Bad Camera

It's a little skimming the surface to describe Tichy as just a backyard voyeur; His story is worth understanding more fully, with his having been a sculptor and teacher at academies of art, and then subject to incarceration in the Soviet psychiatric system for many years ... his story has done the rounds at APUG and at Flickr groups, and of course he divides opinion rather strongly ... with many an amateur psychiatrist providing all manner of diagnoses of course ... one thread had been running off and on for 5 years, with the OP still enraged after all that time!

Any artist who can generate that much impact ought to be investigated properly, I reckon ...
 
I'm gonna make a camera that looks like that. It often makes me wonder why mental illness and "genius" are so closely related. I wouldn't be so bold as to say anyone could do that, but in today's landscape, an iphone and instagram filters and a day at the beach could get you halfway there.
 
For some reason (and not because of the subject - although those help too :tongue:) I find his pictures fascinating. I think the museum treatment is well-earned.
 
I was just "quoting" the title of the article by calling him a voyeur, but in truth that's what he is regardless of his mental condition. These women still had their privacy violated and that's what makes me feel funny about the pictures. There is obviously a quality to them that reflects the artist gone mad, the skill and vision overlaying the perversion of his approach. It's both fascinating and repulsive to me, and I thought I should warn folks when I posted the link. BTW, the reference to the Jethro Tull song is perfect.
 
And yet we have a "street photography" thread that is 145 pages long and jam-packed with pictures taken without the subjects' knowledge or permission ...
 
the artist gone mad, the skill and vision overlaying the perversion of his approach.

none of us can make any statements about Tichy's mental condition or whether he is a "pervert" merely by reading a couple of web articles about him or on the basis of looking at his photographs.
 
I'm saying that taking many pictures of women under conditions like this is, IMO, ethically wrong. This is why the pictures make me uneasy. I can't see into his heart to know if he is a pervert for doing it. I am certainly going to form opinions about this exhibit based on what I know, as would any thinking person. I'm willing to change them based on further evidence to the contrary.
 
But what I'm saying is that a photograph is not evidence for the photographer's mental health.
I'm not suggesting you change your opinion, I'm suggesting you don't have sufficient evidence to form an opinion. Just as I don't, and I'm a qualified clinician

I really can't see how Tichy's photographs differ in kind from any "candid" photography.
 
And yet we have a "street photography" thread that is 145 pages long and jam-packed with pictures taken without the subjects' knowledge or permission ...

absolutely spot on

take a look at some of Brassai's work or maybe Egon Schiele (tons of other examples)
 
Folks, I'm sorry if I started something here. The photos and the article's descriptions bothered me so I suppose I posted it here to see what others thought. I should have kept my thoughts about Tichy's shots to myself or at least been more objective in my phrasing. OTOH, I suppose I'm not really sure how I could have expressed my disquiet otherwise. I'll do some research on the man.
 
Paul, I don't claim your expertise in the field, but one needn't see too many of these photos to say that he takes pleasure from sneaking these photos......why else build the long tele lens? And being a voyeur (I'll use this definition since most of these gals are clothed..... "a person who derives exaggerated or unseemly enjoyment from being an observer") is not in and of itself wrong......assuming he's not breaking any laws.

My mother loves what she calls "people watching" when going to a baseball game or a summer festival. Certainly what she is doing is being voyeuristic..... I'm quite sure there is no "intent" in her past time except to see what other people do in their lives.

Tichy's photos definitely hint at a subdued sexuality and that is likely what offends some more than the fact that they were taken without their knowing.

And maybe a clinician would need more info to call him mentally ill, but I don't know of a definition of mentally ill that wouldn't encompass someone sneaking photos of girlies with a homemade cardboard camera and then just leaving them strewn about his hoarder like abode.
 
Paul, I don't claim your expertise in the field, .

I almost never make reference to my professional life when entering into internet discussions, and I wish I hadn't this time but it's too late now.
My point is really not to do with any "expertise" I might have, but that whatever expertise one has - or whether one has none at all - one cannot reliably infer a photographer's state of mind from their photographs.

If we had been told that Tichy was a famous academic artist whose photographs were posed with paid models, the response might be quite different.

But because the articles about Tichy use particular kinds of (highly judgmental) language, and because in them we are told (and we have no means of verifying the truth of these statements) that he "sneaked around" or was seen as a suspicious character, we immediately place his photographs in a context.

If you went to an exhibition and saw these photographs, but had no information at all - not even the artist's name - just the pictures ... what then ?

All you can do is notice your own emotional (or intellectual or wheteveral) response.


I do find it curious that painters can create the most horrific and disturbing images (Goya, perhaps, or more recently Bacon) yet they are not dismissed as having "crossed the line"...
 
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