Photoworks' Deputy Editor Ben Burbridge shares his thoughts on Rencontres d'Arles 2011.
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Photography has changed as a result of digitization. In contrast to the expense involved in buying and processing film, to produce and to view digital photographs costs almost nothing. With cameras a standard feature on most mobile phones, many of us have them on our person for the majority of the time. This means that many more people are taking many more photographs of subjects and in situations they would not have photographed before.
The internet has dramatically increased opportunities to publish images, and for others to comment and respond. This has unsettled traditional distinctions between professionals and amateurs, and eroded the boundaries between the producers and consumers of images.
This radically expanded photographic landscape can sometimes appear a fragmented and disorientating space, as multiple and contradictory perspectives risk unsettling notions of objectivity and singular photographic truths. The effect is compounded by the ease with which digital photographs can be manipulated using Photoshop. As Sean O’Hagan suggested, in a round table discussion published in issue 15 of Photoworks, it is easy to see how such changes might result in ‘a crisis of the image’.
![Gerda Taro [Spectators at the funeral parade of General Lukacs, Valencia], June 16, 1937 Negative © International Center of Photography](/media/images/730/44283-ValiseMexicaine2.jpg "Gerda Taro [Spectators at the funeral parade of General Lukacs, Valencia], June 16, 1937 Negative © International Center of Photography")
While many have been happily uploading and commenting on photographs online for years now, it seems to have taken ‘The Photography World’ longer to recognise the implications of such changes, particularly here in the UK. This can, in part, be put down to the tired debate regarding photography’s artistic credentials, fuelled for decades by the Tate’s uncertainty about collecting and exhibiting photographs, and finally put to bed by Simon Baker’s appointment as Curator of Photographs and International Art last year. In a different vein, the contested role of social networking sites in fuelling the Arab Spring has helped to foreground the importance of a networked society for the study of photography.
While some noted a changing photographic culture more than a decade ago, and such debates have gained momentum in recent years (through the publication of Fred Ritchin’s After Photography in 2009, for example), it seems likely that 2010-11 will be remembered as the period when the penny finally dropped for the network of curators, writers, organizations, festivals and academics responsible for shaping and sanctioning what is deemed by some to be culturally significant in photography.
Last year’s Format festival proposed a new relevance for street photography in the age of CCTV and camera phones; FOAM magazine has launched a year-long series of events and debates aimed at addressing the question of ‘What Next?’; and we have adjusted our editorial approach at Photoworks in order to try to look beyond art photography to a wider, changing social photographic landscape.
The stated aim of the 2011 Rencontres d’Arles—probably still Europe’s most important photography festival—suggests its organisers have set out along similar lines. In his introduction to the festival catalogue, its Director, Francois Hebel, explained that ‘the world has changed’ along with ‘photography—and its public’.
While such changes were addressed directly by a small proportion of the exhibitions, they loomed unavoidably over the festival as a whole (and perhaps, too, over the culture of photography exhibitions and festivals more generally). In particular, we might question what the appropriate roles for the photography museum, gallery and festival are, now that photography has acquired new forms of social and cultural ubiquity, distinctions between amateur and professional appear less clear, and the internet has introduced new and participatory modes of photographic practice?
The exhibitions at Arles suggested a number of possible answers. The first is well illustrated by an exhibition of photographs by the Mexican artist Fernando Montriel Klint. Klint makes large-scale photographic tableaux in the manner of Jeff Wall and Gregory Crewdson. Measuring more than a meter in height, and resulting from intricate processes of staging and construction, these photographs demand to be viewed on the wall through their material similarities to painting, along with their apparent difference to pictures made and shared more quickly and unthinkingly by the masses.
Such images aim to communicate little about the socio-cultural specifics of their subject and much about the private fantasies and ‘vision’ of their maker. It is an idea of museum photography that has begun to feel increasingly specific in its agenda. The museum provides a world apart from the white noise of images circulating in mass culture, where great artists display great pictures for viewers to look at and (hopefully) think about.
Alternatively, the gallery can be used as a site to revisit more functional forms of photography. This year’s festival suggested two approaches to this task. Firstly, these images are provided with a new autonomy through their framing and isolation on the wall, in a manner in which issues of form and artistry can take precedent over use or informational content.
In the Espace van Gogh, for example, Miguel Angel Berumen curated an exhibition of photographs depicting the Mexican Revolution, for which the captions were provided as an additional A3 booklet. It was striking how many visitors opted to ignore this textual element altogether, and look at the images alone.
Enrique Metinides’ ‘101 Tragedies’ (billed on the text panel as the ‘101 Tragedies of Enrique Metinides’) brought together a collection of visually compelling photographs of murders, car crashes and attempted suicides by the esteemed Mexican photojournalist. Slickly framed and mounted on yellow walls, the aestheticisation of their violent subject matter was unavoidable.
An alternative approach was suggested by an exhibition of photographs commissioned and published by The New York Times Magazine. Curated by the magazine’s Picture Editor, Kathy Ryan, the show aimed to open up and newly contextualise the images.
Although large prints appeared in frames, these were shown alongside copies of the original magazine spreads, faxes, letters, contact sheets and related ephemera that, together, provided a narrative account of their production and reception: be that through sycophantic letters from Gregory Crewdson to Gwynyth Paltrow asking her to model, telegrams concerning Giles Peres’ time in Iran, or a letter from the magazine’s owner to its staff following the first issue published after 9/11.
A similar approach was evident in the Mexican Suitcase, which has toured for the first time to Europe following its initial show ICP in New York. Here, viewers were presented with contact sheets made from recently discovered negatives of Gerda Taro, Ropert Capa and David ‘Chim’ Seymour showing the Spanish Civil War.
These were shown alongside prints, texts and the picture magazines in which the images originally appeared. In such examples, the physical space of the gallery or museum becomes the site within which photographs are opened up and explained: replacing the formalist and medium-specific concerns of the modern and contemporary art gallery with an approach closer to the educational remit of a history museum.
Of the four ‘manifesto’ exhibitions, which aimed to respond directly to a photographic culture transformed by digitization, ‘From Here On’ and ‘JR’ provided the more compelling propositions. JR has subjected photography to the interventionist logic of street art, pasting large-scale black and white posters in various locations. They have included huge portraits of Israelis and Palestinians on the either side of the dividing security wall and portraits of young people from Paris’ housing projects pasted on the walls of the city’s richer districts.
At Arles, JR was represented by a photo-booth, in which visitors could have their own picture taken on the understanding they would reintroduce this into the urban landscape. While the project lacked the (mild) political critique suggested by the specific subjects and locations of the previous works, it still suggested a model through which photography’s role in the museum might be rethought and subject to a more participatory format. Here the institution serves as a form of laboratory within which artists and curators try to shape behaviour beyond the museum walls.
An inverse approach was suggested by the curators of From Here On—Martin Parr, Joachim Schmid, Erik Kessels, Clement Cheroux and Joan Fontcuberta—who opted to transpose fragments of online culture into the gallery and onto the wall. The exhibition centred on a new generation of artists who have taken the online world of images and the possibilities of digital culture as their subject matter (with mixed results - speaking to the artists and curators, there is a clear sense that this is a form of practice in its infancy).
Here, the gallery provides artists with the space in which to frame and call attention to aspects of photography’s non-art applications. The majority of the projects exhibited can be divided into two forms: those which look down the social spectrum at the online photographic habits of the masses and, less frequently, those who look up this spectrum towards the use of images by cultural, economic and political elites.
In the case of the former, artists swerve between a Pop-orientated aestheticism and a pseudo-ethnographic impulse. Most frequently, the work sets out to highlight the uniform, absurd or perplexing aspects of amateur online practices (in work by Corinne Vionnet, Thomas Maillander, Andreas Schmid and Penelope Umbrico, to name a few).
The problem lies in the distinction between high and low culture upon which this work depends, and the self-congratulatory and knowing character it prescribes for the former in relation to the photographic behaviour of the latter: a form of understanding that sets this particular cultural elite apart from those apparently too busy producing and sharing photographs to engage in this kind of self-reflection.
The contrast between the (potentially radical) participatory model provided by the internet and the (more conservative) broadcast model of the gallery was also clearest in this work. (In a panel discussion during the festival’s opening weekend, Simon Baker suggested that, stripped of the interactivity of the web, such work risked feeling like ‘a residue’).
The second group of artists aimed to answer back to the authority yielded by photographs, setting the comic, subjective and non-instrumental presence of the artist against the camera’s beaurocratic and official instrumental applications (in work by Jens Sundheim, Tony Churnside and the Get Out Clause, Kurt Caviezel and Mocksim, for example). While these observations and interventions offer some relief, or signal the aesthetic potential of such imagery (particularly that drawn from Google Street View), their intentions appear more playful than political.
Miska Henner’s ‘Dutch Landscapes’ series breaks from this mould: noting the highly aesthetic character of the locations censored by the Dutch authorities on Google Earth and using captions to reveal what these have been used to conceal. Pavel Maria Smejkal’s work also suggested a more thoughtful agenda. Taking iconic photographs of violent incidents, Smejkal used Photoshop to remove their bloody spectacle. The remaining landscapes are striking both in the familiarity they retain, and in their capacity to reintroduce a sense of locality and specificity to images that, at least for a ‘photography audience’, are usually consumed in terms of their iconicity.
The high point of the exhibition is Claudia Sola’s ‘Being There’, which suggests an alternative attitude towards the mass of images circulating online. Consisting of a four-image split screen projection, viewers are led rapidly through a collection of pictures drawn from the Web, along with the artist’s own photographs (although it is impossible to tell the two apart).
Set to an unpretentious soundtrack, the order of the pictures suggests a narrative progression from couples to marriage to children to religion to war to pornography to consumption, while the split screen model allows for these aspects to be contrasted, compared and juxtaposed.
The images then move away from the social and cultural towards the physicality of the body, showing scars, brain scans, and microscopic images of cells, before suggesting a form of synthesis through pictures of tatoos (images of bodies moving into images of images on bodies).
The projection approaches mass culture in a spirit of empathy and understanding, rather than irony and difference, but also succeeds in foregrounding the place of an online image world in mediating these rites of passage, events, and understandings of human behaviour: revisiting the Family of Man through the critical lens of twenty-first century spectacle.
The unavoidable symbols of the recent changes to photography are the notorious photographs from Abu Ghraib. The manner in which they changed, or represented changes to, the roles and significance of photography within culture cannot help but shape understandings of how institutions should aim to respond to this new photographic landscape.
The significance of those pictures lay not in what they looked like, in aesthetics and issues of form, but in issues of instrumentality, information, and use: why they were made and by whom; the abuses they depicted and why these took place; how the leaking of the pictures resulted in new functions, offering a damning form of insider testimony; and, more generally, how changing technologies have shaped such possibilities.
While the photographs’ pixelated amateur appearance has provided a new visual form to ideas of photographic authenticity, this was determined by the social roles and specificity of the images. In contrast to the spectacle and aesthetics of wall-mounted prints presented without explanation, the images resonated owing to the larger narratives within which they were inserted: narratives regarding production, circulation and use.
In issue 14 of Photoworks, Ian Jeffrey described recent artists’ privileging of form over the informational content usually provided by text as photography in its most ‘unsupported’ state. Set within a changing photographic culture, the inadequacies of this kind of aestheticism and the relativism of meaning it promotes become all too apparent.
Based on the example of Arles, it seems that museums and galleries may find their most meaningful roles in the promotion of informed modes of participation, discussion and the critical understanding of images through the provision of context, explanation and narrative.
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13 comments in the Debate section
Comments (13)
With all due respect to the efforts that have gone into this article: was it really necessary to approach this subject in such a lengthy wordy manner? It's a good example of how the author manages to filter his readership by not being concise and simple. Who says that writing about photography has to be difficult to read? We should not forget that photography is also a means to simpler clearer communication. So why invert the process and kill the message with hard to read essays?
I think the contrary, photography will be viewed as art as never before.
No longer do we have traditional thinking where skill is key and the actual print matters. Art is about the concept. I see loads of "digital" photographs but cannot find much in concept that excites me, the same for gelatin silver, film work. But when it does I don't care if it is a digital, silver print or how they got to that point. Like the early record breaking Richard Prince photograph hitting an all time high auction price, it wasn't photography, it was conceptual art. Why the photography world took credit for this record I will never know. Especially since we have narrowly defined our world as "photography" and not art. Perhaps from now on "photography is dead". But we still need photography curators to deal with the older works, much like Curators of art specialize in different time periods. And galleries too. But I am glad I can leave my gallery open to new directions. It is pretty damn exciting!
This fine essay relevant with respect to some of the points being made here: http://www.e-flux.com/journal/view/94
Many thanks for your comment Manuel.
Apologies if you found this too wordy or hard to read. I try to be clear in everything I write—whether online or in print—so I am disappointed that this was difficult to follow. Looking over it, you definitely have a point.
I would, though, question whether the text is unnecessarily long, particularly as it contains a lot of information. The web is a medium or vehicle like any other, and people’s expectations will be shaped by the ways in which it is used.
When Twitter packages the world into soundbites, then longer and more reflective pieces may well feel too lengthy. But perhaps both can still serve useful functions?
Your suggestion that photography is 'a means to simpler clearer communication’ is an interesting one. But perhaps this is itself a simplification?
Photography’s capacity to communicate or generate meaning was my main concern here. But what these photographs communicate does not strike me as simple and clear.
Surely, issues of meaning are shaped by a host of social, cultural and political factors? And if we want to understand how photographs operate, it is important that we think about these?
What, for example, does the picture by Gerda Taro (above) simply and clearly communicate?
I came upon this post indirectly via the blog Conscientious. I appreciate your thoughtful and substantive post ("wordy" is an unfair, but understandable reaction given the length of most blog posts). For those of us not able to make it to Arles, your synthesis of some key themes, artists, and works is a great look into the event. Thanks for your insight. I've added you to by RSS feed and hope to read more posts like this in the future.
Hi Ben,
Thanks for a very thoughtful overview of the meanings concealed in Arles this year. Interesting I think that such an old-established and relatively conservative institution as Arles offers this variety of content.
You say Photoworks has changed its editorial policy recently to reflect this new world of practices (appropriation and manipulation mostly it seems but also multiple and various contexts); good for you. In the British context, at least, there is a confusing equation between "art photography" and high production standards in print, that is not always to the advantage of the well conceived "poorly crafted" image (or the image that exists as a projection for instance). Does this mean that Photoworks will, in the future, be slaughtering that particular sacred cow - to be led by the ideas not the craft values (and will be able to make tax payer's money go farther by saving cash on expensive repro)?
Cheers
A short review I wrote for one of the exhibits at From Here On:
Intelligent art about the difficulty of being stupid:
Firstly to describe Pavel Maria Smejkal’s Fatescopes, currently being exhibited at From Here On, Les Recontres D’Arles: this is a series of iconic historical photographs but with the key subject matter, the characters in action, removed. In other words only the background remains but as the catalogue bumph for the exhibition states “despite this, the images are nearly all recognisable”.
Rather than ponder about why the empty images remain identifiable it is more interesting to try and deal with what has been created. The facts of memory, knowledge and history remain a problem. The human tendency to try and make sense of things, and quickly, is another. In this case by the way there are controversies and stories surrounding all the originals so it is ironic indeed that we have a problem forgetting subject matter which may have been staged in the first place and certainly does not necessarily represent the kind of truth most assume.
Generally though questions are raised about how to ignore context, to really be naïve, to forget what we know? A school of thought suggests that be the stranger in a place is advantageous, at least for artists. Students learning to draw from observation traditionally were, in what appears contradictory, taught not to think (about faces say, the figure or meaning). And regardless of whether that tradition continues this kind of interest in truth (which as we say, ironically, requires disinterest) does appear fundamental to what artists do. It takes effort to see what is in front of your own eyes. Smejkal’s creations (or his finds?) are provocative in that respect: this is intelligent art about the difficulty of being stupid.
Writer Nigel Thrift is not alone when he states the importance of “the lived immediacy of actual experience, before any reflection on it”. Can I begin to look at Robert Capa’s famous Loyalist Soldier, Spain, 1936 or for that matter Smejjkal’s new version of it, minus the falling soldier, entitled (accurately) Spain, 1936 and see only formal elements, a composition, the abstract qualities for example? The answer is that with the latter, yes, it is easier to escape knowledge. It is at least possible to begin to take the picture for what it is, a picture, and notice the assembly of stretched triangles, other shapes and patterns say. At the same time the ghost of the character remains. At the same time the original beautiful lie seeps through.
There are other sets of images at From Here On which have a similar impact in some respects, for example Jon Haddock’s stills taken from porn movies but of those (presumably rare) moments when the central characters are out of frame. The difference is that the Fatescope series appears to be saying something about quality too. Typically in the world what are called ‘craft skills’ are lauded. Unfortunately what is usually being referred to is a set of conventions, a list of traditional crafts. And contrary to popular opinion, or at least the ideas sometimes promoted in the media, for most contemporary artists craft is also a crucial factor, even when the aim is to get beyond it, or ignore it. Maybe the skill involved is not with SLR cameras, controlling depth of field blurring or with oil paint (the new technology of a few hundred years ago) and often the really interesting stuff happens when an artist doesn’t feel the need to show off, as has been said, or may want to subvert their craft. Smejkal appears to be playing with these questions too. In reality whether he has modified existing images meticulously, searched intelligently for pictures that require little (or no) manipulation in the first place or combined both approaches is irrelevant. If we include the selecting process, the ability to hone intentions and then carry something through so that justice is done to a concept, then these are motivations and skills most do not possess. Effort, and the issue of effort, appears palpable in the final pieces.
Of course we can only say these things because we know the original photographs. So the somewhat ridiculous question still remains, as it does with much photography, what would these images be like if that history and context was not available to us? Primarily the effect though is to draw attention again to the originals and their meaning. A few hundred words only begin to grapple with what is significant here: other points can be made. Could raw material from more recent history be used for example? Enough time has passed since all of these photographs first emerged to permit a less emotional response. The famous Abu Graib pictures might be less suitable. Having said that, the Fatescope series does educate about documentary imagery generally.
Thanks, David, for your interesting post.
I appreciate that there is an inherent contradiction in producing lo-fi images in a high-production value magazine. However, I would also argue that, in order to accommodate work with high production values alongside other types of imagery one needs to pitch the production towards the top end.
Our policy with the magazine has always been to explore photography as a vehicle for ideas, regardless of its production values, and this has recently been made a much firmer commitment within the editorial policy.
On the point of public money, the cost of printing Photoworks magazine relies on advertising and sales and takes no money from the organisation’s core budget. This is the case with all of our publications.
The economics of producing a low production value magazine would not make much of a difference to the taxpayer, but may put off advertisers, which would in turn unbalance our budget and stop us from being able to offer a magazine with a mixed content based on quality of ideas and engagement with subjects.
Pity the first comment is so negative....read Richen's soporific drawl if you want to see something tedious to the point of difficulty in reading!!!! This is a thoughtful and reflective report. Many thanks.
I wonder whether the current age (whatever we call it) demands that we are more systematic in categorising photographs/photographers. There is not one photography but numerous photographies. By trying to handle everything under a single banner we only confuse ourselves. At the same time the last thing we need is brain numbing debates on classification. I think we have a real dilemma from this conflict.
One easy differentiation though is art vs social documentary. The former is using pictures to create a thought provoking array whose location and means of presentation are as much part of the art as the images, the latter is telling a story by factual pictures. Why oh why do we therefore keep putting the latter in art galleries, and in so doing making the understanding of the photography scene so confusing and complex as beautifully described above. Perhaps it’s the end of Festivals that set out to be all things to all men by inclusion of all photographies in one big glorious muddle?
Regarding Gordon M., Ben B's and other points above:
Firstly I don’t think anyone has to apologise for being ‘wordy’ or intellectual in some way. Just as someone is entitled to decide simply whether or not they like a thing and leave it at that without going further presumably it is also legal to get carried away in on other fronts, to wax lyrical and employ weighty theories if desired.
Second, on the point of how to deal with the plethora of new forms and the spectrum of possibilities with the term photography it must be frustrating indeed for those who are aligned to certain practices and the tradition. Not least because only in recently in history has photography been accepted by a somewhat aloof art world and already it is being blown to pieces. And a whole load of other of other spanners could be thrown into the works. For me 3D Modelling, with it’s origins in engineering drawing say as well as arts/photography, transformed further with development of on-line worlds like Second Life and tools such as 3D Studio Max (which takes its name from studio practice). These open up all kinds of exciting, meaning-heavy, possibilities: I can for example turn Perspective off with a virtual camera in virtual space and escape the Renaissance.
Personally I agree to some extent with Gordon M’s point about the separation of art from social documentary, though for artistic objectives an artist might chose to play with or place a ‘functional’ object in a space designated for art. Terrifying questions of the ‘what is art?’ variety are of course where this leads. As well as cameras, as an artist I can use many other technologies designed with specific functions or for entertainment and money-making purposes in other ways. I can play (term used a second time deliberately because maybe it is what primarily distinguishes the artistic temperament from others) with, off the top of my head, cement, shoes, equations, cups, vehicles, computers. I don’t see how cameras are different in their relation to the people they call artists. And we can start to worry too as has been suggested about the art word too. Photographers seem often quite comfortable about its use as a term. Sure there’s a tradition and perhaps it’s a privilege to be permitted in, so to speak but also there is art in everything. Maybe someone in the back office of a bank, when no-one’s looking, is having a ball with spreadsheets as we speak.
Thanks for the discussion all. It will, no doubt expand. And maybe there’s nothing to worry about. As a Duchamp said: “There is no solution because there is no problem”
I, being a tyro at the arts, conceive of photography as a nascent apparatus for communication (in comparison to music or food or language or sex) much like cinema. Cinema is didactic in that the explicit narrative-approach to communication demands participation regardless of any proclivity for a more meta-perspective approach to viewing. Photography is instead implicit in its desire for a meta-perspective towards viewing context, abstraction, content, juxtaposition and so forth. Given this difference, Photography is an interesting paroxysm as an art form.
Photography alludes to the societal roles you mentioned, as well as a veritable language for commerce; Photography posits the allowance for self-conception, a ubiquitous self-reliance for creation, a proto-autonomy before the written-language if you like. In this language-like way, Photography can describe both the contextual interests of the amateur in a quotidian manner, as well as the greater societal constructs that bind human-beings in sordid ways. In short, Photography is an art that is in flux with the common-place, where individual-boredom permeates, where individual-boredom acts as the distinct lack of challenge or skill or any combination thereof within a dialectical construct. Photography in general can relieve any individual of this boredom.
Humbly, I believe that Photography is at a place of anxious gestalt where contemporary art-photographers must define their creative rigor to the level of philosophers, use acumen under the duress of a game such as chess or go, and redefine the system of commerce for art like musicians today. The subjectivity and objectivity of Photography's ubiquitous nature is yet another component to the shifting tides of access, not so much the conviction and commitment to a greater critical discourse. In other words, there are things that add a sense of urgency to Photography-as-Art's relevancy, and there are things that add a sense of importance to Photography-as-Art's relevancy. The choice is up to the Photographer.
These are my two-cents. Blah.
Just a note of gratitude for this blog and Ben Burbridge's (as ever) fine writing and judicious perspective. I appreciate the generosity at Photoworks in presenting this free online. Gratifying too to see the agency where it is now, from such comparatively recent beginnings. Congratulations and thanks again, from a non-specialist specialist.
Many thanks for your analysis and for opening the debate about this dilemma and crisis that Photography is experiencing. It is a profound debate that makes the headlines today but that still amazes me because we knew that it would come since the digital made its first steps. That was inevitable but professionals, institutions and amateurs never really aimed at understanding what was at stake. What ever medium and technology you are using you first objective should be to question your tool in order to deliver the most appropriate answer to your journey, and therefore to communicate it in the best possible way. Whether it is "easy" to read or distant at first. But performing Photography has become today as mundane as writing. And the act of writing which we are meant to "control well" for centuries, is still a challenge that can be handled by very few - those people are called writers and make a living of it.
Yes, Photography is in danger because it is used with such little understanding. To photograph something requires not only technical skills but also a lot of thinking at all stages. It is not something to take lightly unless you are a professional delivering a product expected, but that's something else. Photography is the most democratic tool of today and very few people understand or question it. Because by essence the medium is meant to capture a certain reality (which can be undoubtedly questioned) and that reality in all its dimensions is to be addressed. Photography does not deliver easy answers as most people think but it is a very complex mirror where everything can be envisaged. And its beauty lies in its inherent ability to freeze a sense of our reality experienced then. So our reality is at stake, which is far away from most minds. And I do agree that it is a very complex phenomenon that requires knowledge. But then it is the role of the key players to continuously trigger the various possibilities offered. I truly feel that Photography has so much to offer and that gems can be found along the way for a long time ahead. But it is the role of the power makers of all sorts to dismantle the cliches that Photography has been perceived like from its origin. There is still a strong doubt towards Photography and it might be because it involves reality as a very narrow minded concept, even still within the Art World.
So, as long as we try to deviate from the core of the problem Photography will be doomed and only commercial Photography will survive somehow. It is the responsibility of the institutions, of the museums, of the teachers, of the manufacturers to properly engage the discussion. I personally think that we are saturated with the drama of the old photojournalism which has made much profit from its sensation. But at the same it is vital that this branch remains because it keep the versatility of the medium open and new questions arise as an alternative testimony of global events. Anyway I could go on for ages, but the key question is whether the industries are interested in addressing the debate. I think that sadly this time will come if only profits of any forms are available. Most people, even within the photographic spectrum, are not so interested and only hope that they will keep on making money form their previous momentum. Photography remains a very solitary approach.
The truth is that Photography as a whole is on the edge of collapse. And true photographers, the ones who engage a true reflection will be a bunch of isolated rare specimens. The village's weirdo if you like. I hope I am one of them for the love of Photography and for the love of Life and all its doubts. But we are certainly facing a dead-end by keeping on addressing the wrong questions. There is nothing wrong with being wrong as long as you accept it and take a new path. I hope that the deciders will make that realization.