Theory: September 2007 Archives

Strictly No Photography is a photo-sharing site for photographs taken where you are not allowed to take them. From the inside of the Kremlin to Kensington palace, from art galleries to war zones. Here you can see everything you've ever wanted to see that you're not supposed to. There are pictures that range from the ordinary to the profound. Whatever the content or the quality though we think that each one stands as a little piece of art in itself, as a little expression of personal liberty.

Have had no DSL for a few days and going through a huge backlog of posts to read. Alec posted something the other day that really struck me. This quote is from Gerhard Steidl. He publishes photography books:

After printing for several years, I looked at what I’d done and was never really satisfied with myself. I thought I wasn’t talented enough and didn’t want to end up as a third rate artist in some Hicksville town and only ever look up to others better than me. I thought it would be much more exciting to work with and for those great artists…

I'm feeling this way lately. I don't take enough time to make good work and when I do shoot something that's personal, I usually end up just being incredibly angry with my output. (Though after a few days in the hard drive, things start looking better as my preconceived notion of what it should have looked like starts fading out.) But it frequently brings up Steidl's decision to just give it up.

"Here Is New York" was a communal photographic reaction to the September 11th attacks. The photographs that make up the project are being shown once again at the New York Historical Society. Edward Rothstein's review in the NY Times compares this collection of professional and amateur photos with our underlying inability to create a suitable memorial recognizing that day's events.

In describing 9/11 the word tragedy has been used again and again. But tragedy implies a drama in which flawed beings are slowly drawn into their awful fate, the consequence of their all-too-human failings. Many apparently still see 9/11 in that light.

But an attack is something else, as later events and accumulated evidence have shown. And a reluctance to see it this way, along with the continuing problems of how Islamist terror is to be countered, is one reason why six years later we are left with many memories but no real commemoration.

Here Is New York: Remembering 9/11
Through Dec 31 at the New York Historical Society
170 Central Park West, at 77th St
(212) 873-3400