic and the idyllic, and they convey this through a strategic use of light and tone. Whilst Pictorialists create this effect through the use of a physical camera, and careful development procedures designed to increase the sentimental quality of the image, however, iPhoneography achieves it through computer programming and very little input by the photographer.
As the first generation to grow up using the internet, information technology and internet research operates as a natural extension of Generation Y’s research capabilities. The reflexive use of online sources to gather information contributes to Generation Y’s ability to mentally catalogue imagery and ideas from history quickly and with ease. This has led many scholars to dub Generation Y as the ‘instant history’ generation (Hagan). This inherent knowledge and recognition of art historical imagery, through unconscious exposure to it via online sources, makes the aesthetic effects of iPhoneography applications so appealing to this generation. It creates the opportunity to not only recreate, but also participate in iconic and recognisable imagery.
Participation plays an essential role in iPhoneography’s appeal, as its target audience, Generation Y, is a generation reliant on stimulation (Featherstone, 35). Internet sources such Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Flickr, reality television shows, video games and participatory marketing contribute to Generation Y’s state of ‘chronic boredom’ (Hagan), and by extension their need for constant visual and participatory stimulation.This has been taken up in a museum setting through the increased incidence of interactive activities associated with exhibitions. Whilst museums and art galleries increasingly cater to Generation Y’s experiential mode of learning by engaging audiences in participatory activities-based exhibits, the iPhone allows Generation Y to engage in the creation of art through the availability of customizable stylistic photographic effects. Whilst Pictorialist photographers of the 18th and 19th century reflected the nostalgic and romantic characteristics of their generation through art historical references and painterly post-take effects, iPhoneography reflects the impact that technology has had Generation Y.
Despite the aesthetic and conceptual similarities between the photographic movements, the impact of iPhoneography appears to be one that is largely antithetical to Pictorialism’s objective. In distinguishing art photography from its prevailing commercial and populist uses, the Pictorialists had to overcome the barrier imposed by the camera as a mechanical instrument. By emphasizing the aspects of photography that are particular to it as an art form and using artistic development techniques, Pictorialist photography defeated the conceptual difficulties associated with machine-made art (Bunnell, 13).
In many ways, the iPhone is to Generation Y what the invention of the portable camera was to the 19th century middle class, and contemporary photography is facing similar issues to those faced by Pictorialists with regards to populism versus art. Ostensibly, however, the nature of iPhoneography reverses Pictorialism’s achievement by utilising technology in its purest and most advanced form to produce stylistic photographic images with minimal human input. iPhoneography as an art form is distinctly the product of Generation Y, yet it is inevitably informed by what has come before it, most notably, photography of the Pictorialist tradition. Whilst Pictorialists used the artistic techniques they did to distinguish art photography from its mainstream uses, iPhoneography uses similar effects in a way that is antithetical to the Pictorialist ambition. Through its use of technology, and a point-and-shoot sensibility, iPhoneography is at risk of turning photography back into the popularist medium it was prior to the work of the Pictorialists.
