Photography Criticism: A. D. Coleman

"Photography as a fad is well-nigh on its last legs, thanks principally to the bicycle craze," wrote Alfred Stieglitz in an 1897 manifesto. Time has proven his sardonic optimism wrong; however -- and this at least would have pleased Stieglitz -- the ranks of serious, dedicated photographers have also swelled slowly but surely (though hardly proportionately). Much of that is attributable to the impetus given this new medium by Stieglitz and his apostles; certainly the acceptance of photography as a legitimate art form is directly traceable to his lifelong battle on its behalf. Yet equally responsible, though often disclaimed, are the popular uses of photography -- journalism, advertising, even family album snapshots. Aesthetically "impure" as these may be, they served to educate an entire society to the value and uniqueness of photography as a medium for recording events, communicating ideas, and transmitting information; thus, paradoxically, the same "photography as a fad" despised by Stieglitz bred a generation for whom the camera is a natural and instinctive creative tool.

In its current manifestation, popular interest in photography is at best a mixed blessing. The very familiarity which results brings with it not only acceptance but, perhaps inevitably, a curious form of contempt. The importance of photography in our lives is so frequently acknowledged that we have become numb from repetition, while the increasing technical sophistication of modern cameras (coupled with our escape from formal visual inhibitions) has made it easier to take good (though not great) pictures. Despite or because of all this, the significance of an original photograph -- as a statement, a work of art, a Ding an sich -- is usually overlooked, along with the intellectual and emotional factors involved in the process of making one.

Still prevalent among the public is the attitude that if you've seen a photograph once -- in any form: reduced or enlarged, as a newspaper halftone or a gravure plate or an actual print from the negative -- you've seen it all. An otherwise discerning audience, which would never dream of judging Ad Reinhardt's paintings by their reproductions in Life magazine, will unhesitatingly presume reproductions of Marie Cosindas's subtle color portraits (in the same publication, May 1968) to be identical to the originals.

Photography may be recognized as a valid art, and part of the public may be sensitive to the superficial differences between good and bad pictures, but, with the exception of a small band of devotees, the general level of interest -- to say nothing of self-education -- goes no further. Questions of technique and aesthetics are discussed only in the pages of photography magazines. Such perversely unhelpful shows as the Museum of Modern Art's recent "Photography as Printmaking" merely perpetuate the mystique that photographic methods involve arcane necromancy beyond the comprehension of the uninitiated. Collectors with modest budgets pay no attention to original photographs, though they are surely the best buy in our over-inflated art market. Photography exhibits (by which I do not mean the annual Coliseum extravaganzas) are notoriously ill-attended. The mortality rate for galleries specializing in photographs is staggering. Books of photographs -- even the greatest, such as Weston's My Camera on Point Lobos -- are too often remaindered. Somehow, photography always seems to get the short end of the stick.
This column will be a continuing attempt, on a small scale, to change that situation by giving to photography the serious critical consideration it merits. It will be (I hope) a means for turning a sizeable potential audience on to photography as a creative medium, affirming the importance of original photographs as significant objects, and providing a dialogue between photographers and their public.