General Art Rant

By Jill Ensley

Saturday, January 5, 2008

Okay, so I sometimes contribute submissions to JPG Mag.com, which is a fairly new, slightly hip, photo magazine. Basically, you submit photos to a specific theme that they choose and then everyone gets to "Yay" or "Nay" on whether they think it's A) a good photo and B) fits the theme. My understanding is that it shouldn't be an either/or situation, but we'll get to that. For the most part, it's a good magazine, consistently displaying some really great images and quite a few helpful tips and stories.

BUT, here's where the sheen starts to wear off the surface...

Recently, I took some artistic nude photos of a male friend of mine. He needed them for a project and I needed something to get me shooting again. I checked JPG to see their new themes and low and behold, there was a "Noir" catagory. I am all about this "Noir" catagory. So, I looked through my images, trying to decide...then came across the stipulation that they have to be taken with a 6mp camera or higher. Hmm. Well, before this year, I only had a 5mp camera, because I am POOR. At this point, I was just miffed, since I have a lot of images from this camera that I cannot use to enter the contests now. AND, JPG is full of crap for thinking that you cannot print a 5mp image. Just don't make it the cover.

So yes, strike one.

I settled upon some of the recent nudes, some of which I'm rather happy with. I chose the most "Noirish" one and uploaded about 5 of the rest. The next day, I get an e-mail from the lovely folks at JPG telling me that they took one of my photos down. They gave various possible reasons, but it was clear that it was because there was a hint of penis in the shot. Yes, a hint. A small dollop of dick, if you will. But, if you look at the images submitted, there are boobs everywhere, and even "hints" of va-jay-jay. I think I see a slight contradiction here. Apparently there are no dicks allowed in art...and here I was thinking that art was FULL of dicks. Brimming. Overflowing.

So, I emailed them back with a simple,

"Boobs ok.

Penis not.

Uh huh. Got it."

And that was that.

But then, as I'm looking through the "Noir" catagory, voting like a good little JPG citizen, I came across some d-bag's entry that was a photo, and a bad one at that, of a piece of graffiti in NYC. Now, I don't like it when people take photos of other people's work and try and pass it off as their own. Sculptures are ususally the target of these artistic parasites, but sometimes it's street art. And I understand it CAN be done, if you're adding something new to the conversation. But this was a straight-on poorly lit shot of some other schmoe's work, entered into a national magazine competition. I would have grunted and passed it by had I not seen the comments below saying what a great photo it was. Me being me, I decided to comment too. Just with something like, "Nice shot. But it's not yours." But then I saw the "comment guidelines". Nothing negative, we're all here to inspire each other, and give each other blowjobs and candy. Huh.

Apparently, there is not only no place in art for DICKS, but there's no place for HONESTY as well. As if there weren't truckloads of wannabe photographers these days, waiting in the wings for the moment some hack gets his feelings hurt. Seriously, do we need to coddle each other this much? And how is that making anyone a better photographer? Shouldn't constructive criticism be mandatory for learning and progressing? Maybe I was wrong about JPG all along...maybe it isn't an art magazine, but a design student's wet dream.

AND ALSO, stop saying "great capture".

It's a photo, a shot, image, or a picture.

Dicks.

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Posted by Joel (Joel Mathis) on January 5, 2008 at 10:06 p.m. (Suggest removal)

Won't somebody please think of the children?

Wait... I mean:

Won't Jill please think of the children?

What happens if they find out about penises? C'mon, man.

Posted by DOTDOT (anonymous) on January 6, 2008 at 12:19 a.m. (Suggest removal)

Boobs OK.
Vajayjay (add to dictionary) OK.
Penis not.

Signed:
Honest Dick

Posted by smerdyakov (anonymous) on January 6, 2008 at 11:23 a.m. (Suggest removal)

Jill, Jill (sigh) ... I think you're willfully failing to grasp the concept of "capture." You see, a photographer is merely an observer of a larger, constantly changing reality. By choosing to refer to photographs as Captures, one acknowledges his or her own non-role in this reality. The photographer can stake no claim of ownership. Or was it the other way around? Nevermind...

I see what you mean about being hep: "JPG popped out to buy some nicotine patches..." http://i252.photobucket.com/albums/hh40/...

Will have to wait to comment on your qualms with JPG until the site's working again ... not familiar with it. Last time I checked it out I remember thinking it looked and felt like the ubiquitous awesome flickr image—usually looks fine enough (likely thanks to Photoshop and technology more than skill with a camera) but feels detached and hollow.

Posted by jonathanholley (anonymous) on January 7, 2008 at 8:58 a.m. (Suggest removal)

It doesn't seem surprising that a magazine that bills itself as "the magazine of brave new photography" would fail to be a utopian photographer's community...

Posted by ladylaw (Terry Bush) on January 7, 2008 at 12:11 p.m. (Suggest removal)

Sigh. I am totally with you on the hypocrisy of allowing pictures of the private parts of women but not men. Double standards abound, and not just in the art world and not with regard to the sexes. And so does pretension. But it's their play ground, so I guess they get to set the rules until you set up your own play ground. Then you can be the one hacking people off with your rules!

Meanwhile, surely you can think of something nice to say about that picture; How about leaving a note on the photo of the graffiti "Great shot - err I mean "capture" - of the art work done by someone else!" That is sufficiently passive agressive isn't it?

Posted by godjilla (Jill Ensley) on January 7, 2008 at 3:36 p.m. (Suggest removal)

ladylaw, that's what I thought about saying (pretty much). But really, what's the point. If a hint of dick is enough to catch the attention of JPG censors, maybe a hint of "negativity" is enough to get me kicked off entirely. Which, actually, might not be a bad thing.

j.holley, true that. Guess I expected too much.

smerdy, that was pretty good. You should be an Art History prof. ;)
And technically, there's supposed to be minimal Photoshop in the images submitted. They have GUIDELINES, dammit. GUIDELINES. It's funny to see what people think is minimal. Almost as funny as what they think "Noir" is. I'm not even entirely sure my photo fits that catagory anymore.

DOTDOT, disable spell check. ;)

Joel, thanks. I can't say anything clever about that last sentence without making me look like a total asshole pervert. Stop talking about dicks and kids. Pervert.

Posted by DOTDOT (anonymous) on January 7, 2008 at 4:51 p.m. (Suggest removal)

Catagory (add to dictionary).

Posted by OtherJoel (anonymous) on January 8, 2008 at 9:44 p.m. (Suggest removal)

Let me preface this by saying you have a genuine point, but I can't help but think of this while reading your post: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqcQSsfiJ...

Posted by godjilla (Jill Ensley) on January 8, 2008 at 11:02 p.m. (Suggest removal)

I love that movie.

Posted by reeveso (John Reeves) on January 12, 2008 at 9:54 a.m. (Suggest removal)

When i read this article http://powazek.com/posts/534 about the JPG Mag ownership debacle I decided that JPG ain't my bag. Thumbsdown on thems.
I still visit but do not participate in many discussions in several film-based photo forums. filmwasters is a goodie to check out.

Posted by godjilla (Jill Ensley) on January 12, 2008 at 5:21 p.m. (Suggest removal)

Wow....I had no idea. Not that it's terribly surprising, but something certainly smelled rotten in Denmark, and now I know why.
Thanks for posting that.

And his latest post is about copyrighting images...something I've been reading a lot about lately, been worried about. Apparently the government is beta-testing a e-reg system that massively cuts down the wait time and paperwork. In the meantime, I like his solution of placing the copyright "behind" the image.

General Art Rant

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