That's true for everything, pretty much.

Quote from: BaldricksTrousers on February 25, 2015, 07:19

As someone who hasn't heard of him, I am being serious. I had a look at his work and what I saw could have been taken by any Tom Dick or Harry.

No it couldn't. He absolutely forged new ground both stylistically and in terms of the subject matter and technical approach.

Quote from: BaldricksTrousers on February 25, 2015, 07:19

But perhaps Martin Parr is mostly famous in the UK

The word 'fame' is not especially appropriate in this context IMO. This is not Disney or the X - Factor. Suffice to say that Martin Parr is very well known internationally* - in the world of reportage and in terms of intelligent photography in general. He belongs to a lineage of photographers which would also include all of Magnum - but also gallery photographers back through William Eggleston,  Lee Freidlander etc. Straight out of and directly back to The Family of Man tradition IMO.

* eg his work is included in the permanent collection at MOMA

Well, I've googled to try to find out what's so different and innovative and so far all I've found is that he reckons you should get close to your subject for street photography... I'm not sure when that was innovative.  Until I find something more persuasive I'll stick with the idea that he's probably succeeded largely through contacts and marketing and self-promotion, as so many have done, and you can stick with the idea that I'm a cultural philistine, if you like.
Throwing in Moma and Magnum is really just an "argument from authority", which suggests we should not have our own opinions but should slavishly swallow what some establishment expert has decreed. I'd rather have my own views on artistic merit, even if they seem ridiculous or naive to others.

I can go along with important historical records, and - fair enough if he was trying different materials (though surely 120 B&W was standard for reporting in the 50s, 60s and 70s - not colour, of course, because the printing methods for news couldn't cope and development took longer; as late as the 80s I was having to send colour material out to a specialist shop to get separations made for a local newspaper and it wasn't until the mid to late 90s that colour started to be standard for many pages in daily newspapers, as computers allowed direct printing of full colour page negatives - and advertisers were willing to pay for colour).

it wasn't until the mid to late 90s that colour started to be standard for many pages in daily newspapers

It was the weekend magazines which took over the tradition of the picture story (from Life, Picture Post etc). And the British and US newspapers had color pictures stories in the Sunday magazines at least as far back as the mid 60s. Eg - famously - Cartier Bresson's pictures of Eton, Tim Page in Vietnam etc in the Sunday Times.

About Parr part, it's an art, he's an artist. We can't deny it. Someone likes it, someone doesn't. But, you can't understand it just by taking it to pieces (color film, flash light etc). It doesn't work that way.

Scam? Hardly. He's just applying traditional sales and marketing methods to art. Scarcity, urgency, and luxury branding rather than bottom dollar commodity. And he does have some nice work but arguably may not be much nicer than some work being sold for $1 in micro.

He's clearly a businessperson first and artist distant second. Which goes to show that with art it may not be the art itself that dictates the price but how much sales and marketing hype creates interest and perceived value.

sure, but promising his buyers that the prints will be worth 100x times more is indeed scammy, it's just a matter of time before they hit him with a big fat lawsuit and his reputation goes down the drain ... he knows that but at this point he's filthy rich and doesn't care, worst scenario he's going back to OZ and live like a king.

Oops...Probably shouldn't have brought Martin Parr into the mix. Never mind....I'm also a fan of William Eggleston, Nan Golding, Stephen Shore, Bruce Davidson (see pic below), Lise Sarfati, Alec Soth, Daido Moriyama.......

My favorite photograph of all time:

well said Pauliewalnuts!!!  that goes with all forms of (art)... music, painting, etc
from the toilet bowl to the meat and stripes on the wall they call art
to the crapola that packs in stadiums...
and that is more or less our problem in most case when you are not making enough to survive as an (artist).
then again, you could also have a good businessman to run your show
and still get scr*wed...
ask the piano man Billy Joel !!! he'll tell you all about it.

it's the natural consequence of selling art as a product, of course someone will stick a price on it and scr-ew the artists .. actually the artist in this scenario just becomes a "supplier", as if we were talking of selling trucks of beef or potatoes, no wonder the whole industry is a joke and totally stacked against the interests of the artists and the buyers.

the only reason there's an Art industry is that artists have no way to "sell direct" in most of the cases, i mean in 99% of the cases probably, of course a few rich and famous creatives could try unhorthodox ways to profit from their work but it's the exception to the rule.

Quote from: Sean Locke Photography on February 24, 2015, 12:02

Hey, if he asks an amount and someone pays it, I don't see how it's fraud.  The price is what it is, for what it is.

I totally agree. I can't help but admire anyone who can make a very descent living in a world where thousands are clawing each other's entrails out to sell their work for 22 cents a pop. That's the real scam.

i award you for the best comment to date on this topic. in a business where everything is subective
from music to art to photography to garbage and vice versa
it is worth repeating
admire anyone who can make a very descent living in a world where thousands are clawing each other's entrails out to sell their work for 22 cents a pop. That's the real scam.

Art may have been excluded from embellished sales practices so it's a surprise to see someone applying it to art.

You must be on a different planet!  Unmade beds and rotting sheep worth the price of a house? An entire industry where everything is valued not on how good it is but on who made it? An industry where success or failure depends on whether you have friends in the establishment who will publicly swoon over what you produce? An industry where one "expert opinion" can change the value of an object from $100 to $1,000,000. And that's leaving out watercolour societies that can't tell the difference between an injet print and a "hyperrealistic" painting, or where everybody is copying LS Lowry and putting his name on the bottom and even more people are copying your photos and mine to sell on the same microstock sites?
The whole art industry is about deceiving people into thinking things that have little intrinsic worth or merit are worth a fortune. But it's not usually the person who creates them who creams off the cash, so good luck to those that do.
Look at Banksy, setting up a stall in NYC and offering original, signed prints to the sophisticated New Yorkers passing by for a few dozen dollars. Scarcely any of them could see enough merit in his work to be bothered to buy it but I bet a good many of them would kill to have one of his works on their wall. Everything in art is illusion and trickery.

Quote from: PaulieWalnuts on February 28, 2015, 17:32

Art may have been excluded from embellished sales practices so it's a surprise to see someone applying it to art.

You must be on a different planet!  Unmade beds and rotting sheep worth the price of a house? An entire industry where everything is valued not on how good it is but on who made it? An industry where success or failure depends on whether you have friends in the establishment who will publicly swoon over what you produce? An industry where one "expert opinion" can change the value of an object from $100 to $1,000,000. And that's leaving out watercolour societies that can't tell the difference between an injet print and a "hyperrealistic" painting, or where everybody is copying LS Lowry and putting his name on the bottom and even more people are copying your photos and mine to sell on the same microstock sites?
The whole art industry is about deceiving people into thinking things that have little intrinsic worth or merit are worth a fortune. But it's not usually the person who creates them who creams off the cash, so good luck to those that do.
Look at Banksy, setting up a stall in NYC and offering original, signed prints to the sophisticated New Yorkers passing by for a few dozen dollars. Scarcely any of them could see enough merit in his work to be bothered to buy it but I bet a good many of them would kill to have one of his works on their wall. Everything in art is illusion and trickery.

I think we're saying the same thing.

My point was if the person I quoted wanted to call Lik a fraud, then business in general is fraud and art is no different. I think the sales tactics are a bit different but Peter Lik is bringing mainstream sales tactics to art. Maybe my "Not that an art gallery would ever lie to anyone" didn't come across as sarcasm.

Reminds me of a "conversation" with my other half who recently blew �50 on candles - went something like this:

Me: It's a f______ candle!
Her: No. These are limited editions.
Me: I could have bought 500 candles for �50!!!
Her: These smell nice. I've got Shea Butter, Jelly Bean, Aloe Water.....
Me: They smell the same as all your other candles and they smell like toilet cleaner!!!
Her: I don't care they were in the sale........along with these shoes.
Me: (insert sound effect of man gasping for air)

To be fair we have similar conversations about the money I "waste" on photography books.