One photo blog I don’t think I’ve come across before is ‘Thoughts of a Bohmenian‘ which describes itself as ‘Another Photo Industry blog‘. What led me there was a Twitter post by the writer of a blog I do occasionally read, ‘A Photo Editor‘.
In case you are wondering about the title, Paul Melcher‘s title for his blog came from hearing the comment about photography “This business has too many Surveyors and not enough Bohemians” and deciding to do his bit to redress the balance.He certainly has a nice turn of phrase (if his speed-spelling isn’t up to scratch) in his post ‘Please, save photography‘
Like me he saw the pictures on Magnum in Motion shot from TV by Alex Majoli and was apalled that Getty Images were rewarding him with a $20,000 grant, but I didn’t think to say “Henri Cartier Bresson must be having a tsunami in his grave as I can assure you, that was NOT the reason he created Magnum. Not for that kind of nombrilistic, uber self-absorded, hyper refflective intello photography.”
Photographing a TV isn’t of course a new thing. Last November I rested my feet during a tiring walk around Paris in front of a screen for another Magnum photographers work, Harry Gruyaerts TV Shots, on show in the Passage du Desir gallery space, and found myself thinking “that I would have found it much more interesting if Gruyeart had gone out and taken his camera with him” rather than sitting home and wasting colour film on a malfunctioning TV.
One photographer who did it back in the ’70s to some effect was Paul Trevor, who while working with ‘Exit‘ on their great documentary project, Survival Programmes, turned around and photographed the very different world that came to him through the TV as ‘A Love Story‘.
And of course, Gruyaert and Majoli do both go out and take pictures. Don’t waste time on Peace TV but do watch Requiem in Samba, also on the Magnum site.
Melcher’s comments came after reading about the ‘Save Photography‘ campaign organised by the French photographic organisations the Union des Photographes Créateurs, FreeLens and the SAIF ( Socièté des auteurs des arts visuels et de l’image fixe.) Their concerns are largely about the falling rates, microstock, orphaned images and so on, as well as some specifically French worries about the legal status of photographs, and as he comments, in typical French style they don’t suggest any solutions but just ask the government to do something about it.
So Melcher’s suggestion is that they should doing something about the quality of photography and get down to saving photography not just by asking the French government to do something but to stop people promoting what he calls “salon photography.”