Jesus is in your…

This work is in conversation with modernism in a number of ways. I attempted to place myself in the cultural ethos of the late 50s America and come up with a project that a young (anti-authoritarian) photographer might create.
I looked to the work of Robert frank, not for stylistic influence, but to pick up on some of the themes examined in his work The Americans. Specifically, I wanted to examine the perceived moral bankruptcy of American Christianity, and the ways in which Christian imagery (and pathology) permeates our daily life. Additionally, I wanted to examine consumerism, which was entering a new phase in the post-war years. The dynamic of suburbanization was radically reshaping society. Identity was becoming progressively more entangled with (and indistinguishable from) consumption. This created a crisis of meaning, which radically reshaped the cultural terrain. While this period is often regarded as one of cultural stagnation, there was much of interest going on in the margins of the academy and fine arts. Benjamin and Adorno were making incisive critiques of modern society in general and consumerism in specific. Much of the work of this period had social critique at its core, and this aspect resonates within my work.
For stylistic inspiration I drew on the work of Harry Callahan and the experimental sprit of the Bauhaus and Moholy-Nagy. This series was shot on black and white 35mm film with a rangefinder, a common way of working during the period. 35mm film is especially tied to modernism because it engendered a new way of working and thinking, which mimicked cultural shifts at work in the greater society. Furthermore, 35mm film represented a democratization and massification of the photographic medium.
While this body of work is undeniably influenced by post-modernism, I used the cultural gestalt of the 1950s as a foundation on which to build.

Modernism Motel by: MEG york

Meg’s Modern Motel

The modernist movement in photography was as simple as it was complex. The idea behind modernism is basic; the focus being the essence of what photography is. Defining modernism in photography can be as convoluted and frustrating as defining nothingness or explaining space. Modernist photography was born out of the desire to rediscover what makes photography what it is and explore its uniqueness in a raw and pure way. This new era produced photographers that engaged the medium’s distinctive properties and capabilities and created work that was unmanipulated, unsentimental and sharply focused. According to Paul Strand, photography’s uniqueness rested on its “absolute unqualified objectivity.” While working to complete a series of 5 photographs my focus or unfocus was on making images that were inherently and essentially photographic. Initially this was difficult for me. Naturally I wanted to arrange shots, make something of what was within the frame, convey a message, and edit the hell out of each image. Once I relaxed into working with a different mindset and letting go of all of the things that I thought were important, it was refreshing and simple. Like being reborn in the world of photography, I began to realize that photography has become clouded with all of these extra things that we deem as important, thus we’ve lost what photography really is and what it’s here for. A motel is what it is; simple. There’s nothing to read into here, no social commentary or the expression on a person’s face. The photos are proof of what the camera saw at a specific time in a specific space. As far as the space goes I didn’t move anything or use any special lighting. I moved around and let the camera work alone as much as I could, without setting the camera down in the room and leaving it there for a while. My greatest challenge was to not focus so much on editing and to not spend so much time finding this really interesting shot, searching for that perfect photograph that would be aesthetically pleasing and meaningful. While shedding the bs that I had built up around photography, it became more clear to me how important this movement was to the medium at large. I began the project with my usual tricks, shooting in a beautiful vineyard and looking for those really good five shots. I ended up with shit… five prints of shit. I regrouped and started over without a plan and found myself at the motel letting things just happen and not doing too much thinking. modernism --By MEG york

Welcome to Contemporary Perpectives in Photography

This blog is a public forum for the Fall 2009 class Contemporary Perspectives in Photography at Prescott College in Arizona. As a class we will be publicly engaging with the current photographic dialogue through regular posts throughout the semester.