What do you think of this?

[amolitor]

Doug Rickard's book "A New American Picture" now orderable on Amazon. It's a book of photographs, probably in the spirit of Walker Evans' American Photographs and Robert Frank's The Americans. The photographs are all pulled out of google's Street View, rather than actually shot on the street.

Doug Rickard: A New American Picture: David Campany,Doug Rickard,Erin O'Toole: 9781597112192: Amazon.com: Books

Is this photography? If not, why not? What is the difference between driving down an actual street and snapping the right frame at the right moment, and driving down a virtual, pre-recorded street, and doing the same thing?

Discuss!

 

[The_Traveler]

It's a great idea but not his.
The concept belongs to Google and, whatever art there is, and there might be plenty is due to serendipity.
Object trouvee and all that

 

[amolitor]

My take differs - I think there is an art, albeit not strictly speaking photography, to be found in curating or editing these massive streams of imagery we see today. I think there are interesting parallels between "picking this image out of those images" and "picking this image from the world", especially when the collection of those images is so massive as to roughly approximate the world.

It's not photography, strictly, but it's a lot more like photography than much of the kind of digital painting/graphic art that is sold as photography today, and it's interesting, and it's a new thing, enabled by new technologies. It was literally inconceivable 100 years ago, barely conceivable 40 years ago, and inevitable today.

 

[Derrel]

If the photographs were made with a camera, then it's "photography". That's my take on it. I like the book description. Sounds quite fascinating!

"Publication Date: September 30, 2012Doug Rickard's A New American Picture offers a startling and fresh perspective on American street photography. While at first glance the work looks reassuringly familiar and well within the traditional bounds of the genre, Rickard's methodology is anything but conventional. All of the images are appropriated from Google Street View; over a period of two years, Rickard took advantage of the technology platform's comprehensive image archive to virtually drive the unseen and overlooked roads of America--bleak places that are forgotten, economically devastated and abandoned. With an informed and careful eye, Rickard finds and decodes these previously photographed scenes of urban and rural decay. He rephotographs the machine-made images as they appear on his computer screen, framing and freeing them from their technological origins. As Geoff Dyer has commented on the work, "It was William Eggleston who coined the phrase 'photographing democratically,' but Rickard has used Google's indiscriminate omniscience to radically extend this enterprise--technologically, politically and aesthetically." A limited-edition monograph of A New American Picture was published by White Press/Schaden in 2010; upon publication, it was named a best book of that year by Photo-Eye magazine, and quickly went out of print. This edition brings Rickard's provocative series, including more than 30 new images, to a wider audience."
Doug Rickard (born 1968) studied American history and sociology at University of California, San Diego. He is the founder of American Suburb X (ASX | AMERICAN SUBURB X | Photography & Culture) and These Americans (THESE AMERICANS | T.A.), aggregating websites for essays on contemporary photography and historical photographic archives. A New American Picture was included in the annual New Photography exhibition at The Museum of Modern Art, New York, in 2011. (20120603)" ---end quoted passage

 

[Overread]

Hmm so he mostly used the Google Street view to do his location scouting; but then went the extra distance to take the photos in the locations using the same positioning of himself to recreate the same framing as Google had. I wonder if he also tried to copy the light as well (as best as is possible given the nature of the photos) as well as other frame elements?

Using google as a location scout isn't anything new - its like using existing work to gather data to consider where to photograph. The idea of copying the same framing is the novelty here it seems. I guess for me that kind of repetitive work in the world works better when you're going somewhere which has changed since the original photo was take; as a kind of documentary of change. I guess this one is trying to start at the beginning by taking the first photo again, only in better quality - though I'm left wondering if it would not have been better to just have found the locations and then shot them more normally for this.

 

[The_Traveler]

Hmm so he mostly used the Google Street view to do his location scouting; but then went the extra distance to take the photos in the locations using the same positioning of himself to recreate the same framing as Google had. I wonder if he also tried to copy the light as well (as best as is possible given the nature of the photos) as well as other frame elements?

I don't read it that way, I think he actually photographer the screen.

 

[Overread]

I think the description is worded poorly as I got that impression at first as well. However if he had just photographed the screen itself Google would slash him to bits in the courts because taking an identical photo of another photo is akin to just copy/pasting the photo. He'd be had up for copyright problems instantly.

 

[The_Traveler]

If photographer Doug Rickard had been able to get away from his daily life and go on the great American road trip like he wanted to, he might never have created the subtly powerful, deeply moving and award-winning images in the collection "A New American Picture." Because he was unable to travel, Rickard sought other ways to see the country. He went online a lot, searching terms that might lead to images of places like Detroit, which to him symbolized "the mythology of the broken down American dream." A few months after it was created, Rickard discovered Google Street View and, along with it, a higher calling.

He was floored by the fact that he could sit at home and "walk" the streets of any town, anywhere in the country. Rickard spent the next two years scouring Google Street View for images of the unseen America, starting in Detroit, though he soon discovered that there were countless other "Detroits" all over across America. He was stunned by towns like the 400-person town of Amite City, Louisiana, which has changed little since Ben Shahn photographed it more than 70 years ago.

Moving through the streets shot by Google's Street View cameras, Rickard searched for vivid colors and compositions that have led critics to liken his work to Stephen Shore and William Eggleston. He also kept the idea of Henri Cartier-Bresson's "decisive moment" in the front of his mind, and recalls the sense of elation when he dropped into Watts in LA one day and discovered a man holding a hose against a stark white wall. Though there have been some grumblings about ownership and intellectual property, those have mostly been quashed by the power of Rickard's work and his abilities to use—one might even say repurpose—a widespread technology to show us a new way of looking at what's in front of our very eyes, which is what good photographers strive to do.

A limited edition of "A New American Picture" was published by White Press and Schaden in 2010, and even though it was named best book of 2010 by Photo-Eye Magazine and images were exhibited in the MoMA, it went out of print. Now, however, Aperture is re-releasing the book to a wider audience along with 40 new images.

A New American Picture

 

[Overread]

Ahh that explains it much more clearly - in that context it just sounds like he's spinning a lot of words about skill when in fact all he did was take an archive of photos and pick out the best he could find. I guess the nature of Googles street view makes it a somewhat unique archive - but still it makes the process feel rather cheap.

 

[The_Traveler]

"With an informed and careful eye, Rickard finds and decodes these previously photographed scenes of urban and rural decay. He rephotographs the machine-made images as they appear on his computer screen, framing and freeing them from their technological origins."

Holy Crap! Surely written by someone with an MFA

 

[Derrel]

Ahh that explains it much more clearly - in that context it just sounds like he's spinning a lot of words about skill when in fact all he did was take an archive of photos and pick out the best he could find. I guess the nature of Googles street view makes it a somewhat unique archive - but still it makes the process feel rather cheap.

This has GOT to be one of the MOST facile, asinine comments that I've ever seen you make on TPF. Seriously. INCREDIBLY facile. I'm not being sarcastic, or flippant. You clearly have no idea of what being an editor is like, or what taking on and completing a MASSIVE photographic undertaking is like.

 

[nmasters]

Personally, I like the idea, and the book looks very interesting.
I can't imagine how boring it must be searching through google street view for however long to find these images.
I would consider it photography for sure!

 

[amolitor]

Just as technology has moved, and continues to move, the lines between "in-camera" and "post" it's moving the lines between "photography" and "editing" around.

I don't know what it is, or (fully) where it's going, but it's pretty interesting!

 

[rexbobcat]

If he actually photographed them himself then, yes, I consider it photography.

Maybe it's not on the scale of something from National Geographic but at least he knows interesting photographic things to look for.

 

[Buckster]

Photographing someone else's photographs, and then putting them in a book... Umm... How is that not plagiarism?