the other Martin Taylor

Preface: I just wrote this piece for an art-photo-history course I'm taking and wanted to put it somewhere on the web - it's pretty long and involved so I won't be insulted if you don't read it all:

Love him or hate him, there is no denying the contribution to, and the influence on, the contemporary, fine-art photography world of the British photographer Martin Parr. A polarized opinion of Martin Parr and his work has followed him throughout his career, from his first exhibitions in the mid-1970's through to the present day. The breadth of this polarity is wide stretching from the working class, English layman who has encountered the the Parr controversy in the tabloids; through the educated middle class, whom Parr targets with much of his wit; through art patrons, gallery curators, and picture editors who cannot get enough of Parr's work; through Parr's influences and students even, and especially, through his contemporaries at Magnum where he is the agency's most controversial member and one if its most financially successful. It seems that in Parrworld¹ there is little middle ground and to paraphrase reviewers of Parr's work, one is either a fan of his stunning and vivid imagery or one is a critic of his cruel and lurid work.

I myself am very middle class. One of the things I wanted to do as a photographer was to connect the subject matter which I was actually part of with the photography. Photographers tend to be attracted to things very different to where they are from .. they tend to like things very different from their own lifestyle, so one of the rules I try to engage with is to try to photograph things that I am part of. So all the things like consumerism, tourism and being middle class is something I've been very interested in.

• Martin Parr²

The above quote applies well to Parr's most famous, color work and to his most recent projects which focus on consumerism, wealth and globalization which I will consider shortly but this is not where his photographic career started out. In the 1960's when Martin Parr was attending the equivalent of high school in Surrey, in the South of England, an area that is part of what is colloquially known as stock-broker belt, and in the 1970's when Parr attended the Manchester College of Art, there was a huge North / South divide in England. Residents of both sides of this unofficial dividing line were highly suspicious of each other. The caricatures were, and still are but to a lesser extent, that the North was uncultured and industrial, whereas the South was seen as wealthy and the predominant habitat of the middle classes. Growing up, Martin Parr, as he admits himself, could not have been more middle class; “I'm so middle class it's unbelievable. [...] My father was a civil servant. I was brought up in middle class Surrey. That's it – it's the perfect middle class pedigree.”³ Growing up Martin Parr did have a connection with the North of England through his grand parents, particularly his grandfather George Parr, living in Yorkshire. He took regular vacations in Yorkshire as a child but it was a romanticized view of the North that Parr experienced on these visits. His grandfather was an accomplished amateur photographers who introduced Parr to the magic of photography and the darkroom and took the family on day trips to local sites and landmarks. Parr saw a holiday Yorkshire idyll not the everyday reality that is his stock and trade.

Parr's childhood Northern adventures must have influenced his choice of college to attend as he escaped the boredom of the suburbs to the northern city of Manchester to go to art school. We know that his projects while in Manchester reflected his new 'exotic' environment. We see pictures of interiors that are much more working class than his upbringing. We know that he tried to locate the real Coronation Street⁴ to use as a photographic subject as if the popular television soap opera had a real-life alter-ego but it is Parr's graduation project, Home Sweet Home, that seems to be his first, deliberate use of photography as an ironic weapon. The project consisted of a free-standing, full-scale model of a working class sitting room. Kitsch furnishings and decorations were used as a backdrop to Parr's own black and white photography. The photographs were mounted in cheap frames of the day perhaps to remove them from the preciousness of art photography. It is a two pronged attack; on one level the sitting room setting can be seen as a criticism of popular tastes of the day – a theme that continues though most of Parr's work to the present day. On the other hand Home Sweet Home was a gauntlet slap in the face to many of Parr's teachers at Manchester Polytechnic who Parr felt were totally unaware of what was happening in the art photography field of the day. If Parr was looking for a strong reaction he got it as he managed to split the opinion of his faculty lecturers. Graduation projects are usually exhibited no further than graduation shows but Parr's notoriety ensured that Home Sweet Home got broader coverage at two further English galleries.

After graduation Parr and several of his peers from Manchester moved a little way out of the city and into a new kind of photography when they formed a loose, artistic community in a slightly run-down, rural village called Hebden Bridge. Although, or perhaps because, Hebden Bridge was in a state of neglect and decline it became a sort of semi-pastoral Eden for Parr and his cohorts. Moving away from the conceptual art photography of his student days Parr seems to fall more under the influence of the American FSA style than the beatnik photography of Robert Frank that Parr cites as his major influence as a student .⁵ Martin and his future wife, Susie Mitchell, zeroed in on a small, declining community based around the Methodist chapel of Crimsworth Dean as a subject for a social documentary project that resulted in some of the most powerful and intimate images of Parr's career. Mitchell seems to have acted as an agent who allowed Parr who was already used to working from a slightly stand-off or aloof perspective, emotionally closer access to their subjects. With Mitchell, Parr became embedded with the congregation of Crimsworth Dean; Mitchell taught Sunday school while Parr helped the church raise funds by holding slide-shows. The great images resulting from these four years demonstrate that the congregation must have been aware that they were the subject for Parr's photography and Mitchell's interviewees were certainly aware of her tape recorder but when the Parrs were outed by a chapel elder for having more artistic than spiritual ambitions for being involved in the parochial community it was painful for both sides. The photographer's usual line of there being unwritten consent between themselves and their subjects does not stand in this case. The photographs were powerful, unsentimental and comprehensive but Parr has never got emotionally that close to his subjects again. Perhaps it is the Crimsworth Dean controversy that defined Parr's modus operandi on future projects of stepping back and being removed from his subject. The experience may also be responsible for Martin's often repeated and quoted philosophy that all photography is exploitative. "My line is that photography by its nature is exploitative. [...] It's unavoidable, especially if you are earning money from it. You're basically earning money from other people's image. Most photographers would never admit that photography is exploitative; they try to hide it because of their humanistic ideals."⁶

After the Crimsworth Dean experience and a couple of years self-imposed exile in isolated Ireland, the Parrs returned to the North of England. During this time England had changed and was now firmly entrenched in the era of Thatcherism which had created a devolution of the English class-system and embraced new-money and consumerism. Parr's photography had also metamorphosed during this time. No longer was he concentrating on quaint, gentle, disappearing communities and rituals but his eye had turned to more contemporary subjects. Some argue that Parr's work became politicized at this time but Parr denied this claiming that he was still just photographing people going about their everyday lives but the emotion does seem more critical of his subjects however much Parr might deny it. The biggest visual change was the switch from a black and white, 35mm system to a medium format, vividly colorful approach that relied on a slightly wide point of view, consumer color film and a signature daylight, fill-flash technique. As previously, inspiration for this aesthetic came not from his peers in the UK but from the US and the colorful snapshot approach that was gaining momentum with William Eggleston, Stephen Shore and their ilk.

With his aesthetic and technical approach renewed, and his subjects being an emerging, rather than disappearing society the stars were aligned for Parr's most popular, critically acclaimed and denounced work. This productive era is prefaced by the works Point of Sale and One Day Trip which both focused on Britain's consumer society but it is the work The Last Resort which catapulted Parr into the spotlight. The Last Resort documents working class families at play in a run-down and dirty seaside town called New Brighton. The work shows naked babies and children with their parents playing and eating in an environment festooned with trash and grime. Junk food and overcrowding are a constant theme through the work. Although Parr denies that this work is neither political nor critical, critics were immediately divided about the work. Some saw it as an insightful portrayal of the times but others thought it a cynical and cruel condemnation of the working class. Of course, the critics themselves were mainly from the liberal, educated middle class and Parr contends that they were being overly defensive and precious towards his working class subjects. What is undeniable is that the publicity and controversy The Last Resort created provided Parr with the financial means and the critical following to follow his muse where it would take him and, almost in direct response to the defenders of the working class, Parr's muse took him back to the South of England and to the middle class who were most benefiting from Thatcher's government.

His next large work, The Cost of Living marks his move away from documenting the working class and can be seen as a direct criticism of middle class that is Parr's heritage. The Cost of Living is no more an affectionate work than The Last Resort and, in some ways can be described as more vicious. The working class holiday makers in The Last Resort are trapped by their surroundings and economic position but the middle class subjects of The Cost of Living and subsequent examinations of a consumer society such as Signs of the Time, From A to B and Small World have the freedom and money that provide more choices of how to live and the environments they create for themselves. In many ways these works are more damning criticisms of the middle class than earlier work was of the their working class equivalents, a point not lost on the critics who felt the bead of Parr's focus fall upon them. Parr is now accused of being aloof and a cynical, arbiter of good taste for the whole nation but criticism brings with it attention and with this attention Parr's career continued to grow.

He followed up these major works with a slight change in aesthetic. His color work had, up to this point, remained slightly wide angle and medium format. This approach changes slightly with Common Sense when he returned to 35mm. This is was not a return to his early, romantic black and white work but Parr adopts a macro lens and a ring flash; he gets in really close in on his subjects and the style backs away from identifiably documentary to a more abstract and conceptual approach not seen from Parr since his student projects. His subjects remain the same: junk food, traditions, tourism, the results of consumerism and globalization. If anything, the colors become even more saturated. The tight in approach renders differing subjects in a similar way and the juxtaposition of particular images on the page emphasize this; raw bacon looks the same as sunburned skin, pasty sausages look similar to a piece of spent chewing gum. Of course, the critics had something to say about this change in direction and they found it hard to recognize the documentary thread that had run through Parr's career. They also criticized what they saw as a less hard hitting style but if you look closely the work from this period is probably the most damning of western society that Parr has produced to date.

The art photography world is badly paid for most participants compared to worlds of fashion, commercial and documentary photography. Parr saw that his work overlapped into these genres and looked around for an agency to represent him. He was already a controversial associate member of the Magnum agency but be decide to seek full membership of what was seen as the world's top photo agency knowing that he was likely to be strongly resisted by the old guard. Magnum functions like a cooperative where membership is obtained dependent upon a vote cast by existing members.

If he was expecting a fight he was not disappointed. In an open letter to the Magnum membership Philip Jones Griffiths actively campaigned against allowing Parr to become a full member of Magnum, “It would be the embracing of a sworn enemy whose meteoric rise in Magnum was closely linked with the moral climate of Thatcher's rule [...] Let me state that I have great respect for him as the dedicated enemy of everything I believe in and, I trust, what Magnum still believes in.”⁷ The main criticism of Parr was that, whereas Magnum prided itself on romantic, humanistic approach to subjects outside of war zones at least, Parr, in his own words, “... was one of the first to break that humanist tradition that was so strong in the previous generation. They thought I was exploitative, cynical, even fascist. All kinds of words were used.”⁸ It is to Parr's credit that while certain old-school members of Magnum, although they denied it, made personal attacks against his person, Parr remained, as ever, aloof and removed from the battle. He had strong opinions that Magnum's approach and philosophy were outdated but he never resorted to personal attacks. It was a close call but the younger, more forward looking but less vocal members of Magnum recognized Parr's work as different to the traditional Magnum content but also saw that it was a diversity of vision that Magnum needed to remain relevant and by one vote, Parr was accept into the agency. Financially for Magnum this was a good thing as Parr has consistently been one of their top three best selling photographers since his admission.

Ironically, one of the other leading horses in Magnum sales is consistently Henri Cartier-Bresson who had a strong, visceral reaction against Parr's work when he experienced it. Bresson rebuked Parr in public when they met in 1995. In a letter that was made public HCB later apologized for his over-reaction but said that what upset him about Parr's work was “the philosophy of a man taking himself seriously, without humor, where rancor and scorn dominate, a nihilistic attitude symptomatic of society today.”⁹ As HCB had been one of Parr's teenage idols this must have been tough to read but, yet again, Parr kept his cool and held his ground; “I acknowledge there is a large gap between your celebration of life and my implied criticism of it [...] What I would query with you is 'Why shoot the messenger?'”¹⁰

To say that Martin Parr deliberately courted controversy is to demonize him as being manipulative and contriving. It seems more fair and honest to say that Parr does not shy away from a fight and that he constantly stays on message addressing the themes he sees as important. It is true that controversy has, to some extent, made Martin Parr the photographer he is today both in his aesthetic approach and his resulting professional standing and financial success.

The confrontation at Crimsworth Dean after the Parr's infiltrated the community and the way their subjects subsequently felt betrayed shaped the way Martin Parr approached his subjects from then on. Although he claims to be a part of the society he portrays, and he may be part of the same demographic as his subjects, his perspective is deliberately detached and unemotional. This can be construed as heartless and cynical if this is the way you are inclined to view Parr's work. If you are more sympathetic to his agenda it can be seen as simply honest and that Parr is simply the messenger reflecting our world, and our effect on it, back at us. Parr's unsparing view of both the working and middle class have galvanized opinions in both his critics and audience. His most famous fan was, allegedly, Margret Thatcher while his most vocal and famous critic was Bresson. Everyone seems to have a strong emotional response to the social documentary parts of Parr's body of work. Everyone who knows Parr's work has a strong opinion of it and perhaps this demonstrates Parr's importance both as an art photographer and as a social documentarian; he makes people think and examine themselves. Those strong enough to take this criticism seem to appreciate Parr's work while those who are more critical of him often acknowledge that they are also disillusioned with the direction of the modern world and Parr's work, therefore, makes something of a convenient scapegoat. In the end, Parr's persistence and faith in his own vision will be responsible for his legacy: “I have kept producing new work, new books; and I guess, in the end, people take that seriously. If you're around long enough, and you keep doing new work, and it keeps provoking an audience to dislike you, and, obviously, some people like it as well, people will notice what you do."¹¹

I hope I have demonstrated how Martin Parr's career has been followed by strong, divergent opinions of both the artist and his work. Parr does not shy away from uncomfortable subjects or from criticism. Being a popularist his work has escaped gallery walls and art magazines on to the pages of high circulation magazines and billboards and his work often makes people think. Parr does not make pretty pictures in a traditional style but he reflects back the world and society most of his viewers are part of. It is a strong message that does not show us in the most favorable light. Strong, difficult, unflattering messages often elicit a strong emotional response in those addressed but Martin Parr has made it his mission to be that polarizing force and messenger.

Love him or hate him, I began this piece as a huge fan of Martin Parr. While doing the background reading I found some of what he says judgmental and difficult to stomach. I see Martin Parr as a hard task master but remain convinced of the importance of his work and see controversy as a side effect of the themes he addresses and the way he addresses those themes. Parr still makes me think about my place in the world and shows me, in the words of Oscar Wilde “It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors. Diversity of opinion about a work of art shows that the work is new, complex and vital.”¹²

Bibliography: Books

• Miller, Russell: Magnum: Fifty Years at the Front Line of History: The Story of the Legendary Photo Agency - Grove Press; 1st Grove Press Pbk. Ed edition (October 1999 – Hardback published 1997)

• Parr, Martin: Boring Postcards - Phaidon Press (September 30, 1999)

• Parr, Martin: Last Resort: Photographs of New Brighton - Dewi Lewis Publishing; New Ed edition (February 1998)

• Parr, Martin: Small World - Dewi Lewis Publishing; Rev Ed edition (November 1, 2007)

• Parr, Martin: The Cost of Living - Aperture (January 1991)

• Parr, Martin: Think of England - Phaidon Press Pbk. Ed edition (November 1, 2004)

• Parr, Martin & Barker, Nicholas: From A to B - BBC Books (March 17, 1994)

• Parr, Martin & Badger, Gerry: The Photobook: A History, Vol. 1 & 2 - Phaidon Press (December 1, 2004 & October 7, 2006)

• Poynor, Rick: Obey the Giant: Life in the Image World - Birkhäuser Basel; 2nd ed. edition (October 24, 2007)

• Williams, Val: Martin Parr - Phaidon Press (February 1, 2002)

Bibliography: Audio Interviews

• Audience discussion with Martin Parr on the occasion of the Swiss exhibition “We Are All Photographers Now!” at the Musée de l’Elysée, 2007
  

• Martin Parr at the Photopub Festival, October 7th, 2004

• Lens Culture interview, 2005

• Zoom In interview, 2006
  

Bibliography: Periodicals

• The Financial Times, February 16, 2007: Lunch with the FT: Martin Parr by Peter Aspden

Bibliography: WWW References

• Magnum Photos:

• Martin Parr articles 

• Portfolio 

• Martin Parr's Personal site 

It has been eight months since I posted anything to Vox.  How funny then that the subject that inspires me to write again is the subject I last wrote about; inspiration or the lack of it and faith in your own work.

So, since we last chatted I completed my picture-a-day project for 2007 and started again for 2008.  I made a new picture every day for a whole year and then some and I am proud of that.  However, I am less proud of some of the individual shots than I am of the achievement of completing what I started.  Let's face it, completing what you started is easy if you're stubborn enough but making each individual picture stand on its own is tough.

I was talking with a fellow photographer this weekend; a fellow ex-pat; probably someone who is somewhere about the same place as I think I am in my photographic development; someone I trust; someone who doesn't mince words.  He asked me why I'd been contaminating my Flickr stream with so much crap recently.  I was a little taken aback at first but then I knew what he was saying was true.  I can try an justify what I'm doing by claiming that flickr is my equivalent of a Day Book, a journal of sorts - both the good and the bad - it's not a blog and certainly it's not a portfolio.  That holds true to a point.

I am not in the flickr elite.  I'm not even on the flickr B-list but I do have a few regulars who comment on my photos and I comment of theirs.  It's a community of sorts to support each other through the project 365 death march.  I do not use those comments to criticize their work and they, thankfully, return the favor.  My wife knows that it is what I don't say in those comments I make that is most telling but I'm just like my friends their - I struggle enough just to make a post a picture most days so I don't want it scored on artistic merit.  It's the one time I'm happy with a "nice capture", "good shot" kind of comment.  And then I start believing my own press....

 The truth is, my friend is right.  I'm actually happy with my pictures about 1 day in 10. I know how to make something that will fool a layman most of the time but, if you really know about photography, and you look at my shots you can see I'm faking it. I can make something that looks artistic but that doesn't make it art.  So why go on?  I have to keep making pictures if I want to call myself a photographer.  I have to go on for that 1 day in 10 when I think it's actually worth it.  It's hard to make up of inspiration with persistence and hard work but I have to believe that it's worth trying.

I used to have absolute confidence in my own work to the point of arrogance.  I miss that sureness but perhaps this self-doubt is something I just have to work through to get to that next, creative place.  It is a hard slog but I am too stubborn to give up just because I feel like I'm producing crap.  There's only two choices when you're stuck in a rut; bounce out or get entrenched and comfortable.  I am working to avoid the latter.

I hate those blogs that apologize for not writing or being away.  Even more I hate the excuses they proffer to explain their absence; usually something to do with being too busy or real life getting in the way of blogging. Are we d-list bloggers so egocentric as to think that we are missed when we don't write? As a reader of blogs, it's not like I'm going to run out of things to read if even half of the blogs and podcasts I subscribe to stop publishing tomorrow.  My RSS reader cup would still runneth over.

I am, therefore, not going to apologize for not having written anything here lately.  I am not going to make up excuses for neglecting my photoblog, or for phoning in my project 365 pictures, or for not commenting on my contacts on Flickr. My real world responsibilities were no heavier than usual - I just didn't feel like it.  I do not presume I was missed nor am I fishing for comments to the contrary. Let's just say for want of a better explanation, that my creative muse left me for a while. 

So what do you do when you consider yourself a creative person but you don't feel like doing anything creative? I save what little creative juice I have to keep creative commitments that are important to me, in this case my photo-a-day project for this year.  Even when I didn't feel like it I took a shot each day that I wasn't ashamed of.  If this meant reshooting things I'd already shot, so be it.  If it meant taking pictures in the same, comfortable vein day after day, then I just rolled with it.  There are times to push yourself and there are times to acknowledge your limitations and energy. 

In the project365 group I am part of in Flickr we have seen a number of committed members drop out recently. Either they were pushing themselves to try to make an exceptional  image everyday that stood a good chance of making explore which is exhausting, or they just tired of the project and it was either to stop than go on.  In running parlance we call it 'hitting the wall', or 'bonking', or 'the bear jumping on your back'.  Somewhere around mile 18 to 21 of a marathon there's a danger that you will have the overwhelming urge to stop running; this might be because you're trying too hard, or not trying hard enough, or your not well enough prepared.  If you want to finish enough you will break through the wall and keep going - if you don't want it enough you'll either walk it in or stop and get a ride in from the sop wagon.  If you can dig deep and run it in you're a real runner no matter what your time.

A similar analogy could apply to any long term artistic endeavor.  If you want it enough and you can find the energy to keep going even when you want to stop you might learn something about yourself, your talent, your limitations and your strengths.  There are mental tricks runners can employ to break through the wall; you try to divert yourself.  Instead of counting steps, watching out for mile markers and all the mental arithmetic that goes into working out if you can still make your target time you can sing songs in your head that match the tempo of your steps.  You can lift up your head and look around yourself instead of looking inside and down at your feet. You can talk to your peers around you.  Before you know it mile 21 is behind you and the finish line is achievable again.

While my muse was MIA I picked up a guitar for the first time in forever and tried to learn something new.  I sat down with the books of photographers who I love.  I went to the movies.  I talked to other photographers about, what else?, photography. My muse didn't come running back, banging on the door begging me to take her back but I can feel her in the house again. Artistically speaking, I'm not going to qualify for Boston but I will run it in.

I started a new photography class with an old teacher last week.  Going into it I knew that he thinks digital is best suited to commercial work while film is the medium of art but I thought I'd be able to win him over.  However, in the first lesson he tricked me somehow into promising to shoot at least one roll of 35mm and one medium format this week. 'No problem', I thought, 'I shot film for years.  Going back can't be that hard can it?' It turns out it is that simple and that hard.

Digging my old Olympus gear out of the closet  and dusting it off filled me with a wave of nostalgia.  The OM cameras are beautiful pieces of machinery.  The Zuiko lenses are, at once both compact and solid.  My first shock to the system was how heavy all this stuff was.  I put a couple of OM bodies and most of the Zuiko lens I owned into an old school, canvas, shoulder bag and set off.  A block later I was back home dumping half of what I was carrying and puting it all into a modern backback.  The tiny, dense, Zuiko prime lenses rattled around on the huge spaces the modern bag has for modern zoom lenses but at least I was getting some feeling back into my left shoulder. 

In use, I kept forgetting that I had to wind on manually so I pressed the shutter many times only to wonder why nothing happened. More than once I looked  at the back of many OM2 spot/program to review the last shot I had taken, only to be greeted by the TriX film box reminder.  I'd forgotten how to focus manually so I was winding my lenses all over the place.  The biggest change, however, was how aware I was that each shot had a financial implication so I was overly careful and ponderous.  It took me 2 hours to shoot one roll of 36 exposures.

If I thought the 35mm SLR was slow I was in for a shock when I took the an old TLR out the next day.  Loading, winding on, focusing, setting the exposure were all slow but framing took forever.  Up and down are alright, but left and right bounced from a mirror get reversed.  Try to manipulate an object, level and into a specific place in the frame was ponderous and frustrating, like the worse hand held video game you've ever played.  I'm beginning to remember why I use to shoot this thing mounted on a 3-way tripod head 90% of the time; at least on the tripod you can deal with one axis at a time.

On the upside, there's something about an all metal, all manual camera that makes you fell like a real photographer.  The shutters make the most wonderful noises.  Feeling that each frame is precious slows me down from my more usual habit of taking 3 frames before I even think about what I'm doing. I'm excited about picking up my shots from the lab in a way I rarely am about putting a compact flash card in my computer.  Of course, I could be in for a huge disappointment but at least I tried to do my assignment.

Most despised lens on the planet or what?

Does anyone have a good word for the kit lens that comes with the digital rebel? It is pretty hard to find anyone on the web willing to stand up for this bargain under-dog but let me throw my hat in the ring and say that I don't think it's as bad as everyone makes out. 

True, it is light and insubstantial when you pick it up - I don't think there's more than an ounce of metal in it's make up and most of what's there is in the electronics.  The lens' mount itself is even plastic which is often a bad sign.  It is cheap and it feels cheap ($100 or free with your first DSLR).  Being free makes it common and I think this is the 18-55mm lens' biggest problem. Just about everyone who has a Canon DSLR has, or has had, a copy of the 18-55mm kit lens.  It's as common as muck. It carries no prestige what-so-ever. L-snobs consider it worthless; enthusiasts think it a badge of inadequates; even beginners see it only as a stop-gap until they can afford something decent and this last view may be the most accurate.

Just about every review I've read of the digital rebels has said something along the lines of, "nice camera let down by the cheap kit lens". It is repeated so often by reviewers and forum pundits that we start to believe its bad press without questioning it. This bad rap is so unanimous among such places as Amazon's comments that I wonder how many of these photographers have really tried this lens and how many just blindly believe and repeat the hype.  It's too easy to just blame your equipment for your horrible pictures but take a minute to dig that old kit lens out of the back of your closet and give it another try.

I've already admitted that its build quality is lightweight and plastic but that can be an advantage - after the equally cheap, but much less maligned 50mm f1.8, the 18-55mm paired with a 400D makes for one of the lightest, most compact camera/lens DSLR combinations available.  You give up a full time focusing ring, focus scale etc. but it is so cheap you don't have to worry about taking it anywhere - it's so light it will go in a jacket pocket and you will forget you're carrying it.  It's range is not exotic but it is very useful (29-88mm in 35mm terms) which covers a large part of the range you need for walkabout, landscape, architectural and portrait photography.

As for image quality, I won't pretend that this is the sharpest lens Canon has ever produced but it is not as bad as some reviews would have you believe.  Wide open it is soft, especially at the edges but if you learn to work with this lens' limitations it will reward you with decent images.  Avoid shooting wide open so stop down to the middle of the lens' range whenever possible.  If this means hiking up the ISO a bit higher than you are usually comfortable with, then just do it and deal with the noise later in post-processing.  Use a lens hood whenever possible.  If the thought of spending $25 on a propriety hood for a $100 lens makes you wince then just use a cheap generic rubber hood you have lying around from your old film equipment.

If you can afford the 17-40mm f4 L or the 17-85mm EF-S IS is in your budget then, by all means buy, and use, those better lenses.  I'm not going to try to tell you that the 18-55mm kit lens is as good as either of those more expensive lenses but don't discount it as trash either.  If you need something reasonably wide don't forget about your kit lens gathering dust. I wouldn't recommend the kit lens as your main or only lens in the long term but don't believe everything you read on the interweb - the kit lens is just not that awful.  

Reviews

• Bob Atkins on Photonet - much of the time it can hold it's own against Canon's full frame coverage mid-range consumer lenses, especially in the center of the frame
• The Digital Picture
• The Luminous Landscape - Of course everyone wants to know what the image quality is like. In three words — not that great.
• Photozone - serious users looking for a good quality lens should save a little more and look elsewhere.

Pictures

• Flickr 18-55mm Kit lens group

I'm hoping that we can all soon put the whole recent mess with JPG magazine behind us.  The incident, apart from making me feel incredibly sad, got me thinking about the pros and cons of community publishing. This internal debate that was also fueled by recent podcasts I listened to from Switzerland related to the "We're all photographers now" exhibition; one from a panel that included Derek, and the other an interview with a personal hero, Martin Parr.

Let's get the pros out of the way; blurring the lines between consumer and content creator is a great new model that could help to rejuvenate staid print media.  You have a built in subscription base because, of course you're going to buy a magazine you are trying to, or you think you have a real chance of getting published in.  From a publisher's perspective (not JPG's I hope, but you can bet other publishers are thinking about this) you don't have to employ or commission expensive content creators and you get valuable content for fractions of pennies on the dollar.  The community even saves your editors valuable time by voting on which items submitted for consideration should go immediately into the slush pile and which should really be considered - more on this later.

But there are downsides and here I am specifically speaking as an art photography fanboy.  I have no real interest in stock, fashion or commercial photography, a passing interest in documentary work but my real passion is art photography. If you don't know the players in the American art photography publishing field there is one giant that is largely unchallenged; Aperture.  I love Aperture but a monopoly is not healthy in either commerce or art, but lets leave commerce behind and concentrate on art.  They need to be challenged because they have largely isolated themselves in their designer ivory tower.  They, along with a few museum and gallery curators, decide what is of value - I'm not talking financially valuable, although, that of course comes into it too; I'm talking about what is worth seeing, what is worth your time and what is not.

At one time I had thought the JPG might be a grass roots movement that could lead a siege against this ivory tower but I now doubt that will happen.  They (the art photography establishment) don't take us (the enthusiasts and amateurs) seriously.  Why should they when we hardly take ourselves seriously? Look at a copy of JPG side by side with a copy of Aperture; JPG is fun and beautiful to look at but it doesn't have the weight, gravitas or artistic authority of Aperture. JPG may be a better business model but Aperture defines what art photography is.  So which is more important?  Of course it depends on whether you want to make money or make art.  Being a path maker has a cost.  Being dependent on your users to determine your content means that your content is democratic, but democratic often means moderate.  Moderation in politics may be a good idea but in art it leads to mediocrity.  The crowd is intelligent but does it know anything about art?

To quote Martin Parr in the fore mentioned interview, photography is the most democratic of the arts.  Anyone can pick up a camera and if they do it is Derek's assertion, that act alone makes them a photographer.  Photography is so seemingly easy - you just push the button and the camera does the rest right?  You don't need to develop an visual vocabulary or have any knowledge of the movements or icons (images and photographers) that have defined the medium.  When the crowd defines ascetics someone with 6 months experience has the same weight as someone who has been photographing for decades.  Not that experience defined by time served is any measure of a person's eye for art, but I hope you get the point that I am trying to make.

Good, new art is rarely immediately popular.  Good art is challenging and can take work to appreciate.  In my experience the crowd may be smart but it is also often lazy.  In our sound bite obsessed, instant gratification, ADD, modern world when we stumble upon something challenging or that requires work to understand that has not been recommended to us, we pass right on to the next, easier thing.  For this reason the crowd appreciates and recommends things it can recognize as falling into a previously defined pigeon hole as 'art'.  The crowd does not take risks and so good art is easily passed over in favor of easier fare.  An art-photography editor who relies on the crowd to filter submissions, even just a first pass, will get to see good  pictures but may miss out on real art.

Grass roots, art-photography still needs a champion and, if that champion becomes the establishment, it will need another champion and so on, and so forth. JPG could still be that champion but it is my assertion that it won't happen until it relies less on the crowd and pursues more edgy, less safe work.  The art-photography world needs a new forceful, visionary personality to harness the new revolution and revival of interest in photography.  It needs a new Stieglitz.  It needs a new secession - secession 2.0.

... of course, as I'm ancient and out of touch I'm probably the last person in the universe to have seen it:

As a longtime photoblogger, flickrite, unpublished contributor and subscriber to JPG magazine with a blog or two to my name it is inevitable that I would have to write something about the past couple of days isn't it? In the online circles that I move in the coup at JPG magazine is huge news.

For those that don't know, JPG magazine is a photography magazine founded, and originally run by the dynamic husband and wife duo, Heather and Derek. For the first four issues they ran it as a print-on-demand cottage-industry and established an enthusiastic community which blurred the distinction between consumer and content creator. Then Derek co-founded 8020 publishing with Paul and JPG became even more successful as a more mainstream publication. According to Derek, Paul, wearing the CEO hat, decide to disassociate the new JPG from it's more humble beginnings and remove Heather from the masthead in the process.  Personally I don't understand why 8020 would want to do this or what it could possibly achieve but I do understand that Derek could not remain and work in this environment. 

All this is well documented on the web now and so my regurgitating events adds nothing interesting to the debate.  What is interesting is the reaction of the enthusiast photographer community on the web.  Let's prefix this with the following facts;

• Derek still holds a stake in 8020
• If JPG suffers as a result of any retaliation by Derek's supporters, Derek suffers as much as anyone else.

Derek very matter-of-factly documented what was going on and while obviously saddened by events, asked his friends to keep supporting JPG.  However, Derek has been the public face of JPG for a long time and many fans of the magazine were angry by what transpired.  It seems that they are angry for two different but related and justifiable reasons;

• Derek and Heather's treatment
  
• Paul's perceived manipulation of the truth/history.

The web is like a 24 hour news network but not in a good way and much worse. Something happens and we are privy to precious few facts but the pundits get on their soap boxes and make knowledgeable, loud noises that start to drown out the facts. It was predicable what happened next; the indignatious stirred up each others emotions and declared that they could no longer be associated with JPG magazine.  They deleted their accounts and left a public declaration of their departures. Now, as someone who has submitted to all 10 issues of JPG and has yet to be published you'd think I'd be happy that some of the competition is leaving the game, however, I've met Derek a couple of times and he's a really nice guy so I want to show my support for him somehow.  Do I do this by doing what Derek asked us not to do and delete my account at JPG? What would that achieve?

Derek and Heather are talented movers and shakers who will undoubtly succeed elsewhere.  They should be proud of proving to the tech world at large that print publications are still viable. They have invented a new model of publication.  When the consumers of a publication are also its content creators they feel as if they have a lot invested themselves in the magazine which is the both the strength and weakness of the model.  I hope that JPG continues to succeed despite this bump in the road - I know that Derek and Heather will.

Postscript: In an interesting turn, Paul's wife defends him - coming up, my Mom tells my manager why my I deserve a great raise.

PPS: No one is looking good as a result of this; not the protagonists, not the staff of 8020, not us pundits, nor the JPG user community.  It's all a big, horrible, sad mess:

• Paul breaks his silence
• Derek says more
• Another 8020 employee voices his opinion.
  

Here you find me at mile 7 of my Picture a Day documented as a marathon - I break through the magic 100th picture: