The Other eBay
by Mike Johnston
The Sunday Morning Photographer — a weekly photo.net column:
Dec 28th, 2003
Good morning! I hope the Christians among you had a healthy and hearty Christmas
full of fellowship and faith, and that others are enjoying their own holidays or a few
days off.
In this time of giving and plenty, I'd like to mention a particular charity —
the De La Salle Blackfeet School, in Browning, Montana, which I learned about through
Brother Ray Bonderer, one of my newsletter subscribers. De La Salle schools feature small
classes and subsidized tuition, and work to restore pride and hope for at-risk
populations. Browning is at the heart of the Blackfeet Reservation. The school needs
donations, especially monthly pledges, even small ones — it helps them budget to have
a core of regular income to count on. If you can spare a one-time donation, or, better
yet, a monthly one, please send them to De La Salle Blackfeet, P.O. Box 1489, Browning MT
59417 USA (make checks payable to De La Salle Blackfeet). Thanks! Now on to....
The other Ebay
I like analyzing enthusiast magazines, which is a good thing, as it was part of my
profession for a time. When I took over Darkroom & Creative Camera Techniques
, for example, it seemed to me that that magazine, as its longtime editor David Alan Jay
had structured it, required that its readers own three things if they really wanted to
participate fully in the "life" of the publication: a densitometer, a spot
meter, and a view camera. Without that fundamental interest in the control of the
techniques of black-and-white large-format photography, they would perforce remain, if not
on the fringes, then at least not quite at the heart of the magazine's mission.
There are a number of fundamental ways to be a photography enthusiast. You can be an
observer, or part of the audience for the photography of your time; A.D. Coleman, for
example, one of the most consistently engaged critics of his generation, is not a
photographer himself. You can be a scholar, or interested in history. You can be a
curator, figuring out simultaneously how to utilize a collection for the benefit of your
public and how to structure for your public edifying exhibitions. You can be a typical
"snapshooter," making pictures of your family's life and travels as mementoes,
or even heirlooms. You can be a professional, making pictures at the behest and direction
of clients in return for money. You can practice some sort of professional photography as
a "second vocation," to augment your income and/or give opportunity and
direction to your photography: for instance, if you do weddings on weekends during the
summer. You can be an aficionado of something apart from photography in which photography
allows you to participate more fully: for instance, you might be a nature lover, or a
bird-watcher, or a hiker, and use photography either as an adjunct to the pursuits, or as
an excuse to do them. You can of course be interested in any number of technical areas, or
a combination of them. Camera collectors and equipment enthusiasts qualify, as well as
those who love alternative processes, or who want to be masters of one esoteric sort of
printing technique or another — platinum/palladium, for example, or dye transfer, or
hand-coloring. Maybe you have an encompassing interest in one company or marque; some
Leicaphiles and Nikonphiles would to qualify here. Maybe you like analyzing and
armchair-quarterbacking the photo industry. Maybe you like participating in online forums.
These are actually just a few of the many ways "into" the hobby.
This is one of those pictures I can just hear. Oscar Peterson's smile at the keyboard
speaks volumes about what he knows he can make the piano say, doesn't it? The photograph,
by Paul Hoeffler, is available for purchase at bluenote.com.
I don't think there's anything wrong with any of it. I personally love to learn to
detect (with my eyes, not with measurements) what lenses do. I love lenses, almost to the
level of a fetish. Why? I don't really know, but I know that it appeals to me. In any
event, for the most part, any of these idiosyncratic areas of enthusiasm are not dangerous
(war photography would be one exception), non-criminal (intrusive surveillance photography
might be an exception there), non-exploitative (making child pornography would be an
exception), and (generally, since exceptions do exist) harmless and innocent. So I say, as
long as you're not hurting anybody or doing anything immoral, go for it — do whatever
dang thing photographic you want to, however silly it might seem to "outsiders,"
and don't worry about it.
My big three
Naturally, of course, I have some ideas of my own about ways to participate in the
practice or hobby of photography.
Some of these you know about, if you've been reading this column for a while. I put a
pretty high premium on shooting skills, for instance, and I appreciate photo books. While
being a gearhead camera nut to some extent, I also tend to think of cameras as tools, not
as objets d'art . And I like black-and-white.
But if pressed to come up with basic "means of participation" that I think
are central to any advanced amateur or serious enthusiast's engagement with the art and
craft of photography — just as a densitometer was a necessity for the core readers of
David Alan Jay's D&CCT — I think I'd pick these three things:
1. Building and having a portfolio of your best work;
2. Looking at lots of work, whether in books, in museums, at galleries, online, or some
combination;
3. Collecting pictures.
Collecting?
I've just finished writing, for Black & White Photography magazine,
a three-part article on the problems and rewards of building a portfolio. The first part
was published this month. And I've consistently been an advocate of photography books
— see for instance my columns "Readings for Practicing Photographers"
(Sept. 8, 2002) and "Collecting Photography Books" (Feb. 2, 2003)
.
But we never really talk about collecting. A lot of amateur art, perhaps necessarily
(by which I mean, this is part of what keeps it "amateur"), is narcissistic:
here's what I've done; here's what camera I own; please tell how can I do it just like
that; what do you think of my work? Collecting is not very narcissistic. It's an
expression of personal taste, of course, and very satisfying as such, but absolutely
central to it is an engagement with other peoples' art and accomplishments.
Also central to it, I think, are the subjects of your own interests, obsessions, or
passions. You just can't sustain an interest in collecting something you don't truly care
about. Speaking only for myself, I'm fond of pictures of photographers. I have a few, and
I'd love to have the means to collect more. I also love jazz. I love the music, primarily,
but I also love pictures of jazz musicians. Certain pictures are burned into my brain,
like Ray de Carava's blurred picture of Coltrane playing the soprano sax, or John
Loengard's "portrait" of Louis Armstrong's scarred lips.
A bad scan of a picture from my collection: Fats Waller on the streets of Harlem,
1939. Photograph by Charles Peterson; print by me.
You may think you need to have a lot of money to collect photographs, and that's true,
but it's maybe not as serious a situation as you might think. Remember, most great
collections were put together before the market value of the constituent parts went
through the roof. What you really need is a clear idea of what you're up
to, a solid sense of what you like, and some idea of where you might start hunting.
The other eBay
Contrary to some peoples' assumptions, there are plenty of places to acquire
photographs. One of the most obvious is eBay.
I'm assuming that everybody is aware of the "Cameras & Photo" area of
eBay, in the "Computers & Electronics" section, where equipment is sold; but
are you also aware of the "other" eBay, the "Photographic
Images area, in the "Art" section? Typical for eBay, you can find anything
there from treasure to garbage — from original vintage prints of acknowledged
masterpieces to pictures clipped from old magazines, and everything in between.
Two visions of womanhood: Seller "robertbjones" offered this Mary Ellen Mark
portrait of Mother Theresa (have you ever seen a better picture of her?) on eBay at
$3,000, and got no bidders, but sold a 16x20 print of Johnny Florea's voluptuous picture
of Marilyn Monroe for $850.
There are plenty of other sources online. For one thing, many photograhers will sell
prints exhibited at their own websites, and even if they have an inflated value of their
pictures' worth, sometimes you can talk them down if you're patient. If, like me, you like
jazz, here's a source for modern prints of pictures by the great Francis Wolff. (I always loved
that particular picture of Blue Mitchell, hands woven into his trumpet but still expertly
clutching a butt.) You can get pictures from archives and even from newspapers; try The
New York Times Company
Store for hundreds of modern prints from archive negatives of every era. (Modern
prints tend to be more reasonably priced that "vintage" ones; if you insist on
vintage prints, you should buy through a reputable established dealer.) Students are
always interested in selling their work, although if they've just taken a business course
you may have to read through a seven-page contract. And of course you can get prints of
famous FSA photographs through the Library on Congress, for a song. You might as well, if
you're a taxpayer — you own them, after all.
I'm not naïve enough to think that everybody's going to rush right out and become a
photography collector. Then again, you don't have to be a collector to buy a nice print
for the wall once in a while. Think about it; try it; you might find you enjoy it.
—Mike Johnston
NEXT WEEK: Leica Leica? Leica, Leica, Leica.
NEW!!! There's now a brand spanking new Links page on my website, http://37thframe.com. Lots of photo links, plus some
idiosyncratic categories that might be new to you. You're cordially invited to have a
look.
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