Thierry Maindrault’s monthly columns always elicit passionate responses. Here’s her latest, to be read here, along with some of the comments she suggested.
“Dear Thierry,
I see the heat hasn’t softened your brain! Your column today is a fanfare of the 14th of July, truly excellent in content and form, brilliant, thank you and bravo, you know that I share 99% of these ideas (not 100%, we must always leave the possibility of the perfect, which in any case is an illusion).”
Michel CRESP
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“Dear Thierry,
Another column on fire against tricks. Thank you very much.
You might also like this:
Sony International Awards:
“I am delighted to tell you that your image “Plastic (2)” has been shortlisted in the Still Life Category of the Open Competition at the 2020 Sony World Photography Awards. It has been selected from 193278 images entered from 194 territories and countries – an incredible achievement.”………. “I am sorry to hear that it dates from November 2018, but the pictures need to be taken in 2019. Thank you for your participation, it was a good image indeed.”
Can you imagine having to view so many images and more…. Who does this, algorithms, humans, flies? It’s a great investigation…”
Michel MONTEAUX
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“It’s good to see that I’m not the only one rebelling!
I’ll confess to fighting like a “Don Quixote” against AI, for example, against the other windmills you mention in your columns.
Appropriating the work of others to become a so-called artist, not respecting others, not respecting oneself, not respecting the work, the research, the intellectual and emotional effort put in when one looks with honesty and depth at one’s tools, at one’s work. And forget about the pleasure of watching your child grow, for the sake of egotistical “immediacy”.
When will we have instant pregnancy? No need for 9 months.
The unbearable lightness of being…And Kundera has left us.”
Caroline FLORNOY
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“Hello Mr. Maindrault,
Congratulations on your lucid column in today’s L’Œil de la Photographie!
I despaired of ever reading what you so aptly describe…
Thank you and have a great summer.
Didier PILON
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“Dear Thierry.
I agree 200%, not 100%, with your opinion. I haven’t been on any social networks, either personally or as a photographer, for 43 years. However, since you say that we are all narcissists (which is true), as a photographer, I have just produced and paid for a retrospective of my black and white photographs in a 226-page Blurb book entitled: De l’argentique au numérique – Personnages connus et inconnus. I had the opportunity to work up a sweat, putting in over 1,000 hours, including selecting 219 portraits and writing the text. What’s more, to prove my own narcissism to you, I organized and paid for my own exhibition of the same title in a renowned Quebec City theater over two floors in fall 2019. I judged my work worthwhile and rewarded myself for making it.
Why all this? Beyond my own narcissism, I must confess that I’m disgusted with the notion of emerging artists and/or artists-in-residence, who often have no more photographic talent than a cell phone on vacation. They’re treated like royalty, spoiled with free premises and top-of-the-range equipment, and so on. What’s more, because they’re in this business, we’re all expected to find their work stunningly beautiful and original, which is very rarely the case…? At some point, they’ll probably have to return to the art jungle, and under these conditions, their survival is not assured.
All the others, with their super-equipment and indiscriminate digital showcases, will sink into oblivion and anonymity like a billion grains of sand on the beach.
Old photographers like me, no matter how talented, are probably victims of ageism on the part of museums, photo galleries, magazines, etc., regardless of their talent and the quality of their work. There seems to be a divide between the so-called artist photographer and the photographer who has made a living out of it. As far as I’m concerned, a good photographer is a good photographer, and it’s his or her images that bear witness to this.
What might seem like jealousy on my part is in reality an observation shared by other photographers.
I’ll leave you with a quote from my photo book:
I leave you with a quote from my photo book:
It’s a sad fact that the more accessible photography becomes with cell phones, the less care it takes, and the more it multiplies excessively and loses its value. It used to be that a picture was worth a thousand words, but today, a thousand images on social networks are hardly worth a single word.
I wish you all a wonderful summer.
Gilles SAVARD
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“Dear Mr. Maindrault,
THANK YOU, a thousand times over, for your excellent article of July 14, 2023, which begins with “Respect”. You give us a very accurate reflection of the centrist and narcissistic reality that is eating away at our society. Which is also eating away at this wonderful world of photography. How sad it all is.
The day before yesterday, I attended a presentation, a 3D audio-visual montage, on the Impressionists: a most disappointing turnip, a mixture of everything and nothing riddled with beginner’s errors. Phew… I left dumbfounded. Yesterday, it was a show by an American singer: phew… 99% of the time, the giant screens were aimed at her face, her, her, her… We’re borrowing an English expression here, I’m from Quebec: MMI, which stands for “Me, Myself and I”. What a world!
Thank you and I look forward to reading you again in a future reflection that deserves to be read.”
René Masson.
