civilized ku # 3 - The intrinsic perniciousness of camera club and academic views of photography
Thursday, February 8, 2007 at 10:51AM 
Potatoes and plant amongst other things • click on photo to embiggen itIntially, I was going to use the word "evil" instead of "pernicious" but thought better of it. After all, camera club-wise having a hobby and enjoying the making of things (in this case, photographs), isn't a bad thing. And, while photography-wise academia is prone to some wretched intellectual excesses, I'd rather live in a world with it than in one without it because, if you can tolerate sifting through and deciphering the obtuse jargon, there are some pearls of wisdom to be harvested.
But, that said, it's my opinion that both schools obfuscate the notion of Art.
Simply put, the camera-club mindset seems to sublimate/bury the emotion of Art behind a wall of technique/craft. The academic mindset, with its obsessive addiction to intellectual concept, seems to suck all the emotion out of Art. In both cases, I am talking about Art, Photography Division.
And, in both cases, I am talking about emotion. Neither school seems to deal very well with emotion. It seems to me that camera-clubbers don't recognize any emotion other than "wow" and that academia is just flat out suspicious of it. Either way, I think the operative word is "fear".
Why "fear"? Well I think that what they both fear about the notion of Art is best expressed by the famous sportswriter, Red Smith, who stated (about his Art), "Writing is easy. All you do is sit at a typewriter and open a vein"
Featured Comment: Paul Butzi wrote, "I once attended a talk by Amy Freed. Someone asked her about support she'd received as an artist. She responded "The support I've been given has enabled me to take the biggest risk an artist can take - the risk of being understood."
All that obfuscation is just a way of avoiding taking that big risk."
Reader Comments (2)
I once attended a talk by Amy Freed. Someone asked her about support she'd received as an artist. She responded "The support I've been given has enabled me to take the biggest risk an artist can take - the risk of being understood."
All that obfuscation is just a way of avoiding taking that big risk.
Is there a third way, that isn't camera clubs or academia ? Perhaps it isn't so much fear of emotion that drives camera clubs to discussions of craft/ technique. Maybe it is just because it is hard. There are a vast number of books on the technique of photography and so few on how to create interesting images. Because it is hard to define, distill, bottle up and sell.
I think camera clubs are caught up in that too, anyone can learn the technical craft - it isn't that hard. But having something to say with it ? Now that's a big jump. Fear certainly, fear of being misunderstood - fear of being understood too. But, along with that it is just hard.