TAG / DATE
Single Post
2009, Apr 02
“Orderly Conduct”

This series has great potential. It’s a compelling idea to capture images in which everyone is doing the same thing, and the execution is beyond reproach. But the result, for me, turns photography into hoop-jumping: “did you see how many fools I snapped doing this?”

Bahbak Hashemi-Nezhad

The accompanying artist statement is also problematic, as these things tend to be:

These images present a parallel view of public space. Revealing behaviours and modes of existence that characterize the notion of public, but are no longer visible or registered due to their ubiquity.

This statement actually runs counter to the work that went into the images: the photographer had to hunt them down and force them into existence. Rather than showing that these behaviors “are no longer visible,” I am assaulted by their visibility. Aren’t you too? Confusing.

I want the photographer to jump through one more hoop, and a much bigger one at that: once you’ve got all your ducks in a row, play them off of their setting, too!

Tags (1)

Photos where everyone is doing the same thing

Similar to these…Well, the first half or so, and some of them are stronger than others.

http://www.v1gallery.com/artist/show/3

ah, yes, looks like it is going around now. thanks, i just put up a response.

Posted by Morgan G. / July 7, 2009 at 5:41 pm:

I do not believe the artist is “forcing” an existence. simply bringing it to the surface, and very much showing behaviour in public space relative to time, space, geography and culture.

The london series shows some behaviours that are purely dissolved into our environments and have reached a level of banality well beyond the quotidian.

These images are not forced in anyway using unaware pedestrians who are getting on with their lives.

Further more could you please explain your last sentence about “hoop jumping” and “playing them off their setting” please. It sounds interesting, but I don’t get it.

Hi Morgan, thank you for the comment. I would check out my post on Peter Funch for a more detailed discussion about this type of photography, you can find it here:

http://street-level.mcvmcv.net/articles/photos-where-everyone-is-doing-the-same-thing

Even assuming the images were not composed in Photoshop (which is doubtful), the main issue I have is that they are not compelling as photographs. You’re speaking in anthropological terms, and the images may have some value in that sense but I’m not compelled to look at them again.

Posted by Morgan G. / July 8, 2009 at 10:31 am:

Hello Dan,

I see.
The photos were all composed in photoshop (according to the essay in the book Orderly Conduct).
Your statements regarding these images and other artists’ work in the same vein seen to be slightly antiquated.
Photography is an open source medium. Technology is always changing the medium, not for the better or the worse, but making photography a progressive art which has the capacity to reflect the now now, and the future now.

The use of photoshop, video stills etc are tools to create an image…an image that can only be made possible via technological advances in the discipline, bringing to us new ways of seeing the present.

What bores one more is a non-reflexive image. one that says this is life period! That said, I find Funchs images less austere more fictitious (babel tales as titled) and more commercial like (possibly because of his career in advertising photography). Were as this series seems to give comparative images, contemporary and culturally specific. some of which are totally new to me and would never happen here (london) and others that I come across every day but never have since considered.

hope it makes sense.
Nice blog btw. just discovered it and am backtracking into your posts

Thanks for your follow up comment. You are touching on some issues that I plan to write about in the near future.

I agree with you that photography is an extremely open medium, and that my approach looks antiquated. I’m obviously being very conscious about that, but I don’t want to say that this work (ie of Funch or Hashemi-Nezhad) has no value, or should be ignored, etc. Their work is of real interest—I think it is worth looking anywhere technology is pushing what we might call “photography.” My question is then how much photography is there?

This post may give you an idea of the direction I am heading:

http://street-level.mcvmcv.net/2009/05/15/you-call-this-photography

-->