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Do photographs age?
Not as in physical aging, I mean style wise, looks etc. Are there some images that will remain virtually timeless? Feb 19 17 04:57 pm Link I would think that there are some that will, just as in any pictorial art form. Trouble is that what's "ageless" will be different depend on who you're talking to and when as much as the pictures themselves, again, just as in any . . . Feb 19 17 05:03 pm Link Yes. Some photographers are quiet good at looking like they shot all their photos back in the 80s Feb 20 17 01:42 am Link Panta rhei Feb 20 17 02:21 am Link L o n d o n F o g wrote: Definitely yes. Feb 20 17 03:03 am Link TomFRohwer wrote: you are basically speaking in terms of technology, clothes, cultures, designs and dwellings. what about other images. edward weston's pepper & nudes. ansel adam's landscapes. eugene smith's photo essays. even avedon's western series. images of native americans. the civil war & other war images. Feb 20 17 04:34 pm Link Absolutely some images and styles are timeless. Anyone who ever tries to argue that Bruno of Hollywood's fabulous pin-up photos will ever go out-of-style is going to have a losing argument as far as I'm concerned, and his work is just the first that popped into my head. Winston Link's night photography of the Norfolk & Western Railroad's last years of steam are absolutely amazing given the equipment of his day, and those photos would be just about impossible to duplicate today with all our modern whiz-bang computer-aided gadgets. Yes, some photography is timeless, and perhaps more philosophically, all photos are little pieces out of time. I've long collected vintage photos, I study them, admire them, and have a ton of them. Every picture tells a story, whether it's an 1800's studio photo or a snapshot taken by a soldier during WWII (the German army took a lot of very good photos because a lot of them marched off to war with Leicas and Contax 35mm cameras tucked into their packs). You are seeing what they saw, a glimpse of a moment in time from the perspective of someone long dead and buried. Unless it's a blurry image from a Polaroid instant camera or some such thing, all good photography leaves its mark - sometimes big, sometimes small. Feb 21 17 02:15 pm Link Leonard Gee Photography wrote: (American) Civil war images are obviously outdated because nobody can shoot new ones. (At least for the moment...) They have the style they have... there are images of beauty, the human condition and people as persons. they speak about timeless things. "Beauty" depens on many criteria. Many of these criteria depend on era. 18 years old girls today look different from 18 years old girls from the 19th century. Not only because they use other make up. Feb 26 17 03:45 am Link I think it would depend on the subject matter. I have a lot of images in my port and on IG that are years old. They look current because they are lifestyle. I do a lot of clean natural makeup. I can also get away with more elaborate hair since it is not something a person would normally wear. However a good stylist can spot the age of an image almost instantly so for that reason I usually post head shots or shots with not a lot of clothing showing to trick the eye. From time to time I will have my friends that are in this business critique my work to make sure I am not fooling myself into thinking I can get away with something that is clearly too old. R- Feb 26 17 07:02 am Link It never bothers me that photographs show their age. I think photos not only represent the human condition and create human connection, but they also represent the time that they were taken. Fashion looks dated after a a few years and I think that's a great thing because it documents the time period of the photographs and creates a stronger connection for the viewer. I think it's a great thing to see the time of when the photos were taken. I have a couple of photos of me holding my mom's brick cellphone and me wearing styx concert 3/4 sleeved concert shirt. It brings back memories in a good way. Feb 26 17 10:29 am Link With very few exceptions they all age - they have to. A photo captures a moment in time - and as time passes - the styles/techniques/technology will almost always appear somewhat anachronistic when viewed by a future viewer. Feb 26 17 11:07 am Link Some are timeless; some are dated. Here's my favorite -- Vanessa Redgrave, from ~50 or so years ago.  Feb 26 17 12:07 pm Link L o n d o n F o g wrote: I think you would love my mate's collection of portrait cards he has hanging up in one of his rooms. He has collected about 300-400 postcard sized b&w historical portraits from the late 19th and early 20th century. Feb 28 17 12:31 am Link Looking at photography like any art, there are some aspects that can "date" an image, just as it can with music. However, great photographs like great music are ageless. I love the classics! Feb 28 17 12:39 am Link From the point of view of a photographer, the fact that all photographs age can be both an advantage and a disadvantage. IMHO a very, very tiny proportion of the very generic kind of light, catalogue type fashion and pretty girl images one sees posted on Model Mayhem will have any longevity at all. Of those that do, it will come down either to how compelling and memorable the images are or to the .001% of the time the photographer or model becomes well known themselves. On the other hand, one could take very dull, badly exposed, blurry images of something or someone very important and an original print might always have great value. For instance, virtually any historical figure who wasn’t photographed very often. Or someone who was photographed a lot but that has an enormous number of fans - like John Lennon. Feb 28 17 03:20 am Link Styles definitely change over time, as do the tastes of the average person...so in that way, yes, a photo will age. However, I believe that certain artistic standards of composition, tone, emotion, etc., will stand the test of time in a fairly unchanging way, so in that sense, a great photo is a great photo no matter what. Even if the model has shoulder pads and feathery 80's hair... Feb 28 17 12:42 pm Link Nothing can be 'ageless' until it is old. Perfect example: I bought a pair of square-toed dress shoes in the early 2000s for my student teaching, because all the magazines swore they were 'ageless', and I hate replacing things. I got about three years until they were a joke. Now about half of my wardrobe is or looks like Orvis and Barbour. Sure it's trendy now, but it wasn't ten years ago ... But nobody ever gives me shit. The worst I ever heard was that I look like somebody's dapper grandpa. It's the same for any art form: current is a crap shoot (but best for clients *right now*), anything from the last couple cycles or decades is poison, and anything old enough to have had a revival or two is almost always at least safe, even if it's not hip anymore. And if you could predict those trends with any accuracy, you're wasting your time as a working pro - you could have made millions on the stock market by now. Art styles(at least as relate to clients) change with fashion, music, and lifestyle - it's all connected. Grunge, the Young British Artist movement(Hirst, ET all), and photographers like Jeff Wall all came to prominence around the same time, and all were about young people making massive, emotionally charged works to spit in the face of the clean, professional, produced establishment. Ironically enough, this work was very produced too - just not the same way as previous work. And then those things began to taper off around the same time, as people began to prefer more formal work. Feb 28 17 05:25 pm Link |
