Now that smartphones have made all of us into photographers, and portrait artists at that, it’s easy to believe that a photograph’s purpose is to make the subject look good in a way that is universally agreed upon, accessible. When someone violates or plays with that contract between photographer and subject, by making that person look silly, or unguarded, or overly familiar, it’s uncomfortable, which may be why Teller’s photographs are so contentious.
Go here to see the photographs at W Magazine.You're smoking something mad if you'd rather have a beige colorama over THIS. These pictures must send Teller's peers into convulsions – that's a very good thing. pic.twitter.com/BSnzXBF4Yl
— douglas greenwood (@douglasgrnwd) January 3, 2024
Posts
30 comments:
Pretty basic stuff.
I guess the schtick is to make it look like a regular snapshot.
Mission accomplished...
Every once in a while, when taking photos with my phone, I accidentally hit the shutter button when the camera lens is facing some oblique direction (usually downward, capturing a partial image of my shoe against the sidewalk or ground). And to think that I just erase those instead of entering them into a photography exhibition!
Also, the article mentions that these are photos of celebrities. Why go to the effort of getting the cooperation of celebrities instead of just photographing everyday people, since the celebrities’ identities are generally not recognizable? (I guess I could claim those accidental photos of my feet that I enter into the exhibition are celebrities’ feet).
Trying too hard came to mind. The photos are just sorta sorta.
If the one commissioning the photos is happy, good. If the subject is satisfied, even better. The celebrities being photographed probably had more fun with these than they do the usual studio photo shoots. Pretty people will look pretty regardless, it must be nice for them to be in a photo that is also interesting.
The one that really caught my attention was the one with his shadow in it. It seemed so obviously wrong, but at the same time was what made it interesting. (The photo of Margaret Qualley. It was not used as the first photo for the interview, but was placed farther down. There were four others that used a different photo for the head of the article.)
Seems like a Hollywood circle jerk arguing over the shape of a decaying banana peel on the sidewalk.
I don't care how they craft it, spin it, photograph it - the fact I am supposed to care about Hollywood - forces me to NOT care about hollywood.
I'll watch some of it around the edges.
Here are the rich and over-paid elites you are supposed to worship.
No thanks.
“…to make the subject look good in a way that is universally agreed upon“
“ay, there's the rub“. There is literally No Universal Agreement on Anything now.
We really should be more scared than we seem.
I regularly check in the r/unvaccinated sub when I came upon this exchange.
Question: Why are the vaccinated not angry abt what was done to them???
#1 upvoted answer: nobody told them to be yet.
They look like they are staged in full with the cooperation of the subject. Nice pics, but I fail to see why a studio portrait photographer would be convulsed by them, other than the rich variety of the staging and the inclusion of non-airbrushed details of subject and background, which lends an air of spontaneity to the shots. Paparazzi would be delighted with these. They are more eye-catching than a headshot, and eye-catching is what magazine photography is all about.
The Brits have a term for this: Rubbish. And in this case, the term applies to both the written words and the photographs.
Eggleston manque'? Nah.
Meh.
Posed to look unposed.
I really enjoyed that.
The purpose of a magazine photo is to sell something or someone. No one will buy the street trash and tchotchkes of LA. The product, the stars, are superfluous or secondary. These photos don't hit the brief.
I had a roommate in college who was an art major, and he took a lot of pictures, black and white 35 mm, and I thought that they were not good, then he saw Jane Fonda once at the airport and took her picture, and that photo was great, which was a lesson learned. Take pictures of beautiful people and you will probably get beautiful pictures, plus all of that dreck he was shooting was polishing his technical skills.
Nicholas Cage pic is worth following the link.
Definitely him..
I am completely and utterly devoid of interest in this man, his photographs, the subjects of his photographs, or the (magazine? website? Tiktok feed?) where they appear.
Of all the photos - I like the
Jeffrey Wright | American Fiction - photo.
I like the u-haul in the background.
I assume the reason you are calling this unedifying schlock to our attention is that the subjects of those photographs are all perverts who are mentally ill. Right?
Probably the best thing that can be said about these photos is that only a really good photographer to take a really bad photo. These photos are just ugly. They're not shocking. They're not subversive. They're not witty. Their ugliness does not tell a deeper story. It's just a patina of ugliness over nothing at all.
And it's not even an artistic "nothing at all". He's not even saying these celebrities are empty suits, or ugly on the inside. He's saying "these are people; I could have made them look good, or told a story about them, but I just wanted to make an elaborate production of taking shitty photos of people."
So....staged to look unstaged?
These photos are the antithesis of the Annie Liebovitz style which dominated Hollywood iconography for the past forty years.
Speaking of which, has anyone noticed Vanity Fair has become a shell of its former self after Graydon Carter’s departure?
I know about this stuff. Does the photograph's objects draw the viewer in? Does it compel the viewer to scan all of the areas of the image? Is the arrangement of the objects pleasing? Are there positive and negative spaces that complement each other? Is there a focal object that is compelling? All of these things can be created in a brief moment when taking a photo. Move your camera around until you get it. Be bold in your creativity.
I saw Beige Colorama open for Michael Bolton in Peoria in '98.
Might have been for Yanni, even great memories fade.
Choppin' Broccol-ayyyyy
"These pictures" don't do anything for me. If you like them, I can live with that.
The last photographs that were really interesting, really provocative were shot by Diane Arbus.
I think they look completely staged, as if everything in them, every detail, is intentional. I love them. They are for the most part interesting. I think he should have used less of the Walk of Stars or whatever that is.
Nicolas Cage, especially. And Margot Robbie. Oh, and Natalie Portman.
Natalie Portman's not looking so good these days.
And Jodie Foster appears to be prepping for The Hillary Rodham Clinton Story.
It's promoting anyone who isn't Annie Liebovitz. The backlash continues.
Photography is all bullshit.
I usta edit a photography journal. I was never without a camera from '79 through '84. We created "art" ironically. We mocked pretentious photographers and photography in general. Photography is dead to me.
Post a Comment