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Author Topic: Pretensions in photography  (Read 4007 times)

RSL

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Re: Pretensions in photography
« Reply #20 on: February 05, 2018, 12:08:41 pm »

ROB! "Themself?" Don't tell me you're turning PC.
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Eric Myrvaagnes

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Re: Pretensions in photography
« Reply #21 on: February 05, 2018, 01:18:43 pm »

I wonder who sits looking out of the window, dreaming up these "must do" calibration situations for themself.

Rob
Out of work or retired mathematicians maybe? But not me. I much prefer snaps to statistics.

Eric
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Rob C

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Re: Pretensions in photography
« Reply #22 on: February 05, 2018, 02:03:22 pm »

ROB! "Themself?" Don't tell me you're turning PC.


Russ, what can I say? It even felt awkward as I typed it...

:-)

Rob

RSL

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Re: Pretensions in photography
« Reply #23 on: February 05, 2018, 02:59:27 pm »

A couple years ago I wrote a review for Amazon on Katherine Hoffman's book: Stieglitz: A Beginning Light: The book was published by Yale university of all places.

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The word, "Pedestrian" hardly captures the quality of the writing in this book. "Wooden" comes closer, but the English language doesn't seem to have a word that adequately can describe how wretched Ms. Hoffman's plodding account really is.

The book's only, barely redeeming features are some early, though not very well printed Stieglitz photographs, but many seem to be missing. Ms. Hoffman will go on and on about a Stieglitz photograph, describing the "triangular relationships" produced by this feature and the "horizontal orientation" that produces a sensation of "vastness" in the viewer. But when you riffle through the pages to see whether or not you get the "sensations" she's describing, you find that the photograph isn't in the book. In addition, the text seems to have been bowdlerized by the Yale University Press editors. For instance, on page 204 she quotes Stieglitz as writing, "On the contrary, the individual is free to follow their own light,..." I don't believe for a minute that Stieglitz, writing at the turn of the twientieth century, made that kind of grammatical error. This is PC at its worst!

What does it mean to be a "professor of Fine Arts?" This book more or less bears out the old saying that "Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach."

All in all, this is a very disappointing book. It should have been much better than it is.

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« Last Edit: February 05, 2018, 03:43:01 pm by RSL »
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Rajan Parrikar

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Re: Pretensions in photography
« Reply #24 on: February 05, 2018, 04:35:49 pm »

If a picture is worth a thousand words, someone has to put those words on paper, no?  ;)

Or, "As the Chinese say, 1001 words is worth more than a picture." - John McCarthy

Two23

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Re: Pretensions in photography
« Reply #25 on: February 05, 2018, 06:30:14 pm »

Or, "As the Chinese say, 1001 words is worth more than a picture." - John McCarthy


Hmm.  The Chinese even write backwards.  ;)


Kent in SD
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Rob C

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Re: Pretensions in photography
« Reply #26 on: February 06, 2018, 04:46:37 am »


Hmm.  The Chinese even write backwards.  ;)


Kent in SD

It accounts for their economy; in a way, that underlines Slobodan's credo. But, thinking in terms of the numbers, perhaps they do all think alike and it's the rest of the world that thinks differently. I never was a numbers person; I never paid much attention to my numerical perspectives as I always found them wanting.

In the French crime series Engrenages, a judge goes for a medical/mind check and the guy asks him to start at 100 and subtact 7 every step backwards. I easily got to 93, but after that, I had to wait until the thing was over and I finally realised that, instead of subtracting 7, I should subtract 10 and then add 3. That was much easier to do. However, I got impossibly bored long before I reached the end of that particular mental process; bored, and under self-imposed stress. No wonder I though I'd rather be a photographer: the job requirement is always obvious!
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