urban ku # 183 ~ limited imagination - ouch!
Tuesday, April 15, 2008 at 08:45AM 
Montral skyline #2 • click to embiggenWhile looking or info about a book, LS/L by Beate Gutschow, I came across a review of it by Jörg Colberg. The book is a photo book by a German photographer who is creating completely manufactured - in Photoshop, using bits and pieces of photos - landscape / cityscape pictures that look remarkably real.
Colberg likes the pictures in part because they are "... a prime and excellent example of the use of digital technologies in photography". He likes the use of digital technologies in photography because he thinks "... that digital technologies are least interesting where they are merely a different tool (and that's what most discussions still appear to be centered on) and most interesting where they enable doing something new."
Even though I tend to use digital technologies as a means to the same end - "traditional" pictures that are contingent upon the "real" world, I don't disagree with Colberg's statement. Despite what some think - that digital has "destroyed" photography's "truth", I think that digital technologies have opened up a new photo-genre, that is, expanded the possibilities of the medium.
But that is not why I bring up Colberg's review of the book. Rather, I am struck by the unveiled ferocity of his closing statement in defense of digital technologies;
Of course, you can stick with, say, street photography (ed. - or, in our case, nature / landscape photography) and say that there is just so much more out there to be seen than to be found in your own - limited - imagination. Beate Gütschow's LS/S very convincingly exposes the flaw in that thinking: There are no limits to photographic imagination.
IMO, this strikes directly at the heart of my recent unease(?) / dissatisfaction(?) / question mark (?) / something or other (?) with my "pure" ku picturing. Despite Mary Dennis' reminder that I am not "a very small insignificant piece of shit" photography-wise, I can't help but think that my ku are lacking in imagination - which is not, by any stretch, to say that they lack significant illustrative and illuminative properties and value. It's just that ... well ... as I mentioned ... um ... um .........
It's not that I don't really, really appreciate the work of photographers - to include me - who go out into the world and make pictures of the "real" thing. Far from it - some of my favorite work comes from that traditional genre. But, that said, it seems as though digital technologies, no matter if they are used as 'just another tool' or to make 'new' or altered realities, have upped the ante when it comes to using your imagination - that just adding your own "take" on what has already been done just doesn't seem to be enough anymore.
Any thoughts on the matter?
Reader Comments (3)
Gad - I'm such a negative guy. But, if getting away from "...just adding your own "take" on what has already been done..." through creation of imaginary landscapes is one's goal, well, it's already been done. A sampling from among the obvious predecessors (I apologise for my awkward linkage): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hieronymus_Bosch , http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M._C._Escher , http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvador_Dal%C3%AD
Imitating works like these with Photoshop isn't going to add anything meaningfully new to the world's store of visual art.
Or, maybe I just have a limited imagination.
I think Gutschow is a genius. I am eager to see what she does next. I think the monograph on Beate Gutschow was one of the three best photography publications last year (#2 Shimmer of Possibility, #3 Saul Leiter:Early Colour).
Cheers,
-Paul Pincus
I think you'd enjoy reading "towards a philosophy of photography" by vilem flusser. It's all about creative (as opposed to redundant) photography as a game against the machine (where by machine he means the entire technology and infrastructure behind photography). The work of all the photographers who have gone before have, to a certain extent, entered the arsenal of the machine --they become limiting and redundant. The point of the game is to outwit the machine by opening up a possibility that hasn't been seen before.
You know Mark, maybe it's nothing more than that you're thinking too hard about the "ku" series; I don't think it will die just because you take a scenic detour into something else that's fun right now.