The Royal Photographic Society has recently been reviewing its Contemporary Group's definition following an article written by one of their members, Adrian Hough ARPS. All this is tied into their honour system which also relates to 'the contemporary photograph'.
From my perspective and from theirs based on this article, there is no such thing as a contemporary photograph. Instead there is a contemporary process through which an image is taken, created, captured, etc. Even these terms I have used here, as being the end result of a photograph is changing. Contemporary as defined, will always relate to 'now' as does the process which eventuates in a contemporary outcome of art work.
To me, contemporary is about art, it is also about now. Photography is but one medium that can be used to create contemporary art. There are also many other mediums which link to the word contemporary and all have the same association with contemporary being a process.
This process is always about conceptual thought which comes from a person's mind. The thinking is generally about things that are current, things which stir the senses, things which eventuate within a person who wishes to address something worrying, sensual, emotional, conflictual, argumentative and more via a visual process. To me it is photography, to others, the answer is unlimited. Another term for the end product could be defined as a 'visual text'. This means that your image or photograph is the outcome of your thoughts and intentions associated with your mind.
The biggest question you can ask yourself is: why did I take a particular image? If you can't answer this, then perhaps you are not thinking from a contemporary perspective. Whether or not you set out with intentions to create some kind of image to address the thoughts in your head, or found something which spoke to you on the spot, is irrelative. The main thing is your intention when you used your shutter to record your intentions.
Just on that question of why, one can also say I took it because I liked it, or I took it because I wanted to use it for a challenge, or even for a photo competition in your camera club etc. However, these answers do not equate with contemporary work or contemporary thinking. However, if you took it because it had attached memories which linked to something within your past or represented a lifestyle in a particular place and so on, yes then you are beginning to think from a contemporary perspective.
Here, I would like to bring you back to the new definition that the Royal Photographic Society has written for Contemporary Photography.
Photography that communicates a visual realisation of a stated argument, idea or concept.
I see this as being very close to what contemporary photography is all about. However, they are not talking about a specific photograph. Instead they are talking about a process of creating the photograph which in many ways becomes a visual text about today's lifestyle or about other aspects which talk to us and make us think from a contemporary perspective, alternately - conceptually.
In the past they have used the definition of:
Photography which is innovative and about something rather than of something.
These words you may recognize, because I have used them before when talking about contemporary practices. But they do not quite say the same as the new definition.
Now I need to give you some ideas of what this means realistically. First I will talk about genres and use a simple one, that of street photography. Many have made reference to street photography being about today, and yes it is, however, it is not necessarily contemporary, or conceptual. Once again, I think about the answer as to why one takes a particular image in the street. But first I probably need to define what is commonly referred to street photography.
That is: taking images of people doing their thing within the streets of some town, village or city. But why did I do this. Initially it was part of a challenge I set myself, to be brave and begin. Many a time it was random and mostly when I was not in my home town of Launceston, much easier to be invisible.
As I continued over the years, my taking became more focussed and my concept became about recording Launceston's lifestyle for those people to come. My work was not just about people, it was about the city and the lifestyle so I documented, events, streets, houses, people, seasons, changes within the infrastructure and more. This work started in 2009 and I opted to finish what I had been doing in 2022. For years I had been procrastinating about putting the work together into a book format and, after a nudge from one of our councillors who is now the mayor of our wonderful city, this projected finished. I now have a set of 14 monochrome books, each containing 200 images and am very glad about what I had begun.
As a finish to this writing, I want to try and explain the differences around conceptual work as I also recognize that most contemporary workers are conceptual in process, but not all conceptual workers come from a contemporary perspective.
Let's go back to the street photography. Say for example I wanted to take a set of females within a street situation within different areas of a place. So I engaged a number of models, suggested they dress in a certain way and act in a certain way, all different in set areas. Photographed them all in situ and ended up with a set of 20 -30 images of females in Launceston. Yes this work is conceptual because I have set it up to represent a town at a particular time etc. But it is all fictional; there is no realism about Launceston lifestyle within this work. In the art sector, it would be called performance art and it could well be used to publicise a beautiful town.
My work, I would argue is about realism and about a series that goes across many years, it is conceptual as well as contemporary, because it a visual realisation of a concept or idea, over a longitudinal time frame. Alternatively, it has become a visual text of life around the streets of Launceston during a set period of time.