Luminous Landscape Forum
The Art of Photography => But is it Art? => Topic started by: Isaac on October 27, 2014, 02:08:24 pm
-
Story Behind The Shot: Port Meadow Dogs (https://www.thedodo.com/community/RoryCarnegie/story-behind-the-shot-port-mea-468440625.html)
Port Meadow Dogs (http://www.worldphoto.org/news-and-events/wpo-news/interview-rory-carnegie-at-photography-oxford-festival14/)
Each is a massive 100MB of computer data and the meadow images were later mixed with those of about 20 dogs shot in his studio. This was essential so bright artificial light could be used for the dogs, avoiding the need for a flash, which could frighten them, he said (http://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/yourtown/oxford/10777859.print/).
-
Beautiful pictures - gives one inspiration for shooting other things than dogs too....
Jim
-
An interesting read and in my view he certainly creates some wonderful images that make you look twice.
It does however imo also comes quite close to those dreadful PS composites, for me he only gets away with these as the backstory justifies the use of layers of different images. Lost a dear dog recently and remember that I also felt I hadn't taken enough pictures of her that 'mattered'.
Regards, Sander
-
An interesting read and in my view he certainly creates some wonderful images that make you look twice.
It does however imo also comes quite close to those dreadful PS composites, for me he only gets away with these as the backstory justifies the use of layers of different images. Lost a dear dog recently and remember that I also felt I hadn't taken enough pictures of her that 'mattered'.
Regards, Sander
Only the image matters! Not how you got to it, not whether it is painterly or not, not whether it is a "dreadful PS composite" and certainly not only when the "backstory" justifies how you got there. Only the image matters!
-
Only the image matters! Not how you got to it, not whether it is painterly or not, not whether it is a "dreadful PS composite" and certainly not only when the "backstory" justifies how you got there. Only the image matters!
Can't be stated often enough as people lets all sorts of other nonsense get in the way of simply looking at an image.
Quite like these shots Isaac, thanks for sharing them.
-
I don't think I said how beautiful I think these images are.
-
Only the image matters! Not how you got to it, not whether it is painterly or not, not whether it is a "dreadful PS composite" and certainly not only when the "backstory" justifies how you got there. Only the image matters!
Yes, certainly, and I see now that I phrased my words very poorly, lack of coffee maybe :-0
Anyway, I meant to say that for me an the image would need to be an actual photograph and not a composite of several photographs taken at different locations, different times etc. That can certainly be art, but (again: to me) it isn't photography and shouldn't necessarily be on a photography forum.
The key point here with the backstory is that initially the guy turned to combining different photographs because he didn't have a chance to photograph his dog, which died before he started this project, in the landscape the dog enjoyed being in so much. The composite was for him something to come close to that photograph of his dog in the landscape he never came round to taking while the dog was still there. When he did similar images with other dogs he found that it was better anyway for both the lighting and the dogs' nerves to make the photographs of the dogs in a controlled enivronment, so maybe it wouldn't even have worked out íf he had had that chance to make the photographs in the landscape.
You are absolutely right about the backstory not mattering at all and I'm also up for a good (..) PS composite like these ones anytime, just not necessarily on a photography forum and please not the dreadful ones with a moon enlarged so much over a mystic river that my only reaction to the image/composite would be 'you have got to be kidding me'
Regards, Sander
PS And I too did not state clearly enough how beautiful I find these images.
-
Anyway, I meant to say that for me an the image would need to be an actual photograph and not a composite of several photographs taken at different locations, different times etc. That can certainly be art, but (again: to me) it isn't photography and shouldn't necessarily be on a photography forum.
This sort of thing has been done almost since the beginning of photography. If all the things that various people did not think were 'real' photography were eliminated, there's be very little if anything left to look at.
-
… it isn't photography …
Why?
- 1856-57 Same sky used with 3 different seascapes:
"Although Le Gray never publicly acknowledged his method, he did leave some inadvertent clues in the pictures themselves: the same spectacular stormy sky looms above the horizon in at least three different seascapes, providing irrefutable evidence of Le Gray's canny manipulation."
page 47 Faking it: Manipulated Photography Before Photoshop (http://books.google.com/books?id=nGvTg_HC32YC&lpg=PA22&ots=L2mYNVIZO3&dq=%22the%20same%20spectacular%20stormy%20sky%20looms%20above%20the%20horizon%20in%20at%20least%20three%20different%20seascapes%2C%20providing%20irrefutable%20evidence%20of%20Le%20Gray's%20canny%20manipulation.%22&pg=PA25#v=onepage&q=%22the%20same%20spectacular%20stormy%20sky%20looms%20above%20the%20horizon%20in%20at%20least%20three%20different%20seascapes,%20providing%20irrefutable%20evidence%20of%20Le%20Gray's%20canny%20manipulation.%22&f=false)
- Elizabeth II, Buckingham Palace, London, March 28, 2007. Photograph by Annie Leibovitz. (http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2008/10/annie_excerpt200810#)
-
I have to ask the age-old question, just what is "real photography"? And once that has definitively been answered, where, if at all, does it fit in the spectrum of art?
On a personal note relative to this, I was recently asked to contribute some pictures to an exhibition here in St. Petersburg, Russia, on the "Living Gulf" of Finland. But no photographs, please (I also work in other art forms). I asked why, and was quite emphatically told that photography is not art. It does seem a bit curious to me that the works they did accept are post fractalist prints, totally generated in the computer and then printed on an ink-jet printer. The only hand-work was in framing them. As we would say in Brooklyn, go figure!
-
....(sighs) Don't quote just part of what I said Isaac, that's annoying, you make it look like I'd say that these images have nothing to do with photography, I said that TO ME it isn't photography, not these images, but a whole lot of other manipulated images, I am entitled to my opinion not to be falsified by a partly quote. Would you please correct your quote ?
Whether photography is art or not I wouldn't know, I just know that I like photography as it's a great way of spending hours on remote or sometimes less remote places, definitely something outside, it's not a job just a hobby and the little time I have I certainly won't spend behind PS combining all sorts of images UNLESS it were perhaps for a good reason to create an image of my dog in the places she loved to roam when she was still alive ;-) As I too hadn't ever taken that opportunity when she and I would go on long walks.
Aware that I am not adding much to the whole ' is photography a form of art discussion, this probably isn't really a section for me, but I'm glad I clicked the thread this morning and got to see those awesome layered dogpictures :)
bye, Sander
-
… Don't quote just part of what I said …
That quote links back to your whole comment, just one click away.
… I said that TO ME it isn't photography, not these images, but a whole lot of other manipulated images…
The question remains -- Why? -- and of course you have no obligation to respond to that question.
I ask because I usually learn a great deal more from the reasons people give to explain their opinions, than from the stated opinions.
-
I think it's useful to distinguish between "photography I enjoy doing" and "photos I enjoy looking at." For me the two aren't entirely coincident. I personally don't get much pleasure out of making stitched composites, but I like a lot of stuff other people create with that process. Same with floating Polaroid emulsions off the original backing & onto other media, not that I know of anyone still doing that. Same with most landscapes to be honest. ;D Then there are photos I enjoy taking but have little interest in looking at afterward. These tend to be of subjects or make use of techniques I'm over-familiar with. I take such photos mainly to get them out of the way, kinda like playing familiar licks and patterns on guitar as a way of warming up before moving on to something hopefully fresh.
I'm particular about the techniques and processes I use at any given time, but when it comes to other people's work IMO anything goes.
-Dave-
-
"photography I enjoy doing" and "photos I enjoy looking at"
I do photography because I hope to make a picture that will interest me, usually a picture that I'll enjoy looking at.
I personally don't get much pleasure out of making …
The process of making stitched composites or focus stacks or exposure blends is a chore that I accept because that's how I go beyond the limitations of my bottom-of-the-range camera and 2 lenses; that's how I make a sharper oof transition, a bigger view, a deeper view, a broader more-balanced tonal range. The process becomes less of a chore as I learn how few exposures are needed; and quicker means less variability means the picture improves.
… Same with most landscapes to be honest. ;D
iirc You're familiar with Art as Therapy (http://www.artastherapy.com/#free-time/the-urge-to-make-art-starts-with-the-desire-to-preserve) and Galen Rowell's writing.
I think the question is how pictures enjoyed by those who were there can go beyond the particular to the universal.