Asher Kelman
OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Two addiional points should be noted on this subject.
First, "well-composed" is a judgement largely left to the VIEWER, not the maker/taker. In this regard the general public's standards of "good photography" lie along a pretty thin plane. ..
Second, who's your intended audience? ...
Once again, Ken, the well composed judgement "largely left to the viewer" brings to mind an obvious question. To what extent, then, do any famous well accepted photographers bypass their own sense of satisfying excellence-based personal values, thought, esthetics and evoked experience and merely "craft art" for the appetite of the museums, collectors and public?
I would think that Van Gogh, as a painter and more mentally isolated, catered to his own values and standards. However, for most of photography, work seems to be directed towards a class of esthetics that our culture appreciates. But what is really going on?
EDWARD WESTON (1886-1958): Two Shells, 1927
Gelatin silver print, printed later by Cole Weston
signed by Cole Weston in pencil, credit stamp on reverse of mount
9¼ x 7¼in. (23.5 x 18.5cm.)
Price Realized (Set Currency) £2,750 ($4,219) Price includes buyer's premium
Estimate £3,000 - £4,000 ($4,533 - $6,044)
Christies Sale Information: Sale 5435 Photographs 26 November 2008 London, South Kensington
Ken, you have a broader sense of the background and attitudes of collectors and museums, those who support the success of a photographer at the rarified highest levels. "Expression of the mind or the servicing of a commercial sector with purchasing power?", that's the question I wonder about. How often do the gallery-collected photographers really depend on just their own sense of satisfying inner compulsion as Van Gogh and Weston did with their art?
Asher
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