Post by: OmerV on May 21, 2018, 07:20:35 pm
https://www.flickr.com/groups/extremestreet/pool/
Post by: Two23 on May 21, 2018, 07:54:22 pm
Kent in SD
Post by: petermfiore on May 21, 2018, 08:30:09 pm
In my previous list of SP links I neglected to include this curated but freewheeling flickr street group:
https://www.flickr.com/groups/extremestreet/pool/
Thanks OmerV.
Peter
Post by: Rob C on May 22, 2018, 05:01:38 am
In my previous list of SP links I neglected to include this curated but freewheeling flickr street group:
https://www.flickr.com/groups/extremestreet/pool/
Some amazing photographs.
I think the colours are horrible and that's perhaps part of the power. I could never see myself taking any part in the events which, to me, are straight out of an inferno, with or without any Dante.
Great to look at from a distance, but to avoid in any sane reality.
Rob
Post by: Two23 on May 22, 2018, 09:12:27 am
Some amazing photographs.
I think the colours are horrible and that's perhaps part of the power. I could never see myself taking any part in the events which, to me, are straight out of an inferno, with or without Dante.
I suppose you're aware that book is already out? Inferno, by James Nachtwey:
https://www.google.com/search?q=nachtwey+inferno&rlz=1C1CHBF_enUS788US788&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj6t9WrspnbAhUCmVkKHX7cDvcQsAQIMA&biw=1540&bih=854&dpr=1.25
Kent in SD
Post by: JNB_Rare on May 22, 2018, 08:08:38 pm
Post by: Rob C on May 23, 2018, 04:41:13 am
I suppose you're aware that book is already out? Inferno, by James Nachtwey:
https://www.google.com/search?q=nachtwey+inferno&rlz=1C1CHBF_enUS788US788&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj6t9WrspnbAhUCmVkKHX7cDvcQsAQIMA&biw=1540&bih=854&dpr=1.25
Kent in SD
No, I didn't know about the book, but I guess it's a title that will attract a lot of different genres - could fit many.
Looking at the link raises a question: who would want to gaze through such a book, over and over again? If one buys a book of pictures, I would imagine that's one's intention.
Odd world, as I have dscovered.
Rob
Post by: RSL on May 23, 2018, 08:55:35 am
Post by: Two23 on May 23, 2018, 10:04:38 am
No, I didn't know about the book, but I guess it's a title that will attract a lot of different genres - could fit many.
Looking at the link raises a question: who would want to gaze through such a book, over and over again? If one buys a book of pictures, I would imagine that's one's intention.
Odd world, as I have dscovered.
The photos are extremely compelling. It shows a side of the world, a dark side, that few see or even know about. I found it hard to put the book down--it's sort of like trying to not look at a train wreck! The book still sells for $170 (used) to $320. Don McCullum did a similar book in the 1980s--Hearts of Darkness. I heard him talking about his work on the radio once. He told how when photo'ing the Yugoslavic civil war he took photos of some people killed in a bomb blast. A very upset woman began yelling at him, asking him "why?" She turned out to be the wife of one of the dead. While he was pondering that, he learned that she too had been killed later that day. He said it was one of the reasons he left the field and switched to landscapes. The cumulative effect of all he had witnessed had brought him to his breaking point.
Kent in SD
Post by: RSL on May 23, 2018, 11:51:24 am
Post by: Rob C on May 23, 2018, 12:35:34 pm
The photos are extremely compelling. It shows a side of the world, a dark side, that few see or even know about. I found it hard to put the book down--it's sort of like trying to not look at a train wreck! The book still sells for $170 (used) to $320. Don McCullum did a similar book in the 1980s--Hearts of Darkness. I heard him talking about his work on the radio once. He told how when photo'ing the Yugoslavic civil war he took photos of some people killed in a bomb blast. A very upset woman began yelling at him, asking him "why?" She turned out to be the wife of one of the dead. While he was pondering that, he learned that she too had been killed later that day. He said it was one of the reasons he left the field and switched to landscapes. The cumulative effect of all he had witnessed had brought him to his breaking point.
Kent in SD
There was a great BBC documentary of McCullin; I just had a look at my Favourites list, and was hoping to link it: gone! Bugger!
Thing is, any of his English landscape stuff that I have seen is also dark and bleak. I saw an exhibition of his stuff many moons ago in Glasgow, and there were some lovely, misty b/whites of Benares... Maybe dark and bleak's the way he sees Britain. After India, I can sympathise.
Ironically, to see David Bailey, I had to get my rope out, tie it in a knot around my waist and lower myself carefully over the edge of the world and find Kilmarnock! You couldn't make it up. As bad, when I got there, the prints on the wall all looked pretty tired. Must have been the trip.
Post by: Ivophoto on May 23, 2018, 01:06:17 pm
In my previous list of SP links I neglected to include this curated but freewheeling flickr street group:
https://www.flickr.com/groups/extremestreet/pool/
Tx for the tip!!!
Post by: Two23 on May 23, 2018, 09:43:55 pm
What, exactly, do you think they "compel?" It's pretty wild stuff, but it's reportage, photojournalism. That's all it is.
Yes, PJ and not street, but there is a terrific emotional reaction to most of them. I once posted on a nature forum a photos of a deer that had drowned in a freezing lake, and was frozen into the ice. The ice was about half a foot thick when I found it. Much of the body was being eaten away by scavengers, but the head and facial expression was untouched. I got nothing but negative reaction to the photo, and tons of it! Someone then made the point that the photo had great impact to generate that many views and negativity. It was affecting the viewers to a great extent. Exactly. My point while all of them were posting pretty "Bambi" photos, I posted one that showed nature isn't confined to human constructs of beauty. It is what it is........
Kent in SD
Post by: Rob C on May 24, 2018, 04:16:10 am
Yes, PJ and not street, but there is a terrific emotional reaction to most of them. I once posted on a nature forum a photos of a deer that had drowned in a freezing lake, and was frozen into the ice. The ice was about half a foot thick when I found it. Much of the body was being eaten away by scavengers, but the head and facial expression was untouched. I got nothing but negative reaction to the photo, and tons of it! Someone then made the point that the photo had great impact to generate that many views and negativity. It was affecting the viewers to a great extent. Exactly. My point while all of them were posting pretty "Bambi" photos, I posted one that showed nature isn't confined to human constructs of beauty. It is what it is........
Kent in SD
Then there is the close-up of the banana skin on which one slipped. Or the dog-message, stepping onto which ruined the morning's search for beautiful images of old torn posters...
But would one photograph either skin or poop? To which brief list some would add old, torn posters.
Post by: RSL on May 24, 2018, 08:22:29 am
Someone then made the point that the photo had great impact to generate that many views. . .
Kent in SD
If you want great impact and many, many views, post a picture of three naked young women facing the camera.
If the reaction of the audience is disgust, "many views" doesn't really get the job done.
Post by: Two23 on May 24, 2018, 09:07:48 am
If you want great impact and many, many views, post a picture of three naked young women facing the camera.
If the reaction of the audience is disgust, "many views" doesn't really get the job done.
It was more than just views. They couldn't stop talking about it for a week. I think it showed a fundamental difference between the other, mostly urban photographers, and me, who spent afternoons after school out in the woods. The shot was not bland--it had impact at a gut level.
Kent in SD
Post by: Rob C on May 24, 2018, 10:19:55 am
It was more than just views. They couldn't stop talking about it for a week. I think it showed a fundamental difference between the other, mostly urban photographers, and me, who spent afternoons after school out in the woods. The shot was not bland--it had impact at a gut level.
Kent in SD
I have become totaly lost, dazed and confused with this new "Street" section, where one sub-thing runs straight into the other sub-things causing chaos.
Of which photo do we speak, Kent?
Post by: RSL on May 24, 2018, 10:46:17 am
The shot was not bland--it had impact at a gut level.
Sounds as if the "impact" was disgust.
Post by: Two23 on May 26, 2018, 01:42:33 pm
Sounds as if the "impact" was disgust.
For some probably. Mostly I think the frozen deer photo upset their notion of "nature." All the other shots posted there were of "pretty" things. I went through a period a few years ago where I was taking a lot of photos of road kill animals during winter. When it's really cold (below zero F) blood doesn't oxidize very quickly. Later in winter as the snow begins to melt, the carcasses insulate the snow underneath and it doesn't melt as fast. The result are pedestals sticking up along the road side, each with a dead animal on it. That fascinates me, in a macabre sort of way. Not "street" photography, but eye catching none the less. I've moved on to abandoned farm houses since then. :)
Kent in SD
Post by: RSL on May 26, 2018, 01:59:59 pm
When it's really cold (below zero F) blood doesn't oxidize very quickly.
Kent in SD
No crap Kent? Ever been in a combat zone? Ever see human blood spilling out over things? I think a dying human is a hell of a lot sadder than a dead deer, and I can't see any value in a picture of a dead deer. I can't think of any reason for posting a picture of a dead deer. I've hunted deer and shot deer, and the result never was uplifting or even particularly interesting. It was what it was.
Post by: Two23 on May 26, 2018, 04:33:34 pm
No crap Kent? Ever been in a combat zone? Ever see human blood spilling out over things? I think a dying human is a hell of a lot sadder than a dead deer, and I can't see any value in a picture of a dead deer. I can't think of any reason for posting a picture of a dead deer. I've hunted deer and shot deer, and the result never was uplifting or even particularly interesting. It was what it was.
I travel around, see things, sometimes stop to photo it. "Uplifting" is never a criteria for me. I'm not making "motivational" posters. ;) Lately I've been poking around in long abandoned houses, shooting with a 4x5 and ~100 yr. old lenses. Not a particularly uplifting subject there either, but the important thing is I'm having fun. ;D
Mumified cat in abandoned grain elevator, Cottonwood, South Dakota.
Chamonix 045n, 150mm Heliar (c.1922), FP4+
Kent in SD
Post by: Farmer on May 26, 2018, 07:10:31 pm
No crap Kent? Ever been in a combat zone? Ever see human blood spilling out over things? I think a dying human is a hell of a lot sadder than a dead deer, and I can't see any value in a picture of a dead deer. I can't think of any reason for posting a picture of a dead deer. I've hunted deer and shot deer, and the result never was uplifting or even particularly interesting. It was what it was.
Photos of Sydney Harbour, including the bridge and the Opera House and all of that, are mostly boring to me. I've lived here most of my life, and I've photographed it zillions of times. To those who haven't seen it, or not much, it's one of the most photogenic parts of the world.
One of the aims of photography, surely, is to show people things that they don't normally see. Whether it's literally something rare or a different view. You've seen a lot of blood, as I imagine a lot of vets do, as doctors and emergency workers do, and so on. Most people haven't. I've tried to resuscitate a guy who I later learned had jumped from a hotel (one I was checking into, as it happens), only to have blood dribble out of his ears as tried compressions waiting for an ambulance - it was futile. Do I particularly want to see a photo of something like that? Not really. But I absolutely think there would be others who would be interested, and not for any "sick" or morbid reason necessarily.
About 10 years ago, I printed all the images for the Walkley awards (http://www.walkleys.com/) - my boss warned me they could be very, very confronting. Many were. I didn't like them all by any means, but they all had value and showed things often not seen or showed different views of things we thought we knew. That's good.
Post by: Rob C on May 27, 2018, 05:15:12 am
I travel around, see things, sometimes stop to photo it. "Uplifting" is never a criteria for me. I'm not making "motivational" posters. ;) Lately I've been poking around in long abandoned houses, shooting with a 4x5 and ~100 yr. old lenses. Not a particularly uplifting subject there either, but the important thing is I'm having fun. ;D
Mumified cat in abandoned grain elevator, Cottonwood, South Dakota.
Chamonix 045n, 150mm Heliar (c.1922), FP4+
Kent in SD
Certainly makes you think again about the things one can consider to be pets! All that horror under such a soft, cuddle-worthy exterior...
Post by: JNB_Rare on May 27, 2018, 08:04:04 am
Mumified cat in abandoned grain elevator, Cottonwood, South Dakota.
Chamonix 045n, 150mm Heliar (c.1922), FP4+
A friend of mine purchased a farmhouse and plot of land from the heirs of a couple who had lived there for almost 70 years. In the accompanying barn was stored all the things that this couple could not throw away, neatly organized, tied, boxed and stacked. There were dozens of boxes of pencil stubs, all worn down to a uniform length of about 1 inch. There were dozens of balls of mixed twine and string. Boxes of rubber bands and others containing bottle caps. And in a couple of boxes, neatly (lovingly?) wrapped in tissue paper, were the mummified remains of cats – former family pets, perhaps? Upon their discovery, my friend abandoned the barn cleanup to her husband and a hired worker.
Post by: Rob C on May 27, 2018, 09:14:59 am
A friend of mine purchased a farmhouse and plot of land from the heirs of a couple who had lived there for almost 70 years. In the accompanying barn was stored all the things that this couple could not throw away, neatly organized, tied, boxed and stacked. There were dozens of boxes of pencil stubs, all worn down to a uniform length of about 1 inch. There were dozens of balls of mixed twine and string. Boxes of rubber bands and others containing bottle caps. And in a couple of boxes, neatly (lovingly?) wrapped in tissue paper, were the mummified remains of cats – former family pets, perhaps? Upon their discovery, my friend abandoned the barn cleanup to her husband and a hired worker.
I've been trying to sell my apartment for about three years now; its problem is that it's too expensive for the casual, second-homer, but not expensive enough to attract the real rich, who have been dumping sterling in favour of property around and preferably over the million euro mark, since the Brexit nonsense came along to threaten fiscal security and international opinion regarding the reliability of Britain as a place in which to invest and save.
The point is this: I have boxes of straightened nails, screws; bags of wine bottle corks. I have complete sets of car spanners for a variety of standard types of bolts - who messes with a car's inners today? Who can do anything with them anymore when they are all hidden? I have a chainsaw from my days gathering branches and making logs for the sitting room stove; I have an electrical hedge trimmer that I used to use when I felt the official gardeners had been a little tardy in coming around... none of those things have been used in almost ten years, and if I eventually move rather than die first, probably never will be used by me again. I have a large box of 35mm transparency sleeves - DW Viewpacks, anyone? A Schneider loupe sits beside my aluminium stacking case, getting in the way every time I want to pull out a Nikon. My Kodak lightbox sits atop the filing cabinet serving, now and again, as a white background to Ms Coke. Old copies of French PHOTO and photography books clutter space in the cabinet on which sits the tv, as on the shelf which I expect will fall off the wall one day and take out my letter printer and computers and monitor. Oh - I also keep the defunct HP B 9180 that I hope will, miraculously, spring to life again one day. Boxes full of A3+ prints in archival sleeves... who in hell was I kidding? I even have a perfectly working studio monobloc from the 70s!
Why? Because of the unpredictability of life: all too often have I screwed up the moral fortitude to dump something, to discover, a week later, that it was exactly what I needed in order to solve a new problem.
Should Mr & Mrs Buyer come along, I would have to hire a skip and resist the temptation of jumping in beside all the junk too.
There is ever a sound reason behind hoarding. I hope!
Post by: petermfiore on May 27, 2018, 05:16:13 pm
Certainly makes you think again about the things one can consider to be pets! All that horror under such a soft, cuddle-worthy exterior...
Have you ever seen the photos inside the catacombs in Sicily...WOW!!!
Peter
Post by: Rob C on May 28, 2018, 06:35:04 am
Have you ever seen the photos inside the catacombs in Sicily...WOW!!!
Peter
Not in person, Peter, but there have been some BBC tv documentaries that have explored them superficially; one shows the/an? entrance to be inside somebody's apartment!
I'd never sleep!
Rob
Post by: KLaban on May 29, 2018, 03:04:04 pm
Post by: Rob C on May 29, 2018, 03:42:27 pm
If I could obtain permission to photograph in the Capuchin Catacombs in Sicily I'd do so in a heartbeat, but I can get no such permission.
You need a gig with the Beeb!
;-)
Post by: KLaban on May 30, 2018, 02:10:11 am
In my previous list of SP links I neglected to include this curated but freewheeling flickr street group:
https://www.flickr.com/groups/extremestreet/pool/
The pedants would have that it's not Street but thankfully this pool avoids being desperately dull.
Post by: Slobodan Blagojevic on May 30, 2018, 07:43:06 am
... Mummified cat in abandoned grain elevator..l
Russ, as I know you love poetry, you are certainly aware of Baudelaire’s poem “A Carcass”? One stanza is particularly illustrative of the referenced photo (or is it the other way around?):
“Its legs raised in the air, like a lustful woman,
Burning and dripping with poisons,
Displayed in a shameless, nonchalant way
Its belly, swollen with gases.”
Grotesque and macabre has always been a part of the arts... not that I am particularly interested in doing it myself.
Post by: JNB_Rare on May 30, 2018, 08:16:44 am
Post by: Rob C on May 30, 2018, 09:04:35 am
Death can also be a colourful pageant of motion, emotions and PSing delights. Even good ol' Annie had a trip on it - as did Avedon.
My take? OK, as long as it ain't anywhere near personal.
Rob
Post by: Rob C on May 30, 2018, 09:08:05 am
Russ, as I know you love poetry, you are certainly aware of Baudelaire’s poem “A Carcass”? One stanza is particularly illustrative of the referenced photo (or is it the other way around?):
“Its legs raised in the air, like a lustful woman,
Burning and dripping with poisons,
Displayed in a shameless, nonchalant way
Its belly, swollen with gases.”
Grotesque and macabre has always been a part of the arts... not that I am particularly interested in doing it myself.
I bet he had a happy life, poor sod!
Rob
Post by: RSL on May 30, 2018, 09:20:35 am
Russ, as I know you love poetry, you are certainly aware of Baudelaire’s poem “A Carcass”? One stanza is particularly illustrative of the referenced photo (or is it the other way around?):
“Its legs raised in the air, like a lustful woman,
Burning and dripping with poisons,
Displayed in a shameless, nonchalant way
Its belly, swollen with gases.”
Grotesque and macabre has always been a part of the arts... not that I am particularly interested in doing it myself.
What's even more grotesque and macabre is T.S. Eliot's "The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock," because it's subtle and it sinks in instead of slapping you across the face and then falling to the floor.
Try this one of my own. It's about an evening in Vietnam: http://www.russ-lewis.com/Poetry/Poems/TheDog.html
Post by: Two23 on May 30, 2018, 09:34:40 am
On a snowy street. Well, OK, it's not "street", but as long as we're sharing dead things...
LOL, look what I've started. ;D
Kent in SD
Post by: Rob C on May 30, 2018, 10:16:10 am
What's even more grotesque and macabre is T.S. Eliot's "The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock," because it's subtle and it sinks in instead of slapping you across the face and then falling to the floor.
Try this one of my own. It's about an evening in Vietnam: http://www.russ-lewis.com/Poetry/Poems/TheDog.html
Its true. Some things never go away from memory. Perhaps confrontation is the way to turn away their pain; dull the things with repetition.
Post by: KLaban on May 30, 2018, 11:30:23 am
Its true. Some things never go away from memory. Perhaps confrontation is the way to turn away their pain; dull the things with repetition.
My children's book of choice was Struwwelpeter (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Struwwelpeter): still haunts me today and perhaps explains my condition.
;-)
Post by: RSL on May 30, 2018, 12:16:20 pm
. . .and perhaps explains my condition.
Interesting choice of words.
Post by: Rayyan on July 08, 2018, 07:51:48 am
Sympathy, ‘ not right’ , ‘ where is it happening’, sadness.
Laughter, joy, happiness.
Feeling of serenity, sexual arousal
Etc, etc.
Human emotions.
Any image that can capture these emotions, and present it to the viewer to elicit a response is a successful foto. IMO.
Not forgetting images of beautiful naked girls, of course.
But there are images that have resulted in most of humanity wanting to do something to alter that which they have witnessed in an image or images.
Sure different group of viewers might react differently to certain images. But there is a commonality in certain images that transcends borders, cultures, faiths and beliefs, color and gender.
It is those images that are the ‘ hallmark ‘ of great photographs. Whatever ‘ genre ‘ of photography one chooses to place them in.
Question is which ones are you ‘ moved ‘ by or have been affected on viewing.
It is all about human emotion in an image. All else is just fluff. My personal opinion.
Post by: Ivophoto on July 08, 2018, 09:15:24 am
Hahaha.
Post by: Rob C on July 08, 2018, 09:20:23 am
Disgust, empathy, ‘ who cares ‘.
Sympathy, ‘ not right’ , ‘ where is it happening’, sadness.
Laughter, joy, happiness.
Feeling of serenity, sexual arousal
Etc, etc.
Human emotions.
Any image that can capture these emotions, and present it to the viewer to elicit a response is a successful foto. IMO.
Not forgetting images of beautiful naked girls, of course.
But there are images that have resulted in most of humanity wanting to do something to alter that which they have witnessed in an image or images.
Sure different group of viewers might react differently to certain images. But there is a commonality in certain images that transcends borders, cultures, faiths and beliefs, color and gender.
It is those images that are the ‘ hallmark ‘ of great photographs. Whatever ‘ genre ‘ of photography one chooses to place them in.
Question is which ones are you ‘ moved ‘ by or have been affected on viewing.
It is all about human emotion in an image. All else is just fluff. My personal opinion.
You clearly didn't intend this, what with your love for mountains etc., but for me, it's why landscape and much other stuff leaves me wondering why bother?
Remove the human subject - as distinct from human reaction - and photography becomes pretty much a collection of random noise.
That's why people photography is my principal concern/interest. Looking at an Art Kane site today over lunch, I read where he says that shooting stage pics of artists is a waste of time: they all look like everybody else's pìcs, that you have to own the subject and make him/her your own thing. (My memory's paraphrasing of the quotation.) In other words, you have to be able to direct folks who may not want to relinquish control.
"Street" doesn't really permit that, and neither does shooting non-pro models because the experience is usually not a pleasant one: being subjected to the hard gaze of a camera, boring into one's face, is a tough cookie to digest, never mind to bite. It requires the matching, appropriate ego of the pro model. And it cuts both ways: I find the non-pro model intimidating because, faced with one of them, I can't find the ignition key. (Perhaps folks without the pro experience never come to realise this fact, and thus why their own attempts may be very disappointing.)
So, nature out of contention for me, the only alternative I've found that really gets into my head as worth the sweat is wabi-sabi; a concept that really did require the name for it to come up to genre status in my mind; for that, I must say thanks to Russ. Should genre title matter? Well, yes, for me I believe that it matters a lot. I faced similar problems with my take on calendar photography, where I did not want to do the usual pix of undressed people - generally associated as a bunch under the porn banner - the last place I ever want to find myself. I like to think that coming to it, chronologically, from a full-time career in fashion photography, that my prior visual education would take me somewhere quite else. So yeah, if only for one's personal peace of mind, genre names matter!
Post by: Telecaster on July 08, 2018, 03:44:20 pm
Remove the human subject - as distinct from human reaction - and photography becomes pretty much a collection of random noise.
I'm sure you've noticed by now that my own take on photography differs somewhat from yours. :) I use a camera in part as a means of & excuse for getting the hell away from people and their often petty & juvenile concerns & behavior. Focusing on the rest of the world, especially the stuff that predates and will also outlast us, is good for maintaining perspective.
-Dave-