Richard Misrach is an American photographer who was an early pioneer of large scale color photography. He was interested from the beginning of his career in the camera as a tool for exploring social issues. While attending Berkeley in the late 60's he completed his first project Telegraph 3AM, a project about the homeless around the city. Shooting the homeless has been done so often that it is considered almost cliche by many people. When thinking about the camera as a tool for exploring social issue I think this becomes one of the real challenges, simply because of the fact that these things have been done time and again. How do you make compelling images that avoid the cliche, capture the essence of the subject and is accessible to an audience? Many social problems are universal from culture to culture and have been covered extensively in the past. Drug addiction, war, poverty, domestic abuse, environmental concerns......the list goes on and on. How do we make people take interest in things they have been inundated with and possibly have grown slightly numb to? Having the technical skills to produce visually compelling imagery, the compositional skill to make well balanced images and the ability to use these elements to expand the narrative conceptually is what will set apart work of this kind in the future. That may be stating the obvious but with the digital age these things become more important than ever.
I think he really began to hit that balance between fine art, social commentary and concept with his environmental studies that often contrast rampant industrialism in a natural setting. His image of old cars, and abandoned structures in the Salton Sea is a good example of this sort of odd juxtaposition of visual elements.
Anytime I see images like this, I wonder how it looked a hundred years ago, and how it will look a hundred years from now. The passing of time makes the work more and more interesting, but I think the relevance is established as soon as the artist conceives the idea and starts producing quality work. I find landscape work mundane a lot of the time but this contrast of elements is very interesting.
Robert Glenn Ketchum
Ketchum is another of the photographers that was active when the fine art world began accepting color photography as a legitimate medium after years of black and white dominance. He started out shooting musicians in the late 60's including the Doors, Hendrix and Cream. As the sixties wound up he began giving attention to environmental issues, as so many did at the time. Unlike Misrach he seems to have been interested in showing that which was still somewhat pristine, that hadn't yet been lost. This is very much in keeping with the tradition of Ansel Adams who was becoming very popular at this time.
Looking at Ketchums work it becomes clear that he has tonality in mind as much as color, a hallmark of black and white training. Many of his best images have the high range of tonalities we expect from an Adams print, only in color. The consideration of how colors work together as well as how the tonalities will play off them makes the work more challenging.
This is a very cool toned and somewhat monochromatic image. The bright reflections on the water lead us through the image from fore to background, creating a nice movement through the piece. The dark areas of land on the right balance the mountains on the left and give an almost sinister feel, as if some grasping fingers were preparing to overrun the scene with darkness and oblivion. I think leaving the areas dark was probably a conscious decision as detail could have been brought out either in exposure, printing or a combination of the two. I was unsure about landscape photography when I first started really considering photography. I know there are challenges in terms of translating the majesty of an area to a photograph, it is not easy. Like the cliche that the Grand Canyon doesn't look so grand in many photographs. Still, I found it a bit mundane. When considered in the context of our rapidly changing world and the fact that these places may be altered beyond recognition in our lifetime , the work begins to take on new meaning. I think context and content are more important than ever when considering an audience and trying to give work more impact. We are inundated with all kinds of imagery in the digital age. In spite of this I think people will always respond to strong images that use that blend of the technical and conceptual as a device to draw the viewer in. When someone is working on this level, it becomes more than just pretty landscapes. It takes a large body of work to get this point across, and Ketchum certainly has that as he is represented in over 400 shows either alone or with groups. He has won many awards for his environmental work and is a good example of how the camera can be used to raise awareness about issues.
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