Exploit and Click - The fuss over the photographer who makes kids cry. By Jim Lewis
July 17th, 2006,Exploit and Click - The fuss over the photographer who makes kids cry. By Jim Lewis
It turns out that Greenberg doesn’t just hang around her studio waiting for one of her toddler subjects to melt down: She induces the tantrum, by, say, giving the child a lollipop, and then suddenly taking it away.
An interesting article about a mediocre photography exhibition. Particularly interesting to me is the writer’s argument that all photography is a form of exploitation, although he tries to reduce the negative connotation of the word. I find the particular language choice interesting, like he wants to complain about it but is unwilling to offend.
This ties in pretty heavily to a thought I’ve been long contemplating about the nature of photography. As the writer, Jim Lewis, acknowledges, the photography medium is different from other mediums in several key respects. First, other mediums have a clearly defined sense of the Original versus Reprints, while photography does not. Photography is also less valued than other mediums. Regardless of the time spent creating a piece, a photograph will generally sell for less than a drawing.
Simultaneously, audiences have more strigent requirements about good photography. The term “photorealistic” has a number of seriously weighty connotations. Although we understand that many images are heavily edited, we still consider anything we see in a photograph to be “real.” The heavily airbrushed models in men’s magazines are set up as unattainable standards of beauty in a way that sculptures are not. We understand, intrinsically, that other mediums seek to express idealized notions (of beauty, emotion, truth, etc) whereas we presume that photographs, even entirely artificial ones, represent some form of reality.
Children have tantrums. Yet Jill Greenberg causes the specific tantrums she photographs, and so a debate has arisen. When I photograph a nude, I must consider questions of honesty that are ignored in other mediums. Where do these restrictions come from? Why is it so noteworthy when we fly in the face of such assumptions?
These are the questions that have been keeping me awake in bed for the last few days.