What is Criticism Good For?

Criticism is a loaded proposition. All the various forums, blogs posts, tweets, and more have made the present generation of consumers instant critics. Unfortunately, many of the critiques take the form of a “love it” or “hate it” mentality. All too often, no analysis or reasoning is offered, just a blunt pronouncement. When it comes to art, more is needed. Especially when the artist receiving such criticism is expected to do something about it or learn from it. After all, shouldn’t that be the real goal of criticism? It’s hard to learn anything from, “That stinks!” And when the next person says, “I love it!”, the artist hearing it is even more confused.

Which opinion do you listen to? What are you supposed to learn from it? How are you supposed to improve you artwork from those comments? The first one, "That stinks!", offers no hint on what to change, while the second, "I love it!", doesn't tell you what you did right, so you can repeat it, if you choose to. Both extremes are kind of dead ends. They don't take you anywhere else.

David Ward, a British fine art photographer, wrote an essay called The Art of Criticism. You can read it here on the website PhotographyBlog. Ward’s views on criticism and what makes for good criticism are spot on and are worth reading.

Rick Loomis Profile in PhotoMedia

The current issue of PhotoMedia Magazine has a profile of Rick Loomis, Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist for the LA Times, written by yours truly. Rick has spent a good deal of the last several years working in the most dangerous situations in Afghanistan and Iraq, and recently won the Pulitzer for a five-part series about our endangered oceans called "Altered Oceans." You can pick up a copy of the PhotoMedia at most camera stores in the western United States and Anchorage, Alaska and it's free. Or you can find the article online here. Rick represents the best of photojournalism, managing to capture beauty, truth, and pathos in the same unflinching images.

Roy DeCarava, 1919 - 2009

Roy DeCarava, 89, died October 27th in New York City. He and his work were closely associated with the Harlem Renaissance, urban African American life, the Civil Rights Era, and portraits of jazz musicians. He started photographing in 1946 as a sketching substitute for his painting, but it quickly captivated his interests and eclipsed painting for him. Mr. DeCarava was the first African American artist to be awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1952. His first book of photographs was called The Sweet Flypaper of Life, which was a collaboration with poet Langston Hughes, who wrote poetry as a narrative to the images.

One of the better monographs of Mr. DeCarava’s work was Roy DeCarava: Photographs. This was published in 1981 by The Friends of Photography. One of the difficulties of his photographs is that his images were printed in an extreme low key style, which was difficult to reproduce in books. He was the master of this way of printing. His photographs were dark as black velvet, seemingly bottomless, and very low contrast. The emotional effect of this was that they were moody and quiet, insightful and reflective.

In 1987, I had a chance to see a selection of his original photographs at a Friends of Photography workshop in Carmel, California. I’ve never seen prints as dark, lovely, and sensual as his images. His photographs changed what I thought photographs could look like; they were a revelation. The memory of those photographs remains with me to this day. Mr. DeCarava will be missed.

Man coming up subway stairs, New York, 1952

Mississippi Freedom Marcher, Washington, D.C., 1963

[John] Coltrane on soprano [saxophone], New York, 1963

Irving Penn, 1917 - 2009

Irving Penn died this morning at his home in Manhattan. He was 92. There are a handful of photographers that influenced me early in my life as a photographer: Edward Weston, Brett Weston, Andre Kertesz, and Irving Penn. His straightforward, confrontational approach was lean and muscular photography if ever there were any, in addition to being elegant and classy. His framing and composition was radical then and still is unconventional. He approached every subject in front of his camera with perception and compassion, but also with unflinching honesty. He was one of the greatest photographers in the history of the medium.

He is mostly known for his fashion work for Vogue Magazine and his portraits, but my favorite work of his was the "Worlds in a Small Room" series. He traveled around the world with a portable studio and a Rolleiflex camera and photographed indigenous people in their traditional clothes. His idea was that fashion exists throughout human culture and this was his attempt to capture their sense of fashion and aesthetics: their idea of beauty. It's simply beautiful, illuminating work.

In 1984, John Szarkowski, the former curator of photography at the Museum of Modern Art, wrote this about Penn, “The grace, wit, and inventiveness of his pattern-making, the lively and surprising elegance of his line, and his sensitivity to the character, the idiosyncratic humors, of light make Penn’s pictures, even the slighter ones, a pleasure for our eyes.”

Taryn Simon Lecture is Online

Taryn Simon is featured in a lecture she gave this past summer on TED.com. Simon is a large format, documentary photographer. The talk focuses on two of her projects. The first is called "An American Index of the Hidden and Unfamiliar," which deals with places normally kept hidden from the American public. The other project is "The Innocents," which is a series of portraits of people wrongfully convicted of crimes they didn't do. Simon was recently given the McArthur Award, which is also called the "Genius Award."

Go here to see her talk, which runs about 15 minutes or so. She's a fascinating photographer with a lot to say about the medium.

Actual New Leicas

Over the past several years, Leica has been having a hard time with the changing paradigm of film to digital. Actually, it goes further back than that. When all 35mm cameras went fully automatic exposure and autofocus, they hung back and waited to see if it was all a passing fad. Well, it wasn’t and they were left by the side of the road, becoming increasingly archaic and out of step with the rest of the universe. For more than a decade, it seemed like the only people using Leica cameras were either hard-core, anachronistic pros who used them no matter what or wealthy hobbyists who bought them for their prestige. Fewer and fewer working pros could justify the cost and the lack of ease of use any longer. Well, maybe that is about to change.

What Leica was good at was designing and building compact, ultra high quality cameras aimed at serious photographers. Olympus and Panasonic have recently announced cameras designed to fill that niche, the E-P1 and the GF-1. Well, Leica has just announced a few cameras that also fit that bill. And instead of rebranding cameras made by other companies, they are making these all in-house, just like the old days.

The new M9 could possibly be the worst kept secret in cameras in recent times, but there is now a full-frame, 35mm-sized digital Leica rangefinder and that is no small matter. The real surprise, though, is the X1, a compact fixed lens APS-C digital camera. This camera seems to take the design advantages of a Leica and apply them to a digital camera in an intelligent and thoughtful manner. In a weirdly old-fashioned way, it is an innovative and even fresh approach. It took a while for Leica to get things straight in their heads, but maybe they had it figured out for themselves. Leica can’t compete with Canon and Nikon or even Sony or Panasonic, but they can choose the ground they wage their battles on and I hope this strategy pays off for them. Here’s the run-down of these two new cameras:

Leica X1 • a fixed lens, compact digital camera.
12.2 MP CMOS APS-C sensor; 24mm f/2.8 Elmarit (35mm equivalent); 2.7-inch LCD monitor with 230,000 pixels; SD and SDHC cards, JPEG and DNG formats; 100 – 3200 ISO; optional optical viewfinder; really simple and straightforward controls; around $2000.00.

Leica M9 • full-frame, 35mm digital camera with interchangeable lenses and rangefinder focusing.
18 MP CCD sensor with an infrared filter instead of an anti-alias filter mounted in front of the sensor; micro-lens overlay on the sensor to create perfectly even images in terms of exposure and sharpness; JPEG and DNG formats; 160 – 2500 ISO (with a “pulled” setting of 80 ISO); 2.5-inch LCD monitor with 230,000 pixels; under $7000.00.

The only caveat I have with these cameras is Leica’s choice of rear LCD monitor. Both the M9 and X1 have decently large ones with rather anemic pixel counts of 230,000. The new camera, the Canon 5D Mark II has a 3-inch LCD with 920,000 pixels. Knowing the clarity and sharpness of that LCD, I have to wonder what Leica was thinking. Oh well, I’m still looking forward to checking them out when they are available. Congrats to Leica and best of luck. It's good to see you back in the game.

A New Leica, part 2

Panasonic has recently revealed the Lumix GF-1, which is pictured above. It's a camera in the same vein as the recently announced Olympus E-P1, which I discussed earlier this summer. Both of these cameras seem to be aimed at actual photographers, rather than P&S hobbiests. The lens paired with the GF-1 is a 20mm f/1.8 pancake lens, which will be equivalent to a 40mm semi-normal lens. The body and lens makes a compact set that won't be much bigger than most P&S cameras, but will provide much higher quality images. It has a 12.1 MP sensor and interchangeable lenses, and an enticing one for the near future is the 45mm f/2.8 Leica DG MACRO-ELMARIT with O.I.S. (Optical Image Stabilizer). The GF-1 and 20mm f/1.8 lens should sell for around $900.00, which isn't too bad for such a potentially high quality camera. Like the E-P1, this cameras looks to be one that will neatly fill the niche of the old Leica rangefinders, and should be near about perfect for photojournalists and street shooters. It certainly looks tempting.

Speaking of Leica, tomorrow they will announce several new cameras. Supposedly one of those will be the new M9 digital rangefinder camera. After the announcements, we'll post what they will have to offer.