Digital BW, The Print

I have seen these prints when they were on exhibition at the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University, and they are truly beautiful prints.  Well worth the effort to see them. Some of them are very large -- in the 20x30 range, or larger -- and they are so good that seeing them helped convince me to invest in the digital darkroom. I understand what the NY Times reviewer is saying, in a way, but he is mystifying Evan's original prints, making them into something akin to the one-of-a-kind painting. I'm convinced that Walker Evans would have applauded this technology; he was primarily a fine art photographer, not a documentarian. Nor did he do his own printing. So in a way he had already given up his negatives to theprinting skills of others. See this work if you can -- it is a fine example of state-of-the-art digital enhancement of 70-year-old negatives.  JNW

" he was primarily a fine art photographer, not a documentarian. "


I know this is getting off the subject but here it goes anyway.

I have worked as a photojournalist for several years and have recently
finished up my MFA in a program that is strongly baste in conceptual
art; I am having a hard time understanding how you make a distinction
between someone that works in a documentary style and a fine art
photographer. It seems to me that these to should be considered one
and the same.


if Dorothea Lange's "Migrant Mother" Photograph is not considered
fine art  I an mot sure what is, not to mention the work of
photographers like Cartier-Bresson, Eugene Smith and Robert Frank.
This list could go on forever. Most any contemporary art history book
you read today will list Nan Goldin as a "fine art photographer".

If you think that documentary style photography is not a bona fide art
form  you should take a longer look at this kind of work. There really
is some amazing work out there

Sorry about this early morning rant.

Steve

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "Steve Schaefer" 
<sschaefer50@...> wrote:
>
>  " he was primarily a fine art photographer, not a documentarian. "
> 
> 
> I know this is getting off the subject but here it goes anyway.
> 
> I have worked as a photojournalist for several years and have 
recently
> finished up my MFA in a program that is strongly baste in conceptual
> art; I am having a hard time understanding how you make a 
distinction
> between someone that works in a documentary style and a fine art
> photographer. It seems to me that these to should be considered one
> and the same.
> 
> If you think that documentary style photography is not a bona fide 
art
> form  you should take a longer look at this kind of work. There 
really
> is some amazing work out there
> 
> Sorry about this early morning rant.
> 
> Steve
>


Steve - Evans said it himself (and you also say it in a way) - he 
said he worked "in the documentary style" but he was not a 
documentary photographer. He made a clear distinction between 
documentary and documentary style. 

He addresses exactly this and making photographic art in an interview 
in the book Walker Evans: Incognito

One clear difference in this is that objectivity, for instance, is 
not an overriding concern. Which isn't to say Evan's work never 
displays a clear truth - in fact, quite the contrary.

(and he did see himself as essentially an artists. The many jobs he 
had allowed him to pursue that - sometimes - as with the FSA/OWI 
while wearing the mantle of "documentary photography". But it was 
always pretty clear he often went his own way, doing his own thing 
[e.g. he had clashes with his bosses at the FSA because he wasn't 
following their shooting scripts - thank goodness]. Even when he 
taught at Yale, he didn't teach the way the faculty wanted, but in 
his own way....)