The Decline of Fashion Photography, an argument in pictures
The Decline of Fashion Photography, an argument in pictures.
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Reader comments
friggJan 09, 2004 at 1:43PM
"After Newton came heroin chic. The grunge aesthetic taken to its logical extreme, this trend offered us 13-year-old sleep-deprived anorexics in desperate need of real clothing."
Neat link to an insipid piece of writing. "After Newton came ..." Egads...historical inaccuracies, vapid generalizations, silly thesis...comparing auction prices of a vintage Penn print and a contemporary LaChapelle...golly...where to begin...
Maybe she'll do better next year when she gets into high school.
tj hookerJan 09, 2004 at 3:59PM
I thought it was pretty well-written. I didn't agree with everything she had to say (I like Helmut Newton), but she had good points, particularly about the unfortunate encroaching of "celebrity status" as it relates to photographers.
JoshJan 09, 2004 at 4:15PM
A) She didn't seem particularly harsh on Helmut Newton, and b) it seemed perfectly well-written. What about this was silly?
990000Jan 10, 2004 at 11:25AM
will Steven Heller please come and make a comment?
PatrickJan 11, 2004 at 8:44AM
Fashion and photography are separate arts. Kinda like music and video, dontcha think?
mendelJan 11, 2004 at 8:40PM
I suspect you could use the same selection of photographs to argue precisely the opposite argument, or anything in between.
donald tettoJan 11, 2004 at 10:43PM
The juxtaposition of the first two really struck me as a strong "argument in pictures" -- but thereafter it shifted to more "an argument in text (with accompanying pictures)." It kind of meandered then, but the conclusion was well taken. Patrick, your point is an interesting one, but that is why the article doesn't critique any fashion or compare it to photography, but only the genre/field of fashion photography. (One of my favorite books of photography is a collection of Louise Lawler's photos of [non-photographic] artworks (in museums, in homes, in storage]).
friggJan 13, 2004 at 2:32AM
Again...this is one of the most dim-witted pieces of writing I've ever encountered.
This silly person compares photographs of fashion with fashion. An essay about fashion photography somehow manages to establish criteria for BOTH, happily ignoring the difference between these arts.
She glides seemlessly from dismissing Helmut Newton to casting aside the work of early-90's designers, laying blame on the models and work of the artists who made the clothes, prefering a different aesthetic.
One of the shittiest pieces of writing I've ever completed. Pure vapid garbage.
BTW, donald, lawler did a bunch of photos documenting the placement of contemporary photos, as well. You'd probably like them, they're awfully fine, although, having met her, she might disagree with THAT word.
rgJan 13, 2004 at 12:35PM
Reminds me of a quote from Wim Wenders (introduction to Sylvia Plachy's Signs & Relics) - "Whoever came up first with that saying 'a picture is worth a thousand words' didn't understand the first thing about either one."
This thread is closed to new comments. Thanks to everyone who responded.