Exhibition and Conference «Photos08»

Author of this article near the banner of the Exhibition and Conference «Photos08»

The leading Swiss magazine «L'illustré» and «International Committee of the Red Cross» organized on June 27, 2008, in Geneva the exhibition and conference «Photos08». The programme consisted of two parts. In the first part there were two round table discussions. The theme of the first round table was «The Commerce on Tears», on the role of photography in the work of humanitarian organizations. The second round table was on the theme «People, the goods in a display case», photos of celebrities.

Debates are on the way. The clash of opinions of artists, lawyers, politicians, and thinkers

In addition to photographers this debate was attended by scientists from University of Lausanne, editor of French illustrated magazine «Le Closer», the director of the Vevey Museum of Photo Cameras, representatives of the Lausanne Museum for Photography «Musée de l'Elysée», etc. A complete list of participants can be viewed at the official programme page.

After debates, at 20:30, began the second part of the program: showing photographs on a giant screen. This display of photographs consisted of 3 parts by 45 minutes each. During the first part the photos from the past years (1898 - 1945) were projected on the gigantic screen. The organizers did much work of selecting, sorting, and digitizing photos from old European magazines.

The stair on this classical photo has got into the cadre by chance. It was forgotten by a maintenance worker in the studio

The second part of the show was conducted by the acclaimed Swiss photographer, Jean-Marie Périer. He demonstrated his photos from the epoch of 60s and 70s when he worked as an official photographer for The Beatles and Rolling Stones. I recall how at those years it seemed as if nearly gods were making all the album covers; and here a good-natured grey haired man was explaining how he did make all these photos. His bosses from the recording studio put one condition for him: Jean's parents should not like the produced photos. Sixties...

The jury announces a winner of the competition

The third part of the show consisted of the images produced by ten modern photographers. The jury then announced the winner among these ten, and the prise of 15,000 Swiss francs was granted to him.

However the goal of this article is not in providing a complete report of the venue, but to systematize and share ideas, which I heard from leading world photographers, editors of the illustrated magazines, which are being purchased my millions of customers to view the photos.

And so, here are the ideas and thoughts, which I registered for my daily work:

Camille de Roffignac, the editor in chief of the Parisian magazine «Le Closer»

- a photograph is never without a frame or a legend text. Even if there is no frame or no legend, the hall, where demonstration is going on, or a website takes these roles of frame and legend. So the photo always has got a frame and a legend.

- every image has a goal. In addition to the obvious official goal there is a hidden goal, or goals. For example, a photographer, who is working at the planet's hot spot may not only fulfil the task of a newsroom to inform readers and viewers objectively about unfolding events, he or she may be also trying to win one of the artistic competitions. The conflict of the obvious and hidden goals can cause a skewing of the reality: negative aspects of the situation could be strengthened, people could be shown as passive victims, not taking any efforts to exit the situation.

- high quality of an image is not always a positive factor. The quality of picture of the modern cameras is so high that even in a complicated situation of, say, military conflict, or shooting celebrities from a distance, the quality is most often ideal. Sometimes photographers intentionally worsen the quality, adding effects of movement, of vibration blur, simulating by this would-be complicated conditions of shooting.

Quartet The Beatles is lightening. In some situations nowadays this photo can be banned from being published due to legal reasons

- value and quality of images are subjective. The photo on the left shows how the members of the musical group The Beatles lighten cigarettes. For a long time this photo used to be considered as a great one. Not any more, when the harms of smoking became too obvious.

- from the moment when the television was invented, the photography has been in a permanent crisis. The photography does not tell stories any more; TV tells them. The art of imaging is to reinvent itself constantly. The photographer Luc Chessex said during the round table discussion: "Today we take pictures not as yesterday, tomorrow we will take pictures not as today."

- there has been no principle innovations in photography for a long time already. Even though we constantly hear about cameras with larger and larger number of pixels, about new digital effects and filters, the format of the image file, JPG, did not change for almost 20 years. Stereo 3-d photography develops slowly. For viewing stereo-photos one still needs to wear special glasses, what makes this technology unacceptable to the mass market. Liquid-crystal lenses keep remaining in the laboratories. Cameras are still using the same lenses as decades ago.

- the art of photography provides an answer to the crisis of ideology. People of Earth do not trust an ideology any more. But they do trust visible touchable items: people, things, goods, buildings, etc. In this respect the photography has the right of existence. Someone brought into the discussion the citation of an editor of «Vanity Fair» magazine, the words, which he told his photographers: "I am not interested in issues, I am interested in people".

- a person behind the camera is not only an artist, but also a propagandist, as every image can have several readings. I noticed that academics took part in the conference; scientists with high titles working in such fields of science as Sociology of Images (Gianni Haver, sociologue de l’image et professeurà l’Universite de Lausanne ), History of Culture and Media (François Vallotton, professeur d’histoire de la culture et des médias à l’Université de Lausanne). Probably it means that the role or roles of images are so serious and not completely understood, that even the science is interested in these problems.

A.V.

Several photos from the event: