From the Wednesday night get together:

At this week's chili fest / photo salon / photographers hanging out using a giant projector and talking smack; we discussed many topics ranging from the nature of abercrombie and fitch men's ads (homoerotic, selling to woman, or something else? Herb Ritts with a touch of Jock Sturges?) to the artistic merit of being a dirty old man with a camera photographing local bondage models. But, that was the just the subtext in a bigger discussion of photography as an unfiltered truth and the push-pull between artistic merit and commercial drive.

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The discussion revolved around a few questions: how much you can change a photo and use it for news. This was a discussion of the world press photo wins and disqualifications (hipstamatic win - russian street fighting lose). What does it mean that hipstamatic wins? Is it any different from in camera processing or shooting with a holga? What is wrong with post processing?

When you can take a photo of a screen and it wins a photo prize (the photo of google street view) it raises the bigger question of adopting other peoples work and filtering it through a personal mechanism and calling it art. Is personal gesture enough to claim the ownership of the work? If it isn't being sold does it matter? Why does the entrance of commerce change the conversation?

This lead to a discussion of fashion photography and the use of the male image in abercrombie and fitch ads. This was contrasted to J Crew and American Apparel as well as the Snap-shot photo aesthetic. It also led to a discussion of the work of Erwin Olaf.

The snap shot photo aesthetic is so dominant (Terry Richardson, Miko Lim, etc). Why hire Miko Lim vs. a guy off the street with a point and shoot? What is the decision making process in choosing one photographer over another? How much value is in the personality and on-set presence of the photog.

This shifted over to a discussion of local amateur photographers and their own marketing presentation (thus the local bondage photographer reference).

I describe without going into the opinions. It's not about right or wrong. You kinda had to be there. Thus is the nature of the salon.

We'll see what next week brings.

THE LINKS:

http://gizmodo.com/#!5758350/why-a-war-photographer-shot-an-award+winning-photo-with-a-2-iphone-app

http://www.bjp-online.com/british-journal-of-photography/news/2025845/world-press-photo-google-street-view-photojournalism

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8470962.stm

http://www.petapixel.com/2010/03/03/world-press-photo-disqualifies-winner/

http://www.radaronline.com/photos/image/112710/2011/02/photos-david-lachapelle-vs-rihanna

http://e3.g4tv.com/videos/43257/Behind-the-Scenes-of-Olivias-Maxim-Shoot-/

OFF TOPIC
http://tjohnstonphoto.com/People/index.html

http://blog.chasejarvis.com/blog/2011/02/care-time-vision-beat-budget-every-time/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+ChaseJarvis+%28Chase+Jarvis+Blog%29

IMAGES:
Screenshots from Gizmodo (Damon Winter/NYT], GOOGLE, G4 TV; used in context of fair use. True to the ethics discussed I have screen shot my computer to provide these images.