Idealism to Realism - 14/10/14

At first the idea of the vernacular was not appealing as an artform, photographs were perhaps meant to show the ideal of a location, like Ansel Adams' landscapes. However, the documentation of the everyday suddenly became a confirmed artform. 

Ansel Adams, "The Tetons and the Snake River, Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming" (1942), this photograph shows the ideal American landscape, there isn't a person in sight and these parks wouldn't have any litter. Although this image is lovely, to me it is unsettlingly beautiful; it shows a natural landscape that doesn't look natural at all but manufactured.

Robert Frank - "The Americans" (1958)

Robert Frank was actually an immigrant to America, his photographs are perhaps more interesting as we see America as he sees it, the viewers are also foreigners in the "Land of the Free"

This image to me is especially captivating as I'm seeing it from a modern perspective. I also understand this image more from reading "The Help", black women often became nannies to white children, and subsequently almost became more of a mother to them. According to the book, their birth mothers often conditioned them to think in the same way as them and only viewed their nannies (and indeed, other ethnic diversities) as the help. If the views in the book were indeed true to a major extent then it's sad to see such a young and innocent baby not knowing the harsh realities of what's going on around her.

The reality of America isn't a nice one, children in elementary school (the equivalent to our primary school) have to pledge allegiance to the flag, to me this seems like the opposite of a free country. The American flag takes up most of the frame and perhaps signifies it's control on the people around it.