Can you divorce the more prevalent, popular comedic connotations of “deadpan” when using the term to describe photography? Sure, we’re just discussing a small matter of semantics here, but I think there’s an important distinction to be made.

While the Bechers are systematic, and conceptual photographers like Ruscha certainly qualify as having “calm detachment,” I don’t buy the “no emotional or personal involvement.” That’s pure science. There would be no reason to pick up the camera if you didn’t have any emotional or personal involvement.

Robert Adams is a good example — the photos may appear to be mundane and detached on the surface, but when reading the accompanying text it’s clear that some of the locations have deep personal meaning. Does deadpan mean your work looks clinical and mundane, and that you never crack a smile?

Maybe it’s just that I can’t help thinking about Buster Keaton or Steven Wright when I hear the term deadpan. If Steven Wright was a photographer, then the using term deadpan to describe his work would be fine.
Cheers,

Joe

The term ‘deadpan photography’ is often used as a descriptor of the ‘Becher School of Photography’ and its many variants – photography that ‘appears’ to have little, or no, emotional or personal involvement on the part of the photographer, photography that also tends to features the ‘mundane’.

As we all know, well, at least some of us know, appearances can be deceiving.

I think that your connection of ‘deadpan’ to humor is, in this case, misplaced.