Considering a Photograph

I’d like to explore a number of ideas on how to consider a photograph, using as a departure point a recent post – well, not that recent anymore, but life has a way of sneaking along surprisingly rapidly these days – by Joerg Colberg on process.

I learned much of my approach to considering an image from the painter Paul Celli as an undergraduate student. We discussed images in his class in terms of technique (materials and process), form (the visual language employed), and content (themes and concepts). Over time I’ve added a fourth element to that system, "context" or the historical facts surrounding how and when an image was made, for example political environment or social milieu.

Forming bridges between these four elements allows them to function together and complement one another. Technical choices create forms that suggest themes that are relevant to their context - something like that. Very few images, projects, or artists are able to do this consistently. This approach could be considered reductive and it has all of the inherent problems of using any system, but for the purposes of analysis and conversation, it's a least a functional way to consider images.

Process is not an end point for a work of art, except in work that explores the medium and process as content. Colberg's post is an appreciated reminder of this. I agree with him that process is not interesting in and of itself, that it must be a vehicle for saying something. Images that stop at process are one-dimensional and don’t sustain prolonged viewing. An 8x10 is not an excuse to create boring and sterile images that try to use sharpness or print size to carry interest nor is a camera phone an excuse to create images with poor technique or form. The qualities of the camera have to be intelligently matched to subject matter and content so that there is harmony across the elements of the image. One project deserves one camera, another project another.

These points on process pertain to almost every image ever created, including not only photographs, but paintings, drawings, and prints from printmaking processes.

While the meat of the Colberg post I unreservedly support, he uses an example of two "tintypes" for illustrating his points that I find problematic. It raises separate and unnecessarily complicating conceptual issues. His having done so, however, opens a number of conversations on how to consider a photograph that, it should be said, fall outside the scope and interest of his original post.

CHANGING MEANING BY PRINTING THE SAME IMAGE WITH DIFFERENT PROCESSES

According to the addendum to his post, Colberg received a number of responses to the original text that pointed to the difference between photographs as prints / objects and photographs on the screen. This is a starting point that I would also use; given it's apparently trodden ground, however, I'll just sketch out some thoughts on this and leave it at that.

The original post uses as an example two images, one created by the Hipstamatic Tintype filter and the other an actual tintype. If they are manipulated to look the same, Colberg writes, then this shows process doesn't matter in terms of meaning.

To cite a fairly extreme contrary position, former MoMA curator Peter Galassi has argued that even a print of the same negative by the same artist on the same substrate using the same process is unique – the odds of being able to exactly duplicate an image by keeping all variables stable through the printing process being infinitesimal. Now consider two separate processes, one trying to imitate the other and imagine trying to control for all the variables involved. Ink lays on the surface of one process and enters the paper in another. The type of paper used for a process affects its presence in space through thickness, amount of transparency, and texture of paper. The tones and gamut of color in a print varies from developer to developer and printer to printer. Different boxes of paper from the same company of the supposed same paper can produce different prints based on conditions in the factory when the box of paper was manufactured – picture how much different papers using separate processes vary.

It becomes hard to argue prints can ever try to imitate another process successfully. Any print differs in meaning from another because there's simply no way to reproduce the look of another print process, no matter how skilled the attempt. The original tintype example, one has to conclude, can only apply to onscreen images because as a print even a mildly discerning eye can see the differences quickly between a digital print of a Hipstamatic image and a tintype. Given the inter-connection between technique (including process), form, and content discussed above, changes in process affects content and therefore meaning.

THE VISUAL LIMITATIONS OF THE SCREEN

Given this point about the differences between prints, Colberg's post can also be read as a condemnation of the screen as a viewing and showing space for images. The screen's severe limitations become apparent through his example: if you can make two images from separate processes look the same on a screen, including one made with a minipad through a digital process and the other with an analog direct positive on an iron substrate - and I agree with him that you can – that serves as a demonstration not so much of how process doesn't matter, but rather of how much is lost viewing images on the screen, of its homogenization of images, its elimination of subtleties, and its reduction of the factors for viewing. This reduction also speaks to the limitations for photographers who create work specifically for the screen. The photographer choosing it as their venue for showing photographs must accept the limited use of a narrowed range - or perhaps better to say a different range - of visual language possibilities.

DIFFERENT PROCESSES CREATE DIFFERENT IMAGES

A related but different and fundamental point: on a screen you might be able to create those two "exactly the same" images from Hipstamatic and a tintype, but neither image, to remind ourselves, is a tintype. One started as a tintype, but then it was scanned. It was corrected. Image information was eliminated when it was resized. It went through an entirely transformative digitization process. Perhaps the artist believed they were simply creating a digital copy to show their tintype on their website. They may have even done so with the idea that they are not involved in a creative process, simply a reproductive process.

To the contrary, however, they have actually created a different image. The act of digitizing is an act of interpretation which is an inherently creative act. The image is transformed by process into a different, second image based on the first. This limits Colberg’s original example to an argument that two digital files deriving from different sources in the right hands can be manipulated to look the same and if they arrive at a point of sameness, they have the same meaning – and therefore process doesn’t matter.

DIGITAL IMAGES AS PHOTOGRAPHS?

This leads us – parenthetically - to the assumption in the original post that digital images on a computer screen are photographs. Colberg writes, "Many photographs do not even exist as objects any longer." Is a digital file that shows an image a photograph? In one sense, yes, what the hell else would it be? But is it a PHOTOGRAPH? That’s a slightly different question more open to conversation.

The images you place on the Internet, unless they are part of a project designed specifically for presentation online or on a screen, are – as Bryan Formhals of LPV Magazine says – equivalent to a movie trailer, the showing of a section of a body of work in an alternative format. The actual photographic print or the photographic book are the object and the work of art, the intended format for most art photography. The file image on the screen? I continue to view it, personally, as either a digital negative or a format for showing people in other places the image in an accessible way, depending on where the file is in its process. It runs the risk of becoming a semantic argument, but this does not necessarily translate to it being a photograph. It remains open to question that the product of Hipstamatic / Instagram – printless photography in conception – as well as an image from another source presented on the screen are best considered as similar enough to a traditional slide or print that they should be referenced with the same word. We remain at a point where the definition of a photograph is in flux; conceptualizing photography beyond the print remains a process.

IDENTICAL IMAGES CAN MEAN DIFFERENT THINGS BASED ON CONTEXT

We left off with the two tintypes example as an argument that two digital files deriving from different sources can be manipulated to look the same and if they arrive at a point of sameness, they have the same meaning – and therefore process doesn't matter. That's still problematic, however. Let's challenge this point in order to underscore another idea of looking at images. These two hypothetically identical images on a screen made by separate processes of digitization arriving at sameness in some situations may be considered to have the same meaning. In many others, however, they may not.

Why?

This gets into the most interesting part of the conversation for me: what information should we consider while analyzing an image? Should we be using the same information in different contexts of interpretation? What types of contextual information impact the meaning of an image? Does meaning depend on who's looking at it? How should unseen contextual information surrounding the creation of an image change our reading of an image as this information becomes known to us?

Like almost everything in life, the answers are frustratingly gray: people interact with and read an image differently depending on their use of the image under consideration and what their needs for understanding are. The way people should be pursuing a consideration of context - including process – when they look at a photograph depends on when and where and how they're asked to look at it.

Let's first consider what we mean by context. I would consider context as all of the extenuating factors surrounding the creation of an image. This includes information such as the year of creation, where it was created, the social and political environment surrounding its creation, who created it, for whom they created it, and also how the image was made.

There are times to view images apart from process and other contextual information, which is to say, when process and context don't matter very much or at all. One is a situation encountered, I imagine, with much more frequency by those that might read this post than the population at large and probably the situation Colberg imagined as he wrote his post – the cold critique of art photography. This is a read of how visual language (form) creates content apart from any context. This, for example, applies to a student asking for a critique of their work without speaking or otherwise communicating context before receiving comments. If the student has done their job, there shouldn't be much need for conversation about process unless it's getting in the way. This type of critique proposes to talk about what we are seeing and what it means without background information; we should be able to look past process and engage the form and content directly (again assuming the image content is not a commentary on technique or process).

In other reading circumstances, however, context should be considered and, therefore, process does matter. Continuing with the above example, when a student or artist gives information first about the intended content and asks whether or not the images are communicating it, process does become a consideration as part of a response. Would bigger prints enhance the impact of an image's content? Would sharper images convey the content better? Would a small, faster camera help the photographer engage their subject matter in more ways? What camera, what process, and why they should be selected become elements of critique, as well, perhaps, as other contextual elements.

Another reading space where context and process matters, and matters perhaps more than in any other, is that of historians and archivists, sociologists, anthropologists and those who study material culture. Anyone, in fact, who looks to read the image to understand it within a wider societal framework. Process forms part of the understanding of the image and informs its meaning. It matters if the image was made with Hipstamatic or is an actual tintype, even if somehow superficially they look the same.

So, do Colberg's two hypothetically identical digital images derived from separate sources– equal in appearance - actually mean the same thing? Yes, but only on screen and only in limited reading situations where context, including process, does not matter, is not of interest, or cannot be known.

PROCESS (USUALLY) MATTERS

In the majority of situations I can think of, however, process matters because images are normally read with regards for and interest in context and, in addition, some amount of context can normally be known either by looking at the image or by minimal research of an image. Frequently context is actually unavoidable knowledge, inherent in the process of looking.

In fact, in most cases part of our job as observer of the image is to find out about context. As I wrote in a post last year, we need to read the context of the image, take note of what our role as observer is, look at who is making the image and try to figure out why they are making it; we have to understand the accepted parameters for image manipulation in the media venue of the image, talk with friends and colleagues, etc...then we can make more (or less) intelligent conclusions and arguments about an image and its meaning.

What's more, I think that the reading circumstances in which process does not matter are shrinking. As a general public, we are becoming better educated about the importance of how the environment and specifics of an image's creation dictate content and as specialists we are strengthening our abilities to decipher an image’s provenance with better technologies.

OUR RELATIONSHIP TO IMAGES IS FLUID

Another line of conversation evolving from Colberg's post concerns how our understanding of an image is fluid, cumulative and based in revelation of information about the image over time; that is to say, having no context to use while considering an image is a temporary state that is actually hard to preserve. Furthermore, once context becomes known it's almost impossible not to consider the image through its lens; context becomes wedded to the image and shifts our read of it. Let's look at an example to illuminate.

Imagine I give you a vernacular image from a junk store of a smiling man. You don't know who made it or how it was made and you appreciate the image for nothing more than the odd smile on the man's face and his awkward pose. You are reading, enjoying, and understanding strictly the photograph itself, restrained to a reading based in visual language – the lights, the shadows, the texture of paper, the size of the print, etc. – and the subject-content depicted by the forms.

However, imagine that a month later a friend visiting your studio points out to you that the image of a smiling man you've tacked to your wall actually depicts a famous civil rights activist murdered the next day during a march. How does it shift your understanding of the image? It would be hard to maintain the same thoughts about it. What if you discover that leader is a family member?

How does it change your understanding if you find out the image was made by a woman or, alternatively, by a man? Should it change your understanding? What if I die and the photograph takes on special meaning to you as the only object I ever gave you?

What if you discover it's actually an image created by Ernest C. Withers, a well-known civil rights photographer and worth hundreds of dollars? Or not made with a Brownie, but rather with a camera invented by Withers, a one of a kind photograph used only to create this image, a singular example of an alternative photographic process?

What if it was created by someone who lied about who they were in order to make the image? That would be a real life case with Withers, a photographer of the civil rights era who marched with Martin Luther King Jr. It was discovered in 2010 that he was also an FBI informant.

Each small part of context we learn, however large or subtle, changes our relationship to the image, and this ever-changing relationship to an image as we get more information about it creates a limited time or space in which we can imagine reading an image outside of context. Once context – including process – becomes part of our viewing of an image, it's hard to see it again without it.

Colberg's points on process are ones I agree with. I also agree with his central point that process should not dominate our reading of an image; in fact, much great photography results from masterful technique that's also masterfully hidden so that content can be appreciated. His tintype example holds true for a very small range of situations which makes the example – while true - almost conceptual in nature. It does, however, open an intriguing range of conversational lines that I hope to further engage over time.

Reading Shortlist 1.29.13

© Christopher Makos, Andy with SX-70 and Konica, undated

The Reading Shortlist is an occasional post with an eclectic listing of recommended readings and links. A recommendation does not necessarily suggest an agreement with the contents of the post. For previous shortlists, please visit the site links page.

Heavy on videos this time. On the shortlist:

Gianpaolo Arena, Landscape Stories, Steve Bisson. Bisson, founder and editor of Urbanautica, shares his thoughts on the state of and future of landscape photography in this short interview from 2010.

Coburn Dukehart, NPR Picture Show, What It Feels Like To Be Photographed In A Moment Of Grief. The article provides a good moment for photographers to make some decisions - before finding themselves in the situation - about their stance on making images in moments of grief and also on making street portraits without permission more generally.

Bryan Formhals, LPV Magazine, Lick Creek Line by Ron Jude. Formhals explores the evolution of his strong reaction to Lick Creek Line.

David Hockney, Louisiana Channel, Photoshop is boring. Hockney raises an interesting question: is Photoshop creating a "stale" look in photography? Includes an awkward bondage conversation at the end.

© David Hockney, Composite Polaroid 31 1/2" x 24 1/2"

Monte Peckham, American Suburb X, INTERVIEW: "A Conversation Between Lewiz Baltz and John Gossage" A free-flowing conversation about cinema as the pre-eminent art form of the 20th century, The Pond, the relationship between photography and linguistics, and how - for both photographers - the subject of the work is the person looking at it.

Polaroid SX-70 promotional video. The SX-70, introduced in 1972, is fully explored and explained in this video. The SX-70 was used, among others, by David Hockney, Ansel Adams, and Walker Evans. Not going to buy the soundtrack to this video, however.

Viviane Sassen, Quality Matters. Sassen talks about her process in this short video, from editing to photobooks. "You can easily make or break a book with design."

Stanley Wolukau-Wanambwa, The Great Leap Sideways, Beauty as Bitter Fruit: Susan Worsham’s By The Grace of God. Wolukau-Wanambwa deciphers what it is about the images of Worsham that pull us in so far.

Originality Is a Conservative Argument

A few weeks back I put together a review of Looking at the Land, a multi-venue curation project by Andy Adams of Flak Photo. One paragraph in particular has drawn some praise, some fire, and some confusion. I'd like to expand on it to see if doing so can forward the conversation.

Here is the paragraph from the original post:

So many photographers today are making strong, but related images in terms of aesthetics and production methods. I'm actually building to a point that’s not critical or dismissive around the point of originality, a point that's back on the conversational hot plate in articles like this one. I've felt more questioning recently, personally and by others, of the idea of photographers in the 21st-century as individuals. I'm coming around to the idea that all of what we're doing is a collective project, it’s group research into aesthetics, formal and conceptual ideas, and cultural themes. 5,500 submissions? Hundreds of them most likely interchangeable? The common approach seen in much of the work – but by no means all of it – to the landscape in Looking at the Land leads me to wonder just how valid the individual really is in photography anymore, assuming it really ever was valid. We are in some sort of photographic Golden Age – the number of photographers today and the quality of images produced, as shown in this exhibition, is unprecedented, even if finding truly new and fresh ideas and territory to explore is increasingly a limited proposition as the medium enters adulthood. I'd just as soon do away with individual names, contests, and the fetishism of certain work. What does it serve beyond the market and egos?

Bryan Formhals of LPV Magazine clipped out a section of this paragraph and posted it on his Tumblr page, called Photographs on the Brain. Some of the aforementioned fire came as a reply to his posted clip by a photographer who goes by santosha65 on Tumblr and as Nick Ruechel in real life. He wrote:

That’s the most asinine, deluded thing i’ve ever heard. We are in a shit storm as far as photography goes. Corporations are taking over content and the parameters in which we create it. Do away with names? FUCK YOU. 

Upon reading his reply, I had a feeling he might be based in New York City, and indeed he is.*

A more textured, but even more damning reply came from Jörg Colberg on his Tumblr site Conscientious Redux:

To quote John Berger: "After we have responded to a work of art, we leave it, carrying away in our consciousness something which we didn’t have before. This something amounts to more than our memory of the incident represented, and also more than our memory of the shapes and colours and spaces which the artist has used and arranged. What we take away with us – on the most profound level – is the memory of the artist’s way of looking at the world. The representation of a recognizable incident (an incident here can simply mean a tree or a head) offers us the chance of relating the artist’s way of looking to our own." ([Colberg's] emphasis, from the introduction to Toward Reality, taken from Selected Essays of John Berger) To "do away with individual names" is to essentially do away with art. Art is inconceivable without the individual artist, even if there are many (or, as some might argue, too many).

I'd like to clarify and expand on the original post and, given both Ruechel and Colberg singled out the phrase "do away with individual names," I'd like to focus on the last two sentences of the original post that include this phrase in particular.

____________________________

It's interesting to note how salient the overlap of formal appearance and thematic concern is through much of the work of the photographers in "Looking at the Land" and, one can theorize, among the thousands upon thousands who applied to be part of it. Most of these photographers, working separately, sent in work to be considered for the exhibition that reflects, according to Adams, a shared common thematic concern of a vanquished wilderness and an acceptance of the man-made suburban landscape. They produced images that - in many cases - are approached formally in a very similar way and made with color 6x7 aspect ratio film by similar cameras. Part of this has to do with curation for the sake of coherence to be sure, but the show could also have been comprised on the same theme made up, let's say, of almost entirely 35mm black and white work. Or "toy" cameras. Or images curated from Flickr or Google Earth.

How does this square with the idea that part of being an artist is to avoid solipsism by offering through our vision or voice something unique to the artistic dialogues of our society, the - to return to Berger - "artist's way of looking at the world"? We have chosen to pursue our passions and to make financial sacrifices to engage a pursuit that frequently involves isolation in rooms lit by Lightroom or Photoshop. We have turned our back on more conventional life choices and carved out our own way. We go into the field alone, we edit alone, we maintain a sense of our act of creation as an act apart from others before its presentation, an act shared with others.

It's easy to see how we feel singular, special, and unique given our choices in the context of societal norms and our work structure. And the current glut of competitions heightens this feeling, highlighting individuals, and so does the market as investors have a stock in our names and want to maintain the value of their investments. Art becomes about the individual artist, about you, about building a brand and circulating your name. There's some common sense to this: we're all entrepreneurs in a tough racket. In order to survive we do need to make our name in order to have money to continue to pursue what we love.

There's an issue however. The pure lone wolf artist is part of artistic mythology and always has been, along with natural geniuses and beret-wearing café bohemians who spend their spare time lounging around the Left Bank with naked lovers. It's one of the stories we tell ourselves - and that is imaged by others of us - about our role and relationship with the rest of society.

Behind the frequent feeling of having our own unique vision and "brand" in reality lies layers of interconnections. We build our foundation on top of a large and rich photographic history others have provided. We have formal and thematic debts to our branch of photography. Almost every single photographer in history and every project that they have ever worked on has precedent and references. Our connection and debt is also to each other as well as to our predecessors. We have dialogue with what's happening in the photography art world (and other areas of photography). We respond to it, even if it's a rejection or attempt to steer away from the rest. Our work overlaps. The images we see shape our own aesthetic decisions consciously or unconsciously.

Your sense of color, your obscure project subject matter, your tilted framing, mysterious dark developing, and lens refractions in your prints? Not "yours." You are cutting, combining and pasting visual language and recycling from larger thematic concepts others have also worked with as well. Your particular way of recombining those elements? Yes, it's yours, but let's qualify that correctly. A definition of "progress" in our medium should be based in a photographer’s ability to present fresh visual conversation from the creative combination and balance of technology, form, content, and a consideration of the context in which its made. That being said, don't forget you're working with deep interconnection with, and deep debt to, other photographers and that your uniqueness comes by adding a twist at the end in your combination of elements defined in relation with others.

To say your work is original is to see yourself as removed from history and context, to see yourself in a vacuum and alone. This is why I say originality is a conservative argument. To say your work is truly original is to argue along the lines of conservative political arguments for everything from not paying taxes to cutting social spending. It's seeing the contemporary without history and the individual as separate from the fabric of society, responsible only for themselves.

It's odd that in a field traditionally dominated by liberal minds - and still dominated by liberal minds judging from Twitter feeds and Facebook comments - when it comes to our own field, most get conservative. We forget our interconnection and our debts and that what we use comes in large part from our predecesors and from each other. We get defensive of "our" territory, our stomach falls when our cherished "unique" image shows up in a very similar form by another artist in a magazine or on a blog. We protect our ideas and this alone is an admission that we know somewhere inside ourselves that our work is not actually "original" - we fear another can and will make "our" ideas. We cling to the idea that we've done this alone and that our voice is a singular one.

American artist and writer Chris Wiley is a recent article in The Guardian is quoted as saying, "Everything and everyone on Earth and beyond, it would seem, has been slotted somewhere in a rapacious, ever-expanding Borgesian library of representation that we have built for ourselves. As a result, the possibility of making a photograph that can stake a claim to originality has been radically called into question. Ironically, the moment of greatest photographic plenitude has pushed photography to the point of exhaustion."

Going back to my original post paragraph, why would I suggest getting rid of the focus on individual names, the emphasis on personal accolades, and the fetishism of certain work? Because we're doing this together, our visions are interconnected, and we owe debts. Our "original" visual ideas borrow, interact, and react to those of others. There's no need to be focused on individual canonization and aggrandizement. Photography should have a feeling of collaboration, not of competition. Why not conceptualize what we are doing as a common project into aesthetics, formal and conceptual ideas, and cultural themes? Like doctors across hospitals sharing information in their investigation of cures and causes?

Let's also take my original comments with the appropriate grain of salt. I'm talking about shifting emphasis, remembering what's important, and understanding the limits of the idea of originality. I'm not suggesting there's not any space for visual innovation or that we should never mention or talk about names in the absolute. I'm also not saying all visions are equal or that there's not any difference between how we see things. There is, obviously and thankfully. It's just that those differences have to be seen in their appropriate historical and cultural context.

What I am saying is the experience of the image is what's important, the interaction around the image, the collective investigation between images between different people and over generations of photographers, the connection photography can make between us. The collective project is more important than the individual - and photography is something that we have created together, not any individual alone. Photography is the qualities of the photograph in the context of other photographs and in its cultural context. People forget this in our ever-increasing world of ever more contests, Grand Prix, winners and losers, reviews, and success through who you know.

In fact, as I suggested to Colberg via Twitter, I believe the Berger quote actually supports my point of view. Berger writes about the vision of the photographer and how we receive it - without mentioning the photographer's name. He focuses on a description of the interaction of the observer with the work. Perfect. The chance and experience of relating to that particular vision is what's important, as is remembering the context for that vision.

____________________________

As I sat down to start to write this the other day, in a moment of procrastination I checked Facebook and saw a post written by Heidi Romano on another photographer accusing her of copying her work. Her post serves as a case study and conclusion for this essay.

First, let's look at a few images. (Image credits are at the end of the essay in order to keep names out of these examples.)

Image by artist A [below]

Image by artist B [below]

Image by artist C [below]

Artist A has accused C of copying her images, but has not accused B of the same thing, even though the image by B was made after the image by artist A. Why? Perhaps because A is aware that B - internationally known and respected - has been working with books, including damaged books and with twisting and distorted and water damaged books just as A does in her projects, since the early 1990s - or roughly 10 years before A started her project.

And now let's look at a second group of images by various artists as well as objects sold by crafts vendors, installation images of works by a sculptor, and an image of a window installation at an Anthropologie store in Manhattan:

Artist A claims that HER image - the fifth down from the top - is being ripped off by artist C in work such as the final image in the above sequence. I hope, simply by showing those two photographs surrounded by images by other artists, craftspeople, as well as dudes paid $7 an hour to put stuff in the windows at Anthropologie, the emptiness of the claim of artist A - Cara Barer - against artist C, Romano.

In sum, originality has to been seen as a question of degree and in context. This is even more true in today's photography landscape as finding fresh ideas and territory to explore is an increasingly limited proposition. Going back to the Wiley quote, we now work in relation with a Borgesian library of visual images. Ideas are driven back and forth over. There are going to be overlaps. To be sure, there is copying; that's not what I mean - and of course there is innovative visual content, but let's keep the idea of individual innovation in an appropriate frame.

To tie together these two visual examples with the earlier points in this piece, Barer is ignoring her own artistic debts, forgetting context, oddly hanging the banner of originality around a well-covered and broad idea of working with damaged books, and working against what should be the spirit of the community project of photography. In a conversation you overlap ideas sometimes. That's OK; it's part of the dialectic process between all of us in order to advance our investigation of visual ideas.

Images, from top to bottom, are copyright of: Cara Barer, Abelardo Morell, Heidi Romano and in the second group The Shaw Sisters, Anthropologie Store at 5th Ave. and 16th Street in New York City, Lucille Moroni, Jacqueline Rush Lee, Cara Barer, Jonathan Callan, Jonathan Callan, Abelardo Morell, Heidi Romano

*Mr. Ruechel and I subsequently engaged in a back and forth email exchange that, while not necessarily bringing us to any agreements, brought us to a cordial understanding.

Reading Shortlist 1.24.11

The Reading Shortlist is an occasional post with a listing of recommended readings and links. A recommendation does not necessarily suggest an agreement with the contents of the post. For previous lists, please visit the site links page.

5B4 Photography and Books, Facebook Albums of Photography Books. Jeffrey Ladd has created a large archive of albums on 5B4's Facebook page of still photographs of pages from photography books.

Wayne Ford, Wayne Ford's Posterous, Bruce Davidson and the New York Subway. Ford discusses Davidson's processes and experiences making the book Subway, recently re-published by Steidl.

Bryan Formhals, LPV Magazine, The Digest – Sunday, January 22nd, 2012. The latest installment of Formhals' recently launched weekly wrap-up of articles, recommended links and summarized conversations.

Jason Fulford, Vice, Gregory Halpern's Stories From the Rust Belt. Fulford, publisher of Halpern's recently released book A, does a lengthy interview with the photographer about the book and about Halpern's perspective on photography.

David Gonzalez, Lens Blog, From a Window, Details Tell the Story. An exploration of William Gedney's late 1960s and early 1970s images of the Myrtle Avenue El in New York City before, during, and after its demolition.

Russet Lederman, The International Center of Photography Library Blog, Ed van der Elsken and Eikoh Hosoe: A 30-Year Dialogue. A history of the long-running photographic exchange between the two photographers, starting with van der Esken's Sweet Life.

Mashkulture, Stanley Kubrick's Photos of 1940s New York

Alec Soth, Little Brown Mushroom Blog, On Marrying a Photographer. Soth, who we recently interviewed as part of our Publisher Q&A series, looks at the work-life balance of a photographic family through Robert Adams and Lee Friedlander in response to a reader's question.

Publisher Q&A: Bryan Formhals of LPV Magazine

In October we posted a short, straightforward conversation with Shane Lavalette about Lay Flat, the independent publisher of limited edition photography books and multiples that he founded in 2009. The questions from the conversation with Lavalette have been adapted and given to 11 more publishers and editors that represent a variety of sizes, orientations, and audiences in the photography publication market - both on and offline. As a whole, the 12 posts aim to provide a snapshot of the current publishing landscape.

Today's post is the 6th in the series and features responses from Bryan Formhals of LPV Magazine. Previously published are responses from Lavalette, Michael Itkoff of Daylight Magazine, Ray Potes of Hamburger Eyes Photo Magazine, Jeffrey Ladd of Errata Editions and Barry W. Hughes of SuperMassiveBlackHole.

Publication: LPV Magazine
Location: New York City
Format: Online and print

fototazo: What gave you the drive to create a photography magazine? What is the backstory on how LPV formed?

Bryan Formhals: I started LPV in September of 2007, initially as a Flickr group. We started by creating monthly galleries, sort of as an ongoing archive. Then I decided to create a stand alone website to showcase those galleries because I thought more people would be willing to look at work from Flickr if it weren't on Flickr. Then it just sort of kept evolving. I started a blog where I featured work and then about a year later I started to do some writing.

I think the main drive has always been to learn and find new work. These days, I'm really interested in the collaborative process and how the web can facilitate that in new ways. My intent is for LPV to be a constantly evolving platform for photography and probably other creative work in the future.

f: What is particular or unique about LPV? What separates you from other publishers?

BF: I don't know. The web has a pernicious homogenizing effect. I'm not sure too many sites are doing anything terribly original when it comes to editorial and publishing.

This year we've created three print issues in addition to weekly features on the website. I don't think too many other magazines and blogs are doing that yet. There are a few others and I imagine it'll be the norm in a couple of years. The most frequent compliment I receive about LPV is the writing so I think that separates us a bit from other curatorial sites as well.

f: What is your process for deciding what to publish from the submissions received?

BF: Well, it has to resonate with me aesthetically on some level. I also try not to publish work that's been all over the place either. But these days the biggest factor in making the decision is the willingness of the photographer to collaborate and discuss the feature with me. This two way dialogue is incredibly important to me right now because I don't simply want to churn out features. At times I feel like photographers treat blogs and online magazines as PR people. Any time I get a hunch that people just want me to promote their project for the sake of it, I generally file the submission away in the gmail archives.

f: How do you view the contemporary landscape of photography publications as a product and as a market in relation to the past?

BF: Clearly it's easier than ever to publish and share work. It's a very crowded space and becoming increasingly commercialized. I think there's more of an intent by new publishers to try to turn it into a business or a stepping stone to a career. This has created a more competitive environment. A consequence of which is the non-stop promotion that we see. People have figured out that being visible all the time is the way to grow your audience. I can't fault people but it does create more noise and more self-promotion than I think we need.

It's hard for me to comment on the past because I'm not all that familiar with the history of photography publications. I do think there are great opportunities for people to show their work but I'm just not sure any publication can really create the critical mass necessary to be financially sustainable. Who knows though. I'm sure someone out there will crack the code.

f: How has working on publishing LPV influenced your personal work and your aspirations in photography?

BF: I don't have career aspirations for my own photography. I just like to make photographs and want to organize them in ways that will make browsing through them when I'm older easy and hopefully a bit more enjoyable. I feel very fortunate when anyone whether it's on Tumblr, Flickr or wherever even bothers to look at my photographs, especially given the fact you can see tons and tons of amazing work on the web every single day.

Now, in terms of my career. LPV has opened more doors than I could ever imagine. I'm a media junkie and have a journalism background. I've always wanted to be an editor and run a magazine of some sort. I'm amazed that the tools are there for me to realize that aspiration.

f: What has been your highlight in working with LPV?

BF: The highlight without question is meeting so many amazing, intelligent, inspiring photographers, writers and wanderers. For me, working with other creatives is what it's all about. It can be maddening and frustrating, but when it works, there's really nothing like it.

f: What is next for LPV?

BF: Issue #3 comes out soon. I have a few projects I'm working on that I think will be interesting. But other than that, I don't really want to know what's next. We'll either evolve or close up shop.

fototazo on LPV Magazine's "Top Photography Sites of 2011" List

Bryan Formhals of LPV Magazine, featured in an early post on fototazo in April, announced his "Top Photography Websites of 2011" list today. fototazo greatly appreciates inclusion on a list of outstanding sites.

f100: Jason Francisco, Kathleen Laraia McLaughlin, Alex Leme, Raoul Gatepin

© Kathleen Laraia McLaughlin, Petru and the Claie, Sarbi, Maramures, 1999

fototazo has asked a group of 50 curators, gallery owners, blog writers, photographers, academics and others actively engaged in photography to pick two photographers that deserve (more) recognition - the underknown, the under-respected as well as not-appreciated-enough favorites. A little more information on the project is available in the first post in the series here.

We began the series with responses from Nicholas Nixon, Matt Johnston, Blake Andrews, John Edwin Mason, Aline Smithson, Colin Pantall, Michael Werner and Liza Fetissova. Today we continue with selections from Laurence Salzmann and Bryan Formhals.

Respondent: Laurence Salzmann is a Philadelphia-based documentary photographer and filmmaker. Among many other collections, his work is in the Philadelphia Museum of Art, International Center of Photography, George Pompidou Center in Paris, Brooklyn Museum of Art and Yale University. He is the recipient of a Fulbright Fellowship to Romania as well as a Pew Fellowship. His book "The Last Jews of Radauti" is available here.

Selections: Kathleen Laraia McLaughlin and Jason Francisco

© Jason Francisco

Respondent: Bryan Formhals is the Founder of LPV Magazine as well as a photographer and digital media consultant. He lives in Brooklyn.

Selections: Alex Leme and Raoul Gatepin

© Alex Leme, Peeking, 2010

© Raoul Gatepin, from the series Piramid

Of Interest 4.14: LPV Magazine

© Mark Powell

Highly recommended is Bryan Formhals' new venture LPV Magazine, a hybrid presence in print and on the web. Issue One is out now and can be ordered here. The 54-page inaugural issue features work from Mark Alor Powell, recently interviewed here on fototazo, as well as from Blake Andrews and Chuck Patch. The issue's theme is "Fragments and Collisions" and it includes a group show based around that theme comprised of 17 international photographers. LPV Magazine will be published three times a year and although it can be purchased by issue, purchasing a year subscription will bring you exclusive content, including access to Q&A sessions with featured photographers as well as established professionals.