Luminous Landscape Forum
Site & Board Matters => About This Site => Topic started by: David Sutton on April 15, 2014, 07:03:22 am
-
A subject that has vexed folks with too much time on their hands for the last 150 years.
I suppose manipulation by staging photographs and deciding where to point the camera has always been with us, and outright fabrication since at least 1846 with Calvert Richard Jones' image of Capuchin monks on Malta. But I think most "editing" has been to make up for the perceived limitations of the camera.
People had trouble with daguerrotypes that were seemingly so realistic, but were in black and white, which after all is highly abstracted. A whole industry evolved around wonderfully skilled hand tinting. I just googled "hand tinted Daguerreotype" to find an example and came up with a surprising number early Victorian naked women.
The camera couldn't manage the depth of focus of the human eye and from about 1850 negatives were cut and pasted making an image that was both a total fabrication a faithful rendition of the subject.
In the 1800s photographic emulsions were so sensitive to blue and violet light that landscapes either had the sky blown or the land would be hardly visible. The solution was to either paint in a sky or use multiple exposures and "stitch". Some took it further. When Oscar Rejlander applied to have his picture "Two Ways Toward Life" (a 30 x 16 inch print created from over 30 negatives) exhibited at the Photographic Society of Scotland, it was rejected. The judges said it wasn't a true photograph because it was modified , not “as seen by the camera”. It was critiqued as “a vicious and illegitimate application of the photographic art”. The battle that resulted amongst the society’s membership resulted in many members forming a separate society.
Well, as Picasso said, summing up art's complex relationship to reality, it is "a lie that tells the truth".
The inevitable reaction is still with us. The aesthetic of straight photography (a term coined by the art critic Saadakichi Hartmann around 1904) that was really taken up by Alfred Steiglitz and Paul Strand and influenced the f64 group, has lead I think to an unfortunate separation between theory and practice. So called "straight photographs" mostly haven't been. As Paul Strand himself blurted out at the end of his life "I've always felt that you can do anything you want in photography if you can get away with it".
Photographs have been looked on as more accurate and factual than pictures from any other medium. And of course they are not. They are bits of blackened silver or dye on a piece of paper, or dots on a screen. They a human constructions. As Henry Peach Robinson wrote in 1869: "Cultivated minds do not require to believe that they are deceived, and that they look on actual nature, when they behold a pictorial representation of it".
I think we need to regain the Victorians' sophisticated view of the art of photography. I'll step off my soapbox now.
I enjoyed you photographs and article Rick. :)
-
What is reality? The light beams which reach my retina? Obvious not. Imagine a marvelous sunset at the sea. First time when you're in hurry, sitting in a car and being distressed because you're missing a deadline and second time sitting with a beautiful woman/men of your choice in a sea-side restaurant having a dinner. Same sunset but completely different feelings.
So why not use all technical capabilities in order to sculpture your intended feeling in the mind of the viewer.
Harald
-
There's a likely apocryphal story of an American art collector who visited Picasso's studio during his cubist period. The visitor commented that the woman (Picasso's wife at the time) in one particular painting looked nothing like real life.
Picasso's reply was to ask the visitor if he had a photograph of his wife with him. Yes, the visitor replied, and took a photograph from his wallet. Humm, said Picasso. "Look how tiny she appears", holding the photo in one hand, and then turning it sideways added, "and look how thin".
Michael
-
I think one of photography's issues is its insecurity. Because it is based on ever advancing technology, photography is constantly marketed as easier to "capture" more "real" images. Kodachrome, Velvia, and many (most? all?) other films were touted as producing images closer to what you see. Look at the marketing from Nikon, Canon, Leaf, or anyone else. They may talk about the ergonomics of the camera and how it feels in your hand, but the images they show are better, stronger, faster and more real than before ("pure photography" anyone?)
It seems to me that other forms of art, such as painting and sculpture are moving away from straight depiction and moving to more abstract. Maybe the push in photography to be more realistic* is in reaction to the loss of pictorial painting.
*whatever that means, but that is a different conversation
-
Photographs have been looked on as more accurate and factual than pictures from any other medium. And of course they are not. They are bits of blackened silver or dye on a piece of paper, or dots on a screen.
You haven't shown why photographs could not be both "bits of blackened silver or dye on a piece of paper" and "more accurate and factual than pictures from any other medium".
-
What is reality? The light beams which reach my retina? Obvious not.
Obviously, the light beams which reach your retina are one aspect of reality :-)
-
If the Wales image is supposed to be reality (how the scene looked), then it fails, but as an art image then it's great. How much one changes a scene depends on how the image is to be used. Adding something that is not there does not work for saying "here's what this place looks like." As altered by Rick, the Wales scene is more akin to a painting and artists usually have "artistic license," to add or subtract as they see fit. The problem with photography is that we can record a scene as it is or we can add and subtract, etc., but as Rick points out, we then have an obligation to state what we have done.
-
I think one of photography's issues is its insecurity.
I like that. Photography is the only art form with self esteem issues. :)
-
It seems to me that other forms of art, such as painting and sculpture are moving away from straight depiction and moving to more abstract. Maybe the push in photography to be more realistic* is in reaction to the loss of pictorial painting.
*whatever that means, but that is a different conversation
I think it's kinda the other way 'round. The advent of photography has driven the move to abstraction in painting & sculpture. Historically these two things pretty much coincide.
IMO in any creative endeavor anything goes, given the limitations of your tools (and your imagination). Also IMO working within a framework—that is, imposing limitations on yourself—is very useful, maybe even essential, in doing good creative work. Just don't turn your framework into a dogmatic straightjacket...this not only tends to annoy other people, it also kills your own creativity.
-Dave-
-
I think it's kinda the other way 'round. The advent of photography has driven the move to abstraction in painting & sculpture. Historically these two things pretty much coincide.
-Dave-
Wasn't that stated rather explicitly by the Impressionists? They were consciously reacting to photography; trying to convey things the camera couldn't.
There's something about the Blue Swallow in Tucumcari that just begs for HDR (at least to those of us with untreated HDR syndrome). Here's my own very non-realistic interpretation from a few years back.
-
The author is spot-on: Photography has never been about reality, despite all who might believe otherwise.
I would add some other points, too:
- When I hear people decry the lack of 'reality' in much of today's photography, I'm always tempted to ask them if they believe every image ought to reflect a human's Field of View ( 140 Degrees ), or only that Field of View which human's see in sharp focus ( 15 Degrees )? After all, those two vision factors are the ones that define our sense of 'reality'.
- When they criticize HDR/Fusion photography as 'unreal', I want to ask if they'd prefer to go back to only seeing 50% of the dynamic range of the human eye, ala non-HDR images?
- When they view a perspective-controlled image and praise it's 'reality', I want to point out that it's the brain's software that corrects the convergence issues of 'reality'. Convergence is what is 'real'; Perpective-Control is 'unreal'.
And lastly:
- 99% of photography, from the moment it was born, has been skewed toward making reality 'better' than reality actually exists. Yes, there is that school of contrariness that tries to make the images look 'worse' than reality, but that's the rare exception.
- In the process of making reality appear 'better', the short term results might, indeed, be preferable to the alternatives: Cars and dresses get sold, makeup artists make a living, jewelers sell baubles, faces get immortalized, etc.
- In the long term, however, I believe the crowd-generated result has been to diminish our valuation of 'reality', instilling a depression amongst those living 'real' lives that their's ain't as beautiful, sensuous, loving, etc., as the rest of the World's, that their's lacks the romance, the power, the mystery, the drama of everyone else's.
- It's not an overt, demonstrable point that I'm making. I cannot point to seven studies that back up my opinion. It's a lot more of a gut reaction. I just think that compared to 'media reality', everyone's actual reality looks pale, washed-out, desaturated, unexciting, boring.
- Lastly, I wanna point out that the vast, vast majority of our lives are spent in seeing reflected light. . . . that 'reality' is represented to us from photons bouncing off of objects. In the last 20 years or so, an increasing share of the media we consume has been backlit, deepening the chasm between boring old 'reality' and the feast-for-your-eyes media, intensifying the disenchantment that I'm concerned about here.
-
99% of photography, from the moment it was born, has been skewed toward making reality 'better' than reality actually exists.
While I'm a fan of not faking pictures, notwithstanding oversaturation and other similar edits that often look fake anyway, there are no landscape pictures that exceed the view of the actual subject. Who has duplicated photographically the awe you feel from Inspiration Point in Yosemite, the Grand Canyon, or other similar views? So our attempt usually is to equal the actual experience of being there. But the result is only a fraction of the experience.
-
What is reality?
The student asked the Zen Master, What is Reality?
The Master replied, That which is real, is that which never changes. ???
Phil
-
- Lastly, I wanna point out that the vast, vast majority of our lives are spent in seeing reflected light. . . . that 'reality' is represented to us from photons bouncing off of objects. In the last 20 years or so, an increasing share of the media we consume has been backlit, deepening the chasm between boring old 'reality' and the feast-for-your-eyes media, intensifying the disenchantment that I'm concerned about here.
Just to be an annoying pedant: there's actually no such thing as reflection. Light is either emitted or absorbed. "Reflected" photons are emitted with a trajectory and probability distribution (wavelength) such that they appear to be the same as photons striking (and being absorbed by) the "reflecting" object...but they're different photons. Look up Quantum Electrodynamics for more info. In the everyday world, consider it a bit of party trivia.
Now to your actual point. :) It seems to me there's always been a gap between the vividness of imagination at its best and the not infrequent mundanity of everyday life. This is part of why art has appeal. Lately we've become very good at creating even better than the real thing—or at least bigger, louder, sharper, more saturated than the real thing—multimedia worlds. I guess we'll either have to do a better job as a species when it comes to everyday life or experience a future where people devote more & more time to their virtual lives. I'm not sure which will be harder: creating a better real world or building a virtual one rich enough to match or even exceed the best of the real world. In either case we have a long way to go...
-Dave-
-
That is a novel theory....Quantum Electrodynamics alongside the rule of thirds? I am surprised that this subject has been aired again and again and..... I suppose it livens up the forum for a few days. :-\
-
I was part of a group of people studied by some medical and transportation safety researchers years ago. During the research I learned how much of our visual reality is "colored in" by our brain. The area of accurate color perception is much smaller than the area that our brain thinks it is. Being shown a stoplight in your peripheral vision, when the top light lights up you'll see it as a red light... even if it's a green one. However, the speed of processing information in the center of your visual speed is so much slower than in your peripheral vision. The huge dynamic range of our vision is also created to a great extent by our brains enhancing what our eyes see - we have our own HDR processing algorithms.
Even the automatic white balancing that our brain does is somewhat suspect, as you find out when photographing under some cheap florescent lights that have bandy emission spectra - some colors just aren't there but our brain puts them there. In my case, my brain doesn't auto white balance very well, I'm kind of permanently set to daylight WB, and to replicate what I see, so are my cameras permanently set to daylight WB. I stopped arguing with people about that a long time ago.
You won't see crazy 6 foot white rabbits march through a scene if you're not expecting them to be there (see some of the very cool perceptual research referenced in Daniel Kahneman's books.)
Trying to judge reality by using a visual system that's intensively bending, shaping, even creating content, is a fools errand. The heaviest hand in post-processing a photograph can't match what our brain is doing.
-
This seems yet again to be a somewhat sterile discussion that will come to no real conclusion, because we are all different. IMHO altering a photograph e.g. by cloning out people, or inserting one that was not there, or changing a sky in post processing, is altering reality. In documentary or newspaper photography it should definitely not be allowed. Altering white balance, changing contrast etc is minor tinkering, and is probably no more than our brain does when filing a scene in its memory bank. And anyway, did not film alter reality, e.g. by being black and white, just being for daylight, or having specific saturation properties?
Personally, I do not like highly saturated images, but others do. What is wrong with that? A friend refused to take photographs of the Grand Canyon, because he felt no photograph could convey the awe felt when actually there. Is there no room for personal preference?
Get out there and enjoy image making. Revel in the mist, the golden hour, the drama, and all that this world has to offer. Make great images that you and others appreciate, but you will not please all of the people all of the time.
Enough of this, it is time away from my camera.
Jonathan
-
When I first showed the Grand Canyon to my then teen aged daughter, she said it didn't look real. To her it looked like scenery made for the theater.
-
Here's my own very non-realistic interpretation from a few years back.
I like this image a lot. I can really 'feel' it. The limited DR of the human eye means that a slightly 'processed' image often better conveys the real life experience.
- N.
-
Speaking of what and how the brain sees, here's my favorite. Please don't reveal the results in your posts here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGQmdoK_ZfY
-
Well I expected a bigger sh*t storm. ;D However it is a good article. I never look at an image and think whether or not it is "reality", whatever that may be. I look at an image and think about how it makes me feel, how it makes me think and wonder about the image. To me photography is the vision of the photographer and it is to invoke a feeling or a message.
Alan
-
Well that is one interpretation of photography. Who wouldn't get a warm feeling by a little baby hugging its mommy. Feelings about the photo are key. But in other ways, falsehoods in photography can get you to vote in a way that is not consistent with the reality of the situation. That could effect the entire country. The "vision" of the photographer may be political in nature. He is trying to influence your action. Photography has long been used for propaganda and it's stagecraft is in its lies.
-
And how is that different from speeches, articles, news reports, opinions? They are all there to create a reaction and "feeling". It is how the individual responds to it, that makes or breaks it, whether it is a picture or any other form of media. It is all the intent of the "artist" or writer, etc.
Alan
-
We've been down this road once or twice before, but most of the replies in this thread miss the elephant in the room: that photos can be the best representation of reality that we can manage. They don't necessarily have to be, but they can be. That's why photos are taken as evidence in criminal cases, that's how they're used in navigation, that's how they're used to calculate precise orbits, etc. In other words, photos aren't just what people want them to be; they're not just another bit of sensation dependent on human interpretation. If a series of photos lead to calculations that show an astroid is going to hit New York City on July 4, you probably don't want to be there on July 4, if you have any interest in continuing with your current life style. In other words, photos *can* be objective evidence of events outside human psychology. Painting, on the other hand, can't be, nor can any of the other art forms. This gives photography a particular power. it *can* be a representation of reality outside of human psychology. To say that a photograph it *isn't* an objective reality (as Picasso supposedly did) is to confuse sophomoric discussions of philosophy (Hey, don't bogart the joint, man) with serious reflection on the way the world works.
The above is one case, and now I'll suggest another, but this *is* purely subjective -- in my opinion, the power of photography comes from its ability to represent the objective in a meaningful way. The greater the distance between meaningful representation, and the photograph as hung on the wall, the less I'm interested. If one spends a lot of time looking at a wide variety of paintings, you'll very quickly notice that some huge percentage -- 99+% -- is crap. Poorly executed even in its own terms, intellectually shallow, derivative...stupid. In my view, photography starts with one great strength, the ability to represent an external reality with some fidelity, and a lot of potential weaknesses -- easy technical manipulation, fraud, snarkiness, and so on. I'm not interested in that stuff. I don't doubt that others are.
-
We've been down this road once or twice before, but most of the replies in this thread miss the elephant in the room: that photos can be the best representation of reality that we can manage. They don't necessarily have to be, but they can be. That's why photos are taken as evidence in criminal cases, that's how they're used in navigation, that's how they're used to calculate precise orbits, etc. In other words, photos aren't just what people want them to be; they're not just another bit of sensation dependent on human interpretation. If a series of photos lead to calculations that show an astroid is going to hit New York City on July 4, you probably don't want to be there on July 4, if you have any interest in continuing with your current life style. In other words, photos *can* be objective evidence of events outside human psychology. Painting, on the other hand, can't be, nor can any of the other art forms. This gives photography a particular power. it *can* be a representation of reality outside of human psychology. To say that a photograph it *isn't* an objective reality (as Picasso supposedly did) is to confuse sophomoric discussions of philosophy (Hey, don't bogart the joint, man) with serious reflection on the way the world works.
Yes, photography is a great tool for evidence, if that is the intended purpose, but the article is based around the intention of creating your own personal perception of reality. Daniel Kahneman's book, Thinking, Fast and Slow (thanks to ednazarko for pointing to his work), mentions the video Alan Klein's post points to as to what can happen and does frequently happen when specific instructions (evidence) are given for the brain to focus on, and how the brain misses stuff in front of its eyes while it is focusing on the evidence. The elephant in the room for me is personal perception or creativity; our perceptions are very personal, yet sometimes very similar.
-
I thought the article was pretty thin, myself. He's not actually saying anything. What he is doing, though, is taking a position.
If it were my essay, I'd recast it as a manifesto. It's quite decent as a manifesto, but could use a bit more punch, more fire in the belly. Plus, manifestos are way more fun.
-
Journalistic photography aside, I disagree with and reject the notion that one has any obligation to describe one's workflow or process of creating the final image. Photography is an art form. We use tools to create our art, as do other artists. I often share aspects of my workflow with other photographers whom I treat as friends. But there is certainly no need or obligation to tell anyone how I create my art. Painters and sculptors are under no obligation to explain how they create the effects they do. There is no reason for photographers to feel differently. If we want photography to be treated as an art form, we need to act like artists. --Barbara
-
We've been down this road once or twice before, but most of the replies in this thread miss the elephant in the room: that photos can be the best representation of reality that we can manage. They don't necessarily have to be, but they can be. That's why photos are taken as evidence in criminal cases, that's how they're used in navigation, that's how they're used to calculate precise orbits, etc. In other words, photos aren't just what people want them to be; they're not just another bit of sensation dependent on human interpretation. If a series of photos lead to calculations that show an astroid is going to hit New York City on July 4, you probably don't want to be there on July 4, if you have any interest in continuing with your current life style. In other words, photos *can* be objective evidence of events outside human psychology. Painting, on the other hand, can't be, nor can any of the other art forms. This gives photography a particular power. it *can* be a representation of reality outside of human psychology. To say that a photograph it *isn't* an objective reality (as Picasso supposedly did) is to confuse sophomoric discussions of philosophy (Hey, don't bogart the joint, man) with serious reflection on the way the world works.
The above is one case, and now I'll suggest another, but this *is* purely subjective -- in my opinion, the power of photography comes from its ability to represent the objective in a meaningful way. The greater the distance between meaningful representation, and the photograph as hung on the wall, the less I'm interested. If one spends a lot of time looking at a wide variety of paintings, you'll very quickly notice that some huge percentage -- 99+% -- is crap. Poorly executed even in its own terms, intellectually shallow, derivative...stupid. In my view, photography starts with one great strength, the ability to represent an external reality with some fidelity, and a lot of potential weaknesses -- easy technical manipulation, fraud, snarkiness, and so on. I'm not interested in that stuff. I don't doubt that others are.
Can't disagree with any of that. Despite the dramatic title of the article, it would be a serious mistake to assume everyone thinks and feels the same.
Photography is many things, it can be realistic (to a point) it can wander into digital art. Take your pick..taste is a very varied thing.
Picasso, can't stand his work (does nothing for me at all in any way) but there are plenty of folks who just love it
-
Journalistic photography aside, I disagree with and reject the notion that one has any obligation to describe one's workflow or process of creating the final image. Photography is an art form. We use tools to create our art, as do other artists. I often share aspects of my workflow with other photographers whom I treat as friends. But there is certainly no need or obligation to tell anyone how I create my art. Painters and sculptors are under no obligation to explain how they create the effects they do. There is no reason for photographers to feel differently. If we want photography to be treated as an art form, we need to act like artists. --Barbara
I agree. I do not think it is any artist's responsibility to explain the steps to how they created their work. That would be an instructional tool, more akin to a score of music, but even that is open to interpretation. As in the days of wet darkroom, you could say you dodged and burned, etc., but even that can be a bit abstract. I once read the many different prints Ansel Adams himself created of Moonrise, Hernandez, were all different because of how he interpreted the work as his vision evolved.
-
Photography for me is mostly a creative endeavor. That's where the anything goes approach comes into play. But of course it can be documentary as well, even primarily so. There's no point in being absolutist about it one way or the other. As has been suggested in other posts in this thread, better to spend less time defining it and more time doing it. :)
-Dave-
-
I like this image a lot. I can really 'feel' it. The limited DR of the human eye means that a slightly 'processed' image often better conveys the real life experience.
- N.
Thank you. That's exactly my intention with my photography. Probably has something to with the fact that I was a painter before I was a photographer...
-
I agree that photographs are the best representation of physical reality we can manage, or rather photography's younger sibling: the movies. The first time I saw the full length dvd of The Lost World of Mitchell and Kenyon (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQV1_B63LTM) I was affected in a way that was quite different to viewing any other historical imagery, with the possible exception of the work of Ponting and Hurley.
The greatest power of photography has probably been to show us worlds invisible to our eyes: the world of the super fast, the super slow through time lapse, the microscopic and the macroscopic. And to show us places and events beyond our reach.
Ignoring for the moment the need for most of us to regularly manipulate photographs to cover up the limits of our instruments, "straight" images of the physical world have their limits because we want to see (and show) something of the inner world of the subject and the person who made the image. And this is where we all come unstuck because the result may look "real" but it's reality is an internal one. It is at this point I part company with many folks. I don't care what the camera saw.
So aggravating discussions aside on what is "allowed", we often end up in the same boat as the rest of the art world. A lot of what I call "not very good" and others call "crap". And a smaller body of work that is great but quite polarising. Some like it and many loathe it.
I'm going a different way. I've taken up using antique roll film cameras. As Georges Braque, who co-founded cubism with Picasso said, "out of limited means new forms emerge". So far I haven't seen it. I hope he wasn't talking "not very good".
David
-
You won't see crazy 6 foot white rabbits march through a scene if you're not expecting them to be there (see some of the very cool perceptual research referenced in Daniel Kahneman's books.)
Referencing Kahneman? That's a first here. I suspect you're a graduate student! However, there are limits to Kahneman's script theories of perception, as we need to take account of novelty, motion, and other artifacts which cause effortful processing rather than automatic, schematic processing. Although, I have to admit that the video with the big white rabbit is killer.
Ok, geekout over.
-
Photography and The Death of Reality: "Hey, I know that title is a bit dramatic, but for my first article here on The Luminous Landscape I wanted to do something a bit different…"
The problem is not that the title is a bit dramatic; the problem is that the article is about Realism not Reality.
The problem is not wanting to do something a bit different; the problem is that the article does not do something a bit different, this topic is discussed every 6 months on LuLa.
For example:- Death Valley Sunset (http://www.luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php?topic=85939.0)
- The Art of Fooling Around (http://www.luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php?topic=83025.0)
- The Ethics of Photo Manipulation - 3 (http://www.luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php?topic=79282.0)
- The Ethics of Photo Manipulation (http://www.luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php?topic=78913.0)
- The Making of Pilbara Storm (http://www.luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php?topic=68640.0)
- When is a Photograph a Cheat? (http://www.luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php?topic=57486.0)
Photography and The Death of Reality: "One of my goals with this article is to get your feedback in the Forum Section of this site."
Compared to the discussions on this topic that have already taken place in the LuLa forums, the article is shallow.
-
This seems yet again to be a somewhat sterile discussion that will come to no real conclusion…
I think the opinions expressed over the last couple of days have not been as black&white as they were a couple of years ago.
Discussion that does not lead to a single shared conclusion can still lead to a richer more-informed perspective.
-
Photography … it's stagecraft is in its lies.
"As in fashion so, too, in photography everything is ultimately stage-managed; naturalness is no more than a fiction, or, at best, simply the least artificial moment. This means that in fact fashion photography is of greater documentary interest than a great deal of photography which is flagged as such. For the transience of existence is concentrated in fashion into laws with an immensely wide application but with a very short shelf-life, which is the reason that stage-management plays such an important part in this context.
And, vice versa, each picture grasps the fleeting moment like a model his or her clothes, as in war pictures by Capa, Cartier-Bresson's genre scenes and Robert Frank's visions of everyday political life. The realism of the image becomes a stage-managed representation. Therefore, in a certain sense, fashion photography, by never hiding its own stage-management, becomes the most authentic form of photographic representation (http://books.google.com/books?id=069rL6vA1BAC&printsec=frontcover&dq=%22Art+of+the+20th+Century%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=diBQU4-6HbSJ8gG6q4AI&ved=0CDAQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=%22fashion%20photography%2C%20by%20never%20hiding%20its%20own%20stage-management%22&f=false)."
-
Yesterday I had the pleasure of chancing upon a BBC special on Albert Watson doing landscape photography on the Isle of Skye. With several assistants who carried the needed equipment, Watson was happily artificially creating conditions he knew to be typical of the weather on Skye, but which were not occurring when he found himself at a location he liked. The fog-maker looked like a leaf blower, definitely producing "fog." The mister squirted onto his car windshield replicated the effect of raindrops on the windshield through which he photographed. And his vehicle provided the headlights for a sweeping band of light across a nightscene. I greatly enjoyed the pleasure he took in his photography, and his initiative in creating the photographic impression he wanted. He was seeking images with a "mystical" look. So he had gone in October with a lot of cloud cover and rapidly changing weather. And then added his own reality. --Barbara
-
You work your butt off getting out to the right place, in the right light and at the right time and circumstance to finally get that shot you're so proud of. So, it's a real letdown when someone asks of your photo, "Did you Photoshop it?" Meaning of course that they will lose respect for it because in their mind you faked it or could have. Nobody asks that of a painting. It's understood that the work is in the artist's mind.
Years ago, notwithstanding the Ansel Adams of the world, most people took a picture. Either it was a chrome that went from camera to projector. Or it was negative film that went from camera to print by an outside developer. In both cases untouched by the photographer. People never asked if it was real, faked, touched-up. They took it as what the camera shot. Real. Had weight and substance. No more.
Maybe in the future, people will stop asking that question "Did you Photoshop it?" if we get to the point where photos are understood to not represent reality. Until then, these arguments will go on.
-
Years ago, notwithstanding the Ansel Adams of the world, most people took a picture. … In both cases untouched by the photographer. People never asked if it was real, faked, touched-up. They took it as what the camera shot. Real. Had weight and substance.
Years ago, "most people" didn't fancy themselves to be artists :-)
'You see, the extraordinary thing about photography is that it's a truly popular medium... But this has nothing to do with the art of photography even though the same materials and the same mechanical devices are used. Thoreau said years ago, "You can't say more than you see." No matter what lens you use, no matter what the speed of the film is, no matter how you develop it, no matter how you print it, you cannot say more than you see. That's what that means, and that's the truth.' Paul Strand, Aperture 19(1), 1974.
-
Maybe in the future, people will stop asking that question "Did you Photoshop it?" if we get to the point where photos are understood to not represent reality. Until then, these arguments will go on.
I get really tired of that question, but it's not as bad as "You must have a really expensive camera." One of these days, I'm going to hand one of my cameras to a joker that says that, and tell them to go get similar results to mine with it.
It's fun to shoot with one of the Sigma Merrills. Passers-by assume it to be an inexpensive point and shoot, and dismiss it immediately. It's like the reactions I used to get from people when I shot landscapes with a Rolleiflex. "Oh, I used to have a box camera too - got it from my Grandfather," etc.
-
You have to be a little careful, well, really a lot careful, in these discussions. There are two quite different things in play here:
- does the photograph accurately reflect the reality of what it's pointed at, and to what extent, and in what ways
- does the photograph "look real" in the sense that when I see the picture, and I also see the thing it's a picture of, I say "that looks like that"
The first is a scientific thing, a measurable, quantifiable thing. That's what we're talking about when we're admitting photographs as evidence.
The second is a construct of our mind. We accept certain pictures as "looking like the thing" when in fact no picture looks like the thing. It's subjective, and it changes over time. There is at any given time a corresponding social construct of the form "most people would agree that this photograph looks like the thing it's a picture of, that it 'looks real'" which most definitely changes over time. Black and white photographs are no longer accepted by the populace as "looks real" in this sense. Increasingly, HDR and super-saturated colors ARE accepted as "looks real" in this sense.
This second thing is entirely about how our brains have been trained to interpret these two dimensional things called photographs.
The first thing and the second thing overlap occasionally, but mainly by accident
-
Well said!
Succinct, clear, and concise.
Thanx!
-
Did you Photoshop it?
Yeah, but it was the original, perpetual version.
-
Well, as Picasso said, summing up art's complex relationship to reality, it is "a lie that tells the truth".
Not to nitpick, but the actual quote from Picasso is, "We all know that Art is not truth. Art is a lie that makes us realize truth, at least the truth that is given us to understand." From a conversation between Picasso and critic Marius de Zayas. Perhaps your soundbite is like a photograph of the actual quote, conveying the necessary information, but somewhat short of reality. All-in-all, though, a very good discussion of this subject.
-
Not to nitpick, but the actual quote from Picasso is, "We all know that Art is not truth. Art is a lie that makes us realize truth, at least the truth that is given us to understand." From a conversation between Picasso and critic Marius de Zayas. Perhaps your soundbite is like a photograph of the actual quote, conveying the necessary information, but somewhat short of reality. All-in-all, though, a very good discussion of this subject.
Nothing wrong with nitpicking. Yes, it was a shortened form. "Art is a lie that makes us realize truth " is more accurate but probably fails to grasp Picasso's thoughts about myth, art, truth and lies. I suspect he wasn't talking about superficial technique (which he probably loathed) but a sort of penetrating vision that reveals reality in all its terror. Do we have any experts on his time?
-
I suspect he wasn't talking about superficial technique (which he probably loathed) but a sort of penetrating vision that reveals reality in all its terror. Do we have any experts on his time?
If you want to say something about your understanding of "art's complex relationship to reality" we can probably get-by without the Picasso expert.
-
Succinct, clear, and concise.
"Explanations exist; they have existed for all time; there is always a well-known solution to every human problem — neat, plausible, and wrong."
H. L. Mencken "The Divine Afflatus" in New York Evening Mail (16 November 1917)
-
So, it's a real letdown when someone asks of your photo, "Did you Photoshop it?"
I get really tired of that question, but it's not as bad as "You must have a really expensive camera."
Once, after several days of becoming a little worn down by a continual series of such questions and comments, when asked how I took such amaaaaaazing images, followed by the 'I really ought to get a good camera' remark…
What delicate flowers we are! :-)
Those questions have all the impertinence of an angler being asked if they've caught any fish. They show mild interest and demonstrate an understandable lack-of-knowledge.
-
The greatest power of photography has probably been to show us worlds invisible to our eyes: the world of the super fast, the super slow through time lapse, the microscopic and the macroscopic. And to show us places and events beyond our reach.
Drawing and painting showed us places and events beyond our reach.
The microscope and the telescope allowed the minutely small and immensely vast to be seen and drawn.
The super-slow changes so slowly that a series of drawings can be made.
Photography brought verisimilitude and speed, so:
- a proliferation of images
- an unchanging moment before our attention for hours (we can look for longer, so we see more).
"As Talbot observed in an essay in the first published book of photographs (The Pencil of Nature, 1844)…
'It frequently happens… -- and this is one of the charms of photography -- that the operator himself discovers on examination, perhaps long afterwards, that he has depicted many things he had no notion of at the time. Sometimes inscriptions and dates are found upon the buildings, or printed placards most irrelevant, are discovered upon their walls: sometimes a distant dial-plate is seen, and upon it -- unconsciously recorded -- the hour of the day at which the view was taken.'
A tiny detail which had escaped the artist's attention was there to be seen, included in his picture even though the artist had not seen it and had not allowed for it in his design." p5 Truth and Photography (http://books.google.com/books?ei=-CZQU_GgL8iT8QGWlYGYBA&id=TthTAAAAMAAJ&dq=Truth+and+Photography&focus=searchwithinvolume&q=%22As+Talbot+observed%22)
-
Black and white photographs are no longer accepted by the populace as "looks real" in this sense.
Please show something to support that statement (it might be interesting).
-
One of the issues raised in the past about the craft of photography and its value as art has been the question of where are photography's Rembrandts and Picassos.
I'd turn that question around and ask what contribution great painters have made to the wider community. How has their work filtered through to the "outside" world? Yes, they have extended the capabilities of their craft, but what else apart from national prestige and making dealers and art thieves wealthy? (runs for cover.....)
I've come up with a quick list for photography and its practitioners.
The 8 hour day and sick leave
Plastics
An important driver of women's emancipation in the late 19th Century
A way of seeing that can be quite unlike the way our eyes work and unlike the conventions of painters
Photography has made art available to anyone who can afford the cost of a print, be it a cheap reproduction of the Mona Lisa or an original work.
Culminating in the image of the earth hanging in space, photography has arguably generated a world wide shift in consciousness about the planet we live on.
From about 1880 the camera became available to anyone and the "snapshot" appeared. At this point photography really split in two and we still struggle with it today. On the one hand the "serious" image and on the other pictures of subjects never seen before made by ordinary people. Aunt Mary and her tennis racquet, couples at home on the couch. This led to some considerable social disruption (To quote a 1910 issue of The Amateur Photographer; “Our moral character dwindles as our instruments get smaller”) but also to a revolution in picture making. We have an amazing historical record of who we are and how we live.
Photographers can be proud of their heritage. The odd dust-up does no harm.
David
-
One of the issues raised in the past about the craft of photography and its value as art…
In the recent past -- "Why Photography Matters As Art As Never Before (http://books.google.com/books?id=e8_SPQAACAAJ)".
However --
'...the art critic Rudolf Schmitz expressed his amazement: "Far from being filled with a sense of imitative repetition going down a well-trodden visual path, one is overcome with astonishment at the fertility of the photographic notion of the constructability of images and of the world." A hopeful view of the future, even if he does add the proviso that this collection does not show "photographers as impassioned artists, but artists as impassioned photographers (http://books.google.com/books?id=069rL6vA1BAC&printsec=frontcover&dq=%22Art+of+the+20th+Century%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=diBQU4-6HbSJ8gG6q4AI&ved=0CDAQ6AEwAQ#v=snippet&q=%22artists%20as%20impassioned%20photographers%22&f=false)."
-
One of the issues raised in the past about the craft of photography and its value as art has been the question of where are photography's Rembrandts and Picassos.
I'd turn that question around and ask what contribution great painters have made to the wider community. How has their work filtered through to the "outside" world? Yes, they have extended the capabilities of their craft, but what else apart from national prestige and making dealers and art thieves wealthy?
Ever seen the Sistine Chapel?
One thing that makes painting different than photography is that there is a generally accepted gap between what is "art" in painting and what is not. There is a whole range of activities that use exactly the same tools and techniques as "art" painting -- house painting and decorating, sign painting, advertising art, etc. Until about the 1930s, many of the most famous American artists had training in commercial art, and even some later than that (Andy Warhol, for example.) But the gap between people who practiced "art" and those who used identical tools for different purposes is widely and generally accepted, both by the general public and the critical literature. There are some instances of art-like activity that seem ambiguous. Was Norman Rockwell a fine artist, or a commercial artist? You can argue either way, but there is a substantial critical literature on the issue. What about "plein air" painters? Well, some of them make very pretty pictures, with excellent technique, but most of the critical literature would argue that these are people who are essentially applying a technique to a view, rather than attempting to extend a vision of whatever it is that they're painting. In other words, it more resembles a craft, than an art. Whatever it may be, you can find extensive commentary on it.
That's not the case in photography. Photography has been radically transgressive when it comes to definitions of art, and some of the most transgressive people (Sylvia Plachy, Robert Mapplethorpe, William Eggleston) have so confused the art issues that they've given cover to the people who would argue that art can be anything. There is no generally acknowledged gap between "art" photography and everything else. You will find arguments that the most casual snapshots are "art." That old B&W photos found in flea markets may be "art," even when the original intention (and even the maker) is unknown. Because photography does not have the long history of rigorous criticism and commentary that painting does, a lot of people simply say, "Okay,if you say it is, I guess it must be." It's possible with photography that what will eventually come to be accepted as the art of our time simply won't be distinguishable for fifty or a hundred years because there's too much of it, and the critical appreciation of it is not as rigorous as it is in other arts -- but that eventually, a body of work will emerge in some much later time that will be accepted as the "art" of our time. We just won't know what it is. But I would be willing to bet, even if I'm not around to collect on it, that strongly manipulated photos will not be in that body of work.
-
The expansion of what is and is not art is not restricted to photography, or even mainly photography. Conceptual art, performance art, readymades and so on are part of the mix.
The idea that art is mainly fine artisanal painting and sculpture produced in a studio by a highly trained artist is at least 100 years dead, if indeed it ever lived.
-
Those comments about painting can as-sensibly be applied to photography:
What about "plein air" [photographers]? Well, some of them make very pretty pictures, with excellent technique, but most of the critical literature would argue that these are people who are essentially applying a technique to a view, rather than attempting to extend a vision of whatever it is that they're [photographing]. In other words, it more resembles a craft, than an art.
You will find arguments that the most casual snapshots are "art."
"Pictorially speaking, the overall tone of this imagery is that of the family album; … Yet Galassi cautions his readers against thinking of these images as simple snapshots, and he's quite right; they are, instead, complicated snapshots. In them the pictorial strategies of Garry Winogrand, Lee Friedlander and William Eggleston … are applied to the traditionally domestic subject matter of the snapshot. What results, as a rule, are self-consciously aestheticized glimpses of the incidental aspiring to the status of the eventful (http://books.google.com/books?ei=HpdVU-7FNNWsyATdtoKYBw&id=se9TAAAAMAAJ&dq=critical+focus&focus=searchwithinvolume&q=%22aestheticized+glimpses+of+the+incidental+aspiring+to+the+status+of+the+eventful%22)."
Self-consciously aestheticized glimpses of the incidental aspiring to the status of the eventful -- them art critics sure can turn a phrase!
-
There are people out there who wish to be fairly restrictive about what is and isn't Art. Generally they want to include Rembrandt, Michelangelo, da Vinci, and so on, and exclude all that pesky modern crap, for some definition of modern.
In order to do so, they generally use the following approach:
- to INCLUDE things, they talk about what Art DOES. It enlarges us, it evokes an emotional reaction, etc.
- to EXCLUDE things, they talk about how Art is MADE. It's very difficult, takes years of practice, etc etc.
Indeed, by carefully, selectively, applying these two completely orthogonal definitions of what constitutes Art, you can make Art be anything particular list of specific objects or Artists you like.
If you're honest, however, you settle on one definition, and then you live with the consequences, which generally include a lot of things you wish were not Art, and exclude some things you wish were.
In modern times, we mainly use the first one. And then you do get oddities like a collection of snapshots, presented in such and such a way, is by golly Art. It's photography based, but it's really a conceptual piece, most likely. Whatever it is, people experience it as Art. They are enlarged, their minds are expanded, they react emotionally and learn something, probably something not describable in words. So what if it's snapshot? Or poop? Or a pickled cat? If it acts like Art, it's Art.
This is largely because if you go the other way and insist on defining Art by how it's Made, you wind up mostly with craft and artisanship, and a whole lot of beautiful well made objects that were very hard to create which are not Art by any meaningful standard. Really beautifully glazed pots and so on.
Poop or Pots? You gotta pick one.
-
One of the issues raised in the past about the craft of photography and its value as art has been the question of where are photography's Rembrandts and Picassos.
Picasso? Uelsmann. Everything in his image is authentic, real by every metric because it was shot on film without manipulation. What Uelsmann does is add up realities until they become surrealities. Read the quotes from Picasso in the thread (paraphrased or not) and Uelsmann kind of slides right in.
There are a ton of Rembrandts of photography, in my opinion. Maybe plural - Tons of Rembrandts. Lots of great photographers who understand that a dull subject with spectacular light trumps a spectacular subject with dull light.
The ultimate Rembrandt of photography may be Jeffrey Crewdson, who controls light in his images as obsessively as a painter would.
But when it comes to cubism, surrealism, fever dreams... you can begin with Uelsmann, who creates fever dreams with the most mundane realistic images, alternate realities with the most mundane of realities. Until the extreme illustrator capabilities of Photoshop became available, Uelsmann was the closest thing in photography to Picasso.
-
So what if it's snapshot? Or poop? Or a pickled cat? If it acts like Art, it's Art.
So poop in the Art Gallery is Art; poop outside the Art Gallery is poop, because it is not contextualized as Art?
-
Getting forgetful. I should have included national parks in my list.
Ever seen the Sistine Chapel?
No, I haven't. I wonder what my neighbours would say about it. I'd ask them if I could get them to turn down their "music".
One thing that makes painting different than photography is that there is a generally accepted gap between what is "art" in painting and what is not. There is a whole range of activities that use exactly the same tools and techniques as "art" painting -- house painting and decorating, sign painting, advertising art, etc. Until about the 1930s, many of the most famous American artists had training in commercial art, and even some later than that (Andy Warhol, for example.) But the gap between people who practiced "art" and those who used identical tools for different purposes is widely and generally accepted, both by the general public and the critical literature. There are some instances of art-like activity that seem ambiguous. Was Norman Rockwell a fine artist, or a commercial artist? You can argue either way, but there is a substantial critical literature on the issue. What about "plein air" painters? Well, some of them make very pretty pictures, with excellent technique, but most of the critical literature would argue that these are people who are essentially applying a technique to a view, rather than attempting to extend a vision of whatever it is that they're painting. In other words, it more resembles a craft, than an art. Whatever it may be, you can find extensive commentary on it.
That's not the case in photography. Photography has been radically transgressive when it comes to definitions of art, and some of the most transgressive people (Sylvia Plachy, Robert Mapplethorpe, William Eggleston) have so confused the art issues that they've given cover to the people who would argue that art can be anything. There is no generally acknowledged gap between "art" photography and everything else. You will find arguments that the most casual snapshots are "art." That old B&W photos found in flea markets may be "art," even when the original intention (and even the maker) is unknown. Because photography does not have the long history of rigorous criticism and commentary that painting does, a lot of people simply say, "Okay,if you say it is, I guess it must be." It's possible with photography that what will eventually come to be accepted as the art of our time simply won't be distinguishable for fifty or a hundred years because there's too much of it, and the critical appreciation of it is not as rigorous as it is in other arts -- but that eventually, a body of work will emerge in some much later time that will be accepted as the "art" of our time. We just won't know what it is. But I would be willing to bet, even if I'm not around to collect on it, that strongly manipulated photos will not be in that body of work.
I agree with most of what you say John, up to about maybe 1920. Do you think photography has been more radical when it comes to transgressive art than painting, sculpture and installations? My impression is that painting led the way, but I haven't really thought it over. Rigorous criticism seems to be lacking in all the arts, especially when there is money to be made.
As to whether manipulated photos will be accepted as "art", time will tell. My feeling is that those which use manipulation to get at the truth will make it, and the rest won't. At least that is how it has been to date.
-
Picasso? Uelsmann. Everything in his image is authentic, real by every metric because it was shot on film without manipulation. What Uelsmann does is add up realities until they become surrealities. Read the quotes from Picasso in the thread (paraphrased or not) and Uelsmann kind of slides right in.
There are a ton of Rembrandts of photography, in my opinion. Maybe plural - Tons of Rembrandts. Lots of great photographers who understand that a dull subject with spectacular light trumps a spectacular subject with dull light.
The ultimate Rembrandt of photography may be Jeffrey Crewdson, who controls light in his images as obsessively as a painter would.
But when it comes to cubism, surrealism, fever dreams... you can begin with Uelsmann, who creates fever dreams with the most mundane realistic images, alternate realities with the most mundane of realities. Until the extreme illustrator capabilities of Photoshop became available, Uelsmann was the closest thing in photography to Picasso.
Indeed. So many have pushed photography past its accepted boundaries with extraordinary work in photography's comparatively short history.
Many are now forgotten in the rush for the new.
C'est la vie.
-
So poop in the Art Gallery is Art; poop outside the Art Gallery is poop, because it is not contextualized as Art?
Not quite. This is similar to, but not the same as, what I wrote.
-
So poop in the Art Gallery is Art; poop outside the Art Gallery is poop, because it is not contextualized as Art?
Not quite. This is similar to, but not the same as, what I wrote.
True: that is similar to, but not the same as, what [you] wrote.
What you did not venture to suggest was why some things might be experienced as Art while other things are not experienced as Art -- and that seems to be the crux of the matter.
-
..and that seems to be the crux of the matter.
Isn't the real crux of the matter, that art is derived from the perception of creativity?
Dave
-
You'll have to tell us what, in particular, you mean by "art is derived from the perception of creativity" :-)
-
I don't pretend to know why some things are experienced as Art, and others are not. If we had completely cracked the code on that, then anyone could do it, eh?
I think I have some methods and ideas up my sleeve by which, specifically, photographs can be made which are more likely to be experienced as Art, but it's not reliable. Also, I have nothing for sculptors, performance artists, and so on.
Context does matter, as near as I can tell.
-
You'll have to tell us what, in particular, you mean by "art is derived from the perception of creativity" :-)
If a thing has been produced through a creative process that is identifiably unique to that creator and/or contains within it something which did not exist before its creation.
However, photography tends to teeter on the edge of this supposition, as we create through exclusion in an often much less uniquely identifiable manner. Uniqueness and creativity are always there of course, but are much more difficult to identify, when surrounded by a constant tsunami of less skilfully, but none the less comparable counterparts.
Dave
-
Try teaching photography in an art school, except the students I teach are usually far more open minded than most, including most of their art teachers :D
-
Uniqueness and creativity are always there of course, but are much more difficult to identify, when surrounded by a constant tsunami of less skilfully, but none the less comparable counterparts.
I would think if an image has the qualities of "uniqueness and creativity," it would be MORE obvious than less.
-
Context does matter, as near as I can tell.
It always helps to tell someone that they're looking at Great Art.
Just another circus?
-
From the article: "The message of this article is twofold: One, to get you inspired to make the most creative images ever, and not to be afraid to follow your heart when it comes to digital enhancements."
I'm sorry, but I wasn't inspired. The article probably should have been called "Photography and The Death of Creativity". The first two images are basically textbook clichés of modern landscape photography. Wide angle, backlit images are all the rage, as is HDR. I don't find anything "inspired" or "creative" about the them.
Jerry Seinfeld once said something to the effect, "If you have to swear to make something funny, it isn't actually funny." I have a similar philosophy on photography and art. I define art as creating something original from nothing for purely emotional or aesthetic reasons. Post processing mostly entails moving virtual sliders in software to get something different from the original. I find it a stretch to call that activity photography or art, and it certainly isn't creative and original. Likewise, shooting the same locations over and over isn't art either. The world doesn't need another image of Horseshoe Bend or Landscape Arch or the Old Man of Storr.
I do actually like the third image, even if it is heavily post processed. The post processing enhances the textures in the room, and I like the muted color palette.
-
…shooting the same locations over and over isn't art either.
Making pictures of the same locations over and over again, might be an indication that what someone is attempting to do is understandable as art:
-- "This picture would not likely have been the first picture the photographer made of this general subject. One of the causes leading up to its making was sustained, thoughtful looking (http://books.google.com/books?id=MTyTAAAAQBAJ&lpg=PP1&dq=why%20photography%20matters&pg=PT29#v=onepage&q=%22sustained,%20thoughtful%20looking%22&f=false) not only at the subject itself, the farm landscape of the eastern part of the mid-Hudson Valley, but also at the pictures she was getting from that subject."
-
Making pictures of the same locations over and over again, might be an indication that what someone is attempting to do is understandable as art:
-- "This picture would not likely have been the first picture the photographer made of this general subject. One of the causes leading up to its making was sustained, thoughtful looking (http://books.google.com/books?id=MTyTAAAAQBAJ&lpg=PP1&dq=why%20photography%20matters&pg=PT29#v=onepage&q=%22sustained,%20thoughtful%20looking%22&f=false) not only at the subject itself, the farm landscape of the eastern part of the mid-Hudson Valley, but also at the pictures she was getting from that subject."
Isaac, I like that quote (where's it from?) but I suspect what Mr. Bolland was talking about is the non-thoughtful replication of Adams-like images by going to very famous, specific tripod-holes locations, and trying to capture the same light and look, and then making that your art form. I was traveling in the area of Jackson Hole, once, a beautiful area with jagged mountains and a lake. I didn't actually know that I was at a famous photo spot, but I drove past a turnout in which a dozen people had set up the most exquisite camera equipment, all to take exactly the same shot around sundown...I have no problem with people taking almost any landscape photo, but that activity struck me as a little odd. There may be hundreds of good shots of half-dome remaining, asnd if they're the product of sustained, thoughtful looking, then they probably won't much resemble Adam's famous shot, and might even show us something very new.
Try teaching photography in an art school, except the students I teach are usually far more open minded than most, including most of their art teachers :D
I don't teach photography, but I do occasionally teach in my main profession, and what I find in young students usually isn't open-mindedness, but ignorance. That ignorance leads them all over the place, which may resemble open-mindedness, but shouldn't be mistaken for it. When I say ignorance, I don't mean stupidity, it's just a lack of knowledge, which isn't their fault, they just haven't been around long enough to be aware of all the failed experiments of the past. And they haven't been around long enough to have conducted a lot of life experiments on their own. In my field, I have been asked, "Really, bottom line, no bullshit, what should I do to get where you are," and for healthy young people, I suggest that they join the Army or become a cop. I don't think that advice, though sincere, has ever been taken. But in my field (which I'm avoiding talking about directly) experience provides you with necessary adult reference points, and the most intense way to get those, that I can think of, is to join the Army or become a cop. You don't have to do it for long, but for a while. The fact is, with photography, the fundamentals are fairly easily attained; that can be done in a few weeks of hard work. What's much harder is to develop ideas that will lead you to the creation of art, and to get there, you have to experience a lot, you have to reflect a lot, and then you have to act on what you think. Young people generally haven't had the time or the guidance to do that.
-
I like that quote (where's it from?)
Click the underlined green text, that'll take you to the source.
…the non-thoughtful replication of Adams-like images by going to very famous, specific tripod-holes locations, and trying to capture the same light and look,…
Seems like "non-thoughtful" is doing all the work in that sentence because, as I expect you understand, the same light and look… would require a lot of thought and is very difficult to do.
Galen Rowell wrote about how he wished he'd taken multiple versions of scenes in his early days (rather than economizing on film processing) because although he'd repeatedly made great efforts to find the same light at those locations it never really happened.
…and then making that your art form.
Well… rephotography (http://places.designobserver.com/feature/rephotography-mark-klett/28668/) ;-)
…it's just a lack of knowledge…
otoh "What gets us into trouble is not what we don't know, it's what we know for sure that just ain't so." :-)
-
I suspect what Mr. Bolland was talking about is the non-thoughtful replication of Adams-like images by going to very famous, specific tripod-holes locations, and trying to capture the same light and look, and then making that your art form.
John, your interpretation of my comments was generally correct.
From an artistic perspective, I heavily value creativity. Copying someone else's work and style is not artistic. However, I'm not entirely against copying. A few scenarios come to mind:
1) In some contexts, visiting the same spot repeatedly can be a lovely artistic and therapeutic exercise. This might be analogues to some of Andy Warhol's art. I also like projects that document the same scene repeatedly through different seasons or years.
2) One could argue that learning the techniques of the "masters" is a good first step before pushing the artistic envelope. I'm sure we all experiment with recreating photos that we admire.
3) I think it is exhilarating to visit the world's prime landscape locations. I wish everyone could get out there and enjoy them. (Except not all at once or while I'm there!) I remember fondly my first encounter with Delicate Arch and then later Zion. And as photographers, we can't help but photograph what we see. So go ahead and shoot it.
My beef with #2 and #3 is when the photographer starts showing off their copy-cat photos as if they created something refreshingly original. Odds are, they didn't.
-
From an artistic perspective, I heavily value creativity. Copying someone else's work and style is not artistic.
"…might we be better off ratifying the ecstasy of influence — and deepening our willingness to understand the commonality and timelessness of the methods and motifs available to artists (http://harpers.org/archive/2007/02/the-ecstasy-of-influence/)?"
-
Looks like another issue of the regular periodicum on death of Reality, Photography ect.
But the photography doesn’t seem changed. In fact it’s no different to the photography in the past in any respect.
These discussions probably come from a notion that there are slightly easier ways to interact with and influence the content than in the past. Provided that we talk about Photography. Not like the content even left 'on its own' was any more true on film. Very far from it.
So no. It continues to be what we want it to be.
Pretty much as with everything else. Admittedly, the mess in our heads has somewhat thickened with the internetization and in our ever more computered world some 5, 10 years ago already. And it doesn’t look set for an improvement, neither a fast nor a magical one but seems more like going through some for our tastes rather long, but natural and unavoidable curve of experience and maturity with ourselves. So that when we reach the next milepost in something (terribly desirable and needed, outstanding and fantastic) we could also handle its use. And that you still stay with the Subject and the original Objective more than fixated on the means - the software. Because when you make it, the software in this instance, your World you are passionate about, it will turn into it and same as your perspective, you will change. And may even want others to take the similar view.
So next time you ponder on this simply ask yourself. It’s that simple. And powerful. Trust me. The rest can carry on investigating their own death. Doing it in a due detail will remain a lifetime task for most.
Those capable of defining it for themselves, not deviated too far from common sense of an everyday man, are likely to succeed in seeing all the variations, creative use and the Experience coming from it in harmony rather than element of distraction, let alone a direct conflict.
Aesthetical experience goes through every aspect of our lives, though. That is to be remembered. And Art is a universal term applicable for everything that is connected with human Mind, potentially AND in Reality. So that, too, is to be remembered. As such, we have no other guide, than our Brain. Don’t look for it elsewhere. THAT is beyond all that what we have made comfortable for us so far. However easy ways would be nice, some things are unfailingly beyond their reach, and will remain there forever.
-
…photos can be the best representation of reality that we can manage. They don't necessarily have to be, but they can be.
Meskin and Cohen give an "account of the information carrying capacity of photographs" that "makes no reference to the realism or objectivity of photographs, nor to their accuracy, nor … does it imply anything about whether or not we ordinarily make correct judgements on the basis of photographs. … But while photographs typically carry information about many of the visual properties of the objects they depict … photographs do not typically provide information about the location -- with respect to viewers of that photograph -- of the objects they depict."
pdf Photographs as Evidence (http://aardvark.ucsd.edu/perception/agnosticism.pdf), Aaron Meskin and Jonathon Cohen
That account separates photographs from other depictions (for example paintings) and visual prosthetics (for example binoculars).
-
Try teaching photography in an art school, except the students I teach are usually far more open minded than most, including most of their art teachers :D
One interpretation might be that the students, with far less experience and education, are far easier to fool than the teachers - indeed may be very accomplished at fooling themselves if it serves a social function.
Roy
-
We all seem remarkably good at fooling ourselves ;-)