20th century AD

PSA Journal, June, 1991 by Helmut Mueller

Most art historians would agree art is a reflection of the time in which a specific piece of art was created. Indeed man cannot help being influenced by the spirit of its own time, may it be negative or positive. The very influence lets man act and create as a child of his or her own time. The technique of the impressionist painters are instantly familiar and the same is true for the artists of romanticism, fauvism, cubism and the like. The art directions are all associated with specific time period and reflect a trend in art, as well as trends, attitudes and values of the culture in which they function.

No doubt an artist might paint a neoclassical painting in the last quarter of the 20th century, but the work would be of limited value in an artistic, as well as in a pecuniary sense.

What is true for painters and sculptors is also true for photographers. Those photographers that have found a place in the hall of fame for their efforts of making a lasting impression on the time in which they produced their photographic images, are also instantly familiar. It is further to be noted that most of these famed photographers have depicted the human condition, the joy of life, the sorrows of men and women in peace and war, the suffering of the young and old and the agony and the ecstasy of the human race in all its forms.

To be sure, some of these photographers have given us images of lasting value but their cultural impressions did not depict humanity and its condition or other images of lasting interest. They have left us photographs of beauty, which too mirror the age in which they have been created. These images are of their time and not of any other.

We, that are engaged in camera club photography ought to reflect on what we are doing. We ought to create images that are representative of our own tim as well; photos that are representative of what humanity does today, images that say: "this is our world, this is our contemporary world, this is us." We should show who we are, what we do, how we perceive our present environment and how we interact with it.

Instead, we tend to depict images of things past long ago, things appreciated during our grandfather's time. We still see pictures of an old man with a beard and sailors cap smoking a pipe at a time when pipe smoking, as any form of smoking, is no longer seen as fashionable or masculine. We still find in salons medal winning portraits of pretty girls with hats from the 1950's and with laced blouses instead of blue-jeans and present day hairstyles. We still prefer to depict cars from the 20's and 30's as a form of elegant and aesthetic sentimentalism, instead of having the courage to show a 1991 automobile. We think we are producing art when we make cute cut-outs of rockets, cats and fish and place these against quaint sunsets, artifically produced. We indeed think we are masters of photographic art if we photograph the same subject with different colors and different camera angles and send these to various salons in the hope to get acceptances, instead of producing one image that lets the world know that we may have created something worth looking at in decades or evens centuries to come. We still depict glassware with colors to impress, to have impact and not because the glass we depict is made in our own day. We still live in the past and have grave problems letting go of it.

We even have a photographic category that says much about our attitude as camera club photographers: Contemporary Photography. By this we mean something vaguely related to present day trends, to something that appears to be modern and experimental. By inference it appears to be a crime to be forward looking and to be inquisitive about new possibilities. We have this category because we must make a distinction between us, the old guard, and those that have the courage, like the impressionists of the 19th century, like the cubists. the expressionists to move on, to experiment, to explore, to find new ways that challenge man's thinking, that provoke serious discussions, that makes us depict our own time, instead of the past. We have this category of contemporary photography because we do not want to accept anything that is new and contemporary. These avant-garde photographers must be judged separately so they do not interfere with our tradition, with our good old style of art.

Let us have the courage to say no to those images that represent the past, that present cute cliches. Let us create images, beautiful and thought provoking, let us depict our time, ourselves, so those that come after us can admire, respect and appreciate the images we left to posterity. Let us create images that are a true reflection of time, our time. Let us all be contemporary photographers.

Helmut Mueller, APSA, a PSA Life Member and Eastern Canada Zone Director, has been a monochrome print maker for more than 40 years and has worked mainly in color printing for the past six years. Mueller has two Silver Stars in PSA Journal contributions, two Stars in CSD and one Star in PPD. Mueller enjoys close-up and table top photography, abstracts, landscapes and nature photography.