Luminous Landscape Forum
The Art of Photography => User Critiques => Topic started by: RSL on May 21, 2016, 11:10:49 am
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To punch or not to punch? That is the question.
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To punch or not to punch? That is the question.
I think she already has!
;-)
Rob
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A fine image. The expression on the laddie's face makes the image.
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A fine image. The expression on the laddie's face makes the image.
Now I know you are confused.
Rob C
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Now I know you are confused.
Rob C
Only a pedant picks up on spelling mistakes? :(
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Only a pedant picks up on spelling mistakes? :(
Spelling? What spelling? It's a sexual confusion; nothing to do with spelling. How many boys do you know wear frocks?
Rob C
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Spelling? What spelling? It's a sexual confusion; nothing to do with spelling. How many boys do you know wear frocks?
Rob C
Just stick to photographing wigs. Do you wear one yourself? I seem to remember you had a pigtail once? :-[
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Just stick to photographing wigs. Do you wear one yourself? I seem to remember you had a pigtail once? :-[
Oh man, one day you'll get something right: a pigtail involves plaited hair; a ponytail (sparse remnants of which still hang on, by the way), does not.
Neither of these styles of hair distribution affects the gender of the child in Russ's photograph; this is not a union meeting, this is LuLa: as facile smokescreen, it doesn't work. If I may refer you to Stan Freberg: "Just the facts, ma'am..."
;-)
Rob C
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A spelling mistake and you are using it to be offensive. Time for another holiday? BTW there are wigs on the market that have pony tails. :o
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A spelling mistake and you are using it to be offensive. Time for another holiday? BTW there are wigs on the market that have pony tails. :o
Why do you continue to turn a blind eye to the point? That point is this: you mistook the gender of the 'puncher'; it has nothing to do with spelling. There is no offense; you choose to create the impression of one as disguise or, worse, from an innate inabilty to admit mistakes. Ponytail wigs? Why on Earth would I want one? The glorious, natural one I do have is already as thin as hell, and is only there because I grudge paying some barber €20 to cut less than a dozen hairs; I rather just gather them up and await their disappearance, which would save me the daily bother.
Why don't you try to get this thread closed too? It's a well-established political method of silencing any alternative voice, as I'm sure has not escaped you. But hey, you don't even need do that: I'm bored by this already. You have the floor.
;-)
Rob C
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Knock it off you guys or the watchers won't have to close it. I'll close it.
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Russ I think it would be best if you closed it?
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Just stick to photographing wigs. Do you wear one yourself? I seem to remember you had a pigtail once? :-[
What a nasty comment that could have been avoided by just admitting you typed too fast and didn't check your words before posting. Shit happens, there are bigger things to get your socks or wigs in knot over than someone pointing out a slip of the finger.
I was going to add some smiley thingy like you often do to your abrasive posts but have no idea how to do it on the cell phone. You are welcome to call me stupid and whatever else you feel like.
Appologies Russ for not commenting on your photo but on something else, as you know I don't understand street photography so my thoughts would go to waste.
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Don't sweat it Riaan. I consider both of these guys to be friends, and my biggest problem is seeing them argue about something that doesn't much matter. On top of that, Rob's a very accomplished pro and Robert (Stamper) is a very good street shooter. I learn stuff from both of them.
As far as not understanding street photography, you're not alone. When somebody posts a good street shot here the comments usually dwindle after the first two three (or zero). But post a nice clear tourist shot and the comments go on and on. It's clear most LuLa visitors don't understand street photography, which seems strange when you consider that since the introduction of the Leica the world's most successful photography has been street photography. Ansel had his day, but HCB certainly was the most influential photographer of the twentieth century.
I understand why all that's true. Anybody with a camera or a cellphone can do landscape. Landscape isn't threatening. It won't chase you, yell at you, or give you a dirty look. You can take your time setting up with a tripod instead of having to frame and shoot in a matter of one or two seconds. With landscape you can get out your composition manual and make sure you're following the rule of thirds and the other "mandatory" composition rules. You can stop down and shoot at f/22, making sure everything's "sharp." In street photography you have to frame and shoot intuitively, and in many cases you have to use zone focus, which doesn't necessarily result in a shot that's "sharp." Street photography is hard. Landscape is a piece of cake.
Ah well. . .
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I understand why all that's true. Anybody with a camera or a cellphone can do landscape. Landscape isn't threatening. It won't chase you, yell at you, or give you a dirty look. You can take your time setting up with a tripod instead of having to frame and shoot in a matter of one or two seconds. With landscape you can get out your composition manual and make sure you're following the rule of thirds and the other "mandatory" composition rules. You can stop down and shoot at f/22, making sure everything's "sharp." In street photography you have to frame and shoot intuitively, and in many cases you have to use zone focus, which doesn't necessarily result in a shot that's "sharp." Street photography is hard. Landscape is a piece of cake.
With respect, Russ, I think that's unfair on those of us (me certainly included) who don't understand street photography. I don't take street not because I'm scared of what the subjects might do to me, but because the results don't interest me. I can appreciate the technique involved but I just don't see why it's done.
Perhaps it's a matter of motivation. I take photographs because I want to produce something beautiful that I can at least imagine hanging on a wall. I've not seen a street shot that would fit the bill.
I'm prepared to admit it's a failing on my part, along with my lack of appreciation of much modern art (there was a feature in the Sunday Times on Koons and Hirst: I can't begin to understand how they made so much money), most modern music (Berio? Stockhausen? Cage? Lutoslawski? Birtwhistle?) and no doubt much else.
Jeremy
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Each to their own. No photographer can do all of the genres equally well and specializing in one genre as well as dabbling in one or two others is the way to go. Yesterday I shot about 8GBS of landscape but I don't consider myself a landscape photographer. Sunsets and long exposure with ND filters I also like. Street can be very frustrating but it teaches you to think about photography in a way which is certainly different from landscape.
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With respect, Russ, I think that's unfair on those of us (me certainly included) who don't understand street photography. I don't take street not because I'm scared of what the subjects might do to me, but because the results don't interest me. I can appreciate the technique involved but I just don't see why it's done.
Perhaps it's a matter of motivation. I take photographs because I want to produce something beautiful that I can at least imagine hanging on a wall. I've not seen a street shot that would fit the bill.
I'm prepared to admit it's a failing on my part, along with my lack of appreciation of much modern art (there was a feature in the Sunday Times on Koons and Hirst: I can't begin to understand how they made so much money), most modern music (Berio? Stockhausen? Cage? Lutoslawski? Birtwhistle?) and no doubt much else.
Jeremy
Hi Jeremy,
I'm not Russ, who does wonderful 'street', but I do sometimes wish I had been blessed with the eye, the speed and the nerve.
As to why: I think it could depend on your age. For older guys who were at least aware of what photography could be during the 50s or earlier, I think it's part of our culture: something with which we grew up, from looking at news magazines, mainly, as they were pretty much all there was as reference. Not photo-magazines (British), in the main, because my memory of them - Photography, edited by Norman Hall, the exception - is one of 'fishermen' sitting in studios puffing on immaculate, shiny pipes (which, in reality and off-set, they probably didn't even smoke), and wearing the absolutely obligatory heavily-ribbed sweater from Shetland or wherever. Tragic stuff; and all lit with the curse of Karsh.
As for today's exponents: my feeling is that, devoid of almost any actual possibility of doing photography as a means of regularly putting bread on the family table, disinterested in the vacuity (which I feel) most landscape represents, they have little else left to explore and from which to attempt to garner their jollies. Trouble is, it's now totally irrelevant. As is almost all of photography.
As to the production of something beautiful: I don't think that applies in 'street' which is esentially about message, mood and photographer speed rather than beauty. I always sought beauty too, but found it in women - where it existed, and I tried to manufacture it where it often did not (the Bilble has that covered too, with sows and silken purses). More than about beauty, it was where photography and self entered into something that was, at once, both an explicit, yet also implicit, very personal relationship, especially with a regular model. I remember remarking to my one muse long, too long ago, that we shared something ever denied her husband. She agreed. I attempted to take it no further; where it lay was beautiful enough, so why destroy that and all the surrounding, possible victims? Beauty? Satisfaction? Fulfilment? Whatever the motivation there is no doubt that photography can be the second most important thing in life after family. For others, the rôles can be reversed.
Rob
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Hi Jeremy, I hope what I'm going to say won't seem cruel, but in any case I need to say it.
I enjoy shooting things that are merely pretty too. I've attached an example. This is the kind of thing that gets hung in bank lobbies. You walk by, glance at it and say to yourself: "Gee, that's pretty," and walk on. By the time you get to the front of the line at the cashier's window you've forgotten all about it. At least the attached example is transient. It was there when I shot it but it's gone now. Half Dome, on the other hand, has been there for millennia. It was there when Ansel shot it and it's been there for millions of others to shoot, and it hasn't changed. You can pick the right time and duplicate Ansel's picture. But why would you bother? You can get a copy of Ansel's shot as a poster and hang it on your wall. St. Ansel did it right. You can't do it any righter.
And I shoot tourist pictures too. I've spent a lot of time in some pretty exotic places and I have tons of tourist pictures. That's why my Lightroom catalog runs north of 24,000 pictures. Sometimes I like to go back and look at some of those shots -- especially the ones from the backwaters of Asia -- so that I can put myself back into those times and places -- and remember. I think it's something you do as you get older and can't have those experiences any longer.
But I notice that when someone posts a tourist picture on LuLa the responses, generally, come from others who've been there and want to tell about their contact with the same scene. For the most part, the people commenting on your bergy bits and growlers are people who've seen bergy bits and growlers. Generally, people who haven't been there couldn't care less. It used to be the same way with after-dinner tourist picture slide shows from the Argus C3.
When you say you "don't understand street photography," what you really mean is that you're not particularly interested in the interactions of people and their environment, not that you don't understand those interactions.
But there's a difference between a picture that records what Half Dome looks like today, and a picture that gives you a transcendental experience -- the kind of picture to which I'll assign the otherwise meaningless word, "art." The problem with landscape photography is that all it really can do is record what's in front of the camera. It takes the hand and mind of a Constable or a Biersdadt or a Renoir to transform a landscape into the kind of thing that can give you a transcendental experience.
But a street shot properly caught can contain a transcendental experience. Understand, I'm not saying that every street photograph does that. Most of them are closer to reportage than to art, but once in a while there's one that, as the saying goes, can blow you away.
But even if the street shot is closer to reportage than to art, it still can satisfy what I talked about at the end of my essay on street photography, which you can find on LuLa:
"An historical novelist guesses at the past on the best evidence he can find, but a photograph isn't a guess; it's an artifact that has captured time. And so, a street photograph that has captured not only the visages of its subjects, but the story that surrounds their actions can be a more convincing reminder of how things were than any novel or any straight, posed documentary photograph.
"Although good street photography is a powerful art form, it's also a way of recording what people really are like, and, for those after us, a way of learning what we were like."
Landscape never can do that kind of thing because it doesn't change and it's divorced from people.
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Robert (stamper), you're right. I didn't say I don't admire some street photography, and some of the stuff you, Russ and others have posted here has certainly piqued my interest. Much of it, though, I don't understand: that's to say, I don't know why the photographer did, or I should, find the shot interesting. As I say, I must concede that it's my failure as people I respect seem to agree on those images which are "good street". I just don't do it myself.
Rob, I think different considerations apply when you are earning your living from photography. You have more than yourself to please. Professional portrait photography is another area of the craft I don't really understand: are Leibovitz's photographs interesting because they're by Leibovitz, or because they're of famous (and impliedly at least interesting) people? I mention her name only because it sprang to mind, of course, not to single her out.
Russ, it's not cruel. I understand your dismissal, but I don't share it. My motivation in shooting scenes others have shot before is that the result is mine. Of course it's not Ansel's; probably (certainly?) it's not as good as his; but I did it, and what hangs on my wall is the result of my efforts.
I don't get the transcendental experience you mention from street photography. I do get a sense of wonder from some really good landscape, and I do remember the images. You're excluding the effects of light and shadow, of weather, of cloud. Those are the things that make good landscape. Of course Half Dome is unchanging, over our lifetimes at any rate; but the conditions around it, or other constant land formations, are hugely variable. See this (http://forum.luminous-landscape.com/index.php?topic=110538.msg910752;topicseen#new), for example.
Anyway, this is essentially a meaningless discussion. You like your art; I like mine. Neither is better than the other. De gustibus non est disputandum. When I covered certain topics at law school, I used to describe pointless theorising as mental masturbation.
Jeremy
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When I covered certain topics at law school, I used to describe pointless theorising as mental masturbation.
Jeremy
Precisely.
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But lads, you gotta admit: far less messy, and almost never depressing at the end of it all.
But I don't know... I don't suppose that because of it, anyone actually got angry at themselves, or with anyone else, did they?
Or is that rhetorical one just really more of the same?
Rob
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I've been trying to ignore this thread but I'm finding it too hard :)
St. Ansel did it right. You can't do it any righter.
As was pointed out by Jeremy, when he or I take a photograph of the dome then it's ours, we did it, we will certainly have done it differently to AA due to light, sky etc. Assuming the technique is good 'better' is almost without meaning.
Landscape never can do that kind of thing because it doesn't change and it's divorced from people.
I gaze at my lawn as the light changes and see different things to record in each passing minute at the end of the day. Even more simply yesterday the shadows were affected by the grass that I cut today, so the same or similar shadows look quite different. Two photographs taken one each day and you'd know a person had intervened. You might draw some conclusions about his relationship with the lawn. So precise is the cutting, so exact the edge that he must have been some sort of lawn geek or well paid. Or, as in my case he just wanted the blasted grass to be shorter and stuff the edges :)
So taking a larger canvas a few minutes changes a landscape beyond recognition and that's without post processing mangling it. The landscape round me has been sculpted and changed by people for thousands of years. A clever landscape photographer could reveal that. I can't because I'm rubbish at landscapes. So I simply don't accept your comment as valid.
I don't agree with much of what you said about street either but it's too hard to put into words briefly. I do find it fascinating to look at street and see what works (for me) and what is just 'click'. As an example when Martin Parr does street it's almost always worth a look and even that's mixed.
But these are just the ramblings of a real also ran in the photography stakes. The more experience I gain the less I feel I know and less confidence I have in my point of view.
All that said it's interesting to hear what others think and feel so I hope you'll forgive me for joining in.
Mike
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Robert (stamper), you're right. I didn't say I don't admire some street photography, and some of the stuff you, Russ and others have posted here has certainly piqued my interest. Much of it, though, I don't understand: that's to say, I don't know why the photographer did, or I should, find the shot interesting. As I say, I must concede that it's my failure as people I respect seem to agree on those images which are "good street". I just don't do it myself.
1. Rob, I think different considerations apply when you are earning your living from photography. You have more than yourself to please. Professional portrait photography is another area of the craft I don't really understand: 2. are Leibovitz's photographs interesting because they're by Leibovitz, or because they're of famous (and impliedly at least interesting) people? I mention her name only because it sprang to mind, of course, not to single her out.
Russ, it's not cruel. I understand your dismissal, but I don't share it. My motivation in shooting scenes others have shot before is that the result is mine. Of course it's not Ansel's; probably (certainly?) it's not as good as his; but I did it, and what hangs on my wall is the result of my efforts.
I don't get the transcendental experience you mention from street photography. I do get a sense of wonder from some really good landscape, and I do remember the images. You're excluding the effects of light and shadow, of weather, of cloud. Those are the things that make good landscape. Of course Half Dome is unchanging, over our lifetimes at any rate; but the conditions around it, or other constant land formations, are hugely variable. See this (http://forum.luminous-landscape.com/index.php?topic=110538.msg910752;topicseen#new), for example.
Anyway, this is essentially a meaningless discussion. You like your art; I like mine. Neither is better than the other. De gustibus non est disputandum. When I covered certain topics at law school, I used to describe pointless theorising as mental masturbation.
Jeremy
Jeremy,
1. I'm not sure what 'professional' has to do with anything that I wrote - I was referring to the emotions, not the business factor that sets off the possibility of doing the work in the first place; in fact, for me, the commerce simply allowed me the finances to do what I wanted to do: photograph female beauty, even if it was sometimes compromised by the goddam products we had to try and sell.
"As for today's exponents: my feeling is that, devoid of almost any actual possibility of doing photography as a means of regularly putting bread on the family table, disinterested in the vacuity (which I feel) most landscape represents, they have little else left to explore and from which to attempt to garner their jollies. Trouble is, it's now totally irrelevant. As is almost all of photography."
The reference, above, to photography as career wasn't supposed to suggest that everyone doing photography today would have also had professional hopes; more that the amateur outlet is pretty much all that's going, and will increasingly be the case, I think, and that unless you dig landscape, there's not a lot left to do other than 'street'. It was an extension of my attempt to answer your 'why' about the reasons people shoot 'street'.
2. I think your second point is more than fair: her pictures, IMO, depend almost totally on the people within the frame. Her value, I think, lies in her own fame and the ability that has given her to feel (I imagine!) absolutely not disadvantaged/intimidated by subject fame/presence. Skill has to be taken as a given at almost all levels of commercial work if you are to survive for any length of time, and she has plenty of that (and assistants too, with their contributions). But, she could still hack it pretty well when she was alone, on the road with the Stones, for Rolling Stone, a delightful combination of similar words and different meanings, now I see it in print. But originality ain't there to any huge degree: her famous shot of Ms Goldberg emerging from the bath of milk was already done ages ago, as was the shot of Bette Midler lying on the bed of roses... all old ideas.
Huge problem with photography: it's all derivative now, unavoidably so. Like I said, it's amost irrelevant.
Rob
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I've been trying to ignore this thread but I'm finding it too hard :)
As was pointed out by Jeremy, when he or I take a photograph of the dome then it's ours, we did it, we will certainly have done it differently to AA due to light, sky etc. Assuming the technique is good 'better' is almost without meaning.
I gaze at my lawn as the light changes and see different things to record in each passing minute at the end of the day. Even more simply yesterday the shadows were affected by the grass that I cut today, so the same or similar shadows look quite different. Two photographs taken one each day and you'd know a person had intervened. You might draw some conclusions about his relationship with the lawn. So precise is the cutting, so exact the edge that he must have been some sort of lawn geek or well paid. Or, as in my case he just wanted the blasted grass to be shorter and stuff the edges :)
So taking a larger canvas a few minutes changes a landscape beyond recognition and that's without post processing mangling it. The landscape round me has been sculpted and changed by people for thousands of years. A clever landscape photographer could reveal that. I can't because I'm rubbish at landscapes. So I simply don't accept your comment as valid.
I don't agree with much of what you said about street either but it's too hard to put into words briefly. I do find it fascinating to look at street and see what works (for me) and what is just 'click'. As an example when Martin Parr does street it's almost always worth a look and even that's mixed.
But these are just the ramblings of a real also ran in the photography stakes. The more experience I gain the less I feel I know and less confidence I have in my point of view.
All that said it's interesting to hear what others think and feel so I hope you'll forgive me for joining in.
Mike
1. I can't imagine why you would want to ignore this thread; in fact, I think you should be pleased that Russ resisted a suggestion to close it! And certainly, of course you must join in!
2. Whether a photograph has merit because it's mine/yours, in the sense that you suggest that, I find odd. I have made many lousy landscapes professionally because they were to be syndicated as 'atmospherics' which, simply put, means to entice tourists to visit places some travel agent is trying to sell. They achieved nothing beyond, I hoped, being pretty and technically good. So as landscape, some esoteric medium, they failed. But that, I think, applies to the huge majority. I'm afraid I find the Saint boring, and that's not to deny him superlative skills: it's the subject matter that doesn't boil my waters. Yet, there is the very occasional black/white shooter whose work most certainly does just that - the reason? his take and, usually, utter simplicity of both subject and technique. Colour pretty much always fails to move me in landscape, but not so with water, where motion also plays a huge part in defining a dynamic.
Rob
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Rob I'm confused now. You say all photography is derivative and hence meaningless (although I'm not clear if this is just applied to pro only) - a view I cannot agree with, to do so would surely suggest that we cannot find beauty (to use just one word) where others do not. Almost all the photographs I take are pretty pointless in one respect but are my attempts to capture fleeting beauty from the world around me. I have to say hardly anyone feels the same as I do about them but should I stop trying and enjoying trying? Should I accept I cannot be good because others have gone before me?
There really is nothing new under the sun in some ways and that was as true in 1950 as it is now. So Martin Parr to use him again shouldn't have tried? I'm not sure but I don't think he started out as a pro and probably never expected to be in the position he is now able to be offered and accept worthwhile commissions.
I'm not saying an image has merit because it's mine but it is my baby so I love it - well some of them. That's great it brings me joy and that must be a good thing. If others also find it pleasing to look at then that's good too. But to suggest as has been done I shouldn't bother because some mutt went there first and snapped is plain wrong and means we have reached boundaries in vision and imagination which is plainly not true.
Landscapes are not really my interest but I can see how they attract some people and I think some are superb works of art. To an extent it depends how you define landscape but if it's so easy as has been hinted although not by you how is it I can't take a good landscape to save my life? All I have to do is stand in the same place as AA and bingo genius will follow. Huh.
But again, I must emphasise my lack of experience and expertise. I do sit and think about these things but in a very untutored way.
Mike
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Rob I'm confused now. You say all photography is derivative and hence meaningless (although I'm not clear if this is just applied to pro only) - a view I cannot agree with, to do so would surely suggest that we cannot find beauty (to use just one word) where others do not. Almost all the photographs I take are pretty pointless in one respect but are my attempts to capture fleeting beauty from the world around me. I have to say hardly anyone feels the same as I do about them but should I stop trying and enjoying trying? Should I accept I cannot be good because others have gone before me?
There really is nothing new under the sun in some ways and that was as true in 1950 as it is now. So Martin Parr to use him again shouldn't have tried? I'm not sure but I don't think he started out as a pro and probably never expected to be in the position he is now able to be offered and accept worthwhile commissions.
I'm not saying an image has merit because it's mine but it is my baby so I love it - well some of them. That's great it brings me joy and that must be a good thing. If others also find it pleasing to look at then that's good too. But to suggest as has been done I shouldn't bother because some mutt went there first and snapped is plain wrong and means we have reached boundaries in vision and imagination which is plainly not true.
Landscapes are not really my interest but I can see how they attract some people and I think some are superb works of art. To an extent it depends how you define landscape but if it's so easy as has been hinted although not by you how is it I can't take a good landscape to save my life? All I have to do is stand in the same place as AA and bingo genius will follow. Huh.
But again, I must emphasise my lack of experience and expertise. I do sit and think about these things but in a very untutored way.
Mike
Mike -
I have to be brief because I must go out and fight/untangle problems in my real world, but I won't go into that here.
Derivative; meaningless. Yes, I think so, but then so is sex, and we still find it (usually) irresistible. It's what we are and what we do.
Does somebody else love your sense of beauty? Do you want to marry a woman nobody else would want to be seen with on a rainy day, even if she has the only large umbrella in town?
In the end, I have no more answers than I have questions, and even where I have questions I suppose that I also store hoped-for answers in my little black box somewhere deep within the personal system...
What is beauty? Is it tangible or simply another figment of an ever-hopeful and sometimes febrile imagination?
Originality might really be little more than a myth, even when it seems to be offering something new. For my few pennies, stuff like cubism, for example, isn't originality: it's cynicism in a big way.
Regarding Mr Parr: I so wish he hadn't tried! I think he should know that, in my opinion at least, he carries huge guilt.
Rob
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Here's a provocative statement: porn is more likely to be art than landscape.
Of course that's about my definition of art: it has to be visually appealing to my subjective perception (please, no vivisection!) and it leads me to thinking.
Rarely does a landscape lead me to think something other than "that's nice". Or the thought is "too much tone mapping and too much dof suck."
Now of course you might say that porn is mostly about flooding blood into your nether parts and away from your brain, and that is the most usual business model.
However, sex remains one of the few real taboos... I mean real sex, and the pleasure of it, as opposed to a woman with unnatural boobs sprawled on an ugly car to help it sell, or the American movie version in which it serves to establish a moral flaw and explain why the character will later be killed.
We still keep real sex behind closed doors. We automatically say that a close-up of a vulva or an erect penis is obscene.
So here is challenge: go look at something like
http://bettytompkins.com/
(the "fuck paintings") and then ask the question... why do we say these images are obscene?
So there you are, porn provides images that generate an immediate response, but also a potential self questioning: why do I automatically think of this as obscene? Why does society say it's obscene and must be hidden, while Amnesty International can post me a letter with a photo on the outside of a teenager about to be hung in Iran?
Why does 99% of society agree that it's obscene while 75% are enthusiastic viewers?
Those are interesting questions, are they not? They engage both the brain and the gonads. Far more than choice of f-stop or image-stitching vs pixel density...
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I gaze at my lawn as the light changes and see different things to record in each passing minute at the end of the day. Even more simply yesterday the shadows were affected by the grass that I cut today, so the same or similar shadows look quite different.
Mike
Watching grass grow is always exciting.
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Graham,
For me, the reply is a simple one: I find the images in the link unpleasant because, first off, I think them ugly, and not in the least provocative in a sexual sense.
If anything, sex works best in the dimness of a warm, summer's afternoon with the shutters closed and the windows open. The low light lends an air of mystery, hides the inevitable faults that both partners have in abundance, and makes the whole process seem on the plus side of beautiful.
Frankly, even photographs of that genre that try to be beautiful yet explicit still don't cut it for me. For some reason best known to himself, even an old hero, Frank Horvat (www.horvatland.com) eventually wandered, pointlessly, into the same field of close-ups and all he managed to achieve, for me, was to lose some of his credibility and gravitas; it struck me as the final, desperate throws of an old man trying to find something new (to him?) to explore. I hope I don't go that way myself. I doubt that I will: I'm both too stingy - possibly poor? - to blow money on models and I still seek a beauty that feels relevant to my own values and to what I was always trying to achieve, to greater or lesser success...
Rob
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Watching grass grow is always exciting.
The problem is, Russ, it does grow too damned fast!
Fortunately, I no longer have to do my own lawns as it is a community responsibility handled by a contract gardener. Yet, yet... I sure miss my own driveway and garage. Life is seldom in perfect equilibrium; if it were, I think it would lose the momentum of its instability and stop, never to budge again. Hell, then we'd all fall off!
Rob
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I think the idea of going close-up is to become abstract, and hence disconnect the knee-jerk response a little (much as Brandt did with his nudes I guess).
I chose Tompkins because
a) it's harder to play the "it's oppressive to women" card for images produced by a woman;
b) it's painting, so it makes some hesitate a little longer at the trash/art boundary.
Beauty is of course personal :)
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Graham,
Nothing is beautiful at the moment. I just received the quotation for sending my watch off to Geneva for some R 'n' R.
Worse, there's a remark on the quotation telling me that one of the links on the Submariner bracelet isn't an original part. Which is interesting, as I bought the watch new. The first 'service' was handled by Watches of Switzerland in Bonnie Ecosse, the others all by the very exclusive/approved agent here in Palma de Mallorca, where it lies at the moment awaiting my approval of their quotation.
It will be worth finding out what excuse comes up to explain the non-legit part... I do hope they don't accuse me of trying to get it fixed (the sprung bracelet) in a cycle shop: that won't go down very well at all.
Rob C
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Rob - regarding your reply to me, I'm not sure how sex crept into the discussion nor how partnering and ugly woman with an umbrella but I think it perhaps reflects our different focus in life. Beauty is truly in the eye of the beholder and the creator but that doesn't move us on.
Originality? In some respects nothing is truly original yet each new work is totally original although it may be both awful and derivative. But it must be unique - almost nothing is the same from one moment to the next.
Martin Parr should be ashamed? I think not. On form he's very engaging and challenging. I find him clever without being cliquey, he has some lovely collections and I will always make time to look at his work. That said I am not impressed by his selfies not the rhubarb set but some of his earlier books I find inspirational and validating when I try to look at the world slightly differently.
Mike
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Watching grass grow is always exciting.
I'm surprised you'd say that. I find it singularly dull from one moment to the next but taken over a period its impact on the environment such as my shadows could be quite strong. Unless of course you were being droll and effectively dismissing my argument which is fair enough I suppose.
Mike
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Rob - regarding your reply to me, I'm not sure how sex crept into the discussion nor how partnering and ugly woman with an umbrella but I think it perhaps reflects our different focus in life. Beauty is truly in the eye of the beholder and the creator but that doesn't move us on.
Originality? In some respects nothing is truly original yet each new work is totally original although it may be both awful and derivative. But it must be unique - almost nothing is the same from one moment to the next.
Martin Parr should be ashamed? I think not. On form he's very engaging and challenging. I find him clever without being cliquey, he has some lovely collections and I will always make time to look at his work. That said I am not impressed by his selfies not the rhubarb set but some of his earlier books I find inspirational and validating when I try to look at the world slightly differently.
Mike
Mike, I repect your views, so there's nothing much I can add, other than to say that I still, on rereading what I wrote in one helluva hurry, think my meanings were absolutely crystal clear. If you don't get them, well, fine; there are many people here whose posts also confuse and confound me, so we aren't that different!
Mr Parr has always struck me as having a very cruel streak, disguise it as his fans may try. I don't enjoy cruelty any more than I do pornography, which I avoid and hate because it has always cast its contaminating smell over everything I have done as a photographer, because to some minds, the photography of models is porn - almost by definition. And in the primitive British north, from whence I hail, the shadows of Knox and Calvin lingered strong whilst I remained there and tried to defy it all and make my mark.
My web site is easy to find; look at the first gallery and it covers part of my professional oeuvre, which represents the few final years of commercial calendar effort, the many more ones of fashion being lost forever due to my destruction, back in '81 as I was quitting Britain, of the whole lot of them (negatives and trannies) that I couldn't sell back to clients. I think a brief look at that gallery will show I have no interest in porn.
I had no idea that the Internet was coming; I had no inkling that fashion pictures would one day sell as art. My thousands of negatives represented, I thought, a redundant storage problem I didn't need in Spain, and nothing else... I feel for the late Brian Duffy who did exactly the same thing but, fortunately for his heirs, less efficiently.
Anyway, enjoy what you do and as long as you do it for yourself and anyone who digs it, why not? I do no more than that either.
;-)
Rob C
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Jeremy,
1. I'm not sure what 'professional' has to do with anything that I wrote - I was referring to the emotions, not the business factor that sets off the possibility of doing the work in the first place; in fact, for me, the commerce simply allowed me the finances to do what I wanted to do: photograph female beauty, even if it was sometimes compromised by the goddam products we had to try and sell.
2. I think your second point is more than fair: her pictures, IMO, depend almost totally on the people within the frame. Her value, I think, lies in her own fame and the ability that has given her to feel (I imagine!) absolutely not disadvantaged/intimidated by subject fame/presence. Skill has to be taken as a given at almost all levels of commercial work if you are to survive for any length of time, and she has plenty of that (and assistants too, with their contributions). But, she could still hack it pretty well when she was alone, on the road with the Stones, for Rolling Stone, a delightful combination of similar words and different meanings, now I see it in print. But originality ain't there to any huge degree: her famous shot of Ms Goldberg emerging from the bath of milk was already done ages ago, as was the shot of Bette Midler lying on the bed of roses... all old ideas.
Huge problem with photography: it's all derivative now, unavoidably so. Like I said, it's amost irrelevant.
Rob
Rob, no disrespect intended: it was the compromise to which I was alluding.
I'm pleased I'm not entirely alone in my view of portrait stuff. I can see Leibovitz's photographs, and admire the technique (but then technique is something I imagine a professional would take for granted), but I can't really fathom what it is that excites such admiration other than the fame of the sitter.
Jeremy
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Rob, no disrespect intended: it was the compromise to which I was alluding.
I'm pleased I'm not entirely alone in my view of portrait stuff. I can see Leibovitz's photographs, and admire the technique (but then technique is something I imagine a professional would take for granted), but I can't really fathom what it is that excites such admiration other than the fame of the sitter.
Jeremy
Oh, I didn't take offence Jeremy, I just didn't get the connection. But yes, commerce is full of trade-offs, even of downright naked betrayals and sabotage, of which I have certainly been victim along with, I don't doubt, many other snappers... Even Don McCullin got stuffed over the Falklands. And he's no shrinking violet.
Looking back, I sometimes think that given the opportunity again, I'd do something else. Then within seconds, I know I am deceiving myself with that idea. I'd do very little differently, only perhaps be a little more ruthless and never give second-chances. The latter have always cost me dear.
Rob
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Mr Parr has always struck me as having a very cruel streak, disguise it as his fans may try.
I feel very cruel may be a little harsh but certainly he has an incisive eye and takes few prisoners when observing human nature. I'd have thought many street photographers are cruel sometimes or at least exploitative not that I really feel Parr is 'street'. I'm not really aware of his fans being defensive but then I don't go hunting for that sort of thing. His rhubarb shots seem quite warm to me and also disappointing.
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I feel very cruel may be a little harsh but certainly he has an incisive eye and takes few prisoners when observing human nature. I'd have thought many street photographers are cruel sometimes or at least exploitative not that I really feel Parr is 'street'. I'm not really aware of his fans being defensive but then I don't go hunting for that sort of thing. His rhubarb shots seem quite warm to me and also disappointing.
Agreed. But volume excuses none.
Rob C
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I feel very cruel may be a little harsh but certainly he has an incisive eye and takes few prisoners when observing human nature. I'd have thought many street photographers are cruel sometimes or at least exploitative not that I really feel Parr is 'street'. I'm not really aware of his fans being defensive but then I don't go hunting for that sort of thing. His rhubarb shots seem quite warm to me and also disappointing.
I don't think it cruel to capture what you see unless you intervene and set it up to look cruel. Is this image cruel?
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I don't think it cruel to capture what you see unless you intervene and set it up to look cruel. Is this image cruel?
Of course not how could it be thought cruel? What I think can be cruel is to open people up for ridicule and some shots by Parr could be interpreted that way although I doubt he intends that. In fact I'm struggling to recall a single cruel shot on his web site which I looked at yesterday. Damn it I'm sounding like a fanboy. I can think of one recent LuLa post which did seem to verge on exposing two larger people to ridicule and to be honest I felt that was the whole basis of the shot. There are certainly many street shots that I have seen elsewhere (and of course now struggle to recall) that are nasty and mean spirited.
Forgive me if I suggest that some street shots seem to work on the basis of wow look at that - not the one you just posted but certainly some. But I stray into my own personal issues with lots of photography and art which seems to be based for its impact/success on presenting the extraordinary. I can dismiss whole genre at a sweep that way :)
Mike
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http://edition.cnn.com/2015/06/22/world/kim-phuc-where-is-she-now/
Is this a cruel "street" photograph? It probably is but I would defend the person that captured it and posted it to the world.
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Of course not how could it be thought cruel? What I think can be cruel is to open people up for ridicule and some shots by Parr could be interpreted that way although I doubt he intends that. In fact I'm struggling to recall a single cruel shot on his web site which I looked at yesterday. Damn it I'm sounding like a fanboy. I can think of one recent LuLa post which did seem to verge on exposing two larger people to ridicule and to be honest I felt that was the whole basis of the shot. There are certainly many street shots that I have seen elsewhere (and of course now struggle to recall) that are nasty and mean spirited.
Forgive me if I suggest that some street shots seem to work on the basis of wow look at that - not the one you just posted but certainly some. But I stray into my own personal issues with lots of photography and art which seems to be based for its impact/success on presenting the extraordinary. I can dismiss whole genre at a sweep that way :)
Mike
Mike, that has to be the most naïve comment I've read in many a month.
Are you, then, also suggesting that Parr is as naïve, has no idea of what he's doing to people either by his selection of moment, location, of focal length, by the inclusion of the effects of hard flash and the excessive colouring, and that his cruelty has not the slightest connection with the marketability of his product? Heysoo!
If you do attempt to absolve him of such responsibility you are directly saying that he is incapable of knowing what he's doing with his cameras or where his technique is taking his 'work'. Thus, you brand him either ingenuous or idiot.
What you and his other apologists fail to understand is this: where the amateur is possibly doing it to test/please himself, Parr is doing it commercially, within the most 'respected' photo-agency in the world, whose sole interest in life is to pay the hills, generate income and, with luck, profit. If you fail to see that distinction of motive, then this post of mine is a waste of my time.
Rob C
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I regard Parr to be primarily an artist, certainly in the early days, who chose photography as his medium.
Show me three examples of cruelty. I know like beauty it is in the eye of the beholder but three should do it where we can agree in one case.
Mike
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http://edition.cnn.com/2015/06/22/world/kim-phuc-where-is-she-now/
Is this a cruel "street" photograph? It probably is but I would defend the person that captured it and posted it to the world.
Not street surely.
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I regard Parr to be primarily an artist, certainly in the early days, who chose photography as his medium.
Show me three examples of cruelty. I know like beauty it is in the eye of the beholder but three should do it where we can agree in one case.
Mike
Just three? Conside his entire work on the lower-class British by the seaside. Alternatively, in the other direction, his take on the middle/upper classes. You get the full panoply of personal dislike both ways.
But hey, I don't need to try and convince you either way - it simply doesn't make any difference to anyone in the grander scheme of things.
Rob C
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I regard Parr to be primarily an artist, certainly in the early days, who chose photography as his medium.
Show me three examples of cruelty. I know like beauty it is in the eye of the beholder but three should do it where we can agree in one case.
Mike
Just three? Conside his entire work on the lower-class British by the seaside. Alternatively, in the other direction, his take on the middle/upper classes. You get the full panoply of personal dislike both ways.
But hey, I don't need to try and convince you either way - it simply doesn't make any difference to anyone, in the grander scheme of things.
Rob C
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As you say Rob neither of us need convince the other but if for example you are thinking of The Last Resort then I see little cruelty nor much beauty as such. He didn't look for pretty things.
Magnum seem Ok with you looking at the The Last resort (http://www.magnumphotos.com/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult&ALID=2S5RYDYDHEB9) images
I see no cruelty, I do see the technique you don't care for but it is effective.
We agree to differ :)
Mike
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If someone does something in public, or shows up publicly, and a photographer records it, the questions is who is doing the cruel (if so) deed, the subject or the photographer? In my view, it is the subject.
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+1. On the other hand, it's quite possible sometimes to do something unnecessarily cruel with a camera. Unfortunately, cruelty in that sense is a matter of perception. A couple months ago I bought Martin Parr's The Last Resort. My wife is convinced he's being cruel in that book. I'm convinced Slobodan's right and if there's cruelty there it's on the subjects.
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My wife said the same thing she felt some of them bordered on cruel even this one (http://www.magnumphotos.com/Asset/-2S5RYDIDP9R.html) which I think is quite innocuous. Myself I think he's clever about this and sort of invites a judgemental attitude towards the images. He draws the worst out of you as the viewer.
I argue that this shot (http://mediastore.magnumphotos.com/CoreXDoc/MAG/Media/Home2/b/9/2/7/LON136660.jpg) makes no sense otherwise. It's not exactly a wonderful subject or composition. So why did he take it and why do Magnum think it's worthy of being on their site? I confess I have never read or heard any analysis of that shot.
Mike
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... I argue that this shot (http://mediastore.magnumphotos.com/CoreXDoc/MAG/Media/Home2/b/9/2/7/LON136660.jpg) makes no sense otherwise. It's not exactly a wonderful subject or composition. So why did he take it and why do Magnum think it's worthy of being on their site? I confess I have never read or heard any analysis of that shot.
To me, it speaks about a certain kitsch subculture. It might look better if within a context.
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My wife said the same thing she felt some of them bordered on cruel even this one (http://www.magnumphotos.com/Asset/-2S5RYDIDP9R.html) which I think is quite innocuous. Myself I think he's clever about this and sort of invites a judgemental attitude towards the images. He draws the worst out of you as the viewer.
I argue that this shot (http://mediastore.magnumphotos.com/CoreXDoc/MAG/Media/Home2/b/9/2/7/LON136660.jpg) makes no sense otherwise. It's not exactly a wonderful subject or composition. So why did he take it and why do Magnum think it's worthy of being on their site? I confess I have never read or heard any analysis of that shot.
Mike
"My wife said the same thing she felt some of them bordered on cruel even this one (http://www.magnumphotos.com/Asset/-2S5RYDIDP9R.html) which I think is quite innocuous. Myself I think he's clever about this and sort of invites a judgemental attitude towards the images. He draws the worst out of you as the viewer."
Your wife was right. She doesn't buy into the psycho bullshit in which some photographers like to wallow. Would you accept, then, that running over a dog can be excused because doing so makes an observer puke? Same skewed logic, I'm afraid.
"I argue that this shot (http://mediastore.magnumphotos.com/CoreXDoc/MAG/Media/Home2/b/9/2/7/LON136660.jpg) makes no sense otherwise. It's not exactly a wonderful subject or composition. So why did he take it and why do Magnum think it's worthy of being on their site? I confess I have never read or heard any analysis of that shot."
IMO, it's obvious: Magnum is dabbling in what it thinks is the 'art' market. Have you forgotten a very similar idea from Eggleston?
Like I wrote before, it's about money. All business has to be, or die. Magnum has no golden free pass.
Rob C
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Would you accept, then, that running over a dog can be excused because doing so makes an observer puke? Same skewed logic, I'm afraid.
How about this, then, Rob? This happened to me in Vietnam and the memory still jars me. The poem is about as specific as a photograph. Is it cruel?
http://www.russ-lewis.com/Poetry/Poems/TheDog.html
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How about this, then, Rob? This happened to me in Vietnam and the memory still jars me. The poem is about as specific as a photograph. Is it cruel?
http://www.russ-lewis.com/Poetry/Poems/TheDog.html
That's beautiful.
And it is innocent of guilt because the dog wasn't sacrificed: it was ended by an accident which has brought lingering regret. I know that emotion well.
Rob
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I agree that the death of the dog wasn't cruel since it wasn't intentional. But how about the picture -- or in this case, the poem? One of my friends read that poem and it jarred him too. Is the poem cruel? Like some of Parr's work?
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Drat it I did say I tried to ignore this thread but I just can't seem to let go now :)
Russ, the event was sad but hardly cruel as it was as you say an accident. Your poem is not exploiting that event although it refers to it in a respectful manner so surely it is not cruel.
My problem with saying Parr's shots are universally cruel is that I just can't see that aspect. Further than that I don't accept Rob's argument that everything boils down to money. It may for some but not everyone. Indeed it might cruel to suggest that in some cases :)
Just taking the Last Retort series I can't see that any one of those is cruel. No-one is held up to ridicule - even if by their own choice some might feel they are ridiculous. I think Parr invites viewers to judge and in turn they bring their own prejudices with them - as in my own dear wife's case. I know why she thinks some of them are cruel and it's more about her attitude to some people than the photographs or those people.
I fear I am getting out of my depth and seeming ever more like a Parr fanboy. I like his stuff but only that.
Mike
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"I argue that this shot (http://mediastore.magnumphotos.com/CoreXDoc/MAG/Media/Home2/b/9/2/7/LON136660.jpg) makes no sense otherwise. It's not exactly a wonderful subject or composition. So why did he take it and why do Magnum think it's worthy of being on their site? I confess I have never read or heard any analysis of that shot."
IMO, it's obvious: Magnum is dabbling in what it thinks is the 'art' market. Have you forgotten a very similar idea from Eggleston?
I am familiar with the Eggleston photograph and have read more about that one. As far as I can tell the shots are similar in subject matter but different in intent. Bear in mind the Eggleston show was I believe taken in an apartment where there was a debauched party taking place while Parr's shot is a Black Country pub. I can't believe they were taken for the same reasons. I think Parr's shot is a very clever and British thing inviting one to make judgements about that pub - any Brit would see that as a pub light or maybe restaurant. You look at it in detail and you can be tempted into concluding things about the people who manage the light. That's my belief anyway. I'd love to know what critics say or Parr himself.
I'd be stunned if Magnum made any money from that shot and I'd be interested how a Magnum portfolio is assembled.
Mike
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I agree that the death of the dog wasn't cruel since it wasn't intentional. But how about the picture -- or in this case, the poem? One of my friends read that poem and it jarred him too. Is the poem cruel? Like some of Parr's work?
Absolutely not a cruel poem; as I said, it's a beautiful set of words.
Having your emotions moved by beautiful words woven around a sad event is, as in this instance, in no way that I can imagine exploitative, which is what I think Parr is absolutely all about in that sort of work of his of which we speak: I feel he exploits the subjects and denies them even a smidgen of dignity. If they have none, then even worse to show that: they don't even have a chance.
Rob C
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I am familiar with the Eggleston photograph and have read more about that one. As far as I can tell the shots are similar in subject matter but different in intent. Bear in mind the Eggleston show was I believe taken in an apartment where there was a debauched party taking place while Parr's shot is a Black Country pub. I can't believe they were taken for the same reasons. I think Parr's shot is a very clever and British thing inviting one to make judgements about that pub - any Brit would see that as a pub light or maybe restaurant. You look at it in detail and you can be tempted into concluding things about the people who manage the light. That's my belief anyway. I'd love to know what critics say or Parr himself.
I'd be stunned if Magnum made any money from that shot and I'd be interested how a Magnum portfolio is assembled.
Mike
I would also be stunned if/that Eggleston made any money from it. However, as he clearly fills galleries, then he must be making enough of it to keep the galleries happy with him. And people buy names. Back to money, and the investment thereof.
As for intent regarding those two images of light fixtures; light fixtures, last time I gave them a thought, are inanimate: you can call them anything you like, photograph them as well or as badly as you can, and they don't give a shit either way. But, unlike people who do care about what you do with them, they are perfectly capable of blowing your socks right off and filling the room with the smell of singed flesh.
Anyway, that a photograph of a red ceiling was made during an orgy, or not, is not visible in the image; is that reason to add imaginary value, of something invisible; something that might not even be true in the first place?
Rob
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I'm surprised that this thread has run so long; not a reference to the image that kicked it off, of course, but at the emotional investment made by several of us people here as consequence.
I think that's a good thing, however contradictory (even better a thing?) the opinions may be. I never imagined, in my wildest dreams, that Parr would eventually have me thinking of the heartaches of the young Hamlet for what's probably the second or perhaps third time in my life since I left school...
And Parr himself had almost nothing to do with it: it was Russ's poem. Surprising, as I said.
Rob C
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Well, just to drag this thread off topic a little, I'd like to say I really like Russ's original shot. The facial expression is priceless.
OK, now you can all go back to your existential philosophical discussion.
-Eric
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Well, just to drag this thread off topic a little, I'd like to say I really like Russ's original shot. The facial expression is priceless.
OK, now you can all go back to your existential philosophical discussion.
-Eric
Impossible, Eric:the current's been shorted.
;-)
Rob