Photography is No Monolith

Photography, at its root, is two things: 1. the recording of light phenomena (sometimes invisible to the human eye); 2. a means of communication (sometimes for a conversation that we have only with ourselves). In the overlap between these two, we see all of the photographs ever made, which of course, says very little about the purpose of their creation. This distinction, the photograph’s “purpose”, only becomes apparent once the relationship between the photographer and viewer has been established. For instance, a message delivered through a megaphone that never reaches the recipient renders the projection device meaningless, or without purpose. In this way, the purpose of a photograph that sells to an ad agency is commercial, while the purpose of a photograph that sells to a Museum is cultural, but this is also an oversimplification, since photographs that originally sold to ad agencies have wound up in Museums (a photograph’s purpose can change over time or a photograph can have multiple purposes simultaneously).

On Photography

Writing about photography, mostly in terms of its relationship to art and experience.

1. Chicken or the Egg?
2. Define: Photography
3. Film Pace
4. Flaws of Perception
5. Hitchcock’s Rear Window and the “Spectacle” in Photography
6. Photography and the Merits of Change
7. St. Louis and the History of Photography
8. Results of an Experiment, “The Neutrality of Information”
9. The Photography Experience
10. The Photographic Series
11. Photography is No Monolith
12. History of Nature and Landscape Photography, The Beginnings
13. History of Nature and Landscape Photography, Transition to Artform

On Artists

Articles on artists of many genres.

1. Alec Soth
2. Andreas Gurksy
3. Bruce Yonemoto
4. Chris Jordan
5. Julia Margaret Cameron
6. Nikki Lee
7. Pieter Hugo
8. Rene Magritte
9. Sharkula
10. Tom Huck
11. William Eggleston
12. Dan Zarlenga
13. Diane Arbus

General

Writing on a broad range of arts and culture topics.

1. A Calder Day in Hell
2. A Context for Art History
3. Applying Constructivism to the Arts Classroom
4. Flaws of Perception
5. Ideal Requites for Producing Art
6. Mimetic Imagery
7. Short Response to Robert Storr’s “Tilted Arc: Enemy of the People?”
8. Rome, Fallen Again
9. Results of an Experiment, “The Neutrality of Information”
10. The Persistence of Hope
11. What is Identity?
12. What it Feels Like to be Human
13. World Artists’ Network: A Conversation
14. Moonlighting