civilized ku # 2133 ~ his knowledge of photography is about that of your average chipmunk

J's Market ~ Plattsburgh, NY - in the Adirondack Park • click to embiggenI have mentioned the author Jean Shepherd previously. He is (was, he is now amongst the dearly departed)) a truly American humorist / raconteur / radio and tv "personality". Most who are unfamilar with his writings and tv/radio work know his now classic movie, A Christmas Story. A movie which, in the Shepherd trademark style, is based upon bitingly humorous commentaries about ordinary life in America.

Although Shep (as he called himself) wasn't overly concerned with the Art World, he did, over the course of his radio and tv career, turn his attention to what he christened as (a brand spanking new art genre) Slob Art. Eventually, on his PBS program, Jeans Shepherd's America, he effectively appointed himself as the curator of his very own museum, the Museum of American Slob Art.

FYI, examples of American Slob Art would include such things as: obscene/erotic crocheted lace doilies, giant balls of rubberbands on the front lawn, colletions of crushed beer cans, Carhenge - like Stonehenge, only with cars instead of stone plinths, and the like.

So, with Shep's fascination with ordinary life in America and his interest in art, albeit Slob Art, it comes as no surprise to me that he would write so knowingly about picture makers ...

Of all the world’s photographers, the lowliest and least honored is the simple householder who desires only to “have a camera around the house” and to “get a picture of Dolores in her graduation gown.” He lugs his primitive equipment with him on vacation trips, picnics, and family outings of all sorts. His knowledge of photography is about that of your average chipmunk. He often has trouble loading his camera, even after owning it for twenty years. Emulsion speeds, f-stops, meter readings, shutter speeds have absolutely no meaning to him, except as a language he hears spoken when, by mistake, he wanders into a real camera store to buy film instead of his usual drugstore. His product is almost always people- or possession-oriented. It rarely occurs to such a photographer to take a picture of something, say a Venetian fountain, without a loved one standing directly in front of it and smiling into the lens. What artistic results he obtains are almost inevitably accidental and totally without self-consciousness. Perhaps because of his very artlessness, and his very numbers, the nameless picture maker may in the end be the truest and most valuable recorder of our times. He never edits; he never editorializes; he just snaps away and sends the film off to be developed, all the while innocently freezing forever the plain people of his time in all their lumpishness, their humanity, and their universality.

The wisdom found in that little bit of picture making folklore may be very prophetic - the time may indeed come to pass when "the nameless picture maker may in the end be the truest and most valuable recorder of our times." More so than Gursky, Wall, et al who are currently all the rage.