Sheep, Marakopa

Disclaimer: the opinions expressed in this essay are not necessarily those of the writer. But they might be…

To apply HDR processing to a photograph is like putting on makeup. It’s very easy to go too far, to put on too much.

~the BlorkBlog

There are three possible parts to a date, of which at least two must be offered:  entertainment, food, and affection.  It is customary to begin a series of dates with a great deal of entertainment, a moderate amount of food, and the merest suggestion of affection.  As the amount of affection increases, the entertainment can be reduced proportionately.  When the affection is the entertainment, we no longer call it dating.  Under no circumstances can the food be omitted.

~Miss Manners’ Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behaviour

I spoke yesterday with a friend, a highly-accomplished photographer, who told me of a meeting with the folks at New Zealand Geographic. He was was/is working on a book project on a place he holds dear. He wanted feedback on his work. Well, they said, this is very beautiful work, but it is landscape porn. Eye candy.

Hmmmm….

I think I know what they meant. His work had no documentary properties (in their eyes). It presented a decontextualized, romantic vision of…somewhere… and they had obviously seen too much of it. They were over it.

But it got me to thinking about porn, prostitution and photography. Doctor, a definition if you please.

Etymology first: Greek pornographos, adjective, writing about prostitutes, from pornē prostitute + graphein to write

Merriam-Webster: the depiction of acts in a sensational manner so as to arouse a quick intense emotional reaction.

Advertising  and advertising photography works like that. It offers us a view we would like to see, or indeed they would like us to see, rather than one that has any basis in ‘reality’ or may in any way link to what a place is really like. As an example, go online and find one of those South Pacific resorts (there are plenty to choose from). Look through the photographs on the website and you will quickly get the idea that they are miles from anywhere, on the edge of paradise. If the photos are to be believed, they are all superb rooms with astonishing views, uninhabited and waiting for (only) you to come and stay there. The reality is often quite different.

I know this from experience.

Last week Heather and I stayed at the Punakaiki Resort, a hotel tucked under the bluffs just south of the blowholes on the West Coast of the South Island. It should have been an extraordinary experience. To a degree it was. The photographs of the rooms made them appear fit for a sheik (h). Pristine, elegantly-furnished and with astonishing views. Well, the views were fantastic-as long as you were on an upper floor. Lower floors gave you the opportunity to do a” Kilroy was Here’ over the shrubbery in front of the unit. Apparently the’ resort has been designed to maximize the surrounding environment with beautiful ocean and rainforest views of the Paporoa National Park.’ The website neglects to mention that the main highway runs through the middle of the complex, so any view from the eco-suites, located on the other side of the highway from the main complex , looks across the road, and the location requires you to either take your vehicle over the road or walk through a rainforest to get to dinner (umbrellas are provided). ‘The award winning Waterline Restaurant provides the perfect setting to relax and enjoy the spectacular scenery.’ Well it would if it had been open… because it was off-season, they had closed it and our meal was served in the bar area. No mention of that. It was a lovely meal, for all of that.

The point here is that the consummation in no way matched the website-induced expectation. However, staying there in-season is still a serene experience. Or it will be when they stock the units with all the utensils you expect never to have to use, and they do something about the igniter on the gas fire in the bar, which turned itself on and off each minute.

I should know better. After all, I am a photographer and I have been commissioned, from time to time, to photograph hotel complexes and up-market motels (for money). The conversation begins: we need photographs for our website and brochures. No problem. What do you charge your clients (that gives me a fair idea of the demographic)?  When they tell me $180-250/night, I know the rest. I also know where to price my work…

I always do a walk-round, looking at the exterior, noting the surroundings and the VIEW Beyond. What will I need to hide? Can I do it in-shot or in post-production?  Will it be a simple clone or a nasty time-consuming makeover? Where are the air conditioner units? Is this a complex that will benefit from photographed in the late evening, when its weaknesses are less visible? And  the interiors? Are they small and poky, with artfully misplaced power sockets? Which I will need to clone out later? Will I need a super-wide-angle to make the rooms bigger? What (if any) are the stand-out features?

We discuss this, while I listen to the client and his perception of the place, then I do my best to deliver it.

Welcome to the world of the professional photographer.

I should be cynical. Artifice is the stock-in-trade of the commercial photographer. Somehow, however, it never seems to apply to me. And I buy in…to a degree.

Working for Canterbury Tourism as a photographer reinforced this idea of The Dream. At my first briefing, it was made clear there would be NO blue-sky-green-grass-white (backlit) sheep shots. That was OK with me! Apparently the targetable demographic was Gen X, happy, good-looking (European), sporty, slim people who were happy, happy, joy, joy outdoor types. The pink market was also to be approached photographically.

So ‘hero’ shots involved 25-30-somethings, who had great complexions, were slim, European, outdoor types with mountain bikes, taking a break from their busy corporate careers. They were to wear trendy labelwear, like Earth-Sea-Sky, Bivouac, or Untouched World; the sort of clothing you wince and quickly pass by if your BMI is over 0.05. They would be seen doing romantic things, like sitting in a punt, drifting dreamily down the River Avon, or on a hillside overlooking Banks Peninsula, watching the suns set.

But the intended consumers were tourists from Europe mainly. And Asia. It was never suggested I photograph an Asian in a hero shot.

Doctor, a definition if you please.

Etymology first: Greek pornographos, adjective, writing about prostitutes, from pornē prostitute + graphein to write

Merriam-Webster: the depiction of acts in a sensational manner so as to arouse a quick intense emotional reaction.

So is professional photography porn?

So photographic porn is about prostitution (selling excitement for money) in such a way to arouse excitement. Like making people lust (aha!) to go and stay in that resort?

At this point the blond (!) model with a BMI of 0.0000005 smooges up to her man, also with a low BMI and dressed in a CK hoodie and fashionably unshaven and dishevelled, folds herself elegantly onto the white leather chaise longue (they would never buy a couch!) in their minimalist 2000m2 atelier apartment, opens the webpage  picture gallery on her iPad 2 ( white, so it co-ordinates with the chaise longue) and points out the wonders of the Punakaiki Resort. Darling, we absolutely must go there… an excitement has been aroused…for $$$$$…Porn?

No mention of a defective gas fire igniter…

Good commercial photography is therefore about arousing the desired reaction in a viewer. For payment.

Nothing wrong with that. That is what professional photographers do.

A wedding photographer aims to show the couple on Their Big Day as they imagine it should be. The very best photographers will give them results which exceed their expectations, will deliver the desired fantasy, and present Bridezilla 92 as the Sugar Plum Fairy. And the next bride-to-be, seeing the portfolio, presented on an iPad 2, will front up $$$$ to Buy the Dream.

A portrait photographer makes a living by making people look beautiful, by showing them as they see themselves, not as they may be. By reflecting the self-image in the mirror for them. Great portraiture encourages and helps self-esteem.

So is professional l photography porn? More importantly, is it dishonest, for dishonesty is the key here?               `

I do not think so.

When we look at resort photographs, we know they have been commissioned. We have sufficient visual literacy, I believe, to be aware that the reality will fall short of the promise. Provided it falls within a reasonable margin of it and the price for what is delivered is fair, then most of us will participate willingly in the charade.  Should any of us ever use a prostitute, male or female, most of us would, I assume, understand that it is not about romance, that is about stumping up $$$ for a quick intense emotional reaction.

Prostitution is a trade as old as man and to most eyes honest in the sense that it is what it is. We can choose to participate or not. It does not offer us a romantic fantasy, a dream.

But pornography does.

So how does this apply to landscape photography?

Enter the word contextualisation.

A landscape photograph can offer us a statement about time and place, and even evoke a feeling, an emotional response. In fact the latter is critical. It might contextualise by exploring the Nature-Man interface, the way in which Man has shaped and been shaped by the landscape he inhabits. Robert Adams is a good example of a photographer who has done just this. Robert Burtynsky is another, whose work has a strongly political stance..

It might seek to echo what has gone before. Michael Kenna’s work does this, with his Huangshan, China, 2008-2010 series evoking the traditions of classical Chinese painting. Because of this reference, it is contextualised. It exists within and reflects traditions, and while it may arouse a quick intense emotional reaction, it offers us much more.

It might take an environmental approach, using the beauty of the natural world to heighten awareness of our kaitiakitanga, our need to be more responsible guardians of the land. Ansel Adams’ Yosemite series was, I am told, when presented to a Congressional committee, responsible for the introduction of National Parks in the United States, places set aside from exploitation. The work, when seen in context, gains additional power…and our respect.

Where the departure into photographic porn occurs, to my mind, is when the work seeks to climb over the top of contextualisation and promotes itself as a saccharine (sugar which is not) object. HDR is a place where the worst of this seems to be prevalent. Images like this and this and this and especially this show a profound disregard for any aesthetic beyond arousing a quick intense emotional reaction (mine happens to be negative and nauseated), with no sense of any contextualising beyond an immediate viewer response. In some cases, the images are worse than nauseating. They are insensitive and thoughtless, such as these ‘photographs’ of  the clean-up after the Christchurch earthquake ( notice the sign on the wall at the back of one of  the shots)…

Ah, there it is.

Thoughtless.

Perhaps that is where photographic porn really stands.

Thoughtless.

It seeks to evoke only an emotion, and the photographer stands alone, unquestioning, convinced of his/her moral and aesthetic rectitude, an aesthetic based on emotion without the firm underpinnings of intellect, informed knowledge or research.

What is on show is a beautiful image (or not), whose only contextualisation lies somewhere within the photographer’s perception and which offers little more than a romantic rendering of an inner desire to arouse a quick intense emotional reaction.

Visual gratification.

Of course that may not really matter at all, but in a flood of imagery of this type, contextualisation is important if an image is offer more than eye candy, which is the point I guess the guys at Nat Geo were trying to make and to search for in work they considered for publication.

In the end, the test of durability of an image may lie in its relevance, in a meaning which goes beyond superficiality and short-term gratification.

Or not.