More about Clichés

1.
You know you're getting old when...

...You can go to InstaRepeat and a.) not only recognize the motifs, b.) not only recognize specific places in multiple cases, but c.) remember famous photographs by name photographers taken at that same location, or remember books in which pictures taken at that location were printed.

Nevertheless, I find this fascinating, and I have to say I love some of the composites.

One thing I was gobsmacked by: a commenter who acknowledges that people will stage view-from-the-tent photos just to get the picture...to put on Instagram. Seriously? I guess it's like bird-watching. You collect motifs, adding them to your life-list. Or maybe you just want to show off by implying that you live the good life because you go camping. Have to ask them I guess.

Thanks to Rob de Loe for mentioning InstaRepeat. Even InstaRepeat is a repeat, though; InstaRepeat repeats other instances where motifs have been collected and collaged. Somewhere in the barn I have a book by a photographer who took pictures of people he encountered on the street who are dressed almost identically, proving that even our outfits are memes.

I have to mention again that in general I'm frustrated by Instagram because all of the pictures are so small and there's no way to see larger versions. This is twelve times as true for the combined pictures on InstaRepeat. I guess the reason is that people are looking at them on phones—? And I shouldn't talk, because pictures on this site are relatively small.

As I mentioned the other day, I have transmogrified into a dinosaur. One proof for this is that I come from an era long past and mostly forgotten when seeing pictures online was considered to be an inferior substitute for actually seeing the actual picture, which was accepted to have a separate and independent reality as part of the real world...and which would be better experienced there. Now, of course, "onscreen" is how many pictures are seen period, and there is only very seldomly an alternative in the real world. And that alternative, if it exists, is accepted to be seldom seen. Sigh.

2.
Ned Bunnell, ever witty (great guy—although we've never met in person, I'd like to meet him), linked to a picture he took as a joke-slash-homage to Lee Friedlander, in my humble opinion the greatest American photographer of the second half of the 20th century. Here it is. And here is the original. This is not a cliché at all; rather, Ned's riffing. It's different when it is done with full knowledge of the antecedent, like John Pfahl's "Moonrise Over Pie Pan" is a riff on "Moonrise Over Hernandez, New Mexico."

Now then, in support of the point just above, I have to point out that three of these four images were not originally tiny JPEGs. If you haven't seen a print of "Moonrise Over Hernandez," you haven't really seen it. I've seen a print of it about six times. The most interesting occasion was in a private back room at the Art Institute of Chicago, where a small group of us were shown the Institute's collection of different vintages of "Moonrise" prints showing the evolution of Ansel's interpretations. I was asked not to take pictures. I did anyway, furtively, but I can't show them to you.

3.
Tom Hill mentioned the book Photo No-Nos by Jason Fulford. Now, I've always had this idea, which I've mentioned several times over the years, that it might be entertaining to compile a list of photo clichés and then set yourself the challenge of making personal pictures of all of them—a sort of "make it yours" exercise, or even Ezra Pound's "make it new." Just from reading a few pages of the sample of Jason Fulford's book, however, I think I might have to retire that idea. Perhaps its time has simply passed, in this brave new world. He makes it clear that it's not just the subject that makes a photo a cliché, but the way in which it's photographed...and he's right, of course.

But for some reason I think I'm going to enjoy that book anyway.

Mike

Book o' the Week

The Atlas of Beauty: Women of the World in 500 Portraits. "Since 2013 photographer Mihaela Noroc has traveled the world with her backpack and camera taking photos of everyday women to showcase the diversity of beauty all around us. The Atlas of Beauty is a collection of her photographs celebrating women from all corners of the world, revealing that beauty is everywhere, and that it comes in many different sizes and colors."

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(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

James Weekes: "Let me add another vote for Lee Friedlander as best photographer of the last half of the twentieth century. I collect photo books but my sub collection of Friedlanders is my prize possession."

Mike replies: I wish I had more of a sub-collection. I just got the astonishing Friedlander First Fifty which details the contents of his "first" fifty(!) books. That's amazing in itself. I'm really enjoying it—kinda like candy. I wish I had more than the five or six I do have. At least I have Cherry Blossom Time in Japan which is exquisitely printed. I'm amazed to find it's still pretty affordable—probably because it's full of flower pictures in black-and-white, which would seem just perverse to a lot of normal people.

Mark Jennings: "I’ve never done it, but I’ve read many times that copying great work can be highly instructive. Often the work isn’t straightforward either.

"John Constable, the early 19th century British landscape painter, and countless other painters, enthusiastically copied the actual paintings of many admired paintings. He did it for the instruction, the inspiration, and the pleasure.

"In 2009 I left Ghost Ranch late one afternoon and headed back to Santa Fe. Nothing clicked in my mind when a short time later I passed a road sign 'Hernandez,' but a minute later strange sensations ambushed me. On the left and down a little slope stood the old Adobe church and the cemetery, the flat river valley a ways beyond, and in the far background the mighty Sangre de Christo mountains bathed in the soft late afternoon sun.

"The light was changing fast, and I too veered onto the shoulder, gave explanations and requests to my tired, hungry, and baffled friend, and then jumped out of the car with my trusty Leica point-and-shoot.

"The location has changed since Adams's heyday. The church and graveyard in 2009 stood at the back of a broad swath of sprawl that included modest cottages, house trailers with white picket fences and flamingoes, an auto repair garage, and other Americana. I’d been taken by surprise, but even without previously knowing where Adam’s picture had been captured, I did know its core enough to feel the hair on the napeof my neck go up when I got near the scene. But that’s what photographers are known for, that improbable sense."

Mark: "This series on photographic clichés is fascinating, and I thank you for writing it. I don't spend much time in hotels, but I think one could compile a semi-comprehensive inventory of modern photographic cliches from the prints hanging on hotel room walls. The three stacked round rocks, and the bow of the canoe pointing toward the cleft in the mountains are two of my favorites."

Albert Smith: "Re 'If you haven't seen a print of "Moonrise Over Hernandez," you haven't really seen it. I've seen a print...', I agree. In 1986 (two years after his death), my now ex-wife and I were touring San Diego, doing all the tourist stuff, Sea World, the Zoo, etc. In Balboa Park, adjacent to the Zoo, unexpectedly was an Ansel Adams retrospective with many dozens of his handmade prints. I was a fanboy of photojournalists and knew of Adams only from magazine articles, which never excited me with their small, low-res images of his work. We went in only because we were there. When I walked into that gallery, I was floored with the size and quality of those prints. As a photographer who never shot anything bigger that 6x6cm in my Rollei, I could not believe the detail in Adams's work. My wife had to pull me out of there to continue our itinerary, but as Mike said, you have to see the real thing to appreciate it."

Jeff: "As a print collector (back when prices were sane), I’ve had the privilege of seeing various mammoth, mural sized, Adams prints, including 'Grand Tetons and the Snake River,' one of which sold from David Arrington’s collection for $988,000 at Sotheby’s last year. It sold for several hundred thousand more than a smaller, early vintage 'Moonrise,' which came with a much higher auction estimate. People are wowed by the huge prints, especially nowadays when bigger seems better. I prefer smaller prints, but it hurts a bit to know that I could have privately bought one of the few 'Grand Tetons' mammoth prints for low five figures many years ago. I’ve also seen Arrington’s collection showing changing versions of 'Moonrise,' shown here."

Dennis Buss: "Andreas Feininger addressed the problem of photo clichés in a few of his many books. He acknowledged that conscious imitation is part of one's growth as a photographer but should be avoided once technique is reasonably mastered. One of my favorites that he identified are photos of coiled ropes on fishing piers."

Jim Henry: "This is somewhat tangential to your main points today, but I need to speak up on behalf of screens. Don't get me wrong, I like prints, I have thousands from the 1960's up until now. They are on my walls, in boxes, have been gifts, sold a few, etc. Nothing against prints. But a good screen display can be wonderful, because the light is being transmitted from the image, not just reflected. Prints are always reflecting the light that falls on them. Screens and (remember them>) slides transmit light; the light emits from them. They are like little jewels, especially when the display has a good color gamut and high resolution. My old iPad 4 (retina display)is just spectacular. Compare a stained glass window with (even a good) post card of one. Perhaps I belabor the obvious. And of course, you are mostly talking about phone cameras and Facebook postings. But don't lump all screen renditions with them!"

Geoff Wittig: "Well, now I have my sadness for the week. I'm mostly a traditional landscape photographer, but I have long admired the work of John Pfahl, a post-modernist who spent many years in the Buffalo, New York, area. A Distanced Land (1990) is the best monograph of his work. He produced all kinds of visual wit. He created a weirdly beautiful series of photographs of industrial smokestacks with their toxic effluent perfectly lit by the setting sun. And a series of forest scenes with carefully placed stretched ribbons creating visual puzzles. Sadly, Pfahl was another victim of the early wave of COVID19."

Mike replies: I wrote about John Pfahl's passing and even posted a picture of him in April of 2020.

In that same post I noticed that I passed along the same Ned Bunnell picture that I passed along again here! I knew I had seen it before but I thought maybe Ned had sent it to me privately, or I had seen it while browsing his Instagram. Oh well, at least I'm consistent. And Ned is too!

A Distanced Land is a little-known treasure. I saw a show of those "weirdly beautiful series of photographs of industrial smokestacks" you mentioned in original prints, at the Jones-Troyer Gallery in D.C.

Comments

[Mike Ferron]

#4 You know your old when, after all these years you still try and make a piece of 35mm film look good.

[Richard Parkin]

Is it a problem with Typepad that the é doesn’t ‘print’ in the sidebar? I though it was a typo or a cut-off the first time but now it’s missing from the plural too.

[Richard Alan Fox]

Here is a real Photo-No-No

https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nyc-crime/ny-camera-laguardia-airport-emergency-landing-20211010-pjumgje6k5a6xpggp3axo3bj3y-story.html

[Eolake Stobblehouse]

“ I have to mention again that in general I'm frustrated by Instagram because all of the pictures are so small and there's no way to see larger versions.”

Yes! I hate that.
Only Pinterest is worse.

By the way, if you search (or reverse-image-search) a pic on Yandex, it will give many (often amazingly many) examples of very similar pictures.

Eolake Stobblehouse

[Eolake Stobblehouse]

I would interject that on a modern, big (say 30-inch) monitor, a photo is bigger than most prints I have seen, and the contrast and colors are much better.

Eolake

[John McMillin]

Your headline has a glitch
Says not "cliches" but "clichs"

[DavidB]

From the tent photos -- I did my first more than 40 years ago. Who knows, maybe I helped start the meme. But how many have done it with Kodachrome 64?

[David Brown]

One can view Instagram on a desk-top computer and a large monitor. One simply can't post on a desk-top computer.

[JH]

I’m surprised no one has mentioned Kodak’s “Picture Spots”, which I remember from my early travels. Almost as common as the Burma Shave signs.
https://openvalley.org/exhibits/show/letchworth-viewpoints/kodak-picture-spots

[JH]

A show of Adams’ work ar the Bellaggio in Vegas several years ago had 4 versions of "Moonrise Over Hernandez," All quite different and illustrative of what “post production” could in the darkroom.

[Stan B.]

Every photographic subject imaginable has been pretty much cliched- to death. The challenge is to present it anew. One simply has to persevere- in seeking out the wheat from the chaff in others' work, as well as one's own.

More people are now involved in photography than ever before, but without the commitment, without the time spent dedicated to the craft, its history and its process- most are simply satisfied with reaching that level of cliche that garners... "likes." That's where most of the instant gratification lies, and that's where most people choose to stay. It gets scary venturing beyond that safe place.

[Rob de Loe]

I use the Insta_Repeat site in a course I teach, at the conclusion of an exercise designed to get the students to recognize a few important things about photography.

For the main part of the exercise, I get them to submit a photograph a few days in advance of the class; the photograph must have some personal significance to the student. Before class, I pair up each of their pictures with one of its many doppelgangers, which I can usually find somewhere on the Internet in under a minute. Sometimes I can find one made by a different person who was standing in the same spot. In class, I show them the pairs.

This exercise opens the door to interesting conversations about authenticity and originality in photography, and the characteristics of photos that make them accessible to other people. These are both relevant concerns because the course is about making photographs that will engage viewers around a sustainability topic of their choosing. I see it as an important step on their journey to being more intentional in their photography.

Insta_Repeat is a nice way to end the session on a slightly humorous note; there's always one student willing to confess to having made the kinds of photos that show up in the Insta_Repeat collages.

[Oskar Ojala]

I use a "Max" iPhone with a glorious screen and still the pictures in Instagram are tiny, but at least they are detailed and with vibrant colors. I find that this significantly affects what kinds of images "work" there; especially graphic images that work in thumbnail format tend to do well. This leaves a lot of work that's not all that well presented on the platform, e.g. works of Richard Misrach or Thomas Struth would likely not look good in that tiny format.

In addition to the small display format, the visual clutter is an impediment to presenting pictures on Instagram. Thus, I started adding small white frames to my pictures to introduce a sense of calm and so far I like the result. The downside is obviously that the pictures are smaller still, but at least they don't visually bump into the surrounding icons.

All in all I think Instagram is an interesting platform for seeing a large variety of pictures (within arbitrary moral standards of course), but with all the limitations its main audience isn't really photographers.

[PaulW]

I love TOP, and I support it, but this is another post that's been ruined for me because I don't, and won't, have an Instagram account. :(

[TC]

You might enjoy my friend and BME colleague Julie Hrudova's Street Repeat:

https://www.instagram.com/streetrepeat/

[Bear.]

I followed the links in your post. One lead to an extract from Adams' 'Examples: The Making of Forty Photographs', which includes the following: "... I made a few passable negatives that day and had several exasperating trials with subjects that would not bend to visualization. ... I saw my desired image quite clearly, but due to unmanageable intrusions and mergers of forms in the subject my efforts finally foundered ...".

When I am struggling but failing to wrest a mental vision into a photographic image, it always makes me feel better to remember that what is happening to me (as it so often does) also happened (if only occasionally) to one of the great photographers, who also was quite prepared to acknowledge that it happened in writing.

[Alessandro Amato del Monte]

About your Instagram frustration: I was reading this brilliant post from Tim at Leicaphilia and his comment on Instagram instantly resonated with me -- probably will be the same for you Mike:

(...) posting on Instagram is an exercise in abject futility and personal humiliation, embodying everything wrong with photography or what’s left of it. Post something that works – the photo that opens this article being a perfect example – crickets. (The one photo I liked best from the entire trip got zero likes.) Post photos of your lunch, or pretty girls making stupid faces, and the ‘likes’ pour in. I need that like I need a hole in my head. Lesson learned: Instagram is worthless – social media monkeys chasing their tails in order to have something they post get ‘liked.’ Why anyone voluntarily submits to such indignity is beyond me.

From http://leicaphilia.com/notes-from-home-2

(I particularly liked the ending!)

[Earl Dunbar]

I was fortunate to see Moonrise at Eastman Museum several years ago. Actually there was a “straight” print also displayed, which was a far cry from a final version. Also displayed was a copy of the original negative. Seeing how a final print was rendered in comparison to the original was truly amazing; Ansel’s abilities as an interpreter and craftsman of printing was on full display.

[David Smith]

"this is another post that's been ruined for me because I don't, and won't, have an Instagram account." (posted by PaulW ^^^)

I too don't, and won't, have/get an IG account; for me, this article affirms that choice.