Separated at Birth?

Originality in art is becoming such a rare thing that an artist who is working completely independently often comes up with work that appears very original if it weren't for the fact that someone else on the other side of the globe is exploring nearly the same territory.
I discovered Miklos Gaal's work at the 2004 Scope Festival in New York.  Gaal uses a view camera that allows him to play with the focus of his pictures in such a way that the subject looks miniature, as if Gaal was photographing an architectural model.  I was crazy about this work when I first saw it and was lucky to be able to pick up a few small prints for less than $300 each.  The work seemed like a very interesting niche in a very crowed art world.
A few months later, I'm flipping though a magazine and come across the latest body of work by the Italian photographer Olivo Barbieri' and he's doing the same thing (but to different conceptual ends I suppose).  My excitement over Gaal faded a bit as a result.

Then, three months later in an issue of Canadian Art, I come across Toni Hafkenscheid (Marcia Wood carries his work) a young Canadian photographer (they sure can crank out good photogs up north) who was using the very same technique but in a less somber way so that his photos REALLY looked like miniatures because of the candy colored imagery.

Which brings us to today and the latest issue of Art Review which features a story on art & architecture.  I flip to page 56 and upon seeing the image wonder who its by: Gaal?  Barbieri? Hafkenscheid?  No, it's yet another photographer, Frank van der Salm. 

I like the work by all these photographers very much despite the fact that the work is similar.  It is encouraging to see that Gaal has used this technique merely as a stepping off point and the work of Barbieri and van der Salm is merely part of a much larger body where this technique has not been used.  Despite this, there is something disappointing about the similarities in the work.

P.S.  I just dicovered another one!  Jorg Fahlenkamp

Comments

[AnonymousPoster]

It's one of those "The medium is the message" moments -- and in this case, it's the technology that's the art. Just a case of everyone jumping on the bandwagon -- like the big C-prints Dusseldorf group ala Gursky. It's disappointing...and boring. My advice if you like this style, buy the "first mover," or the photographer repped by the most influential gallery -- they'll probably be the one to appreciate in value. Personally, I'm bored by the use of this focusing technology in landscapes, and would rather see it used for something even more conceptual.

[Ken Merriam]

I had an immediate positive reaction when I first saw this technique-I didn't realize that five different people were doing the same thing. For those interested in this, I tried to look back through the posted pictures on the internet and it looks like Frank van der Salm was the first one doing this- he did a show called View/Sight/Vision with this technique in 1999. Toni Hafkenscheid did some pictures like this in 2000. I like this style and I think that each person is doing something a little differently. Interesting to see that these five photographers come from five different countries-makes me wonder whether "schools of photography" can start from internet browsing?

[massimo vitali]

Well,I have been following the selective focus explosion and I know that out there there are lots more guys tilting their backs.
In addition to this some crafty manufacturer is offering a front lens element to enable digital slr photographers to get that table top look.
I always considered this way of taking pictures a nice gimmick not a style.

[Tore]

I agree that these seem eerily similar. Still I would say that an art world that no longer cares if a picture is any good in itself, and only looks at what the concept behind it is, will be in for a lot of disappointments in the future.

I believe that ideas happen simultaneously on separate parts of the globe. God knows why. Signs of the times maybe. -Unevitable next steps in some direction. For instance... I myself have written down ideas for screenplays, or scenes in them in little notebooks over the years. After a decade has passed have passed, tons of these little ideas have appeared in other films. Films that weren't out when I wrote the scenes. I couldn't have been unconciously influenced by them. People just have the same ideas. And I think this is a great problem with conceptualism. You get disappointed because you have false expectations. You expect something completely unique, but you only get one of many. And now with the internet pumping images our way, we discover more of the unknowns.

Another problem with tilted film backs is that people see these photos as being similar because of the format. Think of panorama photography... That is also in a way an effect created by the hardware used. But we have seen so many photographers doing that for so long now that we don't think of on as being a copy of another because of the similarities in format. I myself use a tilt and shift camera. Many people have said that it's so incredibly original that some of my photos look like miniatures. I always nervously correct them and point out that there are others. Otherwise they may discover this later and accuse me of unoriginality. I'm not after a miniature look anyway, but it is a side-effect of the focus.

But in your examples here... I would have to say that I agree that these are very very very close to each other. But does it matter? Was Rembrandt unique and original? Or is he the one out of many who is remembered because the images themselves were better? Humans are not original-thinking animals. We reuse ideas. We sample and remix and add our own. Hopefully at least, we add our own. In the end, the stronger image will survive in peoples' memories. The images that have something to say besides "look at me, I'm an effect".

[anonymousposter]

This technique will probably gain even more prominence when it's used for portraiture (ie nudes), by some unoriginal, style-stealing photographer/hack like Steven Klein, or when someone discovers a way to use it for moving images in a a music video.

[Jo]

well according to his bio on lumas.de Jörg Fahlenkamp (geb. 1967) started his series "Häuser" (houses) and „Modellwelten" (modelworlds) in 1993...

also the use of a tilted focal plane is quite easy and has been used in stills fotography for ccommercials or architecture for a while, even in some commercials (TV) you can find the use of tilt & shift lenses these days (actually in TV commercials the boom is defintely over) Jo

[anonymous]

Check out the link on tilt/shift photography for more info on their processes

http://hame.ca/tiltshift.htm