Standards

by Dan Swart APSSA

One often hears people in amateur photographic circles talk about photographs in terms of whether they will be accepted on a salon. It is almost as if `salon standard' was something fixed and definite; a kind of infallible measuring-stick for amateur photography; something that any self-respecting club member ought to be aware of. Having observed the judging of a few salons from close quarters, I have serious doubts about these widely held assumptions.

'Salon standard' is not, never has been and never will be an absolute objective measure of the value of a photograph. Specific, individual salon judges determine the 'salon standard' for each and every salon. The standard they set can vary tremendously from one competition to the next and depends entirely upon their awareness and experience both as photographers and as judges. It also depends on many other variable influences such as prevailing styles, fashions, new techniques, personal taste and their familiarity with the kind of work submitted. And as has been mentioned in another article with regard to prints, the technicalities of viewing conditions can also affect judging standards.

Salon judges award marks for each photograph on the basis of seeing it in isolation and by viewing it for a relatively short time. In other words, they translate their perception of the quality of the photograph into a number, based on what amounts to a quick glance.

The whole idea of salon judging is based on the assumption that photographic quality can be quantified, somehow measured. It follows the pattern of other types of competition like gymnastics, ballroom dancing, cat or dog shows, diving and home crafts where quality and/or performance is quantified according to specific criteria and specialised experience. Other types of competition such as sport where actual numbers are involved like the score at the end of the match or the time taken to run a specified distance, jump a certain height or distance, lift so many kilograms are very different and more easily measurable.

One should ask, is it actually possible to quantify something as abstract as photographic quality? Unless one is able to specify a set of precisely defined criteria how can one measure the success or failure of a photograph? Basic technicalities are easy to define but when it comes to something as vague as artistic expression how can one set limits, define criteria? In this day and age when the `rules of photographic composition' are called into question, how can anyone say with authority whether one example of a photograph that breaks them is better than another? Do salon judges mentally deduct points for breaking those rules or do they look for other qualities that supersede rules?

One of the commonly held assumptions about salon standard is that it is objective. This, I have observed, is also a fallacy. No matter how hard a salon judge may try to be objective, it is humanly impossible to exclude an element of subjectivity. As a judge you can try to discipline yourself by pretending that you have never seen the photographs submitted before but if you have seen a few of them they will inevitably be recognised and that element of familiarity will either prejudice you for or against them.

Most of the good photographers I know have an identifiable style. When you have judged at a few club meetings you get to know the work of the leading lights. This means that even if as a salon judge you are looking at a new image you could easily recognise the style if you have seen other examples before.

Then there is also the problem of personal taste. How do you judge a photograph that does not agree with your taste? This can count against foreign entries, where tastes can differ markedly from what we have learned to accept from local photographers.

It would seem from the foregoing that I am against salons. Not so. I am against amateur photographers deluding themselves into thinking that salons are a true measure of the quality of their photographs. If you are a competitive photographer you must be realistic about this issue and submit your entries with the full knowledge that their value as photographs could very likely be either over- or underestimated by the judges. You must also stop complaining about unfair judging because what salon judges are expected to do is virtually impossible, but they do it anyway.

I am a supporter of salons because they expose us to a wider variety of photographic styles than one would otherwise see at club meetings. This is particularly true of international salons. They broaden our horizons, stimulate the creative juices, entertain and educate us. For any photographer with an inflated idea of his achievement they can put things into perspective, encourage an appropriate humility and offer some illuminating comparisons.

It would be nice if there was a better way of choosing the photographs for a salon exhibition but I do not think that there is one. Maybe we ought to have more exhibitions of photographs by amateur photographers that the photographers themselves choose - but that is a whole new argument.

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Respect for the medium

by Dan Swart APSSA

There are two categories of people who use photography in a way that shows disrespect for the medium: artists who rely on a camera to provide visual images and digital manipulators who 'gild the lily' so much that the photograph is no longer recognisable as such.

Ever since the camera was invented artists have used it as a tool in the creative process. From French Impressionist Edgar Degas in the 19th century to South African conceptual artist Michelle Booth in the 21^st, artists have used photography in a deliberately casual way, almost as unthinkingly as a secretary would use the office photocopier or fax machine.

Long before that, before photographic emulsions were invented, artists used the camera obscura and the camera lucida to assist them in making accurate drawings. You might say it was cheating because it was just like tracing. Anybody could make a lifelike drawing like that, without ever having to learn to draw properly.
Using photography for reference material is a well-established practice among artists. It is much easier to work from a still photograph that is already in two dimensions than it is to interpret a three-dimensional live model. The only problem is that a photograph is tied to a particular moment in time that may not necessarily give the artist the kind of essential likeness that would be necessary for a portrait, for example. And if it is a good photographic portrait, why make a painting of it?

Artists who use photographs in this way are usually not at all concerned with things like critical sharpness, tonal range, depth of field or lighting. All those things can be re-invented in the painting and usually are. Image quality is of no importance to them. They only want to get particular kinds of information, shapes and lines, from the photo that can be incorporated into a painted image that could have little to do with the original subject captured by the camera.

The famous Pop artist Andy Warhol either used a little plastic 'point-and-shoot’ compact, designed for use by children, or appropriated images already in the public domain by other photographers (sometimes illegally), which tells you how disdainful he was of photography as an art medium. His relatively crude silkscreen prints made directly from those photographs lost most if not all subtleties of tone and contrast. It would seem that he might well have been satisfied with a smudgy fax image. Indeed, some of his prints, such as those depicting the electric chair, the Jackie Kennedy images after the assassination of JFK and the car accident series look just like bad faxes. Although he had some perfectly valid artistic reasons for using photography in this casual way, seen from the limited point of view of a dedicated craftsman, his use of the medium was an insult to photographic art.

The question I want to ask is, if you are going to transform your photographs as much as Warhol did, why do you need the most advanced and expensive digital camera on the market to capture your images?

Many if not all Photoshopped images are so drastically manipulated these days that all those extra megapixels are a dead waste of camera power. Look closely at some of those award-winning digital concoctions on your local salon and you will see a lot of rough treatment and very little fidelity to the original subject. The more you fiddle with the image, the more Photoshop creates digital artefacts that degrade the image quality.

Maybe you ought to follow Warhol’s example and make do with a little crude digicam that costs hundreds rather than thousands of rands. Your cellphone camera would probably be quite good enough. On the other hand however, unless you have the artistic talent of an Andy Warhol, maybe you ought to stick to the kind of realistic photographic images that respect the photographic medium as such and make photographs that look like photographs rather than kitsch paintings.
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