(link)
A good photo should tell us something is the sort of mantra of photojournalism that edges and delineates its propagandistic subconscious. Which Serralongue avoids by making not good photos. "offer little esthetic enjoyment" "all "studium" and no "punctum." "The images supply content, description and information, but rarely a piercing moment; the viewer is not "grabbed" by the image, nor seduced by one captivating element. Rather than feed us answers, the images make us do the work of analysis." The blood-draining banalization of photography like switching the electricity illuminating the carnival rush off. No circus just moral bread. Taken this way, their depletion, looking like husks, becomes its own odd rush, realizing just how close photos once were to the high of entertainment, now the pleasure of withholding it.
See too:A.L. Steiner at Koenig & Clinton
