civilized ku # 2415 ~ intelligence both acute and supple

Dawn's early light ~ Au Sable Forks, NY - in the Adirondack Park • click to embiggenIn the Art world, Photography Division wise, there are generally considered to be 2 types of picture makers - 1) photographers, and 2) artists who use photography. The former tend to make straight pictures predicated upon the actual world, while the latter tend to make concept pictures predicated upon an intellectual idea of one sort or another.

For quite a number of years, especially so since advent of university / graduate level photography departments (the spawning ground of the academic lunatic fringe), concept pictures and their makers have become the darlings of the gallery / museum / collector world. Straight pictures and their makers have, for the most part, been relegated to a minority position / standing, or relatively so.

While my picture making and viewing preference is heavily weighted toward straight pictures, I do have an appreciation for concept pictures which exhibit, visually wise, at least a nod toward the actual world. Amongst many examples of such straight / concept bridging pictures, I'll keep it all in the family and cite my son, the Cinemascapist, and his concept pictures, which despite their theatrical / cinematic visual look, could still be mistaken for the depiction of real world events and referents.

A significant part of my appreciation for straight pictures and their making was put forth by John Szarkowski in his seminal and still relevant book, THE PHOTOGRAPHER'S EYE:

The first thing the photographer learned was that photography dealt with the actual; he not only had to accept this fact, but to treasure it .... He learned that the world itself is an artist of incomparable inventiveness, and that to recognize its best works and moments, to anticipate them, to clarify them and make them permanent, requires intelligence both acute and supple.

As an addendum to that statement, I would add that, when viewing the clarified and permanent results of the efforts of picture makers with "intelligence both acute and supple", it requires intelligence both acute and supple - together with an ability and willingness to step outside of the confines of certainty and the practices of habitual seeing - in order to become engaged with an exploratory path of discovery.

All of that written, it may read like a litany of flapdoodle and green paint or elite/effete pointy-headed folderol, a case of much ado about nothing or making a mountain out of a mole hill (aka: the "simple" act of looking at a picture), but really, isn't that what moving beyond the pretty picture and photography as entertainment is all about?