Tuesday, April 21, 2009

One small request

With all due respect to Will Steacy and Sarah Small, this is fucking ridiculous. With its darkened room, carefully choreographed pregnant pauses, and suspenseful background music I felt like I was watching The Apprentice or American Idol. Must everything in our culture be dragged into that format?

I hope not, because that is the format of complete artifice. Worse, it is artifice masked as reality. Photography is not a courtroom drama. It's far more messy and beautiful.

Judges Hegel and Debord about to weigh in with a verdict

This isn't a comment about the work of Steacy or Small. I think they're both great photographers. But to all you video producers and other tentacles of the Spectacle looking for subject matter, please leave photography alone. Thanks.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

completely agree. that was truly a horrible program, that reflected pretty badly on two genuinely talented photographers.

Unknown said...

blake. i try not to be too negative, but you made the right call here. sickly bland formula. two good photographers prostituting themselves out. granted sarah and will are victims of edit-suite-cynicism but they put themselves in the line of fire. shame.

Ian Aleksander Adams said...

yeah, I made a very similar remark on will's post here:

http://willsteacy.blogspot.com/2009/04/steak-and-lobster.html

"It's so strange - I feel like I'm too media aware to watch anything that's been produced without thinking about what they are trying to do with the sound, the cuts, the way they zoom in or out on things.

They present you as intense in the same way a gangster documentary or expose on the secret actions of the CIA would be shot. So strange, so strange!

I find myself wondering how much of that is you (Obviously your work is connected to intense experiences) and how much is a build up of photography in general - the whole site is so a part of the cult/cultural value of photography as a super intense genius thing. It's a photography culture that I sometimes have trouble understanding. Glorification maybe?

I don't know how to relate my feelings of huge respect for the artists I love to the feelings of people being built into this... image.. image of imagemakers."

It's like the history channel, and how it seems to destroy any real appreciation of the past acts of people. As you said, things are more messy.

SR said...

yes=BAD... Really not so appalling... just a video made for TV or equivalent quality... except for images of photos viewed the dialog/cinematography had very little of intelligence or quality to say for itself indeed. But that's why the last time I turned on a TV was 9/11.... if you want good cinema then seek good movies... good photos seek them, but don't waste the electricity on TV--- happy Earth Day all...