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Response to Regard for Photographic History

from tom meyer (twm@mindspring.com)
This discussion is an interesting extension of the other one, in which I feel compelled to quote myself out of some misguided urge toward efficiency... So here goes:

Relevant to Wayne's exploration of new perspectives This is because you are a photographer (or currently a photography critic) at the expense of other experience. Quit looking at it like it is an object to be dissected according to photographic rules... and look at it like a human being... without all that "photographer" baggage we photographers drag with us every damned place we go (can you hear your wife, brother, son, mother, dog whining at you "how long is this going to take?????) Drop all that referential, comparative, reductionist, academic thinking and just take in the information offered by a photograph instead of analyzing it into 50 other things that are kinda like it but not close enough to justify it as something worth considering or worthy of comparing it to, not that I like that stuff but at least Szarkowski liked it so it must be significant enought to become so famous that nobody can ever do anything like it ever again without making every photographer with a "regard" for photographic history point and say "Shit, man...he's just rippin' off Meatyard!

That "regard" for photographic history can be an anchor around your neck. Make pictures the way you want,regardless of photographic history, 'cause some expert will always... always find a way to show that it's been done before... So ****ing what?... So... what.

So much for efficiency... t

(posted 8615 days ago)

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