civilized ku # 82 ~ a real original
Thursday, April 17, 2008 at 09:49AM 
An original at the shore • click to embiggenLast evening I was presented with a difficult choice. I had settled in to watching the Pens try to eliminate the Ottawa Senators when, between periods 1 and 2, I discovered another program, Seneca Ray Stoddard, An American Original (click on the video preview for a taste of the production), that was on at the same time. For me, this presented a serious dilemma.
I have mentioned Seneca Ray Stoddard before. As a photographer (he also wore many other hats - writer, illustrator, map maker, publisher), he was, at the very least, the equal of Jackson and Brady. In his lifetime he made over 10,000 photographs, most of which were of the Adirondacks. Needless to say, I have been interested in both the man and his photography for a long time. In fact, I appropriated his name and that of another early Adirondack character, Nessmuk, for my canoe-based guide business - Nessmuk & Stoddard.
In any event, I found myself unable to fully commit to either event and so I clicked back and forth between the two. Since this a photography blog, not a sports blog, I'll fill you in on the Stoddard program.
First, let me say that the program is worth viewing. In order to do so, you will probably have to purchase the DVD/video and, for $19.95, it's a good investment in learning about what came before. The photography of the early Adirondacks alone is worth the price of admission. The presentation follows the Ken Burns historic documentary formula. Lots of still pictures with pans and zooms, voice-over narration, and the obligatory interviews with 'authoritative' talking heads.
Unfortunately, none of the talking heads give us any insight into the photography beyond the obvious - Stoddard was a photographic pioneer, he was prolific, and he made very nice photographs, which, over time, have also become historically significant. What I kept waiting for, but never came, was for someone to make the connection between what Stoddard did way back then and what some are doing today.
While Stoddard's photographs look like 'spontaneous' pictures - they all tend to have a modern, hand-held "decisive moment" look to them, they are anything but spontaneous. By itself, the nature of the mechanics of photography, circa mid 1800s - early 1900s, dictated long exposure times that meant that people (most his pictures had people in them) had to hold poses for lengthy periods of time in order to be rendered without motion/blur - so much for spontaneity.
At a carryIn fact, Stoddard was as much a producer / director of 'staged' photographs as any modern-day photographer of so-called 'fake' photographs. Think Crewdson, Wall, and, for that matter, the Cinemascape-ist, Aaron Hobson as examples. Stoddard was also known to regularly add clouds to otherwise empty skies. Photoshop as the modern-day evil that is destroying photographic integrity? Gimme a break.
But, here's what really frosts my cookies - the art-history curatorial class, lunatic fringe division, crap all over themselves drawing parallels between Wall's photographs and paintings, between Crewdson's photographs and motion picture works, between nearly any modern-era photographs and virtually anything else except other photographs that came before. It is as if, for them, in a their frenzy to discover and bloviate about something 'new', they have decided to deliberately ignore or, more probably, are ignorant of the art history of the photographic medium itself. Gimme another break.
From the stern seatTo be sure, Stoddard did not, as part of his authorial intent, make pictures laden with irony or 'cool' post-modernist angst (some of his writings did exhibit such tendencies) but his photographs, when viewed with today's knowledge of the past that he depicted, evidence irony aplenty. One of his favored subjects, people-wise, was the now legendary, then heroic, figure of the Adirondack guide. A class of hail 'n hardy outdoorsmen who, well before the end of 1800s, singlehandedly brought about the local eradication of such species as the moose, the lynx, the wolf, to name just a few. Nature 'lovers', to be sure.
I love the story about Stoddard asking Mother Johnson, who ran a lumber camp / lodge at the Raquette Falls carry, about what delicious species of fish he was dining on at her establishment. Mother Johnson replied that she didn't know because, since it was after September 15th and it was illegal to catch trout after September 15th, the fish had no name. Wink, wink. Nudge, nudge.
A guide and a 'sport'All of that said, and relative to the 'raging against the machine' in order to make something new topic, the more you know about what has come before, photography-wise, the more you come to realize that maybe it has all been done before. Maybe, just maybe, all that's left is for us to do it all over again - hopefully, with a new sense and sensibility.
And, oh yeah, the Pens won, sweeping the series, 4-0, and advancing to the 2nd round of the playoffs.
Reader Comments (2)
"Maybe, just maybe, all that's left is for us to do it all over again - hopefully, with a new sense and sensibility."
I think you hit the nail on the head there Mark! But then again, what's really interesting isn't how something is done photographically, but what is photographed - my not so humble opinion. As such, photography will stay potent for a long time still. As long as someone is interested in something there will be plenty to photograph.The world is in a constant state of change.
I take 10.000 keepers a year from my home town. Not fine art of course, but historical records of the place. Each year the photographs become more "valuable" to me and anyone else interrested in the town and its people.
New technology will change our workflow, but in the end, what we photograph is what will define our work as interesting to an audience.
The few illustrations you have posted remind me very much of the P.H. Emerson's "Norfolk Broads" book. Would seem that Stoddard was very much influenced by Emerson.
P'taker