Retouching, like polaroid, is in the the air. There's an illuminating profile by Lauren Collins of famed retoucher Pascal Dangin in the current New Yorker; Dangin is the owner of Box Studios and works with all the big names in fashion editorial: Vanity Fair, W, Harper's Bazaar, Allure, French Vogue, Italian Vogue, V, and the Times Magazine. Not to mention a laundry list of a-list photographers, including Annie Leibovitz, Steven Meisel, Craig McDean, Mario Sorrenti, Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin, and Philip-Lorca diCorcia.
This seemed fairly straight-ahead; interesting, but known, right? Obviously everything is retouched these days. But this paragraph gave me pause:
"The walls of the third-floor meeting room at Dangin's headquarters, on West Fourteenth Street, hold magnets in the manner of a refrigerator door. One afternoon in November, grease pencils, in the colors of the rainbow, were stuck, by magnets, to one wall. Nearby, several of Dangin's assistants were hanging a blueprint--a scaled rendition of the Petit Palais museum, in Paris, where, in September, Patrick Demarchelier will have a retrospective. Dangin was designing the exhibit, from the pictures (many of which he would retouch) and their frames down to the traffic-flow patterns of the museumgoers who would look at them. Dangin would do all of the printing. He was also publishing a companion monograph."
I didn't quite realize that retouchers were being used to such an extent in the fine art world, for gallery and museum exhibits. I thought the digital c-print was the new frontier; I suppose I've been naive. How much of this fine art imagery is the product of Dangin? The great PL diCorcia is quoted in the article:
- "'Pascal is no longer on pimple patrol,' Philip-Lorca diCorcia told me. 'He has lots of well-trained pimple removers. He's kind of free to hold
the hand of his many temperamental photographers.' People hire Dangin, in the broadest sense, for the assurance that
behind every abstruse technical step there will be an artistic
intention. 'Technology is in many respects mechanical, but somebody's
got to run the machine,' diCorcia said. "And even with a program that
comes on a disk there are a lot of subtleties. Pascal is tireless in
exploiting all the capabilities of the technology and even possibly
creating some new capabilities.' "
Ofer, at Horses Think, has interesting commentary about his interaction with Dangin creations in the art world, when he went to see a Guy Bourdin exhibition at Pace MacGill a few years back:
- "From what I could gather, there was quite a bit of work to do in
order to get the colors to pop the way Bourdin meant them to. I'm not
sure about what went into scanning and printing them but you could tell
that someone worked extremely hard to make them as gorgeous and
meticulous as they were.
For comparison, see the current Marvin E. Newman exhibition at Silverstein Gallery consisting of recently printed Inkjet prints of vintage chromes. While I admire Mr. Newman for dedicating himself to the newest in print technology (I was told he made the prints himself), I really wish he could have worked with someone more experienced on them. Not all the pictures are lacking but a whole bunch (even visible in the Jpgs online) seem to be flat with little color and no real blacks. I'm easily disappointed especially when I'm expecting images to just pop off the page."
Are some fine art images that we consider "straight" actually really manipulated? What about my favorite diCorcia Head? How can those of us making c-prints in the darkroom compete?
Philip-Lorca diCorcia, Head #7, 2000
Fujicolor Crystal Archive print on Plexiglas
Fujicolor Crystal Archive print on Plexiglas
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Illuminating? If you live under a rock maybe. Pascal is good, but really good at the hype and getting people to really think he's the shit. Most ad agencies dislike working with him. He takes little direction, if any. It's his way or the highway. He works with top name photographers no doubt. He has sold them. They trust him to make things look as good as they can. But, it doesn't mean that any number of talented shops and/or retouchers won't do the same thing. Most important, the photographers, mostly editorial, don't want to deal with it and/or have the time.
Pascal is more than excellent at "image" less at imaging.
The New Yorker piece was just as fluffy as any piece of late on Pascal or Box. I was disappointed.
In regards to retouching in the fine art world - bottom line, like any art, the artist wants it to look as good as it can. Everything is and always has been manipulated, now it's easier and you can do more is all.
I totally agree. As someone in the retouching industry, most AD's hate working with Box, and many are looking to jump ship. If I had famous photographer friends, they'd be keeping me busy too.
"Are some fine art images that we consider "straight" actually really manipulated? What about my favorite diCorcia Head? How can those of us making c-prints in the darkroom compete?"
Yes. There is no "straight". Plenty of people do not manipulate their photos outside of developing and printing. There is no competition. That's like saying "I use watercolor as my medium in painting. How can I compete with Oils? Silly.
not sure i agree that watercolor v. oil is akin to c-print v. highly manipulated digital c.
Are you saying that the c-print is not manipulated? Assuming yes, it's untrue. Is the digital c capable of perhaps more manipulation? Sure, due only to the technology. Doesn't make one better than the other. Photographers shooting film have film choice, processing methods (chemistry, time, temp, etc), paper choices (fibre, glossy, RC, etc) and printing (color, dodge, burn, masking). It's all the same.
Photography, since its inception has been manipulated. There is no "true" It's not a record of reality or not. It is photography.
A painting is a painting, no matter what the media used to execute it. Different medias or tools to achieve the same end product do not compete.