Something different - competition standards tend to discourage creativity - P-Essay - Column

PSA Journal, August, 1997 by Stan White

I am moved to write in response to Pauline Sweezey's question in "On My Mind," PSAJ, February, "Is PSA photography relevant?" Without question amateur photographers in North America and in particular the PSA, have set a distinctive style and standard. One cannot help but be impressed by the photographic innovation of the 1950s and 1960s. The best was some of the finest amateur photography ever produced. But we cannot go on forever merely refining the same old approaches to similar subjects. It is my view that, latterly, much of the work in the international exhibitions does demonstrate a monotonous sameness year after year, but often novel and imaginative work is not there for the selectors to select. Perhaps if there is a solution it should begin at the beginning.

The neophyte -- that is the photographer who is responsible only to family and friends, will usually point and shoot willy-nilly and many fine snapshots have been achieved by this deceptively simple approach. It is only when our novice joins the company of photographers that the problems arise, for now it is necessary to compare one photograph with another -- justify our feeling that this is inferior or superior to that. This is legitimate at the level of technique and even function, but once we try to categorize aesthetics we run into a mine field. From now on our neophyte win take pictures in consideration of the rules, stated or unstated, often vehemently denied, that others will use to evaluate his or her pictures.

A terrible price has been paid for the improvement in photographic skills and our once freethinking photographer has been channeled into the funnel of convention. Limitless visual freedom has been traded for a tyranny that maximizes communal acceptance. A few realize this and fight, scream and kick, not to be carried along in the comfortable cradle of conformity. Others are blissfully unaware of their shackles.

The problem with competition has proved to be competition itself!

We constantly tell ourselves that there are really no rules, yet as photographers, critics, judges and educators we fail to realize we are influenced by them. If we want the sanction of those who have unwittingly set the rules we may think we have no alternative. So what we come to expect of exhibition pictures is that they should flood our retinas with form and light in a pleasing way and provide a generous dollop of impact all within certain quite limiting and purely visual requirements. In the light of the complexities of visual communication this approach is extraordinarily simplistic.

It is significant that most of the images considered by museums, galleries and collectors to be the finest photography of the 19th and 20th centuries would doubtful gain acceptance in a PSA exhibition, possibly because they were never intended to compete against other photographs. Let us take a single example; the notorious photograph by Diane Arbus of what appears at first glance to be the front of a lavish mansion. On closer look the mansion turns out to be a film prop -- a mere facade held up by props; perhaps her photographic metaphor expresses Arbus's thoughts on the superficiality of Hollywood or even Western Society. This is without question an extremely telling photograph yet it is morose, gray, taken on a dull day and it is not going to flood anybody's retina with pleasing light and shape nor does it pack impact in the purely visual sense. No way will this unprepossessing visual compete with the picture of an aging monk (on the thirds) poring over the dead-sea scrolls through pince-nez by the amber light of a sputtering candle. Perhaps the very logistics of PSA judging will inevitably preclude the acceptance of many kinds of photographic images.

Not all, but a proportion of most exhibitions is devoted to "who can make the best improvement on a cliche," and there is a very limited number of cliches. There is nothing wrong with this. Many folks get immeasurable pleasure from this limited scope of photography, after all, all we have done is set parameters, albeit sometimes invisible ones. Yet photography has the potential of providing a much larger arena and if we want others to join us, within or without the exhibitions, we are going to have to establish and maintain this more expansive concept.

Is education the key? Are camera clubs too introverted? Is the Society incestuous? What do we do for the young people we criticize for preferring to hold personal exhibitions in galleries rather than participate in camera club activities? Do we visit their exhibitions? Do we talk to them about why they make the kind of photographs they make? Do our camera clubs sponsor these exhibitions? Do our camera clubs keep a close liaison with photographic departments of community colleges and other educational establishments and their students? Does the Society sponsor outside exhibitions? Does the Society have an interchange of exhibitions with other Photographic organizations? As individuals do we regularly visit galleries and study Past and present photographic styles? How much time do we spend reading about art, photography and other visual mediums? Or do we simply enjoy doing what we are doing in the same old way because this is what we have always done?