Gray’s Anatomy – ‘The one man on Earth who hasn’t heard of Instagram’ – By Richard Gray
It’s happened again, another Friday is upon us, quicker than the last one, or so it seems and if you’re like us, a fan of Richard Gray’s column then this is excellent news, as we publish it, every single Friday. Over to you Richard (foreword by Joanne Carter).
"William Eggleston has been described as the world’s greatest photographer. And he has no idea what (or who) Instagram is. He revealed this and a very limited number of other things in a recent interview with an illustrious panel of photographic luminaries published in The Independent.
If you’re a fan of Eggleston’s work you might also be the sort of person who puts on one of Schoenburg’s records and has a jig around the kitchen. Or are first in the queue when your local Odeon is re-running The Sorrow and the Pity. His work isn’t what you’d call chocolate-box. His most famous photo is of a light bulb. Please. There is the tiniest suspicion that people in the world of photography daren’t say anything against him for fear of being ridiculed by their peers. Yes, I get his use of colour within the context of a fine-art photography previously dominated by black and white. Yes, I get his disdain for cliched subjects. And I guess that if you spend enough time studying something, yes, you probably get bored of those chocolate box pictures of quaint cottages or horses running on beaches. If you’re on Instagram you can relate to that right, having clocked up your 1,000th view of a backlit jumpstagram? Just as well he doesn’t know what it is.
It’s the same with those architects. I’m with Prince Charles on this one. The Trellick Tower may be a listed building but does its design perhaps have anything to do with the locals’ nickname for it, Jumpers Tower, owing to the number of people who have, yes, jumped off it? Could its brutal post-modern lines and unrelentingly concrete have something to do with those people wanting to kill themselves?
So maybe I haven’t been looking at photos enough down the years. The thing is most of Eggleston’s photos are just a bit boring to look at. Of course there’s no objective arbiter of photography (and there’s also no accounting for taste) so why do journalists call people like Eggleston the "world’s greatest"? And if he wins a prize we all know that prize organisers will usually have some self-serving reason for their decisions. So why do so many people spend so much time, devote so much energy and write so many articles about his work? Oops there’s another one".
I’m with Prince Charles – ©Richard Gray
Joanne Carter
Joanne Carter, creator of the world’s most popular mobile photography and art website— TheAppWhisperer.com— TheAppWhisperer platform has been a pivotal cyberspace for mobile artists of all abilities to learn about, to explore, to celebrate and to share mobile artworks. Joanne’s compassion, inclusivity, and humility are hallmarks in all that she does, and is particularly evident in the platform she has built. In her words, “We all have the potential to remove ourselves from the centre of any circle and to expand a sphere of compassion outward; to include everyone interested in mobile art, ensuring every artist is within reach”, she has said. Promotion of mobile artists and the art form as a primary medium in today’s art world, has become her life’s focus. She has presented lectures bolstering mobile artists and their art from as far away as the Museum of Art in Seoul, South Korea to closer to her home in the UK at Focus on Imaging. Her experience as a jurist for mobile art competitions includes: Portugal, Canada, US, S Korea, UK and Italy. And her travels pioneering the breadth of mobile art includes key events in: Frankfurt, Naples, Amalfi Coast, Paris, Brazil, London. Pioneering the world’s first mobile art online gallery - TheAppWhispererPrintSales.com has extended her reach even further, shipping from London, UK to clients in the US, Europe and The Far East to a global group of collectors looking for exclusive art to hang in their homes and offices. The online gallery specialises in prints for discerning collectors of unique, previously unseen signed limited edition art. Her journey towards becoming The App Whisperer, includes (but is not limited to) working for a paparazzi photo agency for several years and as a deputy editor for a photo print magazine. Her own freelance photographic journalistic work is also widely acclaimed. She has been published extensively both within the UK and the US in national and international titles. These include The Times, The Sunday Times, The Guardian, Popular Photography & Imaging, dpreview, NikonPro, Which? and more recently with the BBC as a Contributor, Columnist at Vogue Italia and Contributing Editor at LensCulture. Her professional photography has also been widely exhibited throughout Europe, including Italy, Portugal and the UK. She is currently writing several books, all related to mobile art and is always open to requests for new commissions for either writing or photography projects or a combination of both. Please contact her at: [email protected]
3 Comments
Robert Lancaster
Well said! Great article, gave me the smile I needed late on a Friday afternoon.
Carlos
For those of you wondering who William is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Eggleston
Have a good weekend.
Geri
It reminds me of one of my favorite stories of my childhood “The Emperor’s New Clothes”. I think of that story whenever I see a group of people approving of something in order to not stand out!