George Baker on The Expanded Field of Photography

In "Photography's Expanded Field", George Baker argues that over time (mainly since the 1970's and the postmodern era), photography has changed into, well, something else which we cannot truthfully still label "photography". It seems that photography today has become something of a halfway  house into other mediums, that photography is no longer the be all and end all, but is "an insufficient bridge to other, more compelling forms." Thought I would think that photography could lead basically into any other form or medium, Baker does mainly focus on the cinematic (and as of right now, it seems that every photographer, whether they include actual cinema into their work or not, will eventually be considered both a photographer and cinematographer within this digital age).

In explaining how photography is changing/has changed, and more importantly, its expansion, Baker creates a sort of map on which he would seemingly be able to place most any photographer in order to better understand how each individual's work is grounded within this new photography. The map looks like this:

He also creates one where the question marks are replaced with 3 chosen artists that would fill their specific locations within this map, and another that looks like this:

With this third map here, it was a little unclear to me whether these "topics" placed in the map ("still film" projected images, digital montage "talking picture", and "film still" cinematic photograph) represent the last stage of the map and are therefore the categories that work should fit into in his map? Or if they were each simply small explanations of the artists he had placed in there as example in the second (not pictured) map. Seeing as these labels fit the artists to a T, I am going to go with the latter and regard these labels as permanent titles of each section of the map. Regardless, this is what Baker's map looks like, and the four points at the tip of the center X are the more important, unchanging points anyhow.

These points are: narrative, stasis, not-narrative, and not-stasis. A narrative has referentiality and is culturally relatable, or more so, is the cultural dimension of the photograph (its build). Stasis is is the unthinking nature regarding photographs. Not-narrative, therefore would be stasis, and not-stasis would be narrative. Baker also points out that no photographer has successfully created a purely stasis image. The other part of that must then be that it is impossible for a photographic image to completely be a narrative, as a "photograph" will always be simply a single frame and therefore will always have some level of stasis (I am not including other incorporated mediums such as cinema into this argument, just photography).

As Baker continues, he stresses that we must not revert to the traditional forms of photography, that those forms are basically deceased in its medium, and what has awakened in its void is this metaphorical universe of a constantly expanding field of photography. This field, I imagine, would look something like this:

However, even if stasis and narrative were not key talking points in traditional photography, it seems that we would still be able to go back to it now and place it within its rightful category on Baker's map. Regardless, traditional photography is what it is and contemporary photography certainly is no longer traditional. It seems as though part of the dangers of going back to traditional photographic forms would be losing all that has grown with the medium over time (the points on my above map). Its essentially "pure" original state would be greatly lacking and have no weight accompanying it.

Baker concludes his discussion with the somewhat discomforting point that truly, photography does not have a clear, thought out map. The medium is in limbo, and though we are aware of specific points in its ever expanding field, we do not know where it will take us or where it will end up.

As for two photographers that I would like to analyze into Baker's views here, I have chosen Beate Gutschow and David Hilliard. Gutschow is a large format photographer who started creating landscapes that never existed, by splicing together different negatives (digitally) and presenting each image as though it (almost) flawlessly one appeared at the same time in front of the same lens. These montages eventually broke from nature and she began shooting in cities all over the world, using the same techniques, but creating cityscapes of a very almost futuristic feel. Though her work sometimes includes people, they are represented in the frame similar to some of the paintings from the picturesque movement, as objects to confirm a sense of reality, but not to take away from the scene around them. They blend into the background. To me, it feels as if Gutschow's work would fit on the right side of Baker's map, between stasis and not-stasis. Though she creates large-scale montages like Wall, I believe that the difference does come in the representation of people, which makes Wall's work more narrative and therefore fitting at the top of the map between narrative and stasis, and places Gutschow's nicely between the stasis and not-stasis on the right. Her images do seem more reminiscent of "traditional" art forms (painting) and this picturesque movement of painting was to make beautiful, breathtaking scenes. There was no royalty depicted in these pieces, no hierarchy of social class, no hints as to global location. It is quite a stasis movement. Gutschow's emulation of this movement similarly creates very stasis images, although I believe that with her cityscapes series, more of a narrative can be drawn because of the types of buildings she displays. In fact, by just displaying buildings of any kind, it creates a time frame for the image. They appear futuristic and a bit bleak, almost on the verge of an apocalypse. However, they do seem almost lifeless, which would therefore categorize them, at least to me, as being not quite narrative, but more so "not-stasis".

David Hilliard creates work based upon people that he knows. He even describes it as being autobiographic and fictional at the same time, trying to recreate events or moments within our chaotic lives. All but maybe three images he shows on his website would be classified as portraiture, but all his images are very narrative. His format of a three image panoramic creates this movement throughout the frame that not only addresses a passing of time, but a movement through space. We as viewers experience part of his subjects' lives, many times very intimately, and receive just a taste of their being. A few of them to me feel a bit cinematic, although not on a large scale. They mostly seem to resemble home videos. As such, I would place Hilliard on the left, between narrative and not-narrative. The images seem to "home video" for me to be able to place them as completely stasis, but again, they are unmoving, still photographs.

Bluebird by David Hilliard, 2009.