Originally published in Speak Magazine, Spring 1997

Twenty-Five and Under/ Photographers SPEAK OUT

Society is concerned to tame the photograph , to temper the madness which keeps threatening to explode in the face of whoever looks at it...

      Roland Barthes Camera Lucida

Something - nothing - natural - unnatural - black - white - color - red - posed - set-up - immediate - urgency - anger - cool - beauty - pop - love - disgust - sets - stairs - searching - becoming

These words capture the essence of the work of twenty five photographers under 25 years old in the recently published book Twenty-Five and Under/Photographers edited by Alice Rose George. She selects twenty-five photographers with the criteria being making good work, working in the United States, and being under twenty-five. This premise seems as interesting as any, generating a varied and informative visual guide to generation X. In the preface, George writes that these photographers inhabit the land between just starting and "professional". The idea of who or what constitutes a professional is an interesting debate that warrants attention.

As I wanted to hear what some of the selected photographers had to say on the subject of professionalism, I asked Michael Lewis and Ken Fandell what they thought about being labeled young photographers somewhere between just starting and professional; whether they thought of themselves as professionals, and what they thought professional means. Fandell believes that professionals have a style of photographs that they make and that they are serious to the extent that photography is what they do. He notes that many of the people in this book may still be in college and toying around with photography and will wind up being investment bankers "or something". On being called a professional, for Fandell..." it's too hard to make a distinction. - I don’t call myself a professional in anything and I’ve been taking photographs since I was twelve or thirteen. I don't do that much photography anymore. I still make alot of art but it's too great a leap to consider myself a professional."

Lewis thought that this "damn good question" was extremely applicable to him at this point. First he inquired, professional what? professional artist? professional photographer? He believes most of the world would equate professional with commercial photographer. He questions the definition of professional, believing it’s different for everybody. His definition of professional is, if that is how you make your living, then you are a professional. On being a professional, Lewis states, ..."I choose to do some commercial work. A lot of my friends refuse to do that. I don't understand why, I mean, it's better than working at a cafe."

The work of the photographers in the book is a mixed bag. Much of the work looks extremely posed, literally screaming, "I’m posed, I’m posed," or the work is so unposed it screams, "real life, a real glimpse into my reality." They take it to an extreme - either extremely empty of information or extremely full of clues to its intention. Either way, these young artists resolutely manufacture the substance of their images.

I asked Lewis and Fandell whether they thought they were creating their own reality in their work.

Lewis replied that when he is forced to answer a question like this, he notices that the thing that is pressed is reality. He states that his photographs are obviously staged and that there is no question, there is no game, the idea of reality is not an issue. He says, "Growing up my age, I knew photography wasn't really a glimpse into anything real. For me it was easier to just set the damn things up then to go to a bar and sit there in a corner and try to catch these scenes. It's real to me." Fandell believes the strength of this book is all the rejection of documentary ideas of photography. "Even when they are documents, they are willing to admit that it's a fiction, that it's not hard fact.. The more powerful stuff in the book has a subtlety that is typical of documentary style, but at the same time is willing to admit that they are there changing it. It is still centered around themselves, it's not centered around the world around them, it's turned inward."

The photographers in this book, perhaps due to their youth, have a sense of immediacy. They purposefully photograph their immediate environment, either set-up or "candid-ly". The photographs appear as if they could be snapshots, but they are not. The images are carefully formatted and cropped -looking less street, and more fine finish. A major tenet of Art 101 is work with what you know. These artists adopt that adage, examining and questioning the visual beliefs and attitudes that comprise their worlds. They come out of a long photographic history - Diane Arbus, Weegee, Robert Frank, Dorothea Lange and more recently, Larry Clark, Nan Goldin, William Wegman, Sally Mann, Larry Sultan, and of course, Cindy Sherman. These artists know everything has been photographed so they shoot what they want, creating their own authenticity.

I asked Lewis and Fandell where it all comes from? Where they got and currently get their inspirations, - who were/are their heroes, and who/what has influenced their ability to create their own reality.

For Fandell, it changes constantly, and the people who were really important at one point do not remain that important. When he started doing photography, he really liked high modernist photography like Minor White, Aaron Siskind and Harry Callahan. "1950's modernist- that was the shit." He says his influences seem to follow a photo-history timeline. Right after the modernists, he became enamored of 60’s and 70's late modernist photography..." like the Beckers with their topologies and the same image over and over and for awhile I was really mired in that way of thinking." After that, he became interested in post-modernism. "The post-modern photographers that influenced me weren't the biggest ones. They were people like Kauciyla Brooke. She did a lot of stuff with comic books, popular culture things, laying out her images in comic book format but with an underlying lesbian theme." Other influences included Gilbert and George. "Looking at them and seeing how much pop culture inspired them made me watch MTV a lot more. I watched a lot but it made me admit it and be proud that I watched it a lot.. I watched sports, and I watched the commercials - I went from the idea of a serious art professional to admitting I'm just a schmuck who watches MTV and loves sports. That switch allowed humor to come into my work as well as being able to mock myself, and comment about culture around me."

Lewis stated that his inspirations and his influences are two very different things and that he puts a lot more weight on his inspirations. He started off doing street photography, "the typical discovering the world with your 35mm" but one morning he walked out of his apartment and just couldn't do it anymore. He goes on to say that of course, he’s seen Cindy Sherman and that stylistically they are similar as they both set their picture’s up, but they "are not dealing with the same issues". Eileen Cowin is a big influence for Lewis. "She did highly staged family kind of issues. I liked her work a lot, but whatever, to me it's not that important.. REM [pointing at stereo] is more an inspiration than Eileen Cowin has ever been, Bob Dylan is more an inspiration than any photographer has ever been. Martin Scorcese's films have inspired me more than anything."

hot - color - turned up - NOT SUBTLE - documentary, theatrical, beautiful, ugly, open, closed, chilling, warm, empty, full, nothing, something

Barthes believes there are two choices in photography - taming the photograph or allowing the photograph to wallow in madness. He believes the viewer decides to either "subject its spectacle to the civilized code of perfect illusions, or to confront in it the wakening of intractable reality". Roland Barthes Camera Lucida

These MTV generation photographers manipulate their own artificially constructed powerfully banal ravings, allowing the viewer to catch a glimmer of their fabricated truths and fictions and to decide for him or herself what that reality really is.