This exercise asks me to look at an from Geoff Dyer (Dyer, 2012) on artists that have captured scenes from Google Street view and asks me to answer the title of the exercise.  

I started this exercise with a pre-conceived idea of the images that would likely be simple screen grabs from google maps and thinking that this was not necessarily appropriate or inappropriate but that not a great deal of skill was required and that is was not necessarily art.  

Dyer’s article begins with looking at Michael Wolf and in particular his series “A series of unfortunate events” (Wolf, n.d.).  The collection is made up of close up cropped images taken as Wolf “combed through mile after uneventful mile of boring footage in search of moments that might or might not prove decisive.” (Dyer, 212).  Wolf has certainly put in the time to find extraordinary events, see Fig. 1., sex workers inadvertently caught on camera, see Fig. 2., and people reacting to the passing by of the Google Camera, see Fig. 3.  My reaction to these images are that it must have taken a lot of searching to find them, but that there is nothing particularly revealing or thought provoking about them.  I do not really consider them to be art because although they may well capture a decisive moment, they do not seem to contain or convey meaning as such and this is surely, in my view at least, a differentiation of photgraphic art from a simple aesthetic image.

Dyer’s article then switches to Doug Rickard and his series, A New American Picture (Rickard, 2012), of images obtained in the same manner.  There images are very different to Wolf’s.  In an interview about his approach (Rickard, 2012), he himself draws a parallel if his images with Walker Evans, Robert Frank or Stephen Shore.  With the colour treatment that Richard seems to have applied, I also see a parallel with Eggleston.   I can see why he draws these parallels, the images, see Figures 4, 5 and 6 as examples portray the less affluent side of American life.  These are very different from Wolf’s finding of isolated items of interest, these images from a framing and subject matter perspective could be images composed and captured by a photographer and camera.  Finding these scenes, for me, takes the activity to a different level.  I feel that these images represent a scene selection approach as accomplished as a traditional photographer.  This I feel is art, and that there is nothing inappropriate about it.  Richard in his video says that he sees no different between his technique and that of a photographer taking an image of one person and then showing it to another person.  I think I agree.  

Bibliography

Dyer, G., 2012. How Google Street View is inspiring new photography. [online] the Guardian. Available at: <https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2012/jul/14/google-street-view-new-photography> [Accessed 30 January 2021].

Wolf, M., n.d. MICHAEL WOLF PHOTOGRAPHY. [online] Photomichaelwolf.com. Available at: <https://photomichaelwolf.com/#asoue/1> [Accessed 2 February 2021].

Rickard, D., 2012. A NEW AMERICAN PICTURE -. [online] Dougrickard.com. Available at: <https://dougrickard.com/a-new-american-picture/> [Accessed 2 February 2021].

Rickard, D., 2012. Doug Rickard: A New American Picture. [image] Available at: <https://vimeo.com/30357393> [Accessed 30 January 2021].

Figures

Figure 1. Wolf, M., n.d. Car Fire. [image] Available at: <https://photomichaelwolf.com/#asoue/36> [Accessed 3 February 2021].

Figure 2. Wolf, M., n.d. 19. [image] Available at: <https://photomichaelwolf.com/#asoue/13> [Accessed 3 February 2021].

Figure 3. Wolf, M., n.d. 10. [image] Available at: <https://photomichaelwolf.com/#fuck-you/7> [Accessed 3 February 2021].

Figure 4. Rickard, D., n.d. Untitled. [image] Available at: <https://dougrickard.com/a-new-american-picture/> [Accessed 3 February 2021].

Figure 5. Rickard, D., n.d. Untitled. [image] Available at: <https://dougrickard.com/a-new-american-picture/> [Accessed 3 February 2021].

Figure 6. Rickard, D., n.d. Untitled. [image] Available at: <https://dougrickard.com/a-new-american-picture/> [Accessed 3 February 2021].