

Photography’s Third Act - jordanbrown
http://dcurt.is/photos-for-communication

======
antiterra
I had a difficult time reading this article, because it provided no source or
argument for: "When photography was first becoming popular, it was mostly used
as a form of artistic expression." Which completely ignores how photography
displaced painting in the genre of portraiture, and made it more accessible.
Then Mr. Curtis explains haughtily that communication is the new use for
photography and that of course is an entirely different thing from artistic
expression. In fact, artistic expression is bad because it _inhibits_ us! I
highly doubt the majority of people using Instagram are engaging in a visual
language of symbol and metaphor (oops, that sounds like communication!)

So we have it that communication is better when it's easier and we are no
longer shackled by the editorial desire to not produce a bunch of junk. Now,
Mr. Curtis says, we can __communicate __that we like the hit television show
_Breaking Bad_ by taking a photo of our screen with a thumbs up! What a
glorious age we live in.

~~~
dcurtis
I updated to post to reflect what I really meant.

The first non-commercial uses of photography were for experimentation and
artistic portraiture. I don't understand why you disagree with me.

I'm not saying there's no future for artistic photography; I'm saying that
there are new use cases that haven't yet been fully developed.

~~~
antiterra
Where did non-commercial come from? You think artistic portraiture was non-
commercial? Heyy.. what's going on in this drawing by Bruegel
<http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/bruegel/buyer.jpg> ???

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justhw
A bit out of context but, Who is Dustin Curtis? None of his sites mention
anything beyond him being a villain and a superhero. Please, don't get me
wrong, I'm not questioning his authenticity or relevance. But his posts
usually end up high here on HN and generally the authors whose posts reach
high have a bio page reachable. He is relevant and he created svbtle, but
that's all I know. And I do respect his privacy, if he chose.

~~~
citricsquid
He's a talented designer and a couple of his blog posts were relatively well
talked about a few years back (eg:
<http://www.dustincurtis.com/dear_dustin_curtis.html>) and he capitalised on
that. From what I understand of him he's not had any individual achievement
that people care about but it's his ability to write with confidence that
gives the impression he has a rich history of experience in all these many
fields and so people choose to listen to him.

The site that he originally published articles through
(<http://www.dustincurtis.com>) is worth a look just for the quality of the
design. Probably his most effective post (the one that most people will have
experienced the effects of) is this:
[http://www.dustincurtis.com/you_should_follow_me_on_twitter....](http://www.dustincurtis.com/you_should_follow_me_on_twitter.html)

~~~
FireBeyond
The site that you reference is nothing but a placeholder that says "I now
write at dcurt.is".

~~~
citricsquid
Works for me: <http://i.imgur.com/M7PZy.png>

~~~
FireBeyond
Ah, so he's doing UA sniffing then, I suspect. If you're using IE, even 10,
you're not worthy of his blog. Nice design attitude.

~~~
weenaak
I'm using Chrome on a Mac and it doesn't show up for me either.

------
aeturnum
Photographs have been used for communication for a long time. Most artistic
criticism is focused around the efficacy with which a photograph transmits an
idea or message. Look no further than 2/4chan for an implementation of a
"picture as message" service. I think someone could create a more structured
service than the 'chans, but I don't know that I'd call it photography's
"third act."

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jberryman
> When photography was first becoming popular, it was mostly used as a form of
> artistic expression.

No, it was mostly used for portraiture and things you could generalize as
journalism. Photography as an accepted fine art is a pretty recent thing.

~~~
jacobolus
The sentence you’re responding to is silly, but your comment is also
completely off the mark.

Photography was used, among other things, for demonstrating medical
conditions, for mugshots (and compositing many photos to capture a
“scientific” “type” of different sorts of criminals or members of particular
social classes), for scientific imagery, for understanding movement (Muybridge
& al.), for propaganda (well beyond “journalism”), for faddish semi-scams
(like the famous “spirit” photographs), for documentation of people and places
(with types of photos it would be quite a stretch to call either “journalism”
or “portraiture”), for making reproductions of other types of art, and yes,
for fine art in itself (there were huge debates about whether photography
counted as “art” going right back to the beginning, with the pictorialists
e.g. famously making their images out of focus or otherwise blurry, scratched,
etc. so that it could be “art” instead of a purely mechanical process).
Indeed, nearly all of the uses of photography date back to the 19th century,
they just weren’t as widespread as today.

~~~
jberryman
Most of what you've named are what I meant by "generalized as journalism",
i.e. as objective documentation of one form or another. I was just trying to
point out that art as self-expression wasn't and has never been photography's
primary "use". Good point though.

~~~
001sky
This is still prety far off base, historically. The most important
contemporary art (as a genre) right now is photography. Its most popular
movement, loosley called the 'New Topographics.' The 'origins' of
'topograpgic' photography, as a style, date well back into the 19th century,
however. I think that says enough.

~~~
mturmon
"The most important contemporary art (as a genre) right now is photography."

First, the truth status of this sweeping statement is hard to assess, but I
think it's more wrong than right. If you had to complete your sentence "The
most important...", I think you'd better put installation, or perhaps
conceptual art, rather than photography.

It would be better not to make such statements at all -- doing so combines two
notoriously slippery concepts, "art" and "most important". (If we can't define
art, and good luck doing it, then defining most important art is well out of
reach.)

Anyway, you and the comment above you are talking across each other. You're
saying that photography is important to contemporary art. jberryman is saying
that the most common use cases of photography are not art, and tend to be
documentary, not aesthetic. Both of you can be right.

~~~
001sky
Topographics stems from the 19th century as historical fact. The rest of your
post is just full of bluster. [1] Both the market and art-history have already
conceded as much. So, I'm not sure what you are looking at, or what price
point you are at, or what your vested interests are. Its honestly irrelevant.

 _It would be better not to make such statements at all..._

\-- As you said.

[http://artblart.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/hyman-
writing.jp...](http://artblart.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/hyman-writing.jpg)

_____________________

[1] Citations for context, if you need them.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_expensive_photogra...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_expensive_photographs)

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhein_II>

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Topographics>

Non-topographic 19th Century art with 20th C influence:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Cameron_julia_jackson.jpg>

_________

Is "Photography is at the cutting edge of contemporary art"?

[http://www.amazon.com/Why-Photography-Matters-Never-
Before/d...](http://www.amazon.com/Why-Photography-Matters-Never-
Before/dp/0300136846)

_________

Does art exist?

[http://books.google.com/books/about/The_Objective_Eye.html?i...](http://books.google.com/books/about/The_Objective_Eye.html?id=LISzaocIPQAC)

__________

~~~
mturmon
I see quite a lot of art -- not being exhaustive, but for photography, I've
been to solo shows by Jeff Wall, Cathy Opie, and Robert Mapplethorpe, as well
as various historical shows at the Getty. James Welling, one of the
photographers in the book you cite, was on my wife's MFA committee. So I'm
utterly unimpressed with your fragmented list of URLs.

I didn't say photography was unimportant. I said that it's hard to defend your
statement that photography is the most important of the arts. I don't see you
defending that statement.

I do see you putting words in my mouth, with quotes as if I wrote them ("at
the cutting edge"). It's a tautology that photography is at the cutting edge
of contemporary art. So is painting. So is multimedia installation.

Your last note ("does art exist") is puzzling, because nobody here said art
did not exist. I did say it's hard to define, and lots of artists are working
to keep it that way. Is a sculpture made of fingernail clippings art
([http://strose.lunaimaging.com:8180/luna/servlet/detail/StRos...](http://strose.lunaimaging.com:8180/luna/servlet/detail/StRosesr1~23~23~51073~115702:Bird?qvq=w4s:/who/Tim%20Hawkinson/what/sculptures%20\(visual%20works\)/;lc:StRosesr1~21~21,StRosesr1~23~23&mi=4&trs=11))?

~~~
001sky
[http://artblart.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/hyman-
writing.jp...](http://artblart.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/hyman-writing.jpg)

This is an exhibition catalog excerpt. The artist (from the 1850's) is being
exhibited because of his links to XYZ (the guy with the most expensive
photograph ever sold at auction, linked above, in 2011). The Guy XYZ is a
student of Becher (==New Topographics), the former a Pioneer of the original
aesthetic now called Topographic/s. That, in a nutshell is the point I was
making. Interesting stuff was happening in the 1800's. In Art. With
Photography.

 _I didn't say photography was unimportant. I said that it's hard to defend
your statement that photography is the most important of the arts. I don't see
you defending that statement._

== I don't need to. Its not critical to the point.

If you have a true interest in the subject matter, its worth looking into
further. I would encourage other HN readers to do the same, if they have an
interest in it. The interesting stuff in contemporary photography is well-
beyond what you've listed. I'd take that as an opportunity to learn more about
the subject, rather than taking it personally. For the most part, it is German
and Japanese leading the way. Books are your friend, and an increasingly good
investment.

[http://www.amazon.com/Photobook-History-2-Martin-
Parr/dp/071...](http://www.amazon.com/Photobook-History-2-Martin-
Parr/dp/0714844330)

------
FireBeyond
"Snapchat... . It’s an amazing app, and its insane popularity is just a hint
of how I think we’ll use photos in the future."

Myself, and a quick survey in the room, of a bunch of various tech, and for
that matter photography types - not one had heard of, let alone used
Snapchat...

~~~
ebf
Well considering Snapchat isn't necessarily aimed at photography types and
assuming you are older than the demographic that it is blowing up in (12-20
year olds), it makes sense that you haven't heard of it.

~~~
FireBeyond
Certainly possible, plausible, and I'm more than willing to be corrected!

------
msutherl
I use iMessage for this. It works great. It could be better. It works better
than having a separate app I have to switch to. It works better than having to
ask my friends to install an app that they have to switch to.

Still, I love that feeling of playing with a truly novel technology for the
first time with a few friends, especially when it's presented in the raw with
few extraneous features. There's a feeling of excitement and exploration that
seems to decay in a year's time at best.

~~~
saurik
Exactly: what he is describing is almost identical to "group MMS". The one
thing he seems to have different is that he is against having words at all,
but once you are taking pictures of words you really should just support it as
a feature: the essential property he is against is really just that the words
need to be equal to the pictures (as in, a chat where you can post either a
picture or words, as opposed to a place where you post pictures and then
"comment on them" using words), not below/about the pictures. If the only
problem with MMS is then that it is expensive, well: iMessage solves that.

------
brown9-2
Photographs have been used in newspapers as a form of communication for over a
century.

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akaru
This app is pretty clearly about dick pics and has nothing to do with
photography. This article is just the author patting himself on the back for
running a sexting social network for preteens. Yeah, great job, buddy.

------
dzuc
Thinking about an expanded definition of photography: I've been experiencing
this often with the combination of instant screenshot uploading apps
(CloudApp, Scrup, et al.) in combination with realtime chat.

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davecap1
Seems like the cargo culting of a successful social media startup.

