ku # 585 ~ Spring has sprung # 19

Tamarack bog # 3 • click to embiggenAs mentioned previously my tamarack visit produced quite a few "keepers" - in the neighborhood of 15 -18 pictures of note and worth. That can be attributed to the fact that a tamarack bog is a very target-rich environment of seemingly endless variety.

That reality makes it very easy to eat up a gig or more of memory card space in very short order - a situation that brings to mind another notion from the essay, In Our Image, by Martin Morris. A notion that I dwell (but not fester) on from time to time - the idea of image proliferation that has come upon the medium since the advent of digital capture together with the disseminative powers of the web:

Images proliferate. Am I wrong in being reminded of the printing of money in a period of wild inflation? Do we know what we are doing? Are we able to evaluate what we have done?

As an antidote to the medium's apparent promiscuity, Morris even waxes a bit poetic about the good ole days of the daguerreotype - the idea that a picture-maker had one shot at it, or, even he/she made several exposures, the resultant picture(s) would be limited to an Edition of One -

After the predictable advances in all areas of photographic reproduction, it is possible that daguerreotype uniqueness might return to photographic practice and evaluation. This counter-production aesthetic has its rise in the dilemma of over-production. Millions of photographers, their number increasing hourly take billions of pictures. This fact alone enhances rarity. Is it beyond the realm of speculation that single prints will soon be made from a negative that has been destroyed?

Leaving aside the author's verbal faux pas that a print could be made from a negative that has been destroyed - one could make a single print from negative that is subsequently destroyed - Morris is essentially suggesting that picture-makers repudiate one of the medium's essential characteristics - the fact that an endless number of virtually identical "originals" can be made from a single negative.

Unlike other art mediums, a picture's rarity / singularity / exclusivity can only be created / enhanced by "artificially" making it so. Endless hours are spent by artist-photographers and their gallery representatives trying to determine how limited a particular print edition should be. This "artificial" limitation is mandated by the Art World's financial fixation on "rarity", not the by any limitation inherent in the medium itself.

But, that particular brand of rarity is not really what Morris (and many others) is concerned about. At its core, the issue for him is the effect(s) upon humanity's perceptions of the world / reality that comes from a populous swimming - one might even say, "drowning" - in sea of pictures.

It is not beyond the realm of possibilities that most of that populous simply does not have even a glimmer of understanding regarding how pictures have changed and influenced the way they see things and, by "things", I mean life.

One example that I will offer in support of that phenomenon can be found in our current economic mess - the elephant in the room that no one is talking about relative to curbing our enthusiasm for wretched-excess consumerism and an economy based upon consumption. A disease that has been fostered and spread by pictures that make up the overwhelming bulk of that ubiquitous sea of pictures (and as it use to state on my business card), photography for commerce. Or, if you prefer, pictures that tell us what to want, how to live, what we "need" for the "good life".

Try this little experiment - tomorrow, when you arise, have a pencil and notepad upon which you kept track of every advertising impression you see throughout the day. If you are observant, by the end of the day, your list of those impressions will number in the thousands. And, the question that arises for many is simply this - how often, if ever, do you actually think about the real message underlying all of those impressions?

I guess that's one of the reasons that I like bogs so much - there's not a single advertising impression / message to be seen.

Update on Thursday, April 23, 2009 at 11:14AM by gravitas et nugalis

Featured Comment: Andy Stockton wrote: For your readers who are interested, there are contemporary artists still making daguerreotypes every day - often inspired by the very idea you mentioned - the "edition of one". You might check out this site if you would like to learn more:For your readers who are interested, there are contemporary artists still making daguerreotypes every day - often inspired by the very idea you mentioned - the "edition of one". You might check out this site if you would like to learn more.

my response: thanks for the link although I feel compelled to state that I tend to shy away from picturing endeavors that seem to require statements such as yours - "I did this (had blood tests) to establish a baseline blood level before I start working with mercury."

Comments

[Andy Stockton]

For your readers who are interested, there are contemporary artists still making daguerreotypes every day - often inspired by the very idea you mentioned - the "edition of one". You might check out this site if you would like to learn more:

cdags.com