Luminous Landscape Forum

The Art of Photography => The Coffee Corner => Topic started by: RSL on February 24, 2017, 09:41:58 am

Title: What's Photography For?
Post by: RSL on February 24, 2017, 09:41:58 am
http://www.russ-lewis.com/essays/WhatisPhotographyFor.html
Title: Re: What's Photography For?
Post by: degrub on February 24, 2017, 11:07:19 am
Well stated and i agree.
Frank
Title: Re: What's Photography For?
Post by: Rob C on February 24, 2017, 12:33:53 pm
Thoughtful stuff, Russ.

"The camera is a recording instrument. It's not the kind of tool that lets you express your own ideas about what reality should look like. If you're careful, it can give you images that are pretty; sometimes verging on beautiful."

And that's always been the challenge if you want to do more than record. Taking Saul Leiter and Ernst Haas as two examples: along with much else they both did great city street work, possibly more from the point of view of catching colour harmony - or its opposite - than defining moments, but certainly very captivating and influential work. Though I now find myself doing black/white in preference to colour (when I stir at all), the influence of those two men has allowed me a new lease of photographic life because it encourages me to think beyond the conditioning of work, and look at other aspects of imaging that meant nothing to the bottom line when I was working. You can be freed from work. It raises the question of how those two found time for self-indugence like that, though maybe the answer - for Haas, at least - lay in very successful books.

Yes, the camera can't, as you write, actually let you express your idea of what reality should look like, but it certainly does allow you to take that real shot and then consider it carefully later on, much as St Ansel must have done, and figure out what you can do to bend it away from the factual towards the fantasy of that fact. This has always been possible, but the advent of digital manipulation has made the possibility of doing this effectively very much greater: the creases are less likely to show. However, that's not to suggest that you can just snap any old thing and then produce interesting images from that - you still need to use your eyes and imagination a little bit before you go click!

"To clinch the point, there's the work of W. Eugene Smith. Gene Smith did some wonderful street photography, but the pictures he made that fall most surely into the category of art are pictures of people he shot as parts of photo essays. One of those is Smith's picture from his Life magazine essay "Country Doctor," of Doctor Ceriani leaning against a counter and smoking a cigarette after losing a patient. The tragedy in the man's face is powerful stuff."

Ironically, I first came across Smith in Popular Photography Annual, with the essay on Pittsburgh, so yes, it used to be a wonderful picture source and an educational influence. (Isn't it odd how even the good things in life eventually tend to become corrupted; one would have hoped it worked the other way - that the lesser tried to emulate the great.) Only a very limited few from the thousands of images in that work (that precluded the whole essay ever being published complete, anywhere), those few images in Pop Phot have remained with me ever since as wonderful examples of looking, of printing and style - which perhaps was something he couldn't control anway - and also of techniques like bleaching and so on and so forth. If anything, he really defined why every photographer really should be obliged to print his own negatives, if only to learn what he, himself, is all about. Another printer will never do that for you: you learn what he is about if you use one regularly, but that's cart before horses. It (the essay) also pointed very clearly to Smith's political inclinations, and made me aware of what Pittsburgh represented, with its mills, bank magnates, mansions, private clubs etc. and I wonder if Mr Trump saw that essay too.

Rob

Title: Re: What's Photography For?
Post by: Tim Lookingbill on February 24, 2017, 10:07:45 pm
http://www.russ-lewis.com/essays/What%20is%20Photography%20For.htm

Quote
"The camera is a recording instrument. It's not the kind of tool that lets you express your own ideas about what reality should look like. If you're careful, it can give you images that are pretty; sometimes verging on beautiful."

That's not been my experience especially shooting and post processing in Raw. I do agree the camera is a tool, but it's the user of that tool that controls and determines how they make reality look different when photographed, different meaning enhanced, mysterious, colorful, strange, off kilter, disturbing, etc.

If all a photographer is doing is shooting to record what's in front of them be it a landscape or macro shot of broken glass then I'ld say they have a different kind of sensitivity to the awareness of this power to express them self by telling a different story photographing reality.
Title: Re: What's Photography For?
Post by: JNB_Rare on February 24, 2017, 10:27:06 pm
Thanks for sharing your views, Russ.

"But on the other hand his (Albert Bierstadt) painting gives you the sensation of the mountains in a way no photograph ever will."

Interesting. I feel absolutely no emotional connection to Bierstadt's work. Perhaps that's because I have been in the mountains; nowadays, this sort of imagery has been taken over by CGI and Disney. For me, a photograph such as Adams' The Tetons and the Snake River, or some of Mehmet Ozgur's landscapes (to name a contemporary photographer) far better give me a sensation of the mountains. And not because they are simply a record of the scene, or more "real" than a painting. Mitch Dobrowner (https://petapixel.com/2014/06/26/perfect-storm-interview-stormchaser-mitch-dobrowner/) and Camille Seaman have put me with them at the edge of storms. Some of Wynn Bullock's landscape images are the equal of (well, not just the equal of, more evocative than) any landscape painting I've ever seen. My opinion, of course.

"The camera is a recording instrument. It's not the kind of tool that lets you express your own ideas about what reality should look like."

Perhaps should is not the right word (unless one is in the business of advertising or propaganda)? But I believe that photography most definitely allows one to connect, evoke, and provoke, no less than any other art.

"But it's very difficult to make it (the camera) give you an image that'll grab you and shake you with a transcendent, spiritual experience -- that sudden flash that goes beyond anyone's ability to describe or explain. And that's really what art is about."

I'm afraid I can't agree. First, because NO piece of art that I have ever viewed in any medium has affected me in the way you describe (and I've stood in front of many original masterpieces in galleries, museums and cathedrals). Yes, I've been impressed by mastery, and emotionally moved by images (feelings of happiness, sadness, compassion, surprise, anger, etc.) But no less so with photographic images than any other medium.

You mention street photography and photo essays I would agree with some of your evaluation and examples. W. Eugene Smith has been an inspiration of mine since I first saw his Minimata essay, even though I've never pursued that type of photography. But I think you've missed out on so many other genres in which photographers have produced images that connect with me, and with others, on a visceral level.

"A photograph is a recording. That's all it is. It's an image of a small piece of the world -- a very small piece. It doesn't allow the recorder to change things in that little piece. In post-processing you can change colors, remove things, move things around, and introduce other recorded pieces of the world that weren't in the picture to begin with. But in the end, you can't force into a photograph the emotion you can force into a painting."

I would wholeheartedly disagree, and I think Smith's photo of Tomoko Uemura is an example of why I do. Smith made that image, he didn't just record it. Nick Brandt made this image (http://www.nickbrandt.com/portfolio.cfm?nK=8877&nS=5#image-3), and then this one (http://www.nickbrandt.com/portfolio.cfm?nK=14260&nS=6#image-3).

But, then, images do connect with different people differently. I love some abstract impressionist paintings every bit as much as some Dutch Masters. Most people I know hate abstract art. I think Ralph Gibson's photo Leda (NSFW) (https://www.artnet.com/auctions/artists/ralph-gibson/leda-from-days-at-sea-7) is more provocative (and beautiful) than any of the many painted and sculptural renditions of Leda and the Swan throughout history. But, hey, that's just my opinion.  :)
Title: Re: What's Photography For?
Post by: Tony Jay on February 24, 2017, 11:16:34 pm
I cannot really agree with the central thrust of Russ' argument.
Just because a camera is a tool does not in any way exclude camera-generated images from being art or being significant on an emotional or spiritual level.
A paint brush is a tool, and the same goes for a hammer and chisel.

Art is created by people - never the  camera, or the brush, or the hammer and chisel.

Simply put, everything one does when shooting, from positioning to choice of lens,  aperture and shutter speed, as well as framing and composition can be exploited for artistic effect. And, it is the person behind the camera who makes these creative decisions.

Also, a camera-generated image is never just a "record" of a scene. This particular argument has been played out several times on this very forum and by my recollection rejected with interest.

Whether something can be viewed as art, or whether it has emotional or spiritual impact, is NEVER a function of the tool that produced it. These are characteristics that, quite literally, are in the eye of the beholder.

Tony Jay
Title: Re: What's Photography For?
Post by: Rob C on February 25, 2017, 04:53:42 am
I suspect that folks have not read the OPs opening gambit properly, and without instantly projecting upon it their own sense of understanding.

The words in italics are in italics intentionally; Russ is a good writer and not given to random sloppiness of expression. Reread and reconsider what he has actually written with what you are interpreting. Not the same things.

Rob C
Title: Re: What's Photography For?
Post by: RSL on February 25, 2017, 09:46:01 am
If all a photographer is doing is shooting to record what's in front of them be it a landscape or macro shot of broken glass then I'ld say they have a different kind of sensitivity to the awareness of this power to express them self by telling a different story photographing reality.

Sorry, Tim, you lost me there. I'm afraid I couldn't follow your logic. All a photographer ever is doing is shooting a record of what's in front of the camera, whether or not he has a "different kind of sensitivity." The camera isn't a magical box full of fairy dust.
Title: Re: What's Photography For?
Post by: RSL on February 25, 2017, 10:09:23 am
I'm afraid I can't agree. First, because NO piece of art that I have ever viewed in any medium has affected me in the way you describe

Hi John, I wish I had time this morning to deal with all the points you make in your post, but I'm in a rush. Maybe I can come back later and do a better job.

I'll admit I have trouble with some of the more schmaltzy stuff in Bierstadt's paintings. There's another, quite similar to the one I linked, that contains Indian maidens. But my point was his use of distorted linear perspective to make a point -- something you can't do with a camera. I stand by what I said about his device giving me the feel of the mountains.

I'm sorry to hear that no work of art ever has affected you in a transcendent, spiritual way. I suspect you mean visual art rather than all art. I'll grant you that it's more likely to happen to me with music or poetry, but occasionally I get twinges of it from visual art. How does Pavarotti doing "Panis Angelicus" grab you? How about Dylan Thomas's "Fern Hill?"

I appreciate your reasoned responses, though I may disagree.
Title: Re: What's Photography For?
Post by: RSL on February 25, 2017, 10:36:17 am
. . .a camera-generated image is never just a "record" of a scene.

Hi Tony, I'd submit that that's exactly what a photograph is: a record of what's in front of the camera. I'll grant you that the guy behind the camera decides where the record begins and where it ends, but that's as far as photographic creativity goes. You can't make the mountains taller without making the lake shrink, and you can't make the lake expand without making the mountains shrink. It's physics. That kind of physical limitation doesn't extend to what you do with a brush.

Of course there are all sorts of things you can do in Photoshop. In the current Pop Photo there's a picture of a cave with a starry sky outside. It's a "grand prize" winner in some sort of contest, and all you have to do is glance at it to see that it's a fake. The "photographer" pasted in the starry sky. As the "Tech Info" says, it was "Edited in Lightroom 5 and Nik Color Efex Pro 6."

And to go back to John's post for a moment. I overlooked the point he made about Gene Smith's Minimata photo: Yes, I'm well aware of the kind of post-processing Gene did with that picture, but he didn't add stuff that wasn't there, though he did do that in the famous Schweitzer picture.

Title: Re: What's Photography For?
Post by: RSL on February 25, 2017, 02:01:49 pm
And this has what? to do with using distorted linear perspective, Keith?
Title: Re: What's Photography For?
Post by: Rob C on February 25, 2017, 02:37:34 pm
(http://www.keithlaban.co.uk/red%20flowers.jpg)

Out of camera.


But that's not the point: that's what you get at whatever settings you choose to apply. The camera isn't letting you go beyond what the mechanics of focus, shutter and stop allow you to do. For example, had your desired reality demanded you turn some of the highlights blue, the camera wouldn't do that. To do that, you need to eff about in PS. Or even worse, cut out and suspend tiny coloured gels.

That's why I think that the OP wasn't referring here to manipulation; what your camera (and you) have achieved is to make a recording of what those setting you chose produce. Beyond that, neither you nor camera have actually made what reality should look like - that would be a step beyond its capability.

The part where one turns reality into what one thinks it should look like comes later, in PS.

Of course, one can always claim that what came out of the camera was how one intended reality should look, but I think that would be a bit disingenuous in the case of this thread...

Possibly angels and heads of pins, but definitely no pixies!

;-)

Rob
Title: Re: What's Photography For?
Post by: Tim Lookingbill on February 25, 2017, 03:09:33 pm
Sorry, Tim, you lost me there. I'm afraid I couldn't follow your logic. All a photographer ever is doing is shooting a record of what's in front of the camera, whether or not he has a "different kind of sensitivity." The camera isn't a magical box full of fairy dust.

You don't give much credit to the photographer, Russ.

And I'm still puzzled why you needed to point out the obvious fact that a camera is just a tool to record reality. What's the significance of pointing this out and what does it have to do with why we photograph or what's photography for? I read all over that essay and couldn't find your answer or was all of it a kind of thinking out loud rhetorical questioning? A lamenting casting about of why we are here photographing and what does it all mean kind of philosophizing?

So what is photography for to you, Russ?
Title: Re: What's Photography For?
Post by: Tim Lookingbill on February 25, 2017, 03:20:34 pm
I suspect that folks have not read the OPs opening gambit properly, and without instantly projecting upon it their own sense of understanding.

The words in italics are in italics intentionally; Russ is a good writer and not given to random sloppiness of expression. Reread and reconsider what he has actually written with what you are interpreting. Not the same things.

Rob C

Good writing does not equate to effective communication of such a broad subject reflected in the title of his essay.

So, Rob, why do we photograph? Or what's photography for? Russ clearly states a camera can't be used for self expression. It's just a recording device. Maybe he should have reworded the title subject to "What is the photographic process for?" or "Why do we want to express our self through the photographic process?"
Title: Re: What's Photography For?
Post by: Tim Lookingbill on February 25, 2017, 03:27:25 pm
I'd contend that the camera is far more than a recording device: it is a creative tool.

Technically in the digital world the camera is just recording electrical voltage variances provided by various amounts of photons hitting each sensor cell.

Now, if framed within the context that the camera is a tool for creating unique and inventive compositions while utilizing filters, exposure and DOF tricks to make reality a bit distorted, I'ld agree that it's a creative tool.
Title: Re: What's Photography For?
Post by: RSL on February 25, 2017, 03:43:35 pm
Good writing does not equate to effective communication of such a broad subject reflected in the title of his essay.

So, Rob, why do we photograph? Or what's photography for? Russ clearly states a camera can't be used for self expression. It's just a recording device. Maybe he should have reworded the title subject to "What is the photographic process for?" or "Why do we want to express our self through the photographic process?"

Exactly where in that essay did I state that a camera can't be used for self-expression, Tim? Please show me the quote.

I'd suggest you go back and read the first sentence in the essay. You might even want to read the title.

Of course the camera can be used for self-expression, but the expression comes from your selection of subjects and lighting, not from attempts to distort reality. Keith comes up with an array of colorful blobs as an example of self-expression, but anybody with a brush and canvas could outdo that in almost as little time as it takes to throw your camera out of focus and shoot.

In a nutshell, what I said is that there are certain things in visual art that paint can do better than a camera can, and there are certain things a camera can do better than paint can. I don't think you have to be a particularly careful reader to understand that.
Title: Re: What's Photography For?
Post by: Tim Lookingbill on February 25, 2017, 03:46:07 pm
And just to clarify my point about "some folks have different sensitivities" in determining whether a camera is just a recording device instead of a creative tool, I'll put it this way...

Some people are tone deaf to the creative process just like someone not being able to see certain hues of colors or feel an emotion in a song melody. It's a physical limitation.

They can only look at paintings and assume to know the artist's intent without even picking up a paint brush and studying how one has to think and organize the methodology behind artists expressing them self through the "process" of painting. It's a process, and it's different process on a personal level for each individual artist.

It's the same personal process used to make a photograph express something. No one can know this or how it is done, you can only discern or read into the results. You can't reverse engineer creativity. You are either sensitive to the end result of the artist or you read into it something that wasn't intended at the outset. Or you just don't get and move on to something else that addresses a different sensitivity.
Title: Re: What's Photography For?
Post by: Tim Lookingbill on February 25, 2017, 03:53:11 pm
Exactly where in that essay did I state that a camera can't be used for self-expression, Tim? Please show me the quote.

Quote
The camera is a recording instrument. It's not the kind of tool that lets you express your own ideas about what reality should look like.

What were you expressing in that essay, Russ? A lot of it is just pointing out the obvious. I couldn't discern any new information. What in that essay did you think no one knew? 
Title: Re: What's Photography For?
Post by: RSL on February 25, 2017, 03:59:09 pm
And I stand by that sentence, Tim. With a camera you can't express your own ideas about what reality should look like, but you can express your own grasp of the beauty of reality. What kind of reality? Well, it depends. Landscape can be pretty. Sports and reportage can be fun. But with a camera, real art comes with catching the relationships between people and people and their surroundings.
Title: Re: What's Photography For?
Post by: RSL on February 25, 2017, 04:00:46 pm
By the way, I'm glad at least a few people are getting excited about discussing photography as an art. Sure beats the crap that's going on about politics on a photography site.
Title: Re: What's Photography For?
Post by: Tim Lookingbill on February 25, 2017, 04:08:20 pm
And I stand by that sentence, Tim. With a camera you can't express your own ideas about what reality should look like, but you can express your own grasp of the beauty of reality. What kind of reality? Well, it depends. Landscape can be pretty. Sports and reportage can be fun. But with a camera, real art comes with catching the relationships between people and people and their surroundings.

OK, now I can see you're just rearranging the furniture to win an argument. I'm a fair minded individual who understands logic, plain talk and the ego of humans. When the telltale speech patterns of rationalization appears, it's now become a personal issue having nothing to do with providing new information.

Nice essay, Russ. I concede I'm not going to say anything new to you.
Title: Re: What's Photography For?
Post by: Rob C on February 25, 2017, 04:10:16 pm
Rob, I'm sure you would hope that your transparencies depicted how you intended reality to look.

Keith, reality was the last thing I wanted!

It took me a lot of messing about to get away from reality as she came out of the Niks and Hassies! I have to make a confession: I sometimes used a Softar filter! The worst insult I offered an image was a trial with one of those split Cokin tabac filters: Kodachrome sky looked like nicotined fingers. What was I thinking! That was decades ago: today - well, not today but since a few years ago - that Cokin holder holds a bit of plain glass that can be smeared with Vaseline... never dump anything!

It's been my experience that I should always hang on to useless things. Twenty-five or more years ago we had a cherry tree planted outside the office window, and as it was just a sapling, I bought a metre or two of plastic mesh, part of which I made into a roll and fitted around the base of the tree's trunk. This wasn't a Dali moment at all: it was an effort to foil our legion of cats! The little sods would approach anything woody and use it to sharpen their claws. They did look very tiger-like and sleek stretched out like that, tearing the bark off whatever, but very destructive. The remainder of the plastic mesh I rolled up and stored away in the garden where I used to stack my ton of wood.

As I recently had this bout of anger at the gardeners' neglect; I cleaned up as best I could, and threw the remains of that roll into the recycle bin before starting on the main business of ripping creepers from the hedges.

Sod's Law: today, thinking of a recently-seen Peter Lindbergh video where he employed a music stand as blurred foreground shape, I thought ha! mesh! Naturally, it's no longer available, is it? This has happened to me in different ways so damned often... should I ever manage to sell this pad, the clearing out I have to do!

;-)

Rob
Title: Re: What's Photography For?
Post by: Rob C on February 25, 2017, 04:59:58 pm
That's not been my experience especially shooting and post processing in Raw. I do agree the camera is a tool, but it's the user of that tool that controls and determines how they make reality look different when photographed, different meaning enhanced, mysterious, colorful, strange, off kilter, disturbing, etc.

If all a photographer is doing is shooting to record what's in front of them be it a landscape or macro shot of broken glass then I'ld say they have a different kind of sensitivity to the awareness of this power to express them self by telling a different story photographing reality.

This is becoming hard for me to try and answer more clearly. As I wrote in my first post on this topic, I think folks are not picking up on the sense of what Russ wrote, but are arguing about something entirely different.

As I see it, nobody is claiming that photographers are not sometimes creative beings; as the accentuated part of your post indicates, you are taking the concept of creativity outwith the camera and on into the realm of retouching and playing variations with the score, the score being what the camera is able to give you before you start making love with it. The argument, as I understand it, is about what the camera does, not what the photographer may be able to do. All that box and bit of glass does is record what you have pointed it at in the way that your settings allow. How you set it up is only a small part of what photographic creativity can be, and reality is still all that's there in front of the camera, and all it sees, applied artistic distortions notwithstanding. It's just applied mechanical and optical manipulation at the camera stage, and all the camera is doing is recording your manipulations of the light coming off that reality.

The thread, and I expect the discussion that Russ may have been hopìng to encourage has yet to begin, it seems; that discussion being what photography might be for, not what cameras do, which is where this has become bogged down.

The creative bit, the bit that counts, is the photographer's mind. Because one slaps on a super-wide and distorts the hell out of somebody doesn't mean the camera has done anything creative - it is still just recording what's there before the lens in the manner that lens forces. Interpose objects to create blur and the camera still just records the reality of what your camera setting and your use of external devices permit it to see. It simply records your inputs via light, just like a microphone does via sound.

Rob

Title: Re: What's Photography For?
Post by: Rob C on February 25, 2017, 05:01:31 pm
Rob, exactly my point!

;-)

And exactly mine: my point being it's not what I believe Russ to have been writing about, but where the argument has led.
Title: Re: What's Photography For?
Post by: Tony Jay on February 25, 2017, 07:10:28 pm
In response to Rob's less than subtle suggestion that I did not understand Russ' article I went back and read it again from go to woe.
After reading it again I am led to the same conclusions - not all articulated in my first response.
The overwhelming impression is that Russ has a very limited view on what comprises art and what has spiritual and emotional significance, especially pertaining to images created by the photographic process.
In the sense that this article very adequately explains Russ' views on art in general and photography in particular it is both well written and well constructed.
This article very adequately explains Russ' biases as well as his photographic interests - it most emphatically cannot stand as a final word on photography's standing in relation to the other visual arts.

An essential component of Russ's argument that photography as applied to any other genre apart from street photography not qualifying as art or having emotional or spiritual significance is that it is a mere static recording of a scene.
In the sense that he is highlighting an inbuilt limitation of the medium I am in agreement with him.
However, to then make an extraordinary leap of logic and claim that as a result of this genres such as landscape, wildlife and bird photography etc are devoid of artistic merit or spiritual and emotional significance, merely because they simply record reality, really just exposes his biases.

One of the greatest challenges in photography is to introduce an element of dynamism, of movement, and change, into a static medium. In this respect Ross is correct that photography has its limitations compared to other visual arts media. However any artistic medium has its limitations and it is not hard to construct an argument about the "limitations" of the paint brush as an example.
The key is to either turn the limitations of the medium into a virtue or explore creative ways of circumventing these limitations.
Some of the most successful photographic images ever taken  have managed to successfully introduce the illusion of dynamism into the image.

However, many very successful and artistically acclaimed images are static and so the illusion of dynamism is not crucial or mandatory.

The presence or absence of people in a photographic image is also neither here nor there as a discriminator for artistic significance. Russ' argument that street photography having credibility as artistic expression because of the presence of people in the images that allow viewers to emotionally identify with the story the image is telling is valid as it stands. However, the absence of people in an image does automatically exclude that image from having artistic, emotional, or spiritual significance - the fact that this is true for Russ (apparently) does not mean it should be extrapolated to others.

Neither the tools used nor the genre (in photography) exclude the images created as having artistic significance.
There is good art and there is bad art - neither the tools themselves nor the specific medium to which they are applied are ever the discriminator.

Tony Jay
Title: Re: What's Photography For?
Post by: Tim Lookingbill on February 25, 2017, 08:53:50 pm

As I see it, nobody is claiming that photographers are not sometimes creative beings; as the accentuated part of your post indicates, you are taking the concept of creativity outwith the camera and on into the realm of retouching and playing variations with the score, the score being what the camera is able to give you before you start making love with it. The argument, as I understand it, is about what the camera does, not what the photographer may be able to do. All that box and bit of glass does is record what you have pointed it at in the way that your settings allow. How you set it up is only a small part of what photographic creativity can be, and reality is still all that's there in front of the camera, and all it sees, applied artistic distortions notwithstanding. It's just applied mechanical and optical manipulation at the camera stage, and all the camera is doing is recording your manipulations of the light coming off that reality.

I didn't say Russ said photographers can't be creative beings. I said the use of the camera by a photographer can be a creative tool and I did later indicate that it's an entire process from framing compositions to post processing. You are putting words into others mouth. I don't think you have a true grasp of what Russ said in his essay.

Quote
The creative bit, the bit that counts, is the photographer's mind.

Russ did not emphasize this. He went off on a tangent with references to paintings, landscapes, wildlife. No mention of what photography is for or why we photograph. It's that simple. You don't have a monopoly on common sense, Rob.

Quote
Because one slaps on a super-wide and distorts the hell out of somebody doesn't mean the camera has done anything creative

No one said that a camera is being creative. No one here personified the camera. They did say it is a creative tool in the hands of someone who is sensitive to seeing it and using it as such both in front and back of the camera. Russ's essay reads as if he is not aware of this.

Tony Jay gives a more accurate synopsis of what Russ wrote. I stopped reading the essay because it was not providing new information for me. Tony Jay confirmed everything I didn't have to read.
Title: Re: What's Photography For?
Post by: JNB_Rare on February 25, 2017, 09:52:27 pm
But my point was his use of distorted linear perspective to make a point -- something you can't do with a camera. I stand by what I said about his device giving me the feel of the mountains.

Perhaps, Russ, it's a matter of degree. Advertising photogs used to use (do they still?) tilts, swings and shifts to get just the right perspective to make their product (say a car) look appealing (along with lighting and perhaps one of Rob's girls  ;)). An illustrator can go farther, of course, but it will always be an illustration. If the illustrator pushes too far, the distorted perspective becomes obvious -- as obvious as a poor PS job. But the camera doesn't lie -- or does it? Which is the more compelling image? Which does a better job of making my pupils dilate? How many illustrations of automobiles do we see these days?

Of course, you may not feel that advertising illustrations (or photographs) are art, but do they do have a similar purpose -- to give you the sensation of owning/driving that car. To grab you and shake you -- perhaps not in a transcendent or spiritual way, but certainly in a visceral way (i.e. relating to deep inward feelings rather than to the intellect).

For me, the debate about recording instruments is moot. In many circumstances, a pencil, or paints, or clay could be regarded as "recording devices" – slow, yet flexible ones. The camera has its own advantages and disadvantages. But, in the end, it's the result that matters to me. Is a painted portrait or bronze bust of Winston Churchill any better than Yousef Karsh's photographic portrait of him? Who challenged the world more about sensuality, sexuality and eroticism -- Gustav Klimt or Helmut Newton? (Perhaps each in his own era).

Russ, I think you have a very personal idea of what art is; it seems that part of what you look for is that ability to be transcendent and spiritual. Some street photography almost takes you there, but you seem to have concluded that the medium of photography can't quite do it; that "the camera is just a recording device" seems so obvious to you. There's nothing wrong with your opinion, and I respect it. But I see things from a slightly different "perspective".

BTW, I'd take T. S. Elliot over Dylan Thomas, and I prefer most music without voice.  :)
Title: Re: What's Photography For?
Post by: Rob C on February 26, 2017, 05:10:55 am
Then the article has failed in that it is unclear what it is Russ has been writing about.

Surprising; it seemed clear enough to me!

I write having also just looked at Tony's response, and he feels offended by the suggestion that he, along with almost every other responder, has 'misunderstood' what Russ wrote. Reality is that I may be just as mistaken, but that's not the point I was making either. The point I make is that what I think Russ alluded to is something quite separate from the point others seem to believe was being made.

In other words, at least two different interpretations of the proposition made by Russ are being written about here, rather than what Russ actually expressed within that frst paragraph.

It also seems to be the case that some think Russ has made a statement for the entirety of art appreciation which, again, seems not to be what I draw from the OP. I read him to be outlining the aspects of photography that appeal to his sensibilities - nothing more threatening than that.

And at the end of the day, his purpose, as with any person staring a thread, is to encourage debate if, IMO, for no better reason that it lifts the boredom of Mr Bloody Trump and his divisive influence on this website.

Maybe nobody enjoys debate anymore, and everything has to be confrontation and a meeting behind the bicycle shed. If so, fuck the lot; I'll look after my fingers instead and stop typing whilst there's still circulation getting down to the frozen, painful, Reynaud-cursed blue tips.

Rob C
Title: Re: What's Photography For?
Post by: Tony Jay on February 26, 2017, 06:52:49 am
I think the biggest issue was not necessarily that Russ asked a question (sotto voice) but that he nailed his colours to the mast in a fashion analogous to the ending of the 1812 overture (apologies for mangling metaphors and similies).

Had he but asked a question and left it at that I think Russ and Rob may have got the sort of debate that they both apparently were seeking.
However, as a summary statement, his article basically dismissed most of the photographers on this forum and their work because they happen to shoot landscape, wildlife and birds.
Before anyone protests go read the whole article - Russ believes that street photography may qualify as art for the reasons that he lists, as for the rest...

If Russ had said that it is hard to make a meaningful photograph in any genre I would wholeheartedly with that.
If he had defined "meaningful" in terms of emotional and spiritual significance - perhaps even achieving a transcendent quality - no issue with that either.
If he had then gone on to clearly list the limitations that photography has as a medium of artistic expression (they certainly are there) but then posed the question - how then does one attempt to make a meaningful photograph (attempt because one never really quite knows what the result will be, or how that result will be judged) in general and perhaps also in different genres - he may have got a different response.

Tony Jay
Title: Re: What's Photography For?
Post by: JNB_Rare on February 26, 2017, 08:41:58 am
I read him to be outlining the aspects of photography that appeal to his sensibilities - nothing more threatening than that.

Rob C

I think Tony expressed it well in the above post.

Russ makes the case that exploring the human condition is, for him, perhaps the most noble and suitable pursuit of photography. It is within this genre that he sees images that are meaningful in a way that landscapes and other genres of photography are not. Along the way, he posits reasons for why the camera is perhaps "a lesser medium", because of its limitations (at least that is what I read/interpreted).

For me, exploring the human condition is one of the important pursuits of ANY medium. I would argue that photography is at least as successful a medium for this genre and, for our generation, perhaps it has superseded more traditional art media. But I also find other genres of art, and other goals of art no less valuable. A landscape which is soothing, peaceful, tranquil, is just as important (perhaps more so for me) as one that is stirring.

I don't qualify art or meaning by its medium. So, for me, a photograph, in any genre, is not intrinsically lesser or less successful than other forms of art. That photography can be a powerful medium for exploring the human condition (HCB, Eugene Smith, Lange, others), I wholeheartedly agree.

Anyway, this is the "coffee corner". To me, Russ's essay is like the start of a conversation we might have over a coffee after seeing an Ansel Adams or W. Eugene Smith exhibit together. The Internet has given us the opportunity to have a "coffee and conversation" that would be impossible any other way. I have no interest in being right or proving others wrong. I enjoy the debate, learn things, and perhaps give others something new or different to consider.
Title: Re: What's Photography For?
Post by: Rob C on February 26, 2017, 10:19:41 am
Okay, I try one more time.

Image 1 is what the camera sees as the real world. It can do nothing else.

(http://www.roma57.com/uploads/4/2/8/7/4287956/d-3050_orig.jpg)

Image 2 is what the photographer chose, later, with no malice aforethought, to do with the camera's recording of reallity.

(http://www.roma57.com/uploads/4/2/8/7/4287956/d-3049_orig.jpg)

I hope this makes clear the differencs between the reality a camera records, and the projections of another reality that a photographer may wish to inflict upon the world at large.

The camera only provides a frame around content. Which I believe to be what the OP was stating.

Rob
Title: Re: What's Photography For?
Post by: RSL on February 26, 2017, 10:26:10 am
I think Tony expressed it well in the above post.

Russ makes the case that exploring the human condition is, for him, perhaps the most noble and suitable pursuit of photography. It is within this genre that he sees images that are meaningful in a way that landscapes and other genres of photography are not. Along the way, he posits reasons for why the camera is perhaps "a lesser medium", because of its limitations (at least that is what I read/interpreted).

For me, exploring the human condition is one of the important pursuits of ANY medium. I would argue that photography is at least as successful a medium for this genre and, for our generation, perhaps it has superseded more traditional art media. But I also find other genres of art, and other goals of art no less valuable. A landscape which is soothing, peaceful, tranquil, is just as important (perhaps more so for me) as one that is stirring.

I don't qualify art or meaning by its medium. So, for me, a photograph, in any genre, is not intrinsically lesser or less successful than other forms of art. That photography can be a powerful medium for exploring the human condition (HCB, Eugene Smith, Lange, others), I wholeheartedly agree.

Anyway, this is the "coffee corner". To me, Russ's essay is like the start of a conversation we might have over a coffee after seeing an Ansel Adams or W. Eugene Smith exhibit together. The Internet has given us the opportunity to have a "coffee and conversation" that would be impossible any other way. I have no interest in being right or proving others wrong. I enjoy the debate, learn things, and perhaps give others something new or different to consider.

Thanks, John,

I think most of the posters with heartburn failed to read the first sentence in the article: "Or, to put it a another way, what does photography do best in comparison with other visual art forms?" (emphasis added) I'm far from suggesting the camera is a "lesser medium." In the case of street photography it does something no other visual art medium can do as effectively. Oh, there's Degas's painting "Absinthe," of a believably stoned woman in a café. But since it's a painting no one can be sure Edgar didn't take liberties with her portrayal. In something like Bierstadt's paintings of the Rockies, the viewer expects him to take liberties with reality -- to enhance reality.

I've attached an example of what I mean. I've posted this picture before, and it was the first picture in my essay, "On Street Photography," which LuLa published a year or so ago. Anyone can look at this picture and be reminded what it was like to be a kid and to dream. I don't think a painting of this scene would be nearly as effective as an image produced by the camera. The painting would come across as maudlin.

As I said, I think people are more interested in other people than they are in Half Dome, which is why Cartier-Bresson was the most influential photographer of the early to middle twentieth century, and why Robert Frank was the most influential photography of the latter part of the century.

I'd agree with you that exploring the human condition is one of the important pursuits of any art medium, which is exactly why I brought up Dylan Thomas. But the camera has something that no other tool has: instant believability. Sadly, in the age of Photoshop, that believability is beginning to wane. It's true that even without Photoshop Trotsky was made to disappeared from pictures of Bolshevik gatherings early in the twentieth century, but most people aren't aware of that.

I'm sorry (actually I'm not) about the high-flying balloons I've punctured, carrying photographers who believe that if they step out the back door and snap a picture of the landscape beyond the fence it's great art. But that's life. As I've explained, I do landscape too. I do sports too. I do reportage too. I do still life too. You can see all that on my webs. But to me, where the camera excels is with street photography, and that's where you'll find real photographic art.
Title: Re: What's Photography For?
Post by: JNB_Rare on February 26, 2017, 11:01:41 am
Image 2 is what the photographer chose, later, with no malice aforethought, to do with the camera's recording of reality.

Of course, the camera cannot record what's not there, whereas as a painter might create something that he sees only in his "mind's eye".

And, yet, there is much that can be done about a photographic image before, and with conscious forethought. Adams called it visualization. It's a talent that perhaps I'll never be all that good at. And the modern digital camera and colour files do make it easier for many to explore and choose later.

Title: Re: What's Photography For?
Post by: Rob C on February 26, 2017, 11:10:51 am
I think Tony expressed it well in the above post.

Russ makes the case that exploring the human condition is, for him, perhaps the most noble and suitable pursuit of photography. It is within this genre that he sees images that are meaningful in a way that landscapes and other genres of photography are not. Along the way, he posits reasons for why the camera is perhaps "a lesser medium", because of its limitations (at least that is what I read/interpreted).

For me, exploring the human condition is one of the important pursuits of ANY medium. I would argue that photography is at least as successful a medium for this genre and, for our generation, perhaps it has superseded more traditional art media. But I also find other genres of art, and other goals of art no less valuable. A landscape which is soothing, peaceful, tranquil, is just as important (perhaps more so for me) as one that is stirring.

I don't qualify art or meaning by its medium. So, for me, a photograph, in any genre, is not intrinsically lesser or less successful than other forms of art. That photography can be a powerful medium for exploring the human condition (HCB, Eugene Smith, Lange, others), I wholeheartedly agree.

Anyway, this is the "coffee corner". To me, Russ's essay is like the start of a conversation we might have over a coffee after seeing an Ansel Adams or W. Eugene Smith exhibit together. The Internet has given us the opportunity to have a "coffee and conversation" that would be impossible any other way. I have no interest in being right or proving others wrong. I enjoy the debate, learn things, and perhaps give others something new or different to consider.


Indeed, but my original response to the OP was to quote that telling line about camera function within the wider scope of the medium.

As several folks instantly leaped in contradicting, and saying that of course photography can be creative (which was not denied either by Russ or moi), it appeared clear to me - still does - that the point was being mistaken for something nobody had claimed, until they did that themselves.

As for the question, what's photography for? then the answer is rather wide, and the best one can do is reply from a personal persepective, devoid of preaching or suppositions. So here we go.

For me, photography was an interest that began when I was very young. It grew in tandem with a love for art, especially the later schools of Impressionism and Post-Impressionism. I would visit galleries whenever I could, and a cousin and I used to blow pocket money buying postcards there, and trying to paint the same things ourselves. He went on to art school and spent/is still spending a lifetime as a professional, fine art painter. I realised I'd never make it because the native talent was far too thin, and as bad, art education had been precluded due to school attitudes that relegated art class attendance to the "lesser student", so the alternative co-existing love of photography grew to replace the other one. The school had never even considered photography could be a career... all fine intentions, but so misplaced.

So I started with love of it, then followed up living the career, and now, retired, I'm still doing it when I can muster up the drive. But what's it for, is the question. It is a means to an end, a way of fulfilling what artistic/creative urge one might have when the more noble arts are beyond one. It's a way of making money - sometimes a helluva lot of it - and a way of starving slowly without really being aware of the fact. It's a way of spending your day in the more pleasant company of pretty girls instead of with some sadistic, miserable old sod in a glass office, the door of which you better knock before entering. It's a way of keeping one's sorry ass off the production line, of avoiding an early death from the industrial smog of a machine room full of turning- and grinding-fluid vapour and the noise levels that turn you deaf too soon.

It's a fine way of seeing the world at a level only a client's deep pockets would allow. It's for providing the space to stop, relax, breath some air and spend pretty much 24/24 with your wife if you want to do that - which I did, which is why I married.

In short, it's for living a life that makes one happy, even if the other rewards may or may not ever materialise.

What it may represent for other people I can only guess. But that's their job to state, not mine to attempt to state on their behalf.

Rob
Title: Re: What's Photography For?
Post by: Rob C on February 26, 2017, 11:15:58 am
Of course, the camera cannot record what's not there, whereas as a painter might create something that he sees only in his "mind's eye".

And, yet, there is much that can be done about a photographic image before, and with conscious forethought. Adams called it visualization. It's a talent that perhaps I'll never be all that good at. And the modern digital camera and colour files do make it easier for many to explore and choose later.


Thank you! That's what I was trying to say all along, and thought so painfully obvious it mystified me that it escaped others.

Rob
Title: Re: What's Photography For?
Post by: JNB_Rare on February 26, 2017, 11:25:40 am
As I said, I think people are more interested in other people than they are in Half Dome, which is why Cartier-Bresson was the most influential photographer of the early to middle twentieth century, and why Robert Frank was the most influential photography of the latter part of the century.

I had to smile at that one, because it seems like a value judgement from an extrovert.  :)

Years ago a 'pop' psych profile put me at the far end of the introversion scale. When I go photographing, people recede from my consciousness almost entirely. I don't notice those around me unless they become impediments to my ability to achieve what I want (stepping into the frame, etc.). That's not to say that I don't value my relationships (wife, family, friends), or enjoy, learn from, or take inspiration from the images of HCB, Frank, Smith and others. But I connect with artists such Wynn Bullock, Minor White, Paul Caponigro etc., just as much.
Title: Re: What's Photography For?
Post by: JNB_Rare on February 26, 2017, 12:11:33 pm
In short, it's (photography) for living a life that makes one happy, even if the other rewards may or may not ever materialise.

One can't ask for much more, Rob.
Title: Re: What's Photography For?
Post by: Rob C on February 26, 2017, 12:53:54 pm
I had to smile at that one, because it seems like a value judgement from an extrovert.  :)

Years ago a 'pop' psych profile put me at the far end of the introversion scale. When I go photographing, people recede from my consciousness almost entirely. I don't notice those around me unless they become impediments to my ability to achieve what I want (stepping into the frame, etc.). That's not to say that I don't value my relationships (wife, family, friends), or enjoy, learn from, or take inspiration from the images of HCB, Frank, Smith and others. But I connect with artists such Wynn Bullock, Minor White, Paul Caponigro etc., just as much.


Hey - you are in good company!

I know at least three of us on this site who would rather stay home and wash dishes (exaggeration here?) than go out shooting with another photographer; it would feel the most unnatural, counterproductive thing that one, as a snapper, could ever do.
Title: Re: What's Photography For?
Post by: Tim Lookingbill on February 26, 2017, 03:20:00 pm
Okay, I try one more time.

Image 1 is what the camera sees as the real world. It can do nothing else.

Image 2 is what the photographer chose, later, with no malice aforethought, to do with the camera's recording of reallity.

I hope this makes clear the differencs between the reality a camera records, and the projections of another reality that a photographer may wish to inflict upon the world at large.

The camera only provides a frame around content. Which I believe to be what the OP was stating.

Rob

You left out the multitudes of split second, micro-fine, emotionally driven decision making in the photographer's mind and spirit that settled on the composition within the frame and later interpreted by the viewer.

A photograph like any other image regardless how it was made tells more about the creators thinking, state of mind, mood, philosophy and even politics that can't be removed from the image to dissect and analyze as just a mechanical recording of reality in this case by a camera.

At least I don't look at photos and images that way.

And don't be too sure you or anyone else knows exactly what reality looks like rendered in a photo. The eyes can fool the memory especially when the eyes have to adapt to similar scenes of non-neutral white balance and varying contrasts. Reality looks pretty bland and flat when viewed out of context of the frame. Any darkened movie theater will show this when the lights go on at the end of a movie.
Title: Re: What's Photography For?
Post by: Tim Lookingbill on February 26, 2017, 03:52:04 pm
Quote
I'm far from suggesting the camera is a "lesser medium."

Russ, you keep accusing us of not reading or misinterpreting the first line in your essay. OK, that's your interpretation.

But I'm going to have to keep correcting you on your statement that we said you said the camera is a lesser medium. You did say the camera limits self expression as just a machine that records reality. That does not say it's a "lesser medium". The camera is just as capable a tool as any other image creation tool in enabling the creator to express them self. In fact it's used to resurrect the dead going by how many cameras they used for Peter Cushing to reprise his role in the last Star Wars: Rogue One movie.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMB2sLwz0Do

The act of creativity with any medium can't be compartmentalized to reveal its limitations of its use for self expression because the creative process has WAY TOO MANY other properties, motives, thoughts, emotions, decision making processes, before, during and after the final results that influence the entire creation event making it impossible to just point to one aspect of the process (i.e. medium used) in determining a work of art as original and having emotionally deep and meaningful qualities.
Title: Re: What's Photography For?
Post by: RSL on February 26, 2017, 04:39:19 pm
Tim, you seem to be having trouble with logic. How can you jump from the statement that the camera only records what's in front of it (or only records reality) to "the camera limits self-expression?" Whether or not what you're doing with a camera represents self-expression depends on what you choose to point the camera at, how you choose to handle depth of field, how you choose to handle motion, and how you choose to light what the camera's pointing at. Self expression even depends on what you do in Photoshop, or in the darkroom. And I'm not talking about dubbing in a starry sky, enhancing a pair of boobs or other tawdry Photoshop activities. But when that camera clicks it only records what's in front of the camera. No more. No less. If you think it records something else, please tell me what you think that is.
Title: Re: What's Photography For?
Post by: Tony Jay on February 26, 2017, 05:48:33 pm
...
I'm sorry (actually I'm not) about the high-flying balloons I've punctured, carrying photographers who believe that if they step out the back door and snap a picture of the landscape beyond the fence it's great art. But that's life. As I've explained, I do landscape too. I do sports too. I do reportage too. I do still life too. You can see all that on my webs. But to me, where the camera excels is with street photography, and that's where you'll find real photographic art.
This is complete bullshyte!
I do not know any photographer who would ever believe that - landscape photographer or not.
This stupid, narrow-minded, and bigoted representation of people who may not agree with your stance says nothing about them but says plenty about you, Russ.

Frankly, this completely vindicates my position that your OP was never a call to a debate about the artistic significance of photography but rather a narrow-minded opinion piece designed to shut down debate and exclude dissenting views.

That article may have been a clarion call for the sycophants but was never meant to be a call to a reasoned debate!
Title: Re: What's Photography For?
Post by: Tim Lookingbill on February 26, 2017, 05:53:47 pm
Tim, you seem to be having trouble with logic. How can you jump from the statement that the camera only records what's in front of it (or only records reality) to "the camera limits self-expression?" Whether or not what you're doing with a camera represents self-expression depends on what you choose to point the camera at, how you choose to handle depth of field, how you choose to handle motion, and how you choose to light what the camera's pointing at. Self expression even depends on what you do in Photoshop, or in the darkroom. And I'm not talking about dubbing in a starry sky, enhancing a pair of boobs or other tawdry Photoshop activities. But when that camera clicks it only records what's in front of the camera. No more. No less. If you think it records something else, please tell me what you think that is.

Russ, you seem to be having trouble with comprehension. I'm addressing what you said here and in your essay about the camera limiting self expression.

Or maybe you're just messing with me. I can't tell, now.
Title: Re: What's Photography For?
Post by: Tim Lookingbill on February 26, 2017, 05:56:48 pm

This stupid, narrow-minded, and bigoted representation of people who may not agree with your stance says nothing about them but says plenty about you, Russ.

Frankly, this completely vindicates my position that your OP was never a call to a debate about the artistic significance of photography but rather a narrow-minded opinion piece designed to shut down debate and exclude dissenting views.

That article may have been a clarion call for the sycophants but was never meant to be a call to a reasoned debate!

I totally agree. Couldn't have said it better. Really, I couldn't.
Title: Re: What's Photography For?
Post by: RSL on February 26, 2017, 07:19:53 pm
Russ, you seem to be having trouble with comprehension. I'm addressing what you said here and in your essay about the camera limiting self expression.

Or maybe you're just messing with me. I can't tell, now.

Tim, You're not telling me what you think the camera records. You obviously don't think it records "reality," or what's in front of the lens.
Title: Re: What's Photography For?
Post by: Rob C on February 27, 2017, 05:53:09 pm
1... You left out the multitudes of split second, micro-fine, emotionally driven decision making in the photographer's mind and spirit that settled on the composition within the frame and later interpreted by the viewer.

A photograph like any other image regardless how it was made tells more about the creators thinking, state of mind, mood, philosophy and even politics that can't be removed from the image to dissect and analyze as just a mechanical recording of reality in this case by a camera.

At least I don't look at photos and images that way.

And don't be too sure you or anyone else knows exactly what reality looks like rendered in a photo. 2... The eyes can fool the memory especially when the eyes have to adapt to similar scenes of non-neutral white balance and varying contrasts. Reality looks pretty bland and flat when viewed out of context of the frame. Any darkened movie theater will show this when the lights go on at the end of a movie.


1.  Nope, that's included with the framing, the presentation of whatever reality that the poor old box of tricks get shown.

2.  Memory has nothing to do with it; in fact photographer memory would probably get in the way of later creativity, and for the sake of this particular chat, whether that reality that the camera saw and recorded is some definitive reality or not matters zilch: it's what the thing recorded.
Title: Re: What's Photography For?
Post by: Rob C on February 27, 2017, 06:00:11 pm
This is complete bullshyte!
I do not know any photographer who would ever believe that - landscape photographer or not.
This stupid, narrow-minded, and bigoted representation of people who may not agree with your stance says nothing about them but says plenty about you, Russ.

Frankly, this completely vindicates my position that your OP was never a call to a debate about the artistic significance of photography but rather a narrow-minded opinion piece designed to shut down debate and exclude dissenting views.

That article may have been a clarion call for the sycophants but was never meant to be a call to a reasoned debate!

Say hello to one photographer who believes at least one half of that statement.

;-)

Rob
Title: Re: What's Photography For?
Post by: Tony Jay on February 27, 2017, 06:41:44 pm
Say hello to one photographer who believes at least one half of that statement.

;-)

Rob
I am sorry Rob - completely inadequate answer.
At least have the courage to put your cards on the table.
Title: Re: What's Photography For?
Post by: Rob C on February 28, 2017, 03:46:56 am
I am sorry Rob - completely inadequate answer.
At least have the courage to put your cards on the table.

They're there: try reading them.

;-)

Rob
Title: Re: What's Photography For?
Post by: Tony Jay on February 28, 2017, 04:28:15 am
They're there: try reading them.

;-)

Rob
So, I am forced to guess what you mean then.
And Russ is completely lost in action.

Seems to me Rob you are really tap-dancing here - just come out an be explicit.
I don't think that you can defend Russ' stance except by avoiding the truth of what Russ wrote - not once but twice.

Frankly, I think that Russ can and should explain himself.
Title: Re: What's Photography For?
Post by: RSL on February 28, 2017, 07:04:56 am
Hi Keith. I just checked your web. You do some really pleasant tourist photography.
Title: Re: What's Photography For?
Post by: RSL on February 28, 2017, 07:06:14 am
Frankly, I think that Russ can and should explain himself.

I've already explained everything, Tony. It's all there in my essay.
Title: Re: What's Photography For?
Post by: RSL on February 28, 2017, 08:16:09 am
Oops. I just realized that a change I made on my web yesterday made the article inaccessible. Sorry about that. It's reachable again for those who'd like to re-read it so they can understand it better.
Title: Re: What's Photography For?
Post by: Rob C on February 28, 2017, 10:22:46 am
So, I am forced to guess what you mean then.
And Russ is completely lost in action.

Seems to me Rob you are really 1. tap-dancing here - just come out an be explicit.
2. I don't think that you can defend Russ' stance except by avoiding the truth of what Russ wrote - not once but twice.

Frankly, I think that Russ can and should explain himself.

1. So dance to this one:

You got to know when to hold them,
Know when to fold them;
Know when to walk away
And know when to run.

2. Interesting concept: on the one hand I am supposedly defending him (as if he needed that!); on the other hand I'm avoiding the truth? But as I believe the point he made and have repeatedly tried to explain - and illustrate - what I see that point to be, that it's what I believe (regardless of who articulated it first, he or I), and why, there's not a lot more I can try to do to help.

Guess we both have to live with that.

Rob


Title: Re: What's Photography For?
Post by: Rob C on February 28, 2017, 10:48:26 am
I'm sorry, (actually I'm not) but I believe that to be one of the most disingenuous posts I've ever read here on LuLa.

But, just to be clear, I'm far from being a fan of landscape photography, in fact I'd go as far as saying I've a dislike and or indifference for almost all I've seen, including my own.

And, Lord only knows what real photographic art is.

Keith,

I share your attitude to landscape snaps, and have come across very few that I have grown to respect. I wish I'd looked a bit longer here:

http://www.chuckkimmerle.com/

before commenting too inclusvely wide and negatively on landscape a few years ago. I feel I short-changed Chuck and I regret it. But that's about where it stops.

The problem with/for landscape photographers is that they work in a medium where they have minimal control. Of course, all the usual camera operator tricks are available, but style, personality, is woefully absent in most cases. The pictures can be tack sharp, selectively focussed, all the stages in-between, but at the end of the exrcise, they are just frames around whatever was there, which is a fate shared by most of photography. I'm afraid that it almost inevitably takes the human touch within the frame - either as a person or a person's traces - to make it connect. Without that, at the very best, it's great stock material and ready-made for travel posters and calendars. In the latter case, almost interchangeable with kittens and dogs with tartan bows.

I do enjoy Michael Kenna, but even there, as with his many clones, seen one pic you've seen 'em all. Just like a good pair of tits, regardless of their distinct personalities.

That's why I find good fashion photography so interesting on so many different levels: it has the ability to be used as a creative medium. It's also the appeal of some versions of street, as distinct from the in-your-face sort of street.

Inevitably I have to assume it (photography) is a very minor art.

Where the photographer with the oomph of a Francis Bacon?

Rob
Title: Re: What's Photography For?
Post by: Tony Jay on February 28, 2017, 05:56:58 pm
I've already explained everything, Tony. It's all there in my essay.
Actually Russ it is not!

Who are all those individuals, those stupid and arrogant landscape photographers, who believe that all they need to do is point their camera over the back fence and snap the shutter to produce great art.
How about naming some of them - I would love to know who you are referring to!
For lots of reasons I don't believe any names will be forthcoming - not least because it was actually meant as broad insult to landscape photographers in general.

Personally, I know of no photographer - amateur or professional, whatever they shoot, who believes they will produce great art just merely by pressing the shutter. Nowhere even close!

That characterisation of landscape photographers is way, way out of line, it was clearly meant to be insulting and dismissive. And that on a forum, primarily, but admittedly not exclusively, devoted to landscape photography. As I said before that comment says a lot about you, but nothing really about landscape photographers.
Are we really to believe that your views on art and photographers are so narrow-minded and bigoted.

I really think a real explanation and an apology to this community is in order!
Title: Re: What's Photography For?
Post by: RSL on February 28, 2017, 06:25:59 pm
There's an old saying, Tony: "If the shoe fits, wear it." Frankly, I think you're a bit overexcited. You probably need to grab a beer and relax.
Title: Re: What's Photography For?
Post by: Tony Jay on February 28, 2017, 08:21:24 pm
My post stands.
Title: Re: What's Photography For?
Post by: Ray on February 28, 2017, 08:27:09 pm
I'll always remember the first computer exhibition I attended in the early 1990's where suppliers were showing off their latest monitors, desk-top computers and inkjet printers. This was around the time I was becoming fascinated by the possibility of getting my 30-40-year-old slides scanned by Kodak and recorded on a CD so I could either see my slides on TV, and/or print them, using the latest inkjet printer and a computer I hadn't yet bought.

But what grabbed my attention most was a section of the exhibition where someone sitting at a desk in front of a monitor, was showing off the capabilities of Photoshop.
At the time I was rather dismayed that current monitors did not have the resolution to display all the detail in a Kodak scan of my slides, when I wanted to view the full composition, so I was interested in the facility of Photoshop to enlarge or diminish the size of any image according to my preferences.

I asked the operator behind the desk to demonstrate for me the maximum enlargement that was possible. I was amazed that at the maximum enlargement I could clearly see each individual pixels. I then asked him if it was possible to change the color of any individual pixel. Sure, he replied, and proceeded to turn one blue pixel, within a small patch of blue on the image, into a red pixel, then downsized the enlargement to its normal size.

In the image at its normal size on the monitor, I could clearly see in that same patch of blue, a very tiny red speck that wasn't there before. Wow! The thought immediately occurred to me, that theoretically, through a process of changing each individual pixel, one could change any photographic image of anything into a completely different image. One could theoretically begin with an image of a house or a car, and gradually turn it into an image of a sexy lady, using the same pixels, just changing their color.

Of course, using such a meticulous process as changing the color of each individual pixel in order to change the over all composition, would be very tedious and time-consuming, especially in view of the much higher resolution of modern images. I'm not suggesting this is a sensible approach. However, there are many useful techniques in Photoshop that allow one to change various sizes of groups of pixels, through a process of selection and feathering.

Lightening a face, brightening an eye, darkening a sky, raising the shadows, and so on, are all part of the creativity involved in processing an image.

The difference between a painter and a photographer is, the painter begins with a blank canvas and adds to it, using paint and a paint brush, whereas the photographer already has all the paint he needs, which has been provided by the camera. He can be as creative as he wants using a much more sophisticated tool than a paint brush. His tool is Photoshop, which allows him to rearrange the paint on the canvas endlessly and repeatedly according to his patience, skill, motivation and innate creativity. Okay!  ;D
Title: Re: What's Photography For?
Post by: Rob C on March 01, 2017, 05:03:59 am
Ray,

I think you've put your finger on the reality of photography as it is today.

Your post reflects the way I find myself approach pictures these past few years. Was a time I tried to select, set up, change position and so on, all in an attemt to make something that felt interesting to me and did what I hoped the clients had expected from me.

Now, I have changed my MO quite a lot. I hardly think of a thing when (if) I take the camera out, and simply wait for that brief spark of recognition as I'm wandering about. (And that very free act of wandering about, that mindset, is why the company of another snapper, anyone, would be anathema to me at such times.) Strange as it may seem, that recognition happens a great deal, but when you move in a small area, the same damned things keep springing up to wave hello again, almost like folks you know. Some day, I may sit down and buy one of them a coffee. Then, once I make the exposure, I forget all about it until it's up on the monitor and I see if for the first time. I hardly ever chimp at all - unless in severe back-lighting.

At that point I decide if there's really anything there worth the hassle of the game. And I mean hassle. There is little fun in sitting around getting cramped legs and a rigid hand unless the ultimate image promises satisfaction.

So edited down, it shows me that photography has changed, for me, from something I thought about before going out to do it, to a process consisting mainly of afterthoughts.

But the poor old camera remains just what it ever was, only cheaper to run than it used to be. I guess that, in a way, that makes photography even less valuable, and ultimately just another disposable.

Rob
Title: Re: What's Photography For?
Post by: Ray on March 01, 2017, 09:05:53 am
So edited down, it shows me that photography has changed, for me, from something I thought about before going out to do it, to a process consisting mainly of afterthoughts.

Rob,
I don't see why both processes can not be used. One can think and plan what one wants to shoot, travel to a particular location at a particular time of day when the lighting is likely to be best, take a number of shots from a variety of perspectives, choose the shots which one thinks are best, process them in a variety of ways for an hour or two or three back home, have afterthoughts a year later or 5 years later or 20 years later, and reprocess them with more sophisticated software and a more developed attitude and different insights.
What's the problem?

Quote
But the poor old camera remains just what it ever was, only cheaper to run than it used to be. I guess that, in a way, that makes photography even less valuable, and ultimately just another disposable.

The camera is a tool which has become more useful, more efficient and more sophisticated with time. That's all good. However, I can appreciate that the current ubiquity of the camera might have made it more difficult for the professional photographer to earn a living. That's not something I can comment on, because I've never tried to earn a living by selling my photos, although I have sold a few just for fun, but at least more than the number of paintings that Van Gogh sold during his life (that he'd painted himself).  ;D
Title: Re: What's Photography For?
Post by: Rob C on March 01, 2017, 09:36:07 am
Rob,
I don't see why both processes can not be used. 1. One can think and plan what one wants to shoot, travel to a particular location at a particular time of day when the lighting is likely to be best, take a number of shots from a variety of perspectives, choose the shots which one thinks are best, process them in a variety of ways for an hour or two or three back home, have afterthoughts a year later or 5 years later or 20 years later, and reprocess them with more sophisticated software and a more developed attitude and different insights.
What's the problem?

2. The camera is a tool which has become more useful, more efficient and more sophisticated with time. That's all good. However, I can appreciate that the current ubiquity of the camera might have made it more difficult for the professional photographer to earn a living. That's not something I can comment on, because I've never tried to earn a living by selling my photos, although I have sold a few just for fun, but at least more than the number of paintings that Van Gogh sold during his life (that he'd painted himself).  ;D


1.  Of course, Ray, no question about that, but I wrote that for me it's become a dfferent experience. Without the prospect of flogging something, there's no purpose anymore, no incentive other than to challenge the trust I place in the winds of chance. To be brutally truthful, that pretty much always ended up being what I did, regardless of the job. I was lucky: I worked in a time and a location where photographers were expected to just get out there and do it, with a minimum of fuss; the group therapy sessions of snapper, model, art director, hairdresser, stylist, assistants to all of them and, possibly even the client being along, didn't happen very often, and when they did, I inevitably turned in my worst work. I never did thrive in confusion and mixed messages. In those days, girls were all able to do their own hair and makeup, and most (for calendars, but obviously not fashion) had their own props in the way of jewellery and photogenic clothing. Sometimes Ann and I bought stuff during shoots, and thus we built up our own set of wardrobe props.

2.  It is now a circus animal with redundant knickers. I would be perfecly happy today, using a Hassy 500 Series or my old F or F2. All the new stuff has brought is a diminution of photographer learning skills because people tend to examine everything all the time. If you know your job there's no reason you'd break the momentum to do that. Let's not even discuss battery power dependency. But yes, even from my own amateur status, it's nice to be freed from the expense of buying film. However that would focus the mind more and save so much shit being produced.

I have mentioned before that if I get back to civilization, I could be very tempted by an old 500 again. That, with a 180mm or a 250mm would make my day. Maybe both would be nice to have.

I'm certain none of that would be the answer to many folk's dreams, but I'm me, not many other people. But I do sometimes wonder...

;-)

Rob

Title: Re: What's Photography For?
Post by: Rob C on March 01, 2017, 09:42:58 am
Rob, I have to agree with virtually everything you've said.

In particular those comments on Kimmerle, Kenna and of course our mate Bacon.

I also agree with your assertion that photography is a minor art. Brant, Man Ray and Mapplethorpe, amongst others - particularly when viewed within their own timeframe - came close to elevating the medium but alas it remains a poor relation.


It surely does, Keith. But having said that, I'll probably be eternally grateful that it offered me a way of being in the creative arts in a manner pretty much commensurate with my abilities. I'd never have stood a chance of earning a living in any other art form.

It probably wasn't the wisest thing to follow, but it certainly was the most fun I could expect to find whilst earning my daily. I feel sorry for those making a fortune and hating every minute of their working day. I've known a few.

Rob
Title: Re: What's Photography For?
Post by: RSL on March 01, 2017, 10:26:38 am
I really think a real explanation and an apology to this community is in order!

Hi Tony,

I was in a hurry last night and didn't have time to respond effectively to your cry for help. Unfortunately, you're not discussing and you're not arguing. You're yelling. What is it you want me to explain? And why do you think an apology is in order?

To simplify what I said:

1. People and their interactions are more interesting to people than are photographic landscapes and other static subjects. You can disagree with this if you want to, but if you flip through any book on the history of photography you'll realize disagreeing effectively will be a tough haul.

2. Photographs normally are put forth as representations of reality. Sometimes reality can be beautiful and can stir an "Isn't that lovely?" response. But what you see in a photograph normally is taken as a true representation of what's in front of the lens.

3. The best paintings are not put forth as representations of reality. Paintings -- at least the best ones -- are designed to stir emotions. Sometimes the effect can go beyond emotion into transcendence. I realize there are people who never have this kind of response to anything, but if you're one of those you at least need to recognize that there are people who do.

4. Therefore, the most effective use of the camera is to make photographs of human interaction. Images of human interaction with other humans and their surroundings made with the camera are more believable than images of human interaction made with a brush, and can be more powerful.

Is that a simple enough explanation for you to understand?

And when the surface of Hell begins to congeal in the cold, I'll apologize.
Title: Re: What's Photography For?
Post by: TomFrerichs on March 01, 2017, 03:35:31 pm
Friends, be calm.

Russ wrote an essay composed of general statements, grand conclusions, and personal opinion, all in support of his favorite genre of photography, particularly as he defines the genre.

I could write an essay in the same vein with the conclusion: the tomato is the noblest vegetable because it is red and I like the taste.

I can see the arguments now. Some heirloom tomatoes are not red. Some tomatoes are eaten green, with a nod towards the southern American states and their “fried green tomatoes.” Hey, wait! Aren’t tomatoes really a fruit? While tomatoes may be a primary ingredient of salsa, chilies are a necessary part as well. You can’t forget the chilies. And so on and so on….

Meanwhile, broccoli will still be out there, cursed by some and beloved by others. Summer squash will still be tasteless, and green beans—that non-red vegetable—will grace the tables of many gourmands. What I think won’t make a damned bit of difference to the green grocers of the world.

Russ gave us his opinion, and I disagree with much of it. But suggesting that he owes us an apology is granting him far too much power. His opinion is just that: his opinion. No art critic will be swayed; no museum will quit accepting landscapes (if they ever did); and National Geo won’t stop publishing pictures of mammals. I’ll still be assaulted by pictures of golden aspens and cute marmots from local photographers. And life will go on much as it did before.

Title: Re: What's Photography For?
Post by: RSL on March 01, 2017, 03:55:22 pm
Russ gave us his opinion, and I disagree with much of it. But suggesting that he owes us an apology is granting him far too much power. His opinion is just that: his opinion. No art critic will be swayed; no museum will quit accepting landscapes (if they ever did); and National Geo won’t stop publishing pictures of mammals. I’ll still be assaulted by pictures of golden aspens and cute marmots from local photographers. And life will go on much as it did before.

Thanks, Tom. Unfortunately you're right, dang it. I think art critics should be swayed and museums should quit thinking about accepting photographic landscapes (I don't think they ever actually accepted any), and National Geo should stop publishing pictures of fuzzy mammals. They're just too cute. >:( At the very least I can say I tried. 8)
Title: Re: What's Photography For?
Post by: Tim Lookingbill on March 01, 2017, 04:53:04 pm
Ok, since Russ's essay and this thread didn't answer or address the title of this topic "What Is Photography For?", I'll give it a go.

Photography is for communicating the undefinable according to the photographer's sensitivities driven in front of and behind the camera by decision making and impulses too numerous to account for but can be seen, sensed and felt in the final image by those who have similar sensitivities usually other photographers or image makers with a trained eye.

General viewers with untrained eyes or those who are not in the creative field bring their own sensitivities to add and compound or diminish the value of all those decisions and impulses that formed the final image.

As has been said the deceptively simple act of "photographing"... pointing & tripping the shutter... tends to diminish the perceived value of the medium due to the fact the majority of the population is aware that everyone has a camera.

But they are not aware that a good photographer who can effectively communicate still possesses the trained eye that allows them for example to instead of settling on photographing beautiful models and pretty women out in public as they've been doing for years to the point they've acquired a "tin eye" to their genre, can simply start looking for women with different/idiosyncratic features that make them "uniquely" beautiful for instance middle aged women in bright green bikini's with pronounced boxy hips, slender tapered legs and waist, sizeable breasts, platinum blonde "bobbed" hair and a teenage Shirley Temple face.

Notice my description shows I have a sensitivity to spotting this picture of a woman. They do exist but it's rare and I just wished I had my camera.

I saw a rare bird indeed and all the people around me on the banks of my local river had cellphone cameras and not one of them was taking a picture of her! That's what photography IS FOR!
Title: Re: What's Photography For?
Post by: Rob C on March 01, 2017, 05:13:35 pm
"Ok, since Russ's essay and this thread didn't answer or address the title of this topic "What Is Photography For?", I'll give it a go.

Tim"

Really?




As for the question, what's photography for? then the answer is rather wide, and the best one can do is reply from a personal persepective, devoid of preaching or suppositions. So here we go.

For me, photography was an interest that began when I was very young. It grew in tandem with a love for art, especially the later schools of Impressionism and Post-Impressionism. I would visit galleries whenever I could, and a cousin and I used to blow pocket money buying postcards there, and trying to paint the same things ourselves. He went on to art school and spent/is still spending a lifetime as a professional, fine art painter. I realised I'd never make it because the native talent was far too thin, and as bad, art education had been precluded due to school attitudes that relegated art class attendance to the "lesser student", so the alternative co-existing love of photography grew to replace the other one. The school had never even considered photography could be a career... all fine intentions, but so misplaced.

So I started with love of it, then followed up living the career, and now, retired, I'm still doing it when I can muster up the drive. But what's it for, is the question. It is a means to an end, a way of fulfilling what artistic/creative urge one might have when the more noble arts are beyond one. It's a way of making money - sometimes a helluva lot of it - and a way of starving slowly without really being aware of the fact. It's a way of spending your day in the more pleasant company of pretty girls instead of with some sadistic, miserable old sod in a glass office, the door of which you better knock before entering. It's a way of keeping one's sorry ass off the production line, of avoiding an early death from the industrial smog of a machine room full of turning- and grinding-fluid vapour and the noise levels that turn you deaf too soon.

It's a fine way of seeing the world at a level only a client's deep pockets would allow. It's for providing the space to stop, relax, breath some air and spend pretty much 24/24 with your wife if you want to do that - which I did, which is why I married.

In short, it's for living a life that makes one happy, even if the other rewards may or may not ever materialise.

What it may represent for other people I can only guess. But that's their job to state, not mine to attempt to state on their behalf.

Rob
Title: Re: What's Photography For?
Post by: Tim Lookingbill on March 01, 2017, 05:19:34 pm
"Ok, since Russ's essay and this thread didn't answer or address the title of this topic "What Is Photography For?", I'll give it a go.

Tim"

Really?

Really!, Rob.

BTW have you shot any similar looking ladies in bright green bikinis or did you just give up looking?
Title: Re: What's Photography For?
Post by: TomFrerichs on March 01, 2017, 05:44:25 pm
Ok, since Russ's essay and this thread didn't answer or address the title of this topic "What Is Photography For?", I'll give it a go.

I'm currently on page 108 (of 405) of Photgraphy Theory, volume 2 of the the Routledge The Art Seminar series.  As soon as I finish I'll give you the answer.

This is, however, dependent upon making my way through the thicket of semiotics, Barthes and his punctum, Greenberg's flatness theories (early patron saint of Abstract Expressionism), and sentences such as "An asymmetrical reciprocity joins the snapshot to the time exposure: whereas the snapshot stole a life it could not return, the time exposure expresses a life that it never received."

This may take me a bit longer than I expect.

Tom Frerichs
Title: Re: What's Photography For?
Post by: Tim Lookingbill on March 01, 2017, 09:36:48 pm
I'm currently on page 108 (of 405) of Photgraphy Theory, volume 2 of the the Routledge The Art Seminar series.  As soon as I finish I'll give you the answer.

This is, however, dependent upon making my way through the thicket of semiotics, Barthes and his punctum, Greenberg's flatness theories (early patron saint of Abstract Expressionism), and sentences such as "An asymmetrical reciprocity joins the snapshot to the time exposure: whereas the snapshot stole a life it could not return, the time exposure expresses a life that it never received."

This may take me a bit longer than I expect.

Tom Frerichs

I think you already answered the thread topic, Tom. Only from the perspective of a publicist which is...

Photography is for making thick ornately worded and pretentious tomes of worthless information that doesn't help anyone make better photos.

In case you don't make it out with your sanity after reading all 405 pages of that book, Tom, is there a care giver we should call?
Title: Re: What's Photography For?
Post by: Ray on March 01, 2017, 10:06:34 pm
I think you already answered the thread topic, Tom. Only from the perspective of a publicist which is...

Photography is for making thick ornately worded and pretentious tomes of worthless information that doesn't help anyone make better photos.

In case you don't make it out with your sanity after reading all 405 pages of that book, Tom, is there a care giver we should call?

Ha! Ha! Good point. Although there's always the possibility that Tom might find a few paragraphs of useful information and ideas that will help him to make better photos. Perhaps he will inform us of such when he's finished the volume.  ;)
Title: Re: What's Photography For?
Post by: TomFrerichs on March 01, 2017, 11:56:22 pm
Ha! Ha! Good point. Although there's always the possibility that Tom might find a few paragraphs of useful information and ideas that will help him to make better photos. Perhaps he will inform us of such when he's finished the volume.  ;)

What I've learned so far is that the (implied) questions are a hell of a lot more interesting than the supplied answers. But then, haven't the questions always been more useful in any creative endeavor?

There is one blessing. Being a selection of papers, an edited roundtable discussion, and a set of responsive papers, all on art criticism of photography, there naturally are no photographs. This makes it so much easier to read on my Nook, which offers an abysmal display capacity.

Tom

Title: Re: What's Photography For?
Post by: Rob C on March 02, 2017, 03:24:38 am
Really!, Rob.

BTW have you shot any similar looking ladies in bright green bikinis or did you just give up looking?


What's this obsession with green bikinis?

Might you be Irish?

Rob C
Title: Re: What's Photography For?
Post by: Tim Lookingbill on March 02, 2017, 05:57:11 pm

There is one blessing. Being a selection of papers, an edited roundtable discussion, and a set of responsive papers, all on art criticism of photography, there naturally are no photographs. This makes it so much easier to read on my Nook, which offers an abysmal display capacity.

Tom

Good grief! I must be psychic. I was just thinking that book didn't have any photographs.

I guess when you work with words, words are your work...quote from the movie..."The Ghost And Mr. Chicken"

Happy reading, Tom!
Title: Re: What's Photography For?
Post by: Tim Lookingbill on March 02, 2017, 05:59:32 pm

What's this obsession with green bikinis?

Might you be Irish?

Rob C

Rob, you wouldn't see it as an obsession if you'ld read what I wrote within the context of my original response.
Title: Re: What's Photography For?
Post by: Rob C on March 03, 2017, 02:54:04 pm
I found the very first manifestation of your green-bikinied lady strange; the second refence made it even more strange (to me), especially that they should have to be similar.

I've shot very few pictures of ladies in bikinis; a bikini, especially one in green, would feel somewhat anaemic to me, making your choice hard for me to understand.

I did see a lady in a green swimsuit, once though: that was in Lindos, on the isle of Rhodes. She was Irish, I think, and the wife of tv news reporter, Sandy Gall. We were shooting a calendar there and got chatting with Reginald Bosanquet (another tv chap) who was relaxing on the sand with a female singer companion, when Gall came along and asked if anyone knew where his wife was. Reginald B. told him, so he went off to collect her.

In the meantime, as we were working on behalf of a beer company, Reginald took the opportunity of slipping a ring-pull onto my wife's finger and declaring them engaged. I don't know what happened to the ring - I don't think she kept it. Or if she did, it's gone AWOL along with so damned much else.

Later, as we were having lunch in a restaurant a little higher up the beach (Nico's?), we saw Reg, still at the water's edge, in earnest conversation with a gaggle of topless twenty-something-year-old girls. Our model went ballistic and said "photograph him! photograph him! you'll make a fortune selling it to the Sun!"  Reg was always getting press for his boozing etc. but hell, he was just a guy on holiday. Could have shot it without getting off my ass: all my stuff was beside me. Couldn't do that to anyone, sod the money. But hey, the lunch was great!

Rob
Title: Re: What's Photography For?
Post by: Tim Lookingbill on March 03, 2017, 06:08:31 pm
I found the very first manifestation of your green-bikinied lady strange; the second refence made it even more strange (to me), especially that they should have to be similar.

I've shot very few pictures of ladies in bikinis; a bikini, especially one in green, would feel somewhat anaemic to me, making your choice hard for me to understand.

I did see a lady in a green swimsuit, once though: that was in Lindos, on the isle of Rhodes. She was Irish, I think, and the wife of tv news reporter, Sandy Gall. We were shooting a calendar there and got chatting with Reginald Bosanquet (another tv chap) who was relaxing on the sand with a female singer companion, when Gall came along and asked if anyone knew where his wife was. Reginald B. told him, so he went off to collect her.

In the meantime, as we were working on behalf of a beer company, Reginald took the opportunity of slipping a ring-pull onto my wife's finger and declaring them engaged. I don't know what happened to the ring - I don't think she kept it. Or if she did, it's gone AWOL along with so damned much else.

Later, as we were having lunch in a restaurant a little higher up the beach (Nico's?), we saw Reg, still at the water's edge, in earnest conversation with a gaggle of topless twenty-something-year-old girls. Our model went ballistic and said "photograph him! photograph him! you'll make a fortune selling it to the Sun!"  Reg was always getting press for his boozing etc. but hell, he was just a guy on holiday. Could have shot it without getting off my ass: all my stuff was beside me. Couldn't do that to anyone, sod the money. But hey, the lunch was great!

Rob

I can see you've focused away from my original main point I was making about the woman I spotted and drifted as usual to making it about you, not even touching upon my main focus about developing a sensitive eye toward not doing the usual same old-same old when it comes to spotting the unusual and strange, the different.

Trying to get an equal back and forth with you Rob is just too tiresome. I give up trying to engage in a conversation where it doesn't drift to it being all about your photographic escapades. I've read it already too many times. It's boring!
Title: Re: What's Photography For?
Post by: Rob C on March 04, 2017, 04:55:46 am
I can see you've focused away from my original main point I was making about the woman I spotted and drifted as usual to making it about you, not even touching upon my main focus about developing a sensitive eye toward not doing the usual same old-same old when it comes to spotting the unusual and strange, the different.

Trying to get an equal back and forth with you Rob is just too tiresome. I give up trying to engage in a conversation where it doesn't drift to it being all about your photographic escapades. I've read it already too many times. It's boring!

Well there you are, Tim, the penalty for not making yourself clear in the first place!

Now, had it been clear that you wanted us to focus the 'debate' on not doing the same old things over and over agan, then why did you not make that clear instead of taking us down this strange green path of yours?

But of course, it would all have remained academic: we are what we are and it's all we can ever hope to express, verbally or in photographs.

Perhaps games of ping-pong are your thing, but you must know from experience (you, do, don't you?) that the Internet will never get anyone to change their expressive ablities. So where, I have to ask, is the point?

I really must attempt to fashion further replies in your own, individual and strikingly charming manner; so much to learn!

Rob