Camera phones bring photography to India

Stuart Henshall makes an interesting observation about camera-phone photography in India.

"So you have a camera phone and you don't use it.... you are western and probably had access to camera for years. For most of your life you have been recorded, snapped, super8ed, videoed etc. There's societal rules about cameras and implied rules about camera phones. Your conclusions may be all wrong.

"Now imagine a world where no one growing up had a camera. Where photos were taken at a wedding, relegated to studio shots for the rich, or Bollywood snaps appearing in the press. In a gross generalization, photography in India was 50 or 60 years behind the rest of the world until the mobile phone arrived.

"Camera phones will impact society differently here. There was no progression from a camera. The mobile phone for many, is their first camera. They never learned to shoot with film or the constraints and expense of film. They never looked through a viewfinder. Photography for them starts on a device that is better at shorter distances. They are learning photography in a digital age. As a result India is about to experience an outpouring of imagery."

(I am excerpting; the full article is worth a read.)

This notion could, of course, be extended to any society leapfrogging to cheap digital technology -- the old rules don't apply, so we will see interesting new art, techniques, methods as a result.

I just started reading Henshall's blog today... found it through Dina Mehta.

Posted by Allan Jenkins at 08:40pm in Art, Citizen Journalism | Permalink | Comments Welcome! (2)

Certain to Irritate: What Good Are The Arts? by John Carey

"What good are the arts?" asks John Carey.

David Lodge reviews John Carey in the Sunday Times Online:

"Regular readers will know that John Carey is that rare creature, an academic who writes shrewdly, wittily and economically on a wide range of subjects in a style that non-specialists can understand and appreciate. There is a principle, central to the British tradition of philosophical discourse, known as Occam’s Razor, which forbids the unnecessary multiplication of facts. Carey’s favourite argumentative tool is more like a machete...."

Carey's book machetes, among others, the myth that appreciation of art is somehow ennobling.

Posted by Allan Jenkins at 08:53am in Art, Books, Society, Writing I Enjoy | Permalink | Comments Welcome! (0) | TrackBack (0)

When Google Page Rankings Go Amok

For a week or so now, I've noticed 15 to 30 readers a day coming by Desirable Roasted Coffee looking for information about John Constable's glorious painting "Hampstead Heath". Puzzling, because Desirable Roasted Coffee is the last place to come looking for English Romantic landscapes.

However, I did post a brief aside months ago about John Ruskin and J.M.W. Turner, in which I linked to Constable's painting. Not having time to look into my new readership, I assumed someone else referenced it in a blog or a website. Odd, but ok! These things happen.

Today, however, I had more time to investigate. I found a Google Images search for "Constable Hampstead Heath" brings up 28 results, the first of which directly links to Desirable Roasted Coffee. But, and here's the odd thing, it doesn't even link to the Ruskin-Turner story (which, anyway, didn't show the image; it only linked to it). I'm not going to make things worse by linking to it here, but try it for yourself.

If any reader can explain this, feel free to comment.

Posted by Allan Jenkins at 05:11pm in Art, Bizarre & Unexpected | Permalink | Comments Welcome! (0) | TrackBack (0)

Ruskin Didn't Burn Turner's Erotic Paintings After All

I can think of few better ways to spend an afternoon in London than enjoying the art of Turner and Constable. Their discipline, imagination, and invention leave me pretty much stupid with joy. After your first Constable, you don't go back to Rembrandt.

So I'm pleased to learn that John Ruskin, Turner's artistic executor, did not burn, as he claimed he had, Turner's erotic art. Ian Warrell of the Tate Gallery has done the research: Apparently Ruskin, while detesting the erotica, could not bring himself to destroy anything painted by Turner.

And the world is the better for it.

Full story at The Guardian.

Via Arts & Letters Daily

Posted by Allan Jenkins at 10:20am in Art, Society | Permalink | Comments Welcome! (1)