The problem with community publishing - an art photography fanboy's perspective

Issue9-200

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.