Mois de la Photo: making sense of the photograph in the web era

Thanks to the camera-phone, we are drowning in images. Which are important, and what gives them meaning? In Montreal, a group of artists attempt to decide

Source: Mois de la Photo: making sense of the photograph in the web era

I booked mark this page a couple of years ago while I was drowning in a little uncertainty during “expressing your vision” and perhaps in a moment of clarity thought it might be useful going forward.

This article in the Guardian explains how a Joan Fontcuberta curated expedition will examine the role of the photograph and the photographer in the age of the camera phone and the proliferation of images through the internet.

The exhibition reflects on how after 150 years our relationship to the photograph has changed, mainly down to the proliferation of camera phones and the glut of banal snaps which seem to be made to be immediately forgotten

The article touches on the work of Joachin Schmid and Eric Kessels and others who have appropriated and repurposed found and cast of images (mainly from the internet into their own art projects.

Fontcuberta makes an interesting comment on this type work stating “I think that now most artists adopt images [ie select from images captured by others] because they don’t pretend to be the biological parents, they just pick those images to make them alive in another context. The importance is how we assign meaning. The craft and authorship of the image are no longer relevant issues, which brings us to the crisis of photography.”

This is perhaps a little strong, although I do believe there is somewhat of a crisis. With the fact that everyone has a camera-phone everyone is a photographer or should I say “Instagramr” and with the proliferation of affordable DSLRs, the hike in quality of point and shoot camera and the advent of the mirrorless systems there are more camera’s out there the value of the photographer to the public has reduced. Just as the camera made redundant the need for the portrait artist’s technical skills in drawing or painting.

Does this mean that the photographer of the future just becomes a selector and processor of existing images? I think not. We must remember photography is an art-form and those that use ONLY other images are artists that editor or curate not photographers for let’s not forget what the word photography means – writing with light and there are many artists still out there writing with light on a daily basis to create distinctive work.

Bibliography

Pett, S. (2015). Mois de la Photo: making sense of the photograph in the web era. [online] The Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2015/sep/15/mois-de-la-photo-making-sense-photography [Accessed 8 Jan. 2018].

WeAreOCA. (2013). An Interview with Joachim Schmid – WeAreOCA. [online] Available at: https://weareoca.com/subject/photography/an-interview-with-joachim-schmid/ [Accessed 8 Jan. 2018].