The Hedges 0n Blue Mountain Lake

Truth and revelation • click to embiggenMy thanks to John Denniston for his informed and informative response to my comments on urban ku # 178 -

In the Post Modern Photo Art world there is no difference between pictures taken by a war photographer in the field and those created using props and models such as the one by Jeff Wall. I listened in disbelief once when Roy Arden, one of Jeff Wall's more successful students, explain that he protested the Vietnam war by photographing products in Wall Mart and that it had the same impact on the war as did the pictures taken by photographers who actually went to Vietnam to record what they saw happening. To these people the words documentary and propaganda are interchangeable. Documentary photographs are not documents but photographs made to further a point of view. It's interesting that I have been to a number of lectures at the Vancouver Art Gallery (the home gallery of Jeff Wall) in the last few years and there was a subtext which said that photographers don't think they just push buttons. Jeff Wall calls himself an artist and would be insulted if you called him a photographer. I was surprised that A.D. Coleman in a lecture at the VAG two weeks ago said he knew of few photographers who could think. He said this in praise of pictorialism which he is fond the very of. Pictorialism, of course, is much about changing what the camera saw into a more dramatic or painterly thus artistic image. The problem with all of this is that photography ceases to be appreciated for what it does best, record what we see in front of us. Photography is praised for the unnatural colours we create in photoshop, the distortions we create with wide angle and telephoto lenses or in Jeff Wall’s case, the tableaus we create with props and models. I’ve seen the photo in question and found it, despite its impressive size and technical merit, to be cold and without passion. Its impact on me was similar to those colour advertisements I see every once in while in very old Life magazines from the 1960’s; unconvincing, unreal, staged; advertising at its most banal. I’ll take pictures from the photographers who were actually there every time.

I'm pleased that someone rose to my photo-constructionist bait in such an articulate manner. And, despite what I opined (and meant) about Jeff Walls picture - which I too have viewed 'in the flesh' - I agree with most of John's statement. I even agree with the his assessment that Wall's Dead Soldiers Talking appears to be "cold and without passion" which I believe is part of its power - IMO, the carnage of war is meted out by the gods of fate in a very indiscriminate (cold and without passion) fashion. Some human beings, when placed in harm's way in the guise of modern firepower, tend to be maimed or killed without any rhyme or reason behind their being plucked from the crowd. So, I like the fact that there is a overarching emotional first-impression of "cold and without passion" in Wall's picture that, for me, sets the stage for other emotional revelations to come.

Obviously, not everyone sees it - literally or figuratively - in that manner. Some, like John, prefer "pictures from the photographers who were actually there ..." as opposed to pictures from photo-constructionists. Personally, I like it to have both ways and fortunately, the apparatus of the very messy medium of photography can be employed to create all manner of pictures from the cauldron of which just about anyone can find a lid for their particular pot.