WHAT'S THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN
 ADVERTISING AND ART?

 Posting in this channel is for invited
 photographers, art critics and curators only.
 
 

 Response /
 
 ---------- My comments above suggests that any
 difference becomes moot in time. Advertising has
 a client and the purpose of an advertising
 illustration is known in detail and on many levels
 BEFOREHAND. As an artist I make photographs
 to make discoveries; my ideas become clear
 through working. This is a very large difference
 but I do not represent all artists; some of my
 colleagues a exercise as much control over their
 MESSAGE as the advertising people do, and
 make very good art. So is the only difference the
 client and money?

 Joseph Jachna / 1999-01-15, 00:48
 
 

 Living by making a living /
 
 In the past many artists needed to do commercial
 work to support their personal projects. They
 would work in the advertising world. Many people
 who were very knowledgable of art history would
 bring understanding of art to commerce. In fact, I
 can only name a few people who were not doing
 commerical work. So I feel it is very difficult to say
 what the difference is between advertising and art
 when there is so much crosstalk between them.

 Todd Weinstein / 1998-12-27, 16:52
 
 

 Buy or Think /
 
 UNDEREXPOSED is making obvious the
 diference beetween advertising and art because
 using the panels and bilboards dedicated to
 advertising to propose visions by artists.
 Advertising is just proposing to people to desire
 objects which are proposed for sale. It can be
 done by talented people who know about
 contemporary creation and art and who are able,
 with another purpose, to copy work by artists or to
 propose to artists to colaborate, in exchange of a
 lot of money to their job which consists in making
 their clients (sellers, companies, eca) happy by
 increasing their sales and profits and recognition
 as trade marks. The diference beetween the
 "creative" people of advertising and the artists is
 that (except that I never met an art director in
 advertising doing just advertising and being a
 serious artist) they don't have the same concern
 about the people and society of their times. Ad
 people propose to us "buy", consume" (that's the
 main basis of the work of the artist Barbara
 Kruger) when artist tell to people (including with
 disturbing images you can not like) "think". The
 diference is enormous, because, if we don't think,
 if we don't go to our main and personal emotions
 and defend them, we would just be bought by
 people and international companies who are just
 proposing to us to consume what they produce to
 make profit on our poor lives. Buy or Think,
 Consuming or Revolt, that's the difference, the
 challenge and the key for the future.

 Ch Caujolle / 1998-12-25, 18:47
 
 

WHEN DOES PHOTOGRAPHY NOT
 REFLECT REALITY?

 Posting in this channel is for invited
 photographers, art critics and curators only.

 I agree with Christian /
 
 I agree with Christian very much. Photographers
 have too long benefitted from the myth that the
 camera does not lie - It is an extraordinary myth
 when you think of it - Imagine if we gave the same
 power to writers or painters, thinking that the pen
 or the brush did not lie! Now that we see
 photography as subjective, it still reflects all kinds
 of realities, but it no longer is seen as "objective." I
 think that this is the great change in
 photojournalism and documentary photography
 in the last years - we now no longer automatically
 think of these images as being objective, but as
 interpretations by interested observers. As
 readers we then interpret them again. It's an
 interesting, complex process, one that deserves
 more study and thought.

 Fred Ritchin / 1999-01-20, 10:38
 
 

 Response /
 
 I'm sorry to give you such a glib answer but this
 question is 100% rhetorical / philosophical to me.
 A photograph always reflects reality because it is
 always willed into being by a person - like a work
 of fiction or a painting. Is photography a truthful
 reporter? Only under strict conditions can a
 photograph now be valuable as evidence,
 because of the ability to manipulate it. I'll end with
 a comment on my own work. I have done some
 manipulation with the camera and in the
 darkroom but most of my photographs which
 succeed are straightforward. I'm standing upright,
 pointing the camera horizontally across a
 landscape as I would making a vacation
 snapshot, but maybe there's an object closer to
 the lens than expected or you have to imagine
 what you cannot see clearly, but something
 magical happens and I like that. These
 photographs are a good blend of inner and outer
 reality and the people who connect with my work
 don't ask about my intended message or the
 facts; they seem pleased to meet them with
 something they have inside them.

 Joseph Jachna / 1999-01-15, 00:50
 
 

 To Arno /
 
 Dear Arno,

 Of course, I agree with you... And all your work is
 the perfect "refelect" of your position. I just wanted
 to point that photography is NEVER reality but is
 an other kind of reality (a reality of image) which
 obliges us, when it's done by talented people, to
 question the daily and "ordinary" reality which is
 ours. When you photographs your own body, or
 part of it, in a landscape , you confront your own
 reality (it's difficult to be more real...) to a camera,
 lenses, a technology. And you give us back an
 image, which is part of reality, but which is a
 question, a beautiful question to the manner we
 don't sea (or are not able to see) our real
 environment. Excuse my poor english. I just
 wanted to make teh difference beetween the
 reality we can experiment "normaly" and the
 "reality" photographers and artists propose us to
 consider and discover. Which is , finaly, your
 function. Thanks for your dialog, more than
 everything, thanks for your proposal to open our
 eyes. It's what makes me awake everyday.

 Happpy new year with more and more
 photographs and pleasure.

 Kind regards
 

 Christian Caujolle

 caujolle / 1999-01-03, 17:25
 
 

 Baudelaire's brow /
 
 Dear Christian Caujolle,

 If I jump off a skyscraper, I will make a mess of
 myself down below. If you take a picture of that
 mess, believe me, 99% of the image will be true.
 There is much more reality in this world than we
 care to believe or wish to see. Still I agree with
 you, especially with press and advertising
 imagery, that objective truth in these areas is
 suspect, held hostage even more now by the
 digital caves we have entered. The problem, of
 course, is that false perception becomes the truth
 and "false truth" steers us down the wrong paths
 and causes us to take the wrong actions and/or
 inactions.

 Nevertheless, I am one to think photography is
 still mostly true. If I make a snowball with my bare
 hands and hold on to it for a few minutes, the
 snowball will no longer be a snowball and soon
 my fingers will turn numb. We can take a picture
 of the snowball as a snowball and when it has
 melted, a picture of my hands wet and red from
 the cold. Both photographs will be documents of
 the truth of what happened.

 Before photography, we only had drawings,
 paintings and busts to show us what specific
 people looked like. Then, with advent of
 photography, we had the opportunity to pull away
 the skin of artifice. But our eyes were still free to
 roam the image, our minds open to invent
 whatever it wished. And that could be the point of
 difference: it's what we bring to the photograph
 that gives it a new meaning. The photograph
 doesn't necessarily lie, it's our understanding of
 the image that changes the truth of it. To illustrate
 what I mean, I have told my students this story: I
 was visiting the George Eastman House once
 and happened upon the famous portrait by
 Étienne Carjat of Charles Baudelaire. The fact
 that the poet looked very much like my own
 deceased father may have been the reason why I
 decided to engage the man in a staring contest.
 First one who blinked lost. Well, Baudelaire, as
 those who have seen the haunting image know,
 has a killer stare. He nails you with his eyes. Well,
 I nailed him straight back and held my ground for
 nearly three minutes when suddenly out of
 nowhere beads of sweat began to form on
 Baudelaire's brow!

 Maybe portraits will be the only photographs to
 survive as photographs.

 With kind regards,

 Arno Rafael Minkkinen / 1998-12-30, 10:43

 REALITY ? /
 
 Reality is different, basicaly, for everyone of us.
 Because reality doesn't exist. The existing thing is
 a perception of so called reality. Photography is
 just a technical medium which permits to create
 images which are dependent of the elements
 existing in the physical world. But photography,
 which is obviously a "reflect" of reality through
 lenses and chimical processes, is just a flat
 "reflect" of a tridimensional world we experiment
 daily. And, including if the tradition of press wants
 to make us believe that photography is a "real" or
 "true" transcription of "reality", that's a big, an
 enormous and daily manipulation of everyone
 about what's photography in relationship to the
 existing world.

 The only "reality" photography reflects is the
 totally personal point of view of whom took the
 photograph and proposes his/her own vision of
 the world he/she is dealing with.

 Please, never think that photography is
 "objective" and play your own game, with all
 possible doubts, in front of the proposed images.
 Especially in press and advertising.

 Ch Caujolle / 1998-12-25, 19:06
 
 

WHAT'S YOUR OPINION ABOUT DIGITAL
 MANIPULATION?

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 Not anything wrong... /
 
 Photos were manipulated before without
 computers, but by just making it easier,
 doesn´t make it of poorer quality.
 It all depends of what you want to say...

 Kolbeinn Grettisson / 1999-01-14, 20:13
 
 

 Filters /
 
 If I use a camera filter it is alright, but if I get the
 same effect by just adding it on with my computer
 it would be wrong? In my opinion it is not a matter
 of digital manipulation, but any kind of
 manipulation...

 P.Gustafsson / 1999-01-12, 12:52
 
 

 It depends... /
 
 The photograph, if seen as a bearer of truth, a
 frozen piece of history, should not be altered.
 However, if the picture is meant to convey an
 idea, an opinion or an emotion it may well be
 changed in any way which better communicates
 the message.
 Digital manipulation is just another form, an
 extension, of what goes on in any darkroom.
 So, feel free to manipulate your pictures, but take
 care to tell that it is YOUR picture rather than the
 truth.

 /Nik. / 1999-01-04, 13:07
 
 

 Peace of mind /
 
 I think. Digitaly manipulated or not is a "hot" topic
 if I have invested parts of my identity into it or
 concepts around that question. So maybe, what is
 intresting is not the issue itself, but thet reactions
 to it.
 Where there is reaction there is exploring or
 defending identity going on.

 Enok / 1999-01-01, 23:27
 
 

 Digital Manipulation /
 
 It is interesting to read the weak
 intellectualizations folks naturally develop when
 instigated to offer commentary on digital
 manipulation. A fine photographer instructor once
 told me there are three kinds of photographers,
 blind, not so blind, and not blind at all. Simple as
 that. I judge images by their "lookability."
 Hang a picture and live with it. If you are often
 drawn to look at it, it is a "good" photo. If it fades
 into the background and you are rarely drawn to
 look at it, then it is a waste of viewspace and
 should be replaced with another.

 Chris K.
 New England, USA

 cxk@mediaone.net / 1998-12-26, 20:32
 
 

 Dimension /
 
 Interference with the true photograph through
 manipulation subtracts the most important
 dimension - the sense of seeing reality - what has
 actually been there, however hard to recognize
 and even harder to capture on film. Therefor, to
 me, digital manipulation diminishes the interest of
 the picture. In other words, it degrades the picture
 from being a photograph to a mere image.

 Erland / 1998-12-25, 18:18
 
 

 owner /
 
 With this new digital manipulation, The
 photograph can be changed like the painting, the
 novel, or the song.

 Todd Wenstein / 1998-12-23, 04:21
 
 

 Causality /
 
 Photographs require light from an object for their
 creation. Therefore, the difference between a
 photograph on the one hand, and a painting/
 picture manipulated in a computer on the other, is
 one of causality: the photograph is closer linked
 to reality inasmuch as it needs its object in order
 to come into being. In a sense, a photo is a
 fingerprint of the world; it freezes time as it
 catches light from the world emitted at a particular
 moment of time. This magic property of a
 photograph can never be replicated by an image
 created in a computer.

 As an illustration of this idea, suppose someone
 wiped out Armstrong's first footstep on the moon,
 and an advanced, computerized machine were
 set to repair it. Even though the machine
 succeeded to put every molecule back in its exact
 position, we would not say the new formation
 would be Armstrong's - simply because we could
 not deny the fact that he did not make it.

 Christoffer Rydland / 1998-12-21, 22:46
 
 

 It's natural /
 
 Digital manipulation as well as any other form of
 image manipulation is "natural".
 All photos are manipulated versions of reality, so
 whats the difference?

 Björn and Pehr / 1998-12-21, 17:34