Fine Detail is not Fine Quality

Unititled Film Still #14, 1978 Cindy Sherman
© Metro Picture Gallery & Cindy Sherman

Photographers seem to think that fine detail in a pictures means fine quality. This is not true for Artists. This point was driven home to me in 1998 when I saw the Cindy Sherman: Retrospective at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago.

The show had many large prints by one of America's leading artists: Cindy Sherman. She happens to use a camera. One technical thing that struck me was that many of the images were bizarrely grainy. They had been taken with 35mm film and enlarged to 4 x 6-feet, way beyond the "technical" limits of the film. Many of the craft issues that photographers obsess about were ignored by Cindy Sherman. By looking at the prints I would say that she:

• Does not care about shadow detail
• Does not care about fine detail
• Does not care about blown-out highlights
• Does not care about smooth tonal gradations

What was going on here? I called the Curator of Photography and asked him. He explained that her interest as an artist is conceptual. The idea was everything. The craft; the technical details meant little.

I've approached the difference between artists and photographers before on this blog: click here. Some took offense (one photographer friend was so upset that he has not talked to me since). I don't want to offend anyone here, I just find the idea interesting and enjoy trying to understand it.