Luminous Landscape Forum
Site & Board Matters => About This Site => Topic started by: Jim Pascoe on December 22, 2011, 05:08:37 am
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I am certainly not a Fine Art Photographer - though I have on the odd occasion produced what I consider a fine photograph, but really enjoyed Alan Briot's summary of some of the key considerations. It is great when a photographer of Alan's experience can put into words the things that many of us know to be true. However I was also taught when studying photography that ruthlessly editing one's portfolio is very important too. One weak image in a portfolio of say 20 images will affect the perception of the whole set. In my opinion the list of 16 could be culled by one - number 8, the use of Photoshop and layers. Compared to the other pearls of wisdom this point seems quite weak and not really on a par with the others when considering how best to approach a fine art photography. Most of my photographs don't go near Photoshop and I print straight out of Lightroom (the raw converter), and quite possibly a few photographers are still using film and quite happy to continue to do so. Photoshop is a great tool, but I just think it could have been left out and seemed slightly out of place in what is a very interesting list of points.
But then perhaps that is why I'm not a Fine Art Photographer!
Thanks again Alan.
Jim
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Yes, I wondered at that one. Aperture & Nik software plug-ins obviously don't cut it for Fine Art photos
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I don't flatter myself that I'm a "fine art photographer". I am however grateful when I create something that I'm happy with.
These are an interesting set of criteria. Like the previous posters I too have some difficulty reconciling the "PS not RAW converter" criterion with my own modest experience. Most of the images I'm really happy with come straight out of the converter (CNX2 in my case) with the usual tweaks applied plus a little cropping. PS work is usually confined to cloning out obtruding elements except when an image requires compositing to salvage something promising from a defective original - such as a "bad" sky.
I'd be interested to read Alan Briot's amplification of his original assessment.
Roy
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I don't sell anything, but had also the same reaction...
For me it was the contrary : switching to LR, and not passing systematically through PS and among others high-pass or complex curves contrast-enhancement layers, helped me to refine my taste and find a more balanced and less overdone processing.
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I'll let Alain address this for himself, but I think that focusing on this topic is a bit of a red herring. We each have out favourite ways of working.
I too now do 95% of my work in Lightroom (and I'm sure that Aperture can do similarly). I rarely go to Photoshop any longer except for a few specialized tasks.
Michael
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Not sure about this because I don't use LR. Perhaps Alain was referring to Converters in general rather than LR specifically, which I believe has more control in terms of selections than most plain converters.
I tend to the view that the photographer, if he wishes to be artistic, needs as much control as possible over color, vibrancy, global contrast as well as local contrast enhancement, and shadow/highlight control for each part of the image, selectively with feathering.
Does Lightroom enable one to do this? Does Lightroom also have a Proof Color mode for printing?
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I noticed the PS comment, but I've interpreted it (perhaps erroneously) not to mean "you must enter Photoshop" but rather you need to apply local adjustments to the image for the best printed results. I'm keying on the fact he says "layers". Things like LR allow you to do the lion's share of layers work in the RAW converter, but many converters do not provide such features. I thought that was what he was driving at rather than advocating a specific software tool.
The local editing point is very valid, I would say the vast majority of my images are greatly improved by local adjustments - be they the gradient tool and adjustment brush in LR or adjustment layers with masks in PS. The same was true in the darkroom as well, rarely did I print without some dodge and burn. I could certainly imagine a preference for PS layers though - I really like curves adjustment layers with masks. These days I use the adjustment tools in LR and am fairly proficient with them, but the masked adjustment layer curves approach was somehow more natural and powerful to me - I wish LR/ACR would implement that!
Ken
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Does Lightroom enable one to do this?
About 80-90% of that.
Does Lightroom also have a Proof Color mode for printing?
Not yet.
Ken
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About 80-90% of that...
And the other 10-20% is what separates the men from the boys (i.e., fine art photographers from fine photographers)? I'm just saying ;)
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I am pleased this essay is being well received. In regards to point #8, optimization through Layers in Photoshop, it describes my workflow. I simply could not create the images I create without using layers.
I spend several days, and on occasion weeks or months, working on an image refining contrast, color palette, geometry, etc. By this I don't mean sitting in front of an image for that long but, instead, working on an image on and off until I achieve a version of it that is satisfying to me.
For example, I regularly warp, distort, stretch and do other 'unspeakable' things to the image. I also try different color palettes and contrast levels until I find the one that works best. I keep all these different versions on separate layers so that I can turn them on and off to compare them.
I have also created a methodical workflow that start by creating a series of technical layers and that continues by creating a series of artistic layers. The technical layers are the foundation of the image. If my goal was documentary, I would stop there. However, my goal being artistic, I use the artistic layers to take the image into an expressive direction.
Once that is achieved I create soft proofing and color matching layers based on the differences between what I see on screen and on print. Finally I create sharpening layers to sharpen the image based on specific print sizes.
I don't mind the extra time and work that this takes because in my view the goal of fine art is quality not quantity. This approach extends past the creative process and into the marketing aspects of fine art.
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Photoshop is a great tool, but I just think it could have been left out and seemed slightly out of place in what is a very interesting list of points.
I think you missed the point...if you have a great image, it deserves the effort to finalize the image in Photoshop because that's the ONLY place that allows the full capability of editing an image. While not all images require all of Photoshop's toolset, ACR/LR is still limited in the ability to control your edits. You don't have paths, you don't have selection edits and layer masks and you are very limited in the ability to retouch.
That's what Photoshop allows you to do and make no mistake, if you want to push the image to the best final form, that's what it takes. That and the fact Lightroom can't (yet) do soft proofing...that alone is the biggest difference. How can you tell what rendering intent to use in Lightroom if you can pre-judge the impact? Sure, you can make a print, evaluate, fiddle and make another print. The printer companies love that type of user.
Me? I want to have absolute and total control over my images and the only place to do that is Photoshop–even if I end up saving the image back into Lightroom for printing. It's that total control that Alain is referring to.
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It's that total control that Alain is referring to.
You said it better than I could! Thanks Jeff.
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That and the fact Lightroom can't (yet) do soft proofing...
Oh, please, please, please.......... ;)
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Heck, times have changed.
Now I like Alan's photographs, but when I got my BA Hons in Fine Art (Photography) this was not considered 'fine art' photography, the typical photograph you are citing here would at best be a decorative photograph, a nice landscape, but no, not fine art. And I really don't believe times have changed that much. Sally Mann is a fine art landscape photographer, Andreas Gursky also, and Thomas Joshua Cooper, to name a few. The key to understanding if they qualify is simple, they do what they do, and it is for a wider circle than copyists and friends and commercial allies to anoint them as fine art practitioners. Technical rules and techniques are not to the forefront of fine art and never have been. 'Craft' is undoubtedly a key component, but such that it isn't a formulaic guide to being an artist, rather the tool that helps with the job of communicating.
So no, this is not fine art, its not a game, points one too sixteen towards success. If you have a deep meaning embedded in your images Alan, something you are striving to communicate, that could be the link to 'art'. But how big you print, how proficient in Photoshop you are, or even how many you sell has no bearing on it being art or how good that art may be. A ten stop ND filter and a seascape does not by rote make a fine art photograph, in all probability it makes something to fill a space on the wall.
Steve
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So no, this is not fine art, its not a game, points one too sixteen towards success.
You sure? By what yardstick are you measuring? Your work? Sally Mann ain't a landscape photographer, she's a fine art photographer that sometimes turns her lens to the landscape. Andreas Gursky is an urban landscape fine art photographer. Thomas Joshua Cooper is a fine art photographer who does abstract landscape. Alain (you might do him the honer of correctly spelling the name) is an idealized/representational landscape fine art photographer. He shoots in color and uses color quite well, 2 of the previous noted individuals only shoot B&W. Same with you. So, if Alain shot in B&W, would that elevate him to a fine art photographer in your eyes?
The fact is, he goes to beautiful places and makes beautiful images–does that make it mandatory to place him in a decorative arts photographer category?
I think your world view is uncomfortably narrow...it actually says more about YOU than Alain...I don't think you can see the forrest for the trees (which you seem to shoot a lot of :~).
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Heck, times have changed.
Now I like Alan's photographs, but when I got my BA Hons in Fine Art (Photography) this was not considered 'fine art' photography, the typical photograph you are citing here would at best be a decorative photograph, a nice landscape, but no, not fine art. And I really don't believe times have changed that much. Sally Mann is a fine art landscape photographer, Andreas Gursky also, and Thomas Joshua Cooper, to name a few. The key to understanding if they qualify is simple, they do what they do, and it is for a wider circle than copyists and friends and commercial allies to anoint them as fine art practitioners. Technical rules and techniques are not to the forefront of fine art and never have been. 'Craft' is undoubtedly a key component, but such that it isn't a formulaic guide to being an artist, rather the tool that helps with the job of communicating.
So no, this is not fine art, its not a game, points one too sixteen towards success. If you have a deep meaning embedded in your images Alan, something you are striving to communicate, that could be the link to 'art'. But how big you print, how proficient in Photoshop you are, or even how many you sell has no bearing on it being art or how good that art may be. A ten stop ND filter and a seascape does not by rote make a fine art photograph, in all probability it makes something to fill a space on the wall.
Steve
While I'm not going to undertake the dubious chore of attempting to define what fine art photography is or isn't, I do find these sixteen steps to be a little bit self-aggrandizing. What I often see on photo forums is more Thomas Kincaid than Francis Bacon, but it can be difficult to explain the difference. I've assisted for well known art photographers, and, while these sixteen steps may or may not have been used at any point, there were certainly no rules to speak of during the process, other than the artist being satisfied with the process and final result. One is as likely to shoot a successful fine art piece with a polaroid camera as they are with an MFDB and photoshop layers.
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One is as likely to shoot a successful fine art piece with a polaroid camera as they are with an MFDB and photoshop layers.
Yes...and no. I came into the industry in the early 1980's and discovered that technique & process and the ability to conceptualize the image isn't the same. Far too many photo-education students and teachers (that came from what I consider an bastardization of BFA's getting MFA's and teaching the same old crap to under grads) got locked into "process" and failed to graduate to the importance of the final image. Judge the image by the fact it's hanging on the wall and moves the viewer more than whether or not it fits into some preconceived definition of what constitutes "art".
The techniques and process of creating an image is only one aspect of the final image. It doesn't matter if you shoot the image with a pinhole camera or a Phase One IQ180, the final image is the image to look at and evaluate. The fact the final image looks "nice" should not adversely impact whether or not it's a fine art image...lot's of art looks like hell, other art looks like heaven. Who's to say one approach is any more valid than another? Critics...and critics are not, by definition from active members producing the "art". Anybody actively engaged in the art of fine art photography is not really a useful critic...they are the competition. And as such, their perspective must be must be considered in the context of human nature...the world is pretty darn competitive out there, so take what competitors say with a grain of salt. (And we all know we should be cutting down on our sodium intake, right?).
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Attempting to define fine art on the basis of 'meaning' or 'content' is iffy at best. While some consider 'beauty' to be a disqualifier, others consider it a qualifier. The same holds true for postmodernist content, or political, negative, positive, social commentary and other content. Clearly what content the artist decides to feature is based on the artist's inspiration, personal taste, philosophy, message, vision and so on. There will, and there are, massive differences between artists in this regard. These differences are one of the main attractions of art.
There are also fashion trends, for example the postmodern, social criticism and relatively negative content that a lot of high end galleries and museums tend to favor. Clearly, this is in opposition to my work which is focused on exploring natural beauty, positive in its message and not containing postmodern references. I could easily do the opposite and present an image of nature that focuses on ugliness, negativity and containing postmodern references. In fact, if you look at contemporary French art and culture, doing so would be expected of me since I am originally from France. I have extensive knowledge of postmodernism, having read just about every author who published on this subject, therefore the fact that I chose not to go in this direction is a personal decision rather than a cultural shortcoming.
In the second chapter of my 3rd book, Marketing Fine Art Photography, I provide a detailed definition of fine art. I do so because I consider it necessary to define fine art before going into a discussion about how to market fine art. This definition focuses on 3 areas: technical, artistic and marketing. I purposefully left out 'content' because it is simply too much a matter of personal taste. For example, if we ruled out 'beauty' as a qualifier for fine art, we would by the same token rule out Impressionism as a valid art movement. What a shame that would be. Beauty is an essential component of art, even though at the time a number of people consider it to be a disqualifier.
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I think your world view is uncomfortably narrow...it actually says more about YOU than Alain...I don't think you can see the forrest for the trees (which you seem to shoot a lot of :~).
Yes, but you can at least see some of my images, like them or loathe them, I'm not going to say things about other photographers without having the balls to put my words into context. If you come back armed with some images I can link to I'll perhaps take you seriously.
Alain, you will appreciate the sixteen points to being a fine artist are what gets my goat, not your work. But if you take any work and strip away context it becomes meaningless in terms of 'fine art'. And the reason it becomes meaningless is that art is driven by society and culture, investigations into ideas, new perspectives on older ideas, new techniques (yes!) that redefine how people percieve the world. But to be successful art is never art for arts sake. This is what tripped up the Pictorialists, there was no connection with the world that the photographer inhabited. And so as a movement it died, but not before Strand and Adams and Evans etc jumped ship and put themselves into the real world, with real world concerns to explore. The demise of Pictorialism was nothing to do with style, it was the lack of content.
You mention Impressionism as an icon of beauty. I wouldn't disagree. But hark back. Impressionism when newly out of the box was considered ugly daubing, not only were the artists using colour like it had never been used before, but their subject matter was of things that had never been painted before. They painted the modern world in a modern way, and the cultural context was clear. But above all it was the ideas that made them artists. So beauty has its own historical context as well.
While your sixteen points may be a primer to get onto the ladder of art there is nowhere to go when you get to the top. You reach the goal and can do all those things to perfection, but why? The guy who can mount a bigger and better print isn't going to be a better artist than the guy with an idea, even though ironically they may be a better paid. A more worthwhile sixteen points towards kitting out an artist with idea's and opinion's about the world would perhaps be cultural stimuli, lets imagine the first few,
1/ Watch John Ford's 'The Searchers'
2/ Read Tom Wolfe's 'Bonfire of the Vanities'
3/ Read Susan Sontag 'On Photography' (if you can stay awake)
4/ Listen to Aaron Copland
5/ Listen to Eminem
and etc.
You cannot teach somebody to be an artist, they either respond to stimuli or they don't. But you can teach somebody to be a technician, very good photographers, but a world away from artists.
Steve
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You cannot teach somebody to be an artist, they either respond to stimuli or they don't. But you can teach somebody to be a technician, very good photographers, but a world away from artists.
+1
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Well stated, Steve. +1
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Hi,
I agree with Michael, but in my view Photoshop is very handy for some things. I'd really love to be able to integrate photoshop masking with parametric workflow. It perhaps works now with smart objects? I don't even know!
Some of the stuff I use Photoshop for is llustrated here:
http://echophoto.dnsalias.net/ekr/index.php/photoarticles/46-fixing-sky-with-luminosity-mask
http://echophoto.dnsalias.net/ekr/index.php/photoarticles/46-fixing-sky-with-luminosity-mask
Best regards
Erik
I'll let Alain address this for himself, but I think that focusing on this topic is a bit of a red herring. We each have out favourite ways of working.
I too now do 95% of my work in Lightroom (and I'm sure that Aperture can do similarly). I rarely go to Photoshop any longer except for a few specialized tasks.
Michael
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The guy who can mount a bigger and better print isn't going to be a better artist than the guy with an idea, even though ironically they may be a better paid.
I'm going to use that one, very well put!
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You cannot teach somebody to be an artist, they either respond to stimuli or they don't. But you can teach somebody to be a technician, very good photographers, but a world away from artists.
Steve
Been saying exactly that for as long as I can remember. It's not a popular message in a milieu where folks are selling courses, prints and anything else that's marketable, but that's beside the point.
I read the Sontag essay - I think it's reproduced in my second Pirelli Calendar Collection book - but what did she know, other than how Annie ticks?
I believe that the appellation Fine Art really means neither more nor less than that the pictures so classified are usually for sale as decoration. I'm certainly willing to accept that; it relieves one of all the angst, pain and general confusion that surrounds the use of those two words. In no way does it need to exist as some sort of artificial measure of a picture's validity; it (the image) is what it is - that's all it can be.
Rob C
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I'm not terribly keen on lists or directives for life in general, let alone photography. And I personally don't consider that there is such a thing as "fine art" - there are just the visual arts, in all their varied forms. But I do agree with, and have always held dear, Alain's first point -
1 - Become an expert in light
- The most important aspect of photography is not the gear you own or the techniques you use
- The most important aspect of photography is light
Every photographer should have that engraved just above their viewfinder ;)
John
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(you might do him the honer of correctly spelling the name)
Doncha hate it when that happens.
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Yes, but you can at least see some of my images, like them or loathe them, I'm not going to say things about other photographers without having the balls to put my words into context. If you come back armed with some images I can link to I'll perhaps take you seriously.
My web site is here (http://schewephoto.com/)...course, by your rules I guess I ain't a fine art photographer.
:~)
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You cannot teach somebody to be an artist, they either respond to stimuli or they don't. But you can teach somebody to be a technician, very good photographers, but a world away from artists.
Yes, it would be challenging (impossible) to become a great "artist" without learning the craft of the medium in which one chooses to express themselves. All great artists start at the same place everyone else does ... learning and being taught. What makes them transcend to the next level can be a combination of many factors, some of which might not even be controlled by them.
Things like Alain's 16 steps (which are his steps, meant to help others analyze the process of their own creative efforts to see if they might benefit from his experience) can certainly be part of that process.
Unfortunately the term "Fine art" is one of those convenience terms that defies definition. What many class as "fine art" I find interesting to look at briefly, sometimes I appreciate the challenge of creating the image, but often the image doesn't have enough interest that I would want to own it or look at it frequently - just how I'm wired. Because he uses that term as part of his approach and one might not agree with his definition seems a weak reason for criticism.
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'Fine art' is just a synonym of 'art' in this context. To assert that there is 'art' and then there is 'fine art' that stands apart from 'regular art' is just weird ...
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I'm not terribly keen on lists or directives for life in general, let alone photography. And I personally don't consider that there is such a thing as "fine art" - there are just the visual arts, in all their varied forms. But I do agree with, and have always held dear, Alain's first point -
1 - Become an expert in light
- The most important aspect of photography is not the gear you own or the techniques you use
- The most important aspect of photography is light
Every photographer should have that engraved just above their viewfinder ;)
John
In a sense this point is self-evident. But I'm not implying that people need not be reminded of the obvious. They often do.
The very word itself, photography, means 'painting, drawing or writing (graphos) with light (photos).
The camera which is able to capture that light, in graphic form, in the most efficient manner, is surely the best starting point for any photographer.
Furthermore, whilst it is possible to paint without a paintbrush (one can use one's finger or even throw handfuls of paint at the canvas), I don't believe it's possible to take photos without a camera.
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'Fine art' is just a synonym of 'art' in this context. To assert that there is 'art' and then there is 'fine art' that stands apart from 'regular art' is just weird ...
similar to how I've always felt ... to me it's a mainly a term to describe a "style" of photographic art, but the extrapolation of "fine" seems to always mean superior or better than other forms. That's been a lively debate for a long time, and there is no answer -
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similar to how I've always felt ... to me it's a mainly a term to describe a "style" of photographic art, but the extrapolation of "fine" seems to always mean superior or better than other forms. That's been a lively debate for a long time, and there is no answer -
Marketing.
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My web site is here (http://schewephoto.com/)...course, by your rules I guess I ain't a fine art photographer.
:~)
Thanks for the link; I shouldn't worry too much about definitions if I were you - your site speaks well enough!
Ciao -
Rob C
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Great discussion going on!
If your purpose with your images is fine art, then they will be fine art images. If your purpose is pretty travel photography, then you'll have pretty travel photos. I think it all comes down to your intent. And I think anyone intent on creating Fine Art images will thoroughly explore and learn their 'Craft Tools' to help them create Fine Art.
I have seen it hard for SOME profesional photographers to break into the Fine Art Photography world because they have based their photography careers on Stock Photography, Wedding Photography and etc... Even though they might be masters of the tools, they have confined themselves, and may not be taken seriously. That said, I have always thought "It's the final image that counts". If a image moves me, then it is Fine Art, no matter who took the image.
Jay Hemphill
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similar to how I've always felt ... to me it's a mainly a term to describe a "style" of photographic art, but the extrapolation of "fine" seems to always mean superior or better than other forms. That's been a lively debate for a long time, and there is no answer -
Yes, a lively debate, a can of worms, and a conundrum all in one thought! :)
The term 'fine' could be interchanged with 'refined' in the sense of having more work done on it, rather than as more exalted. Doing art is work, and to put it crudely an artist may specialise in sunsets (!) because he likes them. Then you could have a fine artist who specialises in sunsets because he likes them, but he would be able to go on and say why he likes them. It is an intellectual jump from an artists gut feeling to a fine artist knowing what their images are about and being able to communicate that with other people. Ask a fine artist 'what are you working on' and they will launch into a lecture, ask an artist and they may say they are waiting for inspiration. That is the crude definition.
But a real world example. Somebody said Sally Mann wasn't a landscape photographer, yet the body of work she called 'Deep South' is entirely landscape. She is a good example whether you think it landscape or not. She uses an difficult technical process with a difficult camera not because she has been on a course or read an A-Z of being an artist, but because it matches the ideas she wants to communicate. Other artists may paint or sculpt for the same reason. In her case the fragility of the wet collodion process, the wastage, the mistakes that are embraced, the length of the exposures, the viewpoint in many photographs of emptiness and a half seen subjects, all evoke the idea. And that is of the South, the civil war battlefields, death in the landscape of both men and buildings, an historical landscape that endures but isn't triumphant. It is very different from a commercial landscape photograph, with a graduated tobacco filter and the rules of composition strictly applied. It is very different from how many people would photograph that landscape, because she ran with the idea, refined it, and made something unique, nobody can place their tripod in the same holes that her tripod made.
And it is the metorphorical tripod holes that makes the difference. Has an artist got an idea, how much have they worked on it, and is it carried out with some style. And before saying of any photograph 'I could do that' ask 'but did I have the idea?'. Points 1-16 allow you to put your tripod into the marks left by the photographer that went before, and make something that looks artistic. You may be an artist if you sell the work you want to sell without commercial pressures of assignments. But a fine artist will plough through any barriers and only do what they want, how they want to do it, without immediate commercial pressures, and with intellectual skill. That is the traditional definition and I think that is how it should stay. Gentleman amateurs and commercial landscapists are not necessarily fine artists irrespective of the technical skill in making the image. The term 'fine' should not be devalued.
Steve
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If you can write down the steps required, it probably is not fine art.
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The term 'fine' should not be devalued.
The term 'fine' in this context has no meaning. You are inventing meaning out of whole cloth.
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Steve, you are falling into the trap of generalising and pigeon-holing. Your post above implies that 'fine art' or just 'art' is something not within the remit of the professional photographer. Bullshit, my friend; get to know some advertising/fashion/commercial pros with some success behind them.
Rob C
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It seems clear to me that all opinions on art are subjective, whether they be on fine art or ordinary art.
Having checked out Sally Mann's images, I have to say truthfully, at the risk of branding myself as an insensitive non-aesthete, that I'm underwhelmed. Can't help it. Let the truth prevail.
Of course, some of her shots are better than others, but on the whole, I don't find her photography interesting.
I understand perfectly that many of you may not find my photographs interesting, that is, the ones I've posted on this site, over the years. Fair enough! If I earn my living as a photographer, I have to produce photos that others like, or I go out of business.
If I'm not in business, as I'm not, then I feel free to produce whatever interests me. The satisfaction in the general activity of taking the shots, and the general process of producing a final image or print to my own standards which are continually changing, is my reward.
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You cannot teach somebody to be an artist, they either respond to stimuli or they don't. But you can teach somebody to be a technician, very good photographers, but a world away from artists.
Really? Define "very good photographer" or "technician"?
Oh, and while you are at it also define "artist".
And finally, why can someone be teached to be a good "technician", yet by apparently the same standards not an "artist"?
If it is the core ability (competence?) to respond to stimuli, then you have no clue what a "technician" is.
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Really? Define "very good photographer" or "technician"?
Oh, and while you are at it also define "artist".
And finally, why can someone be teached to be a good "technician", yet by apparently the same standards not an "artist"?
If it is the core ability (competence?) to respond to stimuli, then you have no clue what a "technician" is.
Not so; learning to be a technician, good or bad, is all about learning to remember largely mechanical steps in the accomplishment of a task. It's how you become an engineer in a factory, producing widgets. And the world needs many widgets, not many works of art.
Being an 'artist' is a God-given ability that you have, even despite yourself. Despite, yes. Do you imagine all artists are happy to find themselves saddled with a mindset that keeps them forever in an employment that, almost universally, anchors them in the lower income brackets of society? Change? No, they can't defeat their nature. Often, being an artist is being born with a curse. Even more often, being an artist effectively bars one from having the ability to perform the first essential function of any businessman: organize.
I've worked in both milieux.
Rob C
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Having checked out Sally Mann's images, I have to say truthfully, at the risk of branding myself as an insensitive non-aesthete, that I'm underwhelmed. Can't help it. Let the truth prevail.
The truth being that you, Ray, are "underwhelmed". That is the begining and end of it. No reason why that should or should not be be the truth.
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The truth being that you, Ray, are "underwhelmed". That is the begining and end of it. No reason why that should or should not be be the truth.
I think you may have missed my point. What people often tend to like and regard highly, are products that have been acclaimed by 'so-called' experts as being extremely significant, meaningful, profound, or merely tasty in some way.
I instinctively feel this must apply very much to the arts, whether photographs or paintings. I'm reminded of the wine-tasting experiments, first brought to my attention by Slobodan in some other thread of a year or more ago, that demonstrate that the pleasure of tasting a good wine can be strongly influenced by any clues, such as price, that indicate or imply that the wine is a 'fine' wine, irrespective of the actual quality of the wine.
In other words, present the avarage person with a cheap wine, poured out from a refilled bottle of an expensive wine, immediately followed by an expensive wine rebottled as a cheap wine, the taster will tend to actually enjoy the cheap wine more than the expensive wine.
Electrode/encaphalograph contraptions placed on the heads of the tasters, which measure activity in the pleasure centres of the brain, confirm that the tasters actually do experience more pleasure when tasting the cheap wine disguised as an expensive wine.
I just wonder if a similar situation would apply to the arts. For example, if one were to arrange an experiment whereby someone were to present family snapshots, which tend to be a bit boring, but surreptitiously include the occasional shot from Sally Mann, would anyone jump up and claim, "Wow! That shot is really amazing. How profound! You have great talent."
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I think you may have missed my point. What people often tend to like and regard highly, are products that have been acclaimed by 'so-called' experts as being extremely significant, meaningful, profound, or merely tasty in some way.
I instinctively feel this must apply very much to the arts, whether photographs or paintings. I'm reminded of the wine-tasting experiments, first brought to my attention by Slobodan in some other thread of a year or more ago, that demonstrate that the pleasure of tasting a good wine can be strongly influenced by any clues, such as price, that indicate or imply that the wine is a 'fine' wine, irrespective of the actual quality of the wine.
In other words, present the avarage person with a cheap wine, poured out from a refilled bottle of an expensive wine, immediately followed by an expensive wine rebottled as a cheap wine, the taster will tend to actually enjoy the cheap wine more than the expensive wine.
Electrode/encaphalograph contraptions placed on the heads of the tasters, which measure activity in the pleasure centres of the brain, confirm that the tasters actually do experience more pleasure when tasting the cheap wine disguised as an expensive wine.
I just wonder if a similar situation would apply to the arts. For example, if one were to arrange an experiment whereby someone were to present family snapshots, which tend to be a bit boring, but surreptitiously include the occasional shot from Sally Mann, would anyone jump up and claim, "Wow! That shot is really amazing. How profound! You have great talent."
Maybe, but I'm not sure that it is sigificant to say what we "like". As I understand it, and I am not an artist or an art historian, or an intellectual of any stripe, there is a difference between art and interior decoration.
Consider the example of a cleaner in an art gallery leaving a mop and bucket behind in a gallery. Is it art?
Suppose an artist is doing some tidying up and leaves a mop and bucket in the gallery. Is that art?
Now suppose that the artist intends to demonstrate something about the sterility of modern society by leaving a mop and bucket in a gallery. Is it art now?
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Chuck Close made a preliminary sketch for one of his self portraits. He dropped it on the floor and a piece of tape became stuck to it. When collectors Herb and Dorothy Vogel got it and framed it , they left the tape in place.
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Chuck Close made a preliminary sketch for one of his self portraits. He dropped it on the floor and a piece of tape became stuck to it. When collectors Herb and Dorothy Vogel got it and framed it , they left the tape in place.
One man's garbage is another man's treasure...
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In other words, present the avarage person with a cheap wine, poured out from a refilled bottle of an expensive wine, immediately followed by an expensive wine rebottled as a cheap wine, the taster will tend to actually enjoy the cheap wine more than the expensive wine.
I can vouch for this: many years ago, I did this very thing with brandy - had an old Courvoisier bottle that I used as an occasional picture prop and I thought I'd give this experiment a try. Filled the empty bottle with another ordinary cognac and the two guys, both in marketing, fell for it, hook line and sinker. I knew them well enough to have a laugh if they suspected., but they didn't. So it does make you wonder a little.
But only a little: a long-time neighbour of ours is fond of G&S, which is just a G&T with soda instead, and one of the local bars here used to fill Gordon’s bottles up with Larios… this lady was always able to tell, and eventually, the son-in-law of the bar-owner would no longer allow the older man to serve her – he’d give her the genuine thing himself. He was an expat Brit, so there was no messing around with language excuses.
Another scam that I believe my sister-in-law witnessed was the hen-party thing where, after a few rounds, the bar puts a little gin onto a cloth, stands the rim of the glass on that for a second or two, and then serves straight tonic on ice with lemon peel. There’s money in them thar bars, if you can hold your nerve.
Regarding art – I think it’s even easier there. Why? Because I suspect that the expensive side of the art world has few illusions about real value, and quite extended ones about investment potential. When stuff is being bought for big money, as a hedge against stock or money failure, all that’s required is that the other players in the field be willing to accept the representational value of the ‘art’ artefacts as valuable currency. I mean, who else is going to be buying into that market? It’s all a belief system, as is the dollar bill or, perhaps, the euro. Some goes up and some goes down. If you can accept that, then there's little reason to be surprised by what's considered art, and who an artist.
Rob C
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Another scam that I believe my sister-in-law witnessed was the hen-party thing where, after a few rounds, the bar puts a little gin onto a cloth, stands the rim of the glass on that for a second or two, and then serves straight tonic on ice with lemon peel. There’s money in them thar bars, if you can hold your nerve.
Well, I'll be derned, Rob! That would work! Particularly if you wait to do it for a couple rounds. Scandalous and very canny.
:D ;)
Dave
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'Fine art' is just a synonym of 'art' in this context. To assert that there is 'art' and then there is 'fine art' that stands apart from 'regular art' is just weird ...
The expression "fine art", as far as I'm concerned, was originally used in contrast to what used to be known as "commercial art" - which we now refer to, broadly, as graphic design.
Of course given the developments in visual arts during the 20th century (Duchamp, Warhol - to name but two crucial innovators) the term "fine art" is outmoded, however I think it still conveys a useful distinction that most people understand.
Roy
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All opinions are subjective, FTFY.
If you want to get philosophical about it, one could argue that everything we know, think and perceive in any way, could be described as fundamentally subjective.
We certainly know that our perception of color is a product of a particular type of processing in our brain. When we see a leaf on a tree that is green, that property of greenness is not a property of the leaf but a property of the way our brain processes a particular frequency of light that the leaf reflects.
One could also argue that the above point of view is silly because a green leaf, if it's perceived as being green by a normal person who doesn't have color vision problems, is green because it reflects a wave-length of light in the range of 530 nanometres, plus or minus a few, and that that is an objective fact, not a subjective opinion, and therefore the greenness is an objective fact by association.
However, one can counter that with the argument that concepts such as the Electromagnetic Spectrum and our attributing a particular frequency of light to a particular color are also products of the human imagination, and human brain. Such concepts do not exist outside of our minds, and therefore they are subjective interpretations of reality.
One can argue that there is a reality out there, but our description of it, whether in scientific terms of atoms and molecules, or in terms of poetry, drama and art, is all fundamentally subjective.
The wine-tasting experiments I referred to above, also apply to wine connoisseurs but with fewer extreme results. The connoisseurs are less influenced by price than the average person, but still clearly influenced in their opinions as to quality.
Just recently I heard of an interesting experiment designed to test the conformity of expert opinion. A group of experts on a particular subject, sitting around a table, were given a couple of propositions in their field to deliberate upon; call them A and B.
B was cleary correct. A was clearly false and bogus.
After all the experts around the table had studied the two scenarios or propositions, a vote followed, in sequence from one person to the next, as to which proposition was better or more correct.
The way the experiment was arranged was that in reality there was only one true expert sitting at the table. He was the last person to get a vote. All the other participants were just actors. (Mere actors! Didn't have a real job, excepts perhaps in this case serving the interests of science.)
The result was surprising, but also understandable. Each of the actors posing as an expert, one by one, voted A as the best proposition. The last person to vote was the one and only real expert who knew that B was the correct answer.
Would he be able to go against this bogus consensus of opinion that A was the preferred choice, when he knew in his rational mind that B was obviously the superior choice?
No! That was too much to ask. A consensus of opinion amongst 10 or 12 of his peers who were perceived as being experts in the field, was too much to go against. The only true expert sitting around that table, conformed to the majority opinion and voted the same as all the others.
There's a profound message here for the whole of humanity.
FTFY?
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No! That was too much to ask. A consensus of opinion amongst 10 or 12 of his peers who were perceived as being experts in the field, was too much to go against. The only true expert sitting around that table, conformed to the majority opinion and voted the same as all the others.
This has got to be another of these internet Urban Myths. Anyone who was a real expert in their field would also know who all the other experts were, and know many of them personally. And someone who was a real expert with any kind of reputation and published output would never accept being set up like this by ten or a dozen people that he had never heard of (I am an expert in a particular local field of British archaeology, and I know all the other people of any standing in that field too).
John
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This has got to be another of these internet Urban Myths. Anyone who was a real expert in their field would also know who all the other experts were, and know many of them personally. And someone who was a real expert with any kind of reputation and published output would never accept being set up like this by ten or a dozen people that he had never heard of (I am an expert in a particular local field of British archaeology, and I know all the other people of any standing in that field too).
John
John,
This is not an internet Urban Myth. I've just presented the nature of the experiment incorrectly. Sorry about that! I was listening to an interview of the British economist/journalist Tim Harford, in relation to his new book "Adapt" in which such experiments are mentioned, but I was doing other things at the time, not paying full attention, and filled in some details myself.
Such experiments are designed to test the nature of conformity and groupthink, which would include the power of urban myths.
The scenario does not necessarily include strangers masquerading as experts, but people who may all know each other. All but one have collaborated with the experimenters and agreed to provide the wrong answer in order to test the willingness to conform of the one person who has been set up.
But you are right, if such experiments were to include professionals with reputations to protect, there would be a lot of red faces and possibly litigation. I can imagine what might happen if a large group of doctors were to examine a patient, then each member of the group bar one, were to offer the same but wrong diagnosis, having agreed to collaborate with the experimenters.
Such experiments are usually carried out with college students. I understand one of the first psychologists to attempt such experiments was Soloman Asch in the 1950's.
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"But you are right, if such experiments were to include professionals with reputations to protect, there would be a lot of red faces and possibly litigation. I can imagine what might happen if a large group of doctors were to examine a patient, then each member of the group bar one, were to offer the same but wrong diagnosis, having agreed to collaborate with the experimenters."
Sounds just like House, then.
Rob C
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Sorry for the OT but I feel it's an interessant question... And as some kind of expert agreement was asked to define Fine Art I feel it's not that OT.
All but one have collaborated with the experimenters and agreed to provide the wrong answer in order to test the willingness to conform of the one person who has been set up.
Then, the conclusion may be slightly different, as the experiment is a tad more akin to feeding the expert with bogus data.
I'm also an expert (or supposed so :P ) in my field, and the conclusions of other experts I know may be valuable, and if not a plain fact may well change my mind or at least question my own conclusions - they could have seen something I haven't eg.
In an experiment akin to a TV show, asking for a very short term decision (ie not enough time to question thouroughly the other experts), it may well make someone change her mind.
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I was listening to an interview of the British economist/journalist Tim Harford, in relation to his new book "Adapt" in which such experiments are mentioned...
This interview? - 20/06/2011 "Start the Week" (http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b011zm16) "Andrew Marr talks to Tim Harford about the key to success..."
Just recently I heard of an interesting experiment designed to test the conformity of expert opinion. A group of experts on a particular subject, sitting around a table ...
What it takes to be considered an expert is wildly different depending on the "particular subject" - it isn't enough to say a "group of experts" when we don't know the "particular subject".
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Sorry for the OT but I feel it's an interessant question... And as some kind of expert agreement was asked to define Fine Art I feel it's not that OT.
Then, the conclusion may be slightly different, as the experiment is a tad more akin to feeding the expert with bogus data.
I'm also an expert (or supposed so :P ) in my field, and the conclusions of other experts I know may be valuable, and if not a plain fact may well change my mind or at least question my own conclusions - they could have seen something I haven't eg.
In an experiment akin to a TV show, asking for a very short term decision (ie not enough time to question thouroughly the other experts), it may well make someone change her mind.
Of course, when people are encouraged to express their opinion openly without fear or favour, then dissent is more common and conformity more rare.
Having delved into this matter a bit more, I see there is a wide variation in results from these sorts of experiments, depending not only on individual characteristic and cultural characteristics, but also on the way the experiment is set up.
For example, if the group is small, say 4 people with 3 members of the group conspiring with the experimenters, then the fourth person is far more likely to go against the opinions of the other three when it is clear that the other 3 are wrong.
When the group is larger, say 10 or 12, the willingness to conform with the wrong answer becomes greater. However, if just one person out of 11 provides a different response to the previous 10, even if that answer is still wrong, the 12th person, who is not part of the conspiracy, will be more likely to summons the courage to dissent and express what he believes is the correct answer.
However, it should be understood that we're talking abount tendencies, averages and percentages which may vary considerably according to the precise nature of the experiment and the individual characteristics of the participants.
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This interview? - 20/06/2011 "Start the Week" (http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b011zm16) "Andrew Marr talks to Tim Harford about the key to success..."
No. It was a similar interview, but more recent, and a 'one on one' interview which is more more specific. Here's the link: http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/counterpoint/why-success-follows-failure/3723352
What it takes to be considered an expert is wildly different depending on the "particular subject" - it isn't enough to say a "group of experts" when we don't know the "particular subject".
Good point! The initial experiment devised by Soloman Asch in the 1950's dealt with very simple phenomena where everyone could consider himself/herself an expert, such as which of a series of straight lines, presented on a sheet of paper, is longer, or of equal length to another.
As I mentioned before, it would be difficult to set up such experiments involving highly specialised individuals dealing with complex subjects, (because of professional reputations at stake), but the consensus of opinion on Anthropogenic Climate Change would be a real-world example of this effect taking place.
There's some evidence that academics are like teenagers in the sense that they sometimes don't have much awareness of the degree to which they are conformists.
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After you scrape away all of the bullshit, there exists such a thing as fine art (as opposed to graphic design and craft) and there's a remarkable consensus as to what it is, in the case of any specific artist. Rembrandt, yes, Leroy Neiman, no. Just because you can't precisely define something, doesn't mean that it doesn't exist. The problem is, the consensus takes a while to form, and many people who consider themselves fine artists, and who are considered fine artists by their contemporaries, are later often demoted to something else in the eyes of posterity. That will be what happens, IMHO, to such as Tracy Emin and Damien Hirst, and even such luminaries as Richard Serra, although I won't be around to see it. I read somewhere that there were 25,000 practicing artists in Paris during the Impressionist era, and we remember a few dozen of them now, if that many.
One key to fine art is that the artist does it because he is driven to it because of a particular kind of vision; he's not responding to a market. That gives his art a particular and discernible kind of honesty, even when other observers think what he is doing is crap (as with the early Van Gogh.) Whether or not Alain Briot's photography is now or ever considered fine art remains to be seen, but his very business-like approach to sales and marketing suggests to me it might not be (no offense intended; it's very skillful photography indeed.) The problem is, the content of his photography is not entirely inner-directed; it is also market-directed, and that's one thing that traditionally, fine art was not, and, indeed, can't be.
I've argued before that I can't think of a single famous fine-art photograph whose real, distinguishing characteristic is resolution, or focus, or technique. It's always something else. Avadon's bee boy was beautifully exposed and printed, but it's the boy and the bees who make the work, not the exposure. That makes the argument that you need layers in Photoshop somewhat suspect...
JC
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John -
Can't accept that Avedon would have been limited by PS usage, bees or no bees. PS is only a means to an end, not necessarily what defines that end, though it can be, if so desired.
As for responding to a market - isn't non-business-related photography but another facet of creating/reinforcing the personal myth that leads to continued commercial success for someone in the Avedon bracket, hence a real response to the market?
I think that the entire creative business, and not just the commercial side of it, is so complex, convoluted and personal that any sweeping judgements are bound to failure if ony because of the ever-present fact of conflicting case histories.
As for contemporary star artists - not many around on my radar, at least. Maybe one does indeed need to be dead before any valid evaluation can be made.
Rob C
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I think we need to frame this in what Alan has found that works for him. Some, like being proficient in your process, technical skill, is well known. But his point of view is in regard to his type of photography--I also do documentary work and standing around contemplating the scene is not possible, you need to work fast sometimes. And you need to develop the skills to compose fast.
I do take one exception to his points that the photograph should represent your feelings of a place--I hope not as during the sun rise I feel really $h177y that early in the morning. But also photography is not just putting your emotions of something in the image, but trying to understand and reflect the subject to some point. The is a lot of sentimental photography which is just the projection of feeling/ego of the photographer and it tends to be fairly dull.
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I've argued before that I can't think of a single famous fine-art photograph whose real, distinguishing characteristic is resolution, or focus, or technique. It's always something else. Avadon's bee boy was beautifully exposed and printed, but it's the boy and the bees who make the work, not the exposure. That makes the argument that you need layers in Photoshop somewhat suspect.
How true. Even when we think of a photographer like Adams, whose technique was elevated to a very high plane, what we remember is not the exposure, or the development of the negative, or the fine printing skills, but the picture. However, he could not have taken "Moonrise" without a profound understanding of light and exposure. And he could not have printed "Clearing Winter Storm" without very skilful burning and dodging - the equivalent of layers in Photoshop. With any great artist, technique is a means to an end, not an end in itself.
John
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One key to fine art is that the artist does it because he is driven to it because of a particular kind of vision; he's not responding to a market.
Which is why Michelangelo was a commercial artist/graphic designer and not a Fine Artist.
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Which is why Michelangelo was a commercial artist/graphic designer and not a Fine Artist.
Says it all!
Rob C
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Says it all!
Rob C
What it says is that since Michelangelo's time both the means and opportunities for producing "art" - but more significantly the market for it, have all grown exponentially. In consequence we're able to differentiate motives for its production and to discern a range of flavours which didn't exist then.
Roy
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What it says is that since Michelangelo's time both the means and opportunities for producing "art" - but more significantly the market for it, have all grown exponentially. In consequence we're able to differentiate motives for its production and to discern a range of flavours which didn't exist then.
Roy
Yes, the market has grown to include the plebs, but that doesn't mean that money-for-art is any more new, and the purity of the artist's soul any the more or the less suspect! That the art menu today is a longer one doesn't change a thing. Frankly, I believe they were as crazy then (artists) as they are today. They've simply always had to be.
Rob C
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... the purity of the artist's soul ...
The reasoning presented by theguywitha645d is broken because it is anachronistic.
When Gombrich began The Story of Art (1950) (http://books.google.com/books?id=lx5IAQAAIAAJ&q=%22What+I+meant,+of+course,+was+that+the+word+%27art%27+has+meant+different+things+at+different+times.%22&dq=%22What+I+meant,+of+course,+was+that+the+word+%27art%27+has+meant+different+things+at+different+times.%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=fisLT63OBsHZiQKC0LnHCQ&ved=0CDgQ6AEwAA) with "There really is no such thing as Art. There are only artists." - "What [he] meant, of course, was that the word 'art' has meant different things at different times."
Similarly, the phrase "Fine Art" is dragged in from the 19th century distinction with factory production.
"The strong ideological separation between a fine artist, whose works were considered to be autonomous, and an applied artist, who was merely a servant of industry, was eroded with the formation of the Arts and Crafts movement ... and artists subsequently worked together to bring about a unity of fine and applied arts."
Contemporary artists don't seem to use the term "Fine Art" because, of course, they are "Contemporary" ;-)
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Which is why Michelangelo was a commercial artist/graphic designer and not a Fine Artist.
Every time somebody says that fine artists work from a vision and not for commercial purposes, somebody else trots out the old saw that Michelangelo worked on assignment and therefore was a commercial artist. Excuse me, but that's so dumb that it gives me a headache; the only real cure is to read some actual art history.
If you told Ansel Adams that you'd like to buy a landscape photo, you *could* get a piece of art, or you *could* get an assignment photo. If you told him to meet you on Wednesday morning to take a shot of the Golden Gate Bridge, with you standing in the foreground waving at the camera, neither Ansel or you would consider the shot to be art. If you want an Ansel Adams art photo, then you would buy a well-considered piece of work that he did on his own time, with his own vision. Either procedure is possible, but the outcome is different. When the pope hired Michelangelo to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, he wasn't hiring a paper hanger -- he was hiring a guy who'd put his own vision up there, and that's what Michelangelo did, to the pope's sometimes great frustration.
When a patron hired one of these guys to do a "theme" painting, they were hiring him for his art, not to produce a cartoon. Sometimes, even *often* with people like Caravaggio, what the artist produced was not what the patron wanted, and the painting was rejected. In other words, if you hire an artist for his vision, you may get fine art. If you tell an artist specifically what to do, then you're an art director, and you get craft. Nothing at all wrong with craft, it just isn't fine art.
JC
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One key to fine art is that the artist does it because he is driven to it because of a particular kind of vision; he's not responding to a market. That gives his art a particular and discernible kind of honesty, even when other observers think what he is doing is crap (as with the early Van Gogh.)
"A lot of artists are producing what is known as Saatchi art... you know it's Saatchi art because it's one-off shockers. And these artists are getting cynical. Some of them with works already in his collection produce half-hearted crap knowing he'll take it off their hands. And he does."
Chris Ofili cited by Joanna Pitman, in The Times, 23 September 1997.
... the only real cure is to read some actual art history.
Couldn't we stick to photography and photographers?
"Photographers, when you get accosted by painters who, in their innocence, revive that tiresome old argument that Photography is not an art (which is true), reply that Painting is not an art. This last is also true.
Painting and photography, sculpture and photography, pottery and photography are only media, vehicles, pushmobiles, laundry chutes that get an intangible something from one unfindable part of one man to an unlocatable part of another person. And the ineffable something is not art because to name it implies that art is an object, or a thing, or a biscuit, or a building that can be moved about and grasped with the hands. As many have said there is no art, only artists. Every creative photographer has to find out for himself that it's the man behind the camera that is the artist, or not -- wearisome as this may be to those who have gone through the process."
Minor White, from “That Old Question Again,” Aperture vol. 7, no. 1, 1959
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Every time somebody says that fine artists work from a vision and not for commercial purposes, somebody else trots out the old saw that Michelangelo worked on assignment and therefore was a commercial artist. Excuse me, but that's so dumb that it gives me a headache; the only real cure is to read some actual art history.
If you told Ansel Adams that you'd like to buy a landscape photo, you *could* get a piece of art, or you *could* get an assignment photo. If you told him to meet you on Wednesday morning to take a shot of the Golden Gate Bridge, with you standing in the foreground waving at the camera, neither Ansel or you would consider the shot to be art. If you want an Ansel Adams art photo, then you would buy a well-considered piece of work that he did on his own time, with his own vision. Either procedure is possible, but the outcome is different. When the pope hired Michelangelo to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, he wasn't hiring a paper hanger -- he was hiring a guy who'd put his own vision up there, and that's what Michelangelo did, to the pope's sometimes great frustration.
When a patron hired one of these guys to do a "theme" painting, they were hiring him for his art, not to produce a cartoon. Sometimes, even *often* with people like Caravaggio, what the artist produced was not what the patron wanted, and the painting was rejected. In other words, if you hire an artist for his vision, you may get fine art. If you tell an artist specifically what to do, then you're an art director, and you get craft. Nothing at all wrong with craft, it just isn't fine art.
JC
You are simply falling into a strawman fallacy by framing it to support your argument. It is not like Michealangelo is going to make a bar scene on the Sistine Chapel. There is always context (direction) to commissioned work. Works by fashion (Avadon), commercial (Bourke-White), and documentary (FSA) photographers are also considered "Fine Art" even though there was an art director behind them. And you don't know much about art direction either. Your craft/fine art dichotomy is a false one. Excuse me, but that's so dumb that it gives me a headache; the only real cure is to get out and start trying to work as an artist.
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Allow me to enter this fray of "my quote is bigger than your quote": ;)
"Some people's photography is an art. Not mine. Art is a dirty word in photography. All this fine art crap is killing it already" (underlining mine)
Helmut Newton
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Allow me to enter this fray of "my quote is bigger than your quote": ;)
Obviously you're measuring incorrectly - see South Park, Season 15, Episode 4 - "T.M.I." :-)
But congratulations on the rarely attempted, inverse Tracey Emin, with 2 twists and a tuck!
"Some people's photography is an art. Not mine. Art is a dirty word in photography. All this fine art crap is killing it already." (emphasis mine)
Umm, OK Helmut, your photography is not art.
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... But congratulations on the rarely attempted, inverse Tracey Emin...
Ok... at this point, I have to ask: who the hell is Tracey Emin!?
EDIT: Never mind, the question is purely rhetorical
EDIT 2: the typo "how" corrected into the intended "who"
EDIT 3: I hate when edits become longer than the original post >:(
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"Some people's photography is an art. Not mine. Art is a dirty word in photography. All this fine art crap is killing it already." (emphasis mine)
Umm, OK Helmut, your photography is not art.
Last time I heard/read Helmut on the topic, it wasn't art but good taste that he was deriding; odd, since though often rather vulgar, he also has a fantastically developed sense of taste as far as delving into a past, though possibly more glamorous era than he must have enjoyed in his own, later days is concerned. Frankly, I think we all did, had we but understood it at the time.
......................................................................................
"Ok... at this point, I have to ask: how the hell is Tracey Emin!?"
Slobodan -
How or who? Is that a typo gottcha or is it the real deal?!
A possible answer is that she's finally made that damned bed.
Rob C
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You are simply falling into a strawman fallacy by framing it to support your argument. It is not like Michealangelo is going to make a bar scene on the Sistine Chapel. There is always context (direction) to commissioned work. Works by fashion (Avadon), commercial (Bourke-White), and documentary (FSA) photographers are also considered "Fine Art" even though there was an art director behind them. And you don't know much about art direction either. Your craft/fine art dichotomy is a false one. Excuse me, but that's so dumb that it gives me a headache; the only real cure is to get out and start trying to work as an artist.
That may or may not be the case - I tend to believe it's tongue-in-cheek; whatever the truth, you have to admit that John always manages to do it in perfectly delightful style!
;-)
Rob C
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"Ok... at this point, I have to ask: how the hell is Tracey Emin!?"
Slobodan -
How or who? Is that a typo gottcha or is it the real deal?!...
Damn autocorrect!
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Consider the example of a cleaner in an art gallery leaving a mop and bucket behind in a gallery. Is it art?
Tate Collection | H by Julian Opie (http://www.tate.org.uk/servlet/ViewWork?cgroupid=999999961&workid=20363&searchid=9308&roomid=false&tabview=text&texttype=10)
"In one corner of the gallery there is a set of three metal grids, each divided into 214 equidistant slits, set into the floor and not protected by a little rail. It is not obvious, at first, that these are any less visually interesting than the other exhibits in the gallery, until one realises that the reason they have no accompanying label is that they are the gratings for the gallery's air conditioning system. ... Thank goodness for the little rails in Tate Modern! They help you distinguish what is art from what is not. (http://www.aristos.org/aris-07/eclipse.htm)"
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Allow me to enter this fray of "my quote is bigger than your quote"
My impression is that you would prefer my own words rather than quotation - as though my own words would have an originality and creativity absent in mere selection from what we all might see if only we looked ;-)
Obviously I use quotation as straightforward argument from authority and as counter-examples to sweeping generalisations and as straightforward examples.
I like to see quotations and sources because they provide another avenue I can explore - they branch out from the commentary. That's also why I provide quotations - to provide others with avenues to explore that branch out from the commentary.
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<snip>There is always context (direction) to commissioned work. [John Replies: No, there isn't.] Works by fashion (Avadon), commercial (Bourke-White), and documentary (FSA) photographers are also considered "Fine Art" even though there was an art director behind them. [John replies: No, it's not. That's why their exhibitions of commercial art is always labeled, "commercial art" or "documentary." But, some of them also do fine art, that's not directed. And his name is spelled "Avedon."] And you don't know much about art direction either. [John replies: Yes, I do. I've worked in the media, in one form or another, since 1968.] Your craft/fine art dichotomy is a false one. [John replies: No, it's not. Though some people, usually poor artist/craftsmen, would like it to be.] Excuse me, but that's so dumb that it gives me a headache; the only real cure is to get out and start trying to work as an artist. [John replies: I do that, both as an artist and craftsman. And do quite well at it, if I do say so myself.]
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What is it about people that, ultimately, almost everything degenerates into 'I said - he said - I said' into the friggin' sunset?
I've just watched a rerun of the story of the glory-days of the Clyde shipbuilding industry. Depressing stuff and a huge mixture of optimism, pessimism, but hardly anything to be heard about the overarching reality: ships are of the past, and by the looks of it, not only on the Clyde. The photographic parallels are pretty clear: entire companies and trained workers out on the scrap heap. And who to blame? Nobody, really, because that's the march of life - the beat of progress, the cemetery-filling crunch of change. The only way to stop it is to freeze time by some international pact to stop progress here and now. It can't be done. It's not in the nature of Man to co-operate like that, and change is written into the fabric of everything.
So where does art fit in all of this? Why would anyone care whether a snapper is an artist, a craftsman, just a camera operator or all three? It's all so damned irrelevant in the greater scheme of things; a discussion but a pastime in the lives of those with nothing better to do, like us, as far as I can see. And much of it turns to dust, just as did my lunch today: I decided to eat out instead of do my own thing so many days in a row; the usual, familiar places were closed and I opted to try a spot I'd always walked straight past. I should have continued walking. And to think there were great days (and lunches!), once upon a time!
The BBC does another show that's gripping, if you can forgive the presenter: it's all about railway journeys of the British past. It takes you to towns once famous for this, that or the other, the very reasons that the railroads were created to reach them (and vice versa), and much of the original raison d'être there, too, has vanished. It's evolution on a visible timescale, visible within the compass of a single life, much of it. And yes, plenty of industrial art there too, now redundant.
Perhaps the last sign of Man on Earth will be a bloody museum filled with his art.
Rob C
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What is it about people that, ultimately, almost everything degenerates into 'I said - he said - I said' into the friggin' sunset?
It's the not being even slightly curious about the other person or what the other person wishes to say.
Although the outmoded language detracts from the statement, I agree with the sentiment expressed by Samuel Taylor Coleridge - "Until you understand a writer's ignorance, presume yourself ignorant of his understanding." (I don't claim that's how I usually act.)
Once you've self-identified as a Fine Art Photographer discussion of what that might mean is too easily interpreted as an attack on who you are - rather than yet another example of a phrase validly meaning different things to different people, different things in different contexts.
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You are a bee charmer. (And you don't know simple coding.) It seems your only argument is to try offend the messenger. I really was never very impressed with that kind of paternalistic bullying.
The problem with your opinion is the world seems to have a different idea--there are many examples that do not fit your simple model. When your hypothesis does not fit the reality, it is not the reality that is wrong.
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<snip> When your hypothesis does not fit the reality, it is not the reality that is wrong.
That's one thing we completely agree on.
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When your hypothesis does not fit the reality, it is not the reality that is wrong.
I'm not so sure about that. To claim that reality is either right or wrong requires an absolutely certain knowledge of what reality is.
What this thread has taught us so far is that no-one appears to really know what even 'art' is, so how the heck can you guys know what reality is! ;D
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I'm not so sure about that. To claim that reality is either right or wrong requires an absolutely certain knowledge of what reality is.
What this thread has taught us so far is that no-one appears to really know what even 'art' is, so how the heck can you guys know what reality is! ;D
They don't Ray; only I know what it is. Oh, and maybe Eric on a good day. Russ will simply take a quick shot of it and see if it has hands or not...
;- )
Rob C
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They don't Ray; only I know what it is. Oh, and maybe Eric on a good day. Russ will simply take a quick shot of it and see if it has hands or not...
;- )
Rob C
Absolutely. But I'm not always certain when a day is a good one.
Eric
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To claim that reality is either right or wrong requires an absolutely certain knowledge of what reality is.
We can stop well short of that - "it is not the reality that is wrong" because right and wrong are not properties we ascribe to "reality" (whatever that is).
When people speak from the facts of their experience, it shouldn't be too surprising when they disagree - it shouldn't be too surprising that their experience was different and provided them with different facts.
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We can stop well short of that - "it is not the reality that is wrong" because right and wrong are not properties we ascribe to "reality" (whatever that is).
When people speak from the facts of their experience, it shouldn't be too surprising when they disagree - it shouldn't be too surprising that their experience was different and provided them with different facts.
Okay! I'll rephrase that for you. "To claim that a perception of reality is right or wrong requires an absolutely certain knowledge of what reality is."
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Okay! I'll rephrase that for you.
Was I being too literal, too pedantic?
Seems to me that you've chosen a very literal reading of - "When your hypothesis does not fit the reality, it is not the reality that is wrong." - and then switched context away from a quarrel about how the phrase "Fine Art Photography" has been used and should be used.
I don't think the quarrel, or that statement, was about the ultimate nature of reality.
So if we're going to rephrase their words, let's do so in a way that might shed light on why there's a quarrel, and what's stopping the quarrel being an argument - When your hypothesis does not fit [my] reality, it is not [my] reality that is wrong.
(But if you wish to pursue the philosophy seminar: note that logically we can make false claims, and note that perceptions can be contradicted by other perceptions without "absolutely certain knowledge of what reality is".)