Of Audiences and Best Sellers

[Herkko]

...as it is in your post, as well.  His name is Alain... not Alan.  

Sorry (also for Alain) I was too busy to copy paste it from mjrichardson's post  

[ecemfjm]

I like Alain essays not because his viewpoints or opinions, but because he makes me think and develop my own viewpoint and opinions. In that sense I like his essays.

Regarding the audiences essay, I have to say that I do not make my living from photography, but from my experience in other fields I agree with the opinion that it is necessary to take into account to whom you deliver your service in order to be successful. But also your audience (your potential or actual customers) needs to perceive that you are different (and better) that the rest in order to buy from you, and this is not, perhaps, sufficiently stressed in the essay.

By the other hand, my evolution in photography has moved this way: the more developed and more confident I was in my personal style, the less I did care about the opinion of my audience (although, of course, I like very much being praised by the viewers of my photographs). But if I would live from photography, for sure I’ll try to know and to please as much as possible my potential customers.

Manuel

[alainbriot]

Slightly OT, but I have a question for Alain is he is about. I very much enjoy looking at your photos, ..just a note here, or rather a question. I have always felt shadows can be a vital part of a photo, yet I would describe some of your shots as rather "high key". Wondering if this is just shooting to your own tastes, or a specific goal here?

Just my own taste.  I like open shadows.  I had too many blocked out black empty detail-less shadows in film days.  I don't like empty shadows for most of my work.  There are exceptions, such as with silhouettes, but most of the time I am not very fond of detail-less shadows.  Still I wouldn't qualify my work as High Key.  A high key image is one without any blacks. If you study my images, you will see that they do have a true black point, something that a high key image doesn't have.

Alain

[alainbriot]

...  His name is Alain... not Alan.  

Correct, thank you for pointing it out.  Also, my last name is spelled Briot, not Broit.

[John Camp]

I thought the essay was quite clear, and not particularly repetitive.

There are two different ways of acquiring an audience, however. The first is to do some form of market research, however rudimentary or sophisticated it might be, and then to produce some kind of product that conforms to the best sales expectations. If you travel around the country, you see a lot of this: Manhattan from the air at night, Half-Dome, a clearing winter storm in the Rockies, sundown at Jackson Hole, etc. I wouldn't consider this art, really -- I'd consider it a craft. You can find *extremely* able craftsmen who do this work. But it's work that doesn't really lead to anything new, or develop new perceptions of old scenes: there is no new or developing idea behind it. Ansel Adams was an artist; the next guy who produces a great shot of Half Dome is walking on the trail of Ansel Adam's ideas, and is not really showing us anything new.

Then there's the second group, the people who see an important subject, or believe they see an important new way of self-expression, and so they do it, without much regard for whether an audience exists. Diane Arbus was one of those people, as was Robert Frank. Sure, they'd like an audience, but they weren't going to shoot Half Dome to get it. Very often, people in this group never do win an audience, and often, they are seen to fail as artists, because their vision really wasn't anything new or different, or their ideas were trivial. (When Photoshop first came out, you saw people being hailed as revolutionary for applying a series of Photoshop techniques to an otherwise boring photo. Those people are still around, but they're not in the museums. Know why? Because Photoshopping a picture for unusual effects is an essentially trivial activity.) In any case, some of this latter group of people, in working out their ideas, do begin to accumulate an audience as people recognize the worth of the ideas being expressed. This is really a radically different concept than the "market research" approach.

It is, by the way,possible to do both. Avedon, for example, was a great commercial fashion photographer, and I think some of his book work qualifies as genuine art. He was pitching to an audience (art directors) in the first instance, and letting the audience (museum curators and collectors) come to him in the second.

JC

[Ray]

Perhaps we should get away from such discussions as to Alain's English style of expression. He is after all French. so we should not be too harsh and should concentrate on his message rather than his English expression.

As I understand it, his message is that everyone needs an audience, big or small. My audience is small, but I don't mind because I'm not trying to make a fortune out of photography. As a matter of fact, I think the whole world is a crock of crap. I could become a Buddhist monk in a flick. But that's perhaps beside the point.

If you want to get noticed and become famous, you can't simply lie back and rely upon the quality of your work. You have to engage in publicity and marketing. Think about your audience and modify your work to suit that audience. Some are very successful at that, and others like me, simply don't give a stuff.

For that reason, I'm probably a total failure. And I don't give a stuff about that either. Success has its penalties.

[Ray]

In connection with these ideas, there are a couple of parallels in the scientific world that come to mind. Most people associate the name Alexander Flemming with the discovery of penicillin. However, it was the work of the Australian, Howard Florey, that resulted in the development of the very effective antibiotic, penicillin. But the name, Flemming, is more widely known.

Fair enough, you might think. It was Flemming who first noticed that mould in a petrie dish prevented the growth of bacteria. His initial observation was the important event.

However, when we come to the discovery of DNA by Watson & Crick, the work that provided the basis for their discovery, that is, the application of X-ray analysis to the structure of protein molecules, was pioneered by the Australian, Lawrence Bragg, who is actually the youngest ever Nobel laureate, an absolutely brilliant scientist who was, unfortunately, not particularly favoured by the establishment.

Who's ever heard of Lawrence Bragg? Hands up!

[Yanchik]

Who's ever heard of Lawrence Bragg? Hands up!
[/quote]

Yeah - he has effects and formula in crystallography named after him. I didn't do physics to a high level, and I certainly came across him. I thought he'd got credit in his area; fair enough, I wasn't aware of the Watson/Crick connection.

There's a lot of that in science, I thought it was an occupational hazard. So for myself, I would hesitate to call it a useful model for development of art in photography. But it's certainly an interesting contrast to make.

Y

[vandevanterSH]

In connection with these ideas, there are a couple of parallels in the scientific world that come to mind. Most people associate the name Alexander Flemming with the discovery of penicillin. However, it was the work of the Australian, Howard Florey, that resulted in the development of the very effective antibiotic, penicillin. But the name, Flemming, is more widely known.

Fair enough, you might think. It was Flemming who first noticed that mould in a petrie dish prevented the growth of bacteria. His initial observation was the important event.

However, when we come to the discovery of DNA by Watson & Crick, the work that provided the basis for their discovery, that is, the application of X-ray analysis to the structure of protein molecules, was pioneered by the Australian, Lawrence Bragg, who is actually the youngest ever Nobel laureate, an absolutely brilliant scientist who was, unfortunately, not particularly favoured by the establishment.

Who's ever heard of Lawrence Bragg? Hands up!

************
The person who got really screwed in the "Double Helix" story was Rosalind Franklin..who did the X-ray crystallography on DNA in the early '50's.

Steve